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• How to Grab More Visitors to Your Website

  Grabbing more visitors is an achievement that cannot come overnight but one that requires to be cultivated for quite some time before the benefits begin to surface. The most important step to achieving this is increasing web visibility by installing a free version of Web SEO which one can use to get all the good keywords that can optimize your web pages. This should then be used for editing the web pages and then submitting the site to search engines for long term listings.

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• Given the choice 8 out of 10 Optimisers prefer.........

  - by GrumpyOldDBA

  Did you know that included columns do not partake in the uniqueness of a unique index? ( see below ) A few months ago we upgraded our major production system from SQL2000 to SQL2008, this has allowed me to apply some of the index tuning techniques I devised for SQL2005 way back when to the current environment now we're confident we have no unexpected surprises to surface. Amongst the techniques I use is to pull information from the dmvs to find tables ( and indexes ) which are getting high numbers...(read more)

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• 2D water with dynamic waves

  - by user1103457

  New Super Mario Bros has really cool 2D water that I'd like to learn how to create. Here's a video showing it. When something hits the water, it creates a wave. There are also constant "background" waves. You can get a good look at the constant waves just after 00:50 when the camera isn't moving. I assume the splashes in NSMB work as in the first part of this tutorial. But in NSMB the water also has constant waves on the surface, and the splashes look very different. Another difference is that in the tutorial, if you create a splash, it first creates a deep "hole" in the water at the origin of the splash. In new super mario bros this hole is absent or much smaller. I am referring to the splashes that the player creates when jumping in and out of the water. How do they create the constant waves and the splashes? I am especially interested in the splashes, and how they work together with the constant waves. I am programming in XNA. I've tried this myself, but couldn't really get it all to work well together. Bonus questions: How do they create the light spots just under the surface of the waves and how do they texture the deeper parts of the water? This is the first time I try to create water like this. EDIT: I assume the constant waves are created using a sine function. The splashes are probably created in a way like in the tutorial. (But they are not the same, so I am still interested in how to make this kind of splashes) But I have a lot of trouble combining those things. I know I can use the sine function to set the height of a specific watercolumn but the splashes are using the speed, to determine the new height. I can't figure out how to combine those. Not that I am not asking how the developers of new super mario bros did this exactly. I am just interested in ways to recreate an effect like it. This week I have an examweek so I don't have time to work on the code. After this week I will spend a lot of time on it. But I am constantly thinking about it, so that's why I will be checking comments etc. I just won't be looking at the code since it might be too time-consuming.

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• How to update off screen bitmap in a surfaceview thread

  - by DKDiveDude

  I have a Surfaceview thread and an off canvas texture bitmap that is being generated (changed), first row (line), every frame and then copied one position (line) down on regular surfaceview bitmap to make a scrolling effect, and I then continue to draw other things on top of that. Well that is what I really want, however I can't get it to work even though I am creating a separate canvas for off screen bitmap. It is just not scrolling at all. I other words I have a memory bitmap, same size as Surfaceview canvas, which I need to scroll (shift) down one line every frame, and then replace top line with new random texture, and then draw that on regular Surfaceview canvas. Here is what I thought would work; My surfaceChanged where I specify bitmap and canvasses and start thread: @Override public void surfaceCreated(SurfaceHolder holder) { intSurfaceWidth = mSurfaceView.getWidth(); intSurfaceHeight = mSurfaceView.getHeight(); memBitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(intSurfaceWidth, intSurfaceHeight, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888); memCanvas = new Canvas(memCanvas); myThread = new MyThread(holder, this); myThread.setRunning(true); blnPause = false; myThread.start(); } My thread, only showing essential middle running part: @Override public void run() { while (running) { c = null; try { // Lock canvas for drawing c = myHolder.lockCanvas(null); synchronized (mSurfaceHolder) { // First draw off screen bitmap to off screen canvas one line down memCanvas.drawBitmap(memBitmap, 0, 1, null); // Create random one line(row) texture bitmap memTexture = Bitmap.createBitmap(imgTexture, 0, rnd.nextInt(intTextureImageHeight), intSurfaceWidth, 1); // Now add this texture bitmap to top of off screen canvas and hopefully bitmap memCanvas.drawBitmap(textureBitmap, intSurfaceWidth, 0, null); // Draw above updated off screen bitmap to regular canvas, at least I thought it would update (save changes) shifting down and add the texture line to off screen bitmap the off screen canvas was pointing to. c.drawBitmap(memBitmap, 0, 0, null); // Other drawing to canvas comes here } finally { // do this in a finally so that if an exception is thrown // during the above, we don't leave the Surface in an // inconsistent state if (c != null) { myHolder.unlockCanvasAndPost(c); } } } } For my game Tunnel Run. Right now I have a working solution where I instead have an array of bitmaps, size of surface height, that I populate with my random texture and then shift down in a loop for each frame. I get 50 frames per second, but I think I can do better by instead scrolling bitmap.

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• Why can't a blendShader sample anything but the current coordinate of the background image?

  - by Triynko

  In Flash, you can set a DisplayObject's blendShader property to a pixel shader (flash.shaders.Shader class). The mechanism is nice, because Flash automatically provides your Shader with two input images, including the background surface and the foreground display object's bitmap. The problem is that at runtime, the shader doesn't allow you to sample the background anywhere but under the current output coordinate. If you try to sample other coordinates, it just returns the color of the current coordinate instead, ignoring the coordinates you specified. This seems to occur only at runtime, because it works properly in the Pixel Bender toolkit. This limitation makes it impossible to simulate, for example, the Aero Glass effect in Windows Vista/7, because you cannot sample the background properly for blurring. I must mention that it is possible to create the effect in Flash through manual composition techniques, but it's hard to determine when it actually needs updated, because Flash does not provide information about when a particular area of the screen or a particular display object needs re-rendered. For example, you may have a fixed glass surface with objects moving underneath it that don't dispatch events when they move. The only alternative is to re-render the glass bar every frame, which is inefficient, which is why I am trying to do it through a blendShader so Flash determines when it needs rendered automatically. Is there a technical reason for this limitation, or is it an oversight of some sort? Does anyone know of a workaround, or a way I could provide my manual composition implementation with information about when it needs re-rendered? The limitation is mentioned with no explanation in the last note in this page: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/as3/dev/WSB19E965E-CCD2-4174-8077-8E5D0141A4A8.html It says: "Note: When a Pixel Bender shader program is run as a blend in Flash Player or AIR, the sampling and outCoord() functions behave differently than in other contexts.In a blend, a sampling function will always return the current pixel being evaluated by the shader. You cannot, for example, use add an offset to outCoord() in order to sample a neighboring pixel. Likewise, if you use the outCoord() function outside a sampling function, its coordinates always evaluate to 0. You cannot, for example, use the position of a pixel to influence how the blended images are combined."

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• Great finds: More TechNet Survival Guides

  - by Enrique Lima

  It has been some time now since Windows Server 2008 R2 arrived, but the features and capabilities in many cases are just now starting to surface with company’s implementing or looking at using. Here is a link to the Survival Guide on TechNet: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/windows-server-2008-r2-survival-guide.aspx The other item that is coming stronger and stronger is PowerShell.  I mentioned before the need to learn and get into using it as it is a great tool. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/windows-powershell-survival-guide.aspx

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• Blender 2.69 disponible en téléchargement, découvrez les nouvelles fonctionnalités du logiciel de modélisation 3D libre et open source

  Blender 2.69 disponible en téléchargement La version 2.69 de l'outil de modélisation libre et open source est maintenant disponible en téléchargement. Voici un descriptif (non exhaustif) des changements apportés par cette nouvelle version :Modélisation nouvel outil de remplissage de surface non plane ; nouveaux outils de bisection et de division de mesh ; amélioration de l'outil d'édition de courbes ; nouvel option de sélection où la sélection utilise le curseur comme centre ; fusion de mesh améliorée...

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• Simulating water droplets on a window

  - by skyuzo

  How do I simulate water droplets realistically falling, gathering, and flowing down a window? For example, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jaGyv0KRPw. In particular, I want to simulate how smaller droplets merge together to form larger droplets that have enough weight to oppose the surface tension and flow downward, leaving a trail of water. I'm aware of fluid simulation, but how would it be applied in this situation?

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• 4 Unreasonable Security Practices You're Probably Following

  When it comes to securing the enterprise, much of what is done has been in vogue for so long and makes sense on the surface. But probe a bit deeper, and much of what has long been held sacrosanct now makes little sense.

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• How to completely disable laptop sound?

  - by Alvaro Rodriguez

  I have a HP Pavillion DV7 laptop with win 8 pro. The laptop has an unidentified problem with sound drivers or hardware that sometimes causes volume to constantly jiggle up and down. This is very annoying because of these consequences: Renders mute unusable - as the volume changes the sound unmutes automatically Causes an annoying win 8 "surface UI" notification to appear constantly in the upper left corner, which is distracting enough by itself, but more importantly Renders the whole "surface UI" unusable, because it loses focus whenever the sound changing notification appears When the jiggling happens, the laptop also loses the ability to redirect sound to earphones - sound comes out of the speakers even if earphones are connected. To solve these issues I want to completely disable sound in the laptop (I've tried reinstalling drivers several times to no end). I have tried disabling all sound related drivers and devices in the Device Manager but Windows re-enables those automatically whenever I restart the laptop. The BIOS doesn't have any settings to disable sound hardware either. Please don't suggest having the laptop sound serviced or fixed. It's not worth the expense. I just want to remove sound support so I can use it normally. It is very unusable as it is now.

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• New keyboard for linux: Adesso Tru-Form or MS Natural Keyboard 4000?

  - by Andrea

  Hi folks! I'm going to buy a new ergonomic keyboard for my laptop. In the following, keep in mind I live in Italy. I considered the following models: Adesso PCK-308UB - Adesso Tru-Form™ Pro - Contoured Ergonomic Keyboard with TouchPad-PS2 Pro: has a built-in touchpad in the same position of my laptop somewhat cheaper than the alternative below Cons: the surface doesn't seem to be bowl-shaped. keys seem to lay on a straight slightly-inclined surface. It seems an idea used extensively in other ergonomic keyboards according to a few comments on the net, new Adesso keyboards seem to lack robustness, they're likely to loose small parts after a few weeks or months. Other users, instead, seem to never had any problem in years and swear by their quality and comfortability. Those who had problems, however, lamented a lack of responsiveness from the manufacturer. I'm not sure whether the keyboard, at least the standard keys, and the touchpad will both be recognized correctly under linux distros (I mostly use FC btw) last time I checked, Adesso didn't have local resellers in my country Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard Pro: recognized as one of the most comfortable keyboards reliable customer service operating in my country AFAIK there are several documented ways to get extra buttons work with linux Cons: it doesn't have a builtin touchpad and has a numeric keypad wasting space to reach mouse But there could be other keyboards I haven't considered yet, so here follows my ideal keyboard wishlist, ordered by priority linux compatible basic ergonomic design, which entails split tilted keyboard and pads advanced ergonomic design, like true-ergonomic's or kinesis , where special keys (like enter, caps-lock...) are placed symmetrically in the middle to be used by thumbs a builtin touchpad/trackball placed under the keyboard. I just love this on my notebook. I think it's pretty effective, since it allows my hand to rest naturally everytime I use it. Any opinion on this? high-quality switches, like cherry's (unsure about this one) additional programmable keys placed near usual ones, to simplify typing shortcuts TIA Andrea

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• Can't Remove Logical Drive/Array from HP P400

  - by Myles

  This is my first post here. Thank you in advance for any assistance with this matter. I'm trying to remove a logical drive (logical drive 2) and an array (array "B") from my Smart Array P400. The host is a DL580 G5 running 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.7 (Tikanga). I am unable to remove the array using either hpacucli or cpqacuxe. I believe it is because of "OS Status: LOCKED". The file system that lives on this array has been unmounted. I do not want to reboot the host. Is there some way to "release" this logical drive so I can remove the array? Note that I do not need to preserve the data on logical drive 2. I intend to physically remove the drives from the machine and replace them with larger drives. I'm using the cciss kernel module that ships with Red Hat 5.7. Here is some information pertaining to the host and the P400 configuration: [root@gort ~]# cat /etc/redhat-release Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.7 (Tikanga) [root@gort ~]# uname -a Linux gort 2.6.18-274.el5 #1 SMP Fri Jul 8 17:36:59 EDT 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux [root@gort ~]# rpm -qa | egrep '^(hp|cpq)' cpqacuxe-9.30-15.0 hp-health-9.25-1551.7.rhel5 hpsmh-7.1.2-3 hpdiags-9.3.0-466 hponcfg-3.1.0-0 hp-snmp-agents-9.25-2384.8.rhel5 hpacucli-9.30-15.0 [root@gort ~]# hpacucli HP Array Configuration Utility CLI 9.30.15.0 Detecting Controllers...Done. Type "help" for a list of supported commands. Type "exit" to close the console. => ctrl all show config detail Smart Array P400 in Slot 0 (Embedded) Bus Interface: PCI Slot: 0 Cache Serial Number: PA82C0J9SVW34U RAID 6 (ADG) Status: Enabled Controller Status: OK Hardware Revision: D Firmware Version: 7.22 Rebuild Priority: Medium Expand Priority: Medium Surface Scan Delay: 15 secs Surface Scan Mode: Idle Wait for Cache Room: Disabled Surface Analysis Inconsistency Notification: Disabled Post Prompt Timeout: 0 secs Cache Board Present: True Cache Status: OK Cache Ratio: 25% Read / 75% Write Drive Write Cache: Disabled Total Cache Size: 256 MB Total Cache Memory Available: 208 MB No-Battery Write Cache: Disabled Cache Backup Power Source: Batteries Battery/Capacitor Count: 1 Battery/Capacitor Status: OK SATA NCQ Supported: True Logical Drive: 1 Size: 136.7 GB Fault Tolerance: RAID 1 Heads: 255 Sectors Per Track: 32 Cylinders: 35132 Strip Size: 128 KB Full Stripe Size: 128 KB Status: OK Caching: Enabled Unique Identifier: 600508B100184A395356573334550002 Disk Name: /dev/cciss/c0d0 Mount Points: /boot 101 MB, /tmp 7.8 GB, /usr 3.9 GB, /usr/local 2.0 GB, /var 3.9 GB, / 2.0 GB, /local 113.2 GB OS Status: LOCKED Logical Drive Label: A0027AA78DEE Mirror Group 0: physicaldrive 1I:1:2 (port 1I:box 1:bay 2, SAS, 146 GB, OK) Mirror Group 1: physicaldrive 1I:1:1 (port 1I:box 1:bay 1, SAS, 146 GB, OK) Drive Type: Data Array: A Interface Type: SAS Unused Space: 0 MB Status: OK Array Type: Data physicaldrive 1I:1:1 Port: 1I Box: 1 Bay: 1 Status: OK Drive Type: Data Drive Interface Type: SAS Size: 146 GB Rotational Speed: 10000 Firmware Revision: HPDE Serial Number: 3NM57RF40000983878FX Model: HP DG146BB976 Current Temperature (C): 29 Maximum Temperature (C): 35 PHY Count: 2 PHY Transfer Rate: Unknown, Unknown physicaldrive 1I:1:2 Port: 1I Box: 1 Bay: 2 Status: OK Drive Type: Data Drive Interface Type: SAS Size: 146 GB Rotational Speed: 10000 Firmware Revision: HPDE Serial Number: 3NM55VQC000098388524 Model: HP DG146BB976 Current Temperature (C): 29 Maximum Temperature (C): 36 PHY Count: 2 PHY Transfer Rate: Unknown, Unknown Logical Drive: 2 Size: 546.8 GB Fault Tolerance: RAID 5 Heads: 255 Sectors Per Track: 32 Cylinders: 65535 Strip Size: 64 KB Full Stripe Size: 256 KB Status: OK Caching: Enabled Parity Initialization Status: Initialization Completed Unique Identifier: 600508B100184A395356573334550003 Disk Name: /dev/cciss/c0d1 Mount Points: None OS Status: LOCKED Logical Drive Label: A5C9C6F81504 Drive Type: Data Array: B Interface Type: SAS Unused Space: 0 MB Status: OK Array Type: Data physicaldrive 1I:1:3 Port: 1I Box: 1 Bay: 3 Status: OK Drive Type: Data Drive Interface Type: SAS Size: 146 GB Rotational Speed: 10000 Firmware Revision: HPDE Serial Number: 3NM2H5PE00009802NK19 Model: HP DG146ABAB4 Current Temperature (C): 30 Maximum Temperature (C): 37 PHY Count: 1 PHY Transfer Rate: Unknown physicaldrive 1I:1:4 Port: 1I Box: 1 Bay: 4 Status: OK Drive Type: Data Drive Interface Type: SAS Size: 146 GB Rotational Speed: 10000 Firmware Revision: HPDE Serial Number: 3NM28YY400009750MKPJ Model: HP DG146ABAB4 Current Temperature (C): 31 Maximum Temperature (C): 36 PHY Count: 1 PHY Transfer Rate: 3.0Gbps physicaldrive 2I:1:5 Port: 2I Box: 1 Bay: 5 Status: OK Drive Type: Data Drive Interface Type: SAS Size: 146 GB Rotational Speed: 10000 Firmware Revision: HPDE Serial Number: 3NM2FGYV00009802N3GN Model: HP DG146ABAB4 Current Temperature (C): 30 Maximum Temperature (C): 38 PHY Count: 1 PHY Transfer Rate: Unknown physicaldrive 2I:1:6 Port: 2I Box: 1 Bay: 6 Status: OK Drive Type: Data Drive Interface Type: SAS Size: 146 GB Rotational Speed: 10000 Firmware Revision: HPDE Serial Number: 3NM8AFAK00009920MMV1 Model: HP DG146BB976 Current Temperature (C): 31 Maximum Temperature (C): 41 PHY Count: 2 PHY Transfer Rate: Unknown, Unknown physicaldrive 2I:1:7 Port: 2I Box: 1 Bay: 7 Status: OK Drive Type: Data Drive Interface Type: SAS Size: 146 GB Rotational Speed: 10000 Firmware Revision: HPDE Serial Number: 3NM2FJQD00009801MSHQ Model: HP DG146ABAB4 Current Temperature (C): 29 Maximum Temperature (C): 39 PHY Count: 1 PHY Transfer Rate: Unknown

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• Productivity Tips

  - by Brian T. Jackett

  A few months ago during my first end of year review at Microsoft I was doing an assessment of my year.  One of my personal goals to come out of this reflection was to improve my personal productivity.  While I hear many people say “I wish I had more hours in the day so that I could get more done” I feel like that is the wrong approach.  There is an inherent assumption that you are being productive with your time that you already have and thus more time would allow you to be as productive given more time.    Instead of wishing I could add more hours to the day I’ve begun adopting a number of processes or behavior changes in my personal life to make better use of my time with the goal of improving productivity.  The areas of focus are as follows: Focus Processes Tools Personal health Email Note: A number of these topics have spawned from reading Scott Hanselman’s blog posts on productivity, reading of David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, and discussions with friends and coworkers who had great insights into this topic.   Focus Pre-reading / viewing: Overcome your work addiction Millennials paralyzed by choice Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (Scott Hanselman video)    I highly recommend Scott Hanselman’s video above and this post before continuing with this article.  It is well worth the 40+ mins price of admission for the video and couple minutes for article.  One key takeaway for me was listing out my activities in an average week and realizing which ones held little or no value to me.  We all have a finite amount of time to work each day.  Do you know how much time and effort you spend on various aspects of your life (family, friends, religion, work, personal happiness, etc.)?  Do your actions and commitments reflect your priorities?    The biggest time consumers with little value for me were time spent on social media services (Twitter and Facebook), playing an MMO video game, and watching TV.  I still check up on Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft internal chat forums, and other services to keep contact with others but I’ve reduced that time significantly.  As for TV I’ve cut the cord and no longer subscribe to cable TV.  Instead I use Netflix, RedBox, and over the air channels but again with reduced time consumption.  With the time I’ve freed up I’m back to working out 2-3 times a week and reading 4 nights a week (both of which I had been neglecting previously).  I’ll mention a few tools for helping measure your time in the Tools section.   Processes    Do not multi-task.  I’ll say it again.  Do not multi-task.  There is no such thing as multi tasking.  The human brain is optimized to work on one thing at a time.  When you are “multi-tasking” you are really doing 2 or more things at less than 100%, usually by a wide margin.  I take pride in my work and when I’m doing something less than 100% the results typically degrade rapidly.    Now there are some ways of bending the rules of physics for this one.  There is the notion of getting a double amount of work done in the same timeframe.  Some examples would be listening to podcasts / watching a movie while working out, using a treadmill as your work desk, or reading while in the bathroom.    Personally I’ve found good results in combining one task that does not require focus (making dinner, playing certain video games, working out) and one task that does (watching a movie, listening to podcasts).  I believe this is related to me being a visual and kinesthetic (using my hands or actually doing it) learner.  I’m terrible with auditory learning.  My fiance and I joke that sometimes we talk and talk to each other but never really hear each other.   Goals / Tasks    Goals can give us direction in life and a sense of accomplishment when we complete them.  Goals can also overwhelm us and give us a sense of failure when we don’t complete them.  I propose that you shift your perspective and not dwell on all of the things that you haven’t gotten done, but focus instead on regularly setting measureable goals that are within reason of accomplishing.    At the end of each time frame have a retrospective to review your progress.  Do not feel guilty about what you did not accomplish.  Feel proud of what you did accomplish and readjust your goals for the next time frame to more attainable goals.  Here is a sample schedule I’ve seen proposed by some.  I have not consistently set goals for each timeframe, but I do typically set 3 small goals a day (this blog post is #2 for today). Each day set 3 small goals Each week set 3 medium goals Each month set 1 large goal Each year set 2 very large goals   Tools    Tools are an extension of our human body.  They help us extend beyond what we can physically and mentally do.  Below are some tools I use almost daily or have found useful as of late. Disclaimer: I am not getting endorsed to promote any of these products.  I just happen to like them and find them useful. Instapaper – Save internet links for reading later.  There are many tools like this but I’ve found this to be a great one.  There is even a “read it later” JavaScript button you can add to your browser so when you navigate to a site it will then add this to your list. Stacks for Instapaper – A Windows Phone 7 app for reading my Instapaper articles on the go.  It does require a subscription to Instapaper (nominal $3 every three months) but is easily worth the cost.  Alternatively you can set up your Kindle to sync with Instapaper easily but I haven’t done so. SlapDash Podcast – Apps for Windows Phone and  Windows 8 (possibly other platforms) to sync podcast viewing / listening across multiple devices.  Now that I have my Surface RT device (which I love) this is making my consumption easier to manage. Feed Reader – Simple Windows 8 app for quickly catching up on my RSS feeds.  I used to have hundreds of unread items all the time.  Now I’m down to 20-50 regularly and it is much easier and faster to consume on my Surface RT.  There is also a free version (which I use) and I can’t see much different between the free and paid versions currently. Rescue Time – Have you ever wondered how much time you’ve spent on websites vs. email vs. “doing work”?  This service tracks your computer actions and then lets you report on them.  This can help you quantitatively identify areas where your actions are not in line with your priorities. PowerShell – Windows automation tool.  It is now built into every client and server OS.  This tool has saved me days (and I mean the full 24 hrs worth) of time and effort in the past year alone.  If you haven’t started learning PowerShell and you administrating any Windows OS or server product you need to start today. Various blogging tools – I wrote a post a couple years ago called How I Blog about my blogging process and tools used.  Almost all of it still applies today.   Personal Health    Some of these may be common sense or debatable, but I’ve found them to help prioritize my daily activities. Get plenty of sleep on a regular basis.  Sacrificing sleep too many nights a week negatively impacts your cognition, attitude, and overall health. Exercise at least three days.  Exercise could be lifting weights, taking the stairs up multiple flights of stairs, walking for 20 mins, or a number of other "non-traditional” activities.  I find that regular exercise helps with sleep and improves my overall attitude. Eat a well balanced diet.  Too much sugar, caffeine, junk food, etc. are not good for your body.  This is not a matter of losing weight but taking care of your body and helping you perform at your peak potential.   Email    Email can be one of the biggest time consumers (i.e. waster) if you aren’t careful. Time box your email usage.  Set a meeting invite for yourself if necessary to limit how much time you spend checking email. Use rules to prioritize your email.  Email from external customers, my manager, or include me directly on the To line go into my inbox.  Everything else goes a level down and I have 30+ rules to further sort it, mostly distribution lists. Use keyboard shortcuts (when available).  I use Outlook for my primary email and am constantly hitting Alt + S to send, Ctrl + 1 for my inbox, Ctrl + 2 for my calendar, Space / Tab / Shift + Tab to mark items as read, and a number of other useful commands.  Learn them and you’ll see your speed getting through emails increase. Keep emails short.  No one Few people like reading through long emails.  The first line should state exactly why you are sending the email followed by a 3-4 lines to support it.  Anything longer might be better suited as a phone call or in person discussion.   Conclusion    In this post I walked through various tips and tricks I’ve found for improving personal productivity.  It is a mix of re-focusing on the things that matter, using tools to assist in your efforts, and cutting out actions that are not aligned with your priorities.  I originally had a whole section on keyboard shortcuts, but with my recent purchase of the Surface RT I’m finding that touch gestures have replaced numerous keyboard commands that I used to need.  I see a big future in touch enabled devices.  Hopefully some of these tips help you out.  If you have any tools, tips, or ideas you would like to share feel free to add in the comments section.         -Frog Out   Links Scott Hanselman Productivity posts http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CategoryView.aspx?category=Productivity Overcome your work addiction http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/05/overcome-your-work-addiction.html?awid=5512355740280659420-3271   Millennials paralyzed by choice http://priyaparker.com/blog/millennials-paralyzed-by-choice   Its Not What You Read Its What You Ignore (video) http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ItsNotWhatYouReadItsWhatYouIgnoreVideoOfScottHanselmansPersonalProductivityTips.aspx   Cutting the cord – Jeff Blankenburg http://www.jeffblankenburg.com/2011/04/06/cutting-the-cord/   Building a sitting standing desk – Eric Harlan http://www.ericharlan.com/Everything_Else/building-a-sitting-standing-desk-a229.html   Instapaper http://www.instapaper.com/u   Stacks for Instapaper http://www.stacksforinstapaper.com/   Slapdash Podcast Windows Phone -  http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/slapdash-podcasts/90e8b121-080b-e011-9264-00237de2db9e Windows 8 - http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/slapdash-podcasts/0c62e66a-f2e4-4403-af88-3430a821741e/m/ROW   Feed Reader http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/feed-reader/d03199c9-8e08-469a-bda1-7963099840cc/m/ROW   Rescue Time http://www.rescuetime.com/   PowerShell Script Center http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptcenter/bb410849.aspx

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• Microsoft Channel 9 Interviews Mei Liang to Introduce Sample Browser Extension for Visual Studio 2012 and 2010

  - by Jialiang

  This morning, Microsoft Channel 9 interviewed Mei Liang - Group Manager of Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework - to introduce the newest Sample Browser extension for Visual Studio 2012 &2010.   This extension provides a way for developers to search and download more than 4500 code samples from within Visual Studio, including over 700 Windows 8 samples and more than 1000 All-In-One Code Framework customer-driven code samples. Mei shows us not only the extension, but also the standalone version of the Sample Browser.   http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Visual-Studio-Toolbox/Sample-Browser-Visual-Studio-Extension   Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, working in close partnership with the Visual Studio product team and MSDN Samples Gallery, developed the Sample Browser extension for both Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2010.  As an effort to evolve the code sample use experience and improve developers' productivity, the Sample Browser allows programmers to search, download and open over 4500 code samples from within Visual Studio with just a few simple clicks.  If no existing code sample can meet the needs, developers can even request a code sample easily from Microsoft thanks to the free “Sample Request Service” offered by Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework.  Through innovations, the teams hope to put the power of tens of thousands of code samples at developers’ fingertips. In short 3 months, the Sample Browser Visual Studio Extension has been installed by 100K global users.  It is also selected as one of the six most highly regarded and commonly used tools for Visual Studio that will make your programming experience feel like never before.   Got to love the All-In-One Code Framework team! You guys know this is THE go to source for code samples. Get this extension and you'll never need to leave VS2012 (well except for bathroom trips, but that's TMI anyway... ;) Read More... From: Greg Duncan (Author of CoolThingOfTheDay) 9/6/2011 12:00 AM The one software design pattern that I have used in just about every application I’ve written is “cut-and-paste,” so the new “Sample Browser” – read sample as a noun not an adjective – is a great boon to my productivity. Read More... From: Jim O'Neil (Microsoft Developer Evangelist) 9/28/2011 12:00 AM Install: http://aka.ms/samplebrowservsx Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework also offers the standalone version of Sample Browser.   The standalone version is particularly useful to Visual Studio Express edition or Visual Studio 2008 users, who cannot install the Sample Browser Visual Studio extension.   From Grassroots’ Passion for Developers to the Innovation of Sample Browser This Sample Browser has come a very long way improving the code sample use experience.  The history can be traced back to a grass-root innovation three years ago.   In early 2009, a few MSDN forum support engineers observed that lots of developers were struggling to work in Visual Studio without adequate code samples. Programming tasks seem harder than they should be when you only read through the documentation.  Just a couple of lines of sample code could answer a lot of questions.   They had a brilliant idea: What if we produce code samples based on developers’ frequently asked programming tasks in forums, social networks and support incidents, and then aggregate all our sample code in a one-stop library to benefit developers?  And what if developers can request code samples directly from Microsoft, free of charge?  This small group of grassroots at Microsoft devoted their nights and weekends to prototyping such a customer-driven code sample library.  This simple idea eventually turned into “Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework”, aka. OneCode.  With the support from more and more passionate developers at Microsoft and the leaders in the Community and Online Support team and Microsoft Commercial Technical Services (CTS), the idea has become a continually growing library with over 1000 customer-driven code samples covering almost all Microsoft development technologies.  These code samples originated from developers’ common pains and needs should be able to help many developers.  However, if developers cannot easily discover the code samples, the effort would still be in vain.  So in early 2010, the team started the idea of Sample Browser to ease the discovery and access of these samples.  In just two months, the first version of Sample Browser was finished and released by a passionate developer.  It was a very simple application, only supporting the basic sample offline search.  Users had to download the whole 100MB sample package containing all samples first, and run the Sample Browser to search locally.   Though developers could not search and download samples on-demand, this simple application laid a solid foundation for the team’s continuous innovations of Sample Browsing experience. In 2011, MSDN Samples Gallery had a big refresh.  The online sample experience was brought to a new level thanks to its PM Steven Wilssens and the gallery team’s effort.  Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework Team saw the opportunity to realize the “on-demand” sample search and download feature with the new gallery.  The two teams formed a strong partnership to upload all the customer-driven code samples to MSDN Samples Gallery, and released the new version of Sample Browser to support “on-demand” sample downloading in April, 2011.  Mei Liang, the Group Manager of Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, was interviewed by Channel 9 to demo the Sample Browser.  Customers love the effort and the innovation!!  This can be clearly seen from the user comments in the publishing page.   It was very encouraging to the team of All-In-One Code Framework. The team continues innovating and evolving the Sample Browser.  They found the Visual Studio product team this time, and integrated the Sample Browsing experience into the latest Visual Studio 2012.  The newly released Sample Browser Visual Studio extension makes good use of Visual Studio 2012 IDE such as the new Quick Launch bar, the code editor, the toolbar and menus to offer easy access to thousands of code samples from within the development environment.   The Visual Studio Senior Program Manager Lead - Anthony Cangialosi, the Program Manager - Murali Krishna Hosabettu Kamalesha, the MSDN Samples Gallery PM – Steven Wilssens, and the Visual Studio Senior Escalation Engineer - Ed Dore shared lots of insightful suggestions with the team.  Thanks to the brilliant cross-group collaboration inside Microsoft, tens of new features including “Local Language Support” and “Favorite Samples”, as well as a face-lifted user interface, were added to further enhance the user experience. Since the new Sample Browser Visual Studio extension was released, it has received over 100 thousand downloads and five-star ratings.  A customer told the team that he officially falls in LOVE with Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework.   The Sample Browser Innovation for Developers Never Stops! The teams would never stop improving the Sample Browser for developers’ easier lives.   The Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, Visual Studio and MSDN Samples Gallery teams are working closely to develop the next version of Sample Browser.  Here are the key functions in development or in discussion.  We hope to learn your feedback of the effort.  You can submit your suggestions to the official Visual Studio UserVoice site.  We look forward to hearing from you! 1) Offline Sample Search This is one of the top feature requests that we have received for Sample Browser.   The Sample Browser will support the offline search mode so that developers can search downloaded code samples when they do not have internet access.  This is particularly useful to developers in Enterprises with strict proxy settings. 2) Code Snippet Support and Visual Studio Editor Integration Today, the Sample Browser supports downloading and opening sample project.   However, when developers are searching for code samples, a better user experience would be to see the code snippets in the search result first.  Developers can quickly decide if the code snippet is relevant.   They can also drag and drop the code snippet into the Visual Studio Editor to solve some simple programming tasks.  If developers want to learn more about the sample, they can then choose to download the sample project and open it in Visual Studio. 3) Enterprise Sample Sharing and Searching Large enterprises have many code samples for their own internal tools and APIs that are not appropriate to be shared publicly in MSDN Samples Gallery.   In that case, today’s Sample Browser and MSDN Samples Gallery cannot help these Enterprise developers.  The idea is to create a Code Sample Repository in TFS, and provide an additional Visual Studio extension for Enterprise developers to quickly share code samples to TFS.  The Sample Browser can be configured to connect to the TFS Code Sample Repository to search for and download code samples.  This would potentially enable the Enterprise developers to be more productive. 4) Windows Store Sample Browser With the upcoming release of Windows RT and Microsoft Surface, developers are facing a completely new world of application platform.   Not like laptop, people would often use Microsoft Surface in commute and in travel.  Internet may not be available.  Today’s Visual Studio cannot be installed and run on Windows RT, however, our enthusiastic developers would hope to spend every minute on code.  They love code!   The idea is to create a Windows Store version of Sample Browser. Search and download samples from the online Samples Gallery when the user has internet access. Browse the sample code files and learn the sample documentation of downloaded samples with or without internet access.   In addition to the "browse” function, the Sample Browser could further support “bookmark”, “learning notes”, “code review”, and “quick social sharing". Make full use of the new touch and Windows Store App UI to give developers a new “relaxing” code browsing and learning experience, anytime, anywhere. With Windows Store Sample Browser, developers can enjoy A new relaxing and enjoyable experience for developers to learn code samples You do not have to sit in front of desk and formally open Visual Studio to read code samples.  Many developers get sub-health due to staying in front of desk for a very long time.  With Windows RT, Microsoft Surface and this Windows Store Sample Browser combining with the online MSDN Samples Gallery, developers can sit in a sofa, relaxingly hold the tablet and enjoy to learn their beloved sample code with detailed documentation. Anytime, anywhere Whether you have internet access or not, whether you are at home, in office, or in commute/airplane, developers can always easily access and browse the sample code. Lightweight and fast Particularly for learning a small sample project, the Windows Store Sample Browser would be more lightweight and faster to open and browse the sample code. Please submit your feedback and suggestion to Visual Studio UserVoice.  We look forward to hearing from you and deliver a better and better sample use experience.  Happy Coding!   Special Thanks to People working behind the latest release of Sample Browser Visual Studio Extension and the great partnerships!

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• How do I use MediaRecorder to record video without causing a segmentation fault?

  - by rabidsnail

  I'm trying to use android.media.MediaRecorder to record video, and no matter what I do the android runtime segmentation faults when I call prepare(). Here's an example: public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { Log.i("video test", "making recorder"); MediaRecorder recorder = new MediaRecorder(); contentResolver = getContentResolver(); try { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); Log.i("video test", "--------------START----------------"); SurfaceView target_view = new SurfaceView(this); Log.i("video test", "making surface"); Surface target = target_view.getHolder().getSurface(); Log.i("video test", target.toString()); Log.i("video test", "new recorder"); recorder = new MediaRecorder(); Log.i("video test", "set display"); recorder.setPreviewDisplay(target); Log.i("video test", "pushing surface"); setContentView(target_view); Log.i("video test", "set audio source"); recorder.setAudioSource(MediaRecorder.AudioSource.MIC); Log.i("video test", "set video source"); recorder.setVideoSource(MediaRecorder.VideoSource.DEFAULT); Log.i("video test", "set output format"); recorder.setOutputFormat(MediaRecorder.OutputFormat.THREE_GPP); Log.i("video test", "set audio encoder"); recorder.setAudioEncoder(MediaRecorder.AudioEncoder.AMR_NB); Log.i("video test", "set video encoder"); recorder.setVideoEncoder(MediaRecorder.VideoEncoder.MPEG_4_SP); Log.i("video test", "set max duration"); recorder.setMaxDuration(3600); Log.i("video test", "set on info listener"); recorder.setOnInfoListener(new listener()); Log.i("video test", "set video size"); recorder.setVideoSize(320, 240); Log.i("video test", "set video frame rate"); recorder.setVideoFrameRate(15); Log.i("video test", "set output file"); recorder.setOutputFile(get_path(this, "foo.3gp")); Log.i("video test", "prepare"); recorder.prepare(); Log.i("video test", "start"); recorder.start(); Log.i("video test", "sleep"); Thread.sleep(3600); Log.i("video test", "stop"); recorder.stop(); Log.i("video test", "release"); recorder.release(); Log.i("video test", "-----------------SUCCESS------------------"); finish(); } catch (Exception e) { Log.i("video test", e.toString()); recorder.reset(); recorder.release(); Log.i("video tets", "-------------------FAIL-------------------"); finish(); } } public static String get_path (Context context, String fname) { String path = context.getFileStreamPath("foo").getParentFile().getAbsolutePath(); String res = path+"/"+fname; Log.i("video test", "path: "+res); return res; } class listener implements MediaRecorder.OnInfoListener { public void onInfo(MediaRecorder recorder, int what, int extra) { Log.i("video test", "Video Info: "+what+", "+extra); } }

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• camera preview portrait problem in android application

  - by sujitjitu

  Hi this is my code for simple camera application in android .i have copied it from unlocking android e-book . Everything is working fine in emulator but when i am installing it in device the camera preview is working only in landscape mode. I have tried many thing but could not find any solution. Please see the code below and if you have any solution for it than it will be helpful to me. this is the code....... public class SimpleCamera extends Activity implements SurfaceHolder.Callback { private Camera camera; private boolean isPreviewRunning = false; private SimpleDateFormat timeStampFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMddHHmmssSS"); private SurfaceView surfaceView; private SurfaceHolder surfaceHolder; private Uri targetResource = Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI; public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) { super.onCreate(icicle); Window window = getWindow(); window.addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON); window.addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN); getWindow().setFormat(PixelFormat.TRANSLUCENT); setContentView(R.layout.main); surfaceView = (SurfaceView)findViewById(R.id.surface); surfaceHolder = surfaceView.getHolder(); surfaceHolder.getSurface(); // Surface.setOrientation(Display.DEFAULT_DISPLAY,Surface.ROTATION_180); //didn't work at all surfaceHolder.addCallback(this); surfaceHolder.setType(SurfaceHolder.SURFACE_TYPE_PUSH_BUFFERS); } public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(android.view.Menu menu) { MenuItem item = menu.add(0, 0, 0, "View Pictures"); item.setOnMenuItemClickListener(new MenuItem.OnMenuItemClickListener() { public boolean onMenuItemClick(MenuItem item) { Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, targetResource); startActivity(intent); return true; } }); return true; } protected void onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onRestoreInstanceState(savedInstanceState); } Camera.PictureCallback mPictureCallbackRaw = new Camera.PictureCallback() { public void onPictureTaken(byte[] data, Camera c) { camera.startPreview(); } }; Camera.ShutterCallback mShutterCallback = new Camera.ShutterCallback() { public void onShutter() { } }; public boolean onKeyDown(int keyCode, KeyEvent event) { ImageCaptureCallback camDemo = null; if(keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_CENTER) { try { String filename = timeStampFormat.format(new Date()); ContentValues values = new ContentValues(); values.put(Media.TITLE, filename); values.put(Media.DESCRIPTION, "Image from Android Emulator"); Uri uri = getContentResolver().insert(Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI, values); camDemo = new ImageCaptureCallback( getContentResolver().openOutputStream(uri)); } catch(Exception ex ){ } } if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK) { return super.onKeyDown(keyCode, event); } if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_CENTER) { camera.takePicture(mShutterCallback, mPictureCallbackRaw, camDemo); return true; } return false; } protected void onResume() { Log.e(getClass().getSimpleName(), "onResume"); super.onResume(); } protected void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) { super.onSaveInstanceState(outState); } protected void onStop() { super.onStop(); } public void surfaceChanged(SurfaceHolder holder, int format, int w, int h) { if (isPreviewRunning) { camera.stopPreview(); } Camera.Parameters p = camera.getParameters(); p.setPreviewSize(w,h); //p.set("rotation","90"); // it didn't work //P.setRotation(90); // only work in 2.0 or later SDK but i am using 1.5 camera.setParameters(p); try { camera.setPreviewDisplay(holder); } catch (IOException e) { // TODO Auto-generated catch block e.printStackTrace(); } camera.startPreview(); isPreviewRunning = true; } public void surfaceCreated(SurfaceHolder holder) { camera = Camera.open(); } public void surfaceDestroyed(SurfaceHolder holder) { camera.stopPreview(); isPreviewRunning = false; camera.release(); } } any help will be appreciated..

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• Issue getting camera emulation to work with Tom G's HttpCamera

  - by user591524

  I am trying to use the android emulator to preview video from webcam. I have used the tom gibara sample code, minus the webbroadcaster (i am instead using VLC streaming via http). So, I have modified the SDK's "CameraPreview" app to use the HttpCamera, but the stream never appears. Debugging through doesn't give me any clues either. I wonder if anything obvious is clear to others? The preview app launches and remains black. Notes: 1) I have updated the original CameraPreview class as described here: http://www.inter-fuser.com/2009/09/live-camera-preview-in-android-emulator.html, but referencing httpCamera instead of socketcamera. 2) I updated Tom's original example to reference "Camera" type instead of deprecated "CameraDevice" type. 3) Below is my CameraPreview.java. 4) THANK YOU package com.example.android.apis.graphics; import android.app.Activity; import android.content.Context; import android.hardware.Camera; import android.os.Bundle; import android.view.SurfaceHolder; import android.view.SurfaceView; import android.view.Window; import java.io.IOException; import android.graphics.Canvas; // ---------------------------------------------------------------------- public class CameraPreview extends Activity { private Preview mPreview; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); // Hide the window title. requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE); // Create our Preview view and set it as the content of our activity. mPreview = new Preview(this); setContentView(mPreview); } } // ---------------------------------------------------------------------- class Preview extends SurfaceView implements SurfaceHolder.Callback { SurfaceHolder mHolder; //Camera mCamera; HttpCamera mCamera;//changed Preview(Context context) { super(context); // Install a SurfaceHolder.Callback so we get notified when the // underlying surface is created and destroyed. mHolder = getHolder(); mHolder.addCallback(this); //mHolder.setType(SurfaceHolder.SURFACE_TYPE_PUSH_BUFFERS); mHolder.setType(SurfaceHolder.SURFACE_TYPE_NORMAL);//changed } public void surfaceCreated(SurfaceHolder holder) { // The Surface has been created, acquire the camera and tell it where // to draw. //mCamera = Camera.open(); this.StartCameraPreview(holder); } public void surfaceDestroyed(SurfaceHolder holder) { // Surface will be destroyed when we return, so stop the preview. // Because the CameraDevice object is not a shared resource, it's very // important to release it when the activity is paused. //mCamera.stopPreview();//changed mCamera = null; } public void surfaceChanged(SurfaceHolder holder, int format, int w, int h) { // Now that the size is known, set up the camera parameters and begin // the preview. //Camera.Parameters parameters = mCamera.getParameters(); //parameters.setPreviewSize(w, h); //mCamera.setParameters(parameters); //mCamera.startPreview(); this.StartCameraPreview(holder); } private void StartCameraPreview(SurfaceHolder sh) { mCamera = new HttpCamera("10.213.74.247:443", 640, 480, true);//changed try { //mCamera.setPreviewDisplay(holder); Canvas c = sh.lockCanvas(null); mCamera.capture(c); sh.unlockCanvasAndPost(c); } catch (Exception exception) { //mCamera.release(); mCamera = null; // TODO: add more exception handling logic here } } }

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• SurfaceView drawn on top of other elements after coming back from specific activity

  - by spirytus

  I have an activity with video preview displayed via SurfaceView and other views positioned over it. The problem is when user navigates to Settings activity (code below) and comes back then the surfaceview is drawn on top of everything else. This does not happen when user goes to another activity I have, neither when user navigates outside of app eg. to task manager. Now, you see in code below that I have setContentVIew() call wrapped in conditionals so it is not called every time when onStart() is executed. If its not wrapped in if statements then all works fine, but its causing loosing lots of memory (5MB+) each time onStart() is called. I tried various combinations and nothing seems to work so any help would be much appreciated. @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); //Toast.makeText(this,"Create ", 2000).show(); // set 32 bit window (draw correctly transparent images) getWindow().getAttributes().format = android.graphics.PixelFormat.RGBA_8888; // set the layout of the screen based on preferences of the user sharedPref = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this); } public void onStart() { super.onStart(); String syncConnPref = null; syncConnPref = sharedPref.getString("screensLayouts", "default"); if(syncConnPref.contentEquals("default") && currentlLayout!="default") { setContentView(R.layout.fight_recorder_default); } else if(syncConnPref.contentEquals("simple") && currentlLayout!="simple") { setContentView(R.layout.fight_recorder_simple); } // I I uncomment line below so it will be called every time without conditionals above, it works fine but every time onStart() is called I'm losing 5+ MB memory (memory leak?). The preview however shows under the other elements exactly as I need memory leak makes it unusable after few times though // setContentView(R.layout.fight_recorder_default); if(getCamera()==null) { Toast.makeText(this,"Sorry, camera is not available and fight recording will not be permanently stored",2000).show(); // TODO also in here put some code replacing the background with something nice return; } // now we have camera ready and we need surface to display picture from camera on so // we instantiate CameraPreviw object which is simply surfaceView containing holder object. // holder object is the surface where the image will be drawn onto // this is where camera live cameraPreview will be displayed cameraPreviewLayout = (FrameLayout) findViewById(id.camera_preview); cameraPreview = new CameraPreview(this); // now we add surface view to layout cameraPreviewLayout.removeAllViews(); cameraPreviewLayout.addView(cameraPreview); // get layouts prepared for different elements (views) // this is whole recording screen, as big as screen available recordingScreenLayout=(FrameLayout) findViewById(R.id.recording_screen); // this is used to display sores as they are added, it displays like a path // each score added is a new text view simply and as user undos these are removed one by one allScoresLayout=(LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.all_scores); // layout prepared for controls like record/stop buttons etc startStopLayout=(RelativeLayout) findViewById(R.id.start_stop_layout); // set up timer so it can be turned on when needed //fightTimer=new FightTimer(this); fightTimer = (FightTimer) findViewById(id.fight_timer); // get views for displaying scores score1=(TextView) findViewById(id.score1); score2=(TextView) findViewById(id.score2); advantages1=(TextView) findViewById(id.advantages1); advantages2=(TextView) findViewById(id.advantages2); penalties1=(TextView) findViewById(id.penalties1); penalties2=(TextView) findViewById(id.penalties2); RelativeLayout welcomeScreen=(RelativeLayout) findViewById(id.welcome_screen); Animation fadeIn = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(this, R.anim.fade_in); welcomeScreen.startAnimation(fadeIn); Toast.makeText(this,"Start ", 2000).show(); animateViews(); } Settings activity is below, after coming back from this activity surfaceview is drawn on top of other elements. public class SettingsActivity extends PreferenceActivity { @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); if(MyFirstAppActivity.getCamera()==null) { Toast.makeText(this,"Sorry, camera is not available",2000).show(); return; } addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences); } }

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• Friday Fun: The Search For Wondla

  - by Asian Angel

  The best day of the week is finally here again, so it is time to have some fun while waiting to go home for the weekend. The game we have for you today takes you far into humanity’s future where you journey with Eva Nine in her quest to find other humans. Note: Today’s game comes with a double bonus! First, there is a sequel game that you can move on to once you have completed the first one. Second, there are three wallpapers available in multiple sizes for those who enjoy the characters and artwork presented in the game (see below). The Search For Wondla The object of the game is to find the differences between two similar looking images based on artwork from The Search For Wondla by Tony DiTerlizzi. Are you ready to join Eva Nine in her quest to find other humans in the future? Note: There is a version available for those who would like to play The Search For Wondla on their iPads! The first game has 28 levels of difference finding goodness for you to work through. Each level will list the minimum number of differences that you need to find to progress to the next level. If you need a hint along the way just click on the Shake or Reveal options at the bottom of the game play window. Get a level completed quickly enough and you get bonus points! There will also be differences in the images for individual levels each time you play the game, so have fun! Note: The second game has 12 levels to complete. To give you a good feel for the game we have covered the first six levels here and provided seven clues for each level (you are only required to find a minimum of five). Eva Nine viewing the holographic outdoor projections in the main hub of her living quarters… Eva Nine is in a grumpy mood as Muthr visits her at bedtime… Eva Nine in her secret hideaway visiting old “childhood friends” as she contemplates her recent survival test failure. Eva Nine viewing the entire set of floor plans for the underground sanctuary where she was born and has been growing up. Eva Nine’s escape to the surface as the underground sanctuary is attacked by the bounty hunter creature Besteel. Eva Nine on the surface for the first time in her young life. Will she be successful in her quest? There is only one way to find out! Play The Search For Wondla Part 1 Play The Search For Wondla Part 2 Bonus Content If you have enjoyed this game you can learn more about the book and download the three wallpapers shown here by visiting the link below! Note: The wallpapers come in the following sizes: 1024*768, 1280*800, 1280*1024, 1440*900, iPhone, iPhone4, and iPad (click on the Extras link at the bottom of the page). Visit the Search For Wondla Homepage Do you enjoy playing difference finding games? Then you will definitely want to have a look at another wonderful game that we have covered here: Friday Fun: Isis Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Get the Complete Android Guide eBook for Only 99 Cents [Update: Expired] Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography How to Choose What to Back Up on Your Linux Home Server How To Harmonize Your Dual-Boot Setup for Windows and Ubuntu Hang in There Scrat! – Ice Age Wallpaper How Do You Know When You’ve Passed Geek and Headed to Nerd? On The Tip – A Lamborghini Theme for Chrome and Iron What if Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were Human? [Video] Peaceful Winter Cabin Wallpaper Store Tabs for Later Viewing in Opera with Tab Vault

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• Silverlight Cream for December 12, 2010 -- #1008

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Michael Washington, Samuel Jack, Alfred Astort(-2-), Nokola(-2-), Avi Pilosof, Chris Klug, Pete Brown, Laurent Bugnion(-2-), and Jaime Rodriguez(-2-, -3-). Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Sharing resources and styles between projects in Silverlight" Chris Klug WP7: "Windows Phone Application Performance at Silverlight Firestarter" Jaime Rodriguez Training: "Silverlight View Model (MVVM) - A Play In One Act" Michael Washington Shoutouts: Koen Zwikstra announced the availability of the first Silverlight Spy 4 Preview 1 Gavin Wignall announced the Launch of Festive game built with Silverlight 4, hosted on Azure ... free to play. From SilverlightCream.com: Silverlight View Model (MVVM) - A Play In One Act Michael Washington has an interesting take on writing a blog post with this 'play' version of Silverlight View Models and Expression Blend with a heaping dose of Behaviors added in for flavoring. Build a Windows Phone Game in 3 days – Day 1 Samuel Jack is attempting to build a WP7 game in 3 days including downloading the tools and an XNA book... interesting to see where he's headed wth this venture. 4 of 10 - Make sure your finger can hit the target and text is legible Continuing with a series of tips from the folks reviewing apps for the marketplace via Alfred Astort is this number 4 -- touch target size and legible text. 5 of 10 - Give feedback on touch and progress within your UI Alfred Astort's number 5 is also up, and continues the touch discussion with this tip about giving the user feedback on their touch. Fantasia Painter Released for Windows Phone 7 + Tips Nokola took the release of his Fantasia Painter on WP& as an opportunity not only to blog about the fact that we can go buy it, but has a blog full of hints and tips that he gathered while working on it. Games for Windows Phone 7 Resources: Reducing Load Times, RPG Kit; Other Nokola also blogged about the release of the new games education pack, and gives up the cursor he uses in his videos after being asked... The simplest way to do design-time ViewModels with MVVM and Blend. Avi Pilosof attacks the design-time ViewModel issue in Blend with a 'no code' solution. Sharing resources and styles between projects in Silverlight Chris Klug is talking about sharing resources and styles across a large Silverlight project... near and dear to my heart at this moment. Dynamically Generating Controls in WPF and Silverlight Pete Brown has a post up that's generated some interest... creating controls at runtime... and he's demonstrating several different ways for both Silverlight and WPF #twitter for Windows Phone 7 protips (#wp7) Laurent Bugnion was posting these great tips for Twitter for WP7 and rolled all 16 of them up into a blog post... check them and the app out... Increasing touch surface (#wp7dev) Laurent Bugnion's most current post should be of great interest to WP7 devs... providing more touch surface for your user's fat fingers, err, I mean their fat fingerings :) ... great information and samples ... and interesting it is a fail point as listed by Alfred Astort above. Windows Phone Application Performance at Silverlight Firestarter This material from Jaime Rodriguez actually hit prior to his Firestarter presentation, but should be required reading for anyone doing a WP7 app... great Performance tips from the trenches... slide deck, cheat-sheet, and code. UpdateSourceTrigger on Windows Phone data bindings Another post from Jaime Rodriguez actually went through a couple revisions already.. how about a WP7 TextBox that fires notifications to the ViewModel when the text changes? ... would you like a behavior with that? Details on the Push Notification app limits Jaime Rodriguez has yet another required reading post up on Push Notification limits ... what it really entails and how you can be a good WP7 citizen by the way you program your app. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Ray-box Intersection Theory

  - by Myx

  Hello: I wish to determine the intersection point between a ray and a box. The box is defined by its min 3D coordinate and max 3D coordinate and the ray is defined by its origin and the direction to which it points. Currently, I am forming a plane for each face of the box and I'm intersecting the ray with the plane. If the ray intersects the plane, then I check whether or not the intersection point is actually on the surface of the box. If so, I check whether it is the closest intersection for this ray and I return the closest intersection. The way I check whether the plane-intersection point is on the box surface itself is through a function bool PointOnBoxFace(R3Point point, R3Point corner1, R3Point corner2) { double min_x = min(corner1.X(), corner2.X()); double max_x = max(corner1.X(), corner2.X()); double min_y = min(corner1.Y(), corner2.Y()); double max_y = max(corner1.Y(), corner2.Y()); double min_z = min(corner1.Z(), corner2.Z()); double max_z = max(corner1.Z(), corner2.Z()); if(point.X() >= min_x && point.X() <= max_x && point.Y() >= min_y && point.Y() <= max_y && point.Z() >= min_z && point.Z() <= max_z) return true; return false; } where corner1 is one corner of the rectangle for that box face and corner2 is the opposite corner. My implementation works most of the time but sometimes it gives me the wrong intersection. I was wondering if the way I'm checking whether the intersection point is on the box is correct or if I should use some other algorithm. Thanks.

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• SDL doesn't detect Arrow Keys

  - by Scott

  I am working through the SDL tutorials over at http://lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/index.php and I'm stuck on tutorial 8 where I'm working with key presses. I'm using the following code: //Our Main application loop while(!quit){ if(SDL_PollEvent(&curEvents)){ if(curEvents.type == SDL_QUIT){ quit = true; } //If a key was pressed if( curEvents.type == SDL_KEYDOWN ) { //Set the proper message surface switch( curEvents.key.keysym.sym ) { case SDLK_UP: message = upMessage; break; case SDLK_DOWN: message = downMessage; break; case SDLK_LEFT: message = leftMessage; break; case SDLK_RIGHT: message = rightMessage; break; default: message = TTF_RenderText_Solid(font, "Unknown Key", textColor); break; } } } if( message != NULL ) { //Apply the background to the screen applySurface( 0, 0, background, screen ); //Apply the message centered on the screen applySurface( ( SCREEN_WIDTH - message->w ) / 2, ( SCREEN_HEIGHT - message->h ) / 2, message, screen ); //Null the surface pointer message = NULL; } //Update the screen if( SDL_Flip( screen ) == -1 ) { return 1; } } Where works fine, the default case is reached, for everything BUT pressing the arrow keys. I was wondering if someone could spot what I'm doing wrong.

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• SDL_image/C++ OpenGL Program: IMG_Load() produces fuzzy images

  - by Kami

  I'm trying to load an image file and use it as a texture for a cube. I'm using SDL_image to do that. I used this image because I've found it in various file formats (tga, tif, jpg, png, bmp) The code : SDL_Surface * texture; //load an image to an SDL surface (i.e. a buffer) texture = IMG_Load("/Users/Foo/Code/xcode/test/lena.bmp"); if(texture == NULL){ printf("bad image\n"); exit(1); } //create an OpenGL texture object glGenTextures(1, &textureObjOpenGLlogo); //select the texture object you need glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, textureObjOpenGLlogo); //define the parameters of that texture object //how the texture should wrap in s direction glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_REPEAT); //how the texture should wrap in t direction glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_REPEAT); //how the texture lookup should be interpolated when the face is smaller than the texture glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); //how the texture lookup should be interpolated when the face is bigger than the texture glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); //send the texture image to the graphic card glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, GL_RGBA, texture->w, texture->h, 0, GL_RGB, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, texture-> pixels); //clean the SDL surface SDL_FreeSurface(texture); The code compiles without errors or warnings ! I've tired all the files formats but this always produces that ugly result : I'm using : SDL_image 1.2.9 & SDL 1.2.14 with XCode 3.2 under 10.6.2 Does anyone knows how to fix this ?

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• Use Math class to calculate

  - by LC

  Write a JAVA program that calculates the surface area of a cylinder, C= 2( p r2) + 2 p r h, where r is the radius and h is the height of the cylinder. Allow the user to enter in a radius and a height. Format the output to three decimal places. Use the constant PI and the method pow() from the Math class. This is what I've done so far but it can not run. Can anyone help me ? import Java.util Scanner; public class Ex5 { public static void main (String[] args) { Scanner input.new Scanner(System.in); double radius,height,area; System.out.print("Please enter the radius of the Cylinder"); radius = input.nextDouble(); System.out.print("Please enter the height of the Cylinder"); height = input.nextDouble(); area = (4*Math.PI*radius)+2*Math.PIMath.POW(radius,2); System.out.println("The surface of the cylinder" + area); } }

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• Windows Programming: ID2D1Bitmap Interface - Getting the Bitmap Data

  - by LostInBrackets

  I've been writing my own library of functions to access some of the new Direct2D Windows libraries. In particular, I've been working on the ID2D1Bitmap interface. I wanted to write a function to return a pointer to the start of the bitmap data (for the editing of particular pixels, or custom encoding or whatever else I might wish for in the future). Unfortunately... problem ahead... I can't seem to find a way to get access to the raw pixel data from the ID2D1Bitmap Interface. Does anyone have an idea how to access this? One of my friends suggested drawing the bitmap to a surface and extracting the bitmap data from there. I don't know if this would work. It definitely seems inefficient and I wouldn't know which kind of surface to use. Any help is appreciated. (c++ in particular, but I assume the code won't be tooo different between languages) (I know I could just read in the data direct from the file, but I'm using the WIC decoders which means it could be in any number of indecipherable formats)

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