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• How can I keep the cpu temp low?

  - by Newton

  I have an HP pavilion dv7, I'm using ubuntu 12.04 so the overheating problem with sandybridge cpu is a lot better. However my laptop is still becoming too hot to keep on my legs. The problem is that the fan wait too much before starting, so the medium temp is too hight. When I'm using windows 7 the laptop is room-temperature cold, I've absolutely no problem. On windows the fan is always spinning very low & very silently so the heat is continuously removed, without reaching an unconfortable temp. How can I force the computer to act like that also on ubuntu? PS The bios can't let me control this kind of thing, and this is my experience with lm-sensors and fancontrol al@notebook:~$ sudo sensors-detect [sudo] password for al: # sensors-detect revision 5984 (2011-07-10 21:22:53 +0200) # System: Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC (laptop) # Board: Hewlett-Packard 1800 This program will help you determine which kernel modules you need to load to use lm_sensors most effectively. It is generally safe and recommended to accept the default answers to all questions, unless you know what you're doing. Some south bridges, CPUs or memory controllers contain embedded sensors. Do you want to scan for them? This is totally safe. (YES/no): y Module cpuid loaded successfully. Silicon Integrated Systems SIS5595... No VIA VT82C686 Integrated Sensors... No VIA VT8231 Integrated Sensors... No AMD K8 thermal sensors... No AMD Family 10h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 11h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 12h and 14h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 15h thermal sensors... No AMD Family 15h power sensors... No Intel digital thermal sensor... Success! (driver `coretemp') Intel AMB FB-DIMM thermal sensor... No VIA C7 thermal sensor... No VIA Nano thermal sensor... No Some Super I/O chips contain embedded sensors. We have to write to standard I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe. Do you want to scan for Super I/O sensors? (YES/no): y Probing for Super-I/O at 0x2e/0x2f Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'... No Trying family `SMSC'... No Trying family `VIA/Winbond/Nuvoton/Fintek'... No Trying family `ITE'... No Probing for Super-I/O at 0x4e/0x4f Trying family `National Semiconductor/ITE'... Yes Found unknown chip with ID 0x8518 Some hardware monitoring chips are accessible through the ISA I/O ports. We have to write to arbitrary I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe though. Yes, you do have ISA I/O ports even if you do not have any ISA slots! Do you want to scan the ISA I/O ports? (YES/no): y Probing for `National Semiconductor LM78' at 0x290... No Probing for `National Semiconductor LM79' at 0x290... No Probing for `Winbond W83781D' at 0x290... No Probing for `Winbond W83782D' at 0x290... No Lastly, we can probe the I2C/SMBus adapters for connected hardware monitoring devices. This is the most risky part, and while it works reasonably well on most systems, it has been reported to cause trouble on some systems. Do you want to probe the I2C/SMBus adapters now? (YES/no): y Using driver `i2c-i801' for device 0000:00:1f.3: Intel Cougar Point (PCH) Module i2c-i801 loaded successfully. Module i2c-dev loaded successfully. Next adapter: i915 gmbus disabled (i2c-0) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus ssc (i2c-1) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 GPIOB (i2c-2) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus vga (i2c-3) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 GPIOA (i2c-4) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus panel (i2c-5) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Client found at address 0x50 Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1033'... No Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1034'... No Probing for `SPD EEPROM'... No Probing for `EDID EEPROM'... Yes (confidence 8, not a hardware monitoring chip) Next adapter: i915 GPIOC (i2c-6) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Client found at address 0x50 Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1033'... No Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1034'... No Probing for `SPD EEPROM'... No Probing for `EDID EEPROM'... Yes (confidence 8, not a hardware monitoring chip) Next adapter: i915 gmbus dpc (i2c-7) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 GPIOD (i2c-8) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus dpb (i2c-9) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 GPIOE (i2c-10) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus reserved (i2c-11) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 gmbus dpd (i2c-12) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: i915 GPIOF (i2c-13) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Next adapter: DPDDC-B (i2c-14) Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y Now follows a summary of the probes I have just done. Just press ENTER to continue: Driver `coretemp': * Chip `Intel digital thermal sensor' (confidence: 9) To load everything that is needed, add this to /etc/modules: #----cut here---- # Chip drivers coretemp #----cut here---- If you have some drivers built into your kernel, the list above will contain too many modules. Skip the appropriate ones! Do you want to add these lines automatically to /etc/modules? (yes/NO)y Successful! Monitoring programs won't work until the needed modules are loaded. You may want to run 'service module-init-tools start' to load them. Unloading i2c-dev... OK Unloading i2c-i801... OK Unloading cpuid... OK al@notebook:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/module-init-tools restart Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d, use the service(8) utility, e.g. service module-init-tools restart Since the script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an Upstart job, you may also use the stop(8) and then start(8) utilities, e.g. stop module-init-tools ; start module-init-tools. The restart(8) utility is also available. module-init-tools stop/waiting al@notebook:~$ sudo service module-init-tools restart stop: Unknown instance: module-init-tools stop/waiting al@notebook:~$ sudo service module-init-tools start module-init-tools stop/waiting al@notebook:~$ sudo pwmconfig # pwmconfig revision 5857 (2010-08-22) This program will search your sensors for pulse width modulation (pwm) controls, and test each one to see if it controls a fan on your motherboard. Note that many motherboards do not have pwm circuitry installed, even if your sensor chip supports pwm. We will attempt to briefly stop each fan using the pwm controls. The program will attempt to restore each fan to full speed after testing. However, it is ** very important ** that you physically verify that the fans have been to full speed after the program has completed. /usr/sbin/pwmconfig: There are no pwm-capable sensor modules installed Is my case too desperate?

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• I Clobbered a Leopard with a Window Last Night

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  I’ve had my 15” Mac Book Pro for a little over a year now, and its hands-down the best laptop I’ve ever owned…hardware wise. And I tried, I really really tried, to like OSX. I even bought Parallels so I could run Windows 7 and all my development tools while still trying to live in an OSX world. But in the end, I missed Windows too much. There were just too many shortcomings with OSX that kept me from being productive. For one thing, Office for Mac is *not* Office for Windows. The applications are written by different teams, and Excel on the Mac is just different enough to be painful. The VM experience was adequate, but my MBP would heat up like crazy when running it and the experience trying to get Windows apps to interact with an OSX file system was awkward. And I found I was in the VM more than I thought I’d be. iMovie is not as easy to use for doing simple movie editing as Windows Movie Maker. There’s no free blog editing software for OSX that’s on par with Windows Live Writer. And really, all I was using OSX for was Twitter (which I can use a Windows client for) and web browsing (also something Windows can provide obviously). So I had to ask myself – why am I forcing myself to use an operating system I don’t like, on a laptop that can support Windows 7? And so I paved my MBP and am happily running Windows 7 on it…and its fantastic! All the good stuff with the hardware is still there with the goodness of Win 7. Happy happy. I did run into some snags doing this though, and that’s really what this blog post is about – things to be aware of if you want to install Win 7 directly on your MBP metal. First, Ensure You Have Your Original Mac Install Disk This was a warning my buddy Dylan, who’s been running Win 7 on his MBP for a while now, gave me early on. The reason you need that original disk is that the hardware drivers you need are all located there. Apparently you can’t easily download them, so make sure you have them ahead of time. Second, Forget BootCamp The only reason you need BootCamp is if you still want the option to boot into OSX. If you don’t, then you don’t need BootCamp. In fact, you don’t even need BootCamp to install Win 7. What you *will* need though is a DVD with Win 7 burnt on it. Apple doesn’t support bootable USB drives. Well, actually they do for Mac Book Airs which don’t come with optical drives…but to get it working you’ll need to edit a system file of BootCamp so your make of MBP is included in an XML document, and even then you *still* are using BootCamp meaning you’ll be making an OSX partition. So don’t worry about BootCamp, just burn a Windows 7 disc, put it into the DVD drive, and restart your MBP. Third, Know The Secret Commands So after putting in the Windows 7 DVD and restarting your MBP, you’ll want to hold down the ‘C’ key during boot up. This tells the MBP that it should boot from the DVD drive instead of the hard drive. Interestingly, it appears you don’t have to do this if its the Mac OSX install disc (more on that in a second), but regardless – hold down C and Windows will start the install process. Next up is the partition process. You’ll notice that there’s a partition called ETI or something like that. This has to do with the drive format that Apple uses and how they partition their system drives. What I did – I blew it away! At first I didn’t, but I was told I couldn’t install Windows on the remaining space due to the different drive format. Blowing away the ETI partition (and all other partitions) allowed me to continue the Windows install. *REMEMBER –  No warranty is provided or implied, just telling you what I did and how I got it to work. Ok, so now Windows is installed and I’m rebooting. Everything looks good, but I need drivers! So I put in the OSX install DVD and run the BootCamp assistant which installs all the Windows drivers I need. Fantastic! Oh, I need to restart – no problem. OH NO, PROBLEM! I left the OSX install DVD in the drive and now the MBP wants to boot from the drive and install OSX! I’m not holding down the C key, what the heck?! Ok, well there must be a way to eject this disk…hmm…no physical button on the side…the eject button doesn’t seem to work on the keyboard…no little pin hole to insert something to force the disc out…well what the…?! It turns out, if you want to eject a disc at boot up, you need (and I kid you not) to plug a mouse into the laptop and hold down the right-click button while its booting. This ejected the disc for me. Seriously. Finally, Things You Should Be Aware Of Once you have Windows up and running there’s a few things you need to be aware of, mainly new keyboard shortcuts. For instance, on the Mac keyboard there is no Home, End, PageUp or PageDown. There’s also no obvious way to do something like select large amounts of text (like you would by holding Shift-Home at the end of a line of text for instance). So here’s some shortcuts you need to know: Home – fn + left arrow End – fn + right arrow Select a line of text as you would with the Home key – Shift + fn + left arrow Select a line of text as you would with the End key – Shift + fn + right arrow Page Up – fn + up arrow Page Down – fn + down arrow Also, you’ll notice that the awesome Mac track pad doesn’t respond to taps as clicks. No fear, this is just a setting that needs to be altered in the BootCamp control panel (that controls the Mac Hardware-specific settings within Windows, you can access it easily from the system tray icon) One other thing, battery life seems a bit lower than with OSX, but then again I’m also doing more than Twitter or web browsing on this thing now. Conclusion My laptop runs awesome now that I have Windows 7 on there. It’s obviously up to individual taste, but for me I just didn’t see benefits to living in an OSX world when everything I needed lived in Windows. And also, I finally am back to an operating system that doesn’t require me to eject a USB drive before physically removing it! It’s 2012 folks, how has this not been fixed?! D

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• How can I render multiple windows with DirectX 9 in C++?

  - by Friso1990

  I'm trying to render multiple windows, using DirectX 9 and swap chains, but even though I create 2 windows, I only see the first one that I've created. My RendererDX9 header is this: #include <d3d9.h> #include <Windows.h> #include <vector> #include "RAT_Renderer.h" namespace RAT_ENGINE { class RAT_RendererDX9 : public RAT_Renderer { public: RAT_RendererDX9(); ~RAT_RendererDX9(); void Init(RAT_WindowManager* argWMan); void CleanUp(); void ShowWin(); private: LPDIRECT3D9 renderInterface; // Used to create the D3DDevice LPDIRECT3DDEVICE9 renderDevice; // Our rendering device LPDIRECT3DSWAPCHAIN9* swapChain; // Swapchain to make multi-window rendering possible WNDCLASSEX wc; std::vector<HWND> hwindows; void Render(int argI); }; } And my .cpp file is this: #include "RAT_RendererDX9.h" static LRESULT CALLBACK MsgProc( HWND hWnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam ); namespace RAT_ENGINE { RAT_RendererDX9::RAT_RendererDX9() : renderInterface(NULL), renderDevice(NULL) { } RAT_RendererDX9::~RAT_RendererDX9() { } void RAT_RendererDX9::Init(RAT_WindowManager* argWMan) { wMan = argWMan; // Register the window class WNDCLASSEX windowClass = { sizeof( WNDCLASSEX ), CS_CLASSDC, MsgProc, 0, 0, GetModuleHandle( NULL ), NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, "foo", NULL }; wc = windowClass; RegisterClassEx( &wc ); for (int i = 0; i< wMan->getWindows().size(); ++i) { HWND hWnd = CreateWindow( "foo", argWMan->getWindow(i)->getName().c_str(), WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW, argWMan->getWindow(i)->getX(), argWMan->getWindow(i)->getY(), argWMan->getWindow(i)->getWidth(), argWMan->getWindow(i)->getHeight(), NULL, NULL, wc.hInstance, NULL ); hwindows.push_back(hWnd); } // Create the D3D object, which is needed to create the D3DDevice. renderInterface = (LPDIRECT3D9)Direct3DCreate9( D3D_SDK_VERSION ); // Set up the structure used to create the D3DDevice. Most parameters are // zeroed out. We set Windowed to TRUE, since we want to do D3D in a // window, and then set the SwapEffect to "discard", which is the most // efficient method of presenting the back buffer to the display. And // we request a back buffer format that matches the current desktop display // format. D3DPRESENT_PARAMETERS deviceConfig; ZeroMemory( &deviceConfig, sizeof( deviceConfig ) ); deviceConfig.Windowed = TRUE; deviceConfig.SwapEffect = D3DSWAPEFFECT_DISCARD; deviceConfig.BackBufferFormat = D3DFMT_UNKNOWN; deviceConfig.BackBufferHeight = 1024; deviceConfig.BackBufferWidth = 768; deviceConfig.EnableAutoDepthStencil = TRUE; deviceConfig.AutoDepthStencilFormat = D3DFMT_D16; // Create the Direct3D device. Here we are using the default adapter (most // systems only have one, unless they have multiple graphics hardware cards // installed) and requesting the HAL (which is saying we want the hardware // device rather than a software one). Software vertex processing is // specified since we know it will work on all cards. On cards that support // hardware vertex processing, though, we would see a big performance gain // by specifying hardware vertex processing. renderInterface->CreateDevice( D3DADAPTER_DEFAULT, D3DDEVTYPE_HAL, hwindows[0], D3DCREATE_SOFTWARE_VERTEXPROCESSING, &deviceConfig, &renderDevice ); this->swapChain = new LPDIRECT3DSWAPCHAIN9[wMan->getWindows().size()]; this->renderDevice->GetSwapChain(0, &swapChain[0]); for (int i = 0; i < wMan->getWindows().size(); ++i) { renderDevice->CreateAdditionalSwapChain(&deviceConfig, &swapChain[i]); } renderDevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_CULLMODE, D3DCULL_CCW); // Set cullmode to counterclockwise culling to save resources renderDevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_AMBIENT, 0xffffffff); // Turn on ambient lighting renderDevice->SetRenderState(D3DRS_ZENABLE, TRUE); // Turn on the zbuffer } void RAT_RendererDX9::CleanUp() { renderDevice->Release(); renderInterface->Release(); } void RAT_RendererDX9::Render(int argI) { // Clear the backbuffer to a blue color renderDevice->Clear( 0, NULL, D3DCLEAR_TARGET, D3DCOLOR_XRGB( 0, 0, 255 ), 1.0f, 0 ); LPDIRECT3DSURFACE9 backBuffer = NULL; // Set draw target this->swapChain[argI]->GetBackBuffer(0, D3DBACKBUFFER_TYPE_MONO, &backBuffer); this->renderDevice->SetRenderTarget(0, backBuffer); // Begin the scene renderDevice->BeginScene(); // End the scene renderDevice->EndScene(); swapChain[argI]->Present(NULL, NULL, hwindows[argI], NULL, 0); } void RAT_RendererDX9::ShowWin() { for (int i = 0; i < wMan->getWindows().size(); ++i) { ShowWindow( hwindows[i], SW_SHOWDEFAULT ); UpdateWindow( hwindows[i] ); // Enter the message loop MSG msg; while( GetMessage( &msg, NULL, 0, 0 ) ) { if (PeekMessage( &msg, NULL, 0U, 0U, PM_REMOVE ) ) { TranslateMessage( &msg ); DispatchMessage( &msg ); } else { Render(i); } } } } } LRESULT CALLBACK MsgProc( HWND hWnd, UINT msg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam ) { switch( msg ) { case WM_DESTROY: //CleanUp(); PostQuitMessage( 0 ); return 0; case WM_PAINT: //Render(); ValidateRect( hWnd, NULL ); return 0; } return DefWindowProc( hWnd, msg, wParam, lParam ); } I've made a sample function to make multiple windows: void RunSample1() { //Create the window manager. RAT_ENGINE::RAT_WindowManager* wMan = new RAT_ENGINE::RAT_WindowManager(); //Create the render manager. RAT_ENGINE::RAT_RenderManager* rMan = new RAT_ENGINE::RAT_RenderManager(); //Create a window. //This is currently needed to initialize the render manager and create a renderer. wMan->CreateRATWindow("Sample 1 - 1", 10, 20, 640, 480); wMan->CreateRATWindow("Sample 1 - 2", 150, 100, 480, 640); //Initialize the render manager. rMan->Init(wMan); //Show the window. rMan->getRenderer()->ShowWin(); } How do I get the multiple windows to work?

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• What if &ldquo;Microsoft&rdquo; were in our shoes? About Windows Phone

  - by Vijaya Malla

  This is what I think about Microsoft Windows Phone. If Microsoft were in our shoes looking at various phones available their configurations, memory, front facing cameras etc. Microsoft disappointed the USA customer base again by not getting Nokia Lumia 800. The Past: If we talk few years ago, few business people were on their Blackberry’s and few Gadget lovers were on crappy Windows OS devices. The world was all going right till Apple came with a revolutionary device iPhone, which completely changed our perception towards phone and how great a smartphone can be. It’s not just phone but the whole technology industry. The romantic appealing of the phone and smooth touch and feel of it made everyone to get one of those bad boys. The sales went up for not just Apple for AT&T too. Even though everyone complained about the signal strength of AT&T, everyone wanted to be on it because they have iPhones. All world wanted iPhone back then except Microsoft with few comments on how it is not going to be in market. But it did great and rocked the industry. A few years later with iPhone and Android taking over the smartphone market Microsoft realized that it should be in the game too. Worked on the design of it, and gave us the best Mobile OS ever. Everyone thinks that iOS is a great OS for phones but if you have touched a Windows Phone and use it for real then you will realize the strengths of it. so last year we welcomed Windows Phone 7 The Present : Windows Phone 7 has the fastest growing market. The phones are cheap, you can buy from any carrier out there. The phone became smarter and smarter with the recent update “Mango (7.5)” and with the collaboration with Nokia, Microsoft created a new eco-system for smartphones with the best smartphone hardware and best smartphone software. Everyone in the world was excited about the collaboration. As we fly over cloud 9 imagining about Nokia made Windows Phones we all heard a good news from Nokia “Nokia World”. Nokia showed the world what a best hardware making company can do with Windows Phone 7.5 OS. Nokia Lumia 800 and 710 took the spotlight. Everyone here in USA and all over the world wanted to own a Nokia Lumia 800 because of the design, software, proprietary apps from Nokia (maps, ESPN, drive and music). If USA market had Nokia Lumia 800, then it would have been the best step Microsoft and Nokia had ever made in their history of smartphone market. With all the numbers going to Android and IPhone, its not clear on why Microsoft/Nokia did not release Lumia 800 here in USA. Its unclear if Microsoft had learnt the lesson or not. if it had learnt the lesson I guess Microsoft needs to get the Nokia Lumia 800 to the USA. The Future: This is where we hope we get the best form Microsoft. I was an iPhone user, I used 2G, 3G, 3GS, 4 and then moved to Windows Phone and never felt so happy with my iPhones’. From the day when Nokia announced the partnership with Microsoft and said that they going to come up with a new Nokia windows phone, I was dreaming for my Nokia Phone. but looks like it is not going to happen any time soon. My thoughts about the Market :  Nokia has the biggest market base in the world. Even though people moved to Android or iPhone over the years in other parts of the world like India and China, people still love to use Nokia. Everyone who uses a Windows Phone now will wait for that day when Nokia Lumia comes to the USA but what either or both of the companies should do for a better market share is to make a very aggressive move with the hardware and bet on the devices. I am pretty sure that it will work. everyone here in the USA will like to have a dual core windows phone with front facing camera and all other crazy things that android/apple phones offer. I think we just have to wait for that day and hope that day comes soon. Love Microsoft and Nokia Thank you for reading.

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• Ask the Readers: Backing Your Files Up – Local Storage versus the Cloud

  - by Asian Angel

  Backing up important files is something that all of us should do on a regular basis, but may not have given as much thought to as we should. This week we would like to know if you use local storage, cloud storage, or a combination of both to back your files up. Photo by camknows. For some people local storage media may be the most convenient and/or affordable way to back up their files. Having those files stored on media under your control can also provide a sense of security and peace of mind. But storing your files locally may also have drawbacks if something happens to your storage media. So how do you know whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages or not? Here are some possible pros and cons that may affect your decision to use local storage to back up your files: Local Storage Pros You are in control of your data Your files are portable and can go with you when needed if using external or flash drives Files are accessible without an internet connection You can easily add more storage capacity as needed (additional drives, etc.) Cons You need to arrange room for your storage media (if you have multiple externals drives, etc.) Possible hardware failure No access to your files if you forget to bring your storage media with you or it is too bulky to bring along Theft and/or loss of home with all contents due to circumstances like fire If you are someone who is always on the go and needs to travel as lightly as possible, cloud storage may be the perfect way for you to back up and access your files. Perhaps your laptop has a hard-drive failure or gets stolen…unhappy events to be sure, but you will still have a copy of your files available. Perhaps a company wants to make sure their records, files, and other information are backed up off site in case of a major hardware or system failure…expensive and/or frustrating to fix if it happens, but once again there is a nice backup ready to go once things are fixed. As with local storage, here are some possible pros and cons that may influence your choice of cloud storage to back up your files: Cloud Storage Pros No need to carry around flash or bulky external drives All of your files are accessible wherever there is an internet connection No need to deal with local storage media (or its’ upkeep) Your files are still safe if your home is broken into or other unfortunate circumstances occur Cons Your files and data are not 100% under your control Possible hardware failure or loss of files on the part of your cloud storage provider (this could include a disgruntled employee wreaking havoc) No access to your files if you do not have an internet connection The cloud storage provider may eventually shutdown due to financial hardship or other unforeseen circumstances The possibility of your files and data being stolen by hackers due to a security breach on the part of your cloud storage provider You may also prefer to try and cover all of the possibilities by using both local and cloud storage to back up your files. If something happens to one, you always have the other to fall back on. Need access to those files at or away from home? As long as you have access to either your storage media or an internet connection, you are good to go. Maybe you are getting ready to choose a backup solution but are not sure which one would work better for you. Here is your chance to ask your fellow HTG readers which one they would recommend. Got a great backup solution already in place? Then be sure to share it with your fellow readers! How-To Geek Polls require Javascript. Please Click Here to View the Poll. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC 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 Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know Winter Sunset by a Mountain Stream Wallpaper Add Sleek Style to Your Desktop with the Aston Martin Theme for Windows 7 Awesome WebGL Demo – Flight of the Navigator from Mozilla Sunrise on the Alien Desert Planet Wallpaper Add Falling Snow to Webpages with the Snowfall Extension for Opera [Browser Fun] Automatically Keep Up With the Latest Releases from Mozilla Labs in Firefox 4.0

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• SQL SERVER – Weekend Project – Experimenting with ACID Transactions, SQL Compliant, Elastically Scalable Database

  - by pinaldave

  Database technology is huge and big world. I like to explore always beyond what I know and share the learning. Weekend is the best time when I sit around download random software on my machine which I like to call as a lab machine (it is a pretty old laptop, hardly a quality as lab machine) and experiment it. There are so many free betas available for download that it’s hard to keep track and even harder to find the time to play with very many of them.  This blog is about one you shouldn’t miss if you are interested in the learning various relational databases. NuoDB just released their Beta 7.  I had already downloaded their Beta 6 and yesterday did the same for 7.   My impression is that they are onto something very very interesting.  In fact, it might be something really promising in terms of database elasticity, scale and operational cost reduction. The folks at NuoDB say they are working on the world’s first “emergent” database which they tout as a brand new transitional database that is intended to dramatically change what’s possible with OLTP.  It is SQL compliant, guarantees ACID transactions, yet scales elastically on heterogeneous and decentralized cloud-based resources. Interesting note for sure, making me explore more. Based on what I’ve seen so far, they are solving the architectural challenge that exists between elastic, cloud-based compute infrastructures designed to scale out in response to workload requirements versus the traditional relational database management system’s architecture of central control. Here’s my experience with the NuoDB Beta 6 so far: First they pretty much threw away all the features you’d associate with existing RDBMS architectures except the SQL and ACID transactions which they were smart to keep.  It looks like they have incorporated a number of the big ideas from various algorithms, systems and techniques to achieve maximum DB scalability. From a user’s perspective, the NuoDB Beta software behaves like any other traditional SQL database and seems to offer all the benefits users have come to expect from standards-based SQL solutions. One of the interesting feature is that one can run a transactional node and a storage node on my Windows laptop as well on other platforms – indeed interesting for sure. It’s quite amazing to see a database elastically scale across machine boundaries. So, one of the basic NuoDB concepts is that as you need to scale out, you can easily use more inexpensive hardware when/where you need it.  This is unlike what we have traditionally done to scale a database for an application – we replace the hardware with something more powerful (faster CPU and Disks). This is where I started to feel like NuoDB is on to something that has the potential to elastically scale on commodity hardware while reducing operational expense for a big OLTP database to a degree we’ve never seen before. NuoDB is able to fully leverage the cloud in an asynchronous and highly decentralized manner – while providing both SQL compliance and ACID transactions. Basically what NuoDB is doing is so new that it is all hard to believe until you’ve experienced it in action.  I will keep you up to date as I test the NuoDB Beta 7 but if you are developing a web-scale application or have an on-premise app you are thinking of moving to the cloud, testing this beta is worth your time. If you do try it, let me know what you think.  Before I say anything more, I am going to do more experiments and more test on this product and compare it with other existing similar products. For me it was a weekend worth spent on learning something new. I encourage you to download Beta 7 version and share your opinions here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Introducing Oracle System Assistant

  - by B.Koch

  by Josh Rosen One of the challenges with today's servers is getting the server up and running and understanding what all of the steps are once you plug the server in for the first time. So many different pieces come into play: installing drivers, updating firmware, configuring RAID, and provisioning the operating system. All of these steps must be done before you can even start using the server. Finding the latest firmware and drivers, making sure you have the right versions, and knowing that all the different software and firmware components work together properly can be a real challenge. If not done correctly, such as if you separately downloading disk firmware or controller firmware that doesn't match the existing OS drivers, you could experience bugs, performance problems, and incompatibilities. Gone are the days of having to locate the tools and drivers media that shipped with the server only to find out that newer versions of software and firmware are available on the web. Oracle has solved these challenges in the new X3-2 family of servers by introducing Oracle System Assistant. Oracle System Assistant is an innovative tool that is built-in to every new x86 server. It provides step-by-step assistance with configuring the server, updating firmware and drivers, and provisioning the operating system. Once you have completed all of the steps in the Oracle System Assistant tool, the server is ready to use. Oracle System Assistant was designed to be easy and straightforward. Starting it is as simple as pressing F9 when the server is booting. You'll need a keyboard, monitor, and mouse or you can use the remote console feature of Oracle ILOM (Integrated Lights Out Manager) to access a virtual KVM to the server from any machine. From there Oracle System Assistant will walk you through each of the steps necessary to set up your server. After configuring the network settings for Oracle System Assistant, the next step is to check for any new software or firmware for the server. Oracle System Assistant connects back to Oracle using your My Oracle Support account and downloads any updates that were made available to you for this specific server. This is where you really start to see the innovation that went into Oracle System Assistant. Firmware for Oracle ILOM and BIOS, operating system drivers, and other system firmware (including for option cards and disk drivers) come as a single bundle, downloading as a single unit, that has been engineered and tested to work together by Oracle. Oracle System Assistant figures out the right combination for your server, so you don't have to. Now that the server has the latest firmware, Oracle System Assistant will next walk you through configuring the hardware. From Oracle System Assistant, you can configure many Oracle ILOM settings, including the network settings and initial user accounts. This ensures that ILOM is accessible and ready to use. Oracle System Assistant is where all parts of the server come together. In addition to communicating with Oracle ILOM and interacting with BIOS, Oracle System Assistant understands and can configure the storage subsystem. Before installing the operating system, Oracle System Assistant can detect the storage configuration and configure RAID for all disks in the system. At this point, the server is ready to be provisioned with the host operating system. You can use Oracle System Assistant to provision a supported OS, including Oracle Linux, Oracle VM, RHEL, SuSe Linux, and Windows. And by using Oracle System Assistant, you can be sure that the proper OS drivers are installed for each of the installed hardware components. With Oracle System Assistant, initial setup of the server has never been easier. If we can innovate around problems and find solutions to make our servers easier to manage, this reduces IT costs and makes managing servers simpler. I think with Oracle System Assistant we have done just that. Josh Rosen is a Principal Product Manager at Oracle and previously spent more than a decade as a developer and architect of system management software. Josh has worked on system management for many of Oracle's hardware products ranging from the earliest blade systems to the latest Oracle x86 servers.

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• F# and the rose-tinted reflection

  - by CliveT

  We're already seeing increasing use of many cores on client desktops. It is a change that has been long predicted. It is not just a change in architecture, but our notions of efficiency in a program. No longer can we focus on the asymptotic complexity of an algorithm by counting the steps that a single core processor would take to execute it. Instead we'll soon be more concerned about the scalability of the algorithm and how well we can increase the performance as we increase the number of cores. This may even lead us to throw away our most efficient algorithms, and switch to less efficient algorithms that scale better. We might even be willing to waste cycles in order to speculatively execute at the algorithm rather than the hardware level. State is the big headache in this parallel world. At the hardware level, main memory doesn't necessarily contain the definitive value corresponding to a particular address. An update to a location might still be held in a CPU's local cache and it might be some time before the value gets propagated. To get the latest value, and the notion of "latest" takes a lot of defining in this world of rapidly mutating state, the CPUs may well need to communicate to decide who has the definitive value of a particular address in order to avoid lost updates. At the user program level, this means programmers will need to lock objects before modifying them, or attempt to avoid the overhead of locking by understanding the memory models at a very deep level. I think it's this need to avoid statefulness that has led to the recent resurgence of interest in functional languages. In the 1980s, functional languages started getting traction when research was carried out into how programs in such languages could be auto-parallelised. Sadly, the impracticality of some of the languages, the overheads of communication during this parallel execution, and rapid improvements in compiler technology on stock hardware meant that the functional languages fell by the wayside. The one thing that these languages were good at was getting rid of implicit state, and this single idea seems like a solution to the problems we are going to face in the coming years. Whether these languages will catch on is hard to predict. The mindset for writing a program in a functional language is really very different from the way that object-oriented problem decomposition happens - one has to focus on the verbs instead of the nouns, which takes some getting used to. There are a number of hybrid functional/object languages that have been becoming more popular in recent times. These half-way houses make it easy to use functional ideas for some parts of the program while still allowing access to the underlying object-focused platform without a great deal of impedance mismatch. One example is F# running on the CLR which, in Visual Studio 2010, has because a first class member of the pack. Inside Visual Studio 2010, the tooling for F# has improved to the point where it is easy to set breakpoints and watch values change while debugging at the source level. In my opinion, it is the tooling support that will enable the widespread adoption of functional languages - without this support, people will put off any transition into the functional world for as long as they possibly can. Without tool support it will make it hard to learn these languages. One tool that doesn't currently support F# is Reflector. The idea of decompiling IL to a functional language is daunting, but F# is potentially so important I couldn't dismiss the idea. As I'm currently developing Reflector 6.5, I thought it wise to take four days just to see how far I could get in doing so, even if it achieved little more than to be clearer on how much was possible, and how long it might take. You can read what happened here, and of the insights it gave us on ways to improve the tool.

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• Give a session on C++ AMP – here is how

  - by Daniel Moth

  Ever since presenting on C++ AMP at the AMD Fusion conference in June, then the Gamefest conference in August, and the BUILD conference in September, I've had numerous requests about my material from folks that want to re-deliver the same session. The C++ AMP session I put together has evolved over the 3 presentations to its final form that I used at BUILD, so that is the one I recommend you base yours on. Please get the slides and the recording from channel9 (I'll refer to slide numbers below). This is how I've been presenting the C++ AMP session: Context (slide 3, 04:18-08:18) Start with a demo, on my dual-GPU machine. I've been using the N-Body sample (for VS 11 Developer Preview). (slide 4) Use an nvidia slide that has additional examples of performance improvements that customers enjoy with heterogeneous computing. (slide 5) Talk a bit about the differences today between CPU and GPU hardware, leading to the fact that these will continue to co-exist and that GPUs are great for data parallel algorithms, but not much else today. One is a jack of all trades and the other is a number cruncher. (slide 6) Use the APU example from amd, as one indication that the hardware space is still in motion, emphasizing that the C++ AMP solution is a data parallel API, not a GPU API. It has a future proof design for hardware we have yet to see. (slide 7) Provide more meta-data, as blogged about when I first introduced C++ AMP. Code (slide 9-11) Introduce C++ AMP coding with a simplistic array-addition algorithm – the slides speak for themselves. (slide 12-13) index<N>, extent<N>, and grid<N>. (Slide 14-16) array<T,N>, array_view<T,N> and comparison between them. (Slide 17) parallel_for_each. (slide 18, 21) restrict. (slide 19-20) actual restrictions of restrict(direct3d) – the slides speak for themselves. (slide 22) bring it altogether with a matrix multiplication example. (slide 23-24) accelerator, and accelerator_view. (slide 26-29) Introduce tiling incl. tiled matrix multiplication [tiling probably deserves a whole session instead of 6 minutes!]. IDE (slide 34,37) Briefly touch on the concurrency visualizer. It supports GPU profiling, but enhancements specific to C++ AMP we hope will come at the Beta timeframe, which is when I'll be spending more time talking about it. (slide 35-36, 51:54-59:16) Demonstrate the GPU debugging experience in VS 11. Summary (slide 39) Re-iterate some of the points of slide 7, and add the point that the C++ AMP spec will be open for other compiler vendors to implement, even on other platforms (in fact, Microsoft is actively working on that). (slide 40) Links to content – see slide – including where all your questions should go: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/parallelcppnative/threads.   "But I don't have time for a full blown session, I only need 2 (or just 1, or 3) C++ AMP slides to use in my session on related topic X" If all you want is a small number of slides, you can take some from the session above and customize them. But because I am so nice, I have created some slides for you, including talking points in the notes section. Download them here. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Oracle Database Upcoming Event dates to know

  - by mandy.ho

  February may be a short month, but it's not short of exciting Oracle events. From information packed "Real Performance Days" to participation in one of the biggest IT Security events - look out for Oracle Database and let us know if you are there with us! Feb 13-18, 2011 - Las Vegas, NV TDWI World Conference Series Join Oracle in highlighting Exadata x2-2 and x2-8, along with Oracle Business Intelligence, Enterprise Performance management and Data Warehousing solutions. Oracle will be presenting a workshop - Oracle Data Integration: Best-of-Breed Solutions for the Enterprise Wednesday, February 16, 2011 7p.m - 9p.m Glen Goodrich, Director of Product Management Christophe Dupupet, Director of Product Management, Data Integration http://events.tdwi.org/events/las-vegas-world-conference-2011/sessions/session-list.aspx Feb 14-17, 2011 - Barcelona, Spain Mobile World Congress MWC is an event where Oracle showcases the near complete breadth and depth of value that our Communications Industry strategy and Hardware and Software Solutions can deliver. Oracle supports Communications Service Providers today and delivers platforms and flexibility primed for the future. Oracle will have a two story Pavilion, along with an Oracle Java and Embedded Solutions Center - App Planet. The Exhibition times are Monday, 14th February 09.00 - 19.00 Tuesday, 15th February 09.00 - 19.00 Wednesday, 16th February 09.00 - 19.00 Thursday, 17th February 09.00 - 16.00 Have questions? Meet with Oracle Sales representatives at the Oracle Café. Open every day from 9am to 17:00pm. http://eventreg.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=109912&src=6973382&src=6973382&Act=4 Feb 14-18, 2011 - San Francisco, CA RSA Conference As the world's most complete, open, integrated business software and hardware systems provider, Oracle can uniquely safeguard your information throughout its entire lifecycle. Learn more by attending these sessions: Cloud Computing: A Brave New World for Security and Privacy (CLD-201) Wednesday, February 16 at 8:30 a.m. Databases Under Attack - Securing Heterogeneous Database Infrastructures (DAS-301) Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 8:30 a.m. Seven Steps to Protecting Databases (DAS-402) Friday, February 18 at 10:10 a.m. RSA Conference Attendees will also have the opportunity to meet with Oracle Security Solution experts, see live product demos and more by visiting booth # 1559. Hours: Monday, February 14, 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., Tuesday, February 15, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. - 6:00p.m., Wednesday, February 16, 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., and Thursday, February 17, 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. http://eventreg.oracle.com/webapps/events/ns/EventsDetail.jsp?p_eventId=127657&src=6967733&src=6967733&Act=12 Feb 21-25, 2011 - Various Locations IOUG Presents - A Day of Real World Performance with Tom Kyte, Andrew Holdsworth and Graham Wood These Oracle experts will debate, discuss and delineate the best practices for designing hardware architectures, deploying Oracle databases, and developing applications that deliver the fastest possible performance for your business.Topics are covered in a conversational format - with all three chiming in where appropriate. Each presenter has their own screen projector to demonstrate their individual points to the participants. Customers will have the opportunity to get their specific performance/tuning questions answered and learn how to balance all the different environmental requirements for their applications to improve performance. Register today for the following dates and locations • February 21 in San Diego, CA • February 22 in Los Angeles, CA • February 23 in Seattle, WA • February 25 in Phoenix, AZ http://www.ioug.org/tabid/194/Default.aspx Feb 8-24 - Various Oracle Enterprise Cloud Summit This series of full-day events with cloud experts, sharing real-world best practices, reference architectures and more continues during the month of February. Attend the Oracle Enterprise Cloud Summit to learn how to: • Build a state-of-the-art cloud architecture • Leverage your existing IT investments • Optimize your IT management processes Whether you are considering a move to cloud computing or have already adopted a cloud model, this event offers you the insights you need to take full advantage of cloud computing. Check below to see if the event is coming to a city near you. http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/events/cloud-events-214342.html

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• Crime Scene Investigation: SQL Server

  - by Rodney Landrum

  “The packages are running slower in Prod than they are in Dev” My week began with this simple declaration from one of our lead BI developers, quickly followed by an emailed spreadsheet demonstrating that, over 5 executions, an extensive ETL process was running average 630 seconds faster on Dev than on Prod. The situation needed some scientific investigation to determine why the same code, the same data, the same schema would yield consistently slower results on a more powerful server. Prod had yet to be officially christened with a “Go Live” date so I had the time, and having recently been binge watching CSI: New York, I also had the inclination. An inspection of the two systems, Prod and Dev, revealed the first surprise: although Prod was indeed a “bigger” system, with double the amount of RAM of Dev, the latter actually had twice as many processor cores. On neither system did I see much sign of resources being heavily taxed, while the ETL process was running. Without any real supporting evidence, I jumped to a conclusion that my years of performance tuning should have helped me avoid, and that was that the hardware differences explained the better performance on Dev. We spent time setting up a Test system, similarly scoped to Prod except with 4 times the cores, and ported everything across. The results of our careful benchmarks left us truly bemused; the ETL process on the new server was slower than on both other systems. We burned more time tweaking server configurations, monitoring IO and network latency, several times believing we’d uncovered the smoking gun, until the results of subsequent test runs pitched us back into confusion. Finally, I decided, enough was enough. Hadn’t I learned very early in my DBA career that almost all bottlenecks were caused by code and database design, not hardware? It was time to get back to basics. With over 100 SSIS packages and hundreds of queries, each handling specific tasks such as file loads, bulk inserts, transforms, logging, and so on, the task seemed formidable. And yet, after barely an hour spent with Profiler, Extended Events, and wait statistics DMVs, I had a lead in the shape of a query that joined three tables, containing millions of rows, returned 3279 results, but performed 239K logical reads. As soon as I looked at the execution plans for the query in Dev and Test I saw the culprit, an implicit conversion warning on a join predicate field that was numeric in one table and a varchar(50) in another! I turned this information over to the BI developers who quickly resolved the data type mismatches and found and fixed “several” others as well. After the schema changes the same query with the same databases ran in under 1 second on all systems and reduced the logical reads down to fewer than 300. The analysis also revealed that on Dev, the ETL task was pulling data across a LAN, whereas Prod and Test were connected across slower WAN, in large part explaining why the same process ran slower on the latter two systems. Loading the data locally on Prod delivered a further 20% gain in performance. As we progress through our DBA careers we learn valuable lessons. Sometimes, with a project deadline looming and pressure mounting, we choose to forget them. I was close to giving into the temptation to throw more hardware at the problem. I’m pleased at least that I resisted, though I still kick myself for not looking at the code on day one. It can seem a daunting prospect to return to the fundamentals of the code so close to roll out, but with the right tools, and surprisingly little time, you can collect the evidence that reveals the true problem. It is a lesson I trust I will remember for my next 20 years as a DBA, if I’m ever again tempted to bypass the evidence.

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• Give a session on C++ AMP – here is how

  - by Daniel Moth

  Ever since presenting on C++ AMP at the AMD Fusion conference in June, then the Gamefest conference in August, and the BUILD conference in September, I've had numerous requests about my material from folks that want to re-deliver the same session. The C++ AMP session I put together has evolved over the 3 presentations to its final form that I used at BUILD, so that is the one I recommend you base yours on. Please get the slides and the recording from channel9 (I'll refer to slide numbers below). This is how I've been presenting the C++ AMP session: Context (slide 3, 04:18-08:18) Start with a demo, on my dual-GPU machine. I've been using the N-Body sample (for VS 11 Developer Preview). (slide 4) Use an nvidia slide that has additional examples of performance improvements that customers enjoy with heterogeneous computing. (slide 5) Talk a bit about the differences today between CPU and GPU hardware, leading to the fact that these will continue to co-exist and that GPUs are great for data parallel algorithms, but not much else today. One is a jack of all trades and the other is a number cruncher. (slide 6) Use the APU example from amd, as one indication that the hardware space is still in motion, emphasizing that the C++ AMP solution is a data parallel API, not a GPU API. It has a future proof design for hardware we have yet to see. (slide 7) Provide more meta-data, as blogged about when I first introduced C++ AMP. Code (slide 9-11) Introduce C++ AMP coding with a simplistic array-addition algorithm – the slides speak for themselves. (slide 12-13) index<N>, extent<N>, and grid<N>. (Slide 14-16) array<T,N>, array_view<T,N> and comparison between them. (Slide 17) parallel_for_each. (slide 18, 21) restrict. (slide 19-20) actual restrictions of restrict(direct3d) – the slides speak for themselves. (slide 22) bring it altogether with a matrix multiplication example. (slide 23-24) accelerator, and accelerator_view. (slide 26-29) Introduce tiling incl. tiled matrix multiplication [tiling probably deserves a whole session instead of 6 minutes!]. IDE (slide 34,37) Briefly touch on the concurrency visualizer. It supports GPU profiling, but enhancements specific to C++ AMP we hope will come at the Beta timeframe, which is when I'll be spending more time talking about it. (slide 35-36, 51:54-59:16) Demonstrate the GPU debugging experience in VS 11. Summary (slide 39) Re-iterate some of the points of slide 7, and add the point that the C++ AMP spec will be open for other compiler vendors to implement, even on other platforms (in fact, Microsoft is actively working on that). (slide 40) Links to content – see slide – including where all your questions should go: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/parallelcppnative/threads.   "But I don't have time for a full blown session, I only need 2 (or just 1, or 3) C++ AMP slides to use in my session on related topic X" If all you want is a small number of slides, you can take some from the session above and customize them. But because I am so nice, I have created some slides for you, including talking points in the notes section. Download them here. Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Intermittent internet connectivity

  - by Rob Oplawar

  UPDATED: I recently built a new computer and set it up to dual-boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.10. In Windows, using the same hardware, my LAN connectivity is solid. In Ubuntu, however, my network interface periodically dies and resets itself; I'll have a solid connection for 30 seconds, and then it will go out for 30 seconds. When I tail the log: tail -f /var/log/kern.log I see "eth0 link up" messages appear periodically, corresponding with the return of connectivity. I posted the original question months ago, and misinterpreted what was going on. With a working Internet connection in Windows, I ignored the problem for some months. See my answer below for the solution (drivers). ORIGINAL POST In Ubuntu, although I maintain a solid connection to my LAN (pinging the router IP address consistently returns a good result), my internet connectivity drops in and out. When I continuously ping 74.125.227.18 (a google.com server), I get responses for a while, then I start getting "Destination Host Unreachable" for a while, then I get responses again. This happens consistently, dropping the connection for about 30 seconds out of every minute or two. Whether I configure my network via the network manager or via /etc/network/interfaces seems to make no difference. I configure with the following settings: address 192.168.1.101 network 192.168.1.0 gateway 192.168.1.99 (my router's IP address) netmask 255.255.255.0 (confirmed as the right netmask for the router) broadcast 192.168.1.255 (also confirmed with the router). ifconfig confirms that these settings are working: eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 50:e5:49:40:da:a6 inet addr:192.168.1.101 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::52e5:49ff:fe40:daa6/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:11557 errors:0 dropped:11557 overruns:0 frame:11557 TX packets:13117 errors:0 dropped:211 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:9551488 (9.5 MB) TX bytes:1930952 (1.9 MB) Interrupt:41 Base address:0xa000 I get the same issue when I use automatic DHCP address settings, although I did confirm that there is no other machine on the network with the static IP address I want to use. As I said, the connection to the local network stays solid - I never have any trouble pinging 192.168.1.* - it's internet addresses that I intermittently cannot reach. It's not a DNS issue because pinging known IP addresses directly shows the same behavior. Also, I don't think it's a hardware issue, as I never have any internet connectivity problems on the same machine in Windows. The network hardware is built into the motherboard: Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P. I managed to bring the OS fully up to date, according to the update manager, but it didn't fix the issue, and with my limited understanding of network architecture I'm at my wit's end. The only clue I can see is that ifconfig is reporting a lot of dropped packets, but I'm not sure what to do about it. UPDATE: It seems my problem is a little more generic than I described; now when I try pinging my router and google simultaneously, they both go unreachable at the same time. Running ifdown eth0 and then ifup eth0 brings it back temporarily; if I just wait it comes back after a couple of minutes. I'll broaden my search through intermittent network connectivity problems.

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• Silverlight 5 Hosting :: Features in Silverlight 5 and Release Date

  - by mbridge

  Silverlight 5 is finally announced in the Silverlight FireStarter Event on the 2nd December, 2010. This new version of Silverlight which was earlier labeled as 'Future of Microsoft Silverlight' has now come much closer to go live as the first Silverlight 5 Beta version is expected to be shipped during the early months of 2011. However for the full fledged and the final release of Silverlight 5, we have to wait many more months as the same is likely to be made available within the Q3 2011. As would have been usually expected, this latest edition would feature many new capabilities thereby extending the developer productivity to a whole new dimension of premium media experience and feature-rich business applications. It comes along with many new feature updates as well as the inclusion of new technologies to improve the standard of the Silverlight applications which are now fine-tuned to produce next generation business and media solutions that is capable to meet the requirements of the advanced web-based app development. The Silverlight 5 is all set to replace the previous fourth version which now includes more than forty new features while also dropping various deprecated elements that was prevalent earlier. It has brought around some major performance enhancements and also included better support for various other tools and technologies. Following are some of the changes that are registered to be available under the Silverlight 5 Beta edition which is scheduled to be launched during the Q1 2011. Silverlight 5 : Premium Media Experiences The media features of Silverlight 5 has seen some major enhancements with a lot of optimizations being made to deliver richer solutions. It's capability has now been extended to make things easier, faster and capable of performing the desired tasks in the most efficient manner. The Silverlight media solutions has already been a part of many companies in the recent days where various on-demand Silverlight services were featured but with the arrival of the next generation premium media solution of Silverlight 5, it is expected to register new heights of success and global user acclamation for using it with many esteemed web-based projects and media solutions. - The most happening element in the new Silverlight 5 will be its support for utilizing the GPU based hardware acceleration which is intended to lower down the CPU load to a significant extent and thereby allowing faster rendering of media contents without consuming much resources. This feature is believed to be particularly helpful for low configured machines to run full HD media content without any lagging caused due to processor load. It will hence be one great feature to revolutionize the new generation high quality media contents to be available within the web in a more efficient manner with its hardware decoded video playback capabilities. - With the inclusion of hardware video decoding to minimize the processor load, the Silverlight 5 also comes with another optimization enhancement to also reduce the power consumption level by making new methods to deal with the power-saver settings. With this optimization in effect, the computer would be automatically allowed to switch to sleep mode while no video playback is in progress and also to prevent any screensavers to popup and cause annoyances during any video playback. There would also be other power saver options which will be made available to best suit the users requirements and purpose. - The Silverlight trickplay feature is another great way to tweak any silverlight powered media content as is used for many video tutorial sites or for dealing with any sort of presentations. This feature enables the user to modify the playback speed to either slowdown or speedup during the playback durations based on the requirements without compromising on the quality of output. Normally such manipulations always makes the content's audio to go off-pitch, but the same will not be the case with TrickPlay and the audio would seamlessly progress with the video without skipping any of its part. - In addition to all of the above, the new Silverlight 5 will be featuring wireless control of all the media contents by making use of remote controllers. With the use of such remote devices, it will be easier to handle the various media playback controls thereby providing more freedom while experiencing the premium media services. Silverlight 5 : Business Application Development The application development standard has been extended with more possibilities by bringing forth new and useful technologies and also reviving the existing methods to work better than what it was used to. From the UI improvements to advanced technical aspects, the Silverlight 5 scores high on all grounds to produce great next generation business delivered applications by putting in more creativity and resourceful touch to all the apps being produced with it. - The WPF feature of Silverlight is made more effective by introducing new standards of Databinding which is intended to improve the productivity standards of the Silverlight application developer. It brings in a lot of convenience in debugging the databinding components or expressions and hence making things work in a flawless manner. Some additional features related to databinding includes that of Ancestor RelativeSource, Implicit DataTemplates and Model View ViewModel (MVVM) support with DataContextChanged event and many other new features relating it. - It now comes with a refined text and printing service which facilitates better clarity of the text rendering and also many positive changes which are being applied to the layout pattern. New supports has been added to include OpenType font, multi-column text, linked-text containers and character leading support to name a few among the available features.This also includes some important printing aspects like that of Postscript Vector Printing API which allows to program our printing tasks in a user defined way and Pivot functionality for visualization concerns of informations. - The Graphics support is the key improvements being incorporated which now enables to utilize three dimensional graphics pattern using GPU acceleration. It can manage to provide some really cool visualizations being curved to provide media contents within the business apps with also the support for full HD contents at 1080p quality. - Silverlight 5 includes the support for 64-bit operating systems and relevant browsers and is also optimized to provide better performance. It can support the background thread for the networking which can reduce the latency of the network to a considerable extent. The Out-of-Browser functionality adds the support for utilizing various libraries and also the Win32 API. It also comes with testing support with VS 2010 which is mostly an automated procedure and has also enabled increased security aspects of all the Silverlight 5 developed applications by using the improved version of group policy support.

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• Approximating walking physics via simpler sliding physics

  - by Dave

  I am modeling walking insects. I implement them as cuboids and use forces (including friction and drag), to control motion. However, the movement characteristics of this 'sliding box' physics don't match those due to a legged creature. For example, legged creatures near-instantly accelerate to their top speed; whereas applying a force to a box takes time to accelerate it. The applied force can be increased along with the counteracting drag, giving much quicker acceleration (via force) to a max speed (via drag). However, this also means the force that creatures can exert when pushing on other objects is increased. Does anyone know of any techniques using a physics engine to cheaply model walking creatures?

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• Aero Isn’t Gone in Windows 8: 6 Aero Features You Can Still Use

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Many people think Aero is completely gone in Windows 8, but this isn’t true. Microsoft hasn’t helped matters by saying they’ve “moved beyond Aero” in several blog posts. However, hardware acceleration and most Aero features are still present. Aero is more than Glass. What’s actually gone is the Aero branding and the Aero Glass theme with transparent, blurred window borders. The Flip 3D feature, which wasn’t used by many Windows users, has also been removed. How To Delete, Move, or Rename Locked Files in Windows HTG Explains: Why Screen Savers Are No Longer Necessary 6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7

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• Would you go by WPF or WinForms? [on hold]

  - by Lorem Ipsum

  Consider the following project facts/requirements: Desktop app with try icon and notification system Forms over data Quick response needed Internal app in big corporation planned to be hosted on Windows Vista, later maybe Windows 8.x Operating system slowed down by many group policies (frequently changing GPO) No special graphic requirements So, would you go by WPF or WinForms? Edit: Please bear in mind the facts/requirements I mentioned above. The application will run on corporate machines which are very slow and without really good graphical acceleration. The crucial is to have really quick response and start time.

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• Ubuntu on the Sony Vaio VPCY 21S1E

  - by tiax

  My girlfriend got a new Subnotebook for Christmas (Sony Vayo VPCY21S1E), which comes with an "Intel HD graphics" vga adaptor. When I try to boot the Ubuntu installer from USB, the screen goes blank after a short while, before I even see the Ubuntu logo. However, when I select "nomodeset" in the boot options, I can boot it to the CLI login prompt. When I start X, though, that only works in VESA mode (I've read Intel eventually got rid of Usermode Mode Setting and only offers KMS now, which I've disabled to get it to boot). What can I do to enable a) higher resolution than 1024x768 in VESA b) hardware acceleration for compiz, video playback, etc?

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• Youtube videos suddenly all report "Invalid parameters" and won't play

  - by Pointy

  Running 11.10, with up-to-date Flash (11.1.102.55, which the Flash site agrees is the up-to-date version). Every Youtube video reports a blank screen with the words, "Invalid parameters": I've tried fiddling with the player "hardware acceleration" setting, and that has no effect. Similarly, I've clicked and un-clicked and re-clicked the "storage" options in the global settings thing, also to no effect. I haven't seen this in any google searches (though there are other problems described involved the "Invalid parameters" message) which makes me think it's a recent phenomenon. edit — hmm, fails in Firefox but works in Chrome ...

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• SPARC M7 Chip - 32 cores - Mind Blowing performance

  - by CarylTakvorian-Oracle

  Now that we've just announced our Next Generation Processor at the HotChips HC26 conference , my colleague Angelo Rajadurai has a great write-up on what was announced and what this could mean for our ISV partners, covering in particular the SPARC M7 new Software-in-Silicon features such as Application Data Integrity and the In-Memory Query Accelerator. During the same presentation we also introduced the SPARC Accelerated Program to provide our partners and third party developers access to all the goodness of the M7's SPARC Application Acceleration features. Please get in touch with us if you are interested in knowing more about this program.

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• SPARC M7 Chip - 32 cores - Mind Blowing performance

  - by Angelo-Oracle

  The M7 Chip Oracle just announced its Next Generation Processor at the HotChips HC26 conference. As the Tech Lead in our Systems Division's Partner group, I had a front row seat to the extraordinary price performance advantage of Oracle current T5 and M6 based systems. Partner after partner tested  these systems and were impressed with it performance. Just read some of the quotes to see what our partner has been saying about our hardware. We just announced our next generation processor, the M7. This has 32 cores (up from 16-cores in T5 and 12-cores in M6). With 20 nm technology  this is our most advanced processor. The processor has more cores than anything else in the industry today. After the Sun acquisition Oracle has released 5 processors in 4 years and this is the 6th.  The S4 core  The M7 is built using the foundation of the S4 core. This is the next generation core technology. Like its predecessor, the S4 has 8 dynamic threads. It increases the frequency while maintaining the Pipeline depth. Each core has its own fine grain power estimator that keeps the core within its power envelop in 250 nano-sec granularity. Each core also includes Software in Silicon features for Application Acceleration Support. Each core includes features to improve Application Data Integrity, with almost no performance loss. The core also allows using part of the Virtual Address to store meta-data.  User-Level Synchronization Instructions are also part of the S4 core. Each core has 16 KB Instruction and 16 KB Data L1 cache. The Core Clusters  The cores on the M7 chip are organized in sets of 4-core clusters. The core clusters share  L2 cache.  All four cores in the complex share 256 KB of 4 way set associative L2 Instruction Cache, with over 1/2 TB/s of throughput. Two cores share 256 KB of 8 way set associative L2 Data Cache, with over 1/2 TB/s of throughput. With this innovative Core Cluster architecture, the M7 doubles core execution bandwidth. to maximize per-thread performance.  The Chip  Each  M7 chip has 8 sets of these core-clusters. The chip has 64 MB on-chip L3 cache. This L3 caches is shared among all the cores and is partitioned into 8 x 8 MB chunks. Each chunk is  8-way set associative cache. The aggregate bandwidth for the L3 cache on the chip is over 1.6TB/s. Each chip has 4 DDR4 memory controllers and can support upto 16 DDR4 DIMMs, allowing for 2 TB of RAM/chip. The chip also includes 4 internal links of PCIe Gen3 I/O controllers.  Each chip has 7 coherence links, allowing for 8 of these chips to be connected together gluelessly. Also 32 of these chips can be connected in an SMP configuration. A potential system with 32 chips will have 1024 cores and 8192 threads and 64 TB of RAM.  Software in Silicon The M7 chip has many built in Application Accelerators in Silicon. These features will be exposed to our Software partners using the SPARC Accelerator Program.  The M7  has built-in logic to decompress data at the speed of memory access. This means that applications can directly work on compressed data in memory increasing the data access rates. The VA Masking feature allows the use of part of the virtual address to store meta-data.  Realtime Application Data Integrity The Realtime Application Data Integrity feature helps applications safeguard against invalid, stale memory reference and buffer overflows. The first 4-bits if the Pointer can be used to store a version number and this version number is also maintained in the memory & cache lines. When a pointer accesses memory the hardware checks to make sure the two versions match. A SEGV signal is raised when there is a mismatch. This feature can be used by the Database, applications and the OS.  M7 Database In-Memory Query Accelerator The M7 chip also includes a In-Silicon Query Engines.  These accelerate tasks that work on In-Memory Columnar Vectors. Oracle In-Memory options stores data in Column Format. The M7 Query Engine can speed up In-Memory Format Conversion, Value and Range Comparisons and Set Membership lookups. This engine can work on Compressed data - this means not only are we accelerating the query performance but also increasing the memory bandwidth for queries.  SPARC Accelerated Program  At the Hotchips conference we also introduced the SPARC Accelerated Program to provide our partners and third part developers access to all the goodness of the M7's SPARC Application Acceleration features. Please get in touch with us if you are interested in knowing more about this program. 

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• Flash 10.2 RC + Crystal HD for HW accelerated video on Ubuntu

  - by Gee

  I have a netbook with a N450 Atom and a BCM70012 aka Crystal HD card. On Windows 7 I can play HD flash video with very little CPU usage because of the RC of Flash 10.2. I did some reading and saw posts claiming that the Crystal HD card is finally supported by the newer Flash 10.2 RC in Ubuntu but I can't get it to work. I can confirm that flash 10.2 is loaded and used, and there's even a HW acceleration option that is enabled in the settings but performance is horrible. From what I read, the Crystal HD card is supposed to be enabled on 10.10 by default - I don't know if it is. I tried installing drivers for it in various ways but HD flash video is still a slideshow So does anyone have it working? If so, how'd you set it up?

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• 2D OBB collision detection, resolving collisions?

  - by Milo

  I currently use OBBs and I have a vehicle that is a rigid body and some buildings. Here is my update() private void update() { camera.setPosition((vehicle.getPosition().x * camera.getScale()) - ((getWidth() ) / 2.0f), (vehicle.getPosition().y * camera.getScale()) - ((getHeight() ) / 2.0f)); //camera.move(input.getAnalogStick().getStickValueX() * 15.0f, input.getAnalogStick().getStickValueY() * 15.0f); if(input.isPressed(ControlButton.BUTTON_GAS)) { vehicle.setThrottle(1.0f, false); } if(input.isPressed(ControlButton.BUTTON_BRAKE)) { vehicle.setBrakes(1.0f); } vehicle.setSteering(input.getAnalogStick().getStickValueX()); vehicle.update(16.6666f / 1000.0f); ArrayList<Building> buildings = city.getBuildings(); for(Building b : buildings) { if(vehicle.getRect().overlaps(b.getRect())) { vehicle.update(-17.0f / 1000.0f); break; } } } The collision detection works well. What doesn't is how they are dealt with. My goal is simple. If the vehicle hits a building, it should stop, and never go into the building. When I apply negative torque to reverse the car should not feel buggy and move away from the building. I don't want this to look buggy. This is my rigid body class: class RigidBody extends Entity { //linear private Vector2D velocity = new Vector2D(); private Vector2D forces = new Vector2D(); private float mass; //angular private float angularVelocity; private float torque; private float inertia; //graphical private Vector2D halfSize = new Vector2D(); private Bitmap image; public RigidBody() { //set these defaults so we don't get divide by zeros mass = 1.0f; inertia = 1.0f; } //intialize out parameters public void initialize(Vector2D halfSize, float mass, Bitmap bitmap) { //store physical parameters this.halfSize = halfSize; this.mass = mass; image = bitmap; inertia = (1.0f / 20.0f) * (halfSize.x * halfSize.x) * (halfSize.y * halfSize.y) * mass; RectF rect = new RectF(); float scalar = 10.0f; rect.left = (int)-halfSize.x * scalar; rect.top = (int)-halfSize.y * scalar; rect.right = rect.left + (int)(halfSize.x * 2.0f * scalar); rect.bottom = rect.top + (int)(halfSize.y * 2.0f * scalar); setRect(rect); } public void setLocation(Vector2D position, float angle) { getRect().set(position, getWidth(), getHeight(), angle); } public Vector2D getPosition() { return getRect().getCenter(); } @Override public void update(float timeStep) { //integrate physics //linear Vector2D acceleration = Vector2D.scalarDivide(forces, mass); velocity = Vector2D.add(velocity, Vector2D.scalarMultiply(acceleration, timeStep)); Vector2D c = getRect().getCenter(); c = Vector2D.add(getRect().getCenter(), Vector2D.scalarMultiply(velocity , timeStep)); setCenter(c.x, c.y); forces = new Vector2D(0,0); //clear forces //angular float angAcc = torque / inertia; angularVelocity += angAcc * timeStep; setAngle(getAngle() + angularVelocity * timeStep); torque = 0; //clear torque } //take a relative Vector2D and make it a world Vector2D public Vector2D relativeToWorld(Vector2D relative) { Matrix mat = new Matrix(); float[] Vector2Ds = new float[2]; Vector2Ds[0] = relative.x; Vector2Ds[1] = relative.y; mat.postRotate(JMath.radToDeg(getAngle())); mat.mapVectors(Vector2Ds); return new Vector2D(Vector2Ds[0], Vector2Ds[1]); } //take a world Vector2D and make it a relative Vector2D public Vector2D worldToRelative(Vector2D world) { Matrix mat = new Matrix(); float[] Vectors = new float[2]; Vectors[0] = world.x; Vectors[1] = world.y; mat.postRotate(JMath.radToDeg(-getAngle())); mat.mapVectors(Vectors); return new Vector2D(Vectors[0], Vectors[1]); } //velocity of a point on body public Vector2D pointVelocity(Vector2D worldOffset) { Vector2D tangent = new Vector2D(-worldOffset.y, worldOffset.x); return Vector2D.add( Vector2D.scalarMultiply(tangent, angularVelocity) , velocity); } public void applyForce(Vector2D worldForce, Vector2D worldOffset) { //add linear force forces = Vector2D.add(forces ,worldForce); //add associated torque torque += Vector2D.cross(worldOffset, worldForce); } @Override public void draw( GraphicsContext c) { c.drawRotatedScaledBitmap(image, getPosition().x, getPosition().y, getWidth(), getHeight(), getAngle()); } } Essentially, when any rigid body hits a building it should exhibit the same behavior. How is collision solving usually done? Thanks

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• How do I get Flash 10.2 RC + Crystal HD for HW accelerated video to work?

  - by Gee

  I have a netbook with a N450 Atom and a BCM70012 aka Crystal HD card. On Windows 7 I can play HD flash video with very little CPU usage because of the RC of Flash 10.2. I did some reading and saw posts claiming that the Crystal HD card is finally supported by the newer Flash 10.2 RC in Ubuntu but I can't get it to work. I can confirm that flash 10.2 is loaded and used, and there's even a HW acceleration option that is enabled in the settings but performance is horrible. From what I read, the Crystal HD card is supposed to be enabled on 10.10 by default - I don't know if it is. I tried installing drivers for it in various ways but HD flash video is still a slideshow So does anyone have it working? If so, how'd you set it up?

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• Can't install fglrx on Kernel 3.11.0-12

  - by byf-ferdy

  I'm running Ubuntu Gnome 13.10 on a Sony Vaio laptop. I tried to install the newest fglrx driver from the cchtml.com guide but no matter which version I use (13.4 or even 13.9) the installation of the generated .debs fails with this message: Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 3.11.0-12-generic (x86_64) This seems to be a confirmed bug on launchpad. Currently I'm running the Radeon SI driver but I really need some 3D acceleration. What is there I can do to install any version of fglrx correctly or to speed up the bug-fixing-process? How long does the fixing of these bugs usually take?

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