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  • Does IE6 Really not Allow Me to set width/height from left/right/top/bottom???

    - by viatropos
    Building a site super quick and having it work on all my Mac browsers, I thought I'd take a gander on a friends old dell laptop with Windows XP and IE6. Nothing looks remotely correct. It's because I used lots of left/right/top/bottom (constraint) declarations to size elements proportionally to their parent's size (I didn't use percent sizes because the percents refer to the parent's size before margins and padding are applied, left/right/top/bottom refer to them after with position:absolute. I'm asking about that here :)). I've read lots these past few weeks on how horrible IE6 (and IE) is in general, but because of all the reasons people say to support it (large market share and the fear of installing better software), and because half the people in the company we're building a site for use IE6 (getting them to upgrade to Chrome slowly but surely), I thought if I could just get IE6 to render my constraints, that might help. So I am messing around with simple layouts here, and they work fine in my latest versions of Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera, but IE6 is basically saying: If you haven't set a width or height on me, I'm assuming it's zero. But position:absolute; left:0px; right:0px; top:0px; bottom:0px; on a container that's width:1000px; height:1000px; should be the same as setting width:1000px; height:1000px on the child, no? Taking a quick look at the source for this, why won't IE6 render the constraint based absolutely positioned AND SIZED elements? (note: I will be messing around with that file for a while) Thanks

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  • Can a pc with a 1.2 ghz dual core run VS 2013? [on hold]

    - by moo2
    Edit: This question is about a tool used for programming, Microsoft Visual Studio 2013. I already read the minimum requirements for VS 2013 before I posted or I wouldn't have asked the question. I searched on the web for an answer for a few hours before posting. Why should I go out and spend $400 on a laptop if I can spend less than $100 and use it to learn how to program? In the context of the question it is clear I was not asking for advice on what laptop to buy and it was also clear I was not asking for someone to walk me through the system requirements of VS 2013. This is a vast community and I was wondering if someone in this vast community would have experience in dealing with my question. In other words has anyone ever tried anything like it? If I had an old computer sitting around I would have tested it. At the moment all I have is a friend's Chromebook I'm borrowing. End Edit. I know the requirements for Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 state 1.6 ghz processor. I'm looking at getting a laptop for school and I found one that is old but cheap and would work for college. The Dell D430 I'm looking at getting has a 1.2ghz Core 2 Duo CPU, 80GB HD, 2GB RAM, and Windows 7 Home Premium. It's refurbished. I can get it for less than most phone's cost and from a Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher. I know it's not a skyrim rig but it's lightweight and can handle being a college laptop and doing word processing. Would Visual Studio 2013 run at all? If it is slower I'm not concerned. I just want to know if it would work and compile my assignments and run them? I'd be using this laptop for doing assignments and learning programming languages not for coding the next social media sensation.

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  • Oracle Data Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study

    - by charlie.berger
    There is a complete and detailed Telco Churn case study "How to" Blog Series just posted by Ari Mozes, ODM Dev. Manager.  In it, Ari provides detailed guidance in how to leverage various strengths of Oracle Data Mining including the ability to: mine Star Schemas and join tables and views together to obtain a complete 360 degree view of a customer combine transactional data e.g. call record detail (CDR) data, etc. define complex data transformation, model build and model deploy analytical methodologies inside the Database  His blog is posted in a multi-part series.  Below are some opening excerpts for the first 3 blog entries.  This is an excellent resource for any novice to skilled data miner who wants to gain competitive advantage by mining their data inside the Oracle Database.  Many thanks Ari! Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study (1 of 3) One of the strengths of Oracle Data Mining is the ability to mine star schemas with minimal effort.  Star schemas are commonly used in relational databases, and they often contain rich data with interesting patterns.  While dimension tables may contain interesting demographics, fact tables will often contain user behavior, such as phone usage or purchase patterns.  Both of these aspects - demographics and usage patterns - can provide insight into behavior.Churn is a critical problem in the telecommunications industry, and companies go to great lengths to reduce the churn of their customer base.  One case study1 describes a telecommunications scenario involving understanding, and identification of, churn, where the underlying data is present in a star schema.  That case study is a good example for demonstrating just how natural it is for Oracle Data Mining to analyze a star schema, so it will be used as the basis for this series of posts...... Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study (2 of 3) This post will follow the transformation steps as described in the case study, but will use Oracle SQL as the means for preparing data.  Please see the previous post for background material, including links to the case study and to scripts that can be used to replicate the stages in these posts.1) Handling missing values for call data recordsThe CDR_T table records the number of phone minutes used by a customer per month and per call type (tariff).  For example, the table may contain one record corresponding to the number of peak (call type) minutes in January for a specific customer, and another record associated with international calls in March for the same customer.  This table is likely to be fairly dense (most type-month combinations for a given customer will be present) due to the coarse level of aggregation, but there may be some missing values.  Missing entries may occur for a number of reasons: the customer made no calls of a particular type in a particular month, the customer switched providers during the timeframe, or perhaps there is a data entry problem.  In the first situation, the correct interpretation of a missing entry would be to assume that the number of minutes for the type-month combination is zero.  In the other situations, it is not appropriate to assume zero, but rather derive some representative value to replace the missing entries.  The referenced case study takes the latter approach.  The data is segmented by customer and call type, and within a given customer-call type combination, an average number of minutes is computed and used as a replacement value.In SQL, we need to generate additional rows for the missing entries and populate those rows with appropriate values.  To generate the missing rows, Oracle's partition outer join feature is a perfect fit.  select cust_id, cdre.tariff, cdre.month, minsfrom cdr_t cdr partition by (cust_id) right outer join     (select distinct tariff, month from cdr_t) cdre     on (cdr.month = cdre.month and cdr.tariff = cdre.tariff);   ....... Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study (3 of 3) Now that the "difficult" work is complete - preparing the data - we can move to building a predictive model to help identify and understand churn.The case study suggests that separate models be built for different customer segments (high, medium, low, and very low value customer groups).  To reduce the data to a single segment, a filter can be applied: create or replace view churn_data_high asselect * from churn_prep where value_band = 'HIGH'; It is simple to take a quick look at the predictive aspects of the data on a univariate basis.  While this does not capture the more complex multi-variate effects as would occur with the full-blown data mining algorithms, it can give a quick feel as to the predictive aspects of the data as well as validate the data preparation steps.  Oracle Data Mining includes a predictive analytics package which enables quick analysis. begin  dbms_predictive_analytics.explain(   'churn_data_high','churn_m6','expl_churn_tab'); end; /select * from expl_churn_tab where rank <= 5 order by rank; ATTRIBUTE_NAME       ATTRIBUTE_SUBNAME EXPLANATORY_VALUE RANK-------------------- ----------------- ----------------- ----------LOS_BAND                                      .069167052          1MINS_PER_TARIFF_MON  PEAK-5                   .034881648          2REV_PER_MON          REV-5                    .034527798          3DROPPED_CALLS                                 .028110322          4MINS_PER_TARIFF_MON  PEAK-4                   .024698149          5From the above results, it is clear that some predictors do contain information to help identify churn (explanatory value > 0).  The strongest uni-variate predictor of churn appears to be the customer's (binned) length of service.  The second strongest churn indicator appears to be the number of peak minutes used in the most recent month.  The subname column contains the interior piece of the DM_NESTED_NUMERICALS column described in the previous post.  By using the object relational approach, many related predictors are included within a single top-level column. .....   NOTE:  These are just EXCERPTS.  Click here to start reading the Oracle Data Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study from the beginning.    

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  • A Guided Tour of Complexity

    - by JoshReuben
    I just re-read Complexity – A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell , protégé of Douglas Hofstadter ( author of “Gödel, Escher, Bach”) http://www.amazon.com/Complexity-Guided-Tour-Melanie-Mitchell/dp/0199798109/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339744329&sr=8-1 here are some notes and links:   Evolved from Cybernetics, General Systems Theory, Synergetics some interesting transdisciplinary fields to investigate: Chaos Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory – small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible. System Dynamics / Cybernetics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Dynamics – study of how feedback changes system behavior Network Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_theory – leverage Graph Theory to analyze symmetric  / asymmetric relations between discrete objects Algebraic Topology - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_topology – leverage abstract algebra to analyze topological spaces There are limits to deterministic systems & to computation. Chaos Theory definitely applies to training an ANN (artificial neural network) – different weights will emerge depending upon the random selection of the training set. In recursive Non-Linear systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_system – output is not directly inferable from input. E.g. a Logistic map: Xt+1 = R Xt(1-Xt) Different types of bifurcations, attractor states and oscillations may occur – e.g. a Lorenz Attractor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_system Feigenbaum Constants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feigenbaum_constants express ratios in a bifurcation diagram for a non-linear map – the convergent limit of R (the rate of period-doubling bifurcations) is 4.6692016 Maxwell’s Demon - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon - the Second Law of Thermodynamics has only a statistical certainty – the universe (and thus information) tends towards entropy. While any computation can theoretically be done without expending energy, with finite memory, the act of erasing memory is permanent and increases entropy. Life & thought is a counter-example to the universe’s tendency towards entropy. Leo Szilard and later Claude Shannon came up with the Information Theory of Entropy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory) whereby Shannon entropy quantifies the expected value of a message’s information in bits in order to determine channel capacity and leverage Coding Theory (compression analysis). Ludwig Boltzmann came up with Statistical Mechanics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_mechanics – whereby our Newtonian perception of continuous reality is a probabilistic and statistical aggregate of many discrete quantum microstates. This is relevant for Quantum Information Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_information and the Physics of Information - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information. Hilbert’s Problems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_problems pondered whether mathematics is complete, consistent, and decidable (the Decision Problem – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entscheidungsproblem – is there always an algorithm that can determine whether a statement is true).  Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems  proved that mathematics cannot be both complete and consistent (e.g. “This statement is not provable”). Turing through the use of Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine symbol processors that can prove mathematical statements) and Universal Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Turing_machine Turing Machines that can emulate other any Turing Machine via accepting programs as well as data as input symbols) that computation is limited by demonstrating the Halting Problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem (is is not possible to know when a program will complete – you cannot build an infinite loop detector). You may be used to thinking of 1 / 2 / 3 dimensional systems, but Fractal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal systems are defined by self-similarity & have non-integer Hausdorff Dimensions !!!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fractals_by_Hausdorff_dimension – the fractal dimension quantifies the number of copies of a self similar object at each level of detail – eg Koch Snowflake - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_snowflake Definitions of complexity: size, Shannon entropy, Algorithmic Information Content (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory - size of shortest program that can generate a description of an object) Logical depth (amount of info processed), thermodynamic depth (resources required). Complexity is statistical and fractal. John Von Neumann’s other machine was the Self-Reproducing Automaton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine  . Cellular Automata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton are alternative form of Universal Turing machine to traditional Von Neumann machines where grid cells are locally synchronized with their neighbors according to a rule. Conway’s Game of Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life demonstrates various emergent constructs such as “Glider Guns” and “Spaceships”. Cellular Automatons are not practical because logical ops require a large number of cells – wasteful & inefficient. There are no compilers or general program languages available for Cellular Automatons (as far as I am aware). Random Boolean Networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_network are extensions of cellular automata where nodes are connected at random (not to spatial neighbors) and each node has its own rule –> they demonstrate the emergence of complex  & self organized behavior. Stephen Wolfram’s (creator of Mathematica, so give him the benefit of the doubt) New Kind of Science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science proposes the universe may be a discrete Finite State Automata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine whereby reality emerges from simple rules. I am 2/3 through this book. It is feasible that the universe is quantum discrete at the plank scale and that it computes itself – Digital Physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics – a simulated reality? Anyway, all behavior is supposedly derived from simple algorithmic rules & falls into 4 patterns: uniform , nested / cyclical, random (Rule 30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_30) & mixed (Rule 110 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110 localized structures – it is this that is interesting). interaction between colliding propagating signal inputs is then information processing. Wolfram proposes the Principle of Computational Equivalence - http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrincipleofComputationalEquivalence.html - all processes that are not obviously simple can be viewed as computations of equivalent sophistication. Meaning in information may emerge from analogy & conceptual slippages – see the CopyCat program: http://cognitrn.psych.indiana.edu/rgoldsto/courses/concepts/copycat.pdf Scale Free Networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network have a distribution governed by a Power Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law - much more common than Normal Distribution). They are characterized by hubs (resilience to random deletion of nodes), heterogeneity of degree values, self similarity, & small world structure. They grow via preferential attachment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_attachment – tipping points triggered by positive feedback loops. 2 theories of cascading system failures in complex systems are Self-Organized Criticality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organized_criticality and Highly Optimized Tolerance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_optimized_tolerance. Computational Mechanics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_mechanics – use of computational methods to study phenomena governed by the principles of mechanics. This book is a great intuition pump, but does not cover the more mathematical subject of Computational Complexity Theory – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_complexity_theory I am currently reading this book on this subject: http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Complexity-Christos-H-Papadimitriou/dp/0201530821/ref=pd_sim_b_1   stay tuned for that review!

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  • Adaptive ADF/WebCenter template for the iPad

    - by Maiko Rocha
    One of my WebCenter Portal customers was asking about adaptive design with ADF/WebCenter Portal and how they could go about creating an adaptive iPad template for their WebCenter Portal application. They were looking not only for the out-of-the-box support for mobile Safari which is certified against PS5+ (11.1.1.6) for ADF/WebCenter - but also to create a specific template to streamline their workflow on the iPad. Seems like they wanted something in the lines of Yahoo! Mail provides for the iPad - so the example I will use is shamelessly inspired by Y! Mail's iPad UI.  But first, let's quickly understand how can we bake in some adaptive goodness into ADF Faces. First thing we need to understand is, yes, there are a couple of constraints that we will need to work around, namely, the use or layout managers and skins. Please also keep in mind that I'm not and I don't pretend to be a web designer, much less an UX specialist, so feel free to leave your thoughts on the matter in the comments section. Now, back to the limitations. Layout Managers ADF Faces layout managers create an abstraction on top of the generated HTML code for a page so a developer doesn't need to be worried about how to size and dimension the UI layout (eg, af:panelStretchLayout). Although layout managers are very helpful, in this specific situation we will need to know a little bit more of how the final HTML is being rendered so we can apply the CSS class accordingly and create transition containers where the media queries will be applied - now, if you're using 11gR2 (11.1.2.2.3) there's the new component af:panelGridLayout (here and here) that will greatly improve creating responsive templates and pages because it is based on the grid/fluid systems and will generate straight out to DIVs on your final page. For now, I'm limited to PS5 and the af:panelStretchLayout component as a starting point because that's the release my customer is on. Skins You won't be able to use media queries, or use anything with "@" notation on the skin CSS file - the skin pre-processor will remove all extraneous "@" from the CSS file. The solution is to split your CSS in two separate files: a skin CSS file and plain CSS where you will add the media queries. The issue here is that you won't be able to use media queries for any faces components. We can, though, still apply the media queries for the components like af:panelGroupLayout and af:panelBorderLayout through their styleClass property to enable these components to be responsive to to the iPad orientation, by changing its dimensions, font sizes, hide/show areas, etc. Difference between responsive and adaptive design The best definition of adaptive vs responsive web design I could find is this: “Responsive web design,” as coined by Ethan Marcotte, means “fluid grids, fluid images/media & media queries.” “Adaptive web design,” as I use it, is about creating interfaces that adapt to the user’s capabilities (in terms of both form and function). To me, “adaptive web design” is just another term for “progressive enhancement” of which responsive web design can (an often should) be an integral part, but is a more holistic approach to web design in that it also takes into account varying levels of markup, CSS, JavaScript and assistive technology support. Responsive/adapative web design is much more than slapping an HTML template with CSS around your content or application. The content and application themselves are part of your web design - in other words, a responsive template is just an afterthought if it is not originating from a responsive design the involves the whole web application/s. Tips on responsive / adapative design with ADF/WebCenter Some of the tips listed below were already mentioned in multiple blog posts about ADF layout and skinning, but it is still worth remembering: a simple guideline for ADF/WebCenter apps would be to first create a high-level group of devices, for example: smartphones, tablets,  and desktop. For each of these large groups, create the basic structure to provide responsiveness: a page template, a skin, and an external CSS: pagetemplate_smartphone.jspx, smartphone_skin.css, smartphone-responsive.css pagetemplate_tablet.jspx, tablet_skin.css, tablet-responsive.css pagetemplate_desktop.jspx, desktop_skin.css, desktop-responsive.css These three assets can be changed on the fly through an user-agent check on the server side, delivering the right UI to the right device. Within each of the assets, you can make fine adjustments for each subgroup of devices with media queries - for example, smart phones with different screen dimensions and pixel density. Having these three groups and the corresponding assets per group seem to be a good compromise between trying to put everything on a single set of assets - specially considering the constraints above - and going to the other side of the spectrum to create assets per discrete device (iPhone4, iPhone5, Nexus, S3, etc.). Keep in mind that these are my rules and are not in any shape or form a best practice - this is how it fits best for the scenarios I've been working with. If you need to use HTML tags on your page, surround them with af:group to protect the DOM structure For stretchable/fluid layouts: Use non-stretching containers: panelGroupLayout, panelBorderLayout, … panelBorderLayout can be used to approximate HTML table component To avoid multiple scroll bars, do not nest scrolling PanelGroupLayout components. Consider layout="vertical" For stretchable/fluid layouts: Most stretchable ADF components also work in flowing context with dimensionsFrom="auto" To stretch a component horizontally, use styleClass="AFStretchWidth" instead of  "width:100%" Skinning Don't use CSS3 @media, @import, animations, etc. on skin css files. They will be removed. CSS3 properties within a class (box-shadow, transition, etc.) work just fine. Consider resetting some skin classes to better control their rendering: body {color: inherit;font: inherit;} af|document {-tr-inhibit: all;} af|commandLink {-tr-inhibit: all;} af|goLink {-tr-inhibit: all;} af|inputText::content {font: inherit;} Specific meta tags and CSS properties: Use  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, minimum-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0"/> to avoid zooming (if you want) Use -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch to enable native momentum scrolling within overflown areas (here) Use text-rendering: optmizeLegibility to improve readability. (here) User text-overflow: ellipsis to gracefully crop overflown text. (here) The meta-tags are included in each and every page in the metaContainer facet of af:document tag. You can also use a javascript to inject the meta-tags from the template. For the purpose of the example, I wanted to use as few workarounds as possible.   The iPad template and sample application This sample application has been built as a WebCenter Portal application, but you will also be able to reuse the template and techniques on your vanilla ADF application. Keep in mind that I'm neither a designer nor a CSS specialist, so please don't bash me too much on the messy CSS file you'll find on the application.  I've extended the provided PreferencesBean class that comes with WebCenter Portal and added code to dinamically change the template and skin on the fly.   This is the sample application in landscape orientation: This is the sample application in portrait orientation - the left side menu hides automatically based on a CSS media query: Another screenshot with a skinned popup opened: This is a sample application for you to play with - ideally you shouldn't use it as a starting point. On the left side bar you will find links rendered from a WebCenter Portal navigation model - the link triggers a full request through an af:goLink, while the light blue PPR button triggers a PPR navigation. The dark blue toolbar buttons at the top don't have any function,while the Approve and Reject buttons show a skinned popup. The search box of course doesn't have any behavior attahed to it either. There's a known issue right now with some PPR calls that are randomly generating a 403 error redirecting to the login page - I didn't have time to investigate if this is iOS6 specific or not - if you have any insights please let me know your findings. You can download the sample here.

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  • Transparency and AlphaBlending

    - by TechTwaddle
    In this post we'll look at the AlphaBlend() api and how it can be used for semi-transparent blitting. AlphaBlend() takes a source device context and a destination device context (DC) and combines the bits in such a way that it gives a transparent effect. Follow the links for the msdn documentation. So lets take a image like, and AlphaBlend() it on our window. The code to do so is below, (under the WM_PAINT message of WndProc) HBITMAP hBitmap=NULL, hBitmapOld=NULL; HDC hMemDC=NULL; BLENDFUNCTION bf; hdc = BeginPaint(hWnd, &ps); hMemDC = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc); hBitmap = LoadBitmap(g_hInst, MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDB_BITMAP1)); hBitmapOld = SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmap); bf.BlendOp = AC_SRC_OVER; bf.BlendFlags = 0; bf.SourceConstantAlpha = 80; //transparency value between 0-255 bf.AlphaFormat = 0;    AlphaBlend(hdc, 0, 25, 240, 100, hMemDC, 0, 0, 240, 100, bf); SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmapOld); DeleteDC(hMemDC); DeleteObject(hBitmap); EndPaint(hWnd, &ps);   The code above creates a memory DC (hMemDC) using CreateCompatibleDC(), loads a bitmap onto the memory DC and AlphaBlends it on the device DC (hdc), with a transparency value of 80. The result is: Pretty simple till now. Now lets try to do something a little more exciting. Lets get two images involved, each overlapping the other, giving a better demonstration of transparency. I am also going to add a few buttons so that the user can increase or decrease the transparency by clicking on the buttons. Since this is the first time I played around with GDI apis, I ran into something that everybody runs into sometime or the other, flickering. When clicking the buttons the images would flicker a lot, I figured out why and used something called double buffering to avoid flickering. We will look at both my first implementation and the second implementation just to give the concept a little more depth and perspective. A few pre-conditions before I dive into the code: - hBitmap and hBitmap2 are handles to the two images obtained using LoadBitmap(), these variables are global and are initialized under WM_CREATE - The two buttons in the application are labeled Opaque++ (make more opaque, less transparent) and Opaque-- (make less opaque, more transparent) - DrawPics(HWND hWnd, int step=0); is the function called to draw the images on the screen. This is called from under WM_PAINT and also when the buttons are clicked. When Opaque++ is clicked the 'step' value passed to DrawPics() is +20 and when Opaque-- is clicked the 'step' value is -20. The default value of 'step' is 0 Now lets take a look at my first implementation: //this funciton causes flicker, cos it draws directly to screen several times void DrawPics(HWND hWnd, int step) {     HDC hdc=NULL, hMemDC=NULL;     BLENDFUNCTION bf;     static UINT32 transparency = 100;     //no point in drawing when transparency is 0 and user clicks Opaque--     if (transparency == 0 && step < 0)         return;     //no point in drawing when transparency is 240 (opaque) and user clicks Opaque++     if (transparency == 240 && step > 0)         return;         hdc = GetDC(hWnd);     if (!hdc)         return;     //create a memory DC     hMemDC = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc);     if (!hMemDC)     {         ReleaseDC(hWnd, hdc);         return;     }     //while increasing transparency, clear the contents of screen     if (step < 0)     {         RECT rect = {0, 0, 240, 200};         FillRect(hdc, &rect, (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(WHITE_BRUSH));     }     SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmap2);     BitBlt(hdc, 0, 25, 240, 100, hMemDC, 0, 0, SRCCOPY);         SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmap);     transparency += step;     if (transparency >= 240)         transparency = 240;     if (transparency <= 0)         transparency = 0;     bf.BlendOp = AC_SRC_OVER;     bf.BlendFlags = 0;     bf.SourceConstantAlpha = transparency;     bf.AlphaFormat = 0;            AlphaBlend(hdc, 0, 75, 240, 100, hMemDC, 0, 0, 240, 100, bf);     DeleteDC(hMemDC);     ReleaseDC(hWnd, hdc); }   In the code above, we first get the window DC using GetDC() and create a memory DC using CreateCompatibleDC(). Then we select hBitmap2 onto the memory DC and Blt it on the window DC (hdc). Next, we select the other image, hBitmap, onto memory DC and AlphaBlend() it over window DC. As I told you before, this implementation causes flickering because it draws directly on the screen (hdc) several times. The video below shows what happens when the buttons were clicked rapidly: Well, the video recording tool I use captures only 15 frames per second and so the flickering is not visible in the video. So you're gonna have to trust me on this, it flickers (; To solve this problem we make sure that the drawing to the screen happens only once and to do that we create an additional memory DC, hTempDC. We perform all our drawing on this memory DC and finally when it is ready we Blt hTempDC on hdc, and the images are displayed in one go. Here is the code for our new DrawPics() function: //no flicker void DrawPics(HWND hWnd, int step) {     HDC hdc=NULL, hMemDC=NULL, hTempDC=NULL;     BLENDFUNCTION bf;     HBITMAP hBitmapTemp=NULL, hBitmapOld=NULL;     static UINT32 transparency = 100;     //no point in drawing when transparency is 0 and user clicks Opaque--     if (transparency == 0 && step < 0)         return;     //no point in drawing when transparency is 240 (opaque) and user clicks Opaque++     if (transparency == 240 && step > 0)         return;         hdc = GetDC(hWnd);     if (!hdc)         return;     hMemDC = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc);     hTempDC = CreateCompatibleDC(hdc);     hBitmapTemp = CreateCompatibleBitmap(hdc, 240, 150);     hBitmapOld = (HBITMAP)SelectObject(hTempDC, hBitmapTemp);     if (!hMemDC)     {         ReleaseDC(hWnd, hdc);         return;     }     //while increasing transparency, clear the contents     if (step < 0)     {         RECT rect = {0, 0, 240, 150};         FillRect(hTempDC, &rect, (HBRUSH)GetStockObject(WHITE_BRUSH));     }     SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmap2);     //Blt hBitmap2 directly to hTempDC     BitBlt(hTempDC, 0, 0, 240, 100, hMemDC, 0, 0, SRCCOPY);         SelectObject(hMemDC, hBitmap);     transparency += step;     if (transparency >= 240)         transparency = 240;     if (transparency <= 0)         transparency = 0;     bf.BlendOp = AC_SRC_OVER;     bf.BlendFlags = 0;     bf.SourceConstantAlpha = transparency;     bf.AlphaFormat = 0;            AlphaBlend(hTempDC, 0, 50, 240, 100, hMemDC, 0, 0, 240, 100, bf);     //now hTempDC is ready, blt it directly on hdc     BitBlt(hdc, 0, 25, 240, 150, hTempDC, 0, 0, SRCCOPY);     SelectObject(hTempDC, hBitmapOld);     DeleteObject(hBitmapTemp);     DeleteDC(hMemDC);     DeleteDC(hTempDC);     ReleaseDC(hWnd, hdc); }   This function is very similar to the first version, except for the use of hTempDC. Another point to note is the use of CreateCompatibleBitmap(). When a memory device context is created using CreateCompatibleDC(), the context is exactly one monochrome pixel high and one monochrome pixel wide. So in order for us to draw anything onto hTempDC, we first have to set a bitmap on it. We use CreateCompatibleBitmap() to create a bitmap of required dimension (240x150 above), and then select this bitmap onto hTempDC. Think of it as utilizing an extra canvas, drawing everything on the canvas and finally transferring the contents to the display in one scoop. And with this version the flickering is gone, video follows:   If you want the entire solutions source code then leave a message, I will share the code over SkyDrive.

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  • Fraud Detection with the SQL Server Suite Part 2

    - by Dejan Sarka
    This is the second part of the fraud detection whitepaper. You can find the first part in my previous blog post about this topic. My Approach to Data Mining Projects It is impossible to evaluate the time and money needed for a complete fraud detection infrastructure in advance. Personally, I do not know the customer’s data in advance. I don’t know whether there is already an existing infrastructure, like a data warehouse, in place, or whether we would need to build one from scratch. Therefore, I always suggest to start with a proof-of-concept (POC) project. A POC takes something between 5 and 10 working days, and involves personnel from the customer’s site – either employees or outsourced consultants. The team should include a subject matter expert (SME) and at least one information technology (IT) expert. The SME must be familiar with both the domain in question as well as the meaning of data at hand, while the IT expert should be familiar with the structure of data, how to access it, and have some programming (preferably Transact-SQL) knowledge. With more than one IT expert the most time consuming work, namely data preparation and overview, can be completed sooner. I assume that the relevant data is already extracted and available at the very beginning of the POC project. If a customer wants to have their people involved in the project directly and requests the transfer of knowledge, the project begins with training. I strongly advise this approach as it offers the establishment of a common background for all people involved, the understanding of how the algorithms work and the understanding of how the results should be interpreted, a way of becoming familiar with the SQL Server suite, and more. Once the data has been extracted, the customer’s SME (i.e. the analyst), and the IT expert assigned to the project will learn how to prepare the data in an efficient manner. Together with me, knowledge and expertise allow us to focus immediately on the most interesting attributes and identify any additional, calculated, ones soon after. By employing our programming knowledge, we can, for example, prepare tens of derived variables, detect outliers, identify the relationships between pairs of input variables, and more, in only two or three days, depending on the quantity and the quality of input data. I favor the customer’s decision of assigning additional personnel to the project. For example, I actually prefer to work with two teams simultaneously. I demonstrate and explain the subject matter by applying techniques directly on the data managed by each team, and then both teams continue to work on the data overview and data preparation under our supervision. I explain to the teams what kind of results we expect, the reasons why they are needed, and how to achieve them. Afterwards we review and explain the results, and continue with new instructions, until we resolve all known problems. Simultaneously with the data preparation the data overview is performed. The logic behind this task is the same – again I show to the teams involved the expected results, how to achieve them and what they mean. This is also done in multiple cycles as is the case with data preparation, because, quite frankly, both tasks are completely interleaved. A specific objective of the data overview is of principal importance – it is represented by a simple star schema and a simple OLAP cube that will first of all simplify data discovery and interpretation of the results, and will also prove useful in the following tasks. The presence of the customer’s SME is the key to resolving possible issues with the actual meaning of the data. We can always replace the IT part of the team with another database developer; however, we cannot conduct this kind of a project without the customer’s SME. After the data preparation and when the data overview is available, we begin the scientific part of the project. I assist the team in developing a variety of models, and in interpreting the results. The results are presented graphically, in an intuitive way. While it is possible to interpret the results on the fly, a much more appropriate alternative is possible if the initial training was also performed, because it allows the customer’s personnel to interpret the results by themselves, with only some guidance from me. The models are evaluated immediately by using several different techniques. One of the techniques includes evaluation over time, where we use an OLAP cube. After evaluating the models, we select the most appropriate model to be deployed for a production test; this allows the team to understand the deployment process. There are many possibilities of deploying data mining models into production; at the POC stage, we select the one that can be completed quickly. Typically, this means that we add the mining model as an additional dimension to an existing DW or OLAP cube, or to the OLAP cube developed during the data overview phase. Finally, we spend some time presenting the results of the POC project to the stakeholders and managers. Even from a POC, the customer will receive lots of benefits, all at the sole risk of spending money and time for a single 5 to 10 day project: The customer learns the basic patterns of frauds and fraud detection The customer learns how to do the entire cycle with their own people, only relying on me for the most complex problems The customer’s analysts learn how to perform much more in-depth analyses than they ever thought possible The customer’s IT experts learn how to perform data extraction and preparation much more efficiently than they did before All of the attendees of this training learn how to use their own creativity to implement further improvements of the process and procedures, even after the solution has been deployed to production The POC output for a smaller company or for a subsidiary of a larger company can actually be considered a finished, production-ready solution It is possible to utilize the results of the POC project at subsidiary level, as a finished POC project for the entire enterprise Typically, the project results in several important “side effects” Improved data quality Improved employee job satisfaction, as they are able to proactively contribute to the central knowledge about fraud patterns in the organization Because eventually more minds get to be involved in the enterprise, the company should expect more and better fraud detection patterns After the POC project is completed as described above, the actual project would not need months of engagement from my side. This is possible due to our preference to transfer the knowledge onto the customer’s employees: typically, the customer will use the results of the POC project for some time, and only engage me again to complete the project, or to ask for additional expertise if the complexity of the problem increases significantly. I usually expect to perform the following tasks: Establish the final infrastructure to measure the efficiency of the deployed models Deploy the models in additional scenarios Through reports By including Data Mining Extensions (DMX) queries in OLTP applications to support real-time early warnings Include data mining models as dimensions in OLAP cubes, if this was not done already during the POC project Create smart ETL applications that divert suspicious data for immediate or later inspection I would also offer to investigate how the outcome could be transferred automatically to the central system; for instance, if the POC project was performed in a subsidiary whereas a central system is available as well Of course, for the actual project, I would repeat the data and model preparation as needed It is virtually impossible to tell in advance how much time the deployment would take, before we decide together with customer what exactly the deployment process should cover. Without considering the deployment part, and with the POC project conducted as suggested above (including the transfer of knowledge), the actual project should still only take additional 5 to 10 days. The approximate timeline for the POC project is, as follows: 1-2 days of training 2-3 days for data preparation and data overview 2 days for creating and evaluating the models 1 day for initial preparation of the continuous learning infrastructure 1 day for presentation of the results and discussion of further actions Quite frequently I receive the following question: are we going to find the best possible model during the POC project, or during the actual project? My answer is always quite simple: I do not know. Maybe, if we would spend just one hour more for data preparation, or create just one more model, we could get better patterns and predictions. However, we simply must stop somewhere, and the best possible way to do this, according to my experience, is to restrict the time spent on the project in advance, after an agreement with the customer. You must also never forget that, because we build the complete learning infrastructure and transfer the knowledge, the customer will be capable of doing further investigations independently and improve the models and predictions over time without the need for a constant engagement with me.

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  • Routes on a sphere surface - Find geodesic?

    - by CaNNaDaRk
    I'm working with some friends on a browser based game where people can move on a 2D map. It's been almost 7 years and still people play this game so we are thinking of a way to give them something new. Since then the game map was a limited plane and people could move from (0, 0) to (MAX_X, MAX_Y) in quantized X and Y increments (just imagine it as a big chessboard). We believe it's time to give it another dimension so, just a couple of weeks ago, we began to wonder how the game could look with other mappings: Unlimited plane with continous movement: this could be a step forward but still i'm not convinced. Toroidal World (continous or quantized movement): sincerely I worked with torus before but this time I want something more... Spherical world with continous movement: this would be great! What we want Users browsers are given a list of coordinates like (latitude, longitude) for each object on the spherical surface map; browsers must then show this in user's screen rendering them inside a web element (canvas maybe? this is not a problem). When people click on the plane we convert the (mouseX, mouseY) to (lat, lng) and send it to the server which has to compute a route between current user's position to the clicked point. What we have We began writing a Java library with many useful maths to work with Rotation Matrices, Quaternions, Euler Angles, Translations, etc. We put it all together and created a program that generates sphere points, renders them and show them to the user inside a JPanel. We managed to catch clicks and translate them to spherical coords and to provide some other useful features like view rotation, scale, translation etc. What we have now is like a little (very little indeed) engine that simulates client and server interaction. Client side shows points on the screen and catches other interactions, server side renders the view and does other calculus like interpolating the route between current position and clicked point. Where is the problem? Obviously we want to have the shortest path to interpolate between the two route points. We use quaternions to interpolate between two points on the surface of the sphere and this seemed to work fine until i noticed that we weren't getting the shortest path on the sphere surface: We though the problem was that the route is calculated as the sum of two rotations about X and Y axis. So we changed the way we calculate the destination quaternion: We get the third angle (the first is latitude, the second is longitude, the third is the rotation about the vector which points toward our current position) which we called orientation. Now that we have the "orientation" angle we rotate Z axis and then use the result vector as the rotation axis for the destination quaternion (you can see the rotation axis in grey): What we got is the correct route (you can see it lays on a great circle), but we get to this ONLY if the starting route point is at latitude, longitude (0, 0) which means the starting vector is (sphereRadius, 0, 0). With the previous version (image 1) we don't get a good result even when startin point is 0, 0, so i think we're moving towards a solution, but the procedure we follow to get this route is a little "strange" maybe? In the following image you get a view of the problem we get when starting point is not (0, 0), as you can see starting point is not the (sphereRadius, 0, 0) vector, and as you can see the destination point (which is correctly drawn!) is not on the route. The magenta point (the one which lays on the route) is the route's ending point rotated about the center of the sphere of (-startLatitude, 0, -startLongitude). This means that if i calculate a rotation matrix and apply it to every point on the route maybe i'll get the real route, but I start to think that there's a better way to do this. Maybe I should try to get the plane through the center of the sphere and the route points, intersect it with the sphere and get the geodesic? But how? Sorry for being way too verbose and maybe for incorrect English but this thing is blowing my mind! EDIT: This code version is related to the first image: public void setRouteStart(double lat, double lng) { EulerAngles tmp = new EulerAngles ( Math.toRadians(lat), 0, -Math.toRadians(lng)); //set route start Quaternion qtStart.setInertialToObject(tmp); //do other stuff like drawing start point... } public void impostaDestinazione(double lat, double lng) { EulerAngles tmp = new AngoliEulero( Math.toRadians(lat), 0, -Math.toRadians(lng)); qtEnd.setInertialToObject(tmp); //do other stuff like drawing dest point... } public V3D interpolate(double totalTime, double t) { double _t = t/totalTime; Quaternion q = Quaternion.Slerp(qtStart, qtEnd, _t); RotationMatrix.inertialQuatToIObject(q); V3D p = matInt.inertialToObject(V3D.Xaxis.scale(sphereRadius)); //other stuff, like drawing point ... return p; } //mostly taken from a book! public static Quaternion Slerp(Quaternion q0, Quaternion q1, double t) { double cosO = q0.dot(q1); double q1w = q1.w; double q1x = q1.x; double q1y = q1.y; double q1z = q1.z; if (cosO < 0.0f) { q1w = -q1w; q1x = -q1x; q1y = -q1y; q1z = -q1z; cosO = -cosO; } double sinO = Math.sqrt(1.0f - cosO*cosO); double O = Math.atan2(sinO, cosO); double oneOverSinO = 1.0f / senoOmega; k0 = Math.sin((1.0f - t) * O) * oneOverSinO; k1 = Math.sin(t * O) * oneOverSinO; // Interpolate return new Quaternion( k0*q0.w + k1*q1w, k0*q0.x + k1*q1x, k0*q0.y + k1*q1y, k0*q0.z + k1*q1z ); } A little dump of what i get (again check image 1): Route info: Sphere radius and center: 200,000, (0.0, 0.0, 0.0) Route start: lat 0,000 °, lng 0,000 ° @v: (200,000, 0,000, 0,000), |v| = 200,000 Route end: lat 30,000 °, lng 30,000 ° @v: (150,000, 86,603, 100,000), |v| = 200,000 Qt dump: (w, x, y, z), rot. angle°, (x, y, z) rot. axis Qt start: (1,000, 0,000, -0,000, 0,000); 0,000 °; (1,000, 0,000, 0,000) Qt end: (0,933, 0,067, -0,250, 0,250); 42,181 °; (0,186, -0,695, 0,695) Route start: lat 30,000 °, lng 10,000 ° @v: (170,574, 30,077, 100,000), |v| = 200,000 Route end: lat 80,000 °, lng -50,000 ° @v: (22,324, -26,604, 196,962), |v| = 200,000 Qt dump: (w, x, y, z), rot. angle°, (x, y, z) rot. axis Qt start: (0,962, 0,023, -0,258, 0,084); 31,586 °; (0,083, -0,947, 0,309) Qt end: (0,694, -0,272, -0,583, -0,324); 92,062 °; (-0,377, -0,809, -0,450)

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  • Scheduling thread tiles with C++ AMP

    - by Daniel Moth
    This post assumes you are totally comfortable with, what some of us call, the simple model of C++ AMP, i.e. you could write your own matrix multiplication. We are now ready to explore the tiled model, which builds on top of the non-tiled one. Tiling the extent We know that when we pass a grid (which is just an extent under the covers) to the parallel_for_each call, it determines the number of threads to schedule and their index values (including dimensionality). For the single-, two-, and three- dimensional cases you can go a step further and subdivide the threads into what we call tiles of threads (others may call them thread groups). So here is a single-dimensional example: extent<1> e(20); // 20 units in a single dimension with indices from 0-19 grid<1> g(e);      // same as extent tiled_grid<4> tg = g.tile<4>(); …on the 3rd line we subdivided the single-dimensional space into 5 single-dimensional tiles each having 4 elements, and we captured that result in a concurrency::tiled_grid (a new class in amp.h). Let's move on swiftly to another example, in pictures, this time 2-dimensional: So we start on the left with a grid of a 2-dimensional extent which has 8*6=48 threads. We then have two different examples of tiling. In the first case, in the middle, we subdivide the 48 threads into tiles where each has 4*3=12 threads, hence we have 2*2=4 tiles. In the second example, on the right, we subdivide the original input into tiles where each has 2*2=4 threads, hence we have 4*3=12 tiles. Notice how you can play with the tile size and achieve different number of tiles. The numbers you pick must be such that the original total number of threads (in our example 48), remains the same, and every tile must have the same size. Of course, you still have no clue why you would do that, but stick with me. First, we should see how we can use this tiled_grid, since the parallel_for_each function that we know expects a grid. Tiled parallel_for_each and tiled_index It turns out that we have additional overloads of parallel_for_each that accept a tiled_grid instead of a grid. However, those overloads, also expect that the lambda you pass in accepts a concurrency::tiled_index (new in amp.h), not an index<N>. So how is a tiled_index different to an index? A tiled_index object, can have only 1 or 2 or 3 dimensions (matching exactly the tiled_grid), and consists of 4 index objects that are accessible via properties: global, local, tile_origin, and tile. The global index is the same as the index we know and love: the global thread ID. The local index is the local thread ID within the tile. The tile_origin index returns the global index of the thread that is at position 0,0 of this tile, and the tile index is the position of the tile in relation to the overall grid. Confused? Here is an example accompanied by a picture that hopefully clarifies things: array_view<int, 2> data(8, 6, p_my_data); parallel_for_each(data.grid.tile<2,2>(), [=] (tiled_index<2,2> t_idx) restrict(direct3d) { /* todo */ }); Given the code above and the picture on the right, what are the values of each of the 4 index objects that the t_idx variables exposes, when the lambda is executed by T (highlighted in the picture on the right)? If you can't work it out yourselves, the solution follows: t_idx.global       = index<2> (6,3) t_idx.local          = index<2> (0,1) t_idx.tile_origin = index<2> (6,2) t_idx.tile             = index<2> (3,1) Don't move on until you are comfortable with this… the picture really helps, so use it. Tiled Matrix Multiplication Example – part 1 Let's paste here the C++ AMP matrix multiplication example, bolding the lines we are going to change (can you guess what the changes will be?) 01: void MatrixMultiplyTiled_Part1(vector<float>& vC, const vector<float>& vA, const vector<float>& vB, int M, int N, int W) 02: { 03: 04: array_view<const float,2> a(M, W, vA); 05: array_view<const float,2> b(W, N, vB); 06: array_view<writeonly<float>,2> c(M, N, vC); 07: parallel_for_each(c.grid, 08: [=](index<2> idx) restrict(direct3d) { 09: 10: int row = idx[0]; int col = idx[1]; 11: float sum = 0.0f; 12: for(int i = 0; i < W; i++) 13: sum += a(row, i) * b(i, col); 14: c[idx] = sum; 15: }); 16: } To turn this into a tiled example, first we need to decide our tile size. Let's say we want each tile to be 16*16 (which assumes that we'll have at least 256 threads to process, and that c.grid.extent.size() is divisible by 256, and moreover that c.grid.extent[0] and c.grid.extent[1] are divisible by 16). So we insert at line 03 the tile size (which must be a compile time constant). 03: static const int TS = 16; ...then we need to tile the grid to have tiles where each one has 16*16 threads, so we change line 07 to be as follows 07: parallel_for_each(c.grid.tile<TS,TS>(), ...that means that our index now has to be a tiled_index with the same characteristics as the tiled_grid, so we change line 08 08: [=](tiled_index<TS, TS> t_idx) restrict(direct3d) { ...which means, without changing our core algorithm, we need to be using the global index that the tiled_index gives us access to, so we insert line 09 as follows 09: index<2> idx = t_idx.global; ...and now this code just works and it is tiled! Closing thoughts on part 1 The process we followed just shows the mechanical transformation that can take place from the simple model to the tiled model (think of this as step 1). In fact, when we wrote the matrix multiplication example originally, the compiler was doing this mechanical transformation under the covers for us (and it has additional smarts to deal with the cases where the total number of threads scheduled cannot be divisible by the tile size). The point is that the thread scheduling is always tiled, even when you use the non-tiled model. But with this mechanical transformation, we haven't gained anything… Hint: our goal with explicitly using the tiled model is to gain even more performance. In the next post, we'll evolve this further (beyond what the compiler can automatically do for us, in this first release), so you can see the full usage of the tiled model and its benefits… Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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  • BI Applications overview

    - by sv744
    Welcome to Oracle BI applications blog! This blog will talk about various features, general roadmap, description of functionality and implementation steps related to Oracle BI applications. In the first post we start with an overview of the BI apps and will delve deeper into some of the topics below in the upcoming weeks and months. If there are other topics you would like us to talk about, pl feel free to provide feedback on that. The Oracle BI applications are a set of pre-built applications that enable pervasive BI by providing role-based insight for each functional area, including sales, service, marketing, contact center, finance, supplier/supply chain, HR/workforce, and executive management. For example, Sales Analytics includes role-based applications for sales executives, sales management, as well as front-line sales reps, each of whom have different needs. The applications integrate and transform data from a range of enterprise sources—including Siebel, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP, and others—into actionable intelligence for each business function and user role. This blog  starts with the key benefits and characteristics of Oracle BI applications. In a series of subsequent blogs, each of these points will be explained in detail. Why BI apps? Demonstrate the value of BI to a business user, show reports / dashboards / model that can answer their business questions as part of the sales cycle. Demonstrate technical feasibility of BI project and significantly lower risk and improve success Build Vs Buy benefit Don’t have to start with a blank sheet of paper. Help consolidate disparate systems Data integration in M&A situations Insulate BI consumers from changes in the OLTP Present OLTP data and highlight issues of poor data / missing data – and improve data quality and accuracy Prebuilt Integrations BI apps support prebuilt integrations against leading ERP sources: Fusion Applications, E- Business Suite, Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, Siebel, SAP Co-developed with inputs from functional experts in BI and Applications teams. Out of the box dimensional model to source model mappings Multi source and Multi Instance support Rich Data Model    BI apps have a very rich dimensionsal data model built over 10 years that incorporates best practises from BI modeling perspective as well as reflect the source system complexities  Thanks for reading a long post, and be on the lookout for future posts.  We will look forward to your valuable feedback on these topics as well as suggestions on what other topics would you like us to cover. I Conformed dimensional model across all business subject areas allows cross functional reporting, e.g. customer / supplier 360 Over 360 fact tables across 7 product areas CRM – 145, SCM – 47, Financials – 28, Procurement – 20, HCM – 27, Projects – 18, Campus Solutions – 21, PLM - 56 Supported by 300 physical dimensions Support for extensive calendars; Gregorian, enterprise and ledger based Conformed data model and metrics for real time vs warehouse based reporting  Multi-tenant enabled Extensive BI related transformations BI apps ETL and data integration support various transformations required for dimensional models and reporting requirements. All these have been distilled into common patterns and abstracted logic which can be readily reused across different modules Slowly Changing Dimension support Hierarchy flattening support Row / Column Hybrid Hierarchy Flattening As Is vs. As Was hierarchy support Currency Conversion :-  Support for 3 corporate, CRM, ledger and transaction currencies UOM conversion Internationalization / Localization Dynamic Data translations Code standardization (Domains) Historical Snapshots Cycle and process lifecycle computations Balance Facts Equalization of GL accounting chartfields/segments Standardized values for categorizing GL accounts Reconciliation between GL and subledgers to track accounted/transferred/posted transactions to GL Materialization of data only available through costly and complex APIs e.g. Fusion Payroll, EBS / Fusion Accruals Complex event Interpretation of source data – E.g. o    What constitutes a transfer o    Deriving supervisors via position hierarchy o    Deriving primary assignment in PSFT o    Categorizing and transposition to measures of Payroll Balances to specific metrics to support side by side comparison of measures of for example Fixed Salary, Variable Salary, Tax, Bonus, Overtime Payments. o    Counting of Events – E.g. converting events to fact counters so that for example the number of hires can easily be added up and compared alongside the total transfers and terminations. Multi pass processing of multiple sources e.g. headcount, salary, promotion, performance to allow side to side comparison. Adding value to data to aid analysis through banding, additional domain classifications and groupings to allow higher level analytical reporting and data discovery Calculation of complex measures examples: o    COGs, DSO, DPO, Inventory turns  etc o    Transfers within a Hierarchy or out of / into a hierarchy relative to view point in hierarchy. Configurability and Extensibility support  BI apps offer support for extensibility for various entities as automated extensibility or part of extension methodology Key Flex fields and Descriptive Flex support  Extensible attribute support (JDE)  Conformed Domains ETL Architecture BI apps offer a modular adapter architecture which allows support of multiple product lines into a single conformed model Multi Source Multi Technology Orchestration – creates load plan taking into account task dependencies and customers deployment to generate a plan based on a customers of multiple complex etl tasks Plan optimization allowing parallel ETL tasks Oracle: Bit map indexes and partition management High availability support    Follow the sun support. TCO BI apps support several utilities / capabilities that help with overall total cost of ownership and ensure a rapid implementation Improved cost of ownership – lower cost to deploy On-going support for new versions of the source application Task based setups flows Data Lineage Functional setup performed in Web UI by Functional person Configuration Test to Production support Security BI apps support both data and object security enabling implementations to quickly configure the application as per the reporting security needs Fine grain object security at report / dashboard and presentation catalog level Data Security integration with source systems  Extensible to support external data security rules Extensive Set of KPIs Over 7000 base and derived metrics across all modules Time series calculations (YoY, % growth etc) Common Currency and UOM reporting Cross subject area KPIs (analyzing HR vs GL data, drill from GL to AP/AR, etc) Prebuilt reports and dashboards 3000+ prebuilt reports supporting a large number of industries Hundreds of role based dashboards Dynamic currency conversion at dashboard level Highly tuned Performance The BI apps have been tuned over the years for both a very performant ETL and dashboard performance. The applications use best practises and advanced database features to enable the best possible performance. Optimized data model for BI and analytic queries Prebuilt aggregates& the ability for customers to create their own aggregates easily on warehouse facts allows for scalable end user performance Incremental extracts and loads Incremental Aggregate build Automatic table index and statistics management Parallel ETL loads Source system deletes handling Low latency extract with Golden Gate Micro ETL support Bitmap Indexes Partitioning support Modularized deployment, start small and add other subject areas seamlessly Source Specfic Staging and Real Time Schema Support for source specific operational reporting schema for EBS, PSFT, Siebel and JDE Application Integrations The BI apps also allow for integration with source systems as well as other applications that provide value add through BI and enable BI consumption during operational decision making Embedded dashboards for Fusion, EBS and Siebel applications Action Link support Marketing Segmentation Sales Predictor Dashboard Territory Management External Integrations The BI apps data integration choices include support for loading extenral data External data enrichment choices : UNSPSC, Item class etc. Extensible Spend Classification Broad Deployment Choices Exalytics support Databases :  Oracle, Exadata, Teradata, DB2, MSSQL ETL tool of choice : ODI (coming), Informatica Extensible and Customizable Extensible architecture and Methodology to add custom and external content Upgradable across releases

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  • Why Does Adding a UDF or Code Truncates the # of Resources in List?

    - by Jeffrey McDaniel
    Go to the Primavera - Resource Assignment History subject area.  Go under Resources, General and add fields Resource Id, Resource Name and Current Flag. Because this is using a historical subject area with Type II slowly changing dimensions for Resources you may get multiple rows for each resource if there have been any changes on the resource.  You may see a few records with current flags = 0, and you will see a row with current flag = 1 for all resources. Current flag = 1 represents this is the most up to date row for this resource.  In this query the OBI server is only querying the W_RESOURCE_HD dimension.  (Query from nqquery log) select distinct 0 as c1,      D1.c1 as c2,      D1.c2 as c3,      D1.c3 as c4 from       (select distinct T10745.CURRENT_FLAG as c1,                T10745.RESOURCE_ID as c2,                T10745.RESOURCE_NAME as c3           from                 W_RESOURCE_HD T10745 /* Dim_W_RESOURCE_HD_Resource */            where  ( T10745.LAST_RUN_PER_DAY_FLAG = 1 )       ) D1 If you add a resource code to the query now it is forcing the OBI server to include data from W_RESOURCE_HD, W_CODES_RESOURCE_HD, as well as W_ASSIGNMENT_SPREAD_HF. Because the Resource and Resource Codes are in different dimensions they must be joined through a common fact table. So if at anytime you are pulling data from different dimensions it will ALWAYS pass through the fact table in that subject areas. One rule is if there is no fact value related to that dimensional data then nothing will show. In this case if you have a list of 100 resources when you query just Resource Id, Resource Name and Current Flag but when you add a Resource Code the list drops to 60 it could be because those resources exist at a dictionary level but are not assigned to any activities and therefore have no facts. As discussed in a previous blog, its all about the facts.   Here is a look at the query returned from the OBI server when trying to query Resource Id, Resource Name, Current Flag and a Resource Code.  You'll see in the query there is an actual fact included (AT_COMPLETION_UNITS) even though it is never returned when viewing the data through the Analysis. select distinct 0 as c1,      D1.c2 as c2,      D1.c3 as c3,      D1.c4 as c4,      D1.c5 as c5,      D1.c1 as c6 from       (select sum(T10754.AT_COMPLETION_UNITS) as c1,                T10706.CODE_VALUE_02 as c2,                T10745.CURRENT_FLAG as c3,                T10745.RESOURCE_ID as c4,                T10745.RESOURCE_NAME as c5           from                 W_RESOURCE_HD T10745 /* Dim_W_RESOURCE_HD_Resource */ ,                W_CODES_RESOURCE_HD T10706 /* Dim_W_CODES_RESOURCE_HD_Resource_Codes_HD */ ,                W_ASSIGNMENT_SPREAD_HF T10754 /* Fact_W_ASSIGNMENT_SPREAD_HF_Assignment_Spread */            where  ( T10706.RESOURCE_OBJECT_ID = T10754.RESOURCE_OBJECT_ID and T10706.LAST_RUN_PER_DAY_FLAG = 1 and T10745.ROW_WID = T10754.RESOURCE_WID and T10745.LAST_RUN_PER_DAY_FLAG = 1 and T10754.LAST_RUN_PER_DAY_FLAG = 1 )            group by T10706.CODE_VALUE_02, T10745.RESOURCE_ID, T10745.RESOURCE_NAME, T10745.CURRENT_FLAG      ) D1 order by c4, c5, c3, c2 When querying in any subject area and you cross different dimensions, especially Type II slowly changing dimensions, if the result set appears to be short the first place to look is to see if that object has associated facts.

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  • Controlling the Sizing of the af:messages Dialog

    - by Duncan Mills
    Over the last day or so a small change in behaviour between 11.1.2.n releases of ADF and earlier versions has come to my attention. This has concerned the default sizing of the dialog that the framework automatically generates to handle the display of JSF messages being handled by the <af:messages> component. Unlike a normal popup, you don't have a physical <af:dialog> or <af:window> to set the sizing on in your page definition, so you're at the mercy of what the framework provides. In this case the framework now defines a fixed 250x250 pixel content area dialog for these messages, which can look a bit weird if the message is either very short, or very long. Unfortunately this is not something that you can control through the skin, instead you have to be a little more creative. Here's the solution I've come up with.  Unfortunately, I've not found a supportable way to reset the dialog so as to say  just size yourself based on your contents, it is actually possible to do this by tweaking the correct DOM objects, but I wanted to start with a mostly supportable solution that only uses the best practice of working through the ADF client side APIs. The Technique The basic approach I've taken is really very simple.  The af:messages dialog is just a normal richDialog object, it just happens to be one that is pre-defined for you with a particular known name "msgDlg" (which hopefully won't change). Knowing this, you can call the accepted APIs to control the content width and height of that dialog, as our meerkat friends would say, "simples" 1 The JavaScript For this example I've defined three JavaScript functions.   The first does all the hard work and is designed to be called from server side Java or from a page load event to set the default. The second is a utility function used by the first to validate the values you're about to use for height and width. The final function is one that can be called from the page load event to set an initial default sizing if that's all you need to do. Function resizeDefaultMessageDialog() /**  * Function that actually resets the default message dialog sizing.  * Note that the width and height supplied define the content area  * So the actual physical dialog size will be larger to account for  * the chrome containing the header / footer etc.  * @param docId Faces component id of the document  * @param contentWidth - new content width you need  * @param contentHeight - new content height  */ function resizeDefaultMessageDialog(docId, contentWidth, contentHeight) {   // Warning this value may change from release to release   var defMDName = "::msgDlg";   //Find the default messages dialog   msgDialogComponent = AdfPage.PAGE.findComponentByAbsoluteId(docId + defMDName); // In your version add a check here to ensure we've found the right object!   // Check the new width is supplied and is a positive number, if so apply it.   if (dimensionIsValid(contentWidth)){       msgDialogComponent.setContentWidth(contentWidth);   }   // Check the new height is supplied and is a positive number, if so apply it.   if (dimensionIsValid(contentHeight)){       msgDialogComponent.setContentHeight(contentHeight);   } }  Function dimensionIsValid()  /**  * Simple function to check that sensible numeric values are   * being proposed for a dimension  * @param sampleDimension   * @return booolean  */ function dimensionIsValid(sampleDimension){     return (!isNaN(sampleDimension) && sampleDimension > 0); } Function  initializeDefaultMessageDialogSize() /**  * This function will re-define the default sizing applied by the framework   * in 11.1.2.n versions  * It is designed to be called with the document onLoad event  */ function initializeDefaultMessageDialogSize(loadEvent){   //get the configuration information   var documentId = loadEvent.getSource().getProperty('documentId');   var newWidth = loadEvent.getSource().getProperty('defaultMessageDialogContentWidth');   var newHeight = loadEvent.getSource().getProperty('defaultMessageDialogContentHeight');   resizeDefaultMessageDialog(documentId, newWidth, newHeight); } Wiring in the Functions As usual, the first thing we need to do when using JavaScript with ADF is to define an af:resource  in the document metaContainer facet <af:document>   ....     <f:facet name="metaContainer">     <af:resource type="javascript" source="/resources/js/hackMessagedDialog.js"/>    </f:facet> </af:document> This makes the script functions available to call.  Next if you want to use the option of defining an initial default size for the dialog you use a combination of <af:clientListener> and <af:clientAttribute> tags like this. <af:document title="MyApp" id="doc1">   <af:clientListener method="initializeDefaultMessageDialogSize" type="load"/>   <af:clientAttribute name="documentId" value="doc1"/>   <af:clientAttribute name="defaultMessageDialogContentWidth" value="400"/>   <af:clientAttribute name="defaultMessageDialogContentHeight" value="150"/>  ...   Just in Time Dialog Sizing  So  what happens if you have a variety of messages that you might add and in some cases you need a small dialog and an other cases a large one? Well in that case you can re-size these dialogs just before you submit the message. Here's some example Java code: FacesContext ctx = FacesContext.getCurrentInstance();          //reset the default dialog size for this message ExtendedRenderKitService service =              Service.getRenderKitService(ctx, ExtendedRenderKitService.class); service.addScript(ctx, "resizeDefaultMessageDialog('doc1',100,50);");          FacesMessage msg = new FacesMessage("Short message"); msg.setSeverity(FacesMessage.SEVERITY_ERROR); ctx.addMessage(null, msg);  So there you have it. This technique should, at least, allow you to control the dialog sizing just enough to stop really objectionable whitespace or scrollbars. 1 Don't worry if you don't get the reference, lest's just say my kids watch too many adverts.

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  • Ideal backup appliance for backup software like Bacula?

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

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  • Using Supermicro IPMI behind a Proxy?

    - by Stefan Lasiewski
    This is a SuperMicro server with a X8DT3 motherboard which contains an On-board IPMI BMC. In this case, the BMC is a Winbond WPCM450). I believe many Dell servers use this a similar BMC model. A common practice with IPMI is to isolated it to a private, non-routable network. In our case all IPMI cards are plugged into a private management LAN at 192.168.1.0/24 which has no route to the outside world. If I plug my laptop into the 192.168.1.0/24 network, I can verify that all IPMI features work as expected, including the remote console. I need to access all of the IPMI features from a different network, over some sort of encrypted connection. I tried SSH port forwarding. This works fine for a few servers, however, we have close to 100 of these servers and maintaining a SSH client configuration to forward 6 ports on 100 servers is impractical. So I thought I would try a SOCKS proxy. This works, but it seems that the Remote Console application does not obey my systemwide proxy settings. I setup a SOCKS proxy. Verbose logging allows me to see network activity, and if ports are being forwarded. ssh -v -D 3333 [email protected] I configure my system to use the SOCKS proxy. I confirm that Java is using the SOCKS proxy settings. The SOCKS proxy is working. I connect to the BMC at http://192.168.1.100/ using my webbrowser. I can log in, view the Server Health, power the machine on or off, etc. Since SSH verbose logging is enabled, I can see the progress. Here's where it get's tricky: I click on the "Launch Console" button which downloads a file called jviewer.jnlp. JNLP files are opened with Java Web Start. A Java window opens. The titlebar says says "Redirection Viewer" in the title bar. There are menus for "Video" "Keyboard" "Mouse", etc. This confirms that Java is able to download the application through the proxy, and start the application. 60 seconds later, the application times out and simply says "Error opening video socket". Here's a screenshot. If this worked, I would see a VNC-style window. My SSH logs show no connection attempts to ports 5900/5901. This suggests that the Java application started the VNC application, but that the VNC application ignores the systemwide proxy settings and is thus unable to connect to the remote host. Java seems to obey my systemwide proxy settings, but this VNC application seems to ignore it. Is there any way for me to force this VNC application to use my systemwide proxy settings?

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  • dbus dependency with yum

    - by Hengjie
    Whenever, I try and run yum update I get the following error: [root@server ~]# yum update Loaded plugins: dellsysid, fastestmirror Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile * base: mirror01.idc.hinet.net * extras: mirror01.idc.hinet.net * rpmforge: fr2.rpmfind.net * updates: mirror01.idc.hinet.net Excluding Packages in global exclude list Finished Setting up Update Process Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package NetworkManager.x86_64 1:0.7.0-13.el5 set to be updated ---> Package NetworkManager-glib.x86_64 1:0.7.0-13.el5 set to be updated ---> Package SysVinit.x86_64 0:2.86-17.el5 set to be updated ---> Package acl.x86_64 0:2.2.39-8.el5 set to be updated ---> Package acpid.x86_64 0:1.0.4-12.el5 set to be updated ---> Package apr.x86_64 0:1.2.7-11.el5_6.5 set to be updated ---> Package aspell.x86_64 12:0.60.3-12 set to be updated ---> Package audit.x86_64 0:1.8-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package audit-libs.x86_64 0:1.8-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package audit-libs-python.x86_64 0:1.8-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package authconfig.x86_64 0:5.3.21-7.el5 set to be updated ---> Package autofs.x86_64 1:5.0.1-0.rc2.163.el5 set to be updated ---> Package bash.x86_64 0:3.2-32.el5 set to be updated ---> Package bind.x86_64 30:9.3.6-20.P1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package bind-libs.x86_64 30:9.3.6-20.P1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package bind-utils.x86_64 30:9.3.6-20.P1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package binutils.x86_64 0:2.17.50.0.6-20.el5 set to be updated ---> Package centos-release.x86_64 10:5-8.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package centos-release-notes.x86_64 0:5.8-0 set to be updated ---> Package coreutils.x86_64 0:5.97-34.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package cpp.x86_64 0:4.1.2-52.el5 set to be updated ---> Package cpuspeed.x86_64 1:1.2.1-10.el5 set to be updated ---> Package crash.x86_64 0:5.1.8-1.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package cryptsetup-luks.x86_64 0:1.0.3-8.el5 set to be updated ---> Package cups.x86_64 1:1.3.7-30.el5 set to be updated ---> Package cups-libs.x86_64 1:1.3.7-30.el5 set to be updated ---> Package curl.x86_64 0:7.15.5-15.el5 set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: dbus = 1.1.2-15.el5_6 for package: dbus-libs ---> Package dbus.x86_64 0:1.1.2-16.el5_7 set to be updated ---> Package dbus-libs.x86_64 0:1.1.2-16.el5_7 set to be updated ---> Package device-mapper.x86_64 0:1.02.67-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package device-mapper-event.x86_64 0:1.02.67-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package device-mapper-multipath.x86_64 0:0.4.7-48.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package dhclient.x86_64 12:3.0.5-31.el5 set to be updated ---> Package dmidecode.x86_64 1:2.11-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package dmraid.x86_64 0:1.0.0.rc13-65.el5 set to be updated ---> Package dmraid-events.x86_64 0:1.0.0.rc13-65.el5 set to be updated ---> Package dump.x86_64 0:0.4b41-6.el5 set to be updated ---> Package e2fsprogs.x86_64 0:1.39-33.el5 set to be updated ---> Package e2fsprogs-devel.x86_64 0:1.39-33.el5 set to be updated ---> Package e2fsprogs-libs.x86_64 0:1.39-33.el5 set to be updated ---> Package ecryptfs-utils.x86_64 0:75-8.el5 set to be updated ---> Package file.x86_64 0:4.17-21 set to be updated ---> Package finger.x86_64 0:0.17-33 set to be updated ---> Package firstboot-tui.x86_64 0:1.4.27.9-1.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package freetype.x86_64 0:2.2.1-28.el5_7.2 set to be updated ---> Package freetype-devel.x86_64 0:2.2.1-28.el5_7.2 set to be updated ---> Package ftp.x86_64 0:0.17-37.el5 set to be updated ---> Package gamin.x86_64 0:0.1.7-10.el5 set to be updated ---> Package gamin-python.x86_64 0:0.1.7-10.el5 set to be updated ---> Package gawk.x86_64 0:3.1.5-15.el5 set to be updated ---> Package gcc.x86_64 0:4.1.2-52.el5 set to be updated ---> Package gcc-c++.x86_64 0:4.1.2-52.el5 set to be updated ---> Package glibc.i686 0:2.5-81.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package glibc.x86_64 0:2.5-81.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package glibc-common.x86_64 0:2.5-81.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package glibc-devel.x86_64 0:2.5-81.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package glibc-headers.x86_64 0:2.5-81.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package gnutls.x86_64 0:1.4.1-7.el5_8.2 set to be updated ---> Package groff.x86_64 0:1.18.1.1-13.el5 set to be updated ---> Package gtk2.x86_64 0:2.10.4-21.el5_7.7 set to be updated ---> Package gzip.x86_64 0:1.3.5-13.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package hmaccalc.x86_64 0:0.9.6-4.el5 set to be updated ---> Package htop.x86_64 0:1.0.1-2.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package hwdata.noarch 0:0.213.26-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package ifd-egate.x86_64 0:0.05-17.el5 set to be updated ---> Package initscripts.x86_64 0:8.45.42-1.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package iproute.x86_64 0:2.6.18-13.el5 set to be updated ---> Package iptables.x86_64 0:1.3.5-9.1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package iptables-ipv6.x86_64 0:1.3.5-9.1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package iscsi-initiator-utils.x86_64 0:6.2.0.872-13.el5 set to be updated ---> Package kernel.x86_64 0:2.6.18-308.1.1.el5 set to be installed ---> Package kernel-headers.x86_64 0:2.6.18-308.1.1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package kpartx.x86_64 0:0.4.7-48.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package krb5-devel.x86_64 0:1.6.1-70.el5 set to be updated ---> Package krb5-libs.x86_64 0:1.6.1-70.el5 set to be updated ---> Package krb5-workstation.x86_64 0:1.6.1-70.el5 set to be updated ---> Package ksh.x86_64 0:20100621-5.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package kudzu.x86_64 0:1.2.57.1.26-3.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package less.x86_64 0:436-9.el5 set to be updated ---> Package lftp.x86_64 0:3.7.11-7.el5 set to be updated ---> Package libX11.x86_64 0:1.0.3-11.el5_7.1 set to be updated ---> Package libX11-devel.x86_64 0:1.0.3-11.el5_7.1 set to be updated ---> Package libXcursor.x86_64 0:1.1.7-1.2 set to be updated ---> Package libacl.x86_64 0:2.2.39-8.el5 set to be updated ---> Package libgcc.x86_64 0:4.1.2-52.el5 set to be updated ---> Package libgomp.x86_64 0:4.4.6-3.el5.1 set to be updated ---> Package libpng.x86_64 2:1.2.10-16.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package libpng-devel.x86_64 2:1.2.10-16.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package libsmbios.x86_64 0:2.2.27-3.2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package libstdc++.x86_64 0:4.1.2-52.el5 set to be updated ---> Package libstdc++-devel.x86_64 0:4.1.2-52.el5 set to be updated ---> Package libsysfs.x86_64 0:2.1.0-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package libusb.x86_64 0:0.1.12-6.el5 set to be updated ---> Package libvolume_id.x86_64 0:095-14.27.el5_7.1 set to be updated ---> Package libxml2.x86_64 0:2.6.26-2.1.15.el5_8.2 set to be updated ---> Package libxml2-python.x86_64 0:2.6.26-2.1.15.el5_8.2 set to be updated ---> Package logrotate.x86_64 0:3.7.4-12 set to be updated ---> Package lsof.x86_64 0:4.78-6 set to be updated ---> Package lvm2.x86_64 0:2.02.88-7.el5 set to be updated ---> Package m2crypto.x86_64 0:0.16-8.el5 set to be updated ---> Package man.x86_64 0:1.6d-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package man-pages.noarch 0:2.39-20.el5 set to be updated ---> Package mcelog.x86_64 1:0.9pre-1.32.el5 set to be updated ---> Package mesa-libGL.x86_64 0:6.5.1-7.10.el5 set to be updated ---> Package mesa-libGL-devel.x86_64 0:6.5.1-7.10.el5 set to be updated ---> Package microcode_ctl.x86_64 2:1.17-1.56.el5 set to be updated ---> Package mkinitrd.x86_64 0:5.1.19.6-75.el5 set to be updated ---> Package mktemp.x86_64 3:1.5-24.el5 set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: nash = 5.1.19.6-68.el5_6.1 for package: mkinitrd ---> Package nash.x86_64 0:5.1.19.6-75.el5 set to be updated ---> Package net-snmp.x86_64 1:5.3.2.2-17.el5 set to be updated ---> Package net-snmp-devel.x86_64 1:5.3.2.2-17.el5 set to be updated ---> Package net-snmp-libs.x86_64 1:5.3.2.2-17.el5 set to be updated ---> Package net-snmp-utils.x86_64 1:5.3.2.2-17.el5 set to be updated ---> Package net-tools.x86_64 0:1.60-82.el5 set to be updated ---> Package nfs-utils.x86_64 1:1.0.9-60.el5 set to be updated ---> Package nfs-utils-lib.x86_64 0:1.0.8-7.9.el5 set to be updated ---> Package nscd.x86_64 0:2.5-81.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package nspr.x86_64 0:4.8.9-1.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package nspr-devel.x86_64 0:4.8.9-1.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package nss.x86_64 0:3.13.1-5.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package nss-devel.x86_64 0:3.13.1-5.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package nss-tools.x86_64 0:3.13.1-5.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package nss_ldap.x86_64 0:253-49.el5 set to be updated ---> Package ntp.x86_64 0:4.2.2p1-15.el5.centos.1 set to be updated ---> Package numactl.x86_64 0:0.9.8-12.el5_6 set to be updated ---> Package oddjob.x86_64 0:0.27-12.el5 set to be updated ---> Package oddjob-libs.x86_64 0:0.27-12.el5 set to be updated ---> Package openldap.x86_64 0:2.3.43-25.el5 set to be updated ---> Package openssh.x86_64 0:4.3p2-82.el5 set to be updated ---> Package openssh-clients.x86_64 0:4.3p2-82.el5 set to be updated ---> Package openssh-server.x86_64 0:4.3p2-82.el5 set to be updated ---> Package openssl.i686 0:0.9.8e-22.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package openssl.x86_64 0:0.9.8e-22.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package openssl-devel.x86_64 0:0.9.8e-22.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package pam_krb5.x86_64 0:2.2.14-22.el5 set to be updated ---> Package pam_pkcs11.x86_64 0:0.5.3-26.el5 set to be updated ---> Package pango.x86_64 0:1.14.9-8.el5.centos.3 set to be updated ---> Package parted.x86_64 0:1.8.1-29.el5 set to be updated ---> Package pciutils.x86_64 0:3.1.7-5.el5 set to be updated ---> Package perl.x86_64 4:5.8.8-38.el5 set to be updated ---> Package perl-Compress-Raw-Bzip2.x86_64 0:2.037-1.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package perl-Compress-Raw-Zlib.x86_64 0:2.037-1.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package perl-rrdtool.x86_64 0:1.4.7-1.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package poppler.x86_64 0:0.5.4-19.el5 set to be updated ---> Package poppler-utils.x86_64 0:0.5.4-19.el5 set to be updated ---> Package popt.x86_64 0:1.10.2.3-28.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package postgresql-libs.x86_64 0:8.1.23-1.el5_7.3 set to be updated ---> Package procps.x86_64 0:3.2.7-18.el5 set to be updated ---> Package proftpd.x86_64 0:1.3.4a-1.el5.rf set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: perl(Mail::Sendmail) for package: proftpd ---> Package python.x86_64 0:2.4.3-46.el5 set to be updated ---> Package python-ctypes.x86_64 0:1.0.2-3.el5 set to be updated ---> Package python-libs.x86_64 0:2.4.3-46.el5 set to be updated ---> Package python-smbios.x86_64 0:2.2.27-3.2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package rhpl.x86_64 0:0.194.1-2 set to be updated ---> Package rmt.x86_64 0:0.4b41-6.el5 set to be updated ---> Package rng-utils.x86_64 1:2.0-5.el5 set to be updated ---> Package rpm.x86_64 0:4.4.2.3-28.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package rpm-build.x86_64 0:4.4.2.3-28.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package rpm-devel.x86_64 0:4.4.2.3-28.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package rpm-libs.x86_64 0:4.4.2.3-28.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package rpm-python.x86_64 0:4.4.2.3-28.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package rrdtool.x86_64 0:1.4.7-1.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package rsh.x86_64 0:0.17-40.el5_7.1 set to be updated ---> Package rsync.x86_64 0:3.0.6-4.el5_7.1 set to be updated ---> Package ruby.x86_64 0:1.8.5-24.el5 set to be updated ---> Package ruby-libs.x86_64 0:1.8.5-24.el5 set to be updated ---> Package sblim-sfcb.x86_64 0:1.3.11-49.el5 set to be updated ---> Package sblim-sfcc.x86_64 0:2.2.2-49.el5 set to be updated ---> Package selinux-policy.noarch 0:2.4.6-327.el5 set to be updated ---> Package selinux-policy-targeted.noarch 0:2.4.6-327.el5 set to be updated ---> Package setup.noarch 0:2.5.58-9.el5 set to be updated ---> Package shadow-utils.x86_64 2:4.0.17-20.el5 set to be updated ---> Package smartmontools.x86_64 1:5.38-3.el5 set to be updated ---> Package smbios-utils-bin.x86_64 0:2.2.27-3.2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package smbios-utils-python.x86_64 0:2.2.27-3.2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package sos.noarch 0:1.7-9.62.el5 set to be updated ---> Package srvadmin-omilcore.x86_64 0:6.5.0-1.452.1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package strace.x86_64 0:4.5.18-11.el5_8 set to be updated ---> Package subversion.x86_64 0:1.6.11-7.el5_6.4 set to be updated ---> Package sudo.x86_64 0:1.7.2p1-13.el5 set to be updated ---> Package sysfsutils.x86_64 0:2.1.0-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package syslinux.x86_64 0:3.11-7 set to be updated ---> Package system-config-network-tui.noarch 0:1.3.99.21-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package talk.x86_64 0:0.17-31.el5 set to be updated ---> Package tar.x86_64 2:1.15.1-31.el5 set to be updated ---> Package traceroute.x86_64 3:2.0.1-6.el5 set to be updated ---> Package tzdata.x86_64 0:2012b-3.el5 set to be updated ---> Package udev.x86_64 0:095-14.27.el5_7.1 set to be updated ---> Package util-linux.x86_64 0:2.13-0.59.el5 set to be updated ---> Package vixie-cron.x86_64 4:4.1-81.el5 set to be updated ---> Package wget.x86_64 0:1.11.4-3.el5_8.1 set to be updated ---> Package xinetd.x86_64 2:2.3.14-16.el5 set to be updated ---> Package yp-tools.x86_64 0:2.9-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package ypbind.x86_64 3:1.19-12.el5_6.1 set to be updated ---> Package yum.noarch 0:3.2.22-39.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package yum-dellsysid.x86_64 0:2.2.27-3.2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package yum-fastestmirror.noarch 0:1.1.16-21.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package zlib.x86_64 0:1.2.3-4.el5 set to be updated ---> Package zlib-devel.x86_64 0:1.2.3-4.el5 set to be updated --> Running transaction check --> Processing Dependency: dbus = 1.1.2-15.el5_6 for package: dbus-libs --> Processing Dependency: nash = 5.1.19.6-68.el5_6.1 for package: mkinitrd ---> Package perl-Mail-Sendmail.noarch 0:0.79-1.2.el5.rf set to be updated base/filelists | 3.5 MB 00:00 dell-omsa-indep/filelists | 195 kB 00:01 dell-omsa-specific/filelists | 1.0 kB 00:00 extras/filelists_db | 224 kB 00:00 rpmforge/filelists | 4.8 MB 00:06 updates/filelists_db | 715 kB 00:00 --> Finished Dependency Resolution dbus-libs-1.1.2-15.el5_6.i386 from installed has depsolving problems --> Missing Dependency: dbus = 1.1.2-15.el5_6 is needed by package dbus-libs-1.1.2-15.el5_6.i386 (installed) mkinitrd-5.1.19.6-68.el5_6.1.i386 from installed has depsolving problems --> Missing Dependency: nash = 5.1.19.6-68.el5_6.1 is needed by package mkinitrd-5.1.19.6-68.el5_6.1.i386 (installed) Error: Missing Dependency: nash = 5.1.19.6-68.el5_6.1 is needed by package mkinitrd-5.1.19.6-68.el5_6.1.i386 (installed) Error: Missing Dependency: dbus = 1.1.2-15.el5_6 is needed by package dbus-libs-1.1.2-15.el5_6.i386 (installed) You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem You could try running: package-cleanup --problems package-cleanup --dupes rpm -Va --nofiles --nodigest The program package-cleanup is found in the yum-utils package. I have tried running package-cleanup --dupes and package-cleanup --problems but to no avail.

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  • Windows 7 extremely slow login, exchange performance, printer enumeration, etc...

    - by Jeff
    Background: I have a fresh copy of Windows 7 Professional x64 on a Dell Latitude E6500. The laptop has 8GB RAM, 250GB drive, and all Intel peripherals (net/wifi/graphics). All available Windows updates, as well as hardware drivers are installed. The IT folks where I work joined the computer to our Windows 2003-based Active Directory domain. There are no errors in any logs that we've looked at, and Group Policy templates appear to have applied properly. Problem: Every time I turn on or reboot the computer, it takes between 2 to 10 (all times are actual) minutes after successfully typing my username/password to get to my desktop. My login script does not always run. Sometimes I get a black screen, and a couple of minutes later the login script will pop up and take up to 10 minutes to complete. I can get around this by hitting cntrl-shift-esc and running explorer.exe from the Task Manager. The login script continues to hang, but I can minimize it and go on about my business. Either way, it generally throws errors prior to completing. I often get slow or failed connectivity to Exchange via Outlook. When I bring up printer dialogs, they take several minutes to populate, and block the calling app while doing so. Copies to SMB shares are very slow. On my home network, everything works fine. On both the work network and home network, I can use remote internet resources just fine. Web pages pull up, remote VPN's are fine, I can max out bandwidth on SpeakEasy Speed Test. I can get almost max bandwidth transferring FTP/HTTP over a LAN. Another symptom of the problem is that when I first log in, the work network shows as "Identifying" for a long time in the Network and Sharing Center, and will often then change to the name of the work domain, but say "Unauthenticated Network". Note that this computer previously ran Windows Vista with none of these problems. Attempts to Fix: Installed the Win7 admin pack Uninstalled/reinstalled all hardware drivers Verified Active Directory DNS settings (Vista works relatively well on the same network) Reset all TCP/IP settings on all adapters using the netsh commands to do so Disabled ipv6 on all adapters Disable wifi adapter while on work network Locked the network card to 100/Full, 1000/Full; also tried Auto Added various important addresses to hosts file (exchange, dns, ad) -- removed when didn't help My background is a jpeg (sounds unrelated but there is apparently a win7 login bug related to solid color background) More I have forgotten The IT staff at my company indicated they believe this is due to having Windows 2003 AD servers and not having any Windows 2008 R2 AD servers. Other than that, they have no advice or assistance to offer other than a rebuild (already tried that once with similar symptoms), or downgrade to Vista. Any thoughts out there?

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  • Blank Screen After Login on Windows 7

    - by Leigh Riffel
    When unlocking a Windows 7 computer the screen briefly (less than a second) goes blank before showing the screen. Abound once a month (but sometimes within a few days) when I unlock my computer the screen doesn't come back from this brief blackout and stays black. Sometimes after five minutes or so the display will come back. Other times it has been blank for over 20 minutes, so I give up and restart the computer. It seems to happen more often when the computer has been locked for a longer period of time - I lock my computer several times a day, but the problem most happens when I come in at the start of the day. I have updated my video card and monitor drivers. I have two monitors driven by the same graphics card. The computer is a Dell Optiplex 740. When the problem occurs both monitors have a green light on to indicate that they are receiving signal. I've tried unplugging the monitors from the video card and turning the monitors on and off. The screen saver is set to one that is not blank screen. The Windows power settings are set to never turn off the display. When the problem occurs there is no significant disk activity occurring. When the problem occurs I can connect over the network to the hard drive on my computer. When the problem occurs I can't connect over the network with a VNC connection. The VNC client doesn't give an error, but also won't show the screen. The task actually seems to hang as I can see the task, but there is no window for it. This problem occurred when I was running a pre-release version of Windows 7. The hard drive was formatted for release version and the problem still occurs. I've been stopping some of my always running programs to see if one of them may be the culprit, but given the span between failures that will take some time to find the problem if it will even help at all. Some programs I have always running include IE, Firefox, Outlook, Evernote, Kana Reminder, Ditto, Macro Express, Timesnapper, and DisplayFusion. Any ideas appreciated.

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  • libvirt qemu/kvm migration problem

    - by Panda
    I am using kvm and libvirt on my Dell server. Now i am trying to migrate one virtual machine from a physical server to another. However, I failed everytime. In virsh on physicalServer1, I typed: virsh # migrate virtualmachine1 qemu+ssh://username@physicalServer2/system error: operation failed: migration to 'tcp:physicalServer2:49163' failed: migration failed Then I searched FAQ part on libvirt.org. It says: error: operation failed: migration to '...' failed: migration failed This is an error often encountered when trying to migrate with QEMU/KVM. This typically happens with plain migration, when the source VM cannot connect to the destination host. You will want to make sure your hosts are properly configured for migration (see the migration section of this FAQ) I managed to ssh physicalServer2 from a shell on virtualmachine1 so the above red part did not explain my failure. I also open ports on physicalServer2, iptables -L shows following information: Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination ACCEPT udp -- anywhere anywhere udp dpt:domain ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:domain ACCEPT udp -- anywhere anywhere udp dpt:bootps ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:bootps ACCEPT udp -- anywhere anywhere udp dpt:domain ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:domain ACCEPT udp -- anywhere anywhere udp dpt:bootps ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere anywhere tcp dpt:bootps ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere anywhere state NEW tcp dpts:49152:49215 Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination ACCEPT all -- anywhere 192.168.122.0/24 state RELATED,ESTABLISHED ACCEPT all -- 192.168.122.0/24 anywhere ACCEPT all -- anywhere anywhere REJECT all -- anywhere anywhere reject-with icmp-port-unreachable REJECT all -- anywhere anywhere reject-with icmp-port-unreachable ACCEPT all -- anywhere 192.168.122.0/24 state RELATED,ESTABLISHED ACCEPT all -- 192.168.122.0/24 anywhere ACCEPT all -- anywhere anywhere REJECT all -- anywhere anywhere reject-with icmp-port-unreachable REJECT all -- anywhere anywhere reject-with icmp-port-unreachable Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT) target prot opt source destination The /var/log/libvirt/qemu/virtualmachine1.log on physicalServer2: 2011-05-06 13:37:30.708: starting up LC_ALL=C PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/bin QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=none /usr/bin/kvm -S -M pc-0.14 -enable-kvm -m 2048 -smp 1,sockets=1,cores=1,threads=1 -name openjudge-test -uuid a8c704bc-a4f9-90db-3e57-40e60b00aac1 -nodefconfig -nodefaults -chardev socket,id=charmonitor,path=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/virtualmachine1.monitor,server,nowait -mon chardev=charmonitor,id=monitor,mode=readline -rtc base=utc -boot c -drive file=/media/nfs/virtualmachine1.img,if=none,id=drive-ide0-0-0,format=raw -device ide-drive,bus=ide.0,unit=0,drive=drive-ide0-0-0,id=ide0-0-0 -drive if=none,media=cdrom,id=drive-ide0-1-0,readonly=on,format=raw -device ide-drive,bus=ide.1,unit=0,drive=drive-ide0-1-0,id=ide0-1-0 -netdev tap,fd=20,id=hostnet0 -device rtl8139,netdev=hostnet0,id=net0,mac=00:16:36:8a:22 :a0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x3 -chardev pty,id=charserial0 -device isa-serial,chardev=charserial0,id=serial0 -usb -vnc 127.0.0.1:2 -vga cirrus -incoming tcp:0.0.0.0:49163 -device virtio-balloon-pci,id=balloon0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x4 char device redirected to /dev/pts/0 2011-05-06 13:37:30.915: shutting down The /var/log/libvirt/qemu/virtualmachine1.log on physicalServer1 is empty. Both physical servers are using Ubuntu 11.04. The libvirt and kvm used are installed by apt-get. The libvirt version is 0.8.8.

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  • Layer 3 switch routing

    - by Yoshiwaan
    I need help moving over to using our layer 3 switch as the inter vlan routing device rather than our cisco router. I've mostly got it working but I've got stuck near the end and need some advice (I think I just need a bit of education on the subject really). Cur I have a Dell PowerConnect 7048 connecting to a Cisco 1841 router. I've got a few key excerpts from the configs to provide the key information. On the powerconnect I have the following: ip routing ip default-gateway 172.31.14.1 ip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 172.31.14.1 253 ! interface vlan 1 ip address 172.31.14.254 255.255.255.0 exit interface vlan 2 ip address 172.31.19.254 255.255.255.0 exit interface vlan 4 ip address 172.31.16.254 255.255.255.0 ! interface Gi1/0/1 description 'Link to L7Router01' switchport mode trunk switchport trunk allowed vlan except 3,7-4093 exit ! and on the Cisco the following: interface FastEthernet0/0 ip address 172.31.14.1 255.255.255.0 ip nat inside ip virtual-reassembly ! interface FastEthernet0/0.2 description Accounts VLAN encapsulation dot1Q 2 ip address 172.31.19.1 255.255.255.0 ip nat inside ip virtual-reassembly ! interface FastEthernet0/0.4 description Voice VLAN encapsulation dot1Q 4 ip address 172.31.16.1 255.255.255.0 ip nat inside ip virtual-reassembly ! So what I'm doing is moving clients over so that their default gateway is a 172.31.x.254 address rather than a 172.31.x.1 address. This works great for inter-vlan routing, I have no issues with this. The switch can also access the router no worries, and users on the 172.31.14.0/24 network can access all interfaces and sub-interfaces on the router, including 172.31.14.1. They can also access all of the interfaces that the router connects off to, no worries there. The problem I have is that users on the 172.31.16.0/24 and 172.31.19.0/24 subnets cannot access either 172.31.14.1 or any of the subnets the router connects to. They can, however, connect to BOTH of the sub interfaces on the router from either subnet. What am I missing here? Why can't the vlans connect to the non-sub interface on the router? Are tagged packets being sent to this interface?

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  • Enterprise Tape Backup solutions

    - by Tom O'Connor
    I'm currently attempting to re-architect a backup solution where I'm working. We've got 2 NAS devices, one in the office, one in the datacentre. The servers in the DC back up to the DC NAS, which is then replicated to the Office NAS. The office NAS exports shares as CIFS and NFS, this bit is fine. At some point, I'll have to expand our storage capacity, currently we've got about 1.4TB of storage space, which is about 96% full. Previously, the tape backup was a script that ran tar a few times and squirted data onto a tape. It worked, but was by no means a perfect solution. Restores are a bit of a pest, adding new data to the backup requires editing the script as root. It's just all a bit non-ideal. I've been evaluating a number of "enterprise" ready backup solutions, such as Yosemite Backup from Barracuda, Acronis Backup/Restore, and something from Arkeia. In the process of evaluating these, I've found 2 big problems. Not all of them allow backup of mounted devices (such as a NFS mounted NAS) Many of these applications don't like our tape device. For the most part, (1) is essential. Our NAS has a feeble processor and can't run applications like backup agents. I suspect that the biggest problem is the tape device, which is a HP C7438A DAT72 connected via USB. Questions: Has anyone else got an USB DAT72 device working with similar software? Is there a better way to back up data from an "appliance" NAS device on which you can't run an agent? Would I be totally out of my mind to specify a cheap HP or Dell server with a couple of 1TB hard disks, and a SAS card to then talk to an HP Ultrium (or similar) device? The biggest drawback to this would be cost (400ish for the server, 200 for the SAS connectivity and 1700 for a LTO4 device) Notes: I'd love to be able to say that I'd get rid of tapes entirely, and use some form of hard disk backup. In a previous job, we had LaCie USB drives, which were decidedly unreliable.

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  • The Koyal Group Info Mag News¦Charged building material could make the renewable grid a reality

    - by Chyler Tilton
    What if your cell phone didn’t come with a battery? Imagine, instead, if the material from which your phone was built was a battery. The promise of strong load-bearing materials that can also work as batteries represents something of a holy grail for engineers. And in a letter published online in Nano Letters last week, a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University describes what it says is a breakthrough in turning that dream into an electrocharged reality. The researchers etched nanopores into silicon layers, which were infused with a polyethylene oxide-ionic liquid composite and coated with an atomically thin layer of carbon. In doing so, they created small but strong supercapacitor battery systems, which stored electricity in a solid electrolyte, instead of using corrosive chemical liquids found in traditional batteries. These supercapacitors could store and release about 98 percent of the energy that was used to charge them, and they held onto their charges even as they were squashed and stretched at pressures up to 44 pounds per square inch. Small pieces of them were even strong enough to hang a laptop from—a big, fat Dell, no less. Although the supercapacitors resemble small charcoal wafers, they could theoretically be molded into just about any shape, including a cell phone’s casing or the chassis of a sedan. They could also be charged—and evacuated of their charge—in less time than is the case for traditional batteries. “We’ve demonstrated, for the first time, the simple proof-of-concept that this can be done,” says Cary Pint, an assistant professor in the university’s mechanical engineering department and one of the authors of the new paper. “Now we can extend this to all kinds of different materials systems to make practical composites with materials specifically tailored to a host of different types of applications. We see this as being just the tip of a very massive iceberg.” Pint says potential applications for such materials would go well beyond “neat tech gadgets,” eventually becoming a “transformational technology” in everything from rocket ships to sedans to home building materials. “These types of systems could range in size from electric powered aircraft all the way down to little tiny flying robots, where adding an extra on-board battery inhibits the potential capability of the system,” Pint says. And they could help the world shift to the intermittencies of renewable energy power grids, where powerful batteries are needed to help keep the lights on when the sun is down or when the wind is not blowing. “Using the materials that make up a home as the native platform for energy storage to complement intermittent resources could also open the door to improve the prospects for solar energy on the U.S. grid,” Pint says. “I personally believe that these types of multifunctional materials are critical to a sustainable electric grid system that integrates solar energy as a key power source.”

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  • Is there a way to permanently arrange 2 displays under XP?

    - by rumtscho
    When I am home or on a business trip, or on a meeting, I use my laptop in the usual way. When I get to work, I put it on the docking station and boot it with the lid closed. The image appears on the two displays connected to the docking station. On the left, there is an old monitor connected over VGA, on the right, a big widescreen connected over DVI. Obviously, the videocard seems to think that the DVI is the primary output, and the VGA the secondary one. Thus Windows always displays the widescreen on the left and the old FSC monitor on the right. So when I want to move the mouse pointer from the (physically) left display to the (physically) right display, I have to move it from right to left, which is a usability nightmare. Of course, I can just drag one display over the other one in the display properties, and then everything is as it should be. The catch: Windows remembers this only as long as it has the two displays. Every time it runs on the laptop display, it forgets the setting. Physically switching the monitors isn't an option, for ergonomical reasons. I prefer to run the more important applications on the bigger screen with the better colourspace, and the shape of my desk forces me to sit off-center, so the more important applications should be shown on the right display. Just switching the video ports doesn't help either. When I connect the big monitor over VGA, image quality deteriorates visibly. So what I do now is: every time I bring the laptop to my desk, I boot it. I wait the whole 7 minutes of XP booting, syncing network drives, etc. Then I fire up the display properties, switch to the last tab, drag the widescreen display to the right, and close. Only then can I start working. Does someone have a better idea? The laptop is a Dell Latitude 630 with Windows XP SP 3. It has an nVidia graphics card (not an onboard chip).

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  • File/printer sharing issues on network with multiple OSes

    - by DanZ
    My workplace consists of computers running a variety of different operating systems, and I have been running into problems getting some of them to connect to a shared drive and printer over the network. Here is a brief description of the computers involved and the issues I have encountered: 1: Dell desktop, Windows Vista Business-- This is the computer I want the others to connect to. It has a USB printer and eSATA hard drive enclosure that I have set up for sharing, with different accounts for the various users. 2: Fujitsu laptop, Windows XP Tablet edition-- No problems. Can connect to both the shared printer and hard drive. 3: Lenovo laptop, Windows Vista Business 64 bit-- No problems. Can connect to both the shared printer and drive. 4: Apple MacBook, OS 10.4-- Can connect to the shared drive, but not to the shared printer. I am aware that the printer issue is due to a known incompatibility between Vista and OS 10.4 and earlier with regards to Samba. It is not a big problem, however, as this computer can access a network printer. 5: Sony laptop, Windows Vista Home Premium-- Can connect to the shared printer, but not the shared drive. It can see computer 1 and its shared drive on the network, and appears to successfully log in to user accounts. However, if you try to access the shared drive, it says you do not have permission. I have tried both standard and administrator accounts, and none can access the drive from this computer. 6: MacBook Pro, OS 10.5 (there are two of these)-- Can connect to the shared printer, but not the shared drive. They can't see computer 1 on the network. For that matter, they also can't see each other or the older Mac, but can see and access shared folders on the XP machine (computer 2) and can see other PCs in the building. I was able to add the shared printer manually by typing in its network location, but was unable to manually add the shared drive in the same way. So, what I am looking for is suggestions on how to get computers 5 and 6 to connect to the shared drive. Since they can already connect to the shared printer (which is on the same computer as the shared drive), it seems reasonable that they should be able to access the drive as well.

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  • Cannot exit X server, restart, shutdown or drop to tty when VGA monitor active

    - by terdon
    I have a strange problem. If I connect an external VGA monitor to my laptop, exiting the X environment in any way crashes the computer. For example, say I am working with my two monitors (the laptop's and one connected to my VGA port) active. Hitting Ctrl+Alt+F Key should take me down to a tty. What actually happens is that the VGA screen goes blank, as you would expect, but the laptop screen, although still on, shows nothing. I know the screen is on because it is slightly more illuminated than when it is off. When in this state, I can do nothing to regain access to the machine. I have tried: Ctrl+F Key (and even Ctrl+Alt+F Key, just in case) combinations and none seem to have any effect. Ctrl+Alt+Del : Nothing Magic SysRq key: Nothing Blindly typing my username and password and trying to reboot/shutdown or restart GDM or MDM: Nothing The only thing that works is a hard reset. The exact same behavior occurs when kiling the X server through Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, rebooting or shutdown. There is no difference if I reboot/shutdown/log out using the WM's graphical menu or if I use the shutdown or rebootcommands. It is also not WM-dependent. I have the same problem using Cinnamon, Gnome 3, MATE and xfce4. It is, however, VGA dependent. I have tried connecting another VGA monitor and have the same problem. I do not, however, have this problem if a screen is connected to the DisplayPort. It is, therefore, a VGA specific issue. To make things even stranger, this only occurs when both screens are active. If either the laptop screen or the VGA monitor is inactive the problem goes away. Finally, this problem arose when I installed the latest Linux Mint Debian (LMDE). It did not occur with the previous release of LMDE. I am not sure what has changed since I used the same kernel version in both releases (I had upgraded the kernel while on the previous release) and, I think, the same nvidia drivers. Oh, and yes, I have updated the nvidia driver. Hardware: Dell M4500 laptop CPU: Intel Core i7 RAM: 8GB Graphics: nVidia GT216 [Quadro FX 880M] Software: LMDE, kernel 3.2.0-2-amd64 Xorg: 1.11.4 nVidia kernel: 295.20-1+3.2.9-1 Possibly relevant files: /var/log/Xorg.0.log ~/.xsession-errors Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this? Thanks in advance for any help.

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  • Blank displays after inactivity, mouse cursor not showing up

    - by Mike Christiansen
    I have a Windows 7 Enterprise x86 machine that is exhibiting some strange problems. After some inactivity (it varies how long it takes), when I come back to my computer, both of my monitors are black. The monitors are on, with a black display. Moving the mouse and pressing keys on the keyboard do not work. This happens at least once a day. When I first encountered the issue, I performed a hard shutdown and restarted the computer. About 10% of the time when I did this, the resolutions on my monitors were messed up. The native resolution on the primary monitor is 1600x900, and the native on my secondary is 1440x900. None of the widescreen resolutions would be present in the display properties. I had 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024. As a workaround to this issue, I've found that if I plug in my secondary monitor as the primary monitor, and leave the secondary unplugged, then Windows will start in 1024x768 on the secondary. Then, I can use Windows 7's "Detect" feature and it finds the 1440x900 resolution, and sets it. Then I have to connect the primary monitor to the secondary port and set it as the primary. Then I can switch the two cables, putting the primary into the primary, the secondary into the secondary. Then use the "Detect" feature again, and it finds the correct resolutions. Some time after performing the above, I discovered that when the screens were blanked, I could simply press "Control+Alt+Delete", type in my password, and everything comes up fine - except my mouse cursor. All applications and features work as intended, except there is no mouse cursor (the mouse actually works though...). I have the "Show location of pointer when I press CTRL key" option selected, so I can press CTRL and use my mouse as normal - but I have no actual cursor. When the computer is in this state, UAC is also not functional. Whenever a UAC prompt appears, the screens go black (the original symptoms) and I have to press Escape to exit UAC. Because of the above symptoms (the UAC black screen thing, etc) I beleive winlogon.exe may be the culprit. However, I have no idea how to fix it. I am unable to restart winlogon.exe due to the problems I am having with winlogon.exe (the UAC black screen) Looking for any ideas.... More information Windows 7 x86 Enterprise Domain environment (I have a secondary account with administrator rights) Dell Optiplex 960 Cannot perform "optional" windows updates due to an activation issue (I am testing a windows 7 image, and an activation infrastructure has not been created yet. However, this issue was happening before I was unable to perform windows update, and windows was up to date at the time Updated video card driver (as an attempt to fixing the resolution issue) Disabled all power saving options Please let me know what else you need to help me solve this issue! Thanks in advance, Mike

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