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  • links for 2011-01-04

    - by Bob Rhubart
    Webcasts (tags: ping.fm) Five Key Trends in Enterprise 2.0 for 2011 (Oracle Enterprise 2.0 Blog) Kellsey Ruppel shares insight from Oracle's Andy MacMillan. (tags: oracle otn enterprise2.0) Victor Bax: Lost in Service Oriented Architecture? "SOA is a concept, no more, no less. SOA is not a technology, or a piece of software. It is an architecture, a model." - Victor Bax (tags: oracle soa) Jan-Leendert: Oracle 11g SOA Suite read multi record data from csv file with the file adapter (master-detail) "The file adapter is a very powerlful tool to read files with structured data. Most of the time you will read simple csv files with one record per row. But what if your csv file contains multiple records with different types?" - Jan-Leendert (tags: oracle soa soasuite) @myfear: Five ways to know how your data looked in the past. Entity Auditing. "Whatever requirements you have. I can promise you, that it will never be a simple solution. In general it's best to evaluate your purpose for auditing in detail." - Oracle ACE Director Markus Eisele (tags: oracle otn oracleace java) @fteter: Buffing Up The Crystal Ball "While I'm already tired of seeing these types of posts (I'm writing on New Year's Day), I'm also feeling guilty about not making my own set of predictions." - Oracle ACE Director Floyd Teter (tags: oracle otn oracleace ec2 cloud fusionmiddleware) @bex: ECM New Year's Resolutions "Happy new year! Most people use the first post of the year to go over their own blog statistics of popular posts... but since my blog's fiscal year ends in April, I decided to do new years resolutions instead." - Oracle ACE Director Bex Huff (tags: oracle otn oracleace ecm enterprise2.0) Izaak de Hullu: Embedded Java in a 11g BPEL process "In an earlier blog my colleague Peter Ebell explained how you can create an extension of com.collaxa.cube.engine.ext.BPELXExecLet to do your coding in a regular Java environment so you have code completion and validation..." - Izaak de Hullu (tags: oracle otn bpel java soa) @gschmutz: Cannot access EM console after installing SOA Suite 11g PS2 Oracle ACE Director Guido Schmutz encounters a problem and shares the solution. (tags: oracle otn oracleace soa soasuite)

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  • Desktop Fun: Runic Style Fonts

    - by Asian Angel
    Most of the time regular fonts are just what you need for documents, invitations, or adding text to images. But what if you are in the mood for something unusual or unique to add that perfect touch? If you like older runic style writing, then enjoy finding some new favorites for your collection with our Runic Style Fonts collection. Temple photo by ShinyShiny. Note: To manage the fonts on your Windows 7, Vista, & XP systems see our article here. The Runic Style Fonts Sable Download Worn Manuscript Download JSL Ancient Download Antropos Download Cave Gyrl Download The Roman Runes Alliance Download Ancient Geek Download Troll Download Runish Quill MK *includes two font types Download DS RUNEnglish 2 Download Runes Written *includes two font types Download Wolves And Ravens Download Art Greco Download Dalek Download Glagolitic AOE Download Linear B Download Cartouche Download Greywolf Glyphs *includes 62 individual characters Note: This group represents A – Z in all capital letters. Note: This group represents A – Z in all lower case letters. Note: This group represents the numbers 0 – 9. Download Africain *includes 62 individual characters Note: This group represents A – Z in all capital letters. Note: This group represents A – Z in all lower case letters. Note: This group represents the numbers 0 – 9. Download Cave Writings *includes 52 individual characters Note: This group represents A – Z in all capital letters. Note: This group represents A – Z in all lower case letters. Download For more great ways to customize your computer be certain to look through our Desktop Fun section. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Five Sleek Audi R8 Car Themes for Chrome and Iron MS Notepad Replacement Metapad Returns with a New Beta Version Spybot Search and Destroy Now Available as a Portable App (PortableApps.com) ShapeShifter: What Are Dreams? [Video] This Computer Runs on Geek Power Wallpaper Bones, Clocks, and Counters; A Look at the First 35,000 Years of Computing

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  • ANN: free DPack for VS.NET 2003/2005 v2.5.1 (3 replies)

    Hi all, I'm pleased to announce a new v2.5.1 availability of our free VS.NET 2003 and VS 2005 add ons collection called DPack. DPack includes various browser tools that allow the developer to quickly find solution's code members, types or files. Additional tools such as numbered bookmarks, solution backup and statistics, to name the few, are included as well. You can check the change log, see the ...

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  • OpenSocial 1.0 spec published

    With so many different types of websites adopting OpenSocial it has become clear that a "one size fits all" approach isn't appropriate for the OpenSocial spec. Containers have...

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  • Website Design Customization

    Website design can be of two types- General or customized. If you are really serious and want to offer something new and unique through your website design, then customized services can fulfill this ... [Author: Alan Smith - Web Design and Development - May 18, 2010]

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  • What are the benefits of PHP?

    - by acme
    Everybody knows that people that have prejudices against certain programming languages. Especially PHP seems to suffer from problems of its past and some other things (like loose types) and is often called a non-serious programming language that should not be used for professional applications. In that special case PHP: How do you argue using PHP as your chosen programming language for web applications? What are the benefits, where is PHP better than ColdFusion, Java, etc.?

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  • ANN: free DPack for VS.NET 2003/2005 v2.5.1 (3 replies)

    Hi all, I'm pleased to announce a new v2.5.1 availability of our free VS.NET 2003 and VS 2005 add ons collection called DPack. DPack includes various browser tools that allow the developer to quickly find solution's code members, types or files. Additional tools such as numbered bookmarks, solution backup and statistics, to name the few, are included as well. You can check the change log, see the ...

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  • EPM 11.1.2.2 Architecture: Financial Performance Management Applications

    - by Marc Schumacher
     Financial Management can be accessed either by a browser based client or by SmartView. Starting from release 11.1.2.2, the Financial Management Windows client does not longer access the Financial Management Consolidation server. All tasks that require an on line connection (e.g. load and extract tasks) can only be done using the web interface. Any client connection initiated by a browser or SmartView is send to the Oracle HTTP server (OHS) first. Based on the path given (e.g. hfmadf, hfmofficeprovider) in the URL, OHS makes a decision to forward this request either to the new Financial Management web application based on the Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) or to the .NET based application serving SmartView retrievals running on Internet Information Server (IIS). Any requests send to the ADF web interface that need to be processed by the Financial Management application server are send to the IIS using HTTP protocol and will be forwarded further using DCOM to the Financial Management application server. SmartView requests, which are processes by IIS in first row, are forwarded to the Financial Management application server using DCOM as well. The Financial Management Application Server uses OLE DB database connections via native database clients to talk to the Financial Management database schema. Communication between the Financial Management DME Listener, which handles requests from EPMA, and the Financial Management application server is based on DCOM.  Unlike most other components Essbase Analytics Link (EAL) does not have an end user interface. The only user interface is a plug-in for the Essbase Administration Services console, which is used for administration purposes only. End users interact with a Transparent or Replicated Partition that is created in Essbase and populated with data by EAL. The Analytics Link Server deployed on WebLogic communicates through HTTP protocol with the Analytics Link Financial Management Connector that is deployed in IIS on the Financial Management web server. Analytics Link Server interacts with the Data Synchronisation server using the EAL API. The Data Synchronization server acts as a target of a Transparent or Replicated Partition in Essbase and uses a native database client to connect to the Financial Management database. Analytics Link Server uses JDBC to connect to relational repository databases and Essbase JAPI to connect to Essbase.  As most Oracle EPM System products, browser based clients and SmartView can be used to access Planning. The Java based Planning web application is deployed on WebLogic, which is configured behind an Oracle HTTP Server (OHS). Communication between Planning and the Planning RMI Registry Service is done using Java Remote Message Invocation (RMI). Planning uses JDBC to access relational repository databases and talks to Essbase using the CAPI. Be aware of the fact that beside the Planning System database a dedicated database schema is needed for each application that is set up within Planning.  As Planning, Profitability and Cost Management (HPCM) has a pretty simple architecture. Beside the browser based clients and SmartView, a web service consumer can be used as a client too. All clients access the Java based web application deployed on WebLogic through Oracle HHTP Server (OHS). Communication between Profitability and Cost Management and EPMA Web Server is done using HTTP protocol. JDBC is used to access the relational repository databases as well as data sources. Essbase JAPI is utilized to talk to Essbase.  For Strategic Finance, two clients exist, SmartView and a Windows client. While SmartView communicates through the web layer to the Strategic Finance Server, Strategic Finance Windows client makes a direct connection to the Strategic Finance Server using RPC calls. Connections from Strategic Finance Web as well as from Strategic Finance Web Services to the Strategic Finance Server are made using RPC calls too. The Strategic Finance Server uses its own file based data store. JDBC is used to connect to the EPM System Registry from web and application layer.  Disclosure Management has three kinds of clients. While the browser based client and SmartView interact with the Disclosure Management web application directly through Oracle HTTP Server (OHS), Taxonomy Designer does not connect to the Disclosure Management server. Communication to relational repository databases is done via JDBC, to connect to Essbase the Essbase JAPI is utilized.

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  • Impressions on jQuery Mobile

    - by Jeff
    For the uninitiated, jQuery Mobile is a sweet little client framework that turns regular HTML into something more touch and mobile friendly. It results in a user interface that has bigger targets, rounded corners and simple skinning capability. When it was announced that ASP.NET MVC 4 would include support for a mobile-sensitive view engine, offering up alternate views for clients that fit the mobile profile, I was all over that. Combined with jQuery Mobile, it brought a chance to do some experimentation. I blitzed through the views in POP Forums and converted them all to mobile views. (For the curious, this first pass can be found here on CodePlex, while a more recent update that uses RC 2 of jQuery Mobile v1.1.0 is running on the demo site.) Initially, it was kind of a mixed bag. The jQuery demo site also acts as documentation, and it’s reasonably complete. I had no problem getting up a lot of basic views quickly, splitting out portions of some pages as subpages that they quickly load in. The default behavior in the older version was to slide the pages in, which looked a little weird when you were using a back button. They’ve since changed it so the default transition is a fade in/out. Because you’re dealing with Web pages, I don’t think anyone is really under the illusion that you’re not using a native app, so I don’t know that this matters. I’ve tested extensively on iPad and Windows Phone, and to be honest, I’ve encountered a lot of issues. On Windows Phone, there is some kind of inconsistency that prevents the proper respect for the viewport settings. The text background on text fields (for labeling) doesn’t work, either. On both platforms, certain in-DOM page navigation links work only half of the time. Is this an issue of user error? Probably, but that’s what’s frustrating about it. Most of what you accomplish with this framework involves decorating various elements with CSS classes. There isn’t any design-time safety to speak of to make sure that you’re doing it right. I think the issues can be overcome, but there are some trade-offs to consider. The first is download size. Yes, the scripts and CSS do get cached, but that first hit will cost nearly 40k for the mobile parts. That’s still a lot when you’re on some crappy AT&T EDGE network, or hotel Wi-Fi. Then you have to ask yourself, do you really want your app to look like it’s native to iOS? I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, because consistent UI is good, but you will end up feeling a whole lot of sameness, and maybe you don’t want that. I did some experimentation to try and Metro-ize the jQuery Mobile theme, and it’s kind of a mixed bag. It mostly works, but you get some weirdness on badges and with buttons that I’m not crazy about. It probably just means you need to keep tweaking. At this point, I’m a little torn about whether or not I’ll use it for POP Forums or one of the sites I’m working on. The benefits are pretty strong, but figuring out where I’m doing it wrong is proving a little time consuming.

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  • Ord function implementation in Delphi

    - by Federico Zancan
    Purely as an exercise at home, aimed to better understand some language basics, I tried to reimplement the Ord function, but I came across a problem. In fact, the existing Ord function can accept arguments of a variety of different types (AnsiChar, Char, WideChar, Enumeration, Integer, Int64) and can return Integer or Int64. I can't figure out how to declare multiple versions of the same function. How should this be coded in Delphi?

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  • Random thoughts on Monday

    - by user10760339
    I know that it has been a long time since my last post, just though that I would update you my latest thoughts of Governance. I just recently completed an executive round table series on EA and Cloud in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. The response was phenomenal. The key point of the session was that Enterprise is the key enabler of innovation - All companies want to drive to be market leaders, EA can lay the foundation for the path to deliver that at innovation. When it comes to innovation, I see two distinct types: (a) Passive innovation is where a company creates innovation thought increments improvement over time. A great example is when airlines went from paper tickets to electronic ticket. Next logical progression is to do the same with boarding passes. There are a lot of examples to choose from, thought the thing to keep in mind, is that passive innovation will only keep you in the lead, it won’t allow you to create new markets or jump from #3 to #1 in one go. For that we need another type of innovation. (b) Disruptive innovation is where you create market where none existed before. Thought very difficult to do and requires significant investment in research, product and software development and not least of all, visionary thinking and timing, if done correctly, can turn the world on it’s ear. A great example is Apple iTunes. Some might say that this is incremental innovation, but only in one aspect, the downloading of music. Other then that, it’s all disruptive innovation. Being able to buy a single song rather then the album fundamentally changed the way we get out music. Behind all of these types of innovation is Enterprise Architecture. EA creates the infrastructure foundation, then delivery systems and the end-user experience to deliver this innovation. At Oracle, we are driving that EA innovation with our private cloud offerings from “bolt-to-glass” as I like to say. For more on what Oracle has to offer in EA and cloud, have a look at Cloud Computing | Oracle and Enterprise Architecture - OracleI am working on new material that I will be posting in a couple of weeks, so check back regularly for new updates or feel free to subscript for updates.

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  • "Error detecting shell" when launching Gnome Tweak Tool

    - by user70988
    It was working before I started the process of installing Gnome. I've poked around on Google but can't find anything. If I log into Gnome the screen is massively zoomed in and I have to pan around the page. I was hoping the appropriate setting would be in the tweak tool. __ WARNING : Error detecting shell Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_shell_extensions.py", line 149, in __init__ shell = GnomeShellFactory().get_shell() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/utils.py", line 38, in getinstance instances[cls] = cls() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gshellwrapper.py", line 143, in __init__ proxy = _ShellProxy() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gshellwrapper.py", line 44, in __init__ result, output = self.proxy.Eval('(s)', js) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/Gio.py", line 148, in __call__ kwargs.get('flags', 0), kwargs.get('timeout', -1), None) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/types.py", line 43, in function return info.invoke(*args, **kwargs) GError: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.gnome.Shell was not provided by any .service files WARNING : Shell not running Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_shell.py", line 59, in __init__ self._shell = GnomeShellFactory().get_shell() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/utils.py", line 38, in getinstance instances[cls] = cls() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gshellwrapper.py", line 143, in __init__ proxy = _ShellProxy() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gshellwrapper.py", line 44, in __init__ result, output = self.proxy.Eval('(s)', js) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/overrides/Gio.py", line 148, in __call__ kwargs.get('flags', 0), kwargs.get('timeout', -1), None) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/types.py", line 43, in function return info.invoke(*args, **kwargs) GError: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.gnome.Shell was not provided by any .service files WARNING : Could not list shell extensions Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_shell.py", line 64, in __init__ extensions = self._shell.list_extensions() AttributeError: ShellThemeTweak instance has no attribute '_shell' Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/gnome-tweak-tool", line 76, in <module> MainWindow() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/mainwindow.py", line 44, in __init__ model) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/tweakview.py", line 40, in __init__ self._model.load_tweaks() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/tweakmodel.py", line 135, in load_tweaks mods = __import__("gtweak.tweaks", globals(), locals(), tweak_files, 0) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/tweaks/tweak_shell.py", line 236, in <module> GSettingsSwitchTweak("org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power", "lid-close-suspend-with-external-monitor"), File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/widgets.py", line 116, in __init__ _GSettingsTweak.__init__(self, schema_name, key_name, **options) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/widgets.py", line 105, in __init__ options.get("summary",self.settings.schema_get_summary(key_name)), File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtweak/gsettings.py", line 122, in schema_get_summary return self._schema._schema[key]["summary"] KeyError: 'lid-close-suspend-with-external-monitor'

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  • Learning PostgreSql: Functions and refcursors

    - by Alexander Kuznetsov
    In this post we shall create a function that returns data, and invoke it from our C# client. There are no stored procedures in PostgreSql, only functions. This is different from T-SQL, but consistent with many other languages, such as C#. Creating a function Functions can return many different types. Learning all the available options might take some time. However, for the project we are working on, we need to replicate several T-SQL stored procedures which take column list as a parameter, and use...(read more)

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  • How to Recover From a Virus Infection: 3 Things You Need to Do

    - by Chris Hoffman
    If your computer becomes infected with a virus or another piece of malware, removing the malware from your computer is only the first step. There’s more you need to do to ensure you’re secure. Note that not every antivirus alert is an actual infection. If your antivirus program catches a virus before it ever gets a chance to run on your computer, you’re safe. If it catches the malware later, you have a bigger problem. Change Your Passwords You’ve probably used your computer to log into your email, online banking websites, and other important accounts. Assuming you had malware on your computer, the malware could have logged your passwords and uploaded them to a malicious third party. With just your email account, the third party could reset your passwords on other websites and gain access to almost any of your online accounts. To prevent this, you’ll want to change the passwords for your important accounts — email, online banking, and whatever other important accounts you’ve logged into from the infected computer. You should probably use another computer that you know is clean to change the passwords, just to be safe. When changing your passwords, consider using a password manager to keep track of strong, unique passwords and two-factor authentication to prevent people from logging into your important accounts even if they know your password. This will help protect you in the future. Ensure the Malware Is Actually Removed Once malware gets access to your computer and starts running, it has the ability to do many more nasty things to your computer. For example, some malware may install rootkit software and attempt to hide itself from the system. Many types of Trojans also “open the floodgates” after they’re running, downloading many different types of malware from malicious web servers to the local system. In other words, if your computer was infected, you’ll want to take extra precautions. You shouldn’t assume it’s clean just because your antivirus removed what it found. It’s probably a good idea to scan your computer with multiple antivirus products to ensure maximum detection. You may also want to run a bootable antivirus program, which runs outside of Windows. Such bootable antivirus programs will be able to detect rootkits that hide themselves from Windows and even the software running within Windows. avast! offers the ability to quickly create a bootable CD or USB drive for scanning, as do many other antivirus programs. You may also want to reinstall Windows (or use the Refresh feature on Windows 8) to get your computer back to a clean state. This is more time-consuming, especially if you don’t have good backups and can’t get back up and running quickly, but this is the only way you can have 100% confidence that your Windows system isn’t infected. It’s all a matter of how paranoid you want to be. Figure Out How the Malware Arrived If your computer became infected, the malware must have arrived somehow. You’ll want to examine your computer’s security and your habits to prevent more malware from slipping through in the same way. Windows is complex. For example, there are over 50 different types of potentially dangerous file extensions that can contain malware to keep track of. We’ve tried to cover many of the most important security practices you should be following, but here are some of the more important questions to ask: Are you using an antivirus? – If you don’t have an antivirus installed, you should. If you have Microsoft Security Essentials (known as Windows Defender on Windows 8), you may want to switch to a different antivirus like the free version of avast!. Microsoft’s antivirus product has been doing very poorly in tests. Do you have Java installed? – Java is a huge source of security problems. The majority of computers on the Internet have an out-of-date, vulnerable version of Java installed, which would allow malicious websites to install malware on your computer. If you have Java installed, uninstall it. If you actually need Java for something (like Minecraft), at least disable the Java browser plugin. If you’re not sure whether you need Java, you probably don’t. Are any browser plugins out-of-date? – Visit Mozilla’s Plugin Check website (yes, it also works in other browsers, not just Firefox) and see if you have any critically vulnerable plugins installed. If you do, ensure you update them — or uninstall them. You probably don’t need older plugins like QuickTime or RealPlayer installed on your computer, although Flash is still widely used. Are your web browser and operating system set to automatically update? – You should be installing updates for Windows via Windows Update when they appear. Modern web browsers are set to automatically update, so they should be fine — unless you went out of your way to disable automatic updates. Using out-of-date web browsers and Windows versions is dangerous. Are you being careful about what you run? – Watch out when downloading software to ensure you don’t accidentally click sketchy advertisements and download harmful software. Avoid pirated software that may be full of malware. Don’t run programs from email attachments. Be careful about what you run and where you get it from in general. If you can’t figure out how the malware arrived because everything looks okay, there’s not much more you can do. Just try to follow proper security practices. You may also want to keep an extra-close eye on your credit card statement for a while if you did any online-shopping recently. As so much malware is now related to organized crime, credit card numbers are a popular target.     

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  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a subdomain for each user account?

    - by Sathish Manohar
    I notice two types of design used in web applications, some with a particular subdomain for users contents, and some with same URL structure for all the accounts. Ex: unique.domain.com and another_unique.domain.com for subdomains for sites like blogspot, wordpress, basecamp etc. while in the other approach domain.com/action1 and domain.com/action2 the content is shown according to the user logged in, but the URL is same for every user. What are main differences between both of these kind of design?

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  • GoogleChartSharp

    - by csharp-source.net
    GoogleChartSharp is a C# wrapper for the Google Charts API. GoogleChartSharp supports all API charts and features. The Google Chart API returns a PNG-format image in response to a URL. Several types of image can be generated: line, bar, and pie charts for example. For each image type you can specify attributes such as size, colors, and labels. You can include a Chart API image in a webpage by embedding a URL.

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  • What effects do various drugs have on coding style / productivity? [closed]

    - by codecraft
    Can anyone tell me what the effect of various drugs are on coding style, and if coding on drugs can be more productive, or more fun? Are some types of drugs better suited to certain tasks and phases of software development? And which programming languages are best suited to coding on drugs? It would be great if you could back up your answers by data, probably even code snippets showcasing the effect of the drug experience.

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  • HTG Explains: Why Does Rebooting a Computer Fix So Many Problems?

    - by Chris Hoffman
    Ask a geek how to fix a problem you’ve having with your Windows computer and they’ll likely ask “Have you tried rebooting it?” This seems like a flippant response, but rebooting a computer can actually solve many problems. So what’s going on here? Why does resetting a device or restarting a program fix so many problems? And why don’t geeks try to identify and fix problems rather than use the blunt hammer of “reset it”? This Isn’t Just About Windows Bear in mind that this soltion isn’t just limited to Windows computers, but applies to all types of computing devices. You’ll find the advice “try resetting it” applied to wireless routers, iPads, Android phones, and more. This same advice even applies to software — is Firefox acting slow and consuming a lot of memory? Try closing it and reopening it! Some Problems Require a Restart To illustrate why rebooting can fix so many problems, let’s take a look at the ultimate software problem a Windows computer can face: Windows halts, showing a blue screen of death. The blue screen was caused by a low-level error, likely a problem with a hardware driver or a hardware malfunction. Windows reaches a state where it doesn’t know how to recover, so it halts, shows a blue-screen of death, gathers information about the problem, and automatically restarts the computer for you . This restart fixes the blue screen of death. Windows has gotten better at dealing with errors — for example, if your graphics driver crashes, Windows XP would have frozen. In Windows Vista and newer versions of Windows, the Windows desktop will lose its fancy graphical effects for a few moments before regaining them. Behind the scenes, Windows is restarting the malfunctioning graphics driver. But why doesn’t Windows simply fix the problem rather than restarting the driver or the computer itself?  Well, because it can’t — the code has encountered a problem and stopped working completely, so there’s no way for it to continue. By restarting, the code can start from square one and hopefully it won’t encounter the same problem again. Examples of Restarting Fixing Problems While certain problems require a complete restart because the operating system or a hardware driver has stopped working, not every problem does. Some problems may be fixable without a restart, though a restart may be the easiest option. Windows is Slow: Let’s say Windows is running very slowly. It’s possible that a misbehaving program is using 99% CPU and draining the computer’s resources. A geek could head to the task manager and look around, hoping to locate the misbehaving process an end it. If an average user encountered this same problem, they could simply reboot their computer to fix it rather than dig through their running processes. Firefox or Another Program is Using Too Much Memory: In the past, Firefox has been the poster child for memory leaks on average PCs. Over time, Firefox would often consume more and more memory, getting larger and larger and slowing down. Closing Firefox will cause it to relinquish all of its memory. When it starts again, it will start from a clean state without any leaked memory. This doesn’t just apply to Firefox, but applies to any software with memory leaks. Internet or Wi-Fi Network Problems: If you have a problem with your Wi-Fi or Internet connection, the software on your router or modem may have encountered a problem. Resetting the router — just by unplugging it from its power socket and then plugging it back in — is a common solution for connection problems. In all cases, a restart wipes away the current state of the software . Any code that’s stuck in a misbehaving state will be swept away, too. When you restart, the computer or device will bring the system up from scratch, restarting all the software from square one so it will work just as well as it was working before. “Soft Resets” vs. “Hard Resets” In the mobile device world, there are two types of “resets” you can perform. A “soft reset” is simply restarting a device normally — turning it off and then on again. A “hard reset” is resetting its software state back to its factory default state. When you think about it, both types of resets fix problems for a similar reason. For example, let’s say your Windows computer refuses to boot or becomes completely infected with malware. Simply restarting the computer won’t fix the problem, as the problem is with the files on the computer’s hard drive — it has corrupted files or malware that loads at startup on its hard drive. However, reinstalling Windows (performing a “Refresh or Reset your PC” operation in Windows 8 terms) will wipe away everything on the computer’s hard drive, restoring it to its formerly clean state. This is simpler than looking through the computer’s hard drive, trying to identify the exact reason for the problems or trying to ensure you’ve obliterated every last trace of malware. It’s much faster to simply start over from a known-good, clean state instead of trying to locate every possible problem and fix it. Ultimately, the answer is that “resetting a computer wipes away the current state of the software, including any problems that have developed, and allows it to start over from square one.” It’s easier and faster to start from a clean state than identify and fix any problems that may be occurring — in fact, in some cases, it may be impossible to fix problems without beginning from that clean state. Image Credit: Arria Belli on Flickr, DeclanTM on Flickr     

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