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• When and how does one become a good programmer these days? [closed]

  - by YoungMoney

  I mean, good enough to make software people want and get paid for it. Maybe even good enough to launch a company or something. I'm also concerned that I'm not applying the finer points of my algorithms/data structures/software design knowledge. Background: I'm 20 and have been struggling with programming for about two years now, trying to become a software engineer. I started with a few university courses that I did quite poorly in. I learned how to make websites with HTML/JavaScript and PHP/MySQL, but feel like I know very relevant theory for making good databases - how does something like Facebook serve hundreds of millions of people? What would be smart ways to store data? I don't know. Now I'm doing some android application development, but again I have no idea about good Java design theory (I use static variables like they're going out of fashion) and feel more like I'm gluing stuff together and letting Eclipse slowly autocomplete my project. In short, I'm not sure if I'm becoming a legitimate software developer or just "doing what's cool". At least I've taken some data structures and Algorithms courses and plan to take more in the next years. But I'm having a really tough time applying this stuff to my fun little apps that I'm building. Every language higher level than C++ seems to have its own quicksort function already built-in, for example. Similarly, I can't remember ever needing to implement a linked-list, heap, binary tree, or or worry about pointers and memory management. But maybe this is a good thing so that I focus on other things? I'm not too sure what those other things are though. Hopefully something more than building another photo sharing app. Anyways that's it for me, I look forward to your responses!

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• Three Ubuntu 12.04 + Xfce problems

  - by user1708495

  sorry to bother you, but I wanted to set up a minimal Ubuntu 12.04 with minimal Xfce and probably due to my unawareness of several important things, not everything is working properly. -Sometimes when I shutdown I get error message from iwlwifi: It starts with a time out error about sending a power table and after several other errors it says "On demand firmware reload and "Unable to initialize device". And the shutdown stops there so I can only use hard shutdown. -Also when I boot, I often boot to a black screen, but pressing ctrl+alt+f1 gets me to the login prompt (I do not use a login manager). But then I sometimes cannot type. Seems probably more like a X server problem. When it works I only see the Plymouth splash for a very short time or sometimes not at all. -And the last problem is the most annoying one: Frequently Xfce freezes completely. I think ctrl+alt+f1 works sometimes, but other times I also have to use hard shutdown. When it freezes the cpu fan gets louder. I've been using Xbuntu for a while before, but with "real" Linux I am more a beginner, so I hope you forgive my questions Thanks

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• Are my negative internship experiences respresentative of the real world?

  - by attemptAtAnonymity

  I'm curious if my current experiences as an intern are representative of actual industry. As background, I'm through the better part of two computing majors and a math major at a major university; I've aced every class and adored all of them, so I'd like to think that I'm not terrible at programming. I got an internship with one of the major software companies, and half way through now I've been shocked at the extraordinarily low quality of code. Comments don't exist, it's all spaghetti code, and everything that could be wrong is even worse. I've done a ton of tutoring/TAing, so I'm very used to reading bad code, but the major industry products I've been seeing trump all of that. I work 10-12 hours a day and never feel like I'm getting anywhere, because it's endless hours of trying to figure out an undocumented API or determine the behavior of some other part of the (completely undocumented) product. I've left work hating the job every day so far, and I desperately want to know if this is what is in store for the rest of my life. Did I draw a short straw on internships (the absurdly large paychecks imply that it's not a low quality position), or is this what the real world is like?

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• Cycling through ItemStacks whlie supplying data... LOST [on hold]

  - by user3251606

  Ok so i am working on a plugin for my server that will open and inventory and when closed it will pass items to this class... object of this class is to cycle through the inventory and use a cfg file to define items and prices and then grab that info in a for loop and add it all up... heres what i have thus far... public void sell(Player p, Inventory inv) { ListIterator<ItemStack> it = inv.iterator(); double total = 0; for (ItemStack is : inv) { is = it.next(); if (is.getType() != null) { String type = is.getType().toString(); //short dur = is.getDurability(); String check = ChestSell.plugin.getConfig().getString(type); p.sendMessage("Item Type: " + type); if (check != null) { int amou = is.getAmount(); double value = ChestSell.plugin.getConfig().getDouble(type + ".price"); double tv = amou * value; p.sendMessage("Items in chest: Type " + type + " Ammount: " + amou + " Value: $" + tv); } //TODO Add return Items } } p.sendMessage("You got paid $" + total + " for your items!"); inv.clear(); }

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• Oracle ADF Mobile

  - by rituchhibber

  We are happy to announce that Oracle ADF Mobile is now available for our customers.Oracle ADF Mobile enables developer to build applications that install and run on both iOS and Android devices from one source code.Development is done with JDeveloper and ADF and leverages Java and HTML5 technologies, while keeping the same visual and declarative approach ADF is known for.Please Click here to read more about the Oracle ADF Mobile release and learn more on our OTN Page. Feature Highlights: Java - Oracle brings a Java VM embedded with each application so you can develop all your business logic in the platform neutral language you know and love! (Yes, even iOS!) JDBC - Since we give you Java, we also provide JDBC along with a SQLite driver and engine that also supports encryption out of the box. Multi-Platform - Truly develop your application only once and deploy to multiple platforms. iOS and Android platforms are supported for both phone and tablet. Flexible - You can decide how to implement the UI: Use existing server-based UI framework like JSF. Use your own favorite HTML5 framework like JQuery. Use our declarative HTML5 component set provided with the framework. Device Feature Access - You can get access to device features from either Java or JavaScript to invoke features like camera, GPS, email, SMS, contacts, etc. Secure - ADF Mobile provides integrated security that works with your server back-end as well. Whether you’re using remote URLs, local HTML or AMX, you can secure any/all of your features with a single consistent login page. Since we also give you SQLite encryption, we are assured that your data is safe. Rapid - Using the same development techniques that ADF developers are already used to, you can quickly create mobile applications without ever learning another language!ADF Mobile XML or AMX for short, provides all the normal input and layout controls you expect and we also add charts/maps/gauges along with it to provide a very comprehensive UI controls. You can also mix and match any of the three for ultimate flexibility!

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• Delete Ubuntu and Grub from PC (and BIOS unaccessible)

  - by Temitope

  I've really done a mess while upgrading 12.04 to 12.10, or my PC did, or ubuntu did, I can't really tell. The situation now is I have a dual booting machine, Windows 7 and ubuntu 12.10 -When turning on the PC, I can't access boot options, I've tried every thing, esc, f1 f8, f10 (I have a Hp pavilion) but all I can see is a short-lasting screen with three lines reading something like "error:files not found" or "link not found". So the PC turns to the Grub loader screen. This is already a BIG problem. It means I can't change boot order, and I'm diperate, since it doensn't seem that repairing my operating systems will bring my BIOS back. -If I chose Ubuntu in grup, it loades but then frezes on the desktop, I may be having problem with unity3d, or compiz, which was reported to be crashing the first times I started ubuntu. Now, after turning off and on the pc several times, no crash is reported again. Ubuntu just load my background image and nothing else. Not the side menu, not the header, nothing. Althogh the system seems "functioning", when I press the power button on the PC, for example, the normal shutdown dialog window appears. -If I chose Windows, Grubs tells me that something is not found, and to press any key to continue; I do it and then Windows loads perfectly. What I now want to do is 1- use EasyBSD to change boot order and boot Windows partition first 2- delete the ubuntu partitions from within windows disk manager What I except happening is that My PC turns to, or near to factory booting settings: I press the power button and Windows loads without asking me nothing I have acess to all my hardisk from withing windows Is that what will really happen? Are there danger I'm not seeing? What I don't except happening is The BIOS access key return functioning How could I eventually solve this? I would like to reinstall Ubuntu, 32 bit version this time.

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• Jdbc - Connect remote Mysql Database error

  - by Guilherme Ruiz

  I'm using JDBC to connect my program to a MySQL database. I already put the port number and yes, my database have permission to access. When i use localhost work perfectly, but when i try connect to a remote MySQL database, show this error on console. java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError Caused by: java.lang.NumberFormatException: null at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:454) at java.lang.Integer.parseInt(Integer.java:527) at serial.BDArduino.<clinit>(BDArduino.java:25) Exception in thread "main" Java Result: 1 CONSTRUÍDO COM SUCESSO (tempo total: 1 segundo) Thank you in Advance ! MAIN CODE /* * To change this template, choose Tools | Templates * and open the template in the editor. */ package serial; import gnu.io.CommPort; import gnu.io.CommPortIdentifier; import gnu.io.SerialPort; import java.awt.event.ActionEvent; import java.awt.event.ActionListener; import java.io.IOException; import java.io.InputStream; import java.io.OutputStream; import javax.swing.JFrame; import javax.swing.JOptionPane; /** * * @author Ruiz */ public class BDArduino extends JFrame { static boolean connected = false; static int aux_sql8 = Integer.parseInt(Sql.getDBinfo("SELECT * FROM arduinoData WHERE id=1", "pin8")); static int aux_sql2 = Integer.parseInt(Sql.getDBinfo("SELECT * FROM arduinoData WHERE id=1", "pin2")); CommPort commPort = null; SerialPort serialPort = null; InputStream inputStream = null; static OutputStream outputStream = null; String comPortNum = "COM10"; int baudRate = 9600; int[] intArray = {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13}; /** * Creates new form ArduinoTest */ public BDArduino() { //super("Arduino Test App"); initComponents(); } class Escrita extends Thread { private int i; public void run() { while (true) { System.out.println("Número :" + i++); } } } //public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { // String arg = e.getActionCommand(); public static void writeData(int a) throws IOException { outputStream.write(a); } public void action(String arg) { System.out.println(arg); Object[] msg = {"Baud Rate: ", "9600", "COM Port #: ", "COM10"}; if (arg == "connect") { if (connected == false) { new BDArduino.ConnectionMaker().start(); } else { closeConnection(); } } if (arg == "disconnect") { serialPort.close(); closeConnection(); } if (arg == "p2") { System.out.print("Pin #2\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[0]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } if (arg == "p3") { System.out.print("Pin #3\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[1]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } if (arg == "p4") { System.out.print("Pin #4\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[2]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } if (arg == "p5") { System.out.print("Pin #5\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[3]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } if (arg == "p6") { System.out.print("Pin #6\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[4]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } if (arg == "p7") { System.out.print("Pin #7\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[5]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } if (arg == "p8") { System.out.print("Pin #8\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[6]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } if (arg == "p9") { System.out.print("Pin #9\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[7]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } if (arg == "p10") { System.out.print("Pin #10\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[8]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } if (arg == "p11") { System.out.print("Pin #11\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[9]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } if (arg == "p12") { System.out.print("Pin #12\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[10]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } if (arg == "p13") { System.out.print("Pin #12\n"); try { outputStream.write(intArray[11]); }//end try catch (IOException e12) { e12.printStackTrace(); System.exit(-1); }//end catch } } //******************************************************* //Arduino Connection *************************************** //****************************************************** void closeConnection() { try { outputStream.close(); } catch (Exception ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); String cantCloseConnectionMessage = "Can't Close Connection!"; JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, cantCloseConnectionMessage, "ERROR", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE); } connected = false; System.out.print("\nDesconectado\n"); String disconnectedConnectionMessage = "Desconectado!"; JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, disconnectedConnectionMessage, "Desconectado", JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE); }//end closeConnection() void connect() throws Exception { String portName = comPortNum; CommPortIdentifier portIdentifier = CommPortIdentifier.getPortIdentifier(portName); if (portIdentifier.isCurrentlyOwned()) { System.out.println("Error: Port is currently in use"); String portInUseConnectionMessage = "Port is currently in use!\nTry Again Later..."; JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, portInUseConnectionMessage, "ERROR", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE); } else { commPort = portIdentifier.open(this.getClass().getName(), 2000); if (commPort instanceof SerialPort) { serialPort = (SerialPort) commPort; serialPort.setSerialPortParams(baudRate, SerialPort.DATABITS_8, SerialPort.STOPBITS_1, SerialPort.PARITY_NONE); outputStream = serialPort.getOutputStream(); } else { System.out.println("Error: Only serial ports are handled "); String onlySerialConnectionMessage = "Serial Ports ONLY!"; JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, onlySerialConnectionMessage, "ERROR", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE); } }//end else //wait some time try { Thread.sleep(300); } catch (InterruptedException ie) { } }//end connect //******************************************************* //*innerclasses****************************************** //******************************************************* public class ConnectionMaker extends Thread { public void run() { //try to make a connection try { connect(); } catch (Exception ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); System.out.print("ERROR: Cannot connect!"); String cantConnectConnectionMessage = "Cannot Connect!\nCheck the connection settings\nand/or your configuration\nand try again!"; JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, cantConnectConnectionMessage, "ERROR", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE); } //show status serialPort.notifyOnDataAvailable(true); connected = true; //send ack System.out.print("\nConnected\n"); String connectedConnectionMessage = "Conectado!"; JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, connectedConnectionMessage, "Conectado", JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE); }//end run }//end ConnectionMaker /** * This method is called from within the constructor to initialize the form. * WARNING: Do NOT modify this code. The content of this method is always * regenerated by the Form Editor. */ @SuppressWarnings("unchecked") // <editor-fold defaultstate="collapsed" desc="Generated Code"> private void initComponents() { btnp2 = new javax.swing.JButton(); btncon = new javax.swing.JButton(); btndesc = new javax.swing.JButton(); btnp3 = new javax.swing.JButton(); btnp4 = new javax.swing.JButton(); btnp5 = new javax.swing.JButton(); btnp9 = new javax.swing.JButton(); btnp6 = new javax.swing.JButton(); btnp7 = new javax.swing.JButton(); btnp8 = new javax.swing.JButton(); btn13 = new javax.swing.JButton(); btnp10 = new javax.swing.JButton(); btnp11 = new javax.swing.JButton(); btnp12 = new javax.swing.JButton(); setDefaultCloseOperation(javax.swing.WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); btnp2.setText("2"); btnp2.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnp2MouseClicked(evt); } }); btncon.setText("Conectar"); btncon.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnconMouseClicked(evt); } }); btndesc.setText("Desconectar"); btndesc.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btndescMouseClicked(evt); } }); btnp3.setText("3"); btnp3.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnp3MouseClicked(evt); } }); btnp4.setText("4"); btnp4.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnp4MouseClicked(evt); } }); btnp5.setText("5"); btnp5.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnp5MouseClicked(evt); } }); btnp9.setText("9"); btnp9.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnp9MouseClicked(evt); } }); btnp6.setText("6"); btnp6.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnp6MouseClicked(evt); } }); btnp7.setText("7"); btnp7.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnp7MouseClicked(evt); } }); btnp8.setText("8"); btnp8.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnp8MouseClicked(evt); } }); btn13.setText("13"); btn13.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btn13MouseClicked(evt); } }); btnp10.setText("10"); btnp10.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnp10MouseClicked(evt); } }); btnp11.setText("11"); btnp11.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnp11MouseClicked(evt); } }); btnp12.setText("12"); btnp12.addMouseListener(new java.awt.event.MouseAdapter() { public void mouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { btnp12MouseClicked(evt); } }); javax.swing.GroupLayout layout = new javax.swing.GroupLayout(getContentPane()); getContentPane().setLayout(layout); layout.setHorizontalGroup( layout.createParallelGroup(javax.swing.GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING) .addGroup(layout.createSequentialGroup() .addGap(20, 20, 20) .addGroup(layout.createParallelGroup(javax.swing.GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING, false) .addGroup(layout.createSequentialGroup() .addComponent(btncon) .addPreferredGap(javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED, javax.swing.GroupLayout.DEFAULT_SIZE, Short.MAX_VALUE) .addComponent(btndesc)) .addGroup(layout.createSequentialGroup() .addComponent(btnp6, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE) .addPreferredGap(javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED) .addComponent(btnp7, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE) .addPreferredGap(javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED) .addComponent(btnp8, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE) .addPreferredGap(javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED) .addComponent(btnp9, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE)) .addGroup(layout.createSequentialGroup() .addComponent(btnp10, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE) .addPreferredGap(javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED) .addComponent(btnp11, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE) .addPreferredGap(javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED) .addComponent(btnp12, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE) .addPreferredGap(javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED) .addComponent(btn13, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE)) .addGroup(layout.createSequentialGroup() .addComponent(btnp2, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE) .addPreferredGap(javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED) .addComponent(btnp3, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE) .addPreferredGap(javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED) .addComponent(btnp4, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE) .addPreferredGap(javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED) .addComponent(btnp5, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE, 50, javax.swing.GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE))) .addContainerGap(20, Short.MAX_VALUE)) ); layout.setVerticalGroup( layout.createParallelGroup(javax.swing.GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING) .addGroup(layout.createSequentialGroup() .addContainerGap() .addGroup(layout.createParallelGroup(javax.swing.GroupLayout.Alignment.BASELINE) .addComponent(btncon) .addComponent(btndesc)) .addPreferredGap(javax.swing.LayoutStyle.ComponentPlacement.RELATED, 20, Short.MAX_VALUE) .addGroup(layout.createParallelGroup(javax.swing.GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING) .addComponent(btnp2) .addComponent(btnp3) .addComponent(btnp4) .addComponent(btnp5)) .addGap(18, 18, 18) .addGroup(layout.createParallelGroup(javax.swing.GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING) .addComponent(btnp6) .addComponent(btnp7) .addComponent(btnp8) .addComponent(btnp9)) .addGap(18, 18, 18) .addGroup(layout.createParallelGroup(javax.swing.GroupLayout.Alignment.LEADING) .addComponent(btnp10) .addComponent(btnp11) .addComponent(btnp12) .addComponent(btn13)) .addGap(22, 22, 22)) ); pack(); }// </editor-fold> private void btnp2MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("p2"); } private void btnconMouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("connect"); } private void btndescMouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("disconnect"); } private void btnp3MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("p3"); } private void btnp4MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("p4"); } private void btnp5MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here action("p5"); } private void btnp9MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("p9"); } private void btnp6MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("p6"); } private void btnp7MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("p7"); } private void btnp8MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("p8"); } private void btn13MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("p13"); } private void btnp10MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("p10"); } private void btnp11MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("p11"); } private void btnp12MouseClicked(java.awt.event.MouseEvent evt) { // TODO add your handling code here: action("p12"); } /** * @param args the command line arguments */ public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException { /* Set the Nimbus look and feel */ //<editor-fold defaultstate="collapsed" desc=" Look and feel setting code (optional) "> /* If Nimbus (introduced in Java SE 6) is not available, stay with the default look and feel. * For details see http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/lookandfeel/plaf.html */ try { for (javax.swing.UIManager.LookAndFeelInfo info : javax.swing.UIManager.getInstalledLookAndFeels()) { if ("Nimbus".equals(info.getName())) { javax.swing.UIManager.setLookAndFeel(info.getClassName()); break; } } } catch (Exception e) { } //</editor-fold> /* Create and display the form */ java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() { public void run() { new BDArduino().setVisible(true); } }); //} while (true) { // int sql8 = Integer.parseInt(Sql.getDBinfo("SELECT * FROM arduinoData WHERE id=1", "pin8")); if (connected == true && sql8 != aux_sql8) { aux_sql8 = sql8; if(sql8 == 1){ writeData(2); }else{ writeData(3); } } int sql2 = Integer.parseInt(Sql.getDBinfo("SELECT * FROM arduinoData WHERE id=1", "pin2")); if (connected == true && sql2 != aux_sql2) { aux_sql2 = sql2; if(sql2 == 1){ writeData(4); }else{ writeData(5); } } try { Thread.sleep(500); } catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } } // Variables declaration - do not modify private javax.swing.JButton btn13; private javax.swing.JButton btncon; private javax.swing.JButton btndesc; private javax.swing.JButton btnp10; private javax.swing.JButton btnp11; private javax.swing.JButton btnp12; private javax.swing.JButton btnp2; private javax.swing.JButton btnp3; private javax.swing.JButton btnp4; private javax.swing.JButton btnp5; private javax.swing.JButton btnp6; private javax.swing.JButton btnp7; private javax.swing.JButton btnp8; private javax.swing.JButton btnp9; // End of variables declaration }

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• How to compile a C++ source code written for Linux/Unix on Windows Vista (code given)

  - by HTMZ

  I have a c++ source code that was written in linux/unix environment by some other author. It gives me errors when i compile it in windows vista environment. I am using Bloodshed Dev C++ v 4.9. please help. #include <iostream.h> #include <map> #include <vector> #include <string> #include <string.h> #include <strstream> #include <unistd.h> #include <stdlib.h> using namespace std; template <class T> class PrefixSpan { private: vector < vector <T> > transaction; vector < pair <T, unsigned int> > pattern; unsigned int minsup; unsigned int minpat; unsigned int maxpat; bool all; bool where; string delimiter; bool verbose; ostream *os; void report (vector <pair <unsigned int, int> > &projected) { if (minpat > pattern.size()) return; // print where & pattern if (where) { *os << "<pattern>" << endl; // what: if (all) { *os << "<freq>" << pattern[pattern.size()-1].second << "</freq>" << endl; *os << "<what>"; for (unsigned int i = 0; i < pattern.size(); i++) *os << (i ? " " : "") << pattern[i].first; } else { *os << "<what>"; for (unsigned int i = 0; i < pattern.size(); i++) *os << (i ? " " : "") << pattern[i].first << delimiter << pattern[i].second; } *os << "</what>" << endl; // where *os << "<where>"; for (unsigned int i = 0; i < projected.size(); i++) *os << (i ? " " : "") << projected[i].first; *os << "</where>" << endl; *os << "</pattern>" << endl; } else { // print found pattern only if (all) { *os << pattern[pattern.size()-1].second; for (unsigned int i = 0; i < pattern.size(); i++) *os << " " << pattern[i].first; } else { for (unsigned int i = 0; i < pattern.size(); i++) *os << (i ? " " : "") << pattern[i].first << delimiter << pattern[i].second; } *os << endl; } } void project (vector <pair <unsigned int, int> > &projected) { if (all) report(projected); map <T, vector <pair <unsigned int, int> > > counter; for (unsigned int i = 0; i < projected.size(); i++) { int pos = projected[i].second; unsigned int id = projected[i].first; unsigned int size = transaction[id].size(); map <T, int> tmp; for (unsigned int j = pos + 1; j < size; j++) { T item = transaction[id][j]; if (tmp.find (item) == tmp.end()) tmp[item] = j ; } for (map <T, int>::iterator k = tmp.begin(); k != tmp.end(); ++k) counter[k->first].push_back (make_pair <unsigned int, int> (id, k->second)); } for (map <T, vector <pair <unsigned int, int> > >::iterator l = counter.begin (); l != counter.end (); ) { if (l->second.size() < minsup) { map <T, vector <pair <unsigned int, int> > >::iterator tmp = l; tmp = l; ++tmp; counter.erase (l); l = tmp; } else { ++l; } } if (! all && counter.size () == 0) { report (projected); return; } for (map <T, vector <pair <unsigned int, int> > >::iterator l = counter.begin (); l != counter.end(); ++l) { if (pattern.size () < maxpat) { pattern.push_back (make_pair <T, unsigned int> (l->first, l->second.size())); project (l->second); pattern.erase (pattern.end()); } } } public: PrefixSpan (unsigned int _minsup = 1, unsigned int _minpat = 1, unsigned int _maxpat = 0xffffffff, bool _all = false, bool _where = false, string _delimiter = "/", bool _verbose = false): minsup(_minsup), minpat (_minpat), maxpat (_maxpat), all(_all), where(_where), delimiter (_delimiter), verbose (_verbose) {}; ~PrefixSpan () {}; istream& read (istream &is) { string line; vector <T> tmp; T item; while (getline (is, line)) { tmp.clear (); istrstream istrs ((char *)line.c_str()); while (istrs >> item) tmp.push_back (item); transaction.push_back (tmp); } return is; } ostream& run (ostream &_os) { os = &_os; if (verbose) *os << transaction.size() << endl; vector <pair <unsigned int, int> > root; for (unsigned int i = 0; i < transaction.size(); i++) root.push_back (make_pair (i, -1)); project (root); return *os; } void clear () { transaction.clear (); pattern.clear (); } }; int main (int argc, char **argv) { extern char *optarg; unsigned int minsup = 1; unsigned int minpat = 1; unsigned int maxpat = 0xffffffff; bool all = false; bool where = false; string delimiter = "/"; bool verbose = false; string type = "string"; int opt; while ((opt = getopt(argc, argv, "awvt:M:m:L:d:")) != -1) { switch(opt) { case 'a': all = true; break; case 'w': where = true; break; case 'v': verbose = true; break; case 'm': minsup = atoi (optarg); break; case 'M': minpat = atoi (optarg); break; case 'L': maxpat = atoi (optarg); break; case 't': type = string (optarg); break; case 'd': delimiter = string (optarg); break; default: cout << "Usage: " << argv[0] << " [-m minsup] [-M minpat] [-L maxpat] [-a] [-w] [-v] [-t type] [-d delimiter] < data .." << endl; return -1; } } if (type == "int") { PrefixSpan<unsigned int> prefixspan (minsup, minpat, maxpat, all, where, delimiter, verbose); prefixspan.read (cin); prefixspan.run (cout); }else if (type == "short") { PrefixSpan<unsigned short> prefixspan (minsup, minpat, maxpat, all, where, delimiter, verbose); prefixspan.read (cin); prefixspan.run (cout); } else if (type == "char") { PrefixSpan<unsigned char> prefixspan (minsup, minpat, maxpat, all, where, delimiter, verbose); prefixspan.read (cin); prefixspan.run (cout); } else if (type == "string") { PrefixSpan<string> prefixspan (minsup, minpat, maxpat, all, where, delimiter, verbose); prefixspan.read (cin); prefixspan.run (cout); } else { cerr << "Unknown Item Type: " << type << " : choose from [string|int|short|char]" << endl; return -1; } return 0; }

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• Ubuntu Control Center Makes Using Ubuntu Easier

  - by Vivek

  Users who are new to Ubuntu might find it somewhat difficult to configure. Today we take a look at using Ubuntu Control Center which makes managing different aspects of the system easier. About Ubuntu Control Center A lot of utilities and software has been written to work with Ubuntu. Ubuntu Control Center is one such cool utility which makes it easy for configuring Ubuntu. The following is a brief description of Ubuntu Control Center: Ubuntu Control Center or UCC is an application inspired by Mandriva Control Center and aims to centralize and organize in a simple and intuitive form the main configuration tools for Ubuntu distribution. UCC uses all the native applications already bundled with Ubuntu, but it also utilize some third-party apps like “Hardinfo”, “Boot-up Manager”, “GuFW” and “Font-Manager”. Ubuntu Control Center Here we look at installation and use of Ubuntu Control Center in Ubuntu 10.04. First we have to satisfy some dependencies. You will need to install Font-Manager and jstest-gtk (link below)…before installing Ubuntu Control Center (UCC). Click the Install Package button. You’ll be prompted to enter in your admin password for each installation package. Installation is successful…close out of the screen. Download and install Font-Manager…again you’ll need to enter in your password to complete installation.   Once you have installed the two dependencies, you are all set to install Ubuntu Control Center (link below), double click the downloaded Ubuntu Control Center deb file to install it. Once installed you can find it under Applications \ System Tools \ UCC. Once you launch it you can start managing your system, software, hardware, and more.   You can easily control various aspects of your Ubuntu System using Ubuntu Control Center. Here we look at configuring the firewall under Network and Internet.     UCC allows easy access for configuring several aspects of your system. Once you install UCC you’ll see how easy it is to configure your Ubuntu system through an intuitive clean graphical interface. If you’re new to Ubuntu, using UCC can help you in setting up your system how you like in a user friendly way. Home Page of UCC http://code.google.com/p/ucc/ Links Download Font-Manager ManagerDownload jstest-gtkUbuntu Control Center (UCC) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Adding extra Repositories on UbuntuAllow Remote Control To Your Desktop On UbuntuAssign a Hotkey to Open a Terminal Window in UbuntuInstall VMware Tools on Ubuntu Edgy EftInstall Monodevelop on Ubuntu Linux TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium

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• Add New Features to WMP with Windows Media Player Plus

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Do you use Windows Media Player 11 or 12 as your default media player? Today, we’re going to show you how to add some handy new features and enhancements with the Windows Media Player Plus third party plug-in. Installation and Setup Download and install Media Player Plus! (link below). You’ll need to close out of Windows Media Player before you begin or you’ll receive the message below. The next time you open Media Player you’ll be presented with the Media Player Plus settings window. Some of the settings will be enabled by default, such as the Find as you type feature. Using Media Player Plus! Find as you type allows you to start typing a search term from anywhere in Media Player without having to be in the Search box. The search term will automatically fill in the search box and display the results.   You’ll also see Disable group headers in the Library Pane.   This setting will display library items in a continuous list similar to the functionality of Windows Media Player 10. Under User Interface you can enable displaying the currently playing artist and title in the title bar. This is enabled by default.   The Context Menu page allows you to enable context menu enhancements. The File menu enhancement allows you to add the Windows Context menu to Media Player on the library pane, list pane, or both. Right click on a Title, select File, and you’ll see the Windows Context Menu. Right-click on a title and select Tag Editor Plus. Tag Editor Plus allows you to quickly edit media tags.   The Advanced tab displays a number of tags that Media Player usually doesn’t show. Only the tags with the notepad and pencil icon are editable.   The Restore Plug-ins page allows you to configure which plug-ins should be automatically restored after a Media Player crash. The Restore Media at Startup page allows you to configure Media Player to resume playing the last playlist, track, and even whether it was playing or paused at the time the application was closed. So, if you close out in the middle of a song, it will begin playing from that point the next time you open Media Player. You can also set Media Player to rewind a certain number of seconds from where you left off. This is especially useful if you are in the middle of watching a movie. There’s also the option to have your currently playing song sent to Windows Live Messenger. You can access the settings at any time by going to Tools, Plug-in properties, and selecting Windows Media Player Plus. Windows Media Plus is a nice little free plug-in for WMP 11 and 12 that brings a lot of additional functionality to Windows Media Player. If you use Media Player 11 or WMP 12 in Windows 7 as your main player, you might want to give this a try. Download Windows Media Player Plus! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install and Use the VLC Media Player on Ubuntu LinuxFixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add FilesMake VLC Player Look like Windows Media Player 10Make VLC Player Look like Windows Media Player 11Make Windows Media Player Automatically Open in Mini Player Mode TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox Filevo is a Cool File Hosting & Sharing Site Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate Customize Everything Related to Dates, Times, Currency and Measurement in Windows 7

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• SQLAuthority News – Guest Post – Performance Counters Gathering using Powershell

  - by pinaldave

  Laerte Junior Laerte Junior has previously helped me personally to resolve the issue with Powershell installation on my computer. He did awesome job to help. He has send this another wonderful article regarding performance counter for readers of this blog. I really liked it and I expect all of you who are Powershell geeks, you will like the same as well. As a good DBA, you know that our social life is restricted to a few movies over the year and, when possible, a pizza in a restaurant next to your company’s place, of course. So what we have to do is to create methods through which we can facilitate our daily processes to go home early, and eventually have a nice time with our family (and not sleeping on the couch). As a consultant or fixed employee, one of our daily tasks is to monitor performance counters using Perfmom. To be honest, IDE is getting more complicated. To deal with this, I thought a solution using Powershell. Yes, with some lines of Powershell, you can configure which counters to use. And with one more line, you can already start collecting data. Let’s see one scenario: You are a consultant who has several clients and has just closed another project in troubleshooting an SQL Server environment. You are to use Perfmom to collect data from the server and you already have its XML configuration files made with the counters that you will be using- a file for memory bottleneck f, one for CPU, etc. With one Powershell command line for each XML file, you start collecting. The output of such a TXT file collection is set to up in an SQL Server. With two lines of command for each XML, you make the whole process of data collection. Creating an XML configuration File to Memory Counters: Get-PerfCounterCategory -CategoryName "Memory" | Get-PerfCounterInstance  | Get-PerfCounterCounters |Save-ConfigPerfCounter -PathConfigFile "c:\temp\ConfigfileMemory.xml" -newfile Creating an XML Configuration File to Buffer Manager, counters Page lookups/sec, Page reads/sec, Page writes/sec, Page life expectancy: Get-PerfCounterCategory -CategoryName "SQLServer:Buffer Manager" | Get-PerfCounterInstance | Get-PerfCounterCounters -CounterName "Page*" | Save-ConfigPerfCounter -PathConfigFile "c:\temp\BufferManager.xml" –NewFile Then you start the collection: Set-CollectPerfCounter -DateTimeStart "05/24/2010 08:00:00" -DateTimeEnd "05/24/2010 22:00:00" -Interval 10 -PathConfigFile c:\temp\ConfigfileMemory.xml -PathOutputFile c:\temp\ConfigfileMemory.txt To let the Buffer Manager collect, you need one more counters, including the Buffer cache hit ratio. Just add a new counter to BufferManager.xml, omitting the new file parameter Get-PerfCounterCategory -CategoryName "SQLServer:Buffer Manager" | Get-PerfCounterInstance | Get-PerfCounterCounters -CounterName "Buffer cache hit ratio" | Save-ConfigPerfCounter -PathConfigFile "c:\temp\BufferManager.xml" And start the collection: Set-CollectPerfCounter -DateTimeStart "05/24/2010 08:00:00" -DateTimeEnd "05/24/2010 22:00:00" -Interval 10 -PathConfigFile c:\temp\BufferManager.xml -PathOutputFile c:\temp\BufferManager.txt You do not know which counters are in the Category Buffer Manager? Simple! Get-PerfCounterCategory -CategoryName "SQLServer:Buffer Manager" | Get-PerfCounterInstance | Get-PerfCounterCounters Let’s see one output file as shown below. It is ready to bulk insert into the SQL Server. As you can see, Powershell makes this process incredibly easy and fast. Do you want to see more examples? Visit my blog at Shell Your Experience You can find more about Laerte Junior over here: www.laertejuniordba.spaces.live.com www.simple-talk.com/author/laerte-junior www.twitter.com/laertejuniordba SQL Server Powershell Extension Team: http://sqlpsx.codeplex.com/ Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: SQL, SQL Add-On, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Powershell

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• 5 reason why you should upgrade to new iPad (3rd generation)

  - by Gopinath

  Apple released the new iPad, 3rd generation, couple of days ago and they will be available in stores from March 16 onwards.  It’s the best tablet available in the market and for first time buyers it’s a no brainer to choose it. What about the iPad owners? Should they upgrade their iPad 2 to the new iPad? This is the question on the lips of most of the iPad owners. In this post we will provide you 5 reasons why you should upgrade your iPad, if more than two reasons are convincing then you should upgrade to the new iPad. Retina display – The best display ever made for mobile device, a game changer The new iPad comes with Retina display with screen resolution of 2048 x 1536, which is twice the resolution of iPad 2. Undoubtedly the iPad 3’s display is the best display ever made for a mobile device and it’s a game changer. With better resolution on iPad 3 eBook reading is going to be a pleasure with clear and crisp text Watching HD movies on iPad is going to be unbelievably good The new Games targeted for Retina display are going to be more realistic and needless to explain the pleasure of playing such games Graphic artists and photo editors get a professional on screen rendering support to create beautiful graphics 2x Faster & 2x Memory – Better Games and powerful Apps The new iPad is more powerful with 2x faster graphics and 2x more memory. Apple claims that the A5x processor of new iPad is 2x faster than iPad 2 and 4x faster than the best graphic chips available from other vendors. The RAM of  new iPad  is upgraded to 1 GB compared from 512 MB of iPad 2. With the fast processor and more memory, Apps and games are going to be blazing fast. 4G Internet – Browse the web at the speeds of 42 MB/sec Half of the iPad owners are frequent commuters who access internet over cellular networks, the new iPad’s 4G LTE is going to be a big boom for their  high data access needs. With the new iPad’s 4G LTE connectivity you can browse the web at 42 MB/sec and it mean you can watch a HD video without buffering issues. iPad 2 comes with 3G network support and it’s browsing speeds are way less than the new iPad. 5MP Camera – HD Movie Recording & gorgeous Photography iPad 2 has a 0.7 mega pixel camera and the new iPad comes with 5 megapixels camera. That is a huge boost for hobbyist  photographers and videographers. With the new iPad you can shoot gorgeous photos and 1080p HD video. The iSight camera of new iPad uses advanced optics with features like auto exposure, auto focus and face detection up to 10 faces. Amazon Pays up to $300 for old iPad 2 16 GB Wifi and more for other models Do you know that you can trade in your iPad 2 16 GB Wifi for upto $300? Amazon has an excellent trade in program for selling your used iPad 2s. Depending on the condition of the iPad 2  Amazon offers $234, $270, $300.00 for 16 GB Wifi versions that in Acceptable, Good and Like New conditions respectively.  The higher models of iPad 2s fetch you more money. With this great deal from Amazon the amount of extra money you need to spend for new iPad is almost half of their price. Visit Amazon Trade In’s website or read Amazon’s brilliant plan to pay you crazy money for your iPad 2 for more details. Related: New IPad Vs. IPad 2–Side By Side Comparison Of Hardware Specification [Infographic]

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• How Expedia Made My New Bride Cry

  - by Lance Robinson

  Tweet this? Email Expedia and ask them to give me and my new wife our honeymoon? When Expedia followed up their failure with our honeymoon trip with a complete and total lack of acknowledgement of any responsibility for the problem and endless loops of explaining the issue over and over again - I swore that they would make it right. When they brought my new bride to tears, I got an immediate and endless supply of motivation. I hope you will help me make them make it right by posting our story on Twitter, Facebook, your blog, on Expedia itself, and when talking to your friends in person about their own travel plans.   If you are considering using them now for an important trip - reconsider. Short summary: We arrived early for a flight - but Expedia had made a mistake with the data they supplied to JetBlue and Emirates, which resulted in us not being able to check in (one leg of our trip was missing)!  At the time of this post, three people (myself, my wife, and an exceptionally patient JetBlue employee named Mary) each spent hours on the phone with Expedia.  I myself spent right at 3 hours (according to iPhone records), Lauren spent an hour and a half or so, and poor Mary was probably on the phone for a good 3.5 hours.  This is after 5 hours total at the airport.  If you add up our phone time, that is nearly 8 hours of phone time over a 5 hour period with little or no help, stall tactics (?), run-around, denial, shifting of blame, and holding. Details below (times are approximate): First, my wife and I were married yesterday - June 18th, the 3 year anniversary of our first date. She is awesome. She is the nicest person I have ever known, a ton of fun, absolutely beautiful in every way. Ok enough mushy - here are the dirty details. 2:30 AM - Early Check-in Attempt - we attempted to check-in for our flight online. Some sort of technology error on website, instructed to checkin at desk. 4:30 AM - Arrive at airport. Try to check-in at kiosk, get the same error. We got to the JetBlue desk at RDU International Airport, where Mary helped us. Mary discovered that the Expedia provided itinerary does not match the Expedia provided tickets. We are informed that when that happens American, JetBlue, and others that use the same software cannot check you in for the flight because. Why? Because the itinerary was missing a leg of our flight! Basically we were not shown in the system as definitely being able to make it home. Mary called Expedia and was put on hold by their automated system. 4:55 AM - Mary, myself, and my brand new bride all waited for about 25 minutes when finally I decided I would make a call myself on my iPhone while Mary was on the airport phone. In their automated system, I chose "make a new reservation", thinking they might answer a little more quickly than "customer service". Not surprisingly I was connected to an Expedia person within 1 minute. They informed me that they would have to forward me to a customer service specialist. I explained to them that we were already on hold for that and had been for nearly half an hour, that we were going on our honeymoon and that our flight would be leaving soon - could they please help us. "Yes, I will help you". I hand the phone to JetBlue Mary who explains the situation 3 or 4 times. Obviously I couldn't hear both ends of the conversation at this point, but the Expedia person explained what the problem was by stating exactly what Mary had just spent 15 minutes explaining. Mary calmly confirms that this is the problem, and asks Expedia to re-issue the itinerary. Expedia tells Mary that they'll have to transfer her to customer service. Mary asks for someone specific so that we get an answer this time, and goes on hold. Mary get's connected, explains the situation, and then Mary's connection gets terminated. 5:10 AM - Mary calls back to the Expedia automated system again, and we wait for about 5 minutes on hold this time before I pick up my iPhone and call Expedia again myself. Again I go to sales, a person picks up the phone in less than a minute. I explain the situation and let them know that we are now very close to missing our flight for our honeymoon, could they please help us. "Yes, I will help you". Again I give the phone to Mary who provides them with a call back number in case we get disconnected again and explains the situation again. More back and forth with Expedia doing nothing but repeating the same questions, Mary answering the questions with the same information she provided in the original explanation, and Expedia simply restating the problem. Mary again asks them to re-issue the itinerary, and explains that doing so will fix the problem. Expedia again repeats the problem instead of fixing it, and Mary's connection gets terminated. 5:20 AM - Mary again calls back to Expedia. My beautiful bride also calls on her own phone. At this point she is struggling to hold back her tears, stumbling through an explanation of all that has happened and that we are about to miss our flight. Please help us. "Yes, I will help". My beautiful bride's connection gets terminated. Ok, maybe this disconnection isn't an accident. We've now been disconnected 3 times on two different phones. 5:45 AM - I walk away and pleadingly beg a person to help me. They "escalate" the issue to "Rosy" (sp?) at Expedia. I go through the whole song and dance again with Rosy, who gives me the same treatment Mary was given. Rosy blames JetBlue for now having the correct data. Meanwhile Mary is on the phone with Emirates Air (the airline for the second leg of our trip), who agrees with JetBlue that Expedia's data isn't up to date. We are informed by two airport employees that issues like this with Expedia are not uncommon, and that the fix is simple. On the phone iwth Rosy, I ask her to re-issue the itinerary because we are about to miss our flight. She again explains the problem to me. At this point, I am standing at the window, pleading with Rosy to help us get to our honeymoon, watching our airplane. Then our airplane leaves without us. 6:03 AM - At this point we have missed our flight. Re-issuing the itinerary is no longer a solution. I ask Rosy to start from the beginning and work us up a new trip. She says that she cannot do that. She says that she needs to talk to JetBlue and Emirates and find out why we cannot check-in for our flight. I remind Rosy that our flight has already left - I just watched it taxi away - it no longer matters why (not to mention the fact that we already knew why, and have known why since 4:30 AM), and have known the solution since 4:30 AM. Rosy, can you please book a new trip? Yes, but it will cost $400. Excuse me? Now you can, but it will cost ME to fix your mistake? Rosy says that she can escalate the situation to her supervisor but that will take 1.5 hours. 6:15 AM - I told Rosy that if they had re-issued the itinerary as JetBlue asked (at 4:30 AM), my new wife and I might be on the airplane now instead of dealing with this on the phone and missing the beginning (and how much more?) of our honeymoon. Rosy said that it was not necessary to re-issue the itinerary. Out of curiosity, i asked Rosy if there was some financial burden on them to re-issue the itinerary. "No", said Rosy. I asked her if it was a large time burden on Expedia to re-issue the itinerary. "No", said Rosy. I directly asked Rosy: Why wouldn't Expedia have re-issued the itinerary when JetBlue asked? No answer. I asked Rosy: If you had re-issued the itinerary at 4:30, isn't it possible that I would be on that flight right now? She actually surprised me by answering "Yes" to that question. So I pointed out that it followed that Expedia was responsible for the fact that we missed out flight, and she immediately went into more about how the problem was with JetBlue - but now it was ALSO an Emirates Air problem as well. I tell Rosy to go ahead and escalate the issue again, and please call me back in that 1.5 hours (which how is about 1 hour and 10 minutes away). 6:30 AM - I start tweeting my frustration with iPhone. It's now pretty much impossible for us to make it to The Maldives by 3pm, which is the time at which we would need to arrive in order to be allowed service to the actual island where we are staying. Expedia has now given me the run-around for 2 hours, caused me to miss my flight, and worst of all caused my amazing new wife Lauren to miss our honeymoon. You think I was mad? No. Furious. Its ok to make mistakes - but to refuse to fix them and to ruin our honeymoon? No, not ok, Expedia. I swore right then that Expedia would make this right. 7:45 AM - JetBlue mary is still talking her tail off to other people in JetBlue and Emirates Air. Mary works it out so that if Expedia simply books a new trip, JetBlue and Emirates will both waive all the fees. Now we just have to convince Expedia to fix their mistake and get us on our way! Around this time Expedia Rosy calls me back! I inform her of the excellent work of JetBlue Mary - that JetBlue and Emirates both will waive the fees so Expedia can fix their mistake and get us going on our way. She says that she sees documentation of this in her system and that she needs to put me on hold "for 1 to 10 minutes" to talk to Emirates Air (why I'm not exactly sure). I say ok. 8:45 AM - After an hour on hold, Rosy comes on the line and asks me to hold more. I ask her to call me back. 9:35 AM - I put down the iPhone Twitter app and picks up the laptop. You think I made some noise with my iPhone? Heh 11:25 AM - Expedia follows me and sends a canned "We're sorry, DM us the details".  If you look at their Twitter feed, 16 out of the most recent 20 tweets are exactly the same canned response.  The other 4?  Ads.  Um - #MultiFAIL? To Expedia:  You now have had (as explained above) 8 hours of 3 different people explaining our situation, you know the email address of our Expedia account, you know my web blog, you know my Twitter address, you know my phone number.  You also know how upset you have made both me and my new bride by treating us with such a ... non caring, scripted, uncooperative, argumentative, and possibly even deceitful manner.  In the wise words of the great Kenan Thompson of SNL: "FIX IT!".  And no, I'm NOT going away until you make this right. Period. 11:45 AM - Expedia corporate office called.  The woman I spoke to was very nice and apologetic.  She listened to me tell the story again, she says she understands the problem and she is going to work to resolve it.  I don't have any details on what exactly that resolution might me, she said she will call me back in 20 minutes.  She found out about the problem via Twitter.  Thank you Twitter, and all of you who helped.  Hopefully social media will win my wife and I our honeymoon, and hopefully Expedia will encourage their customer service teams treat their customers properly. 12:22 PM - Spoke to Fran again from Expedia corporate office.  She has a flight for us tonight.  She is booking it now.  We will arrive at our honeymoon destination of beautiful Veligandu Island Resort only 1 day late.  She cannot confirm today, but she expects that Expedia will pay for the lost honeymoon night.  Thank you everyone for your help.  I will reflect more on this whole situation and confirm its resolution after our flight is 100% confirmed.  For now, I'm going to take a breather and go kiss my wonderful wife! 1:50 PM - Have not yet received the promised phone call.  We did receive an email with a new itinerary for a flight but the booking is not for specific seats, so there is no guarantee that my wife and I will be able to sit together.  With the original booking I carefully selected our seats for every segment of our trip.  I decided to call into the phone number that Fran from the Expedia corporate office gave me.  Its automated voice system identified itself as "Tier 3 Support".  I am currently still on hold with them, I have not gotten through to a human yet. 1:55 PM - Fran from Expedia called me back.  She confirmed us as booked.  She called the airlines to confirm.  Unfortunately, Expedia was unwilling or unable to allow us any type of seat selection.  It is possible that i won't get to sit next to the woman I married less than a day ago on our 40 total hours of flight time (there and back).  In addition, our seats could be the worst seats on the planes, with no reclining seat back or right next to the restroom.  Despite this fact (which in my opinion is huge), the horrible inconvenience, the hours at the airport, and the negative Internet publicity that Expedia is receiving, Expedia declined to offer us any kind of upgrade or to mark us as SFU (suitable for upgrade).  Since they didn't offer - I asked, and was rejected.  I am grateful to finally be heading in the right direction, but not only did Expedia horribly botch this job from the very beginning, they followed that botch job with near zero customer service, followed by a verbally apologetic but otherwise half-hearted resolution.  If this works out favorably for us, great.  If not - I'm not done making noise, Expedia.  You owe us, and I expect you to make it right.  You haven't quite done that yet. Thanks - Thank you to Twitter.  Thanks to all those who sympathize with us and helped us get the attention of Expedia, since three people (one of them an airline employee) using Expedia's normal channels of communication for many hours didn't help.  Thanks especially to my PowerShell and Sharepoint friends, my local friends, and those connectors who encouraged me and spread my story. 5:15 PM - Love Wins - After all this, Lauren and I are exhausted.  We both took a short nap, and when we woke up we talked about the last 24 hours.  It was a big, amazing, story-filled 24 hours.  I said that Expedia won, but Lauren said no.  She pointed out how lucky we are.  We are in love and married.  We have wonderful family and friends.  We are both hard-working successful people who love what they do.  We get to go to an amazing exotic destination for our honeymoon like Veligandu in The Maldives...  That's a lot of good.  Expedia didn't win.  This was (is) a big loss for Expedia.  It is a public blemish for all to see.  But Lauren and I did win, big time.  Expedia may not have made things right - but things are right for us.  Post in progress... I will relay any further comments (or lack of) from Expedia soon, as well as an update on confirmation of their repayment of our lost resort room rates.  I'll also post a picture of us on our honeymoon as soon as I can!

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• Developer’s Life – Every Developer is a Superman

  - by Pinal Dave

  I enjoyed comparing developers to Spiderman so much, that I have decided to continue the trend and encourage some of my favorite people (developers) with another favorite superhero – Superman.  Superman is probably the most famous superhero – and one of the most inspiring. Everyone has their own favorite, but Superman has been the longest enduring of all comic book characters.  Clark Kent has inspired multiple movie series, TV shows, books, cartoons, and costumes.  Superman’s enduring popularity has been attributed to his superhuman strength, integrity, dedication to good, and his humility in keeping his identity a secret. So how are developers like Superman? Well, read on my list of reasons. Secret Identities They have secret identities.  I’m not saying that all developers wear thick glasses and go by an alias like “Clark Kent.”  But developers certainly work in the background, making sure everything runs smoothly, often without recognition.  Like Superman, when they have done their job right, no one knows they were there. Working Alone You don’t have to work alone.  Superman doesn’t have a sidekick like Robin or Bat Girl, but he is a major player in the Justice League.  Developers have amazing skills, and they shouldn’t be afraid to unite those skills to solve some of the world’s major problems (like slow networks). Daily Inspiration Developers are inspiring.  Clark Kent works at The Daily Planet, Metropolis’ newspaper, which is lucky because he can keep some of the publicity Superman inspires under wraps.  Developers might go unnoticed sometimes, but when people hear about some of the tasks they accomplish on a daily basis, it inspires awe. Discover Your Superpowers You have to discover your superpowers.  Clark Kent didn’t just wake up one morning with the full understanding that he could fly, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and was stronger than a speeding locomotive.  He slowly discovered these powers (after a few comic book-worthy misunderstandings!).  Developers are always learning and growing as well.  You probably won’t wake up with super powers, either, but years of practice and continuing education can get you close. Every Day is a New Day The story continues.  The Superman comic books are still being printed, and have been in print since 1938.  There have been two TV series, (one, Smallville, was on TV for ten seasons) and multiple cartoon adaptations.  There have been multiple movies, with many different actors.  A new reboot came out last year, and another is set to premier in 2016.   So, developers, when you are having a bad day or a problem seems unsolvable – remember, the story will continue!  There is always tomorrow. I hope you are all enjoying reading about developers-as-superheroes as much as I am enjoying writing about them.  Please tell me how else developers are like Superheroes in the comments – especially if you know any developers who are faster than a speeding bullet and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL Tagged: Developer, Superhero

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• This Week in Geek History: Gmail Goes Public, Deep Blue Wins at Chess, and the Birth of Thomas Edison

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Every week we bring you a snapshot of the week in Geek History. This week we’re taking a peek at the public release of Gmail, the first time a computer won against a chess champion, and the birth of prolific inventor Thomas Edison. Gmail Goes Public It’s hard to believe that Gmail has only been around for seven years and that for the first three years of its life it was invite only. In 2007 Gmail dropped the invite only requirement (although they would hold onto the “beta” tag for another two years) and opened its doors for anyone to grab a username @gmail. For what seemed like an entire epoch in internet history Gmail had the slickest web-based email around with constant innovations and features rolling out from Gmail Labs. Only in the last year or so have major overhauls at competitors like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail brought other services up to speed. Can’t stand reading a Week in Geek History entry without a random fact? Here you go: gmail.com was originally owned by the Garfield franchise and ran a service that delivered Garfield comics to your email inbox. No, we’re not kidding. Deep Blue Proves Itself a Chess Master Deep Blue was a super computer constructed by IBM with the sole purpose of winning chess matches. In 2011 with the all seeing eye of Google and the amazing computational abilities of engines like Wolfram Alpha we simply take powerful computers immersed in our daily lives for granted. The 1996 match against reigning world chest champion Garry Kasparov where in Deep Blue held its own, but ultimately lost, in a  4-2 match shook a lot of people up. What did it mean if something that was considered such an elegant and quintessentially human endeavor such as chess was so easy for a machine? A series of upgrades helped Deep Blue outright win a match against Kasparov in 1997 (seen in the photo above). After the win Deep Blue was retired and disassembled. Parts of Deep Blue are housed in the National Museum of History and the Computer History Museum. Birth of Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most prolific inventors in history and holds an astounding 1,093 US Patents. He is responsible for outright inventing or greatly refining major innovations in the history of world culture including the phonograph, the movie camera, the carbon microphone used in nearly every telephone well into the 1980s, batteries for electric cars (a notion we’d take over a century to take seriously), voting machines, and of course his enormous contribution to electric distribution systems. Despite the role of scientist and inventor being largely unglamorous, Thomas Edison and his tumultuous relationship with fellow inventor Nikola Tesla have been fodder for everything from books, to comics, to movies, and video games. Other Notable Moments from This Week in Geek History Although we only shine the spotlight on three interesting facts a week in our Geek History column, that doesn’t mean we don’t have space to highlight a few more in passing. This week in Geek History: 1971 – Apollo 14 returns to Earth after third Lunar mission. 1974 – Birth of Robot Chicken creator Seth Green. 1986 – Death of Dune creator Frank Herbert. Goodnight Dune. 1997 – Simpsons becomes longest running animated show on television. Have an interesting bit of geek trivia to share? Shoot us an email to [email protected] with “history” in the subject line and we’ll be sure to add it to our list of trivia. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean? Clean Up Google Calendar’s Interface in Chrome and Iron The Rise and Fall of Kramerica? [Seinfeld Video] GNOME Shell 3 Live CDs for OpenSUSE and Fedora Available for Testing Picplz Offers Special FX, Sharing, and Backup of Your Smartphone Pics BUILD! An Epic LEGO Stop Motion Film [VIDEO] The Lingering Glow of Sunset over a Winter Landscape Wallpaper

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• Create Music Playlists in Windows 7 Media Center

  - by DigitalGeekery

  One of the new features in Windows 7 Media Center is the ability to easily create music playlists without using Media Player. Today we’ll take a closer look at how to create them directly in Media Center. Create Manual Playlists Open Windows Media Center and select the Music Library. From within the Music Library, choose playlists from the top menu.   Then select Create Playlist. Give your new playlist a name, and select Next. Choose Music Library and select Next.    Select “songs” from the top menu, choose the songs for your playlist from your library, and select Next when finished. You can also click Select All to add all songs to your playlist, or clear all to remove them. Note: you can also sort by artist, album, genre, etc. from the top menu.   Now you can review and edit your playlist. Click the up and down pointers to move songs up and down in the playlist, or “X” to remove them. You can also go back and add additional songs by selecting Add More. Click Create when you are finished.   Auto Playlists Windows Media Center also allows you to create six different auto playlists. These are dynamic playlists based on pre-defined criteria. Auto Playlists include All Music, Music added in the last month, Music auto rated at 5 stars, Music played in the last month, Music played the most, and Music rated 4 or 5 stars. These Auto Playlists will change dynamically as your library and listening habits change. Your new music playlists can be found under playlists in the music library. Select play playlist to start the music. Now kick back and enjoy the music from your playlist. Conclusion While earlier versions of WMC allowed you to create playlists, you had to do it through Windows Media Player. This is a nice new feature for music lovers who use WMC and prefer to do everything with a remote. Do you already have playlists that you’ve created in Windows Media Player? Windows Media Center can play those too. If your playlists are in the default Music folder, Media Center will detect them automatically and add them to your Music Library. Plus, any playlists you create in Media Center are also available for Media Player. For more on creating Playlists in Media Player, check out our previous articles on how to create a custom playlist in Windows Media Player 12, and how to create auto playlists in WMP 12. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Rip a Music CD in Windows 7 Media CenterCreate Custom Playlists in Windows Media Player 12Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)How to Create Auto Playlists in Windows Media Player 12Fixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add Files TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7 Map the Stars with Stellarium

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• Backup and Transfer Foobar2000 to a New Computer

  - by Mysticgeek

  If you are a fan of Foobar2000 you undoubtedly have tweaked it to the point where you don’t want to set it all up again on a new machine. Here we look at how to transfer Foobar2000 settings to a new Windows 7 machine. Note: For this article we are transferring Foobar2000 settings from on Windows 7 machine to another over a network running Windows Home Server.  Foobar2000 Foobar2000 is an awesome music player which is highly customizable and we’ve previously covered. Here we take a look at how it’s set up on the current machine. It’s a nothing flashy, but is set up for our needs and includes a lot of components and playlists.   Backup Files Rather than wasting time setting everything up again on a new machine, we can backup the important files and replace them on the new machine. First type or copy the following into the Explorer address bar. %appdata%\foobar2000 Now copy all of the files in the folder and store them on a network drive or some type removable media or device. New Machine Now you can install the latest version of Foobar2000 on your new machine. You can go with a Standard install as we will be replacing our backed up configuration files anyway. When it launches, it will be set with all the defaults…and we want what we had back. Browse to the following on the new machine… %appdata%\foobar2000 Delete all of the files in this directory… Then replace them with the ones we backed up from the other machine. You’ll also want to navigate to C:\Program Files\Foobar2000 and replace the existing Components folder with the backed up one. When you get the screen telling you there is already files of the same name, select Move and Replace, and check the box Do this for the next 6 conflicts. Now we’re back in business! Everything is exactly as it was on the old machine. In this example, we were moving the Foobar2000 files from a computer on the same home network. All the music is coming from a directory on our Windows Home Server so they hadn’t changed. If you’re moving these files to a computer on another machine… say your work computer, you’ll need to adjust where the music folders point to. Windows XP If you’re setting up Foobar2000 on an XP machine, you can enter the following into the Run line. %appdata%\foobar2000 Then copy your backed up files into the Foobar2000 folder, and remember to swap out the Components folder in C:\Program Files\Foobar2000. Confirm to replace the files and folders by clicking Yes to All… Conclusion This method worked perfectly for us on our home network setup. There might be some other things that will need a bit of tweaking, but overall the process is quick and easy. There is a lot of cool things you can do with Foobar2000 like rip an audio CD to FlAC. If you’re a fan of Foobar2000 or considering switching to it, we will be covering more awesome features in future articles. Download Foobar2000 – Windows Only Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Backup or Transfer Microsoft Office 2007 Quick Parts Between ComputersBackup and Restore Internet Explorer’s Trusted Sites ListSecond Copy 7 [Review]Backup and Restore Firefox Profiles EasilyFoobar2000 is a Fully Customizable Music Player TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Windows Media Player Glass Icons (icons we like) How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7

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• LLBLGen Pro feature highlights: automatic element name construction

  - by FransBouma

  (This post is part of a series of posts about features of the LLBLGen Pro system) One of the things one might take for granted but which has a huge impact on the time spent in an entity modeling environment is the way the system creates names for elements out of the information provided, in short: automatic element name construction. Element names are created in both directions of modeling: database first and model first and the more names the system can create for you without you having to rename them, the better. LLBLGen Pro has a rich, fine grained system for creating element names out of the meta-data available, which I'll describe more in detail below. First the model element related element naming features are highlighted, in the section Automatic model element naming features and after that I'll go more into detail about the relational model element naming features LLBLGen Pro has to offer in the section Automatic relational model element naming features. Automatic model element naming features When working database first, the element names in the model, e.g. entity names, entity field names and so on, are in general determined from the relational model element (e.g. table, table field) they're mapped on, as the model elements are reverse engineered from these relational model elements. It doesn't take rocket science to automatically name an entity Customer if the entity was created after reverse engineering a table named Customer. It gets a little trickier when the entity which was created by reverse engineering a table called TBL_ORDER_LINES has to be named 'OrderLine' automatically. Automatic model element naming also takes into effect with model first development, where some settings are used to provide you with a default name, e.g. in the case of navigator name creation when you create a new relationship. The features below are available to you in the Project Settings. Open Project Settings on a loaded project and navigate to Conventions -> Element Name Construction. Strippers! The above example 'TBL_ORDER_LINES' shows that some parts of the table name might not be needed for name creation, in this case the 'TBL_' prefix. Some 'brilliant' DBAs even add suffixes to table names, fragments you might not want to appear in the entity names. LLBLGen Pro offers you to define both prefix and suffix fragments to strip off of table, view, stored procedure, parameter, table field and view field names. In the example above, the fragment 'TBL_' is a good candidate for such a strip pattern. You can specify more than one pattern for e.g. the table prefix strip pattern, so even a really messy schema can still be used to produce clean names. Underscores Be Gone Another thing you might get rid of are underscores. After all, most naming schemes for entities and their classes use PasCal casing rules and don't allow for underscores to appear. LLBLGen Pro can automatically strip out underscores for you. It's an optional feature, so if you like the underscores, you're not forced to see them go: LLBLGen Pro will leave them alone when ordered to to so. PasCal everywhere... or not, your call LLBLGen Pro can automatically PasCal case names on word breaks. It determines word breaks in a couple of ways: a space marks a word break, an underscore marks a word break and a case difference marks a word break. It will remove spaces in all cases, and based on the underscore removal setting, keep or remove the underscores, and upper-case the first character of a word break fragment, and lower case the rest. Say, we keep the defaults, which is remove underscores and PasCal case always and strip the TBL_ fragment, we get with our example TBL_ORDER_LINES, after stripping TBL_ from the table name two word fragments: ORDER and LINES. The underscores are removed, the first character of each fragment is upper-cased, the rest lower-cased, so this results in OrderLines. Almost there! Pluralization and Singularization In general entity names are singular, like Customer or OrderLine so LLBLGen Pro offers a way to singularize the names. This will convert OrderLines, the result we got after the PasCal casing functionality, into OrderLine, exactly what we're after. Show me the patterns! There are other situations in which you want more flexibility. Say, you have an entity Customer and an entity Order and there's a foreign key constraint defined from the target of Order and the target of Customer. This foreign key constraint results in a 1:n relationship between the entities Customer and Order. A relationship has navigators mapped onto the relationship in both entities the relationship is between. For this particular relationship we'd like to have Customer as navigator in Order and Orders as navigator in Customer, so the relationship becomes Customer.Orders 1:n Order.Customer. To control the naming of these navigators for the various relationship types, LLBLGen Pro defines a set of patterns which allow you, using macros, to define how the auto-created navigator names will look like. For example, if you rather have Customer.OrderCollection, you can do so, by changing the pattern from {$EndEntityName$P} to {$EndEntityName}Collection. The $P directive makes sure the name is pluralized, which is not what you want if you're going for <EntityName>Collection, hence it's removed. When working model first, it's a given you'll create foreign key fields along the way when you define relationships. For example, you've defined two entities: Customer and Order, and they have their fields setup properly. Now you want to define a relationship between them. This will automatically create a foreign key field in the Order entity, which reflects the value of the PK field in Customer. (No worries if you hate the foreign key fields in your classes, on NHibernate and EF these can be hidden in the generated code if you want to). A specific pattern is available for you to direct LLBLGen Pro how to name this foreign key field. For example, if all your entities have Id as PK field, you might want to have a different name than Id as foreign key field. In our Customer - Order example, you might want to have CustomerId instead as foreign key name in Order. The pattern for foreign key fields gives you that freedom. Abbreviations... make sense of OrdNr and friends I already described word breaks in the PasCal casing paragraph, how they're used for the PasCal casing in the constructed name. Word breaks are used for another neat feature LLBLGen Pro has to offer: abbreviation support. Burt, your friendly DBA in the dungeons below the office has a hate-hate relationship with his keyboard: he can't stand it: typing is something he avoids like the plague. This has resulted in tables and fields which have names which are very short, but also very unreadable. Example: our TBL_ORDER_LINES example has a lovely field called ORD_NR. What you would like to see in your fancy new OrderLine entity mapped onto this table is a field called OrderNumber, not a field called OrdNr. What you also like is to not have to rename that field manually. There are better things to do with your time, after all. LLBLGen Pro has you covered. All it takes is to define some abbreviation - full word pairs and during reverse engineering model elements from tables/views, LLBLGen Pro will take care of the rest. For the ORD_NR field, you need two values: ORD as abbreviation and Order as full word, and NR as abbreviation and Number as full word. LLBLGen Pro will now convert every word fragment found with the word breaks which matches an abbreviation to the given full word. They're case sensitive and can be found in the Project Settings: Navigate to Conventions -> Element Name Construction -> Abbreviations. Automatic relational model element naming features Not everyone works database first: it may very well be the case you start from scratch, or have to add additional tables to an existing database. For these situations, it's key you have the flexibility that you can control the created table names and table fields without any work: let the designer create these names based on the entity model you defined and a set of rules. LLBLGen Pro offers several features in this area, which are described in more detail below. These features are found in Project Settings: navigate to Conventions -> Model First Development. Underscores, welcome back! Not every database is case insensitive, and not every organization requires PasCal cased table/field names, some demand all lower or all uppercase names with underscores at word breaks. Say you create an entity model with an entity called OrderLine. You work with Oracle and your organization requires underscores at word breaks: a table created from OrderLine should be called ORDER_LINE. LLBLGen Pro allows you to do that: with a simple checkbox you can order LLBLGen Pro to insert an underscore at each word break for the type of database you're working with: case sensitive or case insensitive. Checking the checkbox Insert underscore at word break case insensitive dbs will let LLBLGen Pro create a table from the entity called Order_Line. Half-way there, as there are still lower case characters there and you need all caps. No worries, see below Casing directives so everyone can sleep well at night For case sensitive databases and case insensitive databases there is one setting for each of them which controls the casing of the name created from a model element (e.g. a table created from an entity definition using the auto-mapping feature). The settings can have the following values: AsProjectElement, AllUpperCase or AllLowerCase. AsProjectElement is the default, and it keeps the casing as-is. In our example, we need to get all upper case characters, so we select AllUpperCase for the setting for case sensitive databases. This will produce the name ORDER_LINE. Sequence naming after a pattern Some databases support sequences, and using model-first development it's key to have sequences, when needed, to be created automatically and if possible using a name which shows where they're used. Say you have an entity Order and you want to have the PK values be created by the database using a sequence. The database you're using supports sequences (e.g. Oracle) and as you want all numeric PK fields to be sequenced, you have enabled this by the setting Auto assign sequences to integer pks. When you're using LLBLGen Pro's auto-map feature, to create new tables and constraints from the model, it will create a new table, ORDER, based on your settings I previously discussed above, with a PK field ID and it also creates a sequence, SEQ_ORDER, which is auto-assigns to the ID field mapping. The name of the sequence is created by using a pattern, defined in the Model First Development setting Sequence pattern, which uses plain text and macros like with the other patterns previously discussed. Grouping and schemas When you start from scratch, and you're working model first, the tables created by LLBLGen Pro will be in a catalog and / or schema created by LLBLGen Pro as well. If you use LLBLGen Pro's grouping feature, which allows you to group entities and other model elements into groups in the project (described in a future blog post), you might want to have that group name reflected in the schema name the targets of the model elements are in. Say you have a model with a group CRM and a group HRM, both with entities unique for these groups, e.g. Employee in HRM, Customer in CRM. When auto-mapping this model to create tables, you might want to have the table created for Employee in the HRM schema but the table created for Customer in the CRM schema. LLBLGen Pro will do just that when you check the setting Set schema name after group name to true (default). This gives you total control over where what is placed in the database from your model. But I want plural table names... and TBL_ prefixes! For now we follow best practices which suggest singular table names and no prefixes/suffixes for names. Of course that won't keep everyone happy, so we're looking into making it possible to have that in a future version. Conclusion LLBLGen Pro offers a variety of options to let the modeling system do as much work for you as possible. Hopefully you enjoyed this little highlight post and that it has given you new insights in the smaller features available to you in LLBLGen Pro, ones you might not have thought off in the first place. Enjoy!

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• Is Social Media The Vital Skill You Aren’t Tracking?

  - by HCM-Oracle

  By Mark Bennett - Originally featured in Talent Management Excellence The ever-increasing presence of the workforce on social media presents opportunities as well as risks for organizations. While on the one hand, we read about social media embarrassments happening to organizations, on the other we see that social media activities by workers and candidates can enhance a company’s brand and provide insight into what individuals are, or can become, influencers in the social media sphere. HR can play a key role in helping organizations make the most value out of the activities and presence of workers and candidates, while at the same time also helping to manage the risks that come with the permanence and viral nature of social media. What is Missing from Understanding Our Workforce? “If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three-times more productive.”  Lew Platt, Former Chairman, President, CEO, Hewlett-Packard  What Lew Platt recognized was that organizations only have a partial understanding of what their workforce is capable of. This lack of understanding impacts the company in several negative ways: 1. A particular skill that the company needs to access in one part of the organization might exist somewhere else, but there is no record that the skill exists, so the need is unfulfilled. 2. As market conditions change rapidly, the company needs to know strategic options, but some options are missed entirely because the company doesn’t know that sufficient capability already exists to enable those options. 3. Employees may miss out on opportunities to demonstrate how their hidden skills could create new value to the company. Why don’t companies have that more complete picture of their workforce capabilities – that is, not know what they know? One very good explanation is that companies put most of their efforts into rating their workforce according to the jobs and roles they are filling today. This is the essence of two important talent management processes: recruiting and performance appraisals.  In recruiting, a set of requirements is put together for a job, either explicitly or indirectly through a job description. During the recruiting process, much of the attention is paid towards whether the candidate has the qualifications, the skills, the experience and the cultural fit to be successful in the role. This makes a lot of sense.  In the performance appraisal process, an employee is measured on how well they performed the functions of their role and in an effort to help the employee do even better next time, they are also measured on proficiency in the competencies that are deemed to be key in doing that job. Again, the logic is impeccable.  But in both these cases, two adages come to mind: 1. What gets measured is what gets managed. 2. You only see what you are looking for. In other words, the fact that the current roles the workforce are performing are the basis for measuring which capabilities the workforce has, makes them the only capabilities to be measured. What was initially meant to be a positive, i.e. identify what is needed to perform well and measure it, in order that it can be managed, comes with the unintended negative consequence of overshadowing the other capabilities the workforce has. This also comes with an employee engagement price, for the measurements and management of workforce capabilities is to typically focus on where the workforce comes up short. Again, it makes sense to do this, since improving a capability that appears to result in improved performance benefits, both the individual through improved performance ratings and the company through improved productivity. But this is based on the assumption that the capabilities identified and their required proficiencies are the only attributes of the individual that matter. Anything else the individual brings that results in high performance, while resulting in a desired performance outcome, often goes unrecognized or underappreciated at best. As social media begins to occupy a more important part in current and future roles in organizations, businesses must incorporate social media savvy and innovation into job descriptions and expectations. These new measures could provide insight into how well someone can use social media tools to influence communities and decision makers; keep abreast of trends in fast-moving industries; present a positive brand image for the organization around thought leadership, customer focus, social responsibility; and coordinate and collaborate with partners. These measures should demonstrate the “social capital” the individual has invested in and developed over time. Without this dimension, “short cut” methods may generate a narrow set of positive metrics that do not have real, long-lasting benefits to the organization. How Workforce Reputation Management Helps HR Harness Social Media With hundreds of petabytes of social media data flowing across Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, businesses are tapping technology solutions to effectively leverage social for HR. Workforce reputation management technology helps organizations discover, mobilize and retain talent by providing insight into the social reputation and influence of the workforce while also helping organizations monitor employee social media policy compliance and mitigate social media risk.  There are three major ways that workforce reputation management technology can play a strategic role to support HR: 1. Improve Awareness and Decisions on Talent Many organizations measure the skills and competencies that they know they need today, but are unaware of what other skills and competencies their workforce has that could be essential tomorrow. How about whether your workforce has the reputation and influence to make their skills and competencies more effective? Many organizations don’t have insight into the social media “reach” their workforce has, which is becoming more critical to business performance. These features help organizations, managers, and employees improve many talent processes and decision making, including the following: Hiring and Assignments. People and teams with higher reputations are considered more valuable and effective workers. Someone with high reputation who refers a candidate also can have high credibility as a source for hires.   Training and Development. Reputation trend analysis can impact program decisions regarding training offerings by showing how reputation and influence across the workforce changes in concert with training. Worker reputation impacts development plans and goal choices by helping the individual see which development efforts result in improved reputation and influence.   Finding Hidden Talent. Managers can discover hidden talent and skills amongst employees based on a combination of social profile information and social media reputation. Employees can improve their personal brand and accelerate their career development.  2. Talent Search and Discovery The right technology helps organizations find information on people that might otherwise be hidden. By leveraging access to candidate and worker social profiles as well as their social relationships, workforce reputation management provides companies with a more complete picture of what their knowledge, skills, and attributes are and what they can in turn access. This more complete information helps to find the right talent both outside the organization as well as the right, perhaps previously hidden talent, within the organization to fill roles and staff projects, particularly those roles and projects that are required in reaction to fast-changing opportunities and circumstances. 3. Reputation Brings Credibility Workforce reputation management technology provides a clearer picture of how candidates and workers are viewed by their peers and communities across a wide range of social reputation and influence metrics. This information is less subject to individual bias and can impact critical decision-making. Knowing the individual’s reputation and influence enables the organization to predict how well their capabilities and behaviors will have a positive effect on desired business outcomes. Many roles that have the highest impact on overall business performance are dependent on the individual’s influence and reputation. In addition, reputation and influence measures offer a very tangible source of feedback for workers, providing them with insight that helps them develop themselves and their careers and see the effectiveness of those efforts by tracking changes over time in their reputation and influence. The following are some examples of the different reputation and influence measures of the workforce that Workforce Reputation Management could gather and analyze: Generosity – How often the user reposts other’s posts. Influence – How often the user’s material is reposted by others.  Engagement – The ratio of recent posts with references (e.g. links to other posts) to the total number of posts.  Activity – How frequently the user posts. (e.g. number per day)  Impact – The size of the users’ social networks, which indicates their ability to reach unique followers, friends, or users.   Clout – The number of references and citations of the user’s material in others’ posts.  The Vital Ingredient of Workforce Reputation Management: Employee Participation “Nothing about me, without me.” Valerie Billingham, “Through the Patient’s Eyes”, Salzburg Seminar Session 356, 1998 Since data resides primarily in social media, a question arises: what manner is used to collect that data? While much of social media activity is publicly accessible (as many who wished otherwise have learned to their chagrin), the social norms of social media have developed to put some restrictions on what is acceptable behavior and by whom. Disregarding these norms risks a repercussion firestorm. One of the more recognized norms is that while individuals can follow and engage with other individual’s public social activity (e.g. Twitter updates) fairly freely, the more an organization does this unprompted and without getting permission from the individual beforehand, the more likely the organization risks a totally opposite outcome from the one desired. Instead, the organization must look for permission from the individual, which can be met with resistance. That resistance comes from not knowing how the information will be used, how it will be shared with others, and not receiving enough benefit in return for granting permission. As the quote above about patient concerns and rights succinctly states, no one likes not feeling in control of the information about themselves, or the uncertainty about where it will be used. This is well understood in consumer social media (i.e. permission-based marketing) and is applicable to workforce reputation management. However, asking permission leaves open the very real possibility that no one, or so few, will grant permission, resulting in a small set of data with little usefulness for the company. Connecting Individual Motivation to Organization Needs So what is it that makes an individual decide to grant an organization access to the data it wants? It is when the individual’s own motivations are in alignment with the organization’s objectives. In the case of workforce reputation management, when the individual is motivated by a desire for increased visibility and career growth opportunities to advertise their skills and level of influence and reputation, they are aligned with the organizations’ objectives; to fill resource needs or strategically build better awareness of what skills are present in the workforce, as well as levels of influence and reputation. Individuals can see the benefit of granting access permission to the company through multiple means. One is through simple social awareness; they begin to discover that peers who are getting more career opportunities are those who are signed up for workforce reputation management. Another is where companies take the message directly to the individual; we think you would benefit from signing up with our workforce reputation management solution. Another, more strategic approach is to make reputation management part of a larger Career Development effort by the company; providing a wide set of tools to help the workforce find ways to plan and take action to achieve their career aspirations in the organization. An effective mechanism, that facilitates connecting the visibility and career growth motivations of the workforce with the larger context of the organization’s business objectives, is to use game mechanics to help individuals transform their career goals into concrete, actionable steps, such as signing up for reputation management. This works in favor of companies looking to use workforce reputation because the workforce is more apt to see how it fits into achieving their overall career goals, as well as seeing how other participation brings additional benefits.  Once an individual has signed up with reputation management, not only have they made themselves more visible within the organization and increased their career growth opportunities, they have also enabled a tool that they can use to better understand how their actions and behaviors impact their influence and reputation. Since they will be able to see their reputation and influence measurements change over time, they will gain better insight into how reputation and influence impacts their effectiveness in a role, as well as how their behaviors and skill levels in turn affect their influence and reputation. This insight can trigger much more directed, and effective, efforts by the individual to improve their ability to perform at a higher level and become more productive. The increased sense of autonomy the individual experiences, in linking the insight they gain to the actions and behavior changes they make, greatly enhances their engagement with their role as well as their career prospects within the company. Workforce reputation management takes the wide range of disparate data about the workforce being produced across various social media platforms and transforms it into accessible, relevant, and actionable information that helps the organization achieve its desired business objectives. Social media holds untapped insights about your talent, brand and business, and workforce reputation management can help unlock them. Imagine - if you could find the hidden secrets of your businesses, how much more productive and efficient would your organization be? Mark Bennett is a Director of Product Strategy at Oracle. Mark focuses on setting the strategic vision and direction for tools that help organizations understand, shape, and leverage the capabilities of their workforce to achieve business objectives, as well as help individuals work effectively to achieve their goals and navigate their own growth. His combination of a deep technical background in software design and development, coupled with a broad knowledge of business challenges and thinking in today’s globalized, rapidly changing, technology accelerated economy, has enabled him to identify and incorporate key innovations that are central to Oracle Fusion’s unique value proposition. Mark has over the course of his career been in charge of the design, development, and strategy of Talent Management products and the design and development of cutting edge software that is better equipped to handle the increasingly complex demands of users while also remaining easy to use. Follow him @mpbennett

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• Download YouTube Videos the Easy Way

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  You can’t be online all the time, and despite the majority of YouTube videos being nut-shots and Lady Gaga parodies, there is a lot of great content that you might want to download and watch offline. There are some programs and browser extensions to do this, but we’ve found that the easiest and quickest method is a bookmarklet that was originally posted on the Google Operating System blog (it’s since been removed). It will let you download standard quality and high-definition movies as MP4 files. Also, because it’s a bookmarklet, it will work on any modern web browser, and on any operating system! Installing the bookmarket is easy – just drag and drop the Get YouTube video link below to the bookmarks bar of your browser of choice. If you’ve hidden the bookmark bar, in most browsers you can right-click on the link and save it to your bookmarks. Get YouTube video   With the bookmarklet available in your browser, go to the YouTube video that you’d like to download. Click on the Get YouTube video link in your bookmarks bar, or in the bookmarks menu, wherever you saved it earlier. You will notice some new links appear below the description of the video. If you download the standard definition file, it will save as “video.mp4” by default. However, if you download the high definition file, it will save with the same name as the title of the video. There are many methods of downloading YouTube videos…but we think this is the easiest and quickest method. You don’t have to install anything or use up resources, but you can still get a link to download an MP4 with one click. Do you use a different method to download Youtube videos? Let us know about it in the comments! javascript:(function(){if(document.getElementById(’download-youtube-video’))return;var args=null,video_title=null,video_id=null,video_hash=null;var download_code=new Array();var fmt_labels={‘18′:’standard%20MP4′,’22′:’HD%20720p’,'37′:’HD%201080p’};try{args=yt.getConfig(’SWF_ARGS’);video_title=yt.getConfig(’VIDEO_TITLE’)}catch(e){}if(args){var fmt_url_map=unescape(args['fmt_url_map']);if(fmt_url_map==”)return;video_id=args['video_id'];video_hash=args['t'];video_title=video_title.replace(/[%22\'\?\\\/\:\*%3C%3E]/g,”);var fmt=new Array();var formats=fmt_url_map.split(’,');var format;for(var i=0;i%3Cformats.length;i++){var format_elems=formats[i].split(’|');fmt[format_elems[0]]=unescape(format_elems[1])}for(format in fmt_labels){if(fmt[format]!=null){download_code.push(’%3Ca%20href=\”+(fmt[format]+’&title=’+video_title)+’\'%3E’+fmt_labels[format]+’%3C/a%3E’)}elseif(format==’18′){download_code.push(’%3Ca%20href=\’http://www.youtube.com/get_video?fmt=18&video_id=’+video_id+’&t=’+video_hash+’\'%3E’+fmt_labels[format]+’%3C/a%3E’)}}}if(video_id==null||video_hash==null)return;var div_embed=document.getElementById(’watch-embed-div’);if(div_embed){var div_download=document.createElement(’div’);div_download.innerHTML=’%3Cbr%20/%3E%3Cspan%20id=\’download-youtube-video\’%3EDownload:%20′+download_code.join(’%20|%20′)+’%3C/span%3E’;div_embed.appendChild(div_download)}})() Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Watch YouTube Videos in Cinema Style in FirefoxDownload YouTube Videos with Cheetah YouTube DownloaderStop YouTube Videos from Automatically Playing in FirefoxImprove YouTube Video Viewing in Google ChromeConvert YouTube Videos to MP3 with YouTube Downloader TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family Amazon Free Kindle for PC Download Stretch popurls.com with a Stylish Script (Firefox) OldTvShows.org – Find episodes of Hitchcock, Soaps, Game Shows and more Download Microsoft Office Help tab

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• How to Crop Pictures in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2010

  - by DigitalGeekery

  When you add pictures to your Office documents you might need to crop them to remove unwanted areas, or isolate a specific part. Today we’ll take a look at how to crop images in Office 2010. Note: We will show you examples in Word, but you can crop images in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. To insert a picture into your Office document, click the Picture button on the Insert tab. The Picture Tools format ribbon should now be active. If not, click on the image. New in Office 2010 is the ability to see the area of the photo that you are keeping in addition to what will be cropped out. On the Format tab, click Crop. Click and drag inward any of the four corners to crop from any one side. Notice you can still see the area to be cropped out is show in translucent gray. Press and hold the CTRL key while you drag a corner cropping handle inward to crop equally on all four sides. To crop equally on right and left or the top and bottom, press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the center cropping handle on either side inward. You can further adjust the cropping area by clicking and dragging the picture behind the cropping area. To accept the current dimensions and crop the photo, press escape or click anywhere outside the cropping area. You can manually crop the image to exact dimensions. This can be done by right clicking on the image and entering the dimensions in the Width and Height boxes, or in the Size group on the Format tab.   Crop to a Shape Select your photo and click Crop from the Size group on the Format tab. Select Crop to Shape and choose any of the available shapes. You photo will be cropped into that shape. Using Fit and Fill If you wish to crop a photo but fill the shape, select Fill. When you choose this option, some edges of the picture might not display but the original picture aspect ratio is maintained. If you wish to have all of the picture fit within a shape, choose Fit. The original picture aspect ratio will be maintained.   Conclusion Users moving from previous versions of Microsoft Office are sure to appreciate the improved cropping abilities in Office 2010, especially the ability to see what will and won’t be kept when you crop a photo. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Import Microsoft Access Data Into ExcelEmbed an Excel Worksheet Into PowerPoint or Word 2007Add Artistic Effects to Your Pictures in Office 2010Embed True Type Fonts in Word and PowerPoint 2007 DocumentsChange The Default Color Scheme In Office 2007 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox Filevo is a Cool File Hosting & Sharing Site Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate

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• Don&rsquo;t Kill the Password

  - by Anthony Trudeau

  A week ago Mr. Honan from Wired.com penned an article on security he titled “Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore.” He asserts that the password is not effective and a new solution is needed. Unfortunately, Mr. Honan was a victim of hacking. As a result he has a victim’s vendetta. His conclusion is ill conceived even though there are smatterings of truth and good advice. The password is a security barrier much like a lock on your door. In of itself it’s not guaranteeing protection. You can have a good password akin to a steel reinforced door with the best lock money can buy, or you can have a poor password like “password” which is like a sliding lock like on a bathroom stall. But, just like in the real world a lock isn’t always enough. You can have a lock, security system, video cameras, guard dogs, and even armed security guards; but none of that guarantees your protection. Even top secret government agencies can be breached by someone who is just that good (as dramatized in movies like Mission Impossible). And that’s the crux of it. There are real hackers out there that are that good. Killer coding ninja monkeys do exist! We still have locks on our doors, because they still serve their role. Passwords are no different. Security doesn’t end with the password. Most people would agree that stuffing your mattress with your life savings isn’t a good idea even if you have the best locks and security system. Most people agree its safest to have the money in a bank. Essentially this is compartmentalization. Compartmentalization extends to the online world as well. You’re at risk if your online banking accounts are linked to the same account as your social networks. This is especially true if you’re lackadaisical about linking those social networks to outside sources including apps. The object here is to minimize the damage that can be done. An attacker should not be able to get into your bank account, because they breached your Twitter account. It’s time to prioritize once you’ve compartmentalized. This simply means deciding how much security you want for the different compartments which I’ll call security zones. Social networking applications like Facebook provide a lot of security features. However, security features are almost always a compromise with privacy and convenience. It’s similar to an engineering adage, but in this case it’s security, convenience, and privacy – pick two. For example, you might use a safe instead of bank to store your money, because the convenience of having your money closer or the privacy of not having the bank records is more important than the added security. The following are lists of security do’s and don’ts (these aren’t meant to be exhaustive and each could be an article in of themselves): Security Do’s: Use strong passwords based on a phrase Use encryption whenever you can (e.g. HTTPS in Facebook) Use a firewall (and learn to use it properly) Configure security on your router (including port blocking) Keep your operating system patched Make routine backups of important files Realize that if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product Security Don’ts Link accounts if at all possible Reuse passwords across your security zones Use real answers for security questions (e.g. mother’s maiden name) Trust anything you download Ignore message boxes shown by your system or browser Forget to test your backups Share your primary email indiscriminately Only you can decide your comfort level between convenience, privacy, and security. Attackers are going to find exploits in software. Software is complex and depends on other software. The exploits are the responsibility of the software company. But your security is always your responsibility. Complete security is an illusion. But, there is plenty you can do to minimize the risk online just like you do in the physical world. Be safe and enjoy what the Internet has to offer. I expect passwords to be necessary just as long as locks.

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• Add Spell Checking to Your Favorite Windows Apps

  - by Asian Angel

  Some but not all Windows apps have built-in spell checking of some sort. If you want to add spell checking to all of your apps (or a select group) then join us as we look at tinySpell. Note: There is a paid version of this software (tinySpell+) available as well for those who want extra functionality. tinySpell in Action The installation process is simple and straightforward…as soon as you have finished installing tinySpell you will see your new “System Tray Icon”. You can see tinySpell’s “Context Menu” here. Before going any further you may want to have a look through the settings to make any desired display modifications. During our tests we found it very helpful to modify the Spelling Tip options…it will make for a much nicer and easier to read display when you have a spelling error. Clicking on the Applications… Command in the Context Menu will bring up the following window. You can really finesse how active tinySpell will be here: Create a special list of apps that tinySpell will not monitor Create a custom list of apps that tinySpell will monitor If you have any particular or unique words that you would like to add to tinySpell’s Dictionary ahead of time you can do that by clicking on the Dictionary… Command in the Context Menu. Want to check the spelling of a word ahead of time or find that you are just curious about how it is spelled? Click on Open spelling window in the Context Menu to access a special spell check window. For our example we misspelled “spelling” on purpose…notice that the word has turned red. Clicking on the Check Mark Button will open a drop-down list with suggested spellings for the word that you are inquiring about. Click on the appropriate listing if you intend to copy and paste the word. Next we moved on to Notepad. As we were typing tinySpell alerted us when we typed the word “app”. You will hear a small default system sound and see a small popup as shown here if tinySpell thinks a word has been misspelled. The System Tray Icon will also change to a yellow color. You can access the list of suggested spellings by either left clicking on the small popup or the System Tray Icon. If the word is a properly spelled “abbreviation” (or special/custom) like our word here you can select Add to dictionary. Going further in our text document we once again purposely misspelled “spelling”… Left clicking on the popup gave us access to the drop-down list of suggested spellings… And clicking on the correct spelling automatically inserted it into our document in place of the misspelled word. As you can see here tinySpell was even monitoring file names when we went to save the document. Very thorough indeed. Conclusion If your favorite app does not have built-in spell checking, then tinySpell will definitely be a welcome (and very helpful) addition to your Windows system. They offer a portable version as well so you can take it with you to any PC. Links Download tinySpell *Note: The download link is located approximately half-way down the page. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Tip: Spell Check Firefox Text Input FieldsEdit the Windows Live Writer Custom DictionaryAccess Your Favorite Google Services in Chrome the Easy WayLaunch External Apps from FirefoxNinite Makes Installing Software Incredibly Simple TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app

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• Remove Programs from the Open With Menu in Explorer

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to clean up the Open with menu in Windows Explorer?  Here’s how you can remove program entries you don’t want in this menu on any version of Windows. Have you ever accidently opened an mp3 with Notepad, or a zip file with Word?  If so, you’re also likely irritated that these programs now show up in the Open with menu in Windows Explorer every time you select one of those files.  Whenever you open a file type with a particular program, Windows will add an entry for it to the Open with menu.  Usually this is helpful, but it can also clutter up the menu with wrong entries. On our computer, we have tried to open a PDF file with Word and Notepad, neither which can actually view the PDF itself.  Let’s remove these entries.  To do this, we need to remove the registry entries for these programs.  Enter regedit in your Start menu search or in the Run command to open the Registry editor. Backup your registry first just in case, so you can roll-back any changes you make if you accidently delete the wrong value.  Now, browse to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \ Explorer \FileExts\ Here you’ll see a list of all the file extensions that are registered on your computer. Browse to the file extension you wish to edit, click the white triangle beside it to see the subfolders, and select OpenWithList.  In our test, we want to change the programs associated with PDF files, so we select the OpenWithList folder under .pdf. Notice the names of the programs under the Data column on the right.  Right-click the value for the program you don’t want to see in the Open With menu and select Delete. Click Yes at the prompt to confirm that you want to delete this value. Repeat these steps with all the programs you want to remove from this file type’s Open with menu.  You can go ahead and remove entries from other file types as well if you wish. Once you’ve removed the entries you didn’t want to see, check out the Open with menu in Explorer again.  Now it will be much more streamlined and will only show the programs you want to see. Conclusion This simple trick can help you keep your Open with menu tidy, and only show the programs you want in the list.  It can be irritating to accidently open files in programs that can’t even read them.  This trick works in all versions of Windows, including 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Remove ISP Text or Corporate Branding from Internet Explorer Title BarRemove the Username From the Start Menu in XPKeep Start Menu From Closing After Opening ApplicationsRemove PartyPoker (Or Other Items) from the Internet Explorer Tools MenuUninstall, Disable, or Delete Internet Explorer 8 from Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes Windows Firewall with Advanced Security – How To Guides Sculptris 1.0, 3D Drawing app

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• Travelling MVP #4: DevReach 2012

  - by DigiMortal

  Our next stop after Varna was Sofia where DevReach happens. DevReach is one of my favorite conferences in Europe because of sensible prices and strong speakers line-up. Also they have VIP-party after conference and this is good event to meet people you don’t see every day, have some discussion with speakers and find new friends. Our trip from Varna to Sofia took about 6.5 hours on bus. As I was tired from last evening it wasn’t problem for me as I slept half the trip. After smoking pause in Velike Tarnovo I watched movies from bus TV. We had supper later in city center Happy’s – place with good meat dishes and nice service. And next day it begun…. :) DevReach 2012 DevReach is held usually in Arena Mladost. It’s near airport and Telerik office. The event is organized by local MVP Martin Kulov together with Telerik. Two days of sessions with strong speakers is good reason enough for me to go to visit some event. Some topics covered by sessions: Windows 8 development web development SharePoint Windows Azure Windows Phone architecture Visual Studio Practically everybody can find some interesting session in every time slot. As the Arena is not huge it is very easy to go from one sessions to another if selected session for time slot is not what you expected. On the second floor of Arena there are many places where you can eat. There are simple chunk-food places like Burger King and also some restaurants. If you are hungry you will find something for your taste for sure. Also you can buy beer if it is too hot outside :) Weather was very good for October – practically Estonian summer – 25C and over. Sessions I visited Here is the list of sessions I visited at DevReach 2012: DevReach 2012 Opening & Welcome Messsage with Martin Kulov and Stephen Forte Principled N-Tier Solution Design with Steve Smith Data Patterns for the Cloud with Brian Randell .NET Garbage Collection Performance Tips with Sasha Goldshtein Building Secured, Scalable, Low-latency Web Applications with the Windows Azure Platform with Ido Flatow It’s a Knockout! MVVM Style Web Applications with Charles Nurse Web Application Architecture – Lessons Learned from Adobe Brackets with Brian Rinaldi Demystifying Visual Studio 2012 Performance Tools with Martin Kulov SPvNext – A Look At All the Exciting And New Features In SharePoint with Sahil Malik Portable Libraries – Why You Should Care with Lino Tadros I missed some sessions because of some death march projects that are going and that I have to coordinate but it was not big loss as I had time to walk around in session venue neighborhood and see Sofia Business Park. Next year again! I will be there again next year and hopefully more guys from Estonia will join me. I think it’s good idea to take short vacation for DevReach time and do things like we did this time – Bucharest, Varna, Sofia. It’s only good idea to plan some more free time so we are not very much in hurry and also we have no work stuff to do on the trip. This far this trip has been one of best trips I have organized and I will go and meet all those guys in this region again! :)

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