Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3

Welcome to Suki’s favorite spot in the whole house. She spends so much time looking out the window, ever fascinated by what’s going on outside. It is here that she watches me come and go from the house, observes neighbors and passerby, and basks in sunlight throughout the day. I was watching TV this afternoon when she perched by the window. I grabbed my Nikon, but the battery had run out. Whoops! Good thing my Lumix LX3 was handy.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 5.1mm f/2.5 ISO80 1/4 Second

Suki has finally stopped shedding (for now), and has grown her full winter coat. She looks a tad bigger as a result, but she’s much more snuggly and huggable now!

Its time to release Restfulie Java, offering the same power encountered in its ruby release, through the use of dynamic bytecode generation and request interception using VRaptor.

Serialization framework

Restfulie adopts XStream by default. Its simple usage and configuration gets even easier due to vraptor’s serialization extension built upon XStream – but it allows the usage of other serializers.

The following code will serialize the order object including its children items (much similar to rails to_xml only option):

serializer.from(order).include("items").serialize();

Connected: Hypermedia content creation

In order to guide the client from one application state to another, the server needs to create and dispatch links that can be interpreted by the client machine, thus the need for generating hypermedia aware serialization tools and consumer apis.

Its the basic usage of the web in a software-to-software communication level.

Pretty much like Restfulie’s ruby implementation, by implementing the getFollowingTransitions method, restfulie will serialize your
resource, generating its representation with hypermedia links:

public List getFollowingTransitions(Restfulie control) {
  if (status.equals("unpaid")) {
    control.transition(OrderingController.class).cancel(this);
    control.transition(OrderingController.class).pay(this,null);
  }
  if(status.equals("paid")) {
    control.transition(OrderingController.class).retrieve(this);
  }
  return control.getTransitions();
}

Controller interception

Restfulie for Java goes further, intercepting transition invocations and checking for its status. The following example will only be executed if order is in a valid state for paying:

@Post @Path("/order/{order.id}/pay")
@Consumes("application/xml")
@Transition
public void pay(Order order, Payment payment) {
	order = database.getOrder(order.getId());
	order.pay(payment);
	result.use(xml()).from(order.getReceipt()).serialize();
}

Why?

Restfulie does not provide a bloated solution with huge api’s, trying to solve every other problem in the world. According to Richardson Maturity Model, systems are called RESTFul when they support this kind of state flow transition through hypermedia content contained within resources representations:

<order>
 <product>basic rails course</product>
 <product>RESTful training</product>
 <atom:link rel="refresh" href="http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"/>
 <atom:link rel="pay" href="http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1/pay" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"/>
 <atom:link rel="cancel" href="http://www.caelum.com.br/orders/1" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"/>
</order>

Stateless state

In order to profit even more from the web infrastructure, Restfulie for Java provides a (client state) stateless api.

Addressability

VRaptor’s controller api allows you to specify custom URI’s (and http verbs) to identify resources (and transitions) in your system.

Addressability + client cache stateless state server allows one to achieve REST’s idea on cache usage and its related layered systems advantages by allowing other layers to be added between the client and the server.

Unknown usage of my resources

Addressability + hypermedia content allows clients to use your resources pretty much in a way that was not tought of at first. Addresses (in our case, URI’s) can be passed around from one application to another, to and from a client’s internal database (as simple as a browser favorites, or google gears).

Building your system upon such basis, it become unaware of its resources usage (resource representation’s interpretation) patterns, allowing clients to create such previously unknown systems.

Less and simpler code, more results

Both on the server and client side, restfulie tries to achieve results based on conventions, therefore one can easily access its entry api to insert a resource in a system, i.e.:

  Movie solino = new Movie();
  resource("http://www.caelum.com.br/movies").include("metadata").post(solino);

And after creating a resource, one can actually navigate through your resource’s connections:

  Movie solino = resource("http://www.caelum.com.br/movies/solino").get();
  Comments comments = resource(solino).getTransition("comments").executeAndRetrieve();
  // print all comments

And navigate through your resource’s states:

  Comments comments = resource(solino).getTransition("comments").executeAndRetrieve();

  Comment comment = new Comment("nice movie on generations of immigrants and the hard times that they face when moving to a new place");
  resource(comments).getTransition("add").execute(comment);

A lot of good practices should be put into place in order to avoid creating Leonard Richardson’s defined REST-RPC alike systems.

Those good practices involve simple steps as avoiding anemic models on the client side . Restfulie+Vraptor already tries to avoid this on the server side andwe will discuss about such practices in following posts.

Download and example applications

Beginners could start by downloading restfulie’s client and server example application, ready to run in a eclipse wtp enviroment or pure eclipse installation.

Users are encouraged to use either the java or ruby mailing lists.

Since Restfulie was born in Ruby…

Since we released restfulie for ruby (on rails), which can be found at its github page, it was commented by Jim Webbers both on his blog and in person during QCon in San Francisco, where both him and Ian Robinson held a tutorial on restful systems and the web and will hold another round, more hands-on, at QCon London 2010.

Meanwhile, Restfulie was commented at ruby5’s podcast, commented here, at infoq, and in portuguese by Juliana and by Anderson Leite – a fellow Caelum developer.

As some comments were out about restfulie’s ruby implementation, restfulie: it’s more than easy.

2009 is drawing to a close, and 2010 is waiting in the wings… Our dynamic team at Badec Bros Deco will be taking a well-deserved break from 18 December 2009, until 6 January 2010. You have until Thursday, 26 November 2009 to place your orders for delivery in 2009! From next week on, we will be taking the orders for 2010.

Therefore, should you wish to have your very own signature Cubedec steel dustbin, interactive sculpture, Cubedec shelving, Cubedec miniature Zen garden box, 2010 Soccer World Cup décor, mild steel lamp shade, mild steel screen, Cubedec laser-cut logo, gabion counter, narration stand, gabion light cage, gabion bollard, gabion water feature, sculptured living wall, sculptured flagpoles, unique pot and drip tray, customized sculpture, Cubedec bench, trendy steel décor with your company logo emblazoned on it, mild steel inspirational slogan, steel laser-cut signage, mild steel mould, Cubedec Pot, hanging sculpture, gabion pot, gabion wall or gabion terrace, wooden or steel feature poles, bar code trellis, Cubedec water feature, pergola, arch, sculpture or trellis, you can contact our energetic and knowledgeable sales representative, Mareleen van Zijl, on her cell phone at 078 800 5112, the office number at 012 460 7990, or via e-mail at mareleen@badecbros.com

She will gladly arrange an appointment with you to listen to your ideas and to stun you with our own creative ideas! You dream it, we manufacture it!

Badec Bros Deco will create a 3 dimensional render and calculate a quotation FREE OF CHARGE for you! We can deliver your unique Badec Bros Deco product(s) within 10 to 15 working days, upon acceptance of the design and quotation and the required 50% deposit. These services come standard and will not cost you a cent extra! We offer a 1 year guarantee on all our products.

2009 is drawing to a close, and 2010 with all of its opportunities and challenges is peeping around the corner …

Our dynamic team at Badec Bros Deco will be taking a well-deserved break from 18 December 2009, until 6 January 2010. We thank you for your valued support and wish you a blessed Christmas and joyous festive season. We look forward to collaborating with you in the new year.

Remember, should you wish to have your very own signature Cubedec steel dustbin, interactive sculpture, Cubedec shelving, Cubedec miniature Zen garden box, 2010 Soccer World Cup décor, mild steel lamp shade, mild steel screen, Cubedec laser-cut logo, gabion counter, narration stand, gabion light cage, gabion bollard, gabion water feature, sculptured living wall, sculptured flagpoles, unique pot and drip tray, customized sculpture, Cubedec bench, trendy steel décor with your company logo emblazoned on it, mild steel inspirational slogan, steel laser-cut signage, mild steel mould, Cubedec Pot, hanging sculpture, gabion pot, gabion wall or gabion terrace, wooden or steel feature poles, bar code trellis, Cubedec water feature, pergola, arch, sculpture or trellis, you can contact our energetic and knowledgeable sales representative, Mareleen van Zijl, on her cell phone at 078 800 5112, the office number at 012 460 7990, or via e-mail at mareleen@badecbros.com

She will gladly arrange an appointment with you to listen to your ideas and to stun you with our own creative ideas! You dream it, we manufacture it! Badec Bros Deco will create a 3 dimensional render and calculate a quotation FREE OF CHARGE for you! We can deliver your unique Badec Bros Deco product(s) within 10 to 15 working days, upon acceptance of the design and quotation and the required 50% deposit. These services come standard and will not cost you a cent extra! We offer a 1 year guarantee on all our products.

In my last couple of posts I had discussed about the new dynamic keyword introduced in C# 4.0 and the how the DLR integrates with CLR to provide the dynamic programming services.In this post I will discuss about the System.Dynamic.DynamicObject class and how we can implement dynamic receivers in C#.Dynamic Receivers allows the client code to make a method call that is not defined in the class.Take a look at the following C# code:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
dynamic e = new Employee();
e.FindByFirstNameAndLastName("Sankarsan","Bose");
Console.Read();
}

If the class Employee does not have the FindByFirstNameAndLastName method defined in it then there will be no compile time error but at runtime we will get a RuntimeBinderException with message:

‘DynamicReceiver.Employee’ does not contain a definition for ‘FindByFirstNameAndLastName’

Dynamic Reception is the technique by which we try to handle a undefined method situation.

Before we get into how to implement this case above let’s take a look into the System.Dynamic.DynamicOject class and some of it’s important methods.

DynamicObject is the base class used for providing runtime dynamic behavior and the classes which need such a behavior has to inherit this class.This class cannot be instantiated and used on it’s own.

The three important methods are:

• public virtual bool TryGetMember(GetMemberBinder binder,out Object result) – This operation is invoked when any dynamic property is accessed on the dynamic object.The subclasses can override this method to provide specialized logic for member access.
  • GetMemberBinder class provides the abstraction for dynamic get member operation.The Name property of GetMemberBinder provides the name of the member/property we are trying to access.
  • The out parameter result contains the value of the member we are trying to access
  • The method returns true if the member access is successful.
• public virtual bool TrySetMember(SetMemberBinder binder,Object value) – This operation is invoked when we are trying to set value of a dynamic member and subclasses can override this method to provide specialized logic for member access.
  • SetMemberBinder provides abstraction of a set member operation at the callsite and Name property returns the name of the member whose value we are trying to set.
  • The parameter value contains the value we are trying to set to the member.
  • Returns true if the value is successfully set.
• public virtual bool TryInvokeMember(InvokeMemberBinder binder,Object[] args,out Object result) – This operation is invoked when we are trying to call a dynamic method on a dynamic object.The subclasses can override this method to provide specialized logic for member access.
  • InvokeMemberBinder class provides the abstraction for dynamic method invocation at the callsite.The Name property of InvokeMemberBinder provides the name of the method we are trying to invoke.
  • The parameter args contains the values for input parameters of the method to be invoked.
  • The out parameter result contains the return value of the method we are trying to invoke.
  • The method returns true if the method invocation is successful.

Let’s again go back to code.Our Employee class is defined as follows:

public class Employee : DynamicObject
{
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }

private Employee[] FindBy(string firstName=null,string lastName=null)
{
Console.WriteLine("Find Employees with Criteria::\n");
Console.WriteLine("FirstName with value={0}\n",firstName);
if (lastName != null)
{
Console.WriteLine("And\nLastName with value={0}\n", lastName);
}
return null;
}
}

We have no method named FindByFirstNameAndLastName.So how to tackle this situation?.Let’s set a rule.Any dynamic find method on the Employee object should follow the convention that name will start with “FindBy” followed the by property name to be used as criteria of the query.e.g. FindByFirstName, FindByLastName and FindByFirstNameAndLastName.We will implement this rule by overriding the TryInvokeMember as shown below:

public override bool TryInvokeMember(InvokeMemberBinder binder, object[] args, out object result)
{
bool retVal = false;
result = null;
string methodName = binder.Name;
if (methodName.StartsWith("FindBy"))
{
string param = methodName.Substring(6);
if (param.Contains("And"))
{
string[] paramlist = param.Split("And".ToCharArray(),StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
if(paramlist[0]=="FirstName" && paramlist[1]=="LastName")
{
result = FindBy(args[0].ToString(), args[1].ToString());
retVal = true;
}
}
else
{

if (param == "FirstName")
{
result = FindBy(firstName: args[0].ToString());
retVal = true;
}
else if (param == "LastName")
{
result = FindBy(lastName: args[0].ToString());
retVal = true;
}
}
}
return retVal;
}

Now the question might come up why I am not exposing the FindBy method as public?Of course that can be done.But this approach is more flexible, productive and code with method names like FindByFirstName,FindByLastName is more readable and easier to understand.The disadvantage here is the method naming convention is nowhere enforced in code and developer must have that knowledge from documentation.

NOTE: This code is written Visual Studio Beta 2.

Top 10 Ways to Waste Your Time in a Networking Group
Networking Success with Ivan Misner, Ph.D.

Are you guilty of any of these? Do you know others in your chapter who are?
Networking groups pay off handsomely in terms of referral business, so make the most of every single meeting and avoid wasting time—especially in the following ten ways.

Word-of-mouth marketing is a sure-fire way to generate new business. A single referral can bring in a chain reaction of business, as one satisfied customer tells others, who in turn tell still others. It’s no wonder that networking groups pay off handsomely in terms of referral business and a membership in a good networking group can be worth a considerable amount of money; especially if you calculate the time you spend each month and the business value of your time.

Make your time and efforts worthwhile. Don’t squander your opportunity by doing the wrong things in those meetings!

Success in a networking group comes when the rest of the group members trust you enough to open up their best referrals to you. Until they’ve seen your work, you have to earn that trust by demonstrating your professionalism to them. Since I founded BNI almost 25 years ago, I’ve seen how people have truly succeeded in networks and I’ve seen how people have totally wasted their time in them.

Here are the top ten ways to waste your time in a networking group (avoid all of them):

# 10. Go ahead, air your grievances among your fellow networkers and guests; after all, they really want to hear about your complaints.
…continued
http://thenationalnetworker.blogspot.com/2009/10/networking-success-top-10-ways-to-waste.html

Daveberm on Clustering For Mere Mortals had did some good effort to test new Dynamic VHD files in windows 2008 R2, With the release of Windows Server 2008 R2, one of the enhancements was improving the performance of dynamic VHD files. Prior to R2, writes to dynamically expanding VHD files could be 3x slower than writes to a fixed size VHD file due to limited meta data caching. Overall, Microsoft is claiming the performance of dynamic VHD files vs. fixed size VHD files is almost identical.

Pass-through disks are another option when configuring a Hyper-V VM. According to my results, the performance of a pass-through disk is marginally better than that of VHD files. However, if you use pass-through disks you lose all of the benefits of VHD files such as portability, snap-shotting and thin provisioning. Considering these trade-offs, using pass-through disks should really only be considered if you require a disk that is greater than 2 TB in size or if your application is I/O bound and you really could benefit from another .1 ms shaved off your average response time.

Check it there

In this short guide we will create a new page that lists the feeds available on a WordPress blog. It’s a simple process and can be a handy overview of what data your site offers.

Step One: Creating a Feeds Template

We will need a template which dynamically outputs our feeds. The easiest way to do this to fit in with the theme you have installed is to make a copy of the page.php template and name it something like feeds.php

Next we will need to give the new template a label. Look for the following snippet of code or something similar at the top and change the label to “Feeds Page”. If you do not see it go ahead and add this.

/*
Template Name: Feeds Page
*/

Next we will want to remove the code from this template that generates the page. We will replace it with the code that displays links to the feeds. Remove everything from the start of the WordPress loop to the end:

From

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

to

<?php endwhile; endif; ?>>

including the edit_post_link function call.

Now we will want to add in some code to display the feeds. I’ve created some code to get us started which can be demoed on my personal blog’s feed page.

The code is

<h2>Global Feeds</h2>

<ul>
<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" title="<?php _e('Latest Posts (RSS)'); ?>"><?php _e('<abbr title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</abbr>'); ?></a></li>
<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('atom_url'); ?>" title="<?php _e('Latest Posts (Atom)'); ?>"><?php _e('Atom'); ?></a></li>
<li><a href="<?php bloginfo('comments_rss2_url'); ?>" title="<?php _e('Latest Comments (RSS)'); ?>"><?php _e('Comments <abbr title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</abbr>'); ?></a></li>
</ul>

<h2>Feeds by Category</h2>

<ul>
<?php wp_list_categories('orderby=name&show_count=1&feed=RSS&title_li='); ?>
</ul>

The first few lines simply link to the standard feeds: a feed of the latest posts in RSS format, a feed of the posts in ATOM format and a feed of latest comments in RSS format.

The last few lines (wp_list_categories) output some links to the feeds of the categories you have been posting in. You can edit the above code to fit your needs. For example you can set show_count to 0 to remove the amount of posts after the RSS link, or change “RSS” to say “Feed” instead or you can remove the listing of category feeds all together.

The hard part is now over. We need to let WordPress know we want a specific page for this template. We do this by creating a new page and setting the page template to use our new feeds template.

Step Two: Creating a Page

Login to the admin control panel and navigate to “Pages” and “Add New”. Name the page “Feeds” or something similar. Leave the content blank and then look to the right for “Template” under the attributes box. Click the dropdown and select our new template.

Once you publish the page and click the view button a beautiful new feed template should be displayed.

Closing

That’s it! Enjoy! This method can be adapted for other dynamic pages you may want to create and is employed by things like a custom archives page or a new dynamic home page. Let me know if this tutorial was useful or if you are using it on your own blog!

<ul>
<?php
wp_list_categories('orderby=name&show_count=1&feed=RSS'); ?>W
</ul>

Be More Interested than Interesting

How to move from a transaction to relational conversation.

By Mark Goulston

 If you love networking and can’t wait for your next networking event, read no further.  This article is not for you.

 However, if you view networking as a necessary chore in order to develop new business, this one’s for you.

 By nature I am shy, and on more occasions than I care to think about, painfully so. It’s no wonder networking did not come naturally or easily to me.  But one evening that all changed

 Ten years ago, roughly five years after I’d ventured out of my consultation room as a clinical psychiatrist, I entered the business world.  Though I had spent many hours working through difficult situations with people, meeting strangers at networking events was a stretch.

 But one day I changed my attitude. When I attended a networking event, I determined to meet three new people and follow up with them after the event.  I exceed my goal. By the end of the event, I met five—who warmly accepted me and hoped for a follow-up meeting.

 I credit my success to a shift in attitude: I focused on being more interested than being interesting.  I asked people what they did for who, when they did it, and how they did it.  I asked them how they got into doing what they do.  And then I asked them why they did what they did.

 In each case those last two questions caused a remarkable transformation.  The person with whom I spoke paused and looked upward, as if searching into their mind’s eye for meaningful answers.  Our conversation was no longer transactional; it was relational. And it was better.

 When I asked, “Who is someone that helped you in your career, and what did they do?” one person teared up as he described a critical point in his career where a manager went to bat for him. Giving busy people the opportunity to relate a story about someone they feel grateful to is one of the best ways to get through to someone; it’s a gift.

 Show You Care with Questions

 A few years later in 2002 I was a keynote speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) in Los Angeles. The night before the event the main speakers were invited to a cocktail reception at the Beverly Hills Hotel.  One of the main attractions was another keynote speaker, Mike Heisley: CEO of Heico Companies, owner of the Memphis Grizzlies, and frequently listed as one of America’s 400 Richest People. Everyone wanted time with Mike.   When it was my turn to greet him, something possessed me to ask, “What did you learn about success from your father?”

 Momentarily taken aback by this question, he pointed to a couple of chairs at a nearby table and said, “C’mon, let’s sit down.” Though others were waiting, I wasn’t about to refuse such an invitation.

 We sat down and Mike shared the following: “Some of the best advice I ever received came from my dad. There was the time when I told him about a business I was about to buy that was clearly a win for me and a loss for everyone else who had any connection with the company. He looked at me and asked, ‘Why would you do a deal that helped you and hurt everyone else?’

 ”It was as if he were saying, ‘Mike, because you know how to take advantage of opportunities, you don’t have to take advantage of people.’ What I didn’t realize at the time was that my father had so much confidence in my ability to be successful by knowing and doing the right thing that I didn’t want to dishonour his belief in me by being any less than he thought I could be. And I didn’t. Like Jack Nicholson’s famous line from the movie As Good As It Gets, my dad made me want to be a better man. And I like to think I have.”

 When you attend networking events, take my simple advice: Be more interested in others than interesting. See how it makes you a better networker. Showing such generosity of spirit will make you a better person—and others will want to get to know. Who knows, you might even have a few warmly take your hand and tell you how much they enjoyed meeting you and would like to follow up with you.

DJ. Anchor. Bad reader. Burger and fries. Rain. Walk or drive. Weird seats. No photos. Zone out. Global warming. One note. Not dynamic. Can’t sleep.

10 Minute Sales Presentation

 Supatra from Nu Skin did introduce us to the newest Nu Skin product called ageLOC

 Love the way you age.  Imagine prolonging the look and feel of youth, health, and vibrancy.  By targeting the ultimate sources of aging, ageLOC science can dramatically diminish the appearance of aging.  It’s what you’ve been waiting for- now you can experience the power of ageLOC.

 The science of ageLOC.  Nu Skin is taking the science of anti-aging to a completely new level by studying the genetic origins of how and why we age.  Nu Skin believes ageLOC science is the answer to anti-aging.  It’s a scientific breakthrough that goes beyond the signs to target the ultimate sources of aging.

Purchase this informative brochure to help you learn more about Nu Skin’s revolutionary discoveries and how ageLOC science can help you restore youthful activity patterns to your genes.

 For further information contact Supatra.

205461     การควบคุมพลวัตเบื้องต้น     Introduction to Dynamic Control

แบบจํ าลองปริภูมิสถานะ การวิเคราะห์ปริภูมิสถานะ การออกแบบปริภูมิสถานะระบบควบคุมเวลาแบบไม่ต่อเนื่อง ฟังก์ชันพรรณนาของระบบควบคุมไม่เชิงเส้น

(State-space model, state-space analysis, state-space design, discrete-time control systems, describing functions of nonlinear control systems.)

(205461 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

We have received a feed diary from Vicky Sweetland who put her rescue horse, Lucy, on Blue Chip’s 40-Day Challenge – using BlueChip Dynamic.

Before the Blue Chip Challenge, Lucy would experience stiffness and swelling, especially during times of wet and cold weather. Although being hesitant about investing in Blue Chip Dynamic, by the end of the challenge, Vicky was adamant that she will continue using Blue Chip on Lucy and her other horses. She saw great changes in her Irish Draught, those being, looser joints, suppleness and generally a happier more comfortable horse.

Click here to read Lucy’s Blue Chip Challenge Feed Diary in full.

Vicky’s extra comments:

“I don’t have posh horses and a posh field, but I work hard to look after my horses and am responsible for their health and well being. As you can see the weather can be challenging for Lucy, especially when it’s wet, as the field does become very muddy where they come in and out to get to the dry and the field shelter. Lucy is 20 years now and didn’t have a very good start in life… She has always had stiffness in her back legs and I have tried almost every supplement going. I must admit the price of Dynamic put me off a bit but if it works, it would be cheaper and more economical than buying all these supplements (that don’t work). I am really pleased with the results and will continue to use Dynamic on my other horses too. Lucy must feel better and must not be in so much pain, especially during the winter months”.

In the ”Stable area” we aim for: (”future proofing the situation”)

1. Stable architecture building blocks so we ease change management by the use of target architectures that span years and multiple initiatives. This enables us to be in control of an agile future.
2. Stable solutions building blocks so we can assure that the solutions build upon the SBB we have decided. This enables us to run many solution projects concurrently and still be able to have complete control over the outcome.

In the ”Dynamic area” we aim for: (”adaptability to any situation”)

1. Dynamic behaviour in our architecture buildingblocks so that we easily can reconcider the use and re-use of our ABBs to match the needs of the business.
2. Dynamic behaviour in our solution buildningblocks so that we easily can bundle SBBs in innovative ways that maximize the potentials within our Enterprise architecture and Business situation

In the ”Agile area” we aim for: (”simple to work with”)

1. Agility in the selection, configuration and lifecycle of ABBs such that the design of composite ABBs can be done as fast as possible
2. Agility in the SBBs such that the design of SBBs from the specification of ABBs can be done as fast as possible

Reindeer christmas snow card with reindeer silhouette and snowflakes in two different designs. Useful as invitation or greetings card. See previews and download links further this post. Have fun using!

I watched the video about the new Dynamic feature coming in .Net 4.0.  Its an interview with Sam Ng and Chris Burrows who are the compiler developers who actually helped design and implement the feature.

This feature provides enhanced interoperation with dynamic languages such as Ruby and Python, with dynamic models such as Silverlight JavaScript, and with COM objects, particularly those that you find in the Office APIs. With the addition of Dynamic to C# 4.0, it is now much easier to access Microsoft Office APIs from C#.

They almost lost me when they said it was for interop & COM (features I hope to avoid), but they brought me back when they mentioned it would be helpful with the HTML DOM and Office (features that keep sucking me back in).

They talked about the DLR (dynamic language runtime) which helps with dynamic expressions.  Lots of mentions of interop with IronPython & Ruby so we’ll see if this makes those guys happy or is just a red herring.

There’s going to be a dynamic type: its syntactic sugar for object type (I’m in favor of anything sweet).  Dynamic type will help the compiler optimize, but the syntax will be the same as usual.  This is primarily for COM Interop, Dynamic C#/Reflection, and Office API’s.

Dynamic will allow for working with dynamic objects without all that nasty casting, but you need to know method names in that case, so it sounds like you wont get intellisense , and late bound type errors aren’t pretty either.  While getting the same error at runtime as you would at compile time sounds good, the bad part is that you’ll get an error at runtime.  More debugging…

Another use case is using a dynamic object (essentially an object type) as a parameter and the proper overload being determined at runtime.  Oh joy, imagine all the possibilities.  Now test them all…

On the other hand, if you really need to do this, it sounds like dynamic will help make things easier without much trouble for the developer.  I’m all for that.

I bet one day I’ll use this.  I hope I won’t build something embarrassing or that I regret.  At least I feel smarter listening to these guys talk.

“Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie.”  (Robert Ebert)

Do you agree or disagree?

We can’t take our emotions for granted.  They govern our behavior, even when we don’t realize it.  Immature families, especially when under stress, communicate that feelings are wrong.  Family members react to each other.  The overriding message is, “You shouldn’t feel what you’re feeling.”  (Dr. Randy Reynolds, child psychologist)

I hear ya!  Emotions—especially strong ones—intensify and magnify issues.  Emotions, at times, finger point—”It’s your fault, not mine!”  

“Emotions, however, when handled appropriately, can promote positive change.”  (Dr. Reynolds)

Really?  How?

• Empathize.  Validate your child’s feelings but stand firm on your decision: “It sounds like you’re frustrated because I won’t let you wear jeans today.  I know that’s hard for you, but I’m not going to change my mind.”
• Discipline, don’t punish.  Discipline is patient and goal-oriented; punishment is motivated by anger or reactivity.

 What else?

• Affirm, acknowledge, respect, create a sense of belonging, and appreciate each other.  Full emotional tanks give members room to express themselves.  Relax.  Enjoy simple pleasures.
• As families mature, they shame each other less; respond to each other more.  They listen to others without reacting.  They assert without antagonizing.  Families set realistic expectations.  They know they’re interdependent, and flex with the normal stresses of life.

“Learn to own your feelings.  Don’t blame others when you communicate.  Begin sentences with ‘I’ messages, not ‘you’.” . . . “‘I feel . . . when . . .’“

Empathize, affirm, discipline, “I” messages—Thanks Dr. Reynolds!

It’s natural for parents to become overly involved in their children.  Family is important; however, when parents look for their identity needs to be met in their children – meaning, purpose, challenge, and joy – family friction and codependency take over healthy family dynamics.  (Dr. Randy Reynolds, Child Psychologist)

In other words, parents, don’t live through your child.  Get a life.  Work on issues, challenges, dreams, goals . . . Hmm . . . Much easier said than done. 

Taking risks, changing, (possible) failure . . . they CAN be scary.  It’s easier to blame someone else (e.g., a strong-willed child) for life’s difficulties than own up to our deficiencies.

But life’s lessons we choose to ignore will resurface until we learn.  Do we learn them now, later, or never?

Healthy parents, healthy kids — happiness!

I want to LIVE my life; my goals.  I want my family, too!  Gonna get ‘em all! 

CHARGE!!! 

How would you describe your family dynamics?  Critical, achievement-oriented, efficient?  Warm, secure, caring, stimulating?

Which would you prefer?  Which would you strive towards?

The latter, most likely.  We all thrive in warm and caring environment — children, especially.

So, how do we get there?

• Meet Needs—Give attention, security, a sense of belonging, touch, affection, and stimulation.
• Know Your Child—Play!  Be a good listener.  Spend deep, quality time.  Enjoy your child(ren).
• Believe in Your Child—By doing so, parents provide opportunity and courage for her to fulfill your new, positive expectations.
• Allow Independence—Teach your child to think and take personal responsibility.
• Remain Calm and Detached—Empty ourselves of anger, resentment, fear, and guilt.

Here are concepts in action:

Child:    I got a bad evaluation from the teacher today.  If she was any good, I’d ace this class! (Negative invitation)

Parent: So she’s good at preventing her students from learning?

Child:    Well, she doesn’t help me learn!

Parent: So what would help you learn and do well in her class?  (Positive invitation/Problem-solve)

Child:    I don’t know, maybe a tutor.  (Response)

Parent: We could find a tutor for that class, but what about missed assignments?

Child:    Yeah, I’ve missed some.  I’ll finish them.

As always, thanks Dr. Reynolds!