More and more I find companies turning to a DLC environment instead of using physical media. This raises the very important question of what is a DLC, and why are more and more places using them?

While there are too many different acronyms to count for what a DLC is, I use these two simple ones: Download Center and Down-loadable Content. With that out of the way, it still doesn’t explain what a DLC is and why people love them so much. As an example, lets look at Apple iTunes. A simple piece of software that can store your music, organize it, make playlists, and numerous other great features. As many people know, you can also purchase music from iTunes and directly load it into your computer. This is a DLC, a “shopping Center” for electronic goods.

Microsoft took this concept and applied it to the wildly popular gaming console, Xbox 360. You can purchase a game and play through it’s entirety, or you can purchase special add-ons from the “Xbox Live marketplace” and play through those modes or levels as well.You can also purchase full games through the marketplace, as well as movies and TV shows.

Steam is a program for the computer that allows you to purchase and play games through a simple interface. One of the selling points of steam is that your account is permanently linked to any game you buy on Steam, so if you get a new computer, just log into your account and the download is waiting for you. It is a full electronic copy of whatever you purchase, right at your fingertips 24/7. I personally use Steam and have fallen in love with it. No longer do I need to keep track of all the CDs and DVDs and the keys that went with them.

We can all see how great a DLC is, but why are so many people switching to it? The concept is simple really, you have a product you want to sell, it may be a music CD, or a game, or even a book. Years ago the only way to sell this was to have the end user come to your store or location and purchase it from you. Then the internet came along and changed everyone’s way of life. Why get into your car, drive for some period of time, find what you are looking for, wait in line with a bunch of strangers, pay for it, drive home, and then enjoy what it is that you bought? The process took forever. Now it’s as simple as turning on your computer, going to a site, purchasing instantly, and enjoying the effort. It’s instant gratification for the end user, while companies save money on not having to store the item or pay for bricks and mortar or employees.

In the end, the real question is how much longer are stores that sell the products that you can find on a DLC going to last? Are we at the end of an era or the beginning of something more? I myself look foward to the future and how everything is going to play out.

Chuck Lindblom

I am a little obsessed about maps, and it’s all my Dad’s fault.  One of my earliest memories is how he turned my least favorite meals into a geography game.  He would cut my food into the shapes of different states, and would then ask me if I could eat, for example, the whole state of Connecticut.  After stuffing that piece of food into my mouth, I’d laugh hysterically at the thought of eating an entire state, forgetting that I’d just eaten the food I hated most. 

Luckily for me, this obsession has helped me professionally, since  I’ve ended up working with Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  This technology can be a powerful tool for helping people visualize large amounts of data by presenting the data as a map.  The technology can improve the quality of spatial data, and can help determine where things should be located to accomplish real-world objectives.

GIS provides ”topology rules” to ensure that the location of something makes sense in relation to other things.  A house can’t be located within an ocean.   Each salesperson for a particular company should have an exclusive sales territory.  Driveways connect to streets.  And so on.

Microsoft provides a suite of tools for enforcing topology rules using SQL Server Spatial, which has been available since SQL Server 2008.  Much to my surprise, this technology provides even more power and flexibility in defining topology rules than ESRI’s ArcSDE 9.3 product.  And using ESRI’s Data Interoperability extension, ESRI products can read and write directly from SQL Server Spatial.

Using SQL Server Spatial and its topology rules, I was able to solve a challenging problem involving the placement of vessel moorings to eliminate vessel collisions.  Vessels move around their moorings due to tides and winds, and the pattern of movement depends on factors including the length of chains and the length of the vessel, as well as whether the vessel is attached to one or two moorings. 

The first step to solve this problem was to calculate the potential swing areas for each vessel based on the current information in the database.  For the geeks out there, I did this using a user-defined function that returns a geography data type.

The second step to solve this problem was to create topology rules that identify and prevent potential collisions between vessels.  A small overlap in vessel swing areas is not a problem, because similar boats will swing in similar directions at the same time – if there are winds from the North, for example, all the vessels will typically be found at the southern end of their swing areas.   But significant overlaps in swing areas are definitely a problem.  Using SQL Server’s spatial functions, we can determine the percentage overlap between each set of swing areas, and can create a topology rule that the moorings cannot be placed if the overlap percentage is too high.  This ability to implement a topology rule based on a quantifiable measurement is very powerful.  For comparison, ESRI’s SDE topology rules allow you to prevent overlaps or require overlaps, but they don’t allow you to allow a certain degree of overlap.

Using SQL Server Spatial, you also have significant flexibility in handling data that violate your topology rules.  On the stricter end of the spectrum, you can prevent bad data from being stored in the database at all.  On the looser end of the spectrum, you can allow storage of the “bad” data and create a query that identifies topology violations.  In the middle of the spectrum, you could warn about topology violations during the update process but allow overrides. 

In summary, SQL Server Spatial has a powerful arsenal of tools to help validate and optimize the location of objects.  It is definitely worth exploring to see if it might meet your needs.

P.S.  Now that I’m a father myself, I tried cutting my daughter’s least favorite foods into the shape of various states.  It hasn’t worked at all.  She must be a lot smarter than I was at her age.

Brad Hurley

In this brief entry, I’m going to share with you something I’ve learned through hard lessons in the IT industry. There are certain rules to live by in life, like the Golden Rule, the 80/20 Rule, and, of course, Wexelblat’s Scheduling Algorithm (it’s a rule, but programmers love algorithms). It goes something like this:

Pick any two: Good, Fast, Cheap.

It turns out that you can’t eat your cake and have it too (actually, this expression is truly supposed to be written that way around). Let me put it in starker terms:

Pick your favorite: Lousy, Slow, Expensive.

Judging by my own finances, I apparently like Expensive, which buys me a good and fast result. Maybe patience is your thing, so you will achieve a good and cheap result—not too shabby. Lastly, if you’re willing to accept schlock, you can get it both fast and cheap. If you refuse to accept this proverb altogether and try to achieve all three points, you’re likely to end up with none (we’ve all seen projects like that, yes?).

The key to success, I think, is to choose the sacrificial quality uniquely for each project and to work to mitigate that affect throughout the project’s lifecycle. Here at Fandotech, we rarely sacrifice the Good, considering the quality of our work to be paramount. As a result, we’re not always the fastest or cheapest solution, but we’re always the best solution.

I’ve been called a cynic. Indeed, if a cynic is a realist with experience.

Craig Samson

My husband and I caved when the Nintendo Wii went on sale for $199. Within days, we purchased an additional controller and nunchuck, the Wii balance board (with glow-in-the-dark silicone protective cover for our half-blind dog), and 6 new games. One of them was EA Sports Active. I’ve been bored at the gym, and there isn’t enough coffee in the world to get me up before work to walk around my neighborhood, so this was an intriguing option. I absolutely love this game! I selected the 30-Day Challenge and started on a medium level. Each day a new routine is created for me combining strength exercises using my own body weight and a resistance band included in the kit and cardio based on whether or not I use the balance board and the intensity I am prepared to exhibit. If I had created my own exercise routine I wouldn’t have included so many lunges and squats, but I’m so glad the Challenge did. I’ve been using it for about a week, and I’m already feeling the difference in my body, my energy level, and my quality of sleep. Here are a few tips I’ve compiled if you’re thinking about purchasing EA Active:

• Wear workout clothing—this includes appropriate undergarments, socks, and sneakers. You have to run in place, dance, and jump so you want to be prepared.
• Allow plenty of room—this seems like a no-brainer, but in my small, cramped living room I have to navigate all around my coffee table (which is too big and heavy to move) in order to switch from side lunges, track running, and jump squats.
• Watch the trainer closely—during the instructional videos and the picture-in-picture tutorials during the exercises, match the trainer’s body and hand positions carefully. For example, when doing side lunges with toe touches I wasn’t pointing the Wii remote and nunchuck down toward the floor fully so it wasn’t registering that I had completed the move successfully.
• Follow the trainer’s rhythm—if you perform the exercises more quickly than the trainer, the game won’t register that you’ve done more. It will just delay your progress and coach you how to do the move properly again.
• Have fun—when I feel like an idiot running and jumping around my house, I remember that I’m raising my heart rate, building my strength, and trying to have some fun. This is what I’ve been missing from my gym experience in the last few months, so I’m embracing the fact that a video game has piqued my interest in exercise again.

There are more features and modes of play than I’ve had time to try, so I’m interested to hear what any of you have to say about EA Sports Active. I have a few specific questions for anyone willing to share:

• Has anyone tried the multiplayer mode? How did you find it?
• How are people dealing with the fact that the wire between the Wii remote and nunchuck sometimes gets in the way, gets caught, or hits you in the face?
• Aside from making the resistance band shorter to increase the difficulty of the exercises, has anyone tried adding dumbbells or wrist weights? What else are you trying?

I can’t wait to go home tonight, complete Day 8 of my 30-Day Challenge, and hear my trainer tell me, “My friend, you are poetry in motion!”

Sarah Marino

If you accept credit card payments using your web site, you are subject to a security standard known as PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard).  These standards became stronger in October 2008 with the release of PCI DSS v1.2, but these newer standards are just now starting to be enforced in the Fall of 2009.

There are good reasons to comply with this latest security standard. Compliance minimizes the risk of accidental disclosure of your client’s credit card information, and nothing drives customers away faster than causing them financial problems. Failure to comply with these latest standards may result in financial penalties from the credit card companies, and leave you liable for the misuse of compromised credit card information.

The PCI DSS v1.2 standard is comprehensive, including the following sections:

• Build and Maintain a Secure Network
• Protect Cardholder Data
• Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program
• Implement Strong Access Control Measures
• Regularly Monitor and Test Networks
• Maintain an Information Security Policy

These standards apply to all aspects of your e-Commerce operation, so these requirements may not apply just to your company. If you use a third-party hosting provider, such as Fandotech, the hosting operations will need to be audited for compliance with these standards. If you use a third-party e-Commerce software package, such as those provided by Fandotech, that application will need to be audited as well.  If you use a payment gateway (such as Google Checkout or PayPal), they will also need to become part of your audit process.

The PCI DSS standards specify different Tiers of compliance requirements depending on your organization’s annual credit card transaction volume.

After determining the organizations that need to be audited, and the compliance requirements for each, the next step is to perform an audit of these organizations against their standards. The audit requirements vary based on your annual credit card transaction volume, with self-audits permitted for low volume organizations.

Keep in mind that compliance with the PCI DSS standards is an ongoing process, not a one-time event, and that the standards are likely to continue strengthening over time.

More details about the current PCI DSS requirements are available at https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/pci_dss.shtml.

Brad Hurley