How do I randomly display a set of backgrounds? - random

I have five different backgrounds that I want to randomly display everytime the page reloads. I'm still fairly new to java and not sure how to do this using R.drawable....
I was thinking I would have to generate a random number, use that number as part of a string and pass the string to the setBackgroundResource method, but that doesn't seem to fly.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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How to rank values from asc/descending?

Struggling to find rank values from highest to lowest, please see attached example of what I'm trying to achieve.
My current custom expression is:
Sum([ViolationAmt])
I have tried this:
Sum([ViolationAmt]) over Rank([ViolationAmt])
I've played around with the rank expressions however unable to implement...would be very grateful for some help.
Spotfire Rank Example
I need to make a lot of assumptions here because I don't know anything about your data set or really what your end goal is, so please comment back and/or provide more info in your question if I am off base.
the first assumption is that each row in your dataset represents one, for simplicity, [AccountID] with a [ViolationAmt]. I'm also guessing you want to show the top N accounts with the highest violations in a table, since that's what you've shown here.
so it sounds like you are going to need two calculated columns: one for getting the total [ViolationAmt] per account, and then another to rank them.
for the first, create a column called [TotalViolationAmt] or somesuch and use:
Sum([ViolationAmt]) OVER ([AccountID])
for the second:
Rank([TotalViolationAmt])
it will be useful to read the documentation on ranking functions if you haven't already.
you could probably combine these two into a single column with something like:
Rank(Sum([ViolationAmt]) OVER ([AccountID]))
but I haven't tested this at all. again, if you put in a bit more detail about what you're trying to accomplish it will help you get a better, more detailed answer :)

Laravel: advice for showing big, unchanging outline

My laravel app is a big family tree website. I have Person records (id, first, last, DOB, parent_family_id, etc) and Family records (id, caption, mother_id, father_id, original_bool).
Everything's done now except for my last challenge: an outline view! I have a number of 'original families' (the earliest ones), and for each of them I'd like to be able to display their descendants all the way down to present day in an outline form (kids, those kids' families, those families' kids, etc).
So far I've written a few functions in the relevant controller:
get_kids_of_family($family)
get_families_person_made($person)
get_descendants($family, $results)- this will be a recursive function that calls get_kids_of_family, adds them to a results set (some gigantic array that I'll pass along?), then for each of them it calls get_families_person_made, adds them to the results set, calls get_descendants on each of those families, etc.
Then it occurred to me: even if I can get this working, it'll be crunching around through a lot of data, and it rarely changes (weekly/monthly at most, with the discovery of a new person). Therefore I'm wondering if it makes sense to make/run a script to save the results someplace (like an xml or json file) and then somehow pass that file to my view for display.
Thoughts? What's a good (but not too advanced) way to implement something like this in a laravel app?
Thanks in advance for your help!

Best barcodes and how/what to generate barcodes from, and how to store it the best way?

I am writing an webapp for a used thrift store. We are planning to add all items to a database, and I will be using Laravel and MySQL for this.
We also want to get a barcode scanner in order to scan and add items.
But I've never worked with barcodes before and info regarded this for a website like mine is hard to find info on, so is the barcode-scanners so I'm asking help from someone with experience.
I'm not sure which barcodes we should use, but I'm thinking a 3D one, like QR would do good. I've found several qr-generators, but I'm unsure on how I should create them properly from items.
Say the store is named Brukten. And it has items, with number IDs. Should I then generate barcodes out of "Brukten_53" or something, or just the ID, or how is a smart way? Because I can use an option like this instead of storing the generated barcode, right, and its better to generate a QR each time instead of storing the data about it?
At first we will use a web interface to add items, and later on we want to get a barcode-scanner to help scan things, so I'm guessing it would be nice with a scanner that could take pictures and add to database. So we want the DB to be ready for this, and properly made to work with such systems. So I'm wondering also if anyone can recommend me a device for this. I've seen several but unsure what to choose. 2d, 3d, something with camera, or is there other devices we could use?
What we want a device for is:
We want to store in the db: Old things, new things
We want to retrieve: all things
We want to alter info: edit things, sell, check things
Something easier than going around with a laptop, phone or a tablet and entering stuff.
Building the site is no problem for me, PHP, MySQL, Laravel framework and all is old stuff, but barcodes is a new world for me.
You only have to make sure that every single distinct physical item has a unique ID.
A simple way to accomplish this is using category ids as prefixes.
Suppose your "used men clothes category" is ID 25, and when you enter a pair on jeans of that category into the system, you app assign them ID 12345.
You can reference that item as 002500012345. You only need to calculate the 13rd digit using this function (http://edmondscommerce.github.io/php/barcode/ean13-barcode-check-digit-with-php.html) and you have a full-fledged EAN13 barcode you can print using this font (http://www.fontpalace.com/font-details/EAN-13/) and read with virtually any code scanner.
The other approach is generating a unique url for each product:
http://www.example.com/25/12345.html
And embed the url into a QR code.
You can generate the image for the QR code using this library:
http://phpqrcode.sourceforge.net/

Script for the USPS

I am trying to write a script that does a zip code look up at the USPS.
URL="http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/citytown_zip.jsp". The data gets submitted by POST is:
zip5=YOURZIPCODE&submit.x=3&submit.y=22&submit=Find+ZIP+Code
The part I am having a hard time finding is how these numbers get generated:
submit.x=3
submit.y=22
The above two always "submit" values for X and Y always change. I can figure out
those number get put into the string.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Those are the coordinates for a image-button click. Their values just give the mouse position on the button when it was clicked. In this case, they are going to be meaningless, just make them both 1 or something.
"Users may view and download material from this site only for the following purposes: (a) for personal, non-commercial home use"
http://www.usps.com/homearea/docs/termsofuse.htm?from=global_footer&page=termsofuse
From the link above.
As the first answer says, that is just the USPS trying to keep anyone from building an automated script to access data through that form. They expect slightly different numbers for each request from a given IP address.
"when you can prevent someone from doing something, you can get paid to allow them to get things done"
Just put in random numbers between 1 and the max size of the image button and it will work.
And I would not bother trying to do it "legally", their legal terms make no sense:
http://techref.massmind.org/techref/ecommerce/shipAPIlegal.htm also see the "Shipping" link in the heading for that page.

Modifying parameters with code in Microsoft Reporting Services

I made a report with about 30 different rectangles and textboxes that have different visibility expressions depending on the parameters. (It's a student invoice and many different messages have to appear depending on the semester) When I made all the expressions I coded in the parameters in all upper case. Now I have a problem when users enter lowercase letters, the SQL all works fine since it is not case sensitive, but the different rectangles and textboxes don't show. Is there a way in the report code to first capitalize all the parameters before running the SQL? Or do I actually have to go back to every visibility expression and add separate iif's for upper and lower case? (That seems incredibly silly to have to do). I can't change my parameters to numbers because I have been given strict requirements for input. Thanks.
I do not know if this is the most elegant solution, but you could accomplish this by following this procedure for every parameter on the Report Parameters page:
1)Re-name the parameter, leaving its prompt as that of the old parameter.
2)Add a new parameter with the same name as the old parameter.
3)Mark this new parameter as Hidden.
4)Make sure that the new parameter's available values are marked as non-queried(available values will never be actually used.)
5)Mark the Default Values as Non-queried, using the following syntax:
=ucase(Parameters!OldParameterName.Value)
Can't you just UCASE the params (do it in the xml view, it will be quicker and you might even be able to do a regex find/replace)

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