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• Looking for a comfortable Laptop Cooling Pad? Repurpose a pillow as a Laptop Cooling Pad

  - by Gopinath

  Update: This idea sucks as using a pillow blocks laptop cooling fans and air flow, which in turn would damage the laptop. Thanks Vijay I’ve a HP Pavilion laptop which turns hot quickly and most of the time I would not be able to keep it on my lap after 30 minutes of usage. It’s the same case with my DELL laptop and not to blame any specific brand or model. Most of the budget laptops generate lot of heat and tough to keep them on laps for a long time. They burn skin and the irritation sense leaves me with no option other than throwing them away. While searching for options to beat the heat I found Laptop Cooling Pads on Amazon.They attach to the base of laptops and act like a heat shield/sink to protect thighs from the heat generated by laptops. They are available from around $7 and goes up to $100 depending on the features they offer. After reading reviews I selected a trendy looking and comfortable laptop cooling pad and it was around $25 before shipping and taxes. I’m going to buy one of the cooling pads from Amazon. On a second thought I started searching for options to repurpose any of the house hold items as a laptop cooling pad and save money. The option suggested by wife is to repurpose an old pillow as a laptop cooling pad.  Here is my laptop cooling pad Wow! That is a nice suggestion which saved my thighs from laptop heat as well my wallet from spending $25. Even if I’ve to buy a new pillow I would be able to pickup cheap one from Wal-Mart store for as low as $2.  Also I find it is very comfortable to use a pillow as a Laptop Cooling Pad as they are flexible and automatically adjust to the shape of my body.

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• Desktop Fun: Moody Skies Wallpapers

  - by Asian Angel

  The sky can personify a multitude of moods and emotions based on its’ appearance. Inspire your own thoughts and feelings with our Moody Skies Wallpaper collection. Note: Click on the picture to see the full-size image—these wallpapers vary in size so you may need to crop, stretch, or place them on a colored background in order to best match them to your screen’s resolution. For more wallpapers be certain to see our great collections in the Desktop Fun section. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Windows 7 Welcome Screen Taking Forever? Here’s the Fix (Maybe)Desktop Fun: Starship Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Underwater Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Starscape Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Fantasy Theme Wallpapers 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 HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Download Songs From MySpace Steve Jobs’ iPhone 4 Keynote Video Watch World Cup Online On These Sites Speed Up Windows With ReadyBoost Awesome World Cup Soccer Calendar Nice Websites To Watch TV Shows Online

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• How Mars Lost Its Atmosphere [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Scientists have long theorized that Mars once had an atmosphere and surface water–but where did it go? This video showcases one of their theories about Mars’ vanished water reserves. Courtesy of NASA and the NASAexplorer channel: When you take a look at Mars, you probably wouldn’t think that it looks like a nice place to live. It’s dry, it’s dusty, and there’s practically no atmosphere. But some scientists think that Mars may have once looked like a much nicer place to live, with a thicker atmosphere, cloudy skies, and possibly even liquid water flowing over the surface. So how do you go from something like this–to something like this? NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft will give us a clearer idea of how Mars lost its atmosphere, and scientists think that several processes have had an impact. For more information about MAVEN, check out the mission page here. NASA – MAVEN: Mars Atmospheric Loss How to Get Pro Features in Windows Home Versions with Third Party Tools HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using? HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It

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• Is there ever a reason to use C++ in a Mac-only application?

  - by Emil Eriksson

  Is there ever a reason to use C++ in a Mac-only application? I not talking about integrating external libraries which are C++, what I mean is using C++ because of any advantages in a particular application. While the UI code must be written in Obj-C, what about logic code? Because of the dynamic nature of Objective-C, C++ method calls tend to be ever so slightly faster but does this have any effect in any imaginable real life scenario? For example, would it make sense to use C++ over Objective-C for simulating large particle systems where some methods would need to be called over and over in short time? I can also see some cases where C++ has a more appropriate "feel". For example when doing graphics, it's nice to have vector and matrix types with appropriate operator overloads and methods. This, to me, seems like it would be a bit clunkier to implement in Objective-C. Also, Objective-C objects can never be treated plain old data structures in the same manner as C++ types since Objective-C objects always have an isa-pointer. Wouldn't it make sense to use C++ instead in something like this? Does anyone have a real life example of a situation where C++ was chosen for some parts of an application? Does Apple use any C++ except for the kernel? (I don't want to start a flame war here, both languages have their merits and I use both equally though in different applications.)

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• How do i disable intel graphics in a hybrid graphics setup?

  - by Eshwar

  Hi, I have a Dell Vostro 3700 version A10. The relevant bits from lspci -v | grep VGA are: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 18) and 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GT216 [GeForce GT 330M] (rev a2) so as you can see this is one of those hybrid graphics laptops. Now, I have no interest in any kind of switching. I would like to completely disable the Intel Graphics thats on the processor. I checked in the xorg.log file and it shows that the intel card is in use. from lsmod i see it uses the i915 module. I tried blacklisting that module in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf but that didn't really work because i still couldn't use the nvidia card for display. I wish there was a BIOS option to disable, but there isn't. Some people have also suggested changing the SATA mode to compatibility, but that does not work either in this case as the intel vga controller still shows up in lspci I tried setting the busid manually in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file but it still didn't work. It gave me an error that said something along the lines of screen not detected. any bits of xorg.log that you'd like me to attach? So what I am looking for is some solution that allows me to completely disable the use of the intel vga controller. if it was blocked somehow it'd be nice. as if it were not present. Any suggestions? I am desperate here actually. Because I cannot use the HDMI port right now on my laptop for that reason. My guess is this applies to desktops that also have Core i5 processors with onchip graphics as well as dedicated graphics cards. How would they go about solving the problem?

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• Moving from Silverlight 4 Beta to RC - Part 2

  In my previous post I talked about updating my development environment from Silverlight 4 Beta to Silverlight 4 RC (release candidate). After updating, I opened the solution for my Task-It project and found that several things were broken. I would've been surprised if it just worked as is! What disappointed me is that after spending a decent amount of time searching the web, I could not find information telling me what I needed to update/change...and wouldn't it be nice if there was a wizard to update it for you? What changed? I wish I had made notes along the line of each of the things I found, but here are a few that I can recall: In the Web project, the following dll's no longer exist: System.Web.DomainServices.dll System.Web.DomainServices.LinqToSql.dll (if you are using the Entity Framework I believe that one is System.Web.DomainServices.EntityFramework.dll) System.Web.Ria.dll In the Silverlight project: System.Windows.Ria.dll I'm not positive which new assemblies need to be referenced for your project, but I'm going to list the ones I think you need. One way to verify is to create a new Silverlight application with support for WCF RIA Services and see which dlls are included. In the Web project: System.Data.Entity.dll System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.EntityFramework.dll (I've moved from LinqToSql to EntityFramework, so I'm not sure which one the LinqToSql stuff comes from) System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Hosting.dll System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Server.dll In the Silverlight project: System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Client.dll System.ServiceModel.DomainServices.Client.Web.dll System.ServiceModel.Web.Extensions.dll Where are these dll's? These all live in either the Silverlight or RIA Services subdirectories under:         C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs Of if you are on a 64-bit machine like me:         C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs Wrap up Good luck, and I hope this helps to get you back in business! If anyone finds anything that I've missed, please enter a comment and I'll update the post accordingly.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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• SQL SERVER – New Look for CodePlexProject – Hosting for Open Source Software

  - by pinaldave

  Codeplex is my favorite site. CodePlex is Microsoft’s free open source project hosting site. You can create projects to share with the world, collaborate with others on their projects, and download open source software. It is great place to find so many open source project available to explore. All the softwares are free and open source. I often go there at intervals to check what is new in SQL Server field as well on other technologies. Yesterday when I visited it, I had nice surprise as it has total makeover and looks very decent as well elegant at the same time. I have noticed that when I talk about Codeplex is user community, not everybody knows about it. The quickest way I explain what is codeplex is that I start naming few of the projects which are available there and suddenly I start noticing a few hands going up knowing the projects. This is indirect way to prove that many of us know CodePlex usability but do not pay special attention to what it is actually. Let me name a few popular projects of the CodePlex here. SQL Server Sample Database [link] Image Resizer for Windows [link] Ajax Control Toolkit [link] Skype Voice Changer [link] Silverlight Toolkit [link] Windows 7 USB/DBD Download Tool [link] Orchard Project [link] There are very interesting SQL Server projects available on Codeplex as well. I am listing few of them here for reference in listed in no particular order. SQL Server Sample Database [link] SQL Server Compact ToolBox [link] Microsoft Drivers for PHP for SQL Server [link] Internals Viewer for SQL Server [link] SQL Server Spatial Tooks [link] SQL Monitor – managing sql server performance [link] SQL Server 2008 Extended Events SSMS Addin [link] How many of above mentioned project have you come across earlier? Leave a comment it will be interesting to know what our community is familiar with. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Continual Professional Development - proving new skills to non-technical employers

  - by Tom

  Background I work in a non-IT based company, as a professional software developer, building a large scale internal database system. I am fortunate to have a fairly senior position within the company, and have been working here for around 4 years. Often I get asked by management "how do you learn new things?". To be honest, I don't know how to answer this. Over the last 6 months, I've really gotten my teeth into some new techniques and technologies to make my level of coding far better and hopefully improve the quality of the software. Even if it's just refreshing my skills on things I've learnt already. Like last week I dived into some complex XLinq and TPL code (.net). Nothing revolutionary, but I feel like I am a bit better than before. Question The question is, how do I prove this to my employer? It'd be nice to be able to put this on paper. Possibilities I could: Keep a journal of what I've learnt - keeping the technical bits in (nobody would understand or care, but it's better than them being omitted) ???? (I've run out of ideas already) Any ideas? Thanks, Tom

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• links for 2011-01-10

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Clusterware 11gR2: Setting up an Active/Passive failover configuration (Oracle Luxembourg XPS on Database) Some think that expensive third-party cluster systems are necessary when it comes to protecting a system with an Active/Passive architecture with failover capabilities. Not true, according to Gilles Haro. (tags: oracle otn database) Atul Kumar: Part IX : Install OAM Agent - 11g WebGate with OAM 11g Part 9 of Atul's step by step guide to the installation of Oracle Identity Management. (tags: oracle oam identitymanagement security otn) Michel Schildmeijer: Oracle Service Bus: enable / disable proxy service with WLST Amis Technology's Michel Schildmeijer shares a process he found for enabling / disabling a proxy service within Oracle Service Bus 11g with WLST (WebLogic Scripting tool). (tags: oracle soa servicebus weblogic) @andrejusb: SOA & E2.0 Partner Community Forum XIII - in Utrecht, The Netherlands Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis shares a nice plug for the SOA & E2.0 Partner Community Forum XIII coming up in March in the Netherlands. (tags: oracle oracleace otn soa enterprise2.0) Oracle Magazine Architect Column: Enterprise Architecture in Interesting Times Oracle ACE Directors Lonneke Dikmans, Ronald van Luttikhuizen, Mike van Alst, and Floyd Teter and Oracle enterprise architect Mans Bhuller share their thoughts on the forces that are shaping enterprise architecture. (tags: oracle otn architect entarch oraclemag) InfoQ: Deriving Agility from SOA and BPM - Ten Things that Separate the Winners from the Losers In this presentation from SOA Symposium 2010, Manas Deb and Clemens Utschig-Utschig discuss how to derive business agility from SOA and BPM, motivations for agility, developing and nurturing agility, influencers and dependencies, how SOA and BPM enable agility, pitfalls and recommendations for organizational culture, and pitfalls and recommendations for business and technical architectures. (tags: ping.fm)

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• Entity component system -> handling components that depend on one another

  - by jtedit

  I really like the idea of an entity component system and feel it has great flexibility, but have a question. How should dependent components be handled? I'm not talking about how components should communicate with other components they depend on, I have that sorted, but rather how to ensure components are present. For example, an entity cannot have a "velocity" component if it doesn't have a "position" component, in the same way it cant have an "acceleration" component if it doesn't have a "velocity" component. My first idea was every component class overrides an "onAddedToEntity(Entity ent)" function. Then in that function it checks that prerequisite components are also added to the entity, eg: struct EntCompVelocity() : public EntityComponent{ //member variables here void onAddedToEntity(Entity ent){ if(!ent.hasComponent(EntCompPosition::Id)){ ent.addComponent(new EntCompPosition()); } } } This has the nice property that if the acceleration component adds the velocity component, the velocity component will itself add the position component to the entity so dependency "trees" will sort themselves out. However my concern is if I do this components will silently be added with default values and, in the example of adding position, many entities will appear at the origin. Another idea was to simple have the "Entity.addComponent();" function return false if the component's prerequisite components aren't already on the entity, this would force you to manually add the position component and set its value before adding the velocity component. Finally I could simply not ensure a components prerequisite components are added, the "UpdatePosition" system only deals with entities with both a position and velocity component, so therefore adding a velocity component without having a position component wont be a problem (it wont cause crashes due to null pointer/etc), but it does mean entities will carry useless unused data if you add components but not their prerequisite components. Does anyone have experience with this problem and/or any of these methods to solve it? How did you solve the problem?

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• NoVa Code Camp 2010.1 &ndash; Don&rsquo;t Miss It!

  - by John Blumenauer

  Tomorrow, June 12th will be the NoVa Code Camp 2010.1 held at the Microsoft Technical Center in Reston, VA.  What’s in store?  Lots of great topics by some truly knowledgeable speakers from the mid-Atlantic region.  This event will have four talks alone on Azure, plus sessions ASP.NET MVC2, SharePoint, WP7, Silverlight, MEF, WCF and some great presentations centered around best practices and design. The schedule can be found at:  http://novacodecamp.org/RecentCodeCamps/NovaCodeCamp201001/Schedule/tabid/202/Default.aspx The session descriptions and speaker list is at:  http://novacodecamp.org/RecentCodeCamps/NovaCodeCamp201001/Sessions/tabid/197/Default.aspx We’re also fortunate this year to have several excellent sponsors.  The sponsor list can be found at:  http://novacodecamp.org/RecentCodeCamps/NovaCodeCamp201001/Sponsors/tabid/198/Default.aspx.  As a result of the excellent sponsors, attendees will be enjoying nice food throughout the day and the end of day raffle will have some great surprises regarding swag! I’ll be presenting MEF with an introduction and then how it can be used to extend Silverlight applications.  If you’re new to MEF and/or Silverlight, don’t worry.  I’ll be easing into the concepts so everyone will leave an understanding of MEF by the end of the session.   Don’t miss NoVa Code Camp 2010.1.  See YOU there!

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• How to avoid big and clumpsy UITableViewController on iOS?

  - by Johan Karlsson

  I have a problem when implementing the MVC-pattern on iOS. I have searched the Internet but seems not to find any nice solution to this problem. Many UITableViewController implementations seems to be rather big. Most example I have seen lets the UITableViewController implement UITableViewDelegate and UITableViewDataSource. These implementations are a big reason why UITableViewControlleris getting big. One solution would be to create separate classes that implements UITableViewDelegate and UITableViewDataSource. Of course these classes would have to have a reference to the UITableViewController. Are there any drawbacks using this solution? In general I think you should delegate the functionality to other "Helper" classes or similar, using the delegate pattern. Are there any well established ways of solving this problem? I do not want the model to contain to much functionality, nor the view. A believe that the logic should really be in the controller class, since this is one of the cornerstones of the MVC-pattern. But the big question is; How should you divide the controller of a MVC-implementation into smaller manageable pieces? (Applies to MVC in iOS in this case) There might be a general pattern for solving this, although I am specifically looking for a solution for iOS. Please give an example of a good pattern for solving this issue. Also an argument why this solution is awesome.

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• Aggregating Excel cell contents that match a label [migrated]

  - by Josh

  I'm sure this isn't a terribly difficult thing, but it's not the type of question that easily lends itself to internet searches. I've been assigned a project for work involving a complex spreadsheet. I've done the usual =SUM and other basic Excel formulas, and I've got enough coding background that I'm able to at least fudge my way through VBA, but I'm not certain how to proceed with one part of the task. Simple version: On Sheet 1 I have a list of people (one on each row, person's name in column A), on sheet 2 I have a list of groups (one on each row, group name in column A). Each name in Sheet 1 has its own row, and I have a "Data Validation" dropdown menu where you choose the group each person belongs to. That dropdown is sourced from Sheet 2, where each group has a row. So essentially the data validation source for Sheet 1's "Group" column is just "=Sheet2!$a1:a100" or whatever. The problem is this: I want each group row in Sheet 2 to have a formula which results in a list of all the users which have been assigned to that group on Sheet 1. What I mean is something the equivalent of "select * from PeopleTab where GROUP = ThisGroup". The resulting cell would just stick the names together like "Bob Smith, Joe Jones, Sally Sanderson" I've been Googling for hours but I can't think of a way to phrase my search query to get the results I want. Here's an example of desired result (Dash-delimited. Can't find a way to make it look nice, table tags don't seem to work here): (Sheet 1) Bob Smith - Group 1 (selected from dropdown) Joe Jones - Group 2 (selected from dropdown) Sally Sanderson - Group 1 (selected from dropdown) (Sheet 2) Group 1 - Bob Smith, Sally Sanderson (result of formula) Group 2 - Joe Jones (result of formula) What formula (or even what function) do I use on that second column of sheet 2 to make a flat list out of the members of that group?

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• Style bits vs. Separate bool's

  - by peterchen

  My main platform (WinAPI) still heavily uses bits for control styles etc. (example). When introducing custom controls, I'm permanently wondering whether to follow that style or rather use individual bool's. Let's pit them against each other: enum EMyCtrlStyles { mcsUseFileIcon = 1, mcsTruncateFileName = 2, mcsUseShellContextMenu = 4, }; void SetStyle(DWORD mcsStyle); void ModifyStyle(DWORD mcsRemove, DWORD mcsAdd); DWORD GetStyle() const; ... ctrl.SetStyle(mcsUseFileIcon | mcsUseShellContextMenu); vs. CMyCtrl & SetUseFileIcon(bool enable = true); bool GetUseFileIcon() const; CMyCtrl & SetTruncteFileName(bool enable = true); bool GetTruncteFileName() const; CMyCtrl & SetUseShellContextMenu(bool enable = true); bool GetUseShellContextMenu() const; ctrl.SetUseFileIcon().SetUseShellContextMenu(); As I see it, Pro Style Bits Consistent with platform less library code (without gaining complexity), less places to modify for adding a new style less caller code (without losing notable readability) easier to use in some scenarios (e.g. remembering / transferring settings) Binary API remains stable if new style bits are introduced Now, the first and the last are minor in most cases. Pro Individual booleans Intellisense and refactoring tools reduce the "less typing" effort Single Purpose Entities more literate code (as in "flows more like a sentence") No change of paradim for non-bool properties These sound more modern, but also "soft" advantages. I must admit the "platform consistency" is much more enticing than I could justify, the less code without losing much quality is a nice bonus. 1. What do you prefer? Subjectively, for writing the library, or for writing client code? 2. Any (semi-) objective statements, studies, etc.?

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• MVVM Project and Item Templates

  - by Timmy Kokke

  Intro This is the first in a series of small articles about what is new in Silverlight 4 and Expression Blend 4. The series is build around a open source demo application SilverAmp which is available on http://SilverAmp.CodePlex.com.   MVVM Project and Item Templates Expression Blend has got a new project template to get started with a Model-View-ViewModel project  easily. The template provides you with a View and a ViewModel bound together. It also adds the ViewModel to the SampleData of your project. It is available for both Silverlight and Wpf. To get going, start a new project in Expression Blend and select Silverlight DataBound Application from the Silverlight project type. In this case I named the project DemoTest1. The solution now contains several folders: SampleData; which contains a data to show in Blend ViewModels; starts with one file, MainViewModel.cs Views; containing MainView.xaml with codebehind used for binding with the MainViewModel class. and your regular App.xaml and MainPage.xaml The MainViewModel class contains a sample property and a sample method. Both the property and the method are used in the MainView control. The MainView control is a regular UserControl and is placed in the MainPage. You can continue on building your applicaition by adding your own properties and methods to the ViewModel and adding controls to the View. Adding Views with ViewModels is very easy too. The guys at Microsoft where nice enough to add a new Item template too: a UserControl with ViewModel. If you add this new item to the root of your solution it will add the .xaml file to the views folder and a .cs file to the ViewModels folder. Conclusion The databound Application project type is a great to get your MVVM based project started. It also functions a great source of information about how to connect it all together.   Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Wpf,Expression Blend,MVVM

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• Creating a GTK theme, but Qt and Java apps are not affected, and title bar button layout is ugly

  - by Mr. Pixel

  I'm playing with a gtk2 / gtk3 theme which I use in the Mate desktop. Everything is looking well, even gtk3 apps, but I still have 3 important issues: Java apps ignore the theme QT apps ignore the theme I'm using those nice ubuntu 10 title bar buttons, but the problem is, when only the close button appears, the title bar looks ugly. Can I make it so that it shows the two other buttons, but disabled? I don't know how Ubuntu 10 handled this. Here's a screenshot showing the 3 problems (above is a small java app, below is a Qt app): Under my previous desktop environments, Unity and Cinnamon, both apps seemed to be taking the right theme correctly, but I did not use my custom theme yet. Cinnamon is based on gnome-shell by the way, and mate is a gnome2-fork. Please note that the shown java app explicitely tries to load the gtk theme at runtime. By default, java apps don't, but this one has the necessary code, which worked in unity and cinnamon. Any suggestions how I could make my theme better so these problems disappear? Thank you very much!

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• How to View Netflix Watch Instantly in XBMC

  - by Justin Garrison

  Netflix streaming isn’t just a feature that is nice to have, for many people it is a must have for any video streaming software. Unfortunately it has been missing from XBMC for various reasons, until today. In order to get Netflix Watch Instantly working in XBMC you just need to have XBMC 10.0+ installed on Windows or OS X. Because of a lack of Silverlight support, this currently does not work on XBMC Live, Linux, or iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, AppleTV). You also need to live in a region that offers Netflix streaming (currently US and Canada) Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Final Man vs. Machine Round of Jeopardy Unfolds; Watson Dominates The Legend of Zelda – 1980s High School Style [Video] Suspended Sentence is a Free Cross-Platform Point and Click Game Build a Batman-Style Hidden Bust Switch Make Your Clock Creates a Custom Clock for your Android Homescreen Download the Anime Angels Theme for Windows 7

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• Correct level of abstraction for a 3d rendering component?

  - by JohnB

  I've seen lots of questions around this area but not this exact question so apologies if this is a duplicate. I'm making a small 3d game. Well to be honest, it's just a little hobby project and likely won't turn out to be an actual game, I'll be happy to make a nice graphics demo and learn about 3d rendering and c++ design. My intent is to use direct3d9 for rendering as I have some little experience of it, and it seems to meet my requirements. However if I've learned one thing as a programmer it's to ask "is there any conceivable reason that this component might be replaced by a different implmentation" and if the answer is yes then I need to design a proper abstraction and interface to that component. So even though I intend to implment d3d9 I need to design a 3d interface that could be implemented for d3d11, opengl... My question then is what level is it best to do this at? I'm thinking that an interface capable of creating and later drawing Vertex buffers and index buffers Textures Vertex and Pixel "shaders" Some representation of drawing state (blending modes etc...) In other words a fairly low level interface where my code to draw for example an animated model would use the interface to obtain abstract vertex buffers etc. I worry though that it's too low level to abstract out all the functionallity I need efficiently. The alternative is to do this at a higher level where the interface can draw objects, animations, landscapes etc, and implement them for each system. This seems like more work, but it more flexible I guess. So that's my question really, when abstracting out the drawing system, what level of interface works best?

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• How to build MVC Views that work with polymorphic domain model design?

  - by Johann de Swardt

  This is more of a "how would you do it" type of question. The application I'm working on is an ASP.NET MVC4 app using Razor syntax. I've got a nice domain model which has a few polymorphic classes, awesome to work with in the code, but I have a few questions regarding the MVC front-end. Views are easy to build for normal classes, but when it comes to the polymorphic ones I'm stuck on deciding how to implement them. The one (ugly) option is to build a page which handles the base type (eg. IContract) and has a bunch of if statements to check if we passed in a IServiceContract or ISupplyContract instance. Not pretty and very nasty to maintain. The other option is to build a view for each of these IContract child classes, breaking DRY principles completely. Don't like doing this for obvious reasons. Another option (also not great) is to split the view into chunks with partials and build partial views for each of the child types that are loaded into the main view for the base type, then deciding to show or hide the partial in a single if statement in the partial. Also messy. I've also been thinking about building a master page with sections for the fields that only occur in subclasses and to build views for each subclass referencing the master page. This looks like the least problematic solution? It will allow for fairly simple maintenance and it doesn't involve code duplication. What are your thoughts? Am I missing something obvious that will make our lives easier? Suggestions?

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• Dynamic/Adaptive RLE

  - by Lucius

  So, I'm developing a 2D, tile based game and a map maker thingy - all in Java. The problem is that recently I've been having some memory issues when about 4 maps are loaded. Each one of these maps are composed of 128x128 tiles and have 4 layers (for details and stuff). I already spent a good amount of time searching for solutions and the best thing I found was run-length enconding (RLE). It seems easy enough to use with static data, but is there a way to use it with data that is constantly changing, without a big drop in performance? In my maps, supposing I'm compressing the columns, I would have 128 rows, each with some amount of data (hopefully less than it would be without RLE). Whenever I change a tile, that whole row would have to be checked and I'm affraid that would slow down too much the production (and I'm in a somewhat tight schedule). Well, worst case scenario I work on each map individually, and save them using RLE, but it would be really nice if I could avoind that. EDIT: What I'm currently using to store the data for the tiles is a 2D array of HashMaps that use the layer as key and store the id of the tile in that position - like this: private HashMap< Integer, Integer [][]

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• Bad 3D Performance in Ubuntu 12.04

  - by Pandem

  I already posted a question before but I didn't really get any advice/help. I'll be a bit more brief/general in hope it'll help. I have an MSI HD 7850 with the Catalyst 12.4 drivers installed. I've found that I'm having bad 3D performance for some reason but I'm not entirely sure what. I suspect it may just that the graphics card is new and AMD just need to work on their drivers but it would be nice to get advice and narrow the problem down so that I can be sure rather than wait for driver updates that may not even help. I ran gxlgears to give some general idea of how bad the performance is. At default size it is averaging around 2000 FPS. The command glxinfo confirms the renderer is using AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series with OpenGL version 4.2. Edits below: As asked for others: lspci -v output is here. fglrxinfo output is here xvinfo output is here glxinfo | grep rendering says yes for direct rendering. These confirmed that everything was configured correctly. Within Unity and Gnome Classic: glxgears had an FPS of around 2000 FPS fgl_glxgears had an FPS of around 544 FPS Within LDXE: glxgears had an FPS of around 4600 FPS fgl_glxgears had an FPS of around 1600 FPS In the end it was discovered that Compiz was causing a large performance decrease and solution was simply to change window manager for the time being. Thanks to TechZilla for all his help!

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• Software for video subscription service

  - by Clinton Blackmore

  I'd like to sell instructional videos over the web. Primarily, I'd like uses to subscribe to the site and be allowed access to videos over the internet. Secondarily, I might sell DVDs for those who have poor internet connections or would like a physical copy, or possibly I'd sell eBooks and the like in the future. Regarding the subscriptions: I'd like a system that automatically sends out e-mails when it is time to renew I'd like to be able to offer free trials Users without a free trial or subscription should not be able to access the content Incidentally, I plan to host videos on my current web host and move them to a CDN when volume (and capital) make this a good idea. While I have no intention to go crazy with the DRM, it seems expedient not to directly link to the files -- how can I link to them indirectly? It would be nice to support multiple payment processors -- specifically, I'd like to avoid a PayPal only approach. Are there any web applications (or plugins) you'd recommend for something like this? While I've set up and administered several web technologies, I've never done anything with e-commerce. I see there are possibilities like osCommerce, one friend recommends using WordPress with plugins, and it really appears that for any given CMS, you can graft on components like this, although I imagine that not all are created equal. As I'm not tied to a particular web application (and, while open source software that can run on a LAMP [p=perl, python, php] stack is preferable), I'd like to make a good choice at the beginning.

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• XNA C# Platformer - physics engine or tile based?

  - by Hugh

  I would like to get some opinions on whether i should develop my game using a physics engine (farseer physics seems to be the best option) or follow the traditional tile-based method. Quick background: - its a college project, my first game, but have 4 years academic programming experience - Just want a basic platformer with a few levels, nothing fancy - want a shooting mechanic, run and gun, just like contra or metal slug for example - possibly some simple puzzles I have made a basic prototype with farseer, the level is hardcoded with collisions and not really tiled, more like big full-screen sized tiles, with collision bodies drawn manually along the ground and walls etc. My main problem is i want a simple retro feel to the jumping and physics but because its a physics simulation engine its going to be realistic, whereas typical in air controllable physics for platformers arent realistic. I have to make a box with wheel body fixture under it to have this effect and its glitchy and doesnt feel right. I chose to use a physics engine because i tried the tile method initially and found it very hard to understand, the engine took care of alot things to save me time, mainly being able to do slopes easily was nice and the freedom to draw collision bounds wherever i liked, rather then restricted to a grid, which gave me more freedom for art design also. In conclusion i don't know which method to pick, i want to use a method which will be the most straight forward way to implement and wont give me a headache later on, preferably a method which has an abundance of tutorials and resources so i dont get "stuck" doing something which has been done a million times before! Let me know i haven't provided enough information for you to help me! Thanks in advance, Hugh.

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• Global vs. Local Monthly Searches in Adwords keyword tool

  - by Gregory

  I'm trying to learn how to use a keyword tool in Adwords. Here's what I entered: Country- Russia Language-Russian Desktop and laptop devices And the keyword was ???? ? ??????? (tours to Israel in Russian Cyrillic letters) . As a broad match type... Now... the results that I got were: Global monthly: 60,500 Local monthly: 40,500 If I got it right..."Global monthly" means in this context : worldwide average monthly searches for this search term in ANY language in any Google search site (google.ru, google.com.ua, google.com, google.fr etc.). It's all nice, BUT... Then I made an query for tours to Israel in English in the US...And I got: Global monthly: 60,500 Local monthly: 27,100 That doesn't make any sense to me though! How come the total sum (the global) is actually a smaller number than a combined sum of just TWO countries??? (27,100+40,500=67,60060,500) By "any language" they mean a translation of the term into ANY possible language???Or maybe by "language" Google means the language of searchers' operating system? or their browsers' language?

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• ubuntu apache2 start, stop, status, restart and reload commands fails

  - by Assil

  Hi, I am new to Ubuntu and I'm still trying to figure this OS out (for work it's brilliant, better than Windows). Before I wrote this question, I did my research via Google, this website and even in StackOverflow.com. Whatever error came up, I googled it but with no success on how to solve this. Back to the main point: I tried to install (lamp) apache2 with this guide (in German) and this one(in english). Then I got stuck at the start command (with which one is able to start the apache2 server), my first try to run the server was a success until i wrote sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload then it showed me an error: $ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload * Starting web server apache2 Syntax error on line 1 of /etc/apache2/ports.conf: Invalid command 'oder', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration Action 'reload' failed. The Apache error log may have more information. [fail] I didn't even write the word "oder" so I closed the shell and opened it anew. It showed the same error. After that, I've done some research and found out that my file (index.html (which is in my /var/www folder)), which I access via the browser, when I type in http://localhost should show up and tell that it was a success. So I removed apache2 and installed it again but now the following errors appear: $ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start * Starting web server apache2 Syntax error on line 1 of /etc/apache2/ports.conf: Invalid command 'oder', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration Action 'start' failed. The Apache error log may have more information. [fail] And still, I didn't even write "oder" in the command. I appreciate every help I can get, further thanks and have a nice day.

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