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• Is my computer slow due to lack of swap

  - by Kristian Jensen

  A few months ago, I installed Ubuntu 12.04 alongside with Windows 7 on my Asus EEE-PC 1015bx. It has a tendency of freezing and when trying to investigate I found that a swap partition of only 256 MB had been created. The Asus EEE-PC 1015bx is born with 1 GByte RAM only and it is not possible to add further or exchange the existing 1 GByte with a larger card. When looking at the system monitor, it looks like all swap is being utilized along with 70-75% of the RAM, even with very few applications running. Can the lack of much swap space be the reason for my computer running slowly and at times freezing? How can I add a swap partition? Or should I add a swap file instead? At the moment, I see two partitions when viewing the system monitor: one 28.6 GByte ext4 partition which must be the one containing Ubuntu and one 100 GByte fuseblk partition which I assume is the one holding Windows. It shows that I have 18.6 GByte free space on the ext4 partition. Can I "take a bite" from the ext4 partition and convert this into a swap partition? I was thinking something like 3 GBytes for swap considering my limited RAM. I hope that someone can guide me through. Thank you. 20th Oct 2012 - Further details Thank you for below answer which I find very useful. I am certainly considering switching to one of your suggested shells as I can see from the Internet that many have posted that these require much fewer resources than ubuntu. It seems to me that lubuntu is the perfect match for my very limited computer. I will have to wait a few days, though, as I am presently limited by a very slow and restricted Internet connection via satellite. But will lubuntu install as simply another shell replacing unity or will it replace ubuntu all together? Will the software that I have installed under ubuntu still be accessible in lubuntu? And can I return to ubuntu if required? Regarding the actual question of swap: When I run gparted, it shows me that there is one ntfs partition of 100 GBytes from where it boots and the before mentioned ext4 partition of 28.6 GBytes is not mentioned. Could it be that my ubuntu installation resides inside this 100 GBytes ntfs partiotion? And if so, can I take a bite of this for my swap partition? Realising that gparted is shown in Danish, I hope that you can make out what I mean. System monitoring shows below details: Once again I sincerely hope that you can help. Thank you.

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• The Manchester lad is finally on twitter

  - by Testas

  Hi you now have another channel to see any communique I have on SQL Server, rather than legnthy blogs you will see my randomn sql thought  address is  http://twitter.com/ctesta_oneill #SQLFAQ will be added to tweets so that it appears on SQLServerFAQ as well Thanks Chris   Chris

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• Binding a select in a client template

  - by Latest Microsoft Blogs

  I recently got a question on one of my client template posts asking me how to bind a select tag’s value to data in client templates . I was surprised not to find anything on the web addressing the problem, so I thought I’d write a short post about it Read More......(read more)

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• K2 4.5 Quick Thoughts

  I just finished attending a webcast on K2 4.5 and I thought Id share a few quick thoughts. Power User Story Improved Given it is just a presentation and I havent actually played with it, the story seemed improved and more believable that real world power users would be able to define workflows in SharePoint.  Power users who would be comfortable with Excel functions may be able to do some more worthwhile workflows since there is new support for inline functions and conditions.  The new SilverLight K2 designer seems pretty user friendly, though the dialog windows can really stack up which may get confusing.  I thought the neatest part was that the workflow can be defined just by starting with a SharePoint Lists settings which may be okay for some organizations and simpler workflows that dont need to define the workflow and push it through lots of testing in different environments.  The standalone K2 Studio is back.  In K2 2003 it was required because Visual Studio integration didnt exist.  Its back now for use by power users who need functionality up to the point of code.  Not sure if this Administration/Installation Installation is supposed to be simplified, with unattended install and other details I didnt catch.  Install and configuration has always seemed daunting to me so anything to improve that is good.  Related to that there is a new tool that is meant to help diagnose issues in your installation.  That may include figuring out missing permissions or services that arent running.  Also, now all K2 SharePoint features deployed as solutions. Dynamic SQL Service Broker Create a smart object to go against a table that you created, NOT the SmartBox.  This seems promising and something that maybe should have been there all along. Reference Event Allows you to call functionally that youve referenced, in the sample showing it was calling a web service that was referenced.  It seemed odd because it was really like writing code using dialogs (call constructor, set timeout, call web service method).  Seemed a little odd to me. Help We were reminded that help.k2.com site is newish site that is supposed to be the MSDN of K2 for partners and customers. VS 2010 Support Still no hard date on this, but what we were told is approximately 90 days after VS 2010 is officially released.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• What steps should I follow to start developing website applications?

  - by Oscar Mederos

  Hello, I've been developing desktop applications for about 4 years, using .NET, C++, C, and a little of Python. I've covered lots of topics while developing my applications, and even web technologies (cookies, GET/POST methods, when programming some scrapers/crawlers). I've been always waiting to start developing websites, preferably using PHP + MySQL, although other advises will be welcomed to make this question more useful and generic for others. I know I could use a CMS instead of starting from scratch, but sometimes I don't need an entire CMS to do minor things... What steps should I follow to create a website? Let's suppose I have a web designer. First of all, the designer designs the entire website (CSS, etc) and then I do the programming stuffs, like loading dynamically things from databases, doing some client-side stuffs with javascript, etc? Or how is the best way to do it? Edit: I'm not looking for tools/frameworks/languages suggestions. What I want to know is how a team (or a developer with a designer) starts creating a website. The steps they do, what tasks they do first, how they integrate the work, etc. An example of an answer could be: 1) Design the entire website with good CSS practices, using containers instead of tables in some cases, etc. 2) Use that design and develop the logic or the functionalities of the website. Of course, that's just an example. I'm looking for a good way to approach it, because I've been wanting to start on it but don't really know how exactly to organize the job :/

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• An XEvent a Day (24 of 31) – What is the package0.callstack Action?

  - by Jonathan Kehayias

  One of the actions inside of Extended Events is the package0.callstack and the only description provided by sys.dm_xe_objects for the object is 16-frame call stack. If you look back at The system_health Session blog post, you’ll notice that the package0.callstack Action has been added to a number of the Events that the PSS team thought were of significance to include in the Event Session. We can trigger an event that will by logged by our system_health Event Session by raising an error of severity...(read more)

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• Does waterfall require code complete before QA steps in?

  - by P.Brian.Mackey

  The process used at a certain company consists of: Create a layout according to some designs made in a web page design tool. (CSS, html) Requirements come in with "functional requirements". These consist of 100's of lines of business directions. E.G. Create a Table on page X. Column1 has numeric data. Column1 is the client code. Column2 is a string...etc. Write code to meet all functional requirements. When all code is checked in, send to QA (which is the BA that wrote the requirements) for inspection, bug finds and change requests. Punt back to developer with a list of X bugs and Y change requests. While bug finds or change requests 0 go to step 4. The agile development environments I have worked in allow, if not demand, early QA inspection and early user acceptance. So, pieces of the program can be refined and redefined before the entire application is in place. Not only that, but the process leaves little room for error or people changing their minds. Instead, those "change requests" come in at the last stage when they do the most damage. And being that a bug-fix's cost increases over time, this is a costly way to write code. I am no waterfall expert. As described, is this waterfall being mishandled in some way? How does waterfall address my concerns?

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• Attribute Overwriting in MDX

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

  Jeffrey Wang wrote a great blog post about attribute overwriting in MDX that is very clear and full of helpful pictures to show what happens when you write an MDX statement that writes into your multidimensional space. This is very common in an MDX Script and if you tried to customize the DateTool solution you probably experienced how hard this concept can be. The point is not that MDX is hard, is that a model based on multiple hierarchies in a dimension (and each attribute is a hierarchy by default!)...(read more)

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• SQL SERVER What is Spatial Database? Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial

  What is Spatial Database?A spatial database is a database that is optimized to store and query data related to objects in space, including points, lines and polygons. While typical databases can understand various numeric and character types of data, additional functionality needs to be added for databases to process spatial data types. (Source: Wikipedia)Today [...]...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• cocos2d: syncing CCAnimation frames with Box2d Shape manipulations

  - by Hezi Cohen

  hi everybody! my cocos2d game currently has a ccsprite attached to a box2d body. during the game i apply different CCAnimations on my sprite, i would like to perform certain manipulations to the box2d body according to the frame currently displayed by the sprite (change rotation of the body, etc.) my current idea on implementing this is to subclass ccsprite and change the setDisplayFrame implementation but i thought somebody here probably did the same and already has a solution, so any suggestions on how to implement this? thanks!

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• Binary on the Coat of Arms of the Governor General of Canada

  - by user132636

  Can you help me further this investigation? Here is about 10% of the work I have done on it. I present it only to see if there are any truly curious people among you. I made a video a few weeks ago showing some strange things about the Governor General's Coat of Arms and the binary on it. Today, I noticed something kinda cool and thought I would share. Here is the binary as it appears on the COA: 110010111001001010100100111010011 As DEC: 6830770643 (this is easily found on the web) Take a close look at that number. What do you notice about it? It has a few interesting features, but here is the one no one has pointed out... Split it down the middle and you have 68307 70643. The first digit is double the value of the last digit. The second digit is double the second last digit. The third digit is half of the third to last digit. And the middle ones are even or neutral. At first, I thought of it as energy. ++-nnnn+-- But actually you can create something else with it using the values. 221000211. See how that works. You may be asking why that is significant. Bare with me. I know 99% are rolling their eyes. 221000211 as base3 gives you this as binary: 100011101000111 100011101000111 as HEX is 4747, which converts to "GG". Initials of Governor General. GG.ca is his website. When you convert to base 33 (there are 33 digits in the original code) you get "GOV" Interesting? :D There is a lot more to it. I'll continue to show some strange coincidences if anyone is interested. Sorry if I am not explaining this correctly. By now you have probably figured out that I have no background in this. Which is why I am here. Thank you.

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• How to shoot a triangle out of an asteroid which floats all of the way up to the screen?

  - by Holland

  I currently have an asteroid texture loaded as my "test player" for the game I'm writing. What I'm trying to figure out how to do is get a triangle to shoot from the center of the asteroid, and keep going until it hits the top of the screen. What happens in my case (as you'll see from the code I've posted), is that the triangle will show, however it will either be a long line, or it will just be a single triangle which stays in the same location as the asteroid moving around (that disappears when I stop pressing the space bar), or it simply won't appear at all. I've tried many different methods, but I could use a formula here. All I'm trying to do is write a space invaders clone for my final in C#. I know how to code fairly well, my formulas just need work is all. So far, this is what I have: Main Logic Code protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(ClearOptions.Target, Color.Black, 1, 1); mAsteroid.Draw(mSpriteBatch); if (mIsFired) { mPositions.Add(mAsteroid.LastPosition); mRay.Fire(mPositions); mIsFired = false; mRay.Bullets.Clear(); mPositions.Clear(); } base.Draw(gameTime); } Draw Code public void Draw() { VertexPositionColor[] vertices = new VertexPositionColor[3]; int stopDrawing = mGraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width / mGraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height; for (int i = 0; i < mRayPos.Length(); ++i) { vertices[0].Position = new Vector3(mRayPos.X, mRayPos.Y + 5f, 10); vertices[0].Color = Color.Blue; vertices[1].Position = new Vector3(mRayPos.X - 5f, mRayPos.Y - 5f, 10); vertices[1].Color = Color.White; vertices[2].Position = new Vector3(mRayPos.X + 5f, mRayPos.Y - 5f, 10); vertices[2].Color = Color.Red; mShader.CurrentTechnique.Passes[0].Apply(); mGraphicsDevice.DrawUserPrimitives<VertexPositionColor>(PrimitiveType.TriangleStrip, vertices, 0, 1); mRayPos += new Vector2(0, 1f); mGraphicsDevice.ReferenceStencil = 1; } }

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• How to reinstall Ubuntu keeping my data intact?

  - by Santosh Linkha

  I want to reinstall Ubuntu keeping my data intact. I have 160 GB hardrive (sata or pata I don't know but it's slim and made in China) with a 40 GB ext3 partition, a 4GB swap memory and 3 other partition with a FAT32 file system. I have around 4GB space on my drive where Linux is installed. I'd like to keep the data intact, especially the Downloads folder, desktop, and /var/www; And I no longer have access to any other machines or external storage devices.

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• T-SQL Tuesday # 16 : This is not the aggregate you're looking for

  - by AaronBertrand

  This week, T-SQL Tuesday is being hosted by Jes Borland ( blog | twitter ), and the theme is " Aggregate Functions ." When people think of aggregates, they tend to think of MAX(), SUM() and COUNT(). And occasionally, less common functions such as AVG() and STDEV(). I thought I would write a quick post about a different type of aggregate: string concatenation. Even going back to my classic ASP days, one of the more common questions out in the community has been, "how do I turn a column into a comma-separated...(read more)

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• What’s coming up

  - by GavinPayneUK

  In the last couple of months my community activities list has had things leave it and new things join it, so I thought share, and promote, my future plans. Microsoft Certified Architect : SQL Server – Giving back Preparing for my MCA Board was the hardest, yet in hindsight the most rewarding and interesting, thing I’ve ever done.  The subjects it covers still interest me to the extent that I’m now contributing to the MCA programme itself, allowing the next people through the certification’s...(read more)

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• Mystical Energy Wallpaper Collection for Your iPad

  - by Akemi Iwaya

  The air starts to crackle around you as bright light appears, serving as a portal that transports you into a whole new and strange world beyond your imagination. Travel to new realms of thought, emotion, and energy on your iPad’s screen with the first in our series of Mystical Energy Wallpaper collections. Mystical Energy Series 1 Note: Click on the pictures to view and download the full-size versions at their individual homepages. The images shown here are in thumbnail format.                     

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• We are having a Social on the 15th April - Why not join us for some SQL fun

  - by NeilHambly

  TechDays are coming week, with the "SQL Server 2008 R2" Launch conference being held on the Thursday (15 th April) and followed by the much anticipated SQLBits VI the following day (16 th April) So we thought this an ideal opportunity to hold a SQL Social evening for those fortunate enough to be able to attend those conferences or just wanted to join us for the evening It is being held @ "The Bull" Pub @ Westfield centre (only a short walk from the venue of t the “SQL Server 2008...(read more)

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• 7 Cool Firefox Ad-ons

  <b>The Linux Box:</b> "One of the coolest things about Firefox is its extensibility. Everyone has their collection of favorite Firefox add-ons and I thought I would share mine. Some provide improved organization, some have a certain "WOW!" factor, and others just look pretty."

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• Insert Special Characters & Coding in Online Forms in Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  If you are active in forums or comment areas on different websites then you most likely use some type of special characters, HTML, or other code throughout the day. Now you can easily insert commonly used “items” with the SKeys extension for Firefox. Your New Special Text Edit Bar After installing the extension you will see the new toolbar that has been added to your browser. These are the kinds of text that can be added to online comment areas, forums, or other website areas that allow their use: Special characters HTML tags BB codes Wiki characters All that you will need to do is click on the appropriate special character or code to insert it into the website text area. The first two toolbar items are each singular in their function and insert the following types of text. A look at the special characters available for your use. The wiki code menu. The HTML menu… And the BB code menu. Here is a quick sample using the HTML menu…much better than doing it manually. This should definitely help speed things up throughout the day. Our only disappointment during testing was not being able to add additional items (i.e. characters, tags) to the toolbar at this time. Conclusion While a new toolbar may not be for everyone this extension can certainly prove useful when you need to quickly add special characters or coding in website text areas. Links Download the SKeys extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Tip: Use Tab Characters in Textarea Boxes in FirefoxUse Special Characters in WindowsUsing Password Phrases For Better SecuritySearch For Rows With Special Characters in SQL ServerExpand Text Areas in Web Forms in Firefox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• Insert Special Characters & Coding in Online Forms in Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  If you are active in forums or comment areas on different websites then you most likely use some type of special characters, HTML, or other code throughout the day. Now you can easily insert commonly used “items” with the SKeys extension for Firefox. Your New Special Text Edit Bar After installing the extension you will see the new toolbar that has been added to your browser. These are the kinds of text that can be added to online comment areas, forums, or other website areas that allow their use: Special characters HTML tags BB codes Wiki characters All that you will need to do is click on the appropriate special character or code to insert it into the website text area. The first two toolbar items are each singular in their function and insert the following types of text. A look at the special characters available for your use. The wiki code menu. The HTML menu… And the BB code menu. Here is a quick sample using the HTML menu…much better than doing it manually. This should definitely help speed things up throughout the day. Our only disappointment during testing was not being able to add additional items (i.e. characters, tags) to the toolbar at this time. Conclusion While a new toolbar may not be for everyone this extension can certainly prove useful when you need to quickly add special characters or coding in website text areas. Links Download the SKeys extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Tip: Use Tab Characters in Textarea Boxes in FirefoxUse Special Characters in WindowsUsing Password Phrases For Better SecuritySearch For Rows With Special Characters in SQL ServerExpand Text Areas in Web Forms in Firefox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• Simple Mouse Move Event in F# with Winforms

  - by MarkPearl

  This evening I had the pleasure of reading one of ThomasP’s blog posts on first class events. It was an excellent read, and I thought I would make a brief derivative of his post to explore some of the basics. In Thomas’s post he has a form with an ellipse on it that when he clicks on the ellipse it pops up a message box with the button clicked… awesome. Something that got me on the post though was the code similar to the one below… // React to Mouse Move events on the form let evtMessages = frm.MouseMove |> Event.map (fun mi -> mi.Location.ToString()) |> Event.map (sprintf "Hey, you clicked on the ellipse.\nUsing: %s") |> Event.add (MessageBox.Show >> ignore) The MessageBox is a function with a string passed into it. What if I wanted to rather change a mutable value holder instead, how would the syntax go for that? Immediately the thought came to me of anonymous functions. I’ve used them before to do something like this… let HelloPerson personName = "Hello " + personName |> fun(x) -> Console.WriteLine(x) So using the same approach I adapted the event code to instead of showing a Message Box with a string passed in to it, to rather change the forms header. |> Event.map (sprintf "Your mouse position is %s") |> Event.add(fun(x) -> frm.Text <- x) Okay… it looks a bit weird with the –> x <- syntax, but makes sense and works… The next thing I wanted to do was change Thomas’s code sample from having an ellipse, and reacting to the position of the mouse and click, to rather trigger the event whenever the mouse moved. This simple involved removing some filtering code. Finally I wanted the code to work as a FSharp Project without having to run through the F# interactive. To achieve this I just needed to find out how to trigger the window event loop. This can be achieved with the code below… // Program eventloop while frm.Created do Application.DoEvents()   So lets look at the complete code sample… #light open System open System.Drawing open System.Windows.Forms // Create the main form let frm = new Form(ClientSize=Size(600,400)) // React to Mouse Move events on the form let evtMessages = frm.MouseMove |> Event.map (fun mi -> mi.Location.ToString()) |> Event.map (sprintf "Your mouse position is %s") |> Event.add(fun(x) -> frm.Text <- x) // Show the form frm.Show() // Program eventloop while frm.Created do Application.DoEvents()

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• How to get the revision history of a branch with bzrlib

  - by David Planella

  I'm trying to get a list of committers to a bzr branch. I know I can get it through the command line with something along these lines: bzr log -n0 | grep committer | sed -e 's/^[[:space:]]*committer: //' | uniq However, I'd like to get that list programmatically with bzrlib. After having looked at the bzrlib documentation, I can't manage to find out how I would even get the full list of revisions from my branch. Any hints on how to get the full history of revisions from a branch with bzrlib, or ultimately, the list of committers?

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• Django 1.4 dependency when packaging a Precise application

  - by Caustic

  I am trying to package a program I wrote that depends on Django 1.4.1 in Ubuntu 12.04. As Django 1.4.1 isn't available in Precise I am wondering if it is best to: Package up Django 1.4.1 and drop it in my ppa OR write a script that wgets Django at build time and installs. OR Something better that I haven't thought of. I am still inexperienced with packaging and would appreciate some advice Thanks

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• Convert Chrome Bookmark Toolbar Folders to Icons

  - by Asian Angel

  So you have your regular bookmarks reduced to icons but what about the folders? With our little hack and a few minutes of your time you can turn those folders into icons too. Condensing the Folders Reducing bookmark folders to icons is a little more tricky than regular bookmarks but not hard to do. Right click on the folder and select “Rename…”. The folder’s name should already be highlighted/selected as shown here. Delete the text…notice that the “OK Button” has become unusable for the moment. Now what you will need to do is: Hold down the “Alt Key” Type in “0160” (without the quotes) using the numbers keypad on the right side of your keyboard Release the “Alt Key” after you have finished typing in the number above Once you have released the “Alt Key” you will notice two things…the “cursor” has moved further into the text area and you can now click on the “OK Button” again. There is our folder after editing. And it works just as well as before but without taking up so much room. Here is how our “iconized” folder looks next to our bookmarks. Perfect! What if you want to reduce multiple folders to icons? Perform the same exact steps shown above for each folder and pack your “Bookmarks Toolbar” full of folder goodness! As seen here the folders will have a little more space between them in comparison with singular bookmarks due to the “blank name” for each folder. For those who may be curious this is what your bookmarks will look like in the “Bookmark Manager Page”. Note: If you export your bookmarks all bookmarks contained in multiple blank name folders will be combined into a single folder. Conclusion With just a little bit of work you can pack a lot of goodness into your “Bookmarks Toolbar”. No more wasted space… Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Condense the Bookmarks in the Firefox Bookmarks ToolbarAccess Your Bookmarks with a Toolbar Button in Google ChromeAdd the Bookmarks Menu to Your Bookmarks Toolbar with Bookmarks UI ConsolidatorAdd a Vertical Bookmarks Toolbar to FirefoxReduce Your Bookmarks Toolbar to a Toolbar Button TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics How to Add Exceptions to the Windows Firewall Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error

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• Mexico leading in Business Transformation Strategies:

  - by [email protected]

  By John Burke Group Vice President Oracle Applications Business Unit     I recently completed a business tour in Mexico, and was surprised by both the economic vibrancy of the country and the thought leadership expressed by many of the customers I met.  An example of the economic vibrancy of the country: across the street from my hotel was the local Bentley dealership, Coach Store, Yves Saint Laurent and of course a Starbucks.  I only made it to Starbucks.  Both the Coach Store and YSL had a line of folks waiting to get in... As for thought leadership, there were several illustrations only on the first day. I had the opportunity to meet with a branch of the Mexican Federal Government. Their questions were not about clerical task automation, far from it! We discussed citizen on-line access to fees and services - for example looking up the duty on an international goods shipment, or tracking that my taxes have been received, or the status of my request for a certain service.  Eligibility, policies and status.  Having an integrated rules or policy automation system that would allow businesses and citizens to access accurate information and ensure the proper collection of fees and payment for 3rd party provided services.    Then in the afternoon, I met with the owner of a roofing company (note: most roofs in Mexico are flat and made of cement).  This CEO started discussing how he wanted to transform his business from a cement products company to a service company and market 5-10-15 year service contracts which would guarantee the structural integrity of the roof and of course that the roof would remain waterproof.  Although his products were guaranteed, they required an annual inspection and most home owners never schedule that inspection until it is too late and water damage has occurred.  These emergency calls reduce his margin and reduce customer satisfaction.  This lead to a discussion of business models in general and why long term differentiation can only come from service, not just for the music or news industries, but also for roofing companies!    I completely agreed with the transformational concepts described in both meetings and quickly understood why there is a Bentley dealership near my hotel.    

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