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• UITableView overlaps with NavigationBar in Storyboard Setting on first run

  - by Evils

  I know this seems to be a duplicate question which has been around here many many times, but believe me, I tried all iOS7 and earlier fixes which sets the Layout to a different Edge configuration without any change. My Storyboard looks like this: -> Navigation Controller -> Tab Bar Controller -> MyTableViewController -> VCForCellOne With the first run of my application the UITableView overlaps with the source NavigationController as shown here: After clicking on one of my Cells which pushes the corresponding ViewController to the NavigationController and going back again, everything looks fine as shown here: So everything is as it should be after once pushing another ViewController to the NavigationController and then going back. Switching from Portrait to Landscape and back also fixes the layout problem and everything is layed out as it should be. My ViewController within the Storyboard looks like this: I left it the default value, so I don't know what goes wrong here. I hope you understand my problem here. There's no custom class ViewController here, so no additional code which messes up something here. Any help highly appreciated!

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• SharePoint 2007 - Content deployment and swapping content database

  - by Mel Lota

  Hi all, I'm currently working on a SharePoint 2007 site which is setup to allow clients to author content on a staging server and then this is automatically pushed up to the live environment via content deployment. The content deployment is setup in the 'Content deployment jobs and paths' in central admin. Now the problem I've got is that it seems that historically there have been a mixture of full and incremental deployments done to the live site collection which according to Stefan Goßner's best practices post (http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/pages/content-deployment-best-practices.aspx) is a bad idea due to the fact that things soon become out of sync. It's gotten to the point where the content deployment has just stopped working and incremental or full deployments are throwing errors in the logs. What I'm thinking is that I probably need to perform a full content deployment to an empty site collection and then somehow switch the new clean site collection with the current live one. I was wondering if anybody has any experience with this and could provide any pointers, I'm currently investigating the feasibility of performing the clean content deployment and then switching the live content database with the new one, however in my tests I've found that as soon as I switch content databases, the incremental deployment still fails. Any help much appreciated. (Note: I did post this on SharePoint Overflow as well, but thought I'd put it on here in case anybody else has any ideas) Cheers

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• Changing direction of rotation Pygame

  - by czl

  How would you change the direction of a rotating image/rect in Pygame? Applying positive and negative degree values works but it seems to only be able to rotate one direction throughout my window. Is there a way to ensure a change in direction of rotation? Perhaps change up rotation of a spinning image every 5 seconds, or if able to change the direction of the spin when hitting a X or Y axis. I've added some code below. It seems like switching movement directions is easy with rect.move_ip as long as I specify a speed and have location clause, it does what I want. Unfortunately rotation is't like that. Here I'l adding angles to make sure it spins, but no matter what I try, I'm unable to negate the rotation. def rotate_image(self): #rotate image orig_rect = self.image.get_rect() rot_image = pygame.transform.rotate(self.image, self.angle) rot_rect = orig_rect.copy() rot_rect.center = rot_image.get_rect().center rot_image = rot_image.subsurface(rot_rect).copy() return rot_image def render(self): self.screen.fill(self.bg_color) self.rect.move_ip(0,5) #Y axis movement at 5 px per frame self.angle += 5 #add 5 anglewhen the rect has not hit one of the window self.angle %= 360 if self.rect.left < 0 or self.rect.right > self.width: self.speed[0] = -self.speed[0] self.angle = -self.angle #tried to invert the angle self.angle -= 5 #trying to negate the angle rotation self.angle %= 360 self.screen.blit(self.rotate_image(),self.rect) pygame.display.flip() I would really like to know how to invert rotation of a image. You may provide your own examples.

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• .htaccess trickery multi-language website

  - by user1658741

  I have a website right now that uses two languages (french and english) The way it works right now is that if someone goes to mysite.com/folder/file.php for example, file.php is simply a script that figures out which language to use, get's it's own path and filename(file.php) and serves up mysite.com/en/folder/file.php (if the language is english). However what shows up in the URL is still mysite.com/folder/file.php. For any folder and any file the same script is used. If I want to add a new file I have to add the file to the folder the user types into the browser as well to the en and fr folders. Could I do some .htaccess trickery so that whatever URL is typed, one .php file gets open that checks the language and what folder/file was requested and then serves up the correct language file? here's the php file that is served up for any files in the URL. <?php // Get current document path which is mirrored in the language folders $docpath = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; // Get current document name (Used when switching languages so that the same current page is shown when language is changed) $docname = GetDocName(); //call up lang.php which handles display of appropriate language webpage. //lang.php uses $docpath and $docname to give out the proper $langfile. //$docpath/$docname is mirrored in the /lang/en and /lang/fr folders $langfile = GetDocRoot()."/lang/lang.php"; include("$langfile"); //Call up the proper language file to display function GetDocRoot() { $temp = getenv("SCRIPT_NAME"); $localpath=realpath(basename(getenv("SCRIPT_NAME"))); $localpath=str_replace("\\","/",$localpath); $docroot=substr($localpath,0, strpos($localpath,$temp)); return $docroot; } function GetDocName() { $currentFile = $_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"]; $parts = Explode('/', $currentFile); $dn = $parts[count($parts) - 1]; return $dn; } ?>

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• Parallel programming, are we not learning from history again?

  - by mezmo

  I started programming because I was a hardware guy that got bored, I thought the problems being solved in the software side of things were much more interesting than those in hardware. At that time, most of the electrical buses I dealt with were serial, some moving data as fast as 1.5 megabit!! ;) Over the years these evolved into parallel buses in order to speed communication up, after all, transferring 8/16/32/64, whatever bits at a time incredibly speeds up the transfer. Well, our ability to create and detect state changes got faster and faster, to the point where we could push data so fast that interference between parallel traces or cable wires made cleaning the signal too expensive to continue, and we still got reasonable performance from serial interfaces, heck some graphics interfaces are even happening over USB for a while now. I think I'm seeing a like trend in software now, our processors were getting faster and faster, so we got good at building "serial" software. Now we've hit a speed bump in raw processor speed, so we're adding cores, or "traces" to the mix, and spending a lot of time and effort on learning how to properly use those. But I'm also seeing what I feel are advances in things like optical switching and even quantum computing that could take us far more quickly that I was expecting back to the point where "serial programming" again makes the most sense. What are your thoughts?

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• Use `require()` with `node --eval`

  - by rentzsch

  When utilizing node.js's newish support for --eval, I get an error (ReferenceError: require is not defined) when I attempt to use require(). Here's an example of the failure: $ node --eval 'require("http");' undefined:1 ^ ReferenceError: require is not defined at eval at <anonymous> (node.js:762:36) at eval (native) at node.js:762:36 $ Here's a working example of using require() typed into the REPL: $ node > require("http"); { STATUS_CODES: { '100': 'Continue' , '101': 'Switching Protocols' , '102': 'Processing' , '200': 'OK' , '201': 'Created' , '202': 'Accepted' , '203': 'Non-Authoritative Information' , '204': 'No Content' , '205': 'Reset Content' , '206': 'Partial Content' , '207': 'Multi-Status' , '300': 'Multiple Choices' , '301': 'Moved Permanently' , '302': 'Moved Temporarily' , '303': 'See Other' , '304': 'Not Modified' , '305': 'Use Proxy' , '307': 'Temporary Redirect' , '400': 'Bad Request' , '401': 'Unauthorized' , '402': 'Payment Required' , '403': 'Forbidden' , '404': 'Not Found' , '405': 'Method Not Allowed' , '406': 'Not Acceptable' , '407': 'Proxy Authentication Required' , '408': 'Request Time-out' , '409': 'Conflict' , '410': 'Gone' , '411': 'Length Required' , '412': 'Precondition Failed' , '413': 'Request Entity Too Large' , '414': 'Request-URI Too Large' , '415': 'Unsupported Media Type' , '416': 'Requested Range Not Satisfiable' , '417': 'Expectation Failed' , '418': 'I\'m a teapot' , '422': 'Unprocessable Entity' , '423': 'Locked' , '424': 'Failed Dependency' , '425': 'Unordered Collection' , '426': 'Upgrade Required' , '500': 'Internal Server Error' , '501': 'Not Implemented' , '502': 'Bad Gateway' , '503': 'Service Unavailable' , '504': 'Gateway Time-out' , '505': 'HTTP Version not supported' , '506': 'Variant Also Negotiates' , '507': 'Insufficient Storage' , '509': 'Bandwidth Limit Exceeded' , '510': 'Not Extended' } , IncomingMessage: { [Function: IncomingMessage] super_: [Function: EventEmitter] } , OutgoingMessage: { [Function: OutgoingMessage] super_: [Function: EventEmitter] } , ServerResponse: { [Function: ServerResponse] super_: [Circular] } , ClientRequest: { [Function: ClientRequest] super_: [Circular] } , Server: { [Function: Server] super_: { [Function: Server] super_: [Function: EventEmitter] } } , createServer: [Function] , Client: { [Function: Client] super_: { [Function: Stream] super_: [Function: EventEmitter] } } , createClient: [Function] , cat: [Function] } > Is there a way to use require() with node's --eval? I'm on node 0.2.6 on Mac OS X 10.6.5.

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• WPF A good way to make a view/edit control?

  - by Jefim

  Hi, this is just a question to discuss - what is the best way to make a view/edit control in WPF? E.g. we have an entity object Person, that has some props (name, surname, address, phone etc.). One presentation of the control would be a read-only view. And the other would have the edit view for this same person. Example: <UserControl x:Name="MyPersonEditor"> <Grid> <Grid x:Name="ViewGrid" Visibility="Visible"> <TextBlock Text="Name:"/> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Person.Name}"/> <Button Content="Edit" Click="ButtonEditStart_Click"/> </Grid> <Grid x:Name="EditGrid" Visibility="Collapsed"> <TextBlock Text="Name:"/> <TextBox Text="{Binding Person.Name}"/> <Button Content="Save" Click="ButtonEditEnd_Click"/> </Grid> </Grid> </UserControl> I hope that the idea is clear. The two options I see right now two grids with visibility switching and a TabControl without its header panel This is just a discussion question - not much trouble with it, yet I am just wondering if there are any other possibilities and elegant solutions to this.

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• Text replacement for multiple script/config files

  - by user343804

  I am doing some sort of science with a combination of Python, bash scripts and configuration files with weird syntaxes from old C programs. To run different tests, I have to tune (open text file, edit and save) a number of these files, but it is getting harder and harder to remember which files to edit. Also, the tasks are very repetitive and I end having a bunch of comment lines, switching on and off the settings for a specific run. I dream of a tool that can keep a list of files (regardless of the file format) and allow me to centrally choose from a predefined list of "profiles", taking care of editing the script/config files. For example lets say I have a config and script file: config.cfg var1 = 1.0 #var1 = 1.5 script.sct function(200.0) #function(300.0) I would like to instead have auxiliary text files: config.cfg.tem var1 = $$var1$$ script.sct.tem function($$par1$$) and in a central script or even better, a GUI, just switch from profile1 (e.g. var1=1.0,par1=200.0) to profile2 (e.g. var1=1.5,par1=300.0), and the tool to automatically update the text files. Any idea if such a tools exists?

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• Display TableViews corresponding to segmentedControl in a single tableview without pushing a new view

  - by user1727927

  I have a tableViewController where I have used the Interface Builder to insert a Segmented Controller having two segments. Since by default, first segment is always selected, I am not facing any problem in displaying the tableview corresponding to first segment. However, when I click on the second segment, I want to display another tableView. Here goes the problem. I am calling newTableViewController class on clicking the second segment. Hence, this view is getting pushed instead. Please suggest me a method to have these two tableViews in the main tableView upon clicking the segments. I have used switch case for switching between the segments. Here's the relevant part of the code: This method is in the FirstTableViewController since first segment is by default selected. -(IBAction) segmentedControlChanged { switch(segmentedControl.selectedSegmnentIndex) { case 0: //default first index selected. [tableView setHidden:NO]; break; case 1: NewViewController *controller=[[NewViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"NewViewController" bundle:nil]; self.navigationController pushViewController:controller animated:YES]; [controller release]; break; default: break; } }

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• Background loading javascript into iframe with using jQuery/Ajax?

  - by user210099

  I'm working on an offline only help system which requires loading a large amount of search-related data into an iframe before the search functionality can be used. Due to the folder structure of the project, I am unable to use Ajax-related background load methods, since the files I need are loaded a few directories "up and over." I have written some code which delays the loading of the help data until the rest of the webpage is loaded. The help data consists of a bunch of javascript files which have information about the terms, ect that exist in the help books which are installed on the system. The webpage works fine, until I start to load this help data into a hidden iframe. While the javascript files are loading, I can not use any of the webpage. Links that require a small files be downloaded for hover over effects don't show up, javascript (switching tabs on the page) has no effect. I'm wondering if this is just a limitation of the way javascript works, or if there's something else going on here. Once all the files are loaded for the help system, the webpage works as expected. function test(){ var MGCFrame = eval("parent.parent"); if((ALLFRAMESLOADED == true)){ t2 = MGCFrame.setTimeout("this.IHHeader.frames[0].loadData()",1); } else{ t1 = MGCFrame.setTimeout("this.IHHeader.frames[0].test()",1000); } } Load data simply starts the data loading process. Thanks for any help you can provide.

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• R from java with no graphics: is it worth moving to JRI

  - by LH

  I have a system set up that's been happily running R from a java servlet, spawning processed & hooking into the process's stdin, stdout, and stderr streams, as in the second andwer to this question. After a system upgrade (that included glibc), the input is no longer reaching the R process.* Until now, 'R --vanilla --slave -f [file] ...' was working fine for me. I also have no swing dependencies right now, so I'm somewhat reluctant to add them. (I may actually not be able to add swing dependencies; am I right that using REngine automatically brings swing in? The examples import all of swing.) Are there advantages to switching to JRI? What changes would I need to make to my R script? (It currently reads from stdin and writes to stdout). I'm not finding the provided examples terribly helpful for how to use JRI in this situation. Thanks for your help & comments. *I can't even tell if the problem is data being written too soon or too late, but that's a separate issue/question; if I move to JRI I'm hoping it all becomes moot.

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• Background loading javascript into iframe without using jQuery/Ajax?

  - by user210099

  I'm working on an offline only help system which requires loading a large amount of search-related data into an iframe before the search functionality can be used. Due to the folder structure of the project, I am unable to use Ajax-related background load methods, since the files I need are loaded a few directories "up and over." I have written some code which delays the loading of the help data until the rest of the webpage is loaded. The help data consists of a bunch of javascript files which have information about the terms, ect that exist in the help books which are installed on the system. The webpage works fine, until I start to load this help data into a hidden iframe. While the javascript files are loading, I can not use any of the webpage. Links that require a small files be downloaded for hover over effects don't show up, javascript (switching tabs on the page) has no effect. I'm wondering if this is just a limitation of the way javascript works, or if there's something else going on here. Once all the files are loaded for the help system, the webpage works as expected. function test(){ var MGCFrame = eval("parent.parent"); if((ALLFRAMESLOADED == true)){ t2 = MGCFrame.setTimeout("this.IHHeader.frames[0].loadData()",1); } else{ t1 = MGCFrame.setTimeout("this.IHHeader.frames[0].test()",1000); } } Load data simply starts the data loading process. Thanks for any help you can provide.

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• Rails from with better url

  - by Sam

  wow, switching to rest is a different paradigm for sure and is mainly a headache right now. view <% form_tag (businesses_path, :method => "get") do %> <%= select_tag :business_category_id, options_for_select(@business_categories.collect {|bc| [bc.name, bc.id ]}.insert(0, ["All Containers", 0]), which_business_category(@business_category) ), { :onchange => "this.form.submit();"} %> <% end %> controller def index @business_categories = BusinessCategory.find(:all) if params[:business_category_id].to_i != 0 @business_category = BusinessCategory.find(params[:business_category_id]) @businesses = @business_category.businesses else @businesses = Business.all end respond_to do |format| format.html # index.html.erb format.xml { render :xml => @businesses } end end routes map.resources What I want to to is get a better url than what this form is presenting which is the following: http://localhost:3000/businesses?business_category_id=1 Without rest I would have do something like http://localhost:3000/business/view/bbq bbq as permalink or I would have done http://localhost:300/business_categories/view/bbq and get the business that are associated with the category but I don't really know the best way of doing this. So the two questions are what is the best logic of finding a business by its categories using the latter form and number two how to get that in a pretty url all through restful routes in rails.

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• Query table value aliasing in Oracle SQL

  - by Strata

  I have a homework assignment in SQL for Oracle 10g where I have to apply union to two different select statements, to return two columns. I need the values of each cell under vendor_state to indicate CA and every other value in another state to return "Outside CA", to indicate they're elsewhere. I applied the union and produced the two columns and the listings for CA, but many other state IDs were listed and I couldn't find an explanation for how to change the actual values in the query itself. Eventually, I stumbled on an answer, but I can't explain why this works. The code is as follows: SELECT vendor_name, vendor_state FROM vendors WHERE vendor_state IN 'CA' UNION SELECT vendor_name, 'Outside CA' AS vendor_state FROM vendors WHERE vendor_state NOT IN 'CA' ORDER BY vendor_name This gives me the exact answer I need, but I don't know why the aliasing in the second select statement can behave this way....no explanation is given in my textbook and nothing I've read indicates that column aliasing can be done like this. But, by switching the column name and the alias value, I have replaced the value being returned rather than the column name itself...I'm not complaining about the result, but it would help if I knew how I did it.

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• Stream buffering issue

  - by Kolyunya

  The mod_rewrite documentation states that it is a strict requirement to disable in(out)put buffering in a rewrite program. Keeping that in mind I've written a simple program (I do know that it lacks the EOF check but this is not an issue and it saves one condition check per loop): #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> int main ( void ) { setvbuf(stdin,NULL,_IOLBF,4200); setvbuf(stdout,NULL,_IOLBF,4200); int character; while ( 42 ) { character = getchar(); if ( character == '-' ) { character = '_'; } putchar(character); } return 42 - 42; } After making some measurements I was shocked - it was over 9,000 times slower than the demo Perl script provided by the documentation: #!/usr/bin/perl $| = 1; # Turn off I/O buffering while (<STDIN>) { s/-/_/g; # Replace dashes with underscores print $_; } Now I have two related questions: Question 1. I believe that the streams may be line buffered since Apache sends a new line after each path. Am I correct? Switching my program to setvbuf(stdin,NULL,_IOLBF,4200); setvbuf(stdout,NULL,_IOLBF,4200); makes it twice as fast as Perl one. This should not hit Apache's performance, should it? Question 2. How can one write a program in C which will use unbuffered streams (like Perl one) and will perform as fast as Perl one?

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• jQuery UI Accordion 1.6

  - by Josh

  I'm using the jQuery UI Accordion 1.6 (http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Accordion), I've changed it a bit and made it work as I need and want it to work. There is just a few things off about it, but one of the major ones is something I just simply can't figure out how to make it work. The plugin is working as intended, it actually closes, opens, opens again, closes all together, etc. However, I'm trying to get the "Posted by..." information right underneath the Headline text. Also, I want the AUTHOR and 0 comments part to be a separate link, the problem is that they are inside the A CLASS (which opens the accordion). Maybe this isn't even a issue with the plugin, but I've run up on options. The jQuery is calling "A" here: I've tried switching this A to a div, but it just breaks. I thought, "Oh I have to alter my CSS", but either I'm doing it wrong, or its not even a jQuery issue, but a CSS one...I just can't figure this out rahhh@#$! Any help would be appreciated. Here is the example I'm working with; http://www.notedls.com/demo $.extend($.ui.accordion, { defaults: { selectedClass: "selected", alwaysOpen: true, animated: 'slide', event: "click", header: "a", autoheight: true, running: 0, navigationFilter: function() { return this.href.toLowerCase() == location.href.toLowerCase(); } },

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• Parallel features in .Net 4.0

  - by Jonathan.Peppers

  I have been going over the practicality of some of the new parallel features in .Net 4.0. Say I have code like so: foreach (var item in myEnumerable) myDatabase.Insert(item.ConvertToDatabase()); Imagine myDatabase.Insert is performing some work to insert to a SQL database. Theoretically you could write: Parallel.ForEach(myEnumerable, item => myDatabase.Insert(item.ConvertToDatabase())); And automatically you get code that takes advantage of multiple cores. But what if myEnumerable can only be interacted with by a single thread? Will the Parallel class enumerate by a single thread and only dispatch the result to worker threads in the loop? What if myDatabase can only be interacted with by a single thread? It would certainly not be better to make a database connection per iteration of the loop. Finally, what if my "var item" happens to be a UserControl or something that must be interacted with on the UI thread? What design pattern should I follow to solve these problems? It's looking to me that switching over to Parallel/PLinq/etc is not exactly easy when you are dealing with real-world applications.

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• Week in Geek: 4chan Falls Victim to DDoS Attack Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to tweak the low battery action on a Windows 7 laptop, access an eBook collection anywhere in the world, “extend iPad battery life, batch resize photos, & sync massive music collections”, went on a reign of destruction with Snow Crusher, and had fun decorating our desktops with abstract icon collections. Photo by pasukaru76. Random Geek Links We have included extra news article goodness to help you catch up on any developments that you may have missed during the holiday break this past week. Note: The three 27C3 articles listed here represent three different presentations at the 27th Chaos Communication Congress hacker conference. 4chan victim of DDoS as FBI investigates role in PayPal attack Users of 4chan may have gotten a taste of their own medicine after the site was knocked offline by a DDoS attack from an unknown origin early Thursday morning. Report: FBI seizes server in probe of WikiLeaks attacks The FBI has seized a server in Texas as part of its hunt for the groups behind the pro-WikiLeaks denial-of-service attacks launched in December against PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and others. Mozilla exposes older user-account database Mozilla has disabled 44,000 older user accounts for its Firefox add-ons site after a security researcher found part of a database of the account information on a publicly available server. Data breach affects 4.9 million Honda customers Japanese automaker Honda has put some 2.2 million customers in the United States on a security breach alert after a database containing information on the owners and their cars was hacked. Chinese Trojan discovered in Android games An Android-based Trojan called “Geinimi” has been discovered in the wild and the Trojan is capable of sending personal information to remote servers and exhibits botnet-like behavior. 27C3 presentation claims many mobiles vulnerable to SMS attacks According to security experts, an ‘SMS of death’ threatens to disable many current Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, Micromax and LG mobiles. 27C3: GSM cell phones even easier to tap Security researchers have demonstrated how open source software on a number of revamped, entry-level cell phones can decrypt and record mobile phone calls in the GSM network. 27C3: danger lurks in PDF documents Security researcher Julia Wolf has pointed out numerous, previously hardly known, security problems in connection with Adobe’s PDF standard. Critical update for WordPress A critical update has been made available for WordPress in the form of version 3.0.4. The update fixes a security bug in WordPress’s KSES library. McAfee Labs Predicts Geolocation, Mobile Devices and Apple Will Top the List of Targets for Emerging Threats in 2011 The list comprises 2010’s most buzzed about platforms and services, including Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone, foursquare, Google TV and the Mac OS X platform, which are all expected to become major targets for cybercriminals. McAfee Labs also predicts that politically motivated attacks will be on the rise. Windows Phone 7 piracy materializes with FreeMarketplace A proof-of-concept application, FreeMarketplace, that allows any Windows Phone 7 application to be downloaded and installed free of charge has been developed. Empty email accounts, and some bad buzz for Hotmail In the past few days, a number of Hotmail users have been complaining about a rather disconcerting issue: their Hotmail accounts, some up to 10 years old, appear completely empty.  No emails, no folders, nothing, just what appears to be a new account. Reports: Nintendo warns of 3DS risk for kids Nintendo has reportedly issued a warning that the 3DS, its eagerly awaited glasses-free 3D portable gaming device, should not be used by children under 6 when the gadget is in 3D-viewing mode. Google eyes ‘cloaking’ as next antispam target Google plans to take a closer look at the practice of “cloaking,” or presenting one look to a Googlebot crawling one’s site while presenting another look to users. Facebook, Twitter stock trading drawing SEC eye? The high degree of investor interest in shares of hot Silicon Valley companies that aren’t yet publicly traded–like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Zynga–may be leading to scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Random TinyHacker Links Photo by jcraveiro. Exciting Software Set for Release in 2011 A few bloggers from great websites such as How-To Geek, Guiding Tech and 7 Tutorials took the time to sit down and talk about their software wishes for 2011. Take the time to read it and share… Wikileaks Infopr0n An infographic detailing the quest to plug WikiLeaks. The New York Times Guide to Mobile Apps A growing collection of all mobile app coverage by the New York Times as well as lists of favorite apps from Times writers. 7,000,000,000 (Video) A fascinating look at the world’s population via National Geographic Magazine. Super User Questions Check out the great answers to these hot questions from Super User. How to use a Personal computer as a Linux web server for development purposes? How to link processing power of old computers together? Free virtualization tool for testing suspicious files? Why do some actions not work with Remote Desktop? What is the simplest way to send a large batch of pictures to a distant friend or colleague? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Had a busy week and need to get caught up on your HTG reading? Then sit back and relax while enjoying these hot posts full of how-to roundup goodness. The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 How to Search Just the Site You’re Viewing Using Google Search Ask the Readers: Backing Your Files Up – Local Storage versus the Cloud One Year Ago on How-To Geek Need more how-to geekiness for your weekend? Then look through this great batch of articles from one year ago that focus on dual-booting and O.S. installation goodness. Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Vista Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with XP How To Setup a USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 7 Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Ubuntu Easily Install Ubuntu Linux with Windows Using the Wubi Installer The Geek Note We hope that you and your families have had a terrific holiday break as everyone prepares to return to work and school this week. Remember to keep those great tips coming in to us at [email protected]! Photo by pjbeardsley. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Tune Pop Enhances Android Music Notifications Another Busy Night in Gotham City Wallpaper Classic Super Mario Brothers Theme for Chrome and Iron Experimental Firefox Builds Put Tabs on the Title Bar (Available for Download) Android Trojan Found in the Wild Chaos, Panic, and Disorder Wallpaper

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• Week in Geek: US Govt E-card Scam Siphons Confidential Data Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to “back up photos to Flickr, automate repetitive tasks, & normalize MP3 volume”, enable “stereo mix” in Windows 7 to record audio, create custom papercraft toys, read up on three alternatives to Apple’s flaky iOS alarm clock, decorated our desktops & app docks with Google icon packs, and more. Photo by alexschlegel. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week on the security & malware fronts and we have a roundup of the latest news to help keep you updated. Photo by TopTechWriter.US. US govt e-card scam hits confidential data A fake U.S. government Christmas e-card has managed to siphon off gigabytes of sensitive data from a number of law enforcement and military staff who work on cybersecurity matters, many of whom are involved in computer crime investigations. Security tool uncovers multiple bugs in every browser Michal Zalewski reports that he discovered the vulnerability in Internet Explorer a while ago using his cross_fuzz fuzzing tool and reported it to Microsoft in July 2010. Zalewski also used cross_fuzz to discover bugs in other browsers, which he also reported to the relevant organisations. Microsoft to fix Windows holes, but not ones in IE Microsoft said that it will release two security bulletins next week fixing three holes in Windows, but it is still investigating or working on fixing holes in Internet Explorer that have been reportedly exploited in attacks. Microsoft warns of Windows flaw affecting image rendering Microsoft has warned of a Windows vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take control of a computer if the user is logged on with administrative rights. Windows 7 Not Affected by Critical 0-Day in the Windows Graphics Rendering Engine While confirming that details on a Critical zero-day vulnerability have made their way into the wild, Microsoft noted that customers running the latest iteration of Windows client and server platforms are not exposed to any risks. Microsoft warns of Office-related malware Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center issued a warning this week that it has spotted malicious code on the Internet that can take advantage of a flaw in Word and infect computers after a user does nothing more than read an e-mail. *Refers to a flaw that was addressed in the November security patch releases. Make sure you have all of the latest security updates installed. Unpatched hole in ImgBurn disk burning application According to security specialist Secunia, a highly critical vulnerability in ImgBurn, a lightweight disk burning application, can be used to remotely compromise a user’s system. Hole in VLC Media Player Virtual Security Research (VSR) has identified a vulnerability in VLC Media Player. In versions up to and including 1.1.5 of the VLC Media Player. Flash Player sandbox can be bypassed Flash applications run locally can read local files and send them to an online server – something which the sandbox is supposed to prevent. Chinese auction site touts hacked iTunes accounts Tens of thousands of reportedly hacked iTunes accounts have been found on Chinese auction site Taobao, but the company claims it is unable to take action unless there are direct complaints. What happened in the recent Hotmail outage Mike Schackwitz explains the cause of the recent Hotmail outage. DOJ sends order to Twitter for Wikileaks-related account info The U.S. Justice Department has obtained a court order directing Twitter to turn over information about the accounts of activists with ties to Wikileaks, including an Icelandic politician, a legendary Dutch hacker, and a U.S. computer programmer. Google gets court to block Microsoft Interior Department e-mail win The U.S. Federal Claims Court has temporarily blocked Microsoft from proceeding with the $49.3 million, five-year DOI contract that it won this past November. Google Apps customers get email lockdown Companies and organisations using Google Apps are now able to restrict the email access of selected users. LibreOffice Is the Default Office Suite for Ubuntu 11.04 Matthias Klose has announced some details regarding the replacement of the old OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 packages with the new LibreOffice 3.3 ones, starting with the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Alpha 2 release. Sysadmin Geek Tips Photo by Filomena Scalise. How to Setup Software RAID for a Simple File Server on Ubuntu Do you need a file server that is cheap and easy to setup, “rock solid” reliable, and has Email Alerting? This tutorial shows you how to use Ubuntu, software RAID, and SaMBa to accomplish just that. How to Control the Order of Startup Programs in Windows While you can specify the applications you want to launch when Windows starts, the ability to control the order in which they start is not available. However, there are a couple of ways you can easily overcome this limitation and control the startup order of applications. Random TinyHacker Links Using Opera Unite to Send Large Files A tutorial on using Opera Unite to easily send huge files from your computer. WorkFlowy is a Useful To-do List Tool A cool to-do list tool that lets you integrate multiple tasks in one single list easily. Playing Flash Videos on iOS Devices Yes, you can play flash videos on jailbroken iPhones. Here’s a tutorial. Clear Safari History and Cookies On iPhone A tutorial on clearing your browser history on iPhone and other iOS devices. Monitor Your Internet Usage Here’s a cool, cross-platform tool to monitor your internet bandwidth. Super User Questions See what the community had to say on these popular questions from Super User this week. Why is my upload speed much less than my download speed? Where should I find drivers for my laptop if it didn’t come with a driver disk? OEM Office 2010 without media – how to reinstall? Is there a point to using theft tracking software like Prey on my laptop, if you have login security? Moving an “all-in-one” PC when turned on/off How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles from this past week. How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? Did You Know Facebook Has Built-In Shortcut Keys? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy looking through our latest gathering of retro article goodness. Learning Windows 7: Create a Homegroup & Join a New Computer To It How To Disconnect a Machine from a Homegroup Use Remote Desktop To Access Other Computers On a Small Office or Home Network How To Share Files and Printers Between Windows 7 and Vista Allow Users To Run Only Specified Programs in Windows 7 The Geek Note That is all we have for you this week and we hope your first week back at work or school has gone very well now that the holidays are over. Know a great tip? Send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Pamela Machado. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Arctic Theme for Windows 7 Gives Your Desktop an Icy Touch Install LibreOffice via PPA and Receive Auto-Updates in Ubuntu Creative Portraits Peek Inside the Guts of Modern Electronics Scenic Winter Lane Wallpaper to Create a Relaxing Mood Access Your Web Apps Directly Using the Context Menu in Chrome The Deep – Awesome Use of Metal Objects as Deep Sea Creatures [Video]

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• Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness and Capacity Assessment for SQL Server

  - by SQLOS Team

  Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness and Capacity Assessment for Windows Server Machine Running SQL Server With the release of MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta, we have added a new scenario to assess your Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness. The MAP 8.0 Beta performs a comprehensive assessment of Windows Servers running SQL Server to determine you level of readiness to migrate an on-premise physical or virtual machine to Windows Azure Virtual Machines. The MAP Toolkit then offers suggested changes to prepare the machines for migration, such as upgrading the operating system or SQL Server. MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here Your participation and feedback is very important to make the MAP Toolkit work better for you. We encourage you to participate in the beta program and provide your feedback at [email protected] or through one of our surveys. Now, let’s walk through the MAP Toolkit task for completing the Windows Azure Virtual Machine assessment and capacity planning. The tasks include the following: Perform an inventory View the Windows Azure VM Readiness results and report Collect performance data for determine VM sizing View the Windows Azure Capacity results and report Perform an inventory: 1. To perform an inventory against a single machine or across a complete environment, choose Perform an Inventory to launch the Inventory and Assessment Wizard as shown below: 2. After the Inventory and Assessment Wizard launches, select either the Windows computers or SQL Server scenario to inventory Windows machines. HINT: If you don’t care about completely inventorying a machine, just select the SQL Server scenario. Click Next to Continue. 3. On the Discovery Methods page, select how you want to discover computers and then click Next to continue. Description of Discovery Methods: Use Active Directory Domain Services -- This method allows you to query a domain controller via the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and select computers in all or specific domains, containers, or OUs. Use this method if all computers and devices are in AD DS. Windows networking protocols --  This method uses the WIN32 LAN Manager application programming interfaces to query the Computer Browser service for computers in workgroups and Windows NT 4.0–based domains. If the computers on the network are not joined to an Active Directory domain, use only the Windows networking protocols option to find computers. System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) -- This method enables you to inventory computers managed by System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). You need to provide credentials to the System Center Configuration Manager server in order to inventory the managed computers. When you select this option, the MAP Toolkit will query SCCM for a list of computers and then MAP will connect to these computers. Scan an IP address range -- This method allows you to specify the starting address and ending address of an IP address range. The wizard will then scan all IP addresses in the range and inventory only those computers. Note: This option can perform poorly, if many IP addresses aren’t being used within the range. Manually enter computer names and credentials -- Use this method if you want to inventory a small number of specific computers. Import computer names from a files -- Using this method, you can create a text file with a list of computer names that will be inventoried. 4. On the All Computers Credentials page, enter the accounts that have administrator rights to connect to the discovered machines. This does not need to a domain account, but needs to be a local administrator. I have entered my domain account that is an administrator on my local machine. Click Next after one or more accounts have been added. NOTE: The MAP Toolkit primarily uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to collect hardware, device, and software information from the remote computers. In order for the MAP Toolkit to successfully connect and inventory computers in your environment, you have to configure your machines to inventory through WMI and also allow your firewall to enable remote access through WMI. The MAP Toolkit also requires remote registry access for certain assessments. In addition to enabling WMI, you need accounts with administrative privileges to access desktops and servers in your environment. 5. On the Credentials Order page, select the order in which want the MAP Toolkit to connect to the machine and SQL Server. Generally just accept the defaults and click Next. 6. On the Enter Computers Manually page, click Create to pull up at dialog to enter one or more computer names. 7. On the Summary page confirm your settings and then click Finish. After clicking Finish the inventory process will start, as shown below: Windows Azure Readiness results and report After the inventory progress has completed, you can review the results under the Database scenario. On the tile, you will see the number of Windows Server machine with SQL Server that were analyzed, the number of machines that are ready to move without changes and the number of machines that require further changes. If you click this Azure VM Readiness tile, you will see additional details and can generate the Windows Azure VM Readiness Report. After the report is generated, select View | Saved Reports and Proposals to view the location of the report. Open up WindowsAzureVMReadiness* report in Excel. On the Windows tab, you can see the results of the assessment. This report has a column for the Operating System and SQL Server assessment and provides a recommendation on how to resolve, if there a component is not supported. Collect Performance Data Launch the Performance Wizard to collect performance information for the Windows Server machines that you would like the MAP Toolkit to suggest a Windows Azure VM size for. Windows Azure Capacity results and report After the performance metrics are collected, the Azure VM Capacity title will display the number of Virtual Machine sizes that are suggested for the Windows Server and Linux machines that were analyzed. You can then click on the Azure VM Capacity tile to see the capacity details and generate the Windows Azure VM Capacity Report. Within this report, you can view the performance data that was collected and the Virtual Machine sizes.   MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here Your participation and feedback is very important to make the MAP Toolkit work better for you. We encourage you to participate in the beta program and provide your feedback at [email protected] or through one of our surveys. Useful References: Windows Azure Homepage How to guides for Windows Azure Virtual Machines Provisioning a SQL Server Virtual Machine on Windows Azure Windows Azure Pricing     Peter Saddow Senior Program Manager – MAP Toolkit Team

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• Use BGInfo to Build a Database of System Information of Your Network Computers

  - by Sysadmin Geek

  One of the more popular tools of the Sysinternals suite among system administrators is BGInfo which tacks real-time system information to your desktop wallpaper when you first login. For obvious reasons, having information such as system memory, available hard drive space and system up time (among others) right in front of you is very convenient when you are managing several systems. A little known feature about this handy utility is the ability to have system information automatically saved to a SQL database or some other data file. With a few minutes of setup work you can easily configure BGInfo to record system information of all your network computers in a centralized storage location. You can then use this data to monitor or report on these systems however you see fit. BGInfo Setup If you are familiar with BGInfo, you can skip this section. However, if you have never used this tool, it takes just a few minutes to setup in order to capture the data you are looking for. When you first open BGInfo, a timer will be counting down in the upper right corner. Click the countdown button to keep the interface up so we can edit the settings. Now edit the information you want to capture from the available fields on the right. Since all the output will be redirected to a central location, don’t worry about configuring the layout or formatting. Configuring the Storage Database BGInfo supports the ability to store information in several database formats: SQL Server Database, Access Database, Excel and Text File. To configure this option, open File > Database. Using a Text File The simplest, and perhaps most practical, option is to store the BGInfo data in a comma separated text file. This format allows for the file to be opened in Excel or imported into a database. To use a text file or any other file system type (Excel or MS Access), simply provide the UNC to the respective file. The account running the task to write to this file will need read/write access to both the share and NTFS file permissions. When using a text file, the only option is to have BGInfo create a new entry each time the capture process is run which will add a new line to the respective CSV text file. Using a SQL Database If you prefer to have the data dropped straight into a SQL Server database, BGInfo support this as well. This requires a bit of additional configuration, but overall it is very easy. The first step is to create a database where the information will be stored. Additionally, you will want to create a user account to fill data into this table (and this table only). For your convenience, this script creates a new database and user account (run this as Administrator on your SQL Server machine): @SET Server=%ComputerName%.@SET Database=BGInfo@SET UserName=BGInfo@SET Password=passwordSQLCMD -S “%Server%” -E -Q “Create Database [%Database%]“SQLCMD -S “%Server%” -E -Q “Create Login [%UserName%] With Password=N’%Password%’, DEFAULT_DATABASE=[%Database%], CHECK_EXPIRATION=OFF, CHECK_POLICY=OFF”SQLCMD -S “%Server%” -E -d “%Database%” -Q “Create User [%UserName%] For Login [%UserName%]“SQLCMD -S “%Server%” -E -d “%Database%” -Q “EXEC sp_addrolemember N’db_owner’, N’%UserName%’” Note the SQL user account must have ‘db_owner’ permissions on the database in order for BGInfo to work correctly. This is why you should have a SQL user account specifically for this database. Next, configure BGInfo to connect to this database by clicking on the SQL button. Fill out the connection properties according to your database settings. Select the option of whether or not to only have one entry per computer or keep a history of each system. The data will then be dropped directly into a table named “BGInfoTable” in the respective database.   Configure User Desktop Options While the primary function of BGInfo is to alter the user’s desktop by adding system info as part of the wallpaper, for our use here we want to leave the user’s wallpaper alone so this process runs without altering any of the user’s settings. Click the Desktops button. Configure the Wallpaper modifications to not alter anything.   Preparing the Deployment Now we are all set for deploying the configuration to the individual machines so we can start capturing the system data. If you have not done so already, click the Apply button to create the first entry in your data repository. If all is configured correctly, you should be able to open your data file or database and see the entry for the respective machine. Now click the File > Save As menu option and save the configuration as “BGInfoCapture.bgi”.   Deploying to Client Machines Deployment to the respective client machines is pretty straightforward. No installation is required as you just need to copy the BGInfo.exe and the BGInfoCapture.bgi to each machine and place them in the same directory. Once in place, just run the command: BGInfo.exe BGInfoCapture.bgi /Timer:0 /Silent /NoLicPrompt Of course, you probably want to schedule the capture process to run on a schedule. This command creates a Scheduled Task to run the capture process at 8 AM every morning and assumes you copied the required files to the root of your C drive: SCHTASKS /Create /SC DAILY /ST 08:00 /TN “System Info” /TR “C:\BGInfo.exe C:\BGInfoCapture.bgi /Timer:0 /Silent /NoLicPrompt” Adjust as needed, but the end result is the scheduled task command should look something like this:   Download BGInfo from Sysinternals Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop How Do You Block Annoying Text Message (SMS) Spam? How to Use and Master the Notoriously Difficult Pen Tool in Photoshop HTG Explains: What Are the Differences Between All Those Audio Formats? How To Use Layer Masks and Vector Masks to Remove Complex Backgrounds in Photoshop Bring Summer Back to Your Desktop with the LandscapeTheme for Chrome and Iron The Prospector – Home Dash Extension Creates a Whole New Browsing Experience in Firefox KinEmote Links Kinect to Windows Why Nobody Reads Web Site Privacy Policies [Infographic] Asian Temple in the Snow Wallpaper 10 Weird Gaming Records from the Guinness Book

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• Windows 8 Launch&ndash;Why OEM and Retailers Should STFU

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Microsoft has gotten a lot of flack for the Surface from OEM/hardware partners who create Windows-based devices and I’m sure, to an extent, retailers who normally stock and sell Windows-based devices. I mean we all know how this is supposed to work – Microsoft makes the OS, partners make the hardware, retailers sell the hardware. Now Microsoft is breaking the rules by not only offering their own hardware but selling them via online and through their Microsoft branded stores! The thought has been that Microsoft is trying to set a standard for the other hardware companies to reach for. Maybe. I hope, at some level, Microsoft may be covertly responding to frustrations associated with trusting the OEMs and Retailers to deliver on their part of the supply chain. I know as a consumer, I’m very frustrated with the Windows 8 launch. Aside from the Surface sales, there’s nothing happening at the retail level. Let me back up and explain. Over the weekend I visited a number of stores in hopes of trying out various Windows 8 devices. Out of three retailers (Staples, Best Buy, and Future Shop), not *one* met my expectations. Let me be honest with you Staples, I never really have high expectations from your computer department. If I need paper or pens, whatever, but computers – you’re not the top of my list for price or selection. Still, considering you flaunted Win 8 devices in your flyer I expected *something* – some sign of effort that you took the Windows 8 launch seriously. As I entered the 1910 Pembina Highway location in Winnipeg, there was nothing – no signage, no banners – nothing that would suggest Windows 8 had even launched. I made my way to the laptops. I had to play with each machine to determine which ones were running Windows 8. There wasn’t anything on the placards that made it obvious which were Windows 8 machines and which ones were Windows 7. Likewise, there was no easy way to identify the touch screen laptop (the HP model) from the others without physically touching the screen to verify. Horrible experience. In the same mall as the Staples I mentioned above, there’s a Future Shop. Surely they would be more on the ball. I walked in to the 1910 Pembina Highway location and immediately realized I would not get a better experience. Except for the sign by the front door mentioning Windows 8, there was *nothing* in the computer department pointing you to the Windows 8 devices. Like in Staples, the Win 8 laptops were mixed in with the Win 7 ones and there was nothing notable calling out which ones were running Win 8. I happened to hit up the St. James Street location today, thinking since its a busier store they must have more options. To their credit, they did have two staff members decked out in Windows 8 shirts and who were helping a customer understand Windows 8. But otherwise, there was nothing highlighting the Windows 8 devices and they were again mixed in with the rest of the Win 7 machines. Finally, we have the St. James Street Best Buy location here in Winnipeg. I’m sure Best Buy will have their act together. Nope, not even close. Same story as the others: minimal signage (there was a sign as you walked in with a link to this schedule of demo days), Windows 8 hardware mixed with the rest of the PC offerings, and no visible call-outs identifying which were Win 8 based. This meant that, like Future Shop and Staples, if you wanted to know which machine had Windows 8 you had to go and scrutinize each machine. Also, there was nothing identifying which ones were touch based and which were not. Just Another Day… To these retailers, it seemed that the Windows 8 launch was just another day, with another product to add to the showroom floor. Meanwhile, Apple has their dedicated areas *in all three stores*. It was dead simple to find where the Apple products were compared to the Windows 8 products. No wonder Microsoft is starting to push their own retail stores. No wonder Microsoft is trying to funnel orders through them instead of relying on these bloated retail big box stores who obviously can’t manage a product launch. It’s Not Just The Retailers… Remember when the Acer CEO, Founder, and President of Computer Global Operations all weighed in on how Microsoft releasing the Surface would have a “huge negative impact for the ecosystem and other brands may take a negative reaction”? Also remember the CEO stating “[making hardware] is not something you are good at so please think twice”? Well the launch day has come and gone, and so far Microsoft is the only one that delivered on having hardware available on the October 26th date. Oh sure, there are laptops running Windows 8 – but all in one desktop PCs? I’ve only seen one or two! And tablets are *non existent*, with some showing an early to late November availability on Best Buy’s website! So while the retailers could be doing more to make it easier to find Windows 8 devices, the manufacturers could help by *getting devices into stores*! That’s supposedly something that these companies are good at, according to the Acer CEO. So Here’s What the Retailers and Manufacturers Need To Do… Get Product Out The pivotal timeframe will be now to the end of November. We need to start seeing all these fantastic pieces of hardware ship – including the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro, the Acer Iconia, the Asus TAICHI 21, and the sexy Samsung Series 7 27” desktop. It’s not enough to see product announcements, we need to see actual devices. Make It Easy For Customers To Find Win8 Devices You want to make it easy to sell these things? Make it easy for people to find them! Have staff on hand that really know how these devices run and what can be done with them. Don’t just have a single demo day, have people who can demo it every day! Make It Easy to See the Features There’s touch screen desktops, touch screen laptops, tablets, non-touch laptops, etc. People need to easily find the features for each machine. If I’m looking for a touch-laptop, I shouldn’t need to sift through all the non-touch laptops to find them – at the least, I need to quickly be able to see which ones are touch. I feel silly even typing this because this should be retail 101 and I have no retail background (but I do have an extensive background as a customer). In Summary… Microsoft launching the Surface and selling them through their own channels isn’t slapping its OEM and retail partners in the face; its slapping them to wake the hell up and stop coasting through Windows launch events like they don’t matter. Unless I see some improvements from vendors and retailers in November, I may just hold onto my money for a Surface Pro even if I have to wait until early 2013. Your move OEM/Retailers. *Update – While my experience has been in Winnipeg, similar experiences have been voiced from colleagues in Calgary and Edmonton.

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• Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness and Capacity Assessment for SQL Server

  - by SQLOS Team

  Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness and Capacity Assessment for Windows Server Machine Running SQL Server With the release of MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta, we have added a new scenario to assess your Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness. The MAP 8.0 Beta performs a comprehensive assessment of Windows Servers running SQL Server to determine you level of readiness to migrate an on-premise physical or virtual machine to Windows Azure Virtual Machines. The MAP Toolkit then offers suggested changes to prepare the machines for migration, such as upgrading the operating system or SQL Server. MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here Your participation and feedback is very important to make the MAP Toolkit work better for you. We encourage you to participate in the beta program and provide your feedback at [email protected] or through one of our surveys. Now, let’s walk through the MAP Toolkit task for completing the Windows Azure Virtual Machine assessment and capacity planning. The tasks include the following: Perform an inventory View the Windows Azure VM Readiness results and report Collect performance data for determine VM sizing View the Windows Azure Capacity results and report Perform an inventory: 1. To perform an inventory against a single machine or across a complete environment, choose Perform an Inventory to launch the Inventory and Assessment Wizard as shown below: 2. After the Inventory and Assessment Wizard launches, select either the Windows computers or SQL Server scenario to inventory Windows machines. HINT: If you don’t care about completely inventorying a machine, just select the SQL Server scenario. Click Next to Continue. 3. On the Discovery Methods page, select how you want to discover computers and then click Next to continue. Description of Discovery Methods: Use Active Directory Domain Services -- This method allows you to query a domain controller via the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and select computers in all or specific domains, containers, or OUs. Use this method if all computers and devices are in AD DS. Windows networking protocols --  This method uses the WIN32 LAN Manager application programming interfaces to query the Computer Browser service for computers in workgroups and Windows NT 4.0–based domains. If the computers on the network are not joined to an Active Directory domain, use only the Windows networking protocols option to find computers. System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) -- This method enables you to inventory computers managed by System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). You need to provide credentials to the System Center Configuration Manager server in order to inventory the managed computers. When you select this option, the MAP Toolkit will query SCCM for a list of computers and then MAP will connect to these computers. Scan an IP address range -- This method allows you to specify the starting address and ending address of an IP address range. The wizard will then scan all IP addresses in the range and inventory only those computers. Note: This option can perform poorly, if many IP addresses aren’t being used within the range. Manually enter computer names and credentials -- Use this method if you want to inventory a small number of specific computers. Import computer names from a files -- Using this method, you can create a text file with a list of computer names that will be inventoried. 4. On the All Computers Credentials page, enter the accounts that have administrator rights to connect to the discovered machines. This does not need to a domain account, but needs to be a local administrator. I have entered my domain account that is an administrator on my local machine. Click Next after one or more accounts have been added. NOTE: The MAP Toolkit primarily uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to collect hardware, device, and software information from the remote computers. In order for the MAP Toolkit to successfully connect and inventory computers in your environment, you have to configure your machines to inventory through WMI and also allow your firewall to enable remote access through WMI. The MAP Toolkit also requires remote registry access for certain assessments. In addition to enabling WMI, you need accounts with administrative privileges to access desktops and servers in your environment. 5. On the Credentials Order page, select the order in which want the MAP Toolkit to connect to the machine and SQL Server. Generally just accept the defaults and click Next. 6. On the Enter Computers Manually page, click Create to pull up at dialog to enter one or more computer names. 7. On the Summary page confirm your settings and then click Finish. After clicking Finish the inventory process will start, as shown below: Windows Azure Readiness results and report After the inventory progress has completed, you can review the results under the Database scenario. On the tile, you will see the number of Windows Server machine with SQL Server that were analyzed, the number of machines that are ready to move without changes and the number of machines that require further changes. If you click this Azure VM Readiness tile, you will see additional details and can generate the Windows Azure VM Readiness Report. After the report is generated, select View | Saved Reports and Proposals to view the location of the report. Open up WindowsAzureVMReadiness* report in Excel. On the Windows tab, you can see the results of the assessment. This report has a column for the Operating System and SQL Server assessment and provides a recommendation on how to resolve, if there a component is not supported. Collect Performance Data Launch the Performance Wizard to collect performance information for the Windows Server machines that you would like the MAP Toolkit to suggest a Windows Azure VM size for. Windows Azure Capacity results and report After the performance metrics are collected, the Azure VM Capacity title will display the number of Virtual Machine sizes that are suggested for the Windows Server and Linux machines that were analyzed. You can then click on the Azure VM Capacity tile to see the capacity details and generate the Windows Azure VM Capacity Report. Within this report, you can view the performance data that was collected and the Virtual Machine sizes.   MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here Your participation and feedback is very important to make the MAP Toolkit work better for you. We encourage you to participate in the beta program and provide your feedback at [email protected] or through one of our surveys. Useful References: Windows Azure Homepage How to guides for Windows Azure Virtual Machines Provisioning a SQL Server Virtual Machine on Windows Azure Windows Azure Pricing     Peter Saddow Senior Program Manager – MAP Toolkit Team

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• Ideal backup appliance for backup software like Bacula?

  - by Ricket

  I'm at a small company and we (the IT department of two) manage <100 client computers and a handful of servers. Currently we're using a company's appliance to handle backup; it does a small backup every night and a full backup every weekend, and a guy comes on Wednesday to take an offsite backup drive (and gives back last week's drive to swap with it). The backup is done only on the servers' hard drives, because our client computers and employees make sure not to store anything worthwhile on their own computers. So it's a pretty simple situation. Lately this system, mainly the appliance, has been having problems, so we are looking for an alternative. I'm researching other companies but also looking into what we might expect from trying to do this ourselves. There will undoubtedly be a large learning curve, but hey, that's what serverfault is for, right? :) So anyway I was looking at Bacula. Feature list sounds great, documentation is plentiful, but it's only software. So my question is, what is the ideal backup server to run the Bacula server software on? And not only the server but other related appliances. Our current backup appliance uses only hard drives, not tape drives. It has several plugged into it at one time, in hotswap bays on the front of the machine. I couldn't help but notice though, it's hardly more than Windows XP with hard drive bays, a PCI eSATA card (which connects to another appliance extension piece with 2 more bays), and their software. Since the company will take back their appliance if/when we cancel with them, where can I go to configure a server with these kinds of things? And should I consider switching to tape drives? What other concerns should I be thinking about when I pick out hardware for a backup server? Maybe I'm being naive, I'm sure Dell (and any other computer company) sells them in the small business section of their website, but I wanted to make sure that there's not some other more recommended place that other companies are getting their hardware from, and that I don't need anything special for Bacula.

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• SBS 2008 Backup Drive Full - Error Code '2147942512'

  - by HK1

  We are using Windows Backup on SBS 2008 SP2 and backing up to 1TB external hard drives. Recently after switching drives our backup started failing because the backup drive is full and auto-delete isn't automatically deleting older backups/show copies. I'm trying to get more information to help me effectively prevent this problem from reoccurring in the future. How I can tell that the drive is getting full: In the event viewer under Windows Logs Application, I'm seeing Event ID 517 but it fails to show an intelligible description. However, under Applications and Services Logs Microsoft Windows Backup Operational, I'm seeing an event with the ID of 5 and a description like this: Backup started at '10/4/2011 12:30:12 PM' failed with following error code '2147942512'. One of the most informative posts I've found on this error is located on Microsoft's Technet Forums here. In that post, a Microsoft representative gives this hazy explanation: auto-delete feature to ensure that at least some old backup copies are maintained on the disk -- does not automatically delete backups if space utilization by older copies is less than 1/8 of the disk size or in other words, 13% of the disk size. that means if the one full backup copy does not fit in the 7/8 of the disk size, backup may fail with disk full error. auto-delete will not automatically delete older versions to reclaim more older versions of backup. In the above explanation, I do not understand what is meant by "older copies" except that it appears that anything older than the very last shadow copy would be considered "older copies". I'm going to make the assumption that this problem where auto-delete will not work will affect any hard drive that is large enough to make an effective backup drive, or in other words, any hard drive that is large enough to hold more than one backup/shadow copy at once. The same MS representative proposes the solution of using a larger backup drive. I can't understand how this will help. It appears to me it will simply delay the problem until a later date. In order to resolve this problem for now, I did the following: Assign the backup drive a disk letter under disk management. Run the command line with Administrative rights. diskshadow.exe [enter] delete shadows oldest x: [enter] (where X: is the letter you assigned your backup drive) I manually ran the above command some 60 or 80 times to free up about 200 GB of space on my 1 Terrabyte External Hard drive. However, I do not feel this is a satisfactory solution to prevent the problem from happening again in the future. Does anyone have a solution to prevent your Windows Server backup drive from getting full?

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