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• Will HTML5 make Silverlight redundant?

  - by Laila

  One of the great features of Adobe AIR v2 that was launched this month was its support for some of the 2008 draft of HTML5. The HTML5 specification was started in 2004, but the full spec will probably not be approved by W3C until around 2022. One might have thought that it would take years yet from now to reach the point where any browsers were remotely HTML5-compliant, but enough of HTML5 is published and agreed to make a lot of it possible, and Safari and Adobe have got there thanks to Apple's open-source WebKit. The race for HTML 5 has been fuelled by the demand by Apple and Google for advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without having to rely on third party browser plug-ins such as Adobe Flash or Silverlight. There is good reason for this haste: Flash doesn't support touch-devices and has been slow in supporting hardware video decoders such as H.264. There is a strong requirement to do all that Flash can do in an open-standards way. Those with proprietary solutions remain sniffy. In AIR 2, Adobe pointedly disables the HTML5 and tags that allow basic playing of media content, saying that the specification is not final and there is still no standard for the supported formats, and adding that Safari implements a 'disjoint set' of codecs. Microsoft also has little interest in HTML 5 as it has so much invested in Silverlight. Google stands to gain by the Adobe AIR for Android as it will allow a lot of applications to be migrated easily to the platform, so sees Apple's war on Flash as a way of gaining market share. Why do we care? It is because HTML5/CSS3 provides facilities much far beyond HTML4, bring the reality of browser-based applications a lot closer. Probably most generally useful is the advanced typography: Safari and AIR already both support a way of reflowing text in a container across an arbitrary number of columns; Page-specific fonts can also be specified. Then there is 2D drawing, video, transitions, local storage, AJAX navigation and mutable DOM prototypes. HTML5 is likely to provide base functionality that is required but it is too early to be certain that it will render Flash, Silverlight or JavaFX obsolete. In the meantime, Adobe Air provides the best vehicle for developing HTML5/CSS3 applications without a twinge of worry about browser incompatibilities. Cheers, Laila

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• Latency Matters

  - by Frederic P

  A lot of interest in low latencies has been expressed within the financial services segment, most especially in the stock trading applications where every millisecond directly influences the profitability of the trader. These days, much of the trading is executed by software applications which are trained to respond to each other almost instantaneously. In fact, you could say that we are in an arms race where traders are using any and all options to cut down on the delay in executing transactions, even by moving physically closer to the trading venue. The Solaris OS network stack has traditionally been engineered for high throughput, at the expense of higher latencies. Knowledge of tuning parameters to redress the imbalance is critical for applications that are latency sensitive. We are presenting in this blog how to configure further a default Oracle Solaris 10 installation to reduce network latency. There are many parameters in fact that can be altered, but the most effective ones are intr_blank_time and intr_blank_packets. These parameters affect on-board network throughput and latency on Solaris systems. If interrupt blanking is disabled, packets are processed by the driver as soon as they arrive, resulting in higher network throughput and lower latency, but with higher CPU utilization. With interrupt blanking disabled, processor utilization can be as high as 80–90% in some high-load web server environments. If interrupt blanking is enabled, packets are processed when the interrupt is issued. Enabling interrupt blanking can result in reduced processor utilization and network throughput, but higher network latency. Both parameters should be set at the same time. You can set these parameters by using the ndd command as follows: # ndd -set /dev/eri intr_blank_time 0 # ndd -set /dev/eri intr_blank_packets 0 You can add them to the /etc/system file as follows: set eri:intr_blank_time 0 set eri:intr_blank_packets 0 The value of the interrupt blanking parameter is a trade-off between network throughput and processor utilization. If higher processor utilization is acceptable for achieving higher network throughput, then disable interrupt blanking. If lower processor utilization is preferred and higher network latency is the penalty, then enable interrupt blanking. Our experience at ISV Engineering is that under controlled experiments the above settings result in reduction of network latency by at least 50%; on a two-socket 3GHz Sun Fire X4170 M2 running Solaris 10 Update 9, the above settings improved ping-pong latency from 60µs to 25-30µs with the on-board NIC.

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• Partners, Start your Engines

  - by Kristin Rose

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Hello speed racer - OPN here to inform you that in case you missed it, our ISV Focused PartnerCast took place last week in Oracle’s Redwood Shores studio. Without a roadblock in site, Oracle’s key drivers discussed topics like Optimized and Oracle’s Cloud offerings; even OPN partner MSC took it to the next level by stopping by to share with us their first hand experience with the Oracle Exastack Optimized program. By stepping into Oracle’s ”Motor Speedway”, better known as the Exastack lab, MSC was able to fine tune, test and optimize their application on Oracle Exadata, as well as gain outstanding expertise on several technical areas such as optimizing multithreaded applications and database tuning. By optimizing their solution, MSC has “decreased their deployment time and saw a 30 percent performance improvement in database.” Sounds like someone’s gearing up for an “Oracle Indy 500.” By achieving Oracle Exadata Optimized status, MSC is putting performance in the driver’s seat, and their customers at the front of the race by delivering a solution that is tuned for performance, scalability and reliability. So go ahead and let the Oracle Exastack Optimized pit crew take you to the finish line. Learn how to go from 0-60 by watching MSC’s segment of the ISV Focused PartnerCast below. Ready… Set… Optimize! The OPN Communications Team

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• Is there an API for determining congressional districts?

  - by ardavis

  I'm looking to determine the congressional district based on an address my user is providing. This will avoid having the user to look it up themselves. Does an API of this sort exist? Note Through my attempts to find one, I've only come across these: http://www.govtrack.us/developers/api (not sure how to submit an an address or zip code however) The following resources are available in the API ...Bills and resolutions in the U.S. Congress since 1973 (the 93rd Congress). ...A (bill, person) pair indicating cosponsorship, with join and withdrawn dates. ...Members of Congress and U.S. Presidents since the founding of the nation. ...Terms held in office by Members of Congress and U.S. Presidents. Each term corresponds with an election, meaning each term in the House covers two years (one 'Congress'), as President four years, and in the Senate six years (three 'Congresses'). ...Roll call votes in the U.S. Congress since 1789. How people voted is accessed through the Vote_voter API. ...How people voted on roll call votes in the U.S. Congress since 1789. See the Vote API. Filter on the vote field to get the results of a particular vote... http://www.opencongress.org/api (seems to be a way to find congress information, but not districts) This API provides programmers with structured access to all the data on OpenCongress, everything from official bill info to news and blog coverage to user-generated votes on bills and much more... This API defaults to returning XML. All queries can also return JSON... https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/opendems-discuss/CeKyi_aANaE (similar question, no resolution) I've been looking over Open Dems, and seeing what's exposed at this point and what isn't. I work with Democrats Abroad, and am interested in using stuff from the lab for their sites. I quickly looked over the Precinct API, which does both more and less than what I'd need. An ideal resource would be any way of translating addresses into CD at the very least (getting state district data would be good as well), since that would make it easier for DA's membership to make a difference in races like last month's NY26 race... Update I'm looking at the source for the govtrack.us website and the 'doGeoCode' function may be useful. view-source:http://www.govtrack.us/congress/members If no one has any suggestions, I will try to go off of what they are doing.

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• CES 2011–Microsoft Keynote Impressions

  - by guybarrette

  Microsoft has been kicking off the CES for a number of years by doing a keynote the evening of the event first day.  This year, SteveB talked about Xbox, Kinect, Windows 7 new laptops, Surface 2 and Windows vNext running on the ARM architecture. Some of the design of the new laptops showed are quite amazing.  This one has a dual screen with no physical keyboard.  The image is split between both screens.  A software keyboard appears when you place your 10 fingers on the lower screen. This one from Samsung has a sliding keyboard somewhat like numerous cell phones have. What I found the most amazing is that Intel was able to miniaturized a full Intel architecture (CPU, motherboard, memory) in a tiny form factor.  Imagine having the power of a full PC running .NET apps in a Zune/iPod form factor! They also showed V2 of the Surface device.  This one is called the Samsung SUR40 for Surface PC.  It’s much sleeker and it will likely loose the BAT (Big Ass Table) moniker  More info here SteveB announced that Windows vNext will run on ARM chips.  I’m intrigued by this announcement (you can read about it here) and I have many questions: -In the past ARM devices were slow, what now makes the ARM architecture able to run Windows? -ARM is 32-bit only, I think. -Does this mean that Intel wasn't able to provide such a lightweight architecture or simply that they weren't interested? -From what I understand, apps would need to be recompiled for ARM. Will we need to do that from an ARM PC or could it be done natively on Intel or on an Intel PC running in an ARM VM?  VS 2012? Ahhhh, smells like a cool PDC is coming up    Clearly it looks like PC have enough power for most of us right now and that the race is now about miniaturization, power consumption and battery life. You can watch the Microsoft CES 2011 keynote here var addthis_pub="guybarrette";

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• Facial Recognition for Retail

  - by David Dorf

  My son decided to do his science project on how the brain recognizes faces.  Faces are so complicated and important that the brain has a dedicated area for just that purpose.  During our research, we came across some emerging uses for facial recognition in the retail industry. If you believe the movies, recognizing faces as they walk by a camera is easy for computers but that's not the reality.  Huge investments are being made by the U.S. government in this area, with a focus on airport security.  Now, companies like Eye See are leveraging that research for marketing purposes.  They do things like track eyes while viewing newspaper ads to see which ads get more "eye time."  This can help marketers make better placement and color decisions. But what caught my eye (that was too easy) was their new mannequins that watch shoppers.  These mannequins, being tested at European retailers like Benetton, watch shoppers that walk by and identify their gender, race, and age.  This helps the retailer better understand the types of customers being attracted to the outfit on the mannequin.  Of course to be most accurate, the software has pictures of the employees so they can be filtered out.  Since the mannequins are closer to the shoppers and at eye-level, they are more accurate than traditional in-ceiling LP cameras. Marketing agency RedPepper is offering retailers the ability to recognize loyalty shoppers at their doors using Facedeal.  For customers that have opted into the program, when they enter the store their face is recognized and they are checked in.  Then, as a reward, they are sent an offer on their smartphone. It won't be long before retailers begin to listen to shoppers are they walk the aisles, then keywords can be collected and aggregated to give the retailer an idea of what people are saying about their stores and products.  Sentiment analysis based on what's said or even facial expressions can't be far off. Clearly retailers need to be cautions and respect customer privacy.  That's why these technologies are emerging slowly.  But since the next generation of shoppers are less concerned about privacy, I expect these technologies to appear sporadically in the next five years then go mainstream.  Time will tell.

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• Help identify the pattern for reacting on updates

  - by Mike

  There's an entity that gets updated from external sources. Update events are at random intervals. And the entity has to be processed once updated. Multiple updates may be multiplexed. In other words there's a need for the most current state of entity to be processed. There's a point of no-return during processing where the current state (and the state is consistent i.e. no partial update is made) of entity is saved somewhere else and processing goes on independently of any arriving updates. Every consequent set of updates has to trigger processing i.e. system should not forget about updates. And for each entity there should be no more than one running processing (before the point of no-return) i.e. the entity state should not be processed more than once. So what I'm looking for is a pattern to cancel current processing before the point of no return or abandon processing results if an update arrives. The main challenge is to minimize race conditions and maintain integrity. The entity sits mainly in database with some files on disk. And the system is in .NET with web-services and message queues. What comes to my mind is a database queue-like table. An arriving update inserts row in that table and the processing is launched. The processing gathers necessary data before the point of no-return and once it reaches this barrier it looks into the queue table and checks whether there're more recent updates for the entity. If there are new updates the processing simply shuts down and its data is discarded. Otherwise the processing data is persisted and it goes beyond the point of no-return. Though it looks like a solution to me it is not quite elegant and I believe this scenario may be supported by some sort of middleware. If I would use message queues for this then there's a need to access the queue API in the point of no-return to check for the existence of new messages. And this approach also lacks elegance. Is there a name for this pattern and an existing solution?

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• Best system for creating a 2d racing track

  - by tesselode

  I am working a 2D racing game and I'm trying to figure out what is the best way to define the track. At the very least, I need to be able to create a closed circuit with any amount of turns at any angle, and I need vehicles to collide with the edges of the track. I also want the following things to be true if possible (but they are optional): The code is simple and free of funky workarounds and extras I can define all of the parts of the track (such as turns) relative to the previous parts I can predict the exact position of the road at a certain point (that way I can easily and cleanly make closed circuits) Here are my options: Use a set of points. This is my current system. I have a set of turns and width changes that the track is supposed to make over time. I have a point which I transform according to these instructions, and I place a point every 5 steps or so, depending on how precise I want the track to be. These points make up the track. The main problem with this is the discrepancy between the collisions and the way the track is drawn. I won't get into too much detail, but the picture below shows what is happening (although it is exaggerated a bit). The blue lines are what is drawn, the red lines are what the vehicle collides with. I could work around this, but I'd rather avoid funky workaround code. Beizer curves. These seem cool, but my first impression of them is that they'll be a little daunting to learn and are probably too complicated for my needs. Some other kind of curve? I have heard of some other kinds of curves; maybe those are more applicable. Use Box2D or another physics engine. Instead of defining the center of the track, I could use a physics engine to define shapes that make up the road. The downside to this, however, is that I have to put in a little more work to place the checkpoints. Something completely different. Basically, what is the simplest system for generating a race track that would allow me to create closed circuits cleanly, handle collisions, and not have a ton of weird code?

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• Why is the MaskBit maxed out

  - by CStreel

  Hi there for some reason the maskbit of my b2FixtureDef is being maxxed out and im not sure why Here is the declaration of the items that are used in the game enum PhysicBits { PB_NONE = 0x0000, PB_PLAYER = 0x0001, PB_PLATFORM = 0x0002 }; Basically what i want is the player to run along a surface is not slow down (i set platform & player friction to 0.0f) I then setup my Contact Listener to print out the connections (currently only have 1 platform and 1 player) Player Fixture Def b2FixtureDef fixtureDef; fixtureDef.shape = &groundBox; fixtureDef.density = 1.0f; fixtureDef.friction = 0.0f; fixtureDef.filter.categoryBits = PB_PLAYER; fixtureDef.filter.maskBits = PB_PLATFORM; Platform Fixture Def b2FixtureDef fixtureDef; fixtureDef.shape = &groundBox; fixtureDef.density = 1.0f; fixtureDef.friction = 0.0f; fixtureDef.filter.categoryBits = PB_PLATFORM; fixtureDef.filter.maskBits = PB_PLAYER; Now correct me if im wrong but these are saying the following: Player Collides with Platform Platform Collides with Player Here is the printout of the fixtures colliding with each other ******** <-- Indicates new Contact Platform ContactA: 2 MaskA: 1 ------ Player ContactB: 1 MaskB: 2 ******** <-- Indicates new Contact Platform ContactA: 2 MaskA: 1 ------ Player ContactB: 1 MaskB: 65535 ******** <-- Indicates new Contact Platform ContactA: 1 MaskA: 65535 ------ Player ContactB: 1 MaskB: 65535 Here is where i am confused. On the second & third contact the player maskBit is set to 65535 when it should be 2 and there are 3 contacts when i am sure at most there should only be 2. I've been trying to figure this out for hours and i can't understand why it is doing this. I would be very grateful is someone could shine some light on this for me UPDATE: **I printed out the class of the contacting objects. For some reason it seems to do the following: First Contact: Correct Result. Second Contact: Player b2Fixture Obtains a new maskBit. Third Contact: Platform b2Fixture appears to be set to the same as the Player b2Fixture. It would seem I have a memory race condition i think**

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• High CPU usage by 'svchost.exe' and 'coreServiceShell.exe'

  - by kush.impetus

  I am having a laptop running on Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit. Since past few days, my laptop is facing a serious problem. Whenever I connect to Internet, either svchost.exe or coreServiceShell.exe or both hog the CPU. The coreServiceShell.exe consumes a lot of RAM also. Going into the details, I found that high CPU usage of svchost.exe is caused by Network Location Awareness service. And the high CPU usage of coreServiceShell.exe is caused by Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security 2012. That kind'a makes me think that Trend Micro may be the root of the problem. After further testing, I found that if I use IE or Firefox to browse the Internet, immediately after connecting to Internet, things are normal. See and But if I use Google Chrome, the coreServiceShell.exe hogs both CPU and RAM. At this point, if I disconnect the Internet, the CPU and RAM usage by coreServiceShell.exe continues to be high till I close the Chrome. Also, when I close the Chrome, while Internet is connected, svchost.exe continues to hog CPU but coreServiceShell.exe leaves the race. That makes think that Chrome is the root of the problem, but again, tracing coreServiceShell.exe takes me back to Trend Micro Internet Security. Stopping the Protection by the Trend Micro Internet Security doesn't help either (I am not able to stop its services though). I have updated the Chrome, but no help. I just can't figure out who is the culprit. I can't do without the Google Chrome (of course, by not using it) because of its immensely useful and indispensable features both during browsing and development. Secondly, I can't uninstall the Trend Micro Internet security Suite since it still has few months before it expires and is proving me reliable protection. What could be the cause of the problem and what can I do to resolve this? Thanks in advance

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• Group policy waited for the network subsystem

  - by the-wabbit

  In an AD domain with Windows Server 2008 R2 DCs users are complaining about delays in the bootup process of the clients. The group policy log reveals that the client is waiting ~ 20-50 seconds for "the network subsystem": Event 5322, GroupPolicy Group policy waited for 29687 milliseconds for the network subsystem at computer boot. This appears to be domain-specific as machines joining a different domain from the same network do not experience any delays and Event 5322 reports <1000 ms wait times at startup. It happens on virtual and physical machines alike, so it does not look like a hardware- or driver-related issue. Further investigation has shown that the client is taking its time before issuing DHCP requests. In the network traces, I can see IPv6 router solicitations and multicast DNS name registrations as soon as the network driver is loaded and the network connection is reported "up" in the event log (e1cexpress/36). Yet, the DHCPv4 client service seems to take another 15-50 seconds to start (Dhcp-Client/50036), so the IPv4 address remains unconfigured for a while. The DHCP client's messages in the event log are succeeding the service start of the "Sophos Anti-Virus" service (Sophos AV 10.3 package), which I suspect to be the culprit - the DHCP client service dependencies include the TDI Support driver which might be what Sophos is using to intercept network traffic: Network Location Awareness seems to break at startup as a side-effect, I see that off-site DCs are contacted due to what seems like a race condition between the GP client and the DHCP client / NLA service startup. I could set the Group Policy Client service to depend on NLA, yet this still would not eliminate the delay. Also, I am not all that sure that this is a good idea. Is there a known resolution which would eliminate the startup delay?

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• SATA HDD stuttering on reads (LED on)

  - by jdehaan

  I hope I can get some new ideas to solve the issue. What I have: AMD Phenom II X4 905e Box, Sockel AM3 Gigabyte GA-MA790XTA-UD4, AMD 790X, AM3 ATX WD Caviar GreenPower 1,5TB SATA II 4GB Kit OCZ DDR3 PC3-10666 Platinum Low-Voltage CL7 HIS HD 4670 iSilence4 DDR3 1024MB Native HDMI Dual-DVI, PCI-Express Behavior: Everything works normally excepting the HDD accesses. The drive seems to get stuck in reading data (LED drive by Mainboard is on for a while) then recovers and goes on. There is a delay of more than 30s sometimes. Often it is a matter of 5-10s. This does not seem related to the workload of the disk. What I tried so far: Use different SATA port: I switched from the SATA3 to SATA2 then the SATA driven by the CPU, no difference. Turned AHCI off, drove the SATA in IDE mode, same behavior, now I felt like the HDD has problems Deactivated energy saving settings (BeQuiet, ...), disabled 3 CPUs (msconfig) supposing some race condition or trouble with changing freqs, same trouble With Windows7 Professional 64Bit, I installed the hotfix http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B976418&x=8&y=9 with no success. The problem description matches what I experienced, so I felt lucky but was quite in a sad mood after being deceived. Burned the DLG 5.04f DataLifeGuard CD from WD to check the drive. All tests passed, to my surprise! Installed an Ubuntu on the same drive i386 flavour. Drive still in IDE mode, exactly the same behavior. So the OS does not matter. What I did not try yet: http://www.gigabyte.eu/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_Model.aspx?ProductID=3263 I have a F2 BIOS and there is a F3a Beta, did someone have similar issues that were solved by this update? It is a beta so I fear upgrading a bit and I could find no release notes at all on the net, not really serious work maybe they had issues translating from Chinese??? Using another HDD drive Does someone have other hints or a similar issue? Maybe it is neither the HDD nor the Mainboard/BIOS?

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• Host spreads wrong MAC Adress of router on the WIFI

  - by JavaIsMyIsland

  Strange things are going on our network. Since yesterday a host which is actually not on our subnet spreads wrong ARP Replys on our network. To be precise, only on the WIFI. If I connect my Laptop to the cable ethernet, it gets the right MAC adress of the router. Also my Android phone and my Ubuntu system do get the right MAC Adress. So I took a look at wireshark. When I clear the ARP cache of the windows machine, the first ARP response is correct and comes from the router. But like 10 ms later another ARP response comes from another host in the WIFI. The host changes its IP Adresses from time to time and they look like they are not on our subnet. So I can not use the internet because DNS is not working anymore. Sometimes the router wins the race condition and the mac adress is set correctly in the arp cache. I first thought, this is an arp-poisoning mitm attack but it does not make sense if the packets get not routed correctly?! I restarted the router but it didn't help. I have no access to the router, else I would change the shared key to make sure there is no intruder on the wifi.

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• MD RAID 1 with external bitmap doesn't fully resync

  - by user64744

  I have an interesting configuration: dual boot system with a RAID 1 that needs to be visible in both Windows and Linux. The Windows install is Win 7 Enterprise, and the Linux install is Kubuntu 10.04. To get the RAID to work, I set it up using Windows's "Dynamic Disks" RAID 1, and brought it up in Linux using MD with no persistent superblock, and a write-intent bitmap on another partition. (Without this bitmap, MD had no way of knowing that the array was in sync, and would do a complete resync every time the array started.) The array is assembled like so: mdadm --build /dev/md1 -l 1 -n 2 -b /var/local/md1.bitmap /dev/sdb2 /dev/sdc2 I expected that the first time I ran this command, it would resync the array, write out a bitmap with no dirty chunks, and all would be good. This wasn't the case: after completing the resync, the bitmap was mostly clean, but about 5% dirty blocks remained, as revealed by mdadm -X /var/local/md1.bitmap I didn't mount the filesystem on /dev/md1 or touch it in any other way. I then found that stopping and restarting the array: mdadm --stop /dev/md1 mdadm --build /dev/md1 -l 1 -n 2 -b /var/local/md1.bitmap /dev/sdb2 /dev/sdc2 did indeed read in the bitmap, with an ensuing resync that went quickly because most of the blocks were marked clean. The confusing part is that this resync further reduced the number of dirty blocks, but still did not remove all of them. By repeatedly stopping and restarting I could slowly bring the dirty block count down to around 0.6%, where it seemed to level out. Any ideas what could be causing this? It smells to me of a race condition somewhere that leads to blocks either being skipped over during synchronization or not properly cleared from the bitmap, but I really have no evidence to prove this. It doesn't look like hardware issues since both drives are new and have zero read errors and reallocated sectors reported by smartctl -a.

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• How can I preview the contents of books sold on Amazon in Internet Explorer 10?

  - by Aceman

  I run 64-bit Windows 7 and have both Internet Explorer 10 and a newly-downloaded copy of Google Chrome. I downloaded the latter when I found that I could not look (preview) the contents of books sold on Amazon (using it "Look Inside" feature) and wanted to try to get a handle on how extensive the problem was (i.e., whether it occurred on other browsers, too). It turns out that this isn't a problem with Chrome. However, I have grown accustomed over the years to IE and would prefer to resolve this problem instead. Here's an example of my attempt to 'Search Inside' a book on sale at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Race-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465058728/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382301764&sr=1-1&keywords=thomas+sowell#reader_0465058728 I understand that I can't (as is the case in some technical support websites) add a screen shot (ie. JPG to this), but if I were to describe what this looks like in IE, the area where the text would appear appears as a blank white page with horizontal lines where the text would ordinarily be. I have just examined this posting of mine via Chrome and the contents of the selected page are clearly visible.

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• What are the replacement options for an IDE hard disk for a DOS based system?

  - by dummzeuch

  I have got a few "embedded" systems running MSDOS 6.2 which boot from and store data to IDE hard disks. Since these drives are nearing their end of life, the question arises how we can replace them. The requirements are: DOS must be able to install and boot from these drives. They must be able to sustain heavy (mostly) write access. If possible, they should be able to survive moderate vibrations (not too bad since the current hard disks have survived several years of that) I considered the following options so far: other ide hard drives: Unfortunately modern IDE drives are too large so DOS cannot boot from them even if I create small partitions. Older IDE drives are just that: old, so they are probably not the most reliable ones any more. SSDs: There are a few SSDs with IDE interface available. I have not yet tried them. Does anybody have any experience with them? They look like the ideal replacement provided that DOS can boot from them and that writing speed does not deteriorate too much (the old hard disks are no race cars either). Compact Flash: There are adapters for using CF with IDE controllers and they work fine. DOS can boot from them and they have no problems at all with vibrations. What I am not sure about is their durability. DOS uses FAT so some very few sectors are written every time the medium is being written to. IDE to SATA converters: I have no idea whether they are any good. Has anybody tried them? It might be an option to use one of these to connect an SATA SSD to the system. Are there any alternatives that I have missed? (We are working on replacing these systems, but it will still take a few years.)

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• Windows XP Loading Problem

  - by Sadeq Dousti

  Sometimes, my Windows XP does not load correctly. It shows the login screen, and when I click my username, it load the desktop background, but the Explorer does not show up. So, I cannot see the icons on the desktop, the start menu, etc. If I press Ctrl+Alt+Del to show Task Manager, I can run programs (like media player or browser) from File--New Task (Run...). Also, in the Task Manager, I see Explorer.exe running. I tried to kill and re-run it, but nothing happens. I used Sysinternals Process Explorer to see if there were any odd process or odd behavior, but nothing was fishy. After several restarts, the system finally worked as expected. But this is not permanent: Sometimes, when I restart the system, it works just as described above (Explorer does not show up). But sometimes it works normally. I used Kaspersky to search for viruses, but nothing showed up. I think the info presented above is not enough to pinpoint the problem. Yet you might be able to tell me about a tool or something, which I can use to give you more info, or even solve the problem. PS: I can easily use the Safe Mode. It does not seem to suffer from this problem. Hence, I suspect there's some process (service) for which Explorer is waiting, but that process runs into trouble (say a race ondition, or an infinite loop) and so Explorer stalls as well.

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• What are the replacement options for an IDE hd for a DOS based system?

  - by dummzeuch

  I have got a few "embedded" systems running MSDOS 6.2 which boot from and store data to IDE hard disks. Since these drives are nearing their end of life, the question arises how we can replace them. The requirements are: DOS must be able to install and boot from these drives. They must be able to sustain heavy (mostly) write access. If possible, they should be able to survive moderate vibrations (not too bad since the current hds have survived several years of that) I considered the following options so far: other ide hard drives: Unfortunately modern IDE drives are too large so DOS cannot boot from them even if I create small partitions. Older IDE drives are just that: old, so they are probably not the most reliable ones any more. SSDs: There are a few SSDs with IDE interface available. I have not yet tried them. Does anybody have any experience with them? They look like the ideal replacement provided that DOS can boot from them and that writing speed does not deteriorate too much (the old hds are no race cars either). Compact Flash: There are adapters for using CF with IDE controllers and they work fine. DOS can boot from them and they have no problems at all with vibrations. What I am not sure about is their durability. DOS uses FAT so some very few sectors are written every time the medium is being written to. IDE to SATA converters: I have no idea whether they are any good. Has anybody tried them? It might be an option to use one of these to connect an SATA SSD to the system. Are there any alternatives that I have missed? (We are working on replacing these systems, but it will still take a few years.)

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• Web service for checking out / leasing a token

  - by JP Slavinsky

  I run a web site on AWS that has a number of web servers (say 4 of them) running behind a load balancer. For this particular web site, I have one license key of New Relic for doing instrumentation. At any one time, I only want one of the 4 web servers to be using the key. If that server goes offline, I want one of the remaining web servers to be able to begin using the license key. Does anyone know of a service that would let me manage this process? The service would not particularly need to store the key itself but rather just manage the fact that only one web server can lease out the right to use the key at any time. Something where the web servers would have to come back every few minutes and renew their lease, and if they don't it becomes available to someone else. I just realized I could maybe accomplish a hacked version of this using a file on S3, but that doesn't prevent race conditions / etc and is definitely hackish. Any thoughts welcome. FWIW, this site is built on Ruby on Rails. Thanks! JP

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• SQL SERVER – What is a Technology Evangelist?

  - by pinaldave

  When you hear that someone is an “evangelist” the first thing that might pop into your mind is the Christian church.  In fact, the term did come from Christianity, and basically means someone who spreads the news about their faith.  In the technology world, the same definition is true. Technology evangelists are individuals who, professionally or in their spare time, spread the news about the latest new products.  Sounds like a salesperson, right?  No they are absolutely different. Salespeople also keep up to date with a large number of people, and like to convince others to buy their product – and some will go to any lengths to sell!  An evangelist, on the other hand, is brutally honest about the product, even if sometimes it means not making a sale.  An evangelist is out there to tell the TRUTH.  A salesperson needs to make sales. An Evangelist offers a Solution independent of Technology used – a Salesperson offers Particular Technology. With this definition in mind, you can probably think of a few technology evangelists you already know.  Maybe it’s a relative or a neighbor, someone who loves keeping up with the latest trends and is always willing to tell you about them if you ask even the simplest question.  And, in fact, they probably are evangelists and don’t even know it.  For a long time, the work of technology evangelism was in the hands of community and community technology leaders. Luckily now various organizations have understood the importance of the community and helping community to reach their goals. This has lead them to create role of “Technology Evangelists”. Let me talk about one of the most famous Evangelist of the SQL Server technology. Technology Evangelist only belongs to technology and above any country, race, location or any other thing. They are dedicated to the technology. Vinod Kumar is such a man, who have given a lot to community. For years he was a Technology Evangelist for Microsoft, and maintained a blog that was dedicated to spreading his enthusiasm for his favorite products.  He is one of the most respected Evangelists in the field, and has done a lot of work to define the job for other professionals. Vinod’s career has since progressed to the Microsoft Technology Center (read his post), but he is continuing to be a strong presence in the evangelism community.  I have a lot of respect for Vinod.  He has done a lot for the community and technology evangelism.  Everybody has dream to serve community the way he does, and he is a great role model for evangelists everywhere. On his blog, Vinod created one of the best descriptions of a Technology Evangelist.  It defined the position and also made the distinction between evangelist and salesperson extremely clear.  I will include the highlights of that list here, because no one can say it better than Vinod: Bundle of energy – Passion is their middle name Wonderful Story tellers Empathy, Trust, Loyalty, Openness, Accessibility and Warmth Technology Enthusiast – Doers Love people, people and more people – Community oriented Unique Style and Leadership qualities !!! Self-Confident, Self-Motivated but a student (To read the full list, see: Evangelism Beyond Borders with Evangelists) His blog is a must-read for anyone interested in technology evangelism as a career or simply a hobby.  His advice about how to gain an audience and become a trusted advisor is the best in the business. I think there is an evangelist in everyone. I, too, consider myself a technology evangelist.  Regular readers of this blog will recognize that I am dedicated to bringing information to the masses, and that I pride myself on being both brutally and honest and giving every product fair consideration. I think there is no better way of saying following subject. “Once an Evangelist – Always an Evangelist!” Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)     Filed under: About Me, Database, MVP, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Evangelist

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• Dude, what’s up with POP Forums vNext?

  - by Jeff

  Yeah, it has been awhile. I posted v9.2 back in January, about five months ago. That’s a real change from the release pace I had there for awhile. Let me explain what’s going on. First off, in the interim, I re-launched CoasterBuzz, which required a lot of my attention for about two of those months. That’s a good thing though, because that site is just about the best test bed I could ask for. The other thing is that I committed to make the next version use ASP.NET MVC 4, which is now at the RC stage. I didn’t think much about when they’d hit their RTW point, but RC is good enough for me. To that end, there is enough change in the next version that I recently decided to make it a major version upgrade, and finish up the loose ends and science projects to make it whole. Here’s what’s in store… Mobile views: I sat on this or a long time. Originally, I was going to use jQuery Mobile, and waited and waited for a new release, but in the end, decided against using it. Sometimes buttons would unexplainably not work, I felt like I was fighting it at times, and the CSS just felt too heavy. I rolled my own mobile sugar at a fraction of the size, and I think you’ll find it easy to modify. And it’s Metro-y, of course! Re-do of background services: A number of things run in the background, and I did quite a bit of “reimagining” of that code. It’s the weirdness of running services in a Web site context, because so many folks can’t run a bona fide service on their host’s box. The biggest change here is that these service no longer start up by default. You’ll need to call a new method from global.asax called PopForumsActivation.StartServices(). This is also a precursor to running the app in a Web farm (new data layer and caching is the second part of that). I learned about this the hard way when I had three apps using the forum library code but only one was actually the forum. The services were all running three times as often with race conditions and hits on the same data. That was particularly bad for e-mail. CSS clean up: It’s still not ideal, but it’s getting better. That’s one of those things that comes with integrating to a real site… you discover all of the dumb things you did. The mobile CSS is particularly easier to live with. Bug fixes: There are a whole lot of them. Most were minor, but it’s feeling pretty solid now. So that’s where I am. I’m going to call it v10.0, and I’m going to really put forth some effort toward finishing the mobile experience and getting through the remaining bugs. The roadmap beyond that will likely not be feature oriented, but rather work on some other things, like making it run in Azure, perhaps using SQL CE, a better install experience, etc. As usual, I’ll post the latest here. Stay tuned!

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• A debugging experience with "highly compatible" ASP.NET 4.5

  - by Jeff

  I have to admit that I will pretty much upgrade software for no reason other than being on the latest version. I won't do it if it's super expensive (Adobe gets money from me about once every three or four years at best), but particularly with frameworks and stuff generally available as part of my MSDN subscription, I'll be bleeding edge. CoasterBuzz was running on the MVC 4 framework pretty much as soon as they did a "go live" license for it. I didn't really jump in head-first with Windows 8 and Visual Studio 2012, in part because I just wasn't interested in doing the reinstalls for each new version. Turns out there weren't that many revisions anyway. But when the final versions were released a week and a half ago, I jumped in. I saw on one of the Microsoft sites that .Net 4.5 was a "highly compatible in-place update" to the framework. Good enough for me. I was obviously running it by default in Windows 8, and installed it on my production server. I suppose it's "highly compatible," except when it isn't. Three of my sites are running with various flavors of the MVC version of POP Forums. All of them stopped working under ASP.NET 4.5. It was not immediately obvious what the problem might be beyond an exception indicating that there were no repository classes registered with Ninject, which I use for dependency injection in the forums. This was made all the more weird by the fact that it ran fine locally in the dev Web host. My first instinct was to spin up a Windows Server VM on my local box and put the remote debugger on it. (Side note: running multiple VM's on a Retina MacBook Pro with 16 gigs of RAM is pretty much the most awesome thing ever. I can't believe this computer is for real, and not a 50-pound tower under my desk.) What might have been going on in IIS that doesn't happen in Visual Studio? In the debugging process, I realized that I might be looking in the wrong place. POP Forums creates a Ninject container using a method called from a PreApplicationStartMethod attribute, and at that time registers a module (what Ninject uses to map interfaces to implementations) that maps all of the core dependencies. It also creates an instance of an HttpModule that originally hosted the "services" (search indexing, mailer, etc.), but now just records errors. That's all well and good, but the actual repository mapping, where data is actually read or persisted, happens in Application_Start() in global.asax. The idea there is that you can swap out the SqlSingleWebServer repos for something tuned for multiple servers, Oracle or something else. Of course, if I used something like StructureMap, which does convention-based mapping for dependency injection (a class implementing ISettingsRepository called SettingsRepository is automagically mapped), I wouldn't have to worry about it. In any case, the HttpModule, being instantiated before Application_Start() gets to run, would throw because there was no repo mapped where it could get settings from the database. This makes total sense. The fix is sort of a hack, where I don't setup the innards of the HttpModule until a call to its BeginRequest is made. I say it's a hack, because its primary function, logging exceptions, won't work until the app has warmed up. Still, this brings up an interesting question about the race condition, and what changed in 4.5 when it's running in IIS. In ASP.NET 4, it would appear that the code called via the PreApplicationStartMethod was either failing silently, and running again later, or it was getting to that code after Application_Start was called. In any case, weird thing. The real pain point I'm experiencing now is a bug in MVC 4 that is extremely serious because it renders the mobile/alternate view functionality very much broken.

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• WebCenter Marketing and Upcoming Events

  - by rituchhibber

  Events: Events: Date Event Name Location/Country October 30, 2012 ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter Webcast November 1, 2012 Paper Burying Your HR Processes? Dig Your Way Out With Oracle WebCenter! Webcast November 15, 2012 Social Business Thought Leader Webcast: Three Ways to Fix Your Broken Organization, featuring Christian Finn Webcast Marketing: Marketing: WebCenter Sites Sales eVite:Embrace the Base: Create an Exceptional Online Customer Experience with Oracle WebCenter Sites Directs recipients to the Connected Customer Experience Resource Center to see the latest demos, analyst reports, and customer webcasts promoting WebCenter Sites. For more information Click  here. WebCenter Social Business Thought Leaders Series: Digital Darwinism: How Brands Can Survive the Rapid Evolution of Society and TechnologyBrian Solis, Altimeter Group digital analyst and futuristDecember 13, 2012 10am PDTRegistration available soon, find other content from this speaker here. Webcast: WebCenter Sites for Applications: Disconnected Online Customer Experience? Connect it with Oracle WebCenter November 8, 2012  eVite | Registration Page WebCenter in Action Customer & Partner webcast series: Started earlier in FY13, a new webcast series featuring WebCenter customer deployments that are executed by a partner.The next webcast in the series will be November 14th:Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety Lowers Customer Service Costs with Oracle WebCenter Click here to learn more. OnDemand Webcast: ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenterComplex documents must be created, assembled, reviewed, and tracked. To avoid fragmented, chaotic information processes, organizations must adopt an integrated set of strategies, standards, best practices, and technologies for managing information. Attend this webcast to learn how Oracle WebCenter has allowed ResCare to: solve content lifecycle challenges, reduce compliance and business risks and increase adoption of intranet as primary business communication tool. On-Demand Assets Date Event Name Location/Country On Demand Avoid Social Media Fatigue - Learn the 9 C’s of Customer Engagement, featuring Ray Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO, Constellation Research Webcast On Demand WebCenter in Action Series: Hitachi Data Systems Improves Global Web Experience with Oracle WebCenter, presented by Hitachi Data Systems and Lingotek. Webcast On Demand Managing Social Relationships for the Enterprise, featuring Jeremiah Owyang, Industry Analyst, Altimeter Group and Reggie Bradford, Vice President, Oracle Webcast On Demand Oracle’s Vision for the Social-Enabled Enterprise, presented by Mark Hurd, Thomas Kurian and Reggie Bradford Webcast On Demand WebCenter in Action Series: Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter, presented by Qualcomm and Keste. Webcast On Demand Social Business Thought Leaders Series: 6 Counterintuitive Best Practices for Social Collaboration Adoption, featuring John Brunswick, Oracle. Webcast On Demand Oracle WebCenter Connects Patients and Researchers in Cancer Control Mission, presented by Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and App-Systems Webcast On Demand Oracle WebCenter: Modernize, Aggregate and Extend Your Portals Webcast On Demand Top 10 Technology Trends Driving Business Innovation, featuring Andy Mulholland, CTO, Capgemini Webcast On Demand Ancestry.com Helps Families Uncover History with Oracl e WebCenter Webcast On Demand Organic Business Networks: Doing Business in a Hyper-Connected World, featuring Mike Fauscette, GVP, IDC Webcast On Demand Social Business and Innovation, featuring John Mancini, President, AIIM Webcast On Demand Do More with Oracle WebCenter: Expand Beyond Web Experience Management Webcast On Demand Race Against the Machine, featuring Andrew McAfee, author and principal scientist at MIT Webcast On Demand Introducing Oracle WebCenter Sites 11gR1: Transforming the Online Experience Webcast On Demand Mobile is the New Face of Engagement, featuring Ted Schadler, Vice President & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research Inc Webcast Analyst Report: IDC Research: Oracle Debuts New Release of Oracle WebCenter Sites.

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• F1 Pit Pragmatics

  - by mikef

  "I hate computers. No, really, I hate them. I love the communications they facilitate, I love the conveniences they provide to my life. but I actually hate the computers themselves." - Scott Merrill, 'I hate computers: confessions of a Sysadmin' If Scott's goal was to polarize opinion and trigger raging arguments over the 'real reasons why computers suck', then he certainly succeeded. Impassioned vitriol sits side-by-side with rational debate. Yet Scott's fundamental point is absolutely on the money - Computers are a means to an end. The IT industry is finally starting to put weight behind the notion that good User Experience is an absolutely crucial goal, a cause championed by the likes of Microsoft's Bill Buxton, and which Apple's increasingly ubiquitous touch screen interface exemplifies. However, that doesn't change the fact that, occasionally, you just have to man up and deal with complex systems. In fact, sometimes you just need to sacrifice everything else in the name of performance. You'll find a perfect example of this Faustian bargain in Trevor Clarke's fascinating look into the (diabolical) IT infrastructure of modern F1 racing - high performance, high availability. high everything. To paraphrase, each car has up to 100 sensors, transmitting around 30Gb of data over the course of a race (70% in real-time). This data is then processed by no less than 3 servers (per car) so that the engineers in the pit have access to telemetry, strategy information, timing feeds, a connection back to the operations room in the team's home base - the list goes on. All of this while the servers are exposed "to carbon dust, oil, vibration, rain, heat, [and] variable power". Now, this is admittedly an extreme context where there's no real choice but to use complex systems where ease-of-use is, at best, a secondary concern. The flip-side is seen in small-scale personal computing such as that seen in Apple's iDevices, which are incredibly intuitive but limited in their scope. In terms of what kinds of systems they prefer to use, I suspect that most SysAdmins find themselves somewhere along this axis of Power vs. Usability, and which end of this axis you resonate with also hints at where you think the IT industry should focus its energy. Do you see yourself in the F1 pit, making split-second decisions, wrestling with information flows and reticent hardware to bend them to your will? If so, I imagine you feel that computers are subtle tools which need to be tuned and honed, using the advanced knowledge possessed only by responsible SysAdmins (If you have an iPhone, I suspect it's jail-broken). If the machines throw enigmatic errors, it's the price of flexibility and raw power. Alternatively, would you prefer to have your role more accessible, with users empowered by knowledge, spreading the load of managing IT environments? In that case, then you want hardware and software to have User Experience as their primary focus, and are of the "means to an end" school of thought (you're probably also fed up with users not listening to you when you try and help). At its heart, the dichotomy is between raw power (which might be difficult to use) and ease-of-use (which might have some limitations, but you can be up and running immediately). Of course, the ultimate goal is a fusion of flexibility, power and usability all in one system. It's achievable in specific software environments, and Red Gate considers it a target worth aiming for, but in other cases it's a goal right up there with cold fusion. I think it'll be a long time before we see it become ubiquitous. In the meantime, are you Power-Hungry or a Champion of Usability? Cheers, Michael Francis Simple Talk SysAdmin Editor

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• Why Ultra-Low Power Computing Will Change Everything

  - by Tori Wieldt

  The ARM TechCon keynote "Why Ultra-Low Power Computing Will Change Everything" was anything but low-powered. The speaker, Dr. Johnathan Koomey, knows his subject: he is a Consulting Professor at Stanford University, worked for more than two decades at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, Yale University, and UC Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group. His current focus is creating a standard (computations per kilowatt hour) and measuring computer energy consumption over time. The trends are impressive: energy consumption has halved every 1.5 years for the last 60 years. Battery life has made roughly a 10x improvement each decade since 1960. It's these improvements that have made laptops and cell phones possible. What does the future hold? Dr. Koomey said that in the past, the race by chip manufacturers was to create the fastest computer, but the priorities have now changed. New computers are tiny, smart, connected and cheap. "You can't underestimate the importance of a shift in industry focus from raw performance to power efficiency for mobile devices," he said. There is also a confluence of trends in computing, communications, sensors, and controls. The challenge is how to reduce the power requirements for these tiny devices. Alternate sources of power that are being explored are light, heat, motion, and even blood sugar. The University of Michigan has produced a miniature sensor that harnesses solar energy and could last for years without needing to be replaced. Also, the University of Washington has created a sensor that scavenges power from existing radio and TV signals.Specific devices designed for a purpose are much more efficient than general purpose computers. With all these sensors, instead of big data, developers should focus on nano-data, personalized information that will adjust the lights in a room, a machine, a variable sign, etc.Dr. Koomey showed some examples:The Proteus Digital Health Feedback System, an ingestible sensor that transmits when a patient has taken their medicine and is powered by their stomach juices. (Gives "powered by you" a whole new meaning!) Streetline Parking Systems, that provide real-time data about available parking spaces. The information can be sent to your phone or update parking signs around the city to point to areas with available spaces. Less driving around looking for parking spaces!The BigBelly trash system that uses solar power, compacts trash, and sends a text message when it is full. This dramatically reduces the number of times a truck has to come to pick up trash, freeing up resources and slashing fuel costs. This is a classic example of the efficiency of moving "bits not atoms." But researchers are approaching the physical limits of sensors, Dr. Kommey explained. With the current rate of technology improvement, they'll reach the three-atom transistor by 2041. Once they hit that wall, it will force a revolution they way we do computing. But wait, researchers at Purdue University and the University of New South Wales are both working on a reliable one-atom transistors! Other researchers are working on "approximate computing" that will reduce computing requirements drastically. So it's unclear where the wall actually is. In the meantime, as Dr. Koomey promised, ultra-low power computing will change everything.

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