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• bad file descriptor with close() socket (c++)

  - by user321246

  hi everybody! I'm running out of file descriptors when my program can't connect another host. The close() system call doesn't work, the number of open sockets increases. I can se it with cat /proc/sys/fs/file-nr Print from console: connect: No route to host close: Bad file descriptor connect: No route to host close: Bad file descriptor .. Code: #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <sys/socket.h> #include <netinet/in.h> #include <netdb.h> #include <string.h> #include <iostream> using namespace std; #define PORT 1238 #define MESSAGE "Yow!!! Are we having fun yet?!?" #define SERVERHOST "192.168.9.101" void write_to_server (int filedes) { int nbytes; nbytes = write (filedes, MESSAGE, strlen (MESSAGE) + 1); if (nbytes < 0) { perror ("write"); } } void init_sockaddr (struct sockaddr_in *name, const char *hostname, uint16_t port) { struct hostent *hostinfo; name->sin_family = AF_INET; name->sin_port = htons (port); hostinfo = gethostbyname (hostname); if (hostinfo == NULL) { fprintf (stderr, "Unknown host %s.\n", hostname); } name->sin_addr = *(struct in_addr *) hostinfo->h_addr; } int main() { for (;;) { sleep(1); int sock; struct sockaddr_in servername; /* Create the socket. */ sock = socket (PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0); if (sock < 0) { perror ("socket (client)"); } /* Connect to the server. */ init_sockaddr (&servername, SERVERHOST, PORT); if (0 > connect (sock, (struct sockaddr *) &servername, sizeof (servername))) { perror ("connect"); sock = -1; } /* Send data to the server. */ if (sock > -1) write_to_server (sock); if (close (sock) != 0) perror("close"); } return 0; }

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• Get data from aspx.cs page to aspx page.

  - by Brad8118

  So I am using a jquery plug in that allows me to change the order of things in a list by dragging and dropping them. So my goal is to be able to grab a list of my objects (AlertInfo) and using it in a javascript function. I was able to use a json webservice call in a test project to pass the data to the page. But we don't have a webservice page now so I tried to grab it from a aspx.cs page and it hasn't worked. ///Aspx page: $.ajax({ type: "POST", url: "~/Alerts/GetAlerts", data: "{}", contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8", dataType: "json", success: function (msg) { var data = eval("(" + msg.d + ")"); jQuery.each(data, function (rec) { AlertList[AlertList.length] = new objAlert(this.id, this.title, this.details, JSONDateSerializationFix(this.startdate), JSONDateSerializationFix(this.enddate)); UpdateDisplayList(); }) }, error: function (msg) { alert("BRAD" + msg); } The issue is that the Alerts page in "URL /Alerts/GetAlerts" is Alerts.aspx.cs. I can't figure out if I can use this ajax command to call a method in a aspx.cs page. //Code behind page aspx.cs [WebMethod] //[ScriptMethod(ResponseFormat = ResponseFormat.Json)] public string GetAlerts() { List list = AlertInfo.GetTestAlerts(); return new JavaScriptSerializer().Serialize(list); } public List GetAlertsList() { List list = AlertInfo.GetTestAlerts(); return list; ; } So I was hoping that I could load data into an asp control (dataList) and then grab the data //code behind page protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { dataListAlertList.DataSource = GetAlertsList(); dataListAlertList.DataBind(); } public static List<AlertInfo> GetTestAlerts() { List<AlertInfo> list = new List<AlertInfo>(); list.Add(new AlertInfo("0", "Alert 1 Title", "Alert 1 Detail", "10/10/2010", "10/10/2011")); list.Add(new AlertInfo("1", "Alert 2 Title", "Alert 2 Detail", "10/10/2010", "10/10/2011")); return list; } //.aspx page $(document).ready(function () { var a1 = $("#dataListAlertList").val(); // do fun stuff now. } But I keep getting undefined....

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• urgent..haskell mini interpreter

  - by mohamed elshikh

  i'm asked to implement this project and i have problems in part b which is the eval function this is the full describtion of the project You are required to implement an interpreter for mini-Haskell language. An interpreter is dened in Wikipedia as a computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language. The interpreter should be able to evaluate functions written in a special notation, which you will dene. A function is dened by: Function name Input Parameters : dened as a list of variables. The body of the function. The body of the function can be any of the following statements: a) Variable: The function may return any of the input variables. b) Arithmetic Expressions: The arithmetic expressions include input variables and addition, sub- traction, multiplication, division and modulus operations on arithmetic expressions. c) Boolean Expressions: The Boolean expressions include the ordering of arithmetic expressions (applying the relationships: <, =<, , = or =) and the anding, oring and negation of Boolean expressions. d) If-then-else statements: where the if keyword is followed by a Boolean expression. The then and else parts may be followed by any of the statements described here. e) Guarded expressions: where each case consists of a boolean expression and any of the statements described here. The expression consists of any number of cases. The rst case whose condition is true, its body should be evaluated. The guarded expression has to terminate with an otherwise case. f) Function calls: the body of the function may have a call to another function. Note that all inputs passed to the function will be of type Int. The output of the function can be of type Int or Bool. To implement the interpreter, you are required to implement the following: a) Dene a datatype for the following expressions: Variables Arithmetic expressions Boolean expressions If-then-else statements Guarded expressions Functions b) Implement the function eval which evaluates a function. It takes 3 inputs: The name of a function to be evaluated represented as a string. A list of inputs to that function. The arguments will always be of datatype Int. A list of functions. Each function is represented as instance of the datatype that you have created for functions. c) Implement the function get_type that returns the type of the function (as a string). The input to this function is the same as in part b. here is what i've done data Variable = v(char) data Arth= va Variable | Add Arth Arth | Sub Arth Arth | Times Arth Arth | Divide Arth Arth data Bol= Great Arth Arth | Small Arth Arth | Geq Arth Arth | Seq Arth Arth | And Bol Bol | Or Bol Bol | Neg Bol data Cond = data Guard = data Fun =cons String [Variable] Body data Body= bodycons(String) |Bol |Cond |Guard |Arth

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• Simple RSA encryption (Java)

  - by jake blue

  This is simply for fun. This will not be used for any actual encryption. I'm only first year comp sci student and love cryptography. This took a long time to get working. At approximately N = 18, it begins breaking down. It won't encrypt messages properly after that point. I'm not sure why. Any insights? I'd also appreciate any links you could provide me to tutorials or interesting reading about Cryptography. import java.math.BigInteger; import java.security.SecureRandom; /** * Cryptography. * * Generates public and private keys used in encryption and * decryption * */ public class RSA { private final static BigInteger one = new BigInteger("1"); private final static SecureRandom random = new SecureRandom(); // prime numbers private BigInteger p; private BigInteger q; // modulus private BigInteger n; // totient private BigInteger t; // public key private BigInteger e; // private key private BigInteger d; private String cipherText; /** * Constructor for objects of class RSA */ public RSA(int N) { p = BigInteger.probablePrime(N/2, random); q = BigInteger.probablePrime(N/2, random); // initialising modulus n = p.multiply(q); // initialising t by euclid's totient function (p-1)(q-1) t = (p.subtract(one)).multiply(q.subtract(one)); // initialising public key ~ 65537 is common public key e = new BigInteger("65537"); } public int generatePrivateKey() { d = e.modInverse(t); return d.intValue(); } public String encrypt(String plainText) { String encrypted = ""; int j = 0; for(int i = 0; i < plainText.length(); i++){ char m = plainText.charAt(i); BigInteger bi1 = BigInteger.valueOf(m); BigInteger bi2 = bi1.modPow(e, n); j = bi2.intValue(); m = (char) j; encrypted += m; } cipherText = encrypted; return encrypted; } public String decrypt() { String decrypted = ""; int j = 0; for(int i = 0; i < cipherText.length(); i++){ char c = cipherText.charAt(i); BigInteger bi1 = BigInteger.valueOf(c); BigInteger bi2 = bi1.modPow(d, n); j = bi2.intValue(); c = (char) j; decrypted += c; } return decrypted; } }

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• Database schema for simple stats project

  - by Bubnoff

  Backdrop: I have a file hierarchy of cvs files for multiple locations named by dates they cover ...by month specifically. Each cvs file in the folder is named after the location. eg', folder name: 2010-feb contains: location1.csv location2.csv Each CSV file holds records like this: 2010-06-28, 20:30:00 , 0 2010-06-29, 08:30:00 , 0 2010-06-29, 09:30:00 , 0 2010-06-29, 10:30:00 , 0 2010-06-29, 11:30:00 , 0 meaning of record columns ( column names ): Date, time, # of sessions I have a perl script that pulls the data from this mess and originally I was going to store it as json files, but am thinking a database might be more appropriate long term ...comparing year to year trends ...fun stuff like that. Pt 2 - My question/problem: So I now have a REST service that coughs up json with a test database. My question is [ I suck at db design ], how best to design a database backend for this? I am thinking the following tables would suffice and keep it simple: Location: (PK)location_code, name session: (PK)id, (FK)location_code, month, hour, num_sessions I need to be able to average sessions (plus min and max) for each hour across days of week in addition to days of week in a given month or months. I've been using perl hashes to do this and am trying to decide how best to implement this with a database. Do you think stored procedures should be used? As to the database, depending on info gathered here, it will be postgresql or sqlite. If there is no compelling reason for postgresql I'll stick with sqlite. How and where should I compare the data to hours of operation. I am storing the hours of operation in a yaml file. I currently 'match' the hour in the data to a hash from the yaml to do this. Would a database open simpler methods? I am thinking I would do this comparison as I do now then insert the data. Can be recalled with: SELECT hour, num_sessions FROM session WHERE location_code=LOC1 Since only hours of operation are present, I do not need to worry about it. Should I calculate all results as I do now then store as a stats table for different 'reports'? This, rather than processing on demand? How would this look? Anyway ...I ramble. Thanks for reading! Bubnoff

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• Translate parse_git_branch function to zsh from bash (for prompt)

  - by yar

  I am using this function in Bash function parse_git_branch { git_status="$(git status 2> /dev/null)" pattern="^# On branch ([^${IFS}]*)" if [[ ! ${git_status}} =~ "working directory clean" ]]; then state="*" fi # add an else if or two here if you want to get more specific if [[ ${git_status} =~ ${pattern} ]]; then branch=${BASH_REMATCH[1]} echo "(${branch}${state})" fi } but I'm determined to use zsh. While I can use this perfectly as a shell script (even without a shebang) in my .zshrc the error is a parse error on this line if [[ ! ${git_status}}... What do I need to do to get it ready for zshell? Edit: The "actual error" I'm getting is " parse error near } and it refers to the line with the strange double }}, which works on Bash. Edit: Here's the final code, just for fun: parse_git_branch() { git_status="$(git status 2> /dev/null)" pattern="^# On branch ([^[:space:]]*)" if [[ ! ${git_status} =~ "working directory clean" ]]; then state="*" fi if [[ ${git_status} =~ ${pattern} ]]; then branch=${match[1]} echo "(${branch}${state})" fi } setopt PROMPT_SUBST PROMPT='$PR_GREEN%n@$PR_GREEN%m%u$PR_NO_COLOR:$PR_BLUE%2c$PR_NO_COLOR%(!.#.$)' RPROMPT='$PR_GREEN$(parse_git_branch)$PR_NO_COLOR' Thanks to everybody for your patience and help. Edit: The best answer has schooled us all: git status is porcelain (UI). Good scripting goes against GIT plumbing. Here's the final function: parse_git_branch() { in_wd="$(git rev-parse --is-inside-work-tree 2>/dev/null)" || return test "$in_wd" = true || return state='' git diff-index HEAD --quiet 2>/dev/null || state='*' branch="$(git symbolic-ref HEAD 2>/dev/null)" test -z "$branch" && branch='<detached-HEAD>' echo "(${branch#refs/heads/}${state})" } PROMPT='$PR_GREEN%n@$PR_GREEN%m%u$PR_NO_COLOR:$PR_BLUE%2c$PR_NO_COLOR%(!.#.$)' RPROMPT='$PR_GREEN$(parse_git_branch)$PR_NO_COLOR' Note that only the prompt is zsh-specific. In Bash it would be your prompt plus "\$(parse_git_branch)". This might be slower (more calls to GIT, but that's an empirical question) but it won't be broken by changes in GIT (they don't change the plumbing). And that is very important for a good script moving forward. Days Later: Ugh, it turns out that diff-index HEAD is NOT the same as checking status against working directory clean. So will this mean another plumbing call? I surely don't have time/expertise to write my own porcelain....

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• How should I ethically approach user password storage for later plaintext retrieval?

  - by Shane

  As I continue to build more and more websites and web applications I am often asked to store user's passwords in a way that they can be retrieved if/when the user has an issue (either to email a forgotten password link, walk them through over the phone, etc.) When I can I fight bitterly against this practice and I do a lot of ‘extra’ programming to make password resets and administrative assistance possible without storing their actual password. When I can’t fight it (or can’t win) then I always encode the password in some way so that it at least isn’t stored as plaintext in the database—though I am aware that if my DB gets hacked that it won’t take much for the culprit to crack the passwords as well—so that makes me uncomfortable. In a perfect world folks would update passwords frequently and not duplicate them across many different sites—unfortunately I know MANY people that have the same work/home/email/bank password, and have even freely given it to me when they need assistance. I don’t want to be the one responsible for their financial demise if my DB security procedures fail for some reason. Morally and ethically I feel responsible for protecting what can be, for some users, their livelihood even if they are treating it with much less respect. I am certain that there are many avenues to approach and arguments to be made for salting hashes and different encoding options, but is there a single ‘best practice’ when you have to store them? In almost all cases I am using PHP and MySQL if that makes any difference in the way I should handle the specifics. Additional Information for Bounty I want to clarify that I know this is not something you want to have to do and that in most cases refusal to do so is best. I am, however, not looking for a lecture on the merits of taking this approach I am looking for the best steps to take if you do take this approach. In a note below I made the point that websites geared largely toward the elderly, mentally challenged, or very young can become confusing for people when they are asked to perform a secure password recovery routine. Though we may find it simple and mundane in those cases some users need the extra assistance of either having a service tech help them into the system or having it emailed/displayed directly to them. In such systems the attrition rate from these demographics could hobble the application if users were not given this level of access assistance, so please answer with such a setup in mind. Thanks to Everyone This has been a fun questions with lots of debate and I have enjoyed it. In the end I selected an answer that both retains password security (I will not have to keep plain text or recoverable passwords), but also makes it possible for the user base I specified to log into a system without the major drawbacks I have found from normal password recovery. As always there were about 5 answers that I would like to have marked correct for different reasons, but I had to choose the best one--all the rest got a +1. Thanks everyone!

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• PHP, MySQL - My own version of SALT (I call salty) - Login Issue

  - by Fabio Anselmo

  Ok I wrote my own version of SALT I call it salty lol don't make fun of me.. Anyway the registration part of my script as follows is working 100% correctly. //generate SALTY my own version of SALT and I likes me salt.. lol function rand_string( $length ) { $chars = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuwxyz1234567890"; $size = strlen( $chars ); for( $i = 0; $i < $length; $i++ ) { $str .= $chars[ rand( 0, $size - 1 ) ]; } return $str; } $salty = rand_string( 256 ); //generate my extra salty pw $password = crypt('password'); $hash = $password . $salty; $newpass = $hash; //insert the data in the database include ('../../scripts/dbconnect.php'); //Update db record with my salty pw ;) // TESTED WITH AND WITHOUT SALTY //HENCE $password and $newpass mysql_query("UPDATE `Register` SET `Password` = '$password' WHERE `emailinput` = '$email'"); mysql_close($connect); However my LOGIN script is failing. I have it setup to TEST and echo if its login or not. It always returns FAILED. I entered the DB and changed the crypted salty pw to "TEST" and I got a SUCCESS. So my problem is somewhere in this LOGIN script I assume. Now I am not sure how to implement my $Salty in this. But also be advised that even without SALTY (just using crypt to store my pass) - I was still unable to perform a login successfully. And if you're gonna suggest i use blowfish - note that my webhost doesn't have it supported and i don't know how to install it. here's my login script: if (isset($_POST['formsubmitted'])) { include ('../../scripts/dbconnect.php'); $username = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['username']); $password = crypt(mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['password'])); $qry = "SELECT ID FROM Register WHERE emailinput='$username' AND Password='$password'"; $result = mysql_query($qry); if(mysql_num_rows($result) > 0) { echo 'SUCCESS'; //START SESSION } else { echo 'FAILED'; //YOU ARE NOT LOGGED IN } } So what's wrong with this login? Why isn't it working just using the crypt/storing only crypt? How can i make it work storing both the crypt and randomly generated SALTY :) ? Ty advance

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• c++ multithread array

  - by user1731972

  i'm doing something for fun, trying to learn multithreading Problems passing array by reference to threads but Arno pointed out that my threading via process.h wasn't going to be multi-threaded. What I'm hoping to do is something where I have an array of 100 (or 10,000, doesn't really matter I don't think), and split up the assignment of values to each thread. Example, 4 threads = 250 values per thread to be assigned. Then I can use this filled array for further calculations. Here's some code I was working on (which doesn't work) #include <process.h> #include <windows.h> #include <iostream> #include <fstream> #include <time.h> //#include <thread> using namespace std; void myThread (void *dummy ); CRITICAL_SECTION cs1,cs2; // global int main() { ofstream myfile; myfile.open ("coinToss.csv"); int rNum; long numRuns; long count = 0; int divisor = 1; float holder = 0; int counter = 0; float percent = 0.0; HANDLE hThread[1000]; int array[10000]; srand ( time(NULL) ); printf ("Runs (use multiple of 10)? "); cin >> numRuns; for (int i = 0; i < numRuns; i++) { //_beginthread( myThread, 0, (void *) (array1) ); //??? //hThread[i * 2] = _beginthread( myThread, 0, (void *) (array1) ); hThread[i*2] = _beginthread( myThread, 0, (void *) (array) ); } //WaitForMultipleObjects(numRuns * 2, hThread, TRUE, INFINITE); WaitForMultipleObjects(numRuns, hThread, TRUE, INFINITE); } void myThread (void *param ) { //thanks goes to stockoverflow //http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12801862/problems-passing-array-by-reference-to-threads int *i = (int *)param; for (int x = 0; x < 1000000; x++) { //param[x] = rand() % 2 + 1; i[x] = rand() % 2 + 1; } } Can anyone explain why it isn't working?

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• How to capture child links clicked using jquery?

  - by user244394

  I am trying to capture the event when a child element link is clicked and add class called "highlightchild" to it. Also I want to check if there are any child element link exist or not, if no child element exits ie "third level" highlight with "highlightparent" the parent. How can I do that using jquery? $(document).ready(function() { $('.menu ul').hide(); $('.menu .arrowUp').click(function() { $('.menu ul').hide(); $(this).find(".third-level").toggle(); }); }); html <ul class="menu"> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="#">link1</a> <ul class="third-level" > <!-- third level non-active --> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="/somelink/">Some Link</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="#">link2</a> <ul class="third-level" > <!-- third level non-active --> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="/links2/">some Links 2</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="#">link3</a> <ul class="third-level" > <!-- third level non-active --> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="/Agri/">Agricultural</a></li> <!-- third level non-active --> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="/sugar/">Sugar</a></li> <!-- third level non-active --> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="/bbc/">Coffee</a></li> <!-- third level non-active --> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="/cnn/">Energy</a></li> <!-- third level non-active --> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="funstuff">Fun stuff</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="#">link4</a></li> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="#">link5</a></li> <li class="arrowUp"><a href="#">link6</a></li> </ul>

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• How can I represent a line of music notes in a way that allows fast insertion at any index?

  - by chairbender

  For "fun", and to learn functional programming, I'm developing a program in Clojure that does algorithmic composition using ideas from this theory of music called "Westergaardian Theory". It generates lines of music (where a line is just a single staff consisting of a sequence of notes, each with pitches and durations). It basically works like this: Start with a line consisting of three notes (the specifics of how these are chosen are not important). Randomly perform one of several "operations" on this line. The operation picks randomly from all pairs of adjacent notes that meet a certain criteria (for each pair, the criteria only depends on the pair and is independent of the other notes in the line). It inserts 1 or several notes (depending on the operation) between the chosen pair. Each operation has its own unique criteria. Continue randomly performing these operations on the line until the line is the desired length. The issue I've run into is that my implementation of this is quite slow, and I suspect it could be made faster. I'm new to Clojure and functional programming in general (though I'm experienced with OO), so I'm hoping someone with more experience can point out if I'm not thinking in a functional paradigm or missing out on some FP technique. My current implementation is that each line is a vector containing maps. Each map has a :note and a :dur. :note's value is a keyword representing a musical note like :A4 or :C#3. :dur's value is a fraction, representing the duration of the note (1 is a whole note, 1/4 is a quarter note, etc...). So, for example, a line representing the C major scale starting on C3 would look like this: [ {:note :C3 :dur 1} {:note :D3 :dur 1} {:note :E3 :dur 1} {:note :F3 :dur 1} {:note :G3 :dur 1} {:note :A4 :dur 1} {:note :B4 :dur 1} ] This is a problematic representation because there's not really a quick way to insert into an arbitrary index of a vector. But insertion is the most frequently performed operation on these lines. My current terrible function for inserting notes into a line basically splits the vector using subvec at the point of insertion, uses conj to join the first part + notes + last part, then uses flatten and vec to make them all be in a one-dimensional vector. For example if I want to insert C3 and D3 into the the C major scale at index 3 (where the F3 is), it would do this (I'll use the note name in place of the :note and :dur maps): (conj [C3 D3 E3] [C3 D3] [F3 G3 A4 B4]), which creates [C3 D3 E3 [C3 D3] [F3 G3 A4 B4]] (vec (flatten previous-vector)) which gives [C3 D3 E3 C3 D3 F3 G3 A4 B4] The run time of that is O(n), AFAIK. I'm looking for a way to make this insertion faster. I've searched for information on Clojure data structures that have fast insertion but haven't found anything that would work. I found "finger trees" but they only allow fast insertion at the start or end of the list. Edit: I split this into two questions. The other part is here.

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• Ubuntu 10.10 Ad-Hoc Setup (from Wireless Router, to Ubuntu Server/Desktop to Wireless Router)

  - by user60375

  Okay, so I know there are different approaches for this, but I will explain my story briefly before getting to the technical stuff. My fiancée and I are going through some financial issues (as I assume a lot of us are). We ended up having to move from our house and stay with some friends/family for 6 months, just to get ourselves caught up. (Medical bills, among other issues,etc). So this is where it gets fun. At our friends house, we are staying in the loft setup which is not near the cable modem and wireless router. I have a "hand-crafted" media center running XBMC, an Ubuntu 10.10 Server/Desktop (multi-purpose, very powerful and tons drive space), two working laptops, a between the two of us we have multiple wireless devices/phones. Now our friends Wireless router doesn't have any options for assigning IP addresses, but my router does. My current setup is: Friends Cable Modem -- Friend's Wireless Router -- Ubuntu 10.10 Server -- My Wireless Router (local-link from Friend's wireless (incoming) to sharing connection on ETH0 (outgoing)) -- to all devices. (Wireless Modem, Ubuntu Server that share's it's wireless incoming connection to the ethernet port my Wireless router share's with the rest of the devices). I setup my router to use default settings from my friend's router, using Google's DNS on my router (disabled DNS setup on Ubuntu Server), everything is assigned nicely and runs smooth. My Ubuntu server was given the address 10.42.43.1 (assuming standard from Network-Manager). (On the Ubuntu machine that shares to my wireless router; I have some server apps installed, but mainly just use Samba/NFS/Tangerine action. My problem/goal is that every device has no problem of accessing the internet from my router, the media-center has an assigned ip address, all services from all devices (ZeroConf, Avanhi, Bonjour, GIT, SSH, FTP, Apache2, etc) all work correctly except from my Ubuntu Server (which serves the wireless connection to ETH0 to another Wireless Router). The Ubuntu 10.10 Server/Desktop is not broadcasting anything (the Zeroconf Service Discovery 0.4 Gnome Applet shows the services from the Ubuntu server but no other computers can see them). I can access it from my Media-Center (Running Xbuntu 10.04) if I direct it to 10.42.43.1, no problem. But I cannot access Tangerine (Daapd) and the Samba shares do not show up on any computers for 10.42.43.1 (not in the WORKGROUP which Samba is setup simple and default but I can direct computers to that address and the shares will add except on a damn Windows 7 parition). Is this an issue with how I have my router setup and possible the gateway? An issue with Network-Manager? And issue with my Ubuntu Server/Desktop? I know there is a lot to that, but it's simpler than I probably have explained? Any help would be appreciated. If you need more details, I can provide them. If there is a better way of my attempting this home-network, please let me know. Thanks in advance for the help.

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• creating a heirarchy of terminals or workspaces

  - by intuited

  <rant This question occurred to me ('occurred' meaning 'whispered seductively in my ear for the 100th time') while using GNU-screen, so I'll make that my example. However this is a much more general question about user interfaces and what I perceive as a flawmissing feature in every implementation I've yet seen. I'm wondering if there is some way to create a heirarchy/tree of terminals in a screen session. EG I'd like to have something like 1 bash 1.1 bash 1.2 bash 2 bash 3 bash 3.1 bash 3.1.1 bash 3.1.2 bash It would be good if the terminals could be labelled instead of having to be navigated to via some arrangement that I suspect doesn't exist. So then you could jump to one using eg ^A:goto happydays or ^A:goto dykstra.angry. So to generalize that: Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, gnome-terminal, roxterm, konsole, yakuake, OpenOffice, Microsoft Office, Mr. Snuffaluppagus's Funtime Carousel™, and Your Mom's Jam Browser™ all offer the ability to create a flat set of tabs containing documents of an identical nature: web pages, terminals, documents, fun rideable animals, and jams. GNU-screen implements the same functionality without using tabs. Linux and OS/X window managers provide the ability to organize windows into an array of workspaces, which amounts to again, the same deal. Over the past few years, this has become a more or less ubiquitous concept which has been righteously welcomed into the far reaches of the computer interface funfest. Heavy users of these systems quickly encounter a problem with it: the set of entities is flat. In the case of workspaces, an option may be available to create a 2d array. However none of these applications furnish their users with the ability to create heirarchies, similar to filesystem directory structures, containing instances of their particular contained type. I for one am consistently bothered by this, and am wondering if the community can offer some wisdom as to why this has not happened in any of the foremost collections of computational functionality our culture has yet produced. Or if perhaps it has and I'm just an ignorant savage. I'd like to be able to not only group things into a tree structure, but also to create references (aka symbolic links, aka pointers) from one part of the structure to another, as well as apply properties (eg default directory, colorscheme, ...) recursively downward from a given node. I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to save these structures as known sessions, and apply tags to particular instances. So then you can sort through them by tag, find them by name, or just use the arrow keys (with an appropriate modifier) to move left or right and in or out of a given level. Another key combo would serve to create a branch in the place of the current terminal/webpage/lifelike statue/spreadsheet/spreadsheet sheet/presentation/jam and move that entity into the new branch, then create a fresh one as a sibling to it: a second leaf node within the same branch node. They would get along well. I find it a bit astonishing that this hasn't happened yet, and the only reason I can venture as a guess is that the creators of these fine systems do not consider such functionality to be useful to a significant portion of their userbase. I posit that the probability that that such an assumption would be correct is pretty low. On the other hand, given the relative ease with which such structures can be implemented using modern libraries/languages, it doesn't seem likely that difficulty of implementation would be a major roadblock. If it could be done in 1972 or whenever within the constraints of a filesystem driver, it should be relatively painless to implement in 2010 in a fullblown application. Given that all of these systems are capable of maintaining a set of equivalent entities, it seems unlikely that a major infrastructure overhaul would be necessary in order to enable a navigable heirarchy of them. </rant Mostly I'm just looking to start up a discussion and/or brainstorming on this topic. Any ideas, examples, criticism, or analysis are quite welcome. * Mr. Snuffaluppagus's Funtime Carousel is a registered trademark of Children's Television Workshop Inc. * Your Mom's Jam Browser is a registered trademark of Your Mom Inc.

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• simple and reliable centralized logging inside Amazon VPC

  - by Nakedible

  I need to set up centralized logging for a set of servers (10-20) in an Amazon VPC. The logging should be as to not lose any log messages in case any single server goes offline - or in the case that an entire availability zone goes offline. It should also tolerate packet loss and other normal network conditions without losing or duplicating messages. It should store the messages durably, at the minimum on two different EBS volumes in two availability zones, but S3 is a good place as well. It should also be realtime so that the messages arrive within seconds of their generation to two different availability zones. I also need to sync logfiles not generated via syslog, so a syslog-only centralized logging solution would not fulfill all the needs, although I guess that limitation could be worked around. I have already reviewed a few solutions, and I will list them here: Flume to Flume to S3: I could set up two logservers as Flume hosts which would store log messages either locally or in S3, and configure all the servers with Flume to send all messages to both servers, using the end-to-end reliability options. That way the loss of a single server shouldn't cause lost messages and all messages would arrive in two availability zones in realtime. However, there would need to be some way to join the logs of the two servers, deduplicating all the messages delivered to both. This could be done by adding a unique id on the sending side to each message and then write some manual deduplication runs on the logfiles. I haven't found an easy solution to the duplication problem. Logstash to Logstash to ElasticSearch: I could install Logstash on the servers and have them deliver to a central server via AMQP, with the durability options turned on. However, for this to work I would need to use some of the clustering capable AMQP implementations, or fan out the deliver just as in the Flume case. AMQP seems to be a yet another moving part with several implementations and no real guidance on what works best this sort of setup. And I'm not entirely convinced that I could get actual end-to-end durability from logstash to elasticsearch, assuming crashing servers in between. The fan-out solutions run in to the deduplication problem again. The best solution that would seem to handle all the cases, would be Beetle, which seems to provide high availability and deduplication via a redis store. However, I haven't seen any guidance on how to set this up with Logstash and Redis is one more moving part again for something that shouldn't be terribly difficult. Logstash to ElasticSearch: I could run Logstash on all the servers, have all the filtering and processing rules in the servers themselves and just have them log directly to a removet ElasticSearch server. I think this should bring me reliable logging and I can use the ElasticSearch clustering features to share the database transparently. However, I am not sure if the setup actually survives Logstash restarts and intermittent network problems without duplicating messages in a failover case or similar. But this approach sounds pretty promising. rsync: I could just rsync all the relevant log files to two different servers. The reliability aspect should be perfect here, as the files should be identical to the source files after a sync is done. However, doing an rsync several times per second doesn't sound fun. Also, I need the logs to be untamperable after they have been sent, so the rsyncs would need to be in append-only mode. And log rotations mess things up unless I'm careful. rsyslog with RELP: I could set up rsyslog to send messages to two remote hosts via RELP and have a local queue to store the messages. There is the deduplication problem again, and RELP itself might also duplicate some messages. However, this would only handle the things that log via syslog. None of these solutions seem terribly good, and they have many unknowns still, so I am asking for more information here from people who have set up centralized reliable logging as to what are the best tools to achieve that goal.

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• synchronization of file locations between two machines

  - by intuited

  Although similar threads have been asked on this site and its siblings before, I've not managed to glean the answer to this persistent question. Any help is much appreciated. The situation: I've got two laptops; both contain a ton of music. Sometimes I move these music files to different locations, or change the metadata in them, or convert them to a different format. I might do any of these things on either machine. I rarely do all of them at once — ie it's unlikely that I'll convert a file's format and move it to a different location all in one go. I'd like to be able to synchronize these changes without having to sift through everything that was renamed or moved. I'm familiar with rsync but I find it inadequate, because although it can compute checksums, it doesn't have any way to store them. So if a file differs, it can't figure out which side it changed on. This also means that it can't attempt to match a missing file to a new one with the same checksum (ie a move) if the filesize and date are the same, it , so it takes an epoch to do a sync on a large repository. I would like to only check the checksum if the files even if you turn on checksumming, it still doesn't use it intelligently: ie it checksums files even if the sizes differ. IIRC. it's not able to use file metadata as a means of file comparison. this is sort of a wishlist item but it seems doable. I've also looked into rsnapshot, but its requirement to create a full backup is impractical in this situation. I don't need a backup, I just need a record of what file with each hash was where when. Unison seems like it might be able to do something vaguely along these lines, but I'm loathe to spend hours wading through its details only to discover that it's sadly lacking. Plus, it's fun asking questions on here. What I'd like is a tool that does something along these lines: keeps track of file checksums or of actual renames, possibly using inotify to greatly reduce resource consumption/latency stores a database containing this info, along with other pertinencies like the file format and metadata, the actual inode, the filename history, etc. uses this info to provide more-intelligent synchronization with a counterpart on the other side. So for example: if a file has been converted from flac to ogg, but kept the same base filename, or the same metadata, it should be able to send the new version over, and the other side should delete the original. Probably it should actually sequester it somewhere in case they or you screwed up, but that's a detail. And then when the transaction is done, the state is logged so that the next time the two interact they can work out their differences. Maybe all this metadata stuff is a fancy pipe dream. I would actually be pretty happy if there was something out there that could just use checksums in an intelligent way. This would be sort of like having the intelligence of something like git, minus the need to duplicate data in an index/backup/etc (and branching, and checkouts, and all the other great stuff that RCSs do. basically just fast forward commit pushes are all I want, with maybe the option to roll back.) So is there something out there that can do this? If not, can someone suggest a good way to start making it?

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• What NAS setup for two-way syncing over the internet?

  - by Jamse

  I have family living a few hours away and have a lot of files that I would like to share - especially lots of folders of digital photos, but also documents etc. - partially so they can see them, partially so I can have access when I visit them and partially for backup / redundancy purposes. My current hard drives on my main machine are getting pretty full anyway, and I have a MythTV box where my music is currently stored, so I was thinking of getting a NAS anyway. And at the other end my family have a few computers, so they would probably benefit from a NAS too. My general idea (though I'm willing to shift on this if there are any bright ideas about other ways of achieving my objectives) is to get a matching pair of NASs and have them sync over the internet. (To cut down on bandwidth use I would get them in sync locally to start with.) Having read around as best I can it seems that syncing over the internet is generally only a feature on quite high end units. However, I have seen that QNAP seem to feature this on their TS-110 and TS-210 units, which might work (they call it "remote replication"). They seem pretty reasonably priced for what they are, but of course with buying 2 of them and then adding the drives (say 1TB or 2TB each) I'd be looking at about £400 total. So, I'm looking for recommendations really. I don't want to spend more than the QNAPs would cost me, but any other ideas would be most appreciated. I am comfortable with technology and tinkering around, but I don't have as much time for that as I would like, so I guess I would favour solutions that require less tinkering rather than more (even though that's less fun!). Any thoughts would be welcome, as would any comments from people who have used the QNAP boxes for this. Thanks in advance. Some specifications: Two-way syncing. Changes made at either end should be synced to the other. There shouldn't be one unit that is effectively a read-only mirror of the other. Not real time. The syncing doesn't need to be real time - if it updated, say, daily overnight that would be fine. Set and forget. I would prefer minimal user interaction once set up - it would be great if syncs were scheduled and automatic. OS independence. I am running Windows XP plus an Ubuntu-based MythTV box. At the other end there are Windows 7 and Windows XP machines, plus a networked TV set top box which I think can play files off the network. Machine independence. I would favour a system that is self-contained, i.e. not reliant on any particular PC being switched on. If the system had enough else going for it I could perhaps work around it at this end, where I only have one PC that's used as such, but it would be harder at the other where there are at least two PCs that might be accessing the files. Notifications. I guess things like getting an email notification if the syncing fell over for any reason would be useful, though it's not a deal breaker. Update I've been digging some more and it looks like QNAP's Remote Replication function is actually just Rsync, so only really suitable for one-way syncing. I've posted on their forum to double check, but I think that's the case. In which case, I think the focus of my question is now either: do any reasonably-priced NASs support bidirectional syncing over the internet?, or has anyone had any luck installing onto NASs for this purpose? (Also, updated question to clarify that I'm after two-way syncing.)

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• What NAS setup for syncing over the internet?

  - by Jamse

  I have family living a few hours away and have a lot of files that I would like to share - especially lots of folders of digital photos, but also documents etc. - partially so they can see them, partially so I can have access when I visit them and partially for backup / redundancy purposes. My current hard drives on my main machine are getting pretty full anyway, and I have a MythTV box where my music is currently stored, so I was thinking of getting a NAS anyway. And at the other end my family have a few computers, so they would probably benefit from a NAS too. My general idea (though I'm willing to shift on this if there are any bright ideas about other ways of achieving my objectives) is to get a matching pair of NASs and have them sync over the internet. (To cut down on bandwidth use I would get them in sync locally to start with.) Having read around as best I can it seems that syncing over the internet is generally only a feature on quite high end units. However, I have seen that QNAP seem to feature this on their TS-110 and TS-210 units, which might work (they call it "remote replication"). They seem pretty reasonably priced for what they are, but of course with buying 2 of them and then adding the drives (say 1TB or 2TB each) I'd be looking at about £400 total. So, I'm looking for recommendations really. I don't want to spend more than the QNAPs would cost me, but any other ideas would be most appreciated. I am comfortable with technology and tinkering around, but I don't have as much time for that as I would like, so I guess I would favour solutions that require less tinkering rather than more (even though that's less fun!). Any thoughts would be welcome, as would any comments from people who have used the QNAP boxes for this. Thanks in advance. Some specifications: Two-way syncing. Changes made at either end should be synced to the other. There shouldn't be one unit that is effectively a read-only mirror of the other. Not real time. The syncing doesn't need to be real time - if it updated, say, daily overnight that would be fine. Set and forget. I would prefer minimal user interaction once set up - it would be great if syncs were scheduled and automatic. OS independence. I am running Windows XP plus an Ubuntu-based MythTV box. At the other end there are Windows 7 and Windows XP machines, plus a networked TV set top box which I think can play files off the network. Machine independence. I would favour a system that is self-contained, i.e. not reliant on any particular PC being switched on. If the system had enough else going for it I could perhaps work around it at this end, where I only have one PC that's used as such, but it would be harder at the other where there are at least two PCs that might be accessing the files. Notifications. I guess things like getting an email notification if the syncing fell over for any reason would be useful, though it's not a deal breaker.

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• Week in Geek: USDA Chooses Microsoft for Cloud Services Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to create geeky LED holiday lights with old bottles, dig deeper in Windows Defrag via the command prompt, use Google Chrome’s drag/drop feature to upload files easier, find great gift recommendations by looking through the How-To Geek holiday gift guide, and have fun adding Merry Christmas fonts to our computers. Photo by ntr23. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week, so we have extra news link goodness with information that is good for you to know. USDA making the move to Microsoft The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it has chosen Microsoft to host things like e-mail, instant messaging, and collaboration through the software giant’s Business Productivity Online Suite. Google says it was cut off from USDA project bid Google is claiming that it was not given a chance to bid on a cloud-computing project for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for which the contract was awarded to rival Microsoft. Apache is being forced into a Java Fork When Oracle rolled over Apache and Google’s objections to its Java plans in December, the scene was set for Apache to leave and, eventually, force a Java code fork. Tumblr explains daylong outage After experiencing an outage that started on Sunday afternoon and stretched through most of the day yesterday, Tumblr has explained what happened. Google demos Chrome OS, launches pilot program During a press briefing this week in San Francisco, Google launched the Chrome application store and demonstrated Chrome OS, its browser-centric netbook operating system. Don’t expect Spotify in U.S. this holiday season As of last week, Spotify had yet to sign a single licensing deal with a major label, after spending more than a year negotiating, multiple music sources told CNET. December 2010 Patch Tuesday will come with most bulletins ever According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue 17 Security Bulletins addressing 40 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, December 14. It will also host a webcast to address customer questions the following day. Hacker plants back door in Symbian firmware Indian hacker Atul Alex has had a look at the firmware for Symbian S60 smartphones and come up with a back door for it. PC quarantines raise tough complexities The concept of quarantining PCs to prevent widespread infection is “interesting, but difficult to implement, with far too many problems”, said security experts. Symantec: DDoS attacks hard to defend It has surfaced that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Visa and MasterCard Web sites on Wednesday were carried out by a toolkit known as low orbit ion cannon (LOIC). Web Sockets and the risks of unfinished standards Enthusiasm for a promising new standard called Web Sockets has quickly cooled in some quarters as a potential security problem led some browser makers to hastily postpone support. Internet Explorer 9 to get tracking protection Microsoft is making changes to Internet Explorer 9’s security features that will better enable users to keep sites from tracking their activity across browsing sessions. NASA sold PCs with sensitive data NASA failed to remove sensitive data from computers that it sold, according to an audit report released this week. Cybercrooks create fake Amazon receipts The bad guys have created yet another online scam, this one involving fake Amazon receipts. World of Warcraft character move fees waived Until December 22, Blizzard will allow free realm transfers from 25 highly populated servers to alleviate log-in queues or performance issues. (The free transfers are one-way and one-time only.) SpaceX Dragon reaches orbit atop a Falcon with a fiery tail The Space Exploration Technologies corporation has become the first nongovernmental entity to put a vehicle into low Earth orbit. Geek Video of the Week If birds have wings, then why are the Angry Birds using slingshots? Photo by Dorkly Bits. Wait… Birds have Wings, Why are the Angry Ones Using Slingshots? Sysadmin Geek Tips How To Setup Email Alerts on Linux Using Gmail or SMTP Linux machines may require administrative intervention in countless ways, but without manually logging into them how would you know about it? Here’s how to setup emails to get notified when your machines want some tender love and attention. Random TinyHacker Links Red Panda Webcam Support Firefox and the Knoxville Zoo’s Red Panda program. Christmas Icons (Icons we like) Superb set of holiday icons by lgp85 at deviantArt. Download the .zip and use as .png or convert to .ico at Convertico.com or with tiny app Imagicon. Super User Questions Enjoy reading the great answers to this week’s popular questions from Super User Useful USB boot disks? DVD/CD burning .zip: is it more reliable, faster, longer lasting to burn a zip of files rather than the files as a folder? What are other ways to backup my files if I do not have an external drive? Anti virus what is the difference between these all? How can I block all Facebook elements/content? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Have you had a busy week between work and preparing for the holidays? Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles of the week. 20 Windows Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? How to Use and Customize Google Chrome Web Apps One Year Ago on How-To Geek This week’s batch of retro geeky goodness is all about customizing Windows 7. ClassicShell Adds Classic Start Menu and Explorer Features to Windows 7 Get an Aero-Styled Classic Start Menu in Windows 7 Customize the Windows 7 Logon Screen Get the Classic Style Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7 How To Enable Check Boxes for Items In Windows 7 The Geek Note We would like you to join us in welcoming Jason Fitzpatrick to the writing staff here at How-To Geek. He started with us this past week, so take some time to read through his articles about the Wii, Kindle, & PlayStation 2 Peripherals and leave a friendly comment to say “Hi”! Got a great tip to share? Make sure to send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by real00. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek Settle into Orbit with the Voyage Theme for Chrome and Iron Awesome Safari Compass Icons Set Escape from the Exploding Planet Wallpaper Move Your Tumblr Blog to WordPress Pytask is an Easy to Use To-Do List Manager for Your Ubuntu System Snowy Christmas House Personas Theme for Firefox

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• Week in Geek: New Security Flaw Confirmed for Internet Explorer Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to use a PC to stay entertained while traveling for the holidays, create quality photo prints with free software, share links between any browser and any smartphone, create perfect Christmas photos using How-To Geek’s 10 best how-to photo guides, and had fun decorating Firefox with a collection of Holiday 2010 Personas themes. Photo by Repoort. Random Geek Links Photo by Asian Angel. Critical 0-Day Flaw Affects All Internet Explorer Versions, Microsoft Warns Microsoft has confirmed a zero-day vulnerability affecting all supported versions of Internet Explorer, including IE8, IE7 and IE6. Note: Article contains link to Microsoft Security Advisory detailing two work-arounds until a security update is released. Hackers targeting human rights, indie media groups Hackers are increasingly hitting the Web sites of human rights and independent media groups in an attempt to silence them, says a new study released this week by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. OpenBSD: audits give no indication of back doors So far, the analyses of OpenBSD’s crypto and IPSec code have not provided any indication that the system contains back doors for listening to encrypted VPN connections. But the developers have already found two bugs during their current audits. Sophos: Beware Facebook’s new facial-recognition feature Facebook’s new facial recognition software might result in undesirable photos of users being circulated online, warned a security expert, who urged users to keep abreast with the social network’s privacy settings to prevent the abovementioned scenario from becoming a reality. Microsoft withdraws flawed Outlook update Microsoft has withdrawn update KB2412171 for Outlook 2007, released last Patch Tuesday, after a number of user complaints. Skype: Millions still without service Skype was still working to right itself going into the holiday weekend from a major outage that began this past Wednesday. Mozilla improves sync setup and WebGL in Firefox 4 beta 8 Firefox 4.0 beta 8 brings better support for WebGL and introduces an improved setup process for Firefox Sync that simplifies the steps for configuring the synchronization service across multiple devices. Chrome OS the litmus test for cloud The success or failure of Google’s browser-oriented Chrome OS will be the litmus test to decide if the cloud is capable of addressing user needs for content and services, according to a new Ovum report released Monday. FCC Net neutrality rules reach mobile apps The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finally released its long-expected regulations on Thursday and the related explanations total a whopping 194 pages. One new item that was not previously disclosed: mobile wireless providers can’t block “applications that compete with the provider’s” own voice or video telephony services. KDE and the Document Foundation join Open Invention Network The KDE e.V. and the Document Foundation (TDF) have both joined the Open Invention Network (OIN) as licensees, expanding the organization’s roster of supporters. Report: SEC looks into Hurd’s ousting from HP The scandal surrounding Mark Hurd’s departure from the world’s largest technology company in August has officially drawn attention from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Report: Google requests delay of new Google TVs Google TV is apparently encountering a bit of static that has resulted in a programming change. Geek Video of the Week This week we have a double dose of geeky video goodness for you with the original Mac vs PC video and the trailer for the sequel. Photo courtesy of Peacer. Mac vs PC Photo courtesy of Peacer. Mac vs PC 2 Trailer Random TinyHacker Links Awesome Tools To Extract Audio From Video Here’s a list of really useful, and free tools to rip audio from videos. Getting Your iPhone Out of Recovery Mode Is your iPhone stuck in recovery mode? This tutorial will help you get it out of that state. Google Shared Spaces Quickly create a shared space and collaborate with friends online. McAfee Internet Security 2011 – Upgrade not worthy of a version change McAfee has released their 2011 version of security products. And as this review details, the upgrades are minimal when compared to their 2010 products. For more information, check out the review. 200 Countries Plotted Hans Rosling’s famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport’s commentator’s style to reveal the story of the world’s past, present and future development. Now he explores stats in a way he has never done before – using augmented reality animation. Super User Questions Enjoy looking through this week’s batch of popular questions and answers from Super User. How to restore windows 7 to a known working state every time it boots? Is there an easy way to mass-transfer all files between two computers? Coffee spilled inside computer, damaged hard drive Computer does not boot after ram upgrade Keyboard not detected when trying to install Ubuntu 10.10 How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Have you had a super busy week while preparing for the holiday weekend? Then here is your chance to get caught up on your reading with our five hottest articles for the week. Ask How-To Geek: Rescuing an Infected PC, Installing Bloat-free iTunes, and Taming a Crazy Trackpad How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC Eight Geektacular Christmas Projects for Your Day Off VirtualBox 4.0 Rocks Extensions and a Simplified GUI Ask the Readers: How Many Monitors Do You Use with Your Computer? One Year Ago on How-To Geek Here are more great articles from one year ago for you to read and enjoy during the holiday break. Enjoy Distraction-Free Writing with WriteMonkey Shutter is a State of Art Screenshot Tool for Ubuntu Get Hex & RGB Color Codes the Easy Way Find User Scripts for Your Favorite Websites the Easy Way Access Your Unsorted Bookmarks the Easy Way (Firefox) The Geek Note That “wraps” things up for this week and we hope that everyone enjoys the rest of their holiday break! Found a great tip during the break? Then be sure to send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by ArSiSa7. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC 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 HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? HTG Explains: Why Does Photo Paper Improve Print Quality? Simon’s Cat Explores the Christmas Tree! [Video] The Outdoor Lights Scene from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation [Video] The Famous Home Alone Pizza Delivery Scene [Classic Video] Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Theme for Windows 7 Cardinal and Rabbit Sharing a Tree on a Cold Winter Morning Wallpaper An Alternate Star Wars Christmas Special [Video]

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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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• Conversation as User Assistance

  - by ultan o'broin

  Applications User Experience members (Erika Web, Laurie Pattison, and I) attended the User Assistance Europe Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. We were impressed with the thought leadership and practical application of ideas in Anne Gentle's keynote address "Social Web Strategies for Documentation". After the conference, we spoke with Anne to explore the ideas further. Anne Gentle (left) with Applications User Experience Senior Director Laurie Pattison In Anne's book called Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation, she explains how user assistance is undergoing a seismic shift. The direction is away from the old print manuals and online help concept towards a web-based, user community-driven solution using social media tools. User experience professionals now have a vast range of such tools to start and nurture this "conversation": blogs, wikis, forums, social networking sites, microblogging systems, image and video sharing sites, virtual worlds, podcasts, instant messaging, mashups, and so on. That user communities are a rich source of user assistance is not a surprise, but the extent of available assistance is. For example, we know from the Consortium for Service Innovation that there has been an 'explosion' of user-generated content on the web. User-initiated community conversations provide as much as 30 times the number of official help desk solutions for consortium members! The growing reliance on user community solutions is clearly a user experience issue. Anne says that user assistance as conversation "means getting closer to users and helping them perform well. User-centered design has been touted as one of the most important ideas developed in the last 20 years of workplace writing. Now writers can take the idea of user-centered design a step further by starting conversations with users and enabling user assistance in interactions." Some of Anne's favorite examples of this paradigm shift from the world of traditional documentation to community conversation include: Writer Bob Bringhurst's blog about Adobe InDesign and InCopy products and Adobe's community help The Microsoft Development Network Community Center ·The former Sun (now Oracle) OpenDS wiki, NetBeans Ruby and other community approaches to engage diverse audiences using screencasts, wikis, and blogs. Cisco's customer support wiki, EMC's community, as well as Symantec and Intuit's approaches The efforts of Ubuntu, Mozilla, and the FLOSS community generally Adobe Writer Bob Bringhurst's Blog Oracle is not without a user community conversation too. Besides the community discussions and blogs around documentation offerings, we have the My Oracle Support Community forums, Oracle Technology Network (OTN) communities, wiki, blogs, and so on. We have the great work done by our user groups and customer councils. Employees like David Haimes reach out, and enthusiastic non-employee gurus like Chet Justice (OracleNerd), Floyd Teter and Eddie Awad provide great "how-to" information too. But what does this paradigm shift mean for existing technical writers as users turn away from the traditional printable PDF manual deliverables? We asked Anne after the conference. The writer role becomes one of conversation initiator or enabler. The role evolves, along with the process, as the users define their concept of user assistance and terms of engagement with the product instead of having it pre-determined. It is largely a case now of "inventing the job while you're doing it, instead of being hired for it" Anne said. There is less emphasis on formal titles. Anne mentions that her own title "Content Stacker" at OpenStack; others use titles such as "Content Curator" or "Community Lead". However, the role remains one essentially about communications, "but of a new type--interacting with users, moderating, curating content, instead of sitting down to write a manual from start to finish." Clearly then, this role is open to more than professional technical writers. Product managers who write blogs, developers who moderate forums, support professionals who update wikis, rock star programmers with a penchant for YouTube are ideal. Anyone with the product knowledge, empathy for the user, and flair for relationships on the social web can join in. Some even perform these roles already but do not realize it. Anne feels the technical communicator space will move from hiring new community conversation professionals (who are already active in the space through blogging, tweets, wikis, and so on) to retraining some existing writers over time. Our own research reveals that the established proponents of community user assistance even set employee performance objectives for internal content curators about the amount of community content delivered by people outside the organization! To take advantage of the conversations on the web as user assistance, enterprises must first establish where on the spectrum their community lies. "What is the line between community willingness to contribute and the enterprise objectives?" Anne asked. "The relationship with users must be managed and also measured." Anne believes that the process can start with a "just do it" approach. Begin by reaching out to existing user groups, individual bloggers and tweeters, forum posters, early adopter program participants, conference attendees, customer advisory board members, and so on. Use analytical tools to measure the level of conversation about your products and services to show a return on investment (ROI), winning management support. Anne emphasized that success with the community model is dependent on lowering the technical and motivational barriers so that users can readily contribute to the conversation. Simple tools must be provided, and guidelines, if any, must be straightforward but not mandatory. The conversational approach is one where traditional style and branding guides do not necessarily apply. Tools and infrastructure help users to create content easily, to search and find the information online, read it, rate it, translate it, and participate further in the content's evolution. Recognizing contributors by using ratings on forums, giving out Twitter kudos, conference invitations, visits to headquarters, free products, preview releases, and so on, also encourages the adoption of the conversation model. The move to conversation as user assistance is not free, but there is a business ROI. The conversational model means that customer service is enhanced, as user experience moves from a functional to a valued, emotional level. Studies show a positive correlation between loyalty and financial performance (Consortium for Service Innovation, 2010), and as customer experience and loyalty become key differentiators, user experience professionals cannot explore the model's possibilities. The digital universe (measured at 1.2 million petabytes in 2010) is doubling every 12 to 18 months, and 70 percent of that universe consists of user-generated content (IDC, 2010). Conversation as user assistance cannot be ignored but must be embraced. It is a time to manage for abundance, not scarcity. Besides, the conversation approach certainly sounds more interesting, rewarding, and fun than the traditional model! I would like to thank Anne for her time and thoughts, and recommend that all user assistance professionals read her book. You can follow Anne on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/annegentle. Oracle's Acrolinx IQ deployment was used to author this article.

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• Displaying an image on a LED matrix with a Netduino

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  In the previous post, we’ve been flipping bits manually on three ports of the Netduino to simulate the data, clock and latch pins that a shift register expected. We did all that in order to control one line of a LED matrix and create a simple Knight Rider effect. It was rightly pointed out in the comments that the Netduino has built-in knowledge of the sort of serial protocol that this shift register understands through a feature called SPI. That will of course make our code a whole lot simpler, but it will also make it a whole lot faster: writing to the Netduino ports is actually not that fast, whereas SPI is very, very fast. Unfortunately, the Netduino documentation for SPI is severely lacking. Instead, we’ve been reliably using the documentation for the Fez, another .NET microcontroller. To send data through SPI, we’ll just need  to move a few wires around and update the code. SPI uses pin D11 for writing, pin D12 for reading (which we won’t do) and pin D13 for the clock. The latch pin is a parameter that can be set by the user. This is very close to the wiring we had before (data on D11, clock on D12 and latch on D13). We just have to move the latch from D13 to D10, and the clock from D12 to D13. The code that controls the shift register has slimmed down considerably with that change. Here is the new version, which I invite you to compare with what we had before: public class ShiftRegister74HC595 { protected SPI Spi; public ShiftRegister74HC595(Cpu.Pin latchPin) : this(latchPin, SPI.SPI_module.SPI1) { } public ShiftRegister74HC595(Cpu.Pin latchPin, SPI.SPI_module spiModule) { var spiConfig = new SPI.Configuration( SPI_mod: spiModule, ChipSelect_Port: latchPin, ChipSelect_ActiveState: false, ChipSelect_SetupTime: 0, ChipSelect_HoldTime: 0, Clock_IdleState: false, Clock_Edge: true, Clock_RateKHz: 1000 ); Spi = new SPI(spiConfig); } public void Write(byte buffer) { Spi.Write(new[] {buffer}); } } All we have to do here is configure SPI. The write method couldn’t be any simpler. Everything is now handled in hardware by the Netduino. We set the frequency to 1MHz, which is largely sufficient for what we’ll be doing, but it could potentially go much higher. The shift register addresses the columns of the matrix. The rows are directly wired to ports D0 to D7 of the Netduino. The code writes to only one of those eight lines at a time, which will make it fast enough. The way an image is displayed is that we light the lines one after the other so fast that persistence of vision will give the illusion of a stable image: foreach (var bitmap in matrix.MatrixBitmap) { matrix.OnRow(row, bitmap, true); matrix.OnRow(row, bitmap, false); row++; } Now there is a twist here: we need to run this code as fast as possible in order to display the image with as little flicker as possible, but we’ll eventually have other things to do. In other words, we need the code driving the display to run in the background, except when we want to change what’s being displayed. Fortunately, the .NET Micro Framework supports multithreading. In our implementation, we’ve added an Initialize method that spins a new thread that is tied to the specific instance of the matrix it’s being called on. public LedMatrix Initialize() { DisplayThread = new Thread(() => DoDisplay(this)); DisplayThread.Start(); return this; } I quite like this way to spin a thread. As you may know, there is another, built-in way to contextualize a thread by passing an object into the Start method. For the method to work, the thread must have been constructed with a ParameterizedThreadStart delegate, which takes one parameter of type object. I like to use object as little as possible, so instead I’m constructing a closure with a Lambda, currying it with the current instance. This way, everything remains strongly-typed and there’s no casting to do. Note that this method would extend perfectly to several parameters. Of note as well is the return value of Initialize, a common technique to add some fluency to the API and enabling the matrix to be instantiated and initialized in a single line: using (var matrix = new LedMS88SR74HC595().Initialize()) The “using” in the previous line is because we have implemented IDisposable so that the matrix kills the thread and clears the display when the user code is done with it: public void Dispose() { Clear(); DisplayThread.Abort(); } Thanks to the multi-threaded version of the matrix driver class, we can treat the display as a simple bitmap with a very synchronous programming model: matrix.Set(someimage); while (button.Read()) { Thread.Sleep(10); } Here, the call into Set returns immediately and from the moment the bitmap is set, the background display thread will constantly continue refreshing no matter what happens in the main thread. That enables us to wait or read a button’s port on the main thread knowing that the current image will continue displaying unperturbed and without requiring manual refreshing. We’ve effectively hidden the implementation of the display behind a convenient, synchronous-looking API. Pretty neat, eh? Before I wrap up this post, I want to talk about one small caveat of using SPI rather than driving the shift register directly: when we got to the point where we could actually display images, we noticed that they were a mirror image of what we were sending in. Oh noes! Well, the reason for it is that SPI is sending the bits in a big-endian fashion, in other words backwards. Now sure you could fix that in software by writing some bit-level code to reverse the bits we’re sending in, but there is a far more efficient solution than that. We are doing hardware here, so we can simply reverse the order in which the outputs of the shift register are connected to the columns of the matrix. That’s switching 8 wires around once, as compared to doing bit operations every time we send a line to display. All right, so bringing it all together, here is the code we need to write to display two images in succession, separated by a press on the board’s button: var button = new InputPort(Pins.ONBOARD_SW1, false, Port.ResistorMode.Disabled); using (var matrix = new LedMS88SR74HC595().Initialize()) { // Oh, prototype is so sad! var sad = new byte[] { 0x66, 0x24, 0x00, 0x18, 0x00, 0x3C, 0x42, 0x81 }; DisplayAndWait(sad, matrix, button); // Let's make it smile! var smile = new byte[] { 0x42, 0x18, 0x18, 0x81, 0x7E, 0x3C, 0x18, 0x00 }; DisplayAndWait(smile, matrix, button); } And here is a video of the prototype running: The prototype in action I’ve added an artificial delay between the display of each row of the matrix to clearly show what’s otherwise happening very fast. This way, you can clearly see each of the two images being displayed line by line. Next time, we’ll do no hardware changes, focusing instead on building a nice programming model for the matrix, with sprites, text and hardware scrolling. Fun stuff. By the way, can any of my reader guess where we’re going with all that? The code for this prototype can be downloaded here: http://weblogs.asp.net/blogs/bleroy/Samples/NetduinoLedMatrixDriver.zip

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• Test All Features of Windows Phone 7 On Your PC

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you developer or just excited about the upcoming Windows Phone 7, and want to try it out now?  Thanks to free developer tools from Microsoft and a new unlocked emulator rom, you can try out most of the exciting features today from your PC. Last week we showed you how to try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC and get started developing for the upcoming new devices.  We noticed, however, that the emulator only contains Internet Explorer Mobile and some settings.  This is still interesting to play around with, but it wasn’t the full Windows Phone 7 experience. Some enterprising tweakers discovered that more applications were actually included in the emulator, but were simply hidden from users.  Developer Dan Ardelean then figured out how to re-enable these features, and released a tweaked emulator rom so everyone can try out all of the Windows Phone 7 features for themselves.  Here we’ll look at how you can run this new emulator image on your PC, and then look at some interesting features in Windows Phone 7. Editor Note: This modified emulator image is not official, and isn’t sanctioned by Microsoft. Use your own judgment when choosing to download and use the emulator. Setting Up Emulator Rom To test-drive Windows Phone 7 on your PC, you must first download and install the Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (link below).  Follow the steps we showed you last week at: Try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC today.  Once it’s installed, go ahead and run the default emulator as we showed to make sure everything works ok. Once the Windows Phone Developer Tools are installed and running, download the new emulator rom from XDA Forums (link below).  This will be a zip file, so extract it first. Note where you save the file, as you will need the address in the next step. Now, to run our new emulator image, we need to open the emulator in command line and point to the new rom image.  To do this, browse to the correct directory, depending on whether you’re running the 32 bit or 64 bit version of Windows: 32 bit: C:\Program Files\Microsoft XDE\1.0\ 64 bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft XDE\1.0\ Hold your Shift key down and right-click in the folder.  Choose Open Command Window here. At the command prompt, enter XDE.exe followed by the location of your new rom image.  Here, we downloaded the rom to our download folder, so at the command prompt we entered: XDE.exe C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\WM70Full\WM70Full.bin The emulator loads … with the full Windows Phone 7 experience! To make it easier, let’s make a shortcut on our desktop to load the emulator with the new rom directly.  Right-click on your desktop (or any folder you want to create the shortcut in), select New, and then Shortcut. Now, in the box, we need to enter the path for the emulator followed by the location of our rom.  Both items must be in quotes.  So, in our test, we entered the following: 32 bit: “C:\Program Files\Microsoft XDE\1.0\” “C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\WM70Full\WM70Full.bin” 64 bit: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft XDE\1.0\” “C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\WM70Full\WM70Full.bin” Make sure to enter the correct location of the new emulator rom for your computer, and keep both items in separate quotes.  Click next when you’ve entered the location. Name the shortcut; we named it Windows Phone 7, but simply enter whatever you’d like.  Click Finish when you’re done. You should now have a nice Windows Phone icon and your fully functional shortcut!  Double-click it to run the Windows Phone 7 emulator as above. Features in the Unlocked Windows Phone 7 Emulator So let’s look at what you can do with this new emulator.  Almost everything you’ve seen in demos from the Mobile World Conference and Mix’10 are right here for you to play with.  Here’s the application menu, which you can access by clicking on the arrow on the top of the home screen, which shows how much stuff they’ve got in this!   And, of course, even the home screen itself shows much more activity than it did in the original emulator. Let’s check out some of these sections.  Here’s Zune running on Windows Phone 7, and the Zune Marketplace.  The animations are beautiful, so be sure to check this out yourself. The new picture hub is much nicer than any picture viewer included with Windows Mobile in the past…   Stay productive, and on schedule with the new Calendar. The XBOX hub gives us only a hint of things to come, and the links to games now are simply placeholders. Here’s a look at the Office hub.  This doesn’t show up on the homescreen right now, but you can access it in the applications menu.  Office obviously still has a lot of work left on it, but even at a glance here it looks like it includes a lot more functionality than Office Mobile in Windows Mobile 6. Here’s a look at each of the three apps: Word, Excel, and OneNote, and the formatting pallet in Office apps.   This emulator also includes a lot more settings than the default one, including settings for individual applications. You can even activate the screen lock, and try out the lift-to-peek-or-unlock feature… Finally, this version of Windows Phone 7 includes a very nice SystemInfo app with an advanced task manager.  We hope this is still available when the actual phones are released. Conclusion If you’re excited about the upcoming Windows Phone 7 series, or simply want to learn more about what’s coming, this is a great way to test it out.  With these exciting new hubs and applications, there’s something here for everyone.  Let us know what you like most about Windows Phone 7 and what your favorite app or hub is. Links Please note: These roms are not officially supported by Microsoft, and could be taken down. Download the unlocked Windows Phone 7 emulator from XDA Forums – click the link in this post to download How the unlocked emulator image was created Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC todayGet stats on your Ruby on Rails codeDisable Windows Vista’s Built-in CD/DVD Burning FeaturesWeek in Geek – The Slick Windows 7 File Copy Animation EditionGeek Fun: Virtualized Old School Windows – Windows 95 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Get Better Windows Search With UltraSearch Scan News With NY Times Article Skimmer SpeedyFox Claims to Speed up your Firefox Beware Hover Kitties Test Drive Mobile Phones Online With TryPhone Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day, 3/23/10

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• ASP.NET MVC 3: Implicit and Explicit code nuggets with Razor

  - by ScottGu

  This is another in a series of posts I’m doing that cover some of the new ASP.NET MVC 3 features: New @model keyword in Razor (Oct 19th) Layouts with Razor (Oct 22nd) Server-Side Comments with Razor (Nov 12th) Razor’s @: and <text> syntax (Dec 15th) Implicit and Explicit code nuggets with Razor (today) In today’s post I’m going to discuss how Razor enables you to both implicitly and explicitly define code nuggets within your view templates, and walkthrough some code examples of each of them.  Fluid Coding with Razor ASP.NET MVC 3 ships with a new view-engine option called “Razor” (in addition to the existing .aspx view engine).  You can learn more about Razor, why we are introducing it, and the syntax it supports from my Introducing Razor blog post. Razor minimizes the number of characters and keystrokes required when writing a view template, and enables a fast, fluid coding workflow. Unlike most template syntaxes, you do not need to interrupt your coding to explicitly denote the start and end of server blocks within your HTML. The Razor parser is smart enough to infer this from your code. This enables a compact and expressive syntax which is clean, fast and fun to type. For example, the Razor snippet below can be used to iterate a collection of products and output a <ul> list of product names that link to their corresponding product pages: When run, the above code generates output like below: Notice above how we were able to embed two code nuggets within the content of the foreach loop.  One of them outputs the name of the Product, and the other embeds the ProductID within a hyperlink.  Notice that we didn’t have to explicitly wrap these code-nuggets - Razor was instead smart enough to implicitly identify where the code began and ended in both of these situations.  How Razor Enables Implicit Code Nuggets Razor does not define its own language.  Instead, the code you write within Razor code nuggets is standard C# or VB.  This allows you to re-use your existing language skills, and avoid having to learn a customized language grammar. The Razor parser has smarts built into it so that whenever possible you do not need to explicitly mark the end of C#/VB code nuggets you write.  This makes coding more fluid and productive, and enables a nice, clean, concise template syntax.  Below are a few scenarios that Razor supports where you can avoid having to explicitly mark the beginning/end of a code nugget, and instead have Razor implicitly identify the code nugget scope for you: Property Access Razor allows you to output a variable value, or a sub-property on a variable that is referenced via “dot” notation: You can also use “dot” notation to access sub-properties multiple levels deep: Array/Collection Indexing: Razor allows you to index into collections or arrays: Calling Methods: Razor also allows you to invoke methods: Notice how for all of the scenarios above how we did not have to explicitly end the code nugget.  Razor was able to implicitly identify the end of the code block for us. Razor’s Parsing Algorithm for Code Nuggets The below algorithm captures the core parsing logic we use to support “@” expressions within Razor, and to enable the implicit code nugget scenarios above: Parse an identifier - As soon as we see a character that isn't valid in a C# or VB identifier, we stop and move to step 2 Check for brackets - If we see "(" or "[", go to step 2.1., otherwise, go to step 3  Parse until the matching ")" or "]" (we track nested "()" and "[]" pairs and ignore "()[]" we see in strings or comments) Go back to step 2 Check for a "." - If we see one, go to step 3.1, otherwise, DO NOT ACCEPT THE "." as code, and go to step 4 If the character AFTER the "." is a valid identifier, accept the "." and go back to step 1, otherwise, go to step 4 Done! Differentiating between code and content Step 3.1 is a particularly interesting part of the above algorithm, and enables Razor to differentiate between scenarios where an identifier is being used as part of the code statement, and when it should instead be treated as static content: Notice how in the snippet above we have ? and ! characters at the end of our code nuggets.  These are both legal C# identifiers – but Razor is able to implicitly identify that they should be treated as static string content as opposed to being part of the code expression because there is whitespace after them.  This is pretty cool and saves us keystrokes. Explicit Code Nuggets in Razor Razor is smart enough to implicitly identify a lot of code nugget scenarios.  But there are still times when you want/need to be more explicit in how you scope the code nugget expression.  The @(expression) syntax allows you to do this: You can write any C#/VB code statement you want within the @() syntax.  Razor will treat the wrapping () characters as the explicit scope of the code nugget statement.  Below are a few scenarios where we could use the explicit code nugget feature: Perform Arithmetic Calculation/Modification: You can perform arithmetic calculations within an explicit code nugget: Appending Text to a Code Expression Result: You can use the explicit expression syntax to append static text at the end of a code nugget without having to worry about it being incorrectly parsed as code: Above we have embedded a code nugget within an <img> element’s src attribute.  It allows us to link to images with URLs like “/Images/Beverages.jpg”.  Without the explicit parenthesis, Razor would have looked for a “.jpg” property on the CategoryName (and raised an error).  By being explicit we can clearly denote where the code ends and the text begins. Using Generics and Lambdas Explicit expressions also allow us to use generic types and generic methods within code expressions – and enable us to avoid the <> characters in generics from being ambiguous with tag elements. One More Thing….Intellisense within Attributes We have used code nuggets within HTML attributes in several of the examples above.  One nice feature supported by the Razor code editor within Visual Studio is the ability to still get VB/C# intellisense when doing this. Below is an example of C# code intellisense when using an implicit code nugget within an <a> href=”” attribute: Below is an example of C# code intellisense when using an explicit code nugget embedded in the middle of a <img> src=”” attribute: Notice how we are getting full code intellisense for both scenarios – despite the fact that the code expression is embedded within an HTML attribute (something the existing .aspx code editor doesn’t support).  This makes writing code even easier, and ensures that you can take advantage of intellisense everywhere. Summary Razor enables a clean and concise templating syntax that enables a very fluid coding workflow.  Razor’s ability to implicitly scope code nuggets reduces the amount of typing you need to perform, and leaves you with really clean code. When necessary, you can also explicitly scope code expressions using a @(expression) syntax to provide greater clarity around your intent, as well as to disambiguate code statements from static markup. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Top 10 Reasons SQL Developer is Perfect for Oracle Beginners

  - by thatjeffsmith

  Learning new technologies can be daunting. If you’ve never used a Mac before, you’ll probably be a bit baffled at first. But, you’re probably at least coming from a desktop computing background (Windows), so you common frame of reference. But what if you’re just now learning to use a relational database? Yes, you’ve played with Access a bit, but now your employer or college instructor has charged you with becoming proficient with Oracle database. Here’s 10 reasons why I think Oracle SQL Developer is the perfect vehicle to help get you started. 1. It’s free No need to break into one of these… No start-up costs, no need to wrangle budget dollars from your company. Students don’t have any money after books and lab fees anyway. And most employees don’t like having to ask for ‘special’ software anyway. So avoid all of that and make sure the free stuff doesn’t suit your needs first. Upgrades are available on a regular base, also at no cost, and support is freely available via our public forums. 2. It will run pretty much anywhere Windows – check. OSX (Apple) – check. Unix – check. Linux – check. No need to start up a windows VM to run your Windows-only software in your lab machine. 3. Anyone can install it There’s no installer, no registry to be updated, no admin privs to be obtained. If you can download and extract files to your machine or USB storage device, you can run it. You can be up and running with SQL Developer in under 5 minutes. Here’s a video tutorial to see how to get started. 4. It’s ubiquitous I admit it, I learned a new word yesterday and I wanted an excuse to use it. SQL Developer’s everywhere. It’s had over 2,500,000 downloads in the past year, and is the one of the most downloaded items from OTN. This means if you need help, there’s someone sitting nearby you that can assist, and since they’re in the same tool as you, they’ll be speaking the same language. 5. Simple User Interface Up-up-down-down-Left-right-left-right-A-B-A-B-START will get you 30 lives, but you already knew that, right? You connect, you see your objects, you click on your objects. Or, you can use the worksheet to write your queries and programs in. There’s only one toolbar, and just a few buttons. If you’re like me, video games became less fun when each button had 6 action items mapped to it. I just want the good ole ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘SELECT’, and ‘START’ controls. If you’re new to Oracle, you shouldn’t have the double-workload of learning a new complicated tool as well. 6. It’s not a ‘black box’ Click through your objects, but also get the SQL that drives the GUI As you use the wizards to accomplish tasks for you, you can view the SQL statement being generated on your behalf. Just because you have a GUI, doesn’t mean you’re ceding your responsibility to learn the underlying code that makes the database work. 7. It’s four tools in one It’s not just a query tool. Maybe you need to design a data model first? Or maybe you need to migrate your Sybase ASE database to Oracle for a new project? Or maybe you need to create some reports? SQL Developer does all of that. So once you get comfortable with one part of the tool, the others will be much easier to pick up as your needs change. 8. Great learning resources available Videos, blogs, hands-on learning labs – you name it, we got it. Why wait for someone to train you, when you can train yourself at your own pace? 9. You can use it to teach yourself SQL Instead of being faced with the white-screen-of-panic, you can visually build your queries by dragging and dropping tables and views into the Query Builder. Yes, ‘just like Access’ – only better. And as you build your query, toggle to the Worksheet panel and see the SQL statement. Again, SQL Developer is not a black box. If you prefer to learn by trial and error, the worksheet will attempt to suggest the next bit of your SQL statement with it’s completion insight feature. And if you have syntax errors, those will be highlighted – just like your misspelled words in your favorite word processor. 10. It scales to match your experience level You won’t be a n00b forever. In 6-8 months, when you’re ready to tackle something a bit more complicated, like XML DB or Oracle Spatial, the tool is already there waiting on you. No need to go out and find the ‘advanced’ tool. 11. Wait, you said this was a ‘Top 10′ list? Yes. Yes, I did. I’m using this ‘trick’ to get you to continue reading because I’m going to say something you might not want to hear. Are you ready? Tools won’t replace experience, failure, hard work, and training. Just because you have the keys to the car, doesn’t mean you’re ready to head out on the race track. While SQL Developer reduces the barriers to entry, it does not completely remove them. Many experienced folks simply do not like tools. Rather, they don’t like the people that pick up tools without the know-how to properly use them. If you don’t understand what ‘TRUNCATE’ means, don’t try it out. Try picking up a book first. Of course, it’s very nice to have your own sandbox to play in, so you don’t upset the other children. That’s why I really like our Dev Days Database Virtual Box image. It’s your own database to learn and experiment with.

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