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• Twisted + SQLAlchemy and the best way to do it.

  - by Khorkrak

  So I'm writing yet another Twisted based daemon. It'll have an xmlrpc interface as usual so I can easily communicate with it and have other processes interchange data with it as needed. This daemon needs to access a database. We've been using SQL Alchemy in place of hard coding SQL strings for our latest projects - those mostly done for web apps in Pylons. We'd like to do the same for this app and re-use library code that makes use of SQL Alchemy. So what to do? Well of course since that library was written for use in a Pylons app it's all the straight-forward blocking style code that everyone is accustomed to and all of the non-blocking is magically handled by Pylons via threading, thread locals, scoped sessions and so on. So now for Twisted I guess I'm a bit stuck. I could: Just write the sql I need directly if it's minimal and use the dbapi pool in twisted to do runInteractions etc when I need to hit the db. Use the objects and inherently blocking methods in our library and block now and then in my Twisted daemon. Bah. Use sAsync which was last updated in 2008 and kind of reuse the models we have defined already but not really and it does address code that needs to work in Pylons either. Does that even work with the latest version SQL Alchemy? Who knows. That project looked great though - why was it apparently abandoned? Spawn a separate subprocess and have it deal with the library code and all it's blocking, the results being returned back to my daemon when ready as objects marshalled via YAML over xmlrpc. Use deferToThread and then expunge the objects returned having made sure to do eager loads so that I have all my stuff that I might need. Seems kind of ugha to me. I'm also stuck using Python 2.5.4 atm so no 2.6 yet and I don't think I can just do an import from future to get access to the cool new multiprocessing module stuff in there. That's OK though I guess as we've got dealing with interprocess communication down pretty well. So I'm leaning towards option 4 mostly as that would avoid the mortal sin of logic duplication with option 1 while also staying the heck away from threads. Any better ideas?

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• Messing with the stack in assembly and c++

  - by user246100

  I want to do the following: I have a function that is not mine (it really doesn't matter here but just to say that I don't have control over it) and that I want to patch so that it calls a function of mine, preserving the arguments list (jumping is not an option). What I'm trying to do is, to put the stack pointer as it was before that function is called and then call mine (like going back and do again the same thing but with a different function). This doesn't work straight because the stack becomes messed up. I believe that when I do the call it replaces the return address. So, I did a step to preserve the return address saving it in a globally variable and it works but this is not ok because I want it to resist to recursitivy and you know what I mean. Anyway, i'm a newbie in assembly so that's why I'm here. Please, don't tell me about already made software to do this because I want to make things my way. Of course, this code has to be compiler and optimization independent. My code (If it is bigger than what is acceptable please tell me how to post it): // A function that is not mine but to which I have access and want to patch so that it calls a function of mine with its original arguments void real(int a,int b,int c,int d) { } // A function that I want to be called, receiving the original arguments void receiver(int a,int b,int c,int d) { printf("Arguments %d %d %d %d\n",a,b,c,d); } long helper; // A patch to apply in the "real" function and on which I will call "receiver" with the same arguments that "real" received. __declspec( naked ) void patch() { _asm { // This first two instructions save the return address in a global variable // If I don't save and restore, the program won't work correctly. // I want to do this without having to use a global variable mov eax, [ebp+4] mov helper,eax push ebp mov ebp, esp // Make that the stack becomes as it were before the real function was called add esp, 8 // Calls our receiver call receiver mov esp, ebp pop ebp // Restores the return address previously saved mov eax, helper mov [ebp+4],eax ret } } int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[]) { FlushInstructionCache(GetCurrentProcess(),&real,5); DWORD oldProtection; VirtualProtect(&real,5,PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE,&oldProtection); // Patching the real function to go to my patch ((unsigned char*)real)[0] = 0xE9; *((long*)((long)(real) + sizeof(unsigned char))) = (char*)patch - (char*)real - 5; // calling real function (I'm just calling it with inline assembly because otherwise it seems to works as if it were un patched // that is strange but irrelevant for this _asm { push 666 push 1337 push 69 push 100 call real add esp, 16 } return 0; }

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• NVIDIA graphics driver in Ubuntu 12.04

  - by user924501

  So my overall goal is that I want to be able to code with CUDA enabled applications. However, upon many days of searching, using installation walkthroughs, and reinstalling countless times after driver failure... I'm now here as a last resort. I cannot get Ubuntu 12.04 LTS to install the NVIDIA 295.59 driver for my GeForce GT 540M NVIDIA graphics card. My main system specs is as follows... (I believe having the Intel processor may be the problem) DELL Laptop XPS L502X Intel® Core™ i7-2620M CPU @ 2.70GHz × 4 Intel Integrated Graphics 64 bit NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M Ubuntu 12.04 LTS All other specs are irrelevant unless I forgot something? Methods Tried: aptitude install nvidia-current (all packages) Results: Nothing really happened. Nothing in the additional drivers menu appeared, nor was the NVIDIA X Server settings application allowing access because it thought there was no NVIDIA X Server installed. Downloaded driver from nvidia.com. Set nomodeset in the grub boot menu through /boot/grub/grub.cfg Went to console and turned off lightdm. Installed the driver, but it said the pre-install failed? (mean anything?) Started up lightdm again. Results: NVIDIA X Server settings still didn't notice it. Even tried to do nvidia-xconfig multiple times. I also went into the config file to make sure the driver setting said "nvidia". aptitude install nvidia-173 (all packages) Results: Couldn't find the xorg-video-abi-10 virtual package. It was nowhere to be found and the ubuntu forums everywhere had no answers. Lots of people were having this problem. This is easily done in windows, simply download the driver and debug in visual studio with no problems at all. I'd like clear step-by-step instructions on how I should go about this. I'm relatively new to linux but I can find my way around pretty well so you aren't talking to a straight-up beginner. Also, if you think another thread may have the answer please post because I was having a hard time looking for my specific type of problem. TL;DR I want to have access to my GPU so I can code with CUDA while in Ubuntu 12.04 on my 64 bit laptop that also has Intel integrated graphics on the processor. Solution: sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

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• Android Progress Dialog not showing

  - by ilomambo

  This is the handler, in the main Thread, which shows and dismisses a progress dialog. public static final int SHOW = 0; public static final int DISMISS = 1; public Handler pdHandler = new Handler() { @Override public void handleMessage(Message msg) { Log.i(TAG, "+ handleMessage(msg:" + msg + ")"); switch(msg.what) { case SHOW: pd = ProgressDialog.show(LogViewer.this, "", getText(R.string.loading_msg), true); break; case DISMISS: if(pd != null) { pd.dismiss(); pd = null; } break; } } }; The message to show the progress is: pdHandler.sendMessage(pdHandler.obtainMessage(SHOW)); The message to dismiss it is: pdHandler.sendMessage(pdHandler.obtainMessage(DISMISS)); It works well when I call it before I start an AsyncTask, the AsyncTask onPostExecute() dismisses it. But when it runs within a runnable (runOnUiThread), the dialog does not show. Examining the pd variable on the debugger, it shows that is is created, it is running and it is visible, but in practice it is not visible. Any suggestion? UPDATE: I did the obvious test I should have done in the first place. I commented the DISMISS message. And the progress dialog did show up. It appeared too late, after the runnable was finished. I undestand now that the DISMISS message did dismiss the not-yet-visible ProgressDialog, that's why I did not see it. The question becomes now: I need the ProgressDialog to show BEFORE the runnable code is executed. And it is not so straight forward. My call hierarchy is like this: onScrollEventChanged --> runOnUiThread ( --> checkScrollLimits --> if need to scroll show ProgressDialog "Loading" get new data into table dismiss ProgressDIalog ) I tried something like this: onScrollEventChanged --> checkScrollLimits --> if need to scroll show ProgressDialog "Loading" --> runOnUiThread ( get new data into table dismiss ProgressDIalog ) But still the dismiss message got there before the ProgressDialog could show. According to Logcat there is a five second interval between the arrival of the SHOW message and the arrival of the DISMISS message. UPDATE II: I though I will use the isShowing() method of ProgressDIalog pd = ProgressDialog.show(...) while(!pd.isShowing()); But it does not help at all, it returns true even if the dialog is not showing yet.

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• Javascript problem when setting src for img element in FireFox - string parsing error?

  - by Kevin

  I'm having problems with image's on the page. I'm using Javascript to create the elements, and in FireFox it seems the string that I'm using to set the innerHTML is not being parsed correctly. I'll see this when the server page is requested with invalid GET variables. They look like this (from the PHP script's error handler): GET[] = Array ( [shrink] => true [file_id] => \' file_id \' [refresh] => \' now.getTime() \' ) This only happens for about 5% of requests, which is making it difficult to solve. I have been able to reproduce this myself in FireFox, and Firebug will show that the URL it is trying to fetch is: https://www.domain.com/secure/%27%20+%20image_src%20+%20%27 I read somewhere that it might be related to FireFox prefetching content (can't find it googling now), since it seems to only happen on FireFox. Disabling prefetching in about:config does prevent the problem from occurring, but I'm looking for another solution or workaround that doesn't involve end users changing their configurations. Here's the specifics and code: I have an empty table cell on an HTML page. In JQuery's $(document).ready() function for the page, I used JQuery's $.ajax() method to get some data from the server about what should be in that cell. It returns the file_id variable, which for simplicity I just set below. It then sets the empty table cell to have an image with src that points to a page that will serve the image file depending on what file_id is passed. This part of the code was JQuery originally, so I changed it to straight Javascript but that didn't help anything. //get data about image from server //this is actually done through JQuery's $.ajax() but you get the idea var file_id = 12; //create the src for the img //the refresh is to prevent the image from being cached ever, since the page's //javascript will be it changes //during the course of the page's life var now = new Date(); var image_src = 'serve_image.php?shrink=true&file_id=' + file_id + '&refresh=' + now.getTime(); //create document.getElementById('image_cell').innerHTML = '<A target="_blank" href="serve_image.php?file_id=' + file_id + '">' + '<IMG id=image_element src="' + image_src + '" alt="Loading...">' + '</A>';` Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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• How to calculate where bullet hits

  - by lkjoel

  I have been trying to write an FPS in C/X11/OpenGL, but the issue that I have encountered is with calculating where the bullet hits. I have used a horrible technique, and it only sometimes works: pos size, p; size.x = 0.1; size.z = 0.1; // Since the game is technically top-down (but in a 3D perspective) // Positions are in X/Z, no Y float f; // Counter float d = FIRE_MAX + 1 /* Shortest Distance */, d1 /* Distance being calculated */; x = 0; // Index of object to hit for (f = 0.0; f < FIRE_MAX; f += .01) { // Go forwards p.x = player->pos.x + f * sin(toRadians(player->rot.x)); p.z = player->pos.z - f * cos(toRadians(player->rot.x)); // Get all objects that collide with the current position of the bullet short* objs = _colDetectGetObjects(p, size, objects); for (i = 0; i < MAX_OBJECTS; i++) { if (objs[i] == -1) { continue; } // Check the distance between the object and the player d1 = sqrt( pow((objects[i].pos.x - player->pos.x), 2) + pow((objects[i].pos.z - player->pos.z), 2)); // If it's closer, set it as the object to hit if (d1 < d) { x = i; d = d1; } } // If there was an object, hit it if (x > 0) { hit(&objects[x], FIRE_DAMAGE, explosions, currtime); break; } } It just works by making a for-loop and calculating any objects that might collide with where the bullet currently is. This, of course, is very slow, and sometimes doesn't even work. What would be the preferred way to calculate where the bullet hits? I have thought of making a line and seeing if any objects collide with that line, but I have no idea how to do that kind of collision detection. EDIT: I guess my question is this: How do I calculate the nearest object colliding in a line (that might not be a straight 45/90 degree angle)? Or are there any simpler methods of calculating where the bullet hits? The bullet is sort of like a laser, in the sense that gravity does not affect it (writing an old-school game, so I don't want it to be too realistic)

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• jQuery .ajax doesn't load Google Adsense

  - by Sahas Katta

  Hey Everyone, Just ran into an odd issue. I have a simple WP loop and instead of regular NEXT/BACK pages, I use a jQuery powered $.ajax get to append the following page to the current page. It works perfectly. However, I choose to insert a Google Adsense unit every 5th story. Unfortunately, the Adsense unit that is brought in with a second, third, or etc page load don't render. Here's my loop: 10 stories per page, Adsense after the 4th one. <?php $count = 0; ?> <?php if ( have_posts() ) : ?> <?php while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?> <?php $count++; ?> <div class="card"> <div class="title"> <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><span><?php the_title(); ?></span></a> </div> </div> <?php if ($count == 4) : ?> <div class="card"> <!-- ADSENSE CODE HERE (Straight from Google Adsense Panel, no tweaks.) --> </div> <?php endif; ?> As for my jQuery script, here's how that looks: $.ajax({ url: nextPageLink, type: 'GET', success: function(data) { $(data).find('#reviews .card').appendTo('#reviews'); }, error: function(xhr, status, error) { $('.loadination').addClass('hidden'); } }); Keep in mind, I just simplified my code to give you guys an example. The code above was just the essentials. All the loading stuff works perfectly. Images, text, links, etc all load just fine. However, the Google Adsense unit doesn't. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks and Happy Holidays!

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• CUDA threads for inner loop

  - by Manolete

  I've got this kernel __global__ void kernel1(int keep, int include, int width, int* d_Xco, int* d_Xnum, bool* d_Xvalid, float* d_Xblas) { int i, k; i = threadIdx.x + blockIdx.x * blockDim.x; if(i < keep){ for(k = 0; k < include ; k++){ int val = (d_Xblas[i*include + k] >= 1e5); int aux = d_Xnum[i]; d_Xblas[i*include + k] *= (!val); d_Xco[i*width + aux] = k; d_Xnum[i] +=val; d_Xvalid[i*include + k] = (!val); } } } launched with int keep = 9000; int include = 23000; int width = 0.2*include; int threads = 192; int blocks = keep+threads-1/threads; kernel1 <<< blocks,threads >>>( keep, include, width, d_Xco, d_Xnum, d_Xvalid, d_Xblas ); This kernel1 works fine but it is obviously not totally optimized. I thought it would be straight forward to eliminate the inner loop k but for some reason it doesn't work fine. My first idea was: __global__ void kernel2(int keep, int include, int width, int* d_Xco, int* d_Xnum, bool* d_Xvalid, float* d_Xblas) { int i, k; i = threadIdx.x + blockIdx.x * blockDim.x; k = threadIdx.y + blockIdx.y * blockDim.y; if((i < keep) && (k < include) ) { int val = (d_Xblas[i*include + k] >= 1e5); int aux = d_Xnum[i]; d_Xblas[i*include + k] *= (float)(!val); d_Xco[i*width + aux] = k; atomicAdd(&d_Xnum[i], val); d_Xvalid[i*include + k] = (!val); } } launched with a 2D grid: int keep = 9000; int include = 23000; int width = 0.2*include; int th = 32; dim3 threads(th,th); dim3 blocks (keep+threads.x-1/threads.x, include+threads.y-1/threads.y); kernel2 <<< blocks,threads >>>( keep, include, width, d_Xco, d_Xnum, d_Xvalid, d_Xblas ); Although I believe the idea is fine, it does not work and I am running out of ideas here. Could you please help me out here? I also think the problem could be in d_Xco which stores the position k in a smaller array , so the order matters, but I can't think of any other way of doing it...

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• javascript ul button dropdown crashes after if doing more than 1 button

  - by Apprentice Programmer

  So i have a button drop down list that i want users to select a choice, and basically the button will return the users selection.Pretty straight forward, tested on jsFiddle and works great. Using ruby on rails btw, so i'm not sure if it might conflicting the way rails handle javascript actions. Heres the code: <%= form_for(@user, :html => {:class => 'form-horizontal'}) do |f| %> <fieldset> <p>Do you have experience in Business? If yes, select one of the following: <div class="input-group"> <div class="input-group-btn btn-group"> <button type="button" class="btn btn-default dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">Select one <span class="caret"></span></button> <ul class="dropdown-menu"> <li ><a href="#">Entrepreneurship</a></li> <li ><a href="#">Investments</a></li> <li ><a href="#">Management</a></li> <li class="divider"></li> <li ><a href="#">All of the Above</a></li> </ul> </div><!-- /btn-group --> <%= f.text_field :years_business , :class => "form-control", :placeholder => "Years of experience" %> </div> Now there are 2 more of these, and basically what happens is that if I select an item for the first time from the dropdown list, everything works great. But the moment I select the same button/or new button, the page immediately kind of refreshes, they selected value will not show up after the list drops down and user selects a value. I viewed the page source and added additional javascript src and types, but still doesnt work. the jquery code: jQuery(function ($) { $('.input-group-btn .dropdown-menu > li:not(.divider)').click(function(){ $(this).closest('ul').prev().text($(this).text()) }) }); Any suggestions what is causing the problem?? The jsfiddle link is here: http://jsfiddle.net/w4s8u/7/

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• allignment issue of div tag

  - by Quasar the space thing

  I am trying to create a web page where on click of a button I can add div tags. What I thought to do was that I'll create two div tags within a single div so that over all presentation will be uniform and similar to a table having two columns and multiple rows and the first column contains only label's and second column will contain textbox. Here is the JS file : var counter = 0; function create_div(type){ var dynDiv = document.createElement("div"); dynDiv.id = "divid_"+counter; dynDiv.class="main"; document.body.appendChild(dynDiv); question(); if(type == 'ADDTEXTBOX'){ ADDTEXTBOX(); } counter=counter+1; } function question(){ var question_div = document.createElement("div"); question_div.class="question"; question_div.id = "question_div_"+counter; var Question = prompt("Enter The Question here:", ""); var node=document.createTextNode(Question); question_div.appendChild(node); var element=document.getElementById("divid_"+counter); element.appendChild(question_div); } function ADDTEXTBOX(){ var answer_div = document.createElement("div"); answer_div.class="answer"; answer_div.id = "answer_div_"+counter; var answer_tag = document.createElement("input"); answer_tag.id = "answer_tag_"+counter; answer_tag.setAttribute("type", "text"); answer_tag.setAttribute("name", "textbox"); answer_div.appendChild(answer_tag); var element=document.getElementById("divid_"+counter); element.appendChild(answer_div); } Here is the css file : .question { width: 40%; height: auto; float: left; display: inline-block; text-align: justify; word-wrap:break-word; } .answer { padding-left:10%; width: 40%; height: auto; float: left; overflow: auto; word-wrap:break-word; } .main { width: auto; background-color:gray; height: auto; overflow: auto; word-wrap:break-word; } My problem is that the code is working properly but both the divisions are not coming in a straight line. after the first div prints on the screen the second divisions comes in another line. How can I make both the div's come in the same line ? Thank You. PS : should I stick with the current idea of using div or should I try some other approach ? like tables ?

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• How do I troubleshoot a "Bad Request" in Apache2?

  - by Nick

  I have a PHP application that loads for all URLs except the home page. Visiting "https://my.site.com/" produces a "Bad Request" error message. Any other URL, for example, "https://my.site.com/SomePage/" works just fine. It's only the home page that does not work. All pages use mod_rewrite and get routed through a single dispatch script, Director.php. Accessing Director.php directly also produces the "Bad Request" error. BUT- ALL of the other requests go through Director, and they all work just fine, (excluding the home page), so it can't be an issue with the Director.php script? OR can it? I'm not seeing anything in the Apache2 error log, and I'm not seeing any PHP errors in the PHP Error log. I've tried changing the first line of Director.php to read: echo 'test'; exit(); But I still get a "Bad Request". This is the rewrite log for a request to the home page: 123.123.123.123 - - [18/Feb/2011:05:38:49 +0000] [my.site.com/sid#7f273d77cb80][rid#7f273da48b28/initial] (2) init rewrite engine with requested uri / 123.123.123.123 - - [18/Feb/2011:05:38:49 +0000] [my.site.com/sid#7f273d77cb80][rid#7f273da48b28/initial] (3) applying pattern '^/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]+)/$' to uri '/' 123.123.123.123 - - [18/Feb/2011:05:38:49 +0000] [my.site.com/sid#7f273d77cb80][rid#7f273da48b28/initial] (3) applying pattern '^/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]+)/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]+)/$' to uri '/' 123.123.123.123 - - [18/Feb/2011:05:38:49 +0000] [my.site.com/sid#7f273d77cb80][rid#7f273da48b28/initial] (1) pass through / 123.123.123.123 - - [18/Feb/2011:05:38:49 +0000] [my.site.com/sid#7f273d77cb80][rid#7f273da5a298/subreq] (2) init rewrite engine with requested uri /Director.php 123.123.123.123 - - [18/Feb/2011:05:38:49 +0000] [my.site.com/sid#7f273d77cb80][rid#7f273da5a298/subreq] (2) rewrite '/Director.php' - '-[L,NC]' 123.123.123.123 - - [18/Feb/2011:05:38:49 +0000] [my.site.com/sid#7f273d77cb80][rid#7f273da5a298/subreq] (3) applying pattern '^/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]+)/$' to uri '-[L,NC]' 123.123.123.123 - - [18/Feb/2011:05:38:49 +0000] [my.site.com/sid#7f273d77cb80][rid#7f273da5a298/subreq] (3) applying pattern '^/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]+)/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]+)/$' to uri '-[L,NC]' 123.123.123.123 - - [18/Feb/2011:05:38:49 +0000] [my.site.com/sid#7f273d77cb80][rid#7f273da5a298/subreq] (2) local path result: -[L,NC] Apache2 Access Log my.site.com:443 123.123.123.123 - - [18/Feb/2011:05:44:19 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 400 3223 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100723 Ubuntu/10.04 (lucid) Firefox/3.6.8" Any ideas? I don't know what else to try? UPDATE: Here's my vhost conf: RewriteEngine On RewriteLog "/LiveWebs/mysite.com/rewrite.log" RewriteLogLevel 5 # Dont rewite Crons folder ReWriteRule ^/Crons/ - [L,NC] ReWriteRule ^/phpmyadmin - [L,NC] ReWriteRule .php$ -[L,NC] # this is the problem!! RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/images/ [NC] RewriteRule ^/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]+)/$ /Director.php?rt=$1 [L,QSA] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/images/ [NC] RewriteRule ^/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]+)/([a-zA-Z0-9\-\_]+)/$ /Director.php?rt=$1&action=$2 [L,QSA] The problem is the line "ReWriteRule .php$ -[L,NC]". When I comment it out, the home page loads. The question is, how do I make URLS that actually end in .php go straight through (without breaking the home page)?

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• CPU Temperature sensor wrong?

  - by Matias Nino

  Everest Ultimate is suddenly telling me that the CPU temperature (and core temps) for my E6850 Core 2 Duo is 72 degrees Celsius. When I stress-test the machine, the temp goes up to 91 degrees and the CPU actually throttles. System remains stable though. For over a year now, my CPU has run very cool (40's) with a large commercial copper heatsink/fan that I bought separately. To top it off, I removed the cover of the box and felt the cpu heatsink and it wasn't even warm. Is there such a thing as a CPU temp sensor showing the wrong readings? Any tips would help. UPDATE #1 Temp is also just as high in BIOS. So that leads me to believe it's a CPU seating issue (even though I used thermal paste to seat it two years ago when I built the machine) UPDATE #2 Well. I removed the heatsink and cleaned off the original thermal paste (which was somewhat crusty). I polished the surface, re-applied some new paste, and reseated the heat sink. After powering it up, there was no noticeable change in the temp - ideling at 74. Ran the stress test and it went up to 94 degrees before being 100% throttled. I let it sit at 94 degrees for 20 minutes straight and the computer didn't even flinch. I then immediately shut it off and opened the case and felt around. The heatsink was completely cold to the touch. Even the copper rods were cold. The area near contact with the CPU was slightly warm but not hot to touch. Then I ran REALTEMP, which is supposedly more accurate and it told me the CPU was at 104 degrees. (LOL) At this point, I'm thinking no doubt the cpu's sensor is wrong. Sidenote: the BIOS has the latest version so no option to flash there. Reverting hasn't been known to help from what I've read. What pisses me off is the false temps force the CPU to artificially throttle from 3GHz down to 2GHz and my CPU fan is cranking at full force all the time. Should I call intel and tell them to send me another E6850? SOLUTION UPDATE I switched the processor out with another one and got the same obscene temperatures with the new processor followed by a heatsink that was cool to touch. My suspicion in the heatsink was suddenly renewed. I swapped it out with the stock heatsink/fan and lo and behold the temperatures returned to the normal 35C-50C. Even though the thermal paste was visibly flattened out every time I removed it, it looks like the heatsink was still not pressing hard enough on the CPU to effectively conduct the heat. The heatsink is a Masscool 8Wa741, which screws into a standard position on a mount on the back of the MOBO. Only thing I can surmise after 2 years of use was that, over time, the heatsink pressure on the CPU gave way until the heat began to be ineffectively conducted. Lessons learned: Intel CPU's can run SUPER HOT (upwards of 95C) and still be stable. Heatsink's need to be VERY firmly pressed against the CPU to conduct heat.

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• Cisco ASA 5505 site to site IPSEC VPN won't route from multiple LANs

  - by franklundy

  Hi I've set up a standard site to site VPN between 2 ASA 5505s (using the wizard in ASDM) and have the VPN working fine for traffic between Site A and Site B on the directly connected LANs. But this VPN is actually to be used for data originating on LAN subnets that are one hop away from the directly connected LANs. So actually there is another router connected to each ASA (LAN side) that then route to two completely different LAN ranges, where the clients and servers reside. At the moment, any traffic that gets to the ASA that has not originated from the directly connected LAN gets sent straight to the default gateway, and not through the VPN. I've tried adding the additional subnets to the "Protected Networks" on the VPN, but that has no effect. I have also tried adding a static route to each ASA trying to point the traffic to the other side, but again this hasn't worked. Here is the config for one of the sites. This works for traffic to/from the 192.168.144.x subnets perfectly. What I need is to be able to route traffic from 10.1.0.0/24 to 10.2.0.0/24 for example. ASA Version 8.0(3) ! hostname Site1 enable password ** encrypted names name 192.168.144.4 Site2 ! interface Vlan1 nameif inside security-level 100 ip address 192.168.144.2 255.255.255.252 ! interface Vlan2 nameif outside security-level 0 ip address 10.78.254.70 255.255.255.252 (this is a private WAN circuit) ! interface Ethernet0/0 switchport access vlan 2 ! interface Ethernet0/1 ! interface Ethernet0/2 ! interface Ethernet0/3 ! interface Ethernet0/4 ! interface Ethernet0/5 ! interface Ethernet0/6 ! interface Ethernet0/7 ! passwd ** encrypted ftp mode passive access-list inside_access_in extended permit ip any any access-list outside_access_in extended permit icmp any any echo-reply access-list outside_1_cryptomap extended permit ip 192.168.144.0 255.255.255.252 Site2 255.255.255.252 access-list inside_nat0_outbound extended permit ip 192.168.144.0 255.255.255.252 Site2 255.255.255.252 pager lines 24 logging enable logging asdm informational mtu inside 1500 mtu outside 1500 icmp unreachable rate-limit 1 burst-size 1 asdm image disk0:/asdm-603.bin no asdm history enable arp timeout 14400 global (outside) 1 interface nat (inside) 0 access-list inside_nat0_outbound nat (inside) 1 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 access-group inside_access_in in interface inside access-group outside_access_in in interface outside route outside 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.78.254.69 1 timeout xlate 3:00:00 timeout conn 1:00:00 half-closed 0:10:00 udp 0:02:00 icmp 0:00:02 timeout sunrpc 0:10:00 h323 0:05:00 h225 1:00:00 mgcp 0:05:00 mgcp-pat 0:05:00 timeout sip 0:30:00 sip_media 0:02:00 sip-invite 0:03:00 sip-disconnect 0:02:00 timeout uauth 0:05:00 absolute dynamic-access-policy-record DfltAccessPolicy aaa authentication ssh console LOCAL http server enable http 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 outside http 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 inside no snmp-server location no snmp-server contact snmp-server enable traps snmp authentication linkup linkdown coldstart crypto ipsec transform-set ESP-3DES-SHA esp-3des esp-sha-hmac crypto map outside_map 1 match address outside_1_cryptomap crypto map outside_map 1 set pfs crypto map outside_map 1 set peer 10.78.254.66 crypto map outside_map 1 set transform-set ESP-3DES-SHA crypto map outside_map interface outside crypto isakmp enable outside crypto isakmp policy 10 authentication pre-share encryption 3des hash sha group 2 lifetime 86400 no crypto isakmp nat-traversal telnet timeout 5 ssh 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 outside ssh timeout 5 console timeout 0 management-access inside threat-detection basic-threat threat-detection statistics port threat-detection statistics protocol threat-detection statistics access-list group-policy DfltGrpPolicy attributes vpn-idle-timeout none username enadmin password * encrypted privilege 15 tunnel-group 10.78.254.66 type ipsec-l2l tunnel-group 10.78.254.66 ipsec-attributes pre-shared-key * ! ! prompt hostname context

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• Where's the Swap File/Partition?

  - by chrisbunney

  I'm investigating the virtual memory configuration of a Debian based Amazon EC2 instance, and as my background isn't in system admin, I'm slightly confused by what I'm seeing. We're using MongoDB, and the monitoring server we have indicates that the Mongo process is using about 20GB of swap space, however I can't figure out where this is located on the server. As far as I can tell from using the various suggested methods from Google, there is either a much smaller amount, or none at all. top indicates that there is 1.8GB of swap memory: top - 15:35:21 up 6 days, 3:23, 1 user, load average: 1.60, 1.43, 1.37 Tasks: 47 total, 2 running, 45 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 0.0%us, 1.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 14.7%id, 83.8%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.1%st Mem: 3928924k total, 2855572k used, 1073352k free, 640564k buffers Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 1887788k cached swapon -s doesn't seem to think there's any swap space: Filename Type Size Used Priority free -m doesn't think there's any swap either: total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 3836 3663 172 0 626 2701 -/+ buffers/cache: 336 3500 Swap: 0 0 0 And neither does vmstat: procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- -system-- ----cpu---- r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa 0 3 0 66224 641372 2874744 0 0 21 5012 21 33 2 2 76 19 But cat /etc/fstab thinks there is a swap partition: /dev/xvda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1 /dev/xvda2 /mnt ext3 defaults 0 0 /dev/xvda3 swap swap defaults 0 0 none /proc proc defaults 0 0 none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0 However df -k gives no indication of the xvda3 partition: Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/xvda1 16513960 15675324 0 100% / tmpfs 1964460 8 1964452 1% /lib/init/rw udev 1914148 28 1914120 1% /dev tmpfs 1964460 4 1964456 1% /dev/shm So I really don't know what to make of this, because I appear to have a process using about 10 times more virtual memory than what might be available, and I have no idea where this virtual memory is on the system. I'm probably misinterpreting the output of the tools, so I'd be grateful if someone would be able to set me straight: What have I got wrong, what's the right interpretation, and how do you reach that interpretation? EDIT0: We use 10gen's MMS for monitoring the database, the relevant section for memory from the last data point is: "mem": { "virtual": 20749, "bits": 64, "supported": true, "mappedWithJournal": 20376, "mapped": 10188, "resident": 1219 }, This JSON is specific to the database process (I believe) rather than the system as a whole. fdisk -l /dev/xvda outputs... nothing? I tried each of the 3 xvda entries in /etc/fstab as well: root@ip:~# fdisk -l /dev/xvda1 Disk /dev/xvda1: 34.4 GB, 34359738368 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4177 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Disk /dev/xvda1 doesn't contain a valid partition table root@ip:~# fdisk -l /dev/xvda2 root@ip:~# fdisk -l /dev/xvda3 root@ip:~# Edit1: Output of cat /proc/meminfo for the sake of completeness: MemTotal: 3928924 kB MemFree: 726600 kB Buffers: 648368 kB Cached: 2216556 kB SwapCached: 0 kB Active: 1945100 kB Inactive: 994016 kB Active(anon): 60476 kB Inactive(anon): 12952 kB Active(file): 1884624 kB Inactive(file): 981064 kB Unevictable: 0 kB Mlocked: 0 kB SwapTotal: 0 kB SwapFree: 0 kB Dirty: 387180 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 73380 kB Mapped: 1188260 kB Shmem: 48 kB Slab: 149768 kB SReclaimable: 146076 kB SUnreclaim: 3692 kB KernelStack: 1104 kB PageTables: 16096 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB WritebackTmp: 0 kB CommitLimit: 1964460 kB Committed_AS: 305572 kB VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB VmallocUsed: 16760 kB VmallocChunk: 34359721448 kB HardwareCorrupted: 0 kB HugePages_Total: 0 HugePages_Free: 0 HugePages_Rsvd: 0 HugePages_Surp: 0 Hugepagesize: 2048 kB DirectMap4k: 3932160 kB DirectMap2M: 0 kB

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• Add a small RAID card? Will it help overall stability and performance of my nine hard drives?

  - by Ray

  Hi, Will I get any extra genuine added performance and RAID stability if I insert a basic RAID card into a PCI-E x1 slot? I am considering the Adaptec 1220SA - 2 port SATA , pci-express (1x) , raid 0/1. Ok it only supports two SATA drives. Purpose is to help support the eight internal hard drives (1TB each), a DVD drive and an external e-SATA connected 2TB hard drive - by dealing with two of the internal hard drives. My current configuration of eight internal 1TB Barracuda (7200.12) SATA hard drives, one external 2TB SATA Western Digital Green Drive (e-SATA) and one DVD drive can already be supported by the Intel P55 & JMicron controllers on the ASUS motherboard : the Intel P55 (controls six HDD; configured as three x RAID 1), and the JMicron (controls two HDD as one RAID 1, as well as the DVD drive and the external SATA drive via the motherboard's e-SATA port (controlled by the JMicron)). Bigger picture details : I have an ASUS motherboard designed for the LGA1156 type processor and it includes the Intel P55 Express Chipset and JMicron. I am using the Intel Core i7-870 processor, and have 8GB DDR3 (1333) memory (four x 2GB Corsair DIMMs). Enough overall power. The power supply is more than sufficicient for the system. Corsair AX850. The system will never need the full 850 watts (future : second graphics card). The RAID card would provide hardware RAID 1 for two of the eight intrnal drives. It would either reduce the load on : the Intel P55 firmware RAID support, or replace the JMicron controller's RAID 1 set. I am busy installing the above configuration using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit as the OS. The RAID card is a last minute addition to the plan. Is it worth spending the extra R700 - R900 on the Adaptec 1220SA, or equivalent RAID card? I cannot afford to spend yet another R2000 - R3000 on a RAID card that would support many SATA2 hard drives, with a better RAID, example the RAID 5. My Issue & assumption : I am trusting that the Intel P55 chipset can properly handle six drives, configured as three * RAID 1. I am assuming that the JMicron can handle, using its RED SATA ports, one RAID-1 (two HDDs). The DVD drive connects to the JMicron optical SATA port 1 (white port 1). White port 2 is not used. The e-SATA connection is from the JMicron straight to, and through the motherboard - to an on-board (rear panel) e-SATA port. Am I being a little hopeful in only using the on-board Intel P55 and the JMicron? Is it a waste of money to install a RAID card that handles two SATA2 drives? OR Is it wisdom to take the pressure a little off the Intel P55? Obviously I am interested in data security, hence RAID 1, not RAID Zero. RAID 5 would be nice. The CPU, Intel Core i7-870 will provide the clout. Context to nine drives : I am using virtualisation with Windows 7 Ultimate. Bootable VMs. The operating system gets a mirror. Loaded apps gets a mirror. The current design data is kept in another mirror and Another mirror is back-up one and / or VM territory. Then the external 2TB drive (via e-SATA) is the next layer of data security and then finally, I use off-site data security. Thanks.

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• DKIMPROXY signing wrong domain

  - by user64566

  Just.... wont sign a thing... The dkimproxy_out.conf: # specify what address/port DKIMproxy should listen on listen 127.0.0.1:10028 # specify what address/port DKIMproxy forwards mail to relay 127.0.0.1:10029 # specify what domains DKIMproxy can sign for (comma-separated, no spaces) domain tinymagnet.com,hypnoenterprises.com # specify what signatures to add signature dkim(c=relaxed) signature domainkeys(c=nofws) # specify location of the private key keyfile /etc/postfix/dkim/private.key # specify the selector (i.e. the name of the key record put in DNS) selector mail The direct connection straight to the server, making it clear that this is a problem with dkimproxy and not postfix... mmxbass@hypno1:~$ telnet localhost 10028 Trying 127.0.0.1... Connected to localhost.localdomain. Escape character is '^]'. 220 hypno1.hypnoenterprises.com ESMTP Postfix (Debian/GNU) EHLO hypno1.hypnoenterprises.com 250-hypno1.hypnoenterprises.com 250-PIPELINING 250-SIZE 250-ETRN 250-STARTTLS 250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN 250-AUTH=PLAIN LOGIN 250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES 250-8BITMIME 250 DSN MAIL FROM:<[email protected]> 250 2.1.0 Ok RCPT TO:<[email protected]> 250 2.1.5 Ok DATA 354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF> SUBJECT:test . 250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as B62A78D94F QUIT 221 2.0.0 Bye Now lets look at the mail headers as reported by myiptest.com: From [email protected] Thu Dec 23 18:57:14 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: [email protected] Delivery-date: Thu, 23 Dec 2010 18:57:14 +0000 Received: from [184.82.95.154] (helo=hypno1.hypnoenterprises.com) by myiptest.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PVqLi-0004YR-5f for [email protected]; Thu, 23 Dec 2010 18:57:14 +0000 Received: from hypno1.hypnoenterprises.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by hypno1.hypnoenterprises.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 878418D902 for ; Thu, 23 Dec 2010 13:57:26 -0500 (EST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=simple; d=hypnoenterprises.com; h= from:to:subject:date:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:message-id; s=mail; bh=uoq1oCgLlTqpdD X/iUbLy7J1Wic=; b=HxBKTGjzTpZSZU8xkICtARCKxqriqZK+qHkY1U8qQlOw+S S1wlZxzTeDGIOgeiTviGDpcKWkLLTMlUvx8dY4FuT8K1/raO9nMC7xjG2uLayPX0 zLzm4Srs44jlfRQIjrQd9tNnp35Wkry6dHPv1u21WUvnDWaKARzGGHRLfAzW4= Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by hypno1.hypnoenterprises.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2A04A8D945 for ; Thu, 23 Dec 2010 13:57:26 -0500 (EST) X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at hypno1.hypnoenterprises.com Received: from hypno1.hypnoenterprises.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (hypno1.hypnoenterprises.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id Ua7BnnzmIaUO for ; Thu, 23 Dec 2010 13:57:25 -0500 (EST) Received: from phoenix.localnet (c-76-23-245-211.hsd1.ma.comcast.net [76.23.245.211]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hypno1.hypnoenterprises.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 48A0D8D90D for ; Thu, 23 Dec 2010 13:57:25 -0500 (EST) From: Joshua Pech To: [email protected] Subject: test Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2010 13:57:25 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (Linux/2.6.32-5-amd64; KDE/4.4.5; x86_64; ; ) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: DomainKey-Status: no signature Received-SPF: pass (myiptest.com: domain of tinymagnet.com designates 184.82.95.154 as permitted sender) Notice how the dkim signature specifies the d=hypnoenterprises.com.... why?

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• Windows 7 inbuilt and 3rd party (de)fragmentation related queries

  - by Karan

  I have a pretty good idea of how files end up getting fragmented. That said, I just copied ~3,200 files of varying sizes (from a few KB to ~20GB) from an external USB HDD to an internal, freshly formatted (under Windows 7 x64), NTFS, 2TB, 5400RPM, WD, SATA, non-system (i.e. secondary) drive, filling it up 57%. Since it should have been very much possible for each file to have been stored in one contiguous block, I expected the drive to be fragmented not more than 1-2% at most after this rather lengthy exercise (unfortunately this older machine doesn't support USB 3.0). Windows 7's inbuilt defrag utility told me after a quick analysis that the drive was fragmented only 1% or so, which dovetailed neatly with my expectations. However, just out of curiosity I downloaded and ran the latest portable x64 version of Piriform's Defraggler, and was shocked to see the drive being reported as being ~85% fragmented! The portable version of Auslogics Disk Defrag also agreed with Defraggler, and both clearly expected to grind away for ~10 hours to completely defragment the drive. 1) How in blazes could the inbuilt and 3rd party defrag utils disagree so badly? I mean, 10-20% variance is probably understandable, but 1% and 85% are miles apart! This Engineering Windows 7 blog post states: In Windows XP, any file that is split into more than one piece is considered fragmented. Not so in Windows Vista if the fragments are large enough – the defragmentation algorithm was changed (from Windows XP) to ignore pieces of a file that are larger than 64MB. As a result, defrag in XP and defrag in Vista will report different amounts of fragmentation on a volume. ... [Please read the entire post so the quote is not taken out of context.] Could it simply be that the 3rd party defrag utils ignore this post-XP change and continue to use analysis algos similar to those XP used? 2) Assuming that the 3rd party utils aren't lying about the real extent of fragmentation (which Windows is downplaying post-XP), how could the files have even got fragmented so badly given they were just copied over afresh to an empty drive? 3) If vastly differing analysis algos explain the yawning gap, which do I believe? I'm no defrag fanatic for sure, but 85% is enough to make me seriously consider spending 10 hours defragging this drive. On the other hand, 1% reported by Windows' own defragger clearly implies that there is no cause for concern and defragging would actually have negative consequences (as per the post). Is Windows' assumption valid and should I just let it be, or will there be any noticeable performance gains after running one of the 3rd party utils for 10 hours straight? 4) I see that out of the box Windows 7 defrag is scheduled to run weekly. Does anyone know whether it defrags every single time, or only if its analysis reveals a fragmentation percentage over a set threshold? If the latter, what is this threshold and can it be changed, maybe via a Registry edit? Thanks for reading through (my first query on this wonderful site!) and for any helpful replies. Also, if you're answering question #3, please keep in mind that any speed increases post defragging with 3rd party utils vis-à-vis Windows' inbuilt program should not include pre-Vista (preferably pre-Win7) examples. Further, examples of programs that made your system boot faster won't help in this case, since this is a non-system drive (although one that'll still be used daily).

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• What is the best server or Ip address to use for prolonged testing?

  - by eldorel

  I usually run uptime/latency tests against (and from) two servers that we own at different sites and until recently I've used the google dns servers as a control group. However, I've realized there is a potential problem with monitoring latency over extended periods of time. Almost all of the major service providers are using ANYCAST. For short tests this doesn't matter, but I need to run a set of tests for at least a week to try and catch an intermittent problem, and a change in the anycast priority while trying to test latency will cause the latency values for that server to change accordingly. Since I'm submitting graphs of this data to the ISP, I need to avoid/account for as many variables as possible. Spikes in the data for only one of the tested servers will only cause headaches. So can anyone recommend servers that: are not using anycast are owned by an entity that has a good uptime reputation (so they can't claim that the problem is server-side) will respond to ICMP requests Have an available service that runs on TCP/UDP (http or dns preferably) Wont consider an automated request every 10 minutes to be abuse Are accessible from anywhere in the world Are not local to the isp ( consider this an investigation of a hostile party ) Thanks in advance. Edit: added #6 and #7 above. More info: I am attempting to demonstrate a network problem for an entire node of our local ISP's network. They are actively blaming the issue on the equipment installed at the customer sites (our backup site is one of these), and refuse to escalate the problem. (even though 2 of these businesses have ISP provided modems, and all of us have completely different routers/services running) I am already quite familiar with the need to test an isp controlled IP, but they are actively dropping all packets targeted at gateway ip addresses and are only passing traffic addressed beyond the gateways. So to demonstrate the issue, I am sending packets to other systems in the same node, systems one hop away from the affected node, and systems completely outside the network. Unfortunately, all of the systems I have currently are either administered directly by myself, or by people who are biased enough to assist me. I need to have several systems included in the trace/log/graphs that are 100% not in the control of either myself or the isp so that the graphs have a stable/unbiased control group. These requirements are straight from legal, I'm just trying to make sure that everything that could be argued to invalidate the data is already covered. In Summary: I need to be able to show tcp/udp/icmp as 3 separate data points, and I need to be able to show the connections inside the local node, from local node to another nearby node, from those 2 nodes to the internet, and through the internet to both verifiable servers and a control group that I have no control over whatsoever. Again, Google/opendns/yahoo/msn/facebook/etc all use anycast, which throws the numbers off every time the anycast caches expire, so I need suggestions of an IP or server that is available for this type of testing. I was hoping someone knew of a system run by someone such as ISC or ICANN, or perhaps even a .gov server (fcc or nsa maybe?) setup for this type of testing. Thanks again.

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• Dell Latitude E6430 Docking Station + Dual Monitor + Laptop Screen Tri-Monitor setup

  - by Larry

  I have a company issued laptop and docking station as well as two monitors The specifications of the hardware are as follows; Laptop: Latitude E6430 BIOS: A02.00 Processor: i7-3720QM CPU @ 2.60 (8 CPUs) Memory: 4096MB RAM Page file: 1825MB used, 4793MB available DirectX 11 Display Driver/Chip: MVIDIA NVS 5200M DAC: Integrated RAMDAC Aprox Total Memory: 2376 (Above 3 details same for both displays) Current Display Mode (Display 1): 1600x900 Current Display Mode (Display 2): 1440x900 the docking station is a Dell Latitude E6420 Docking Station PR03X Port Replicator and I don't think the monitor model is particularly relevant to resolving this issue but they are both Acer V193Ws The story goes like this; the laptop works fine if I VGA one monitor into the laptop through the vga port on the back of the lefthand side of the laptop I can achieve dual monitor display fine (laptop screen + monitor) if I plug the laptop into the docking station and use the vga port in the back of the docking station I can dual monitor fine (laptop screen + monitor) if I plug the laptop into the docking station, the laptop's lefthand side VGA port no longer seems to function at all I've spoken to internal IT about this issue and they're going to get me some kind of VGA splitter or a DVI-VGA adapter to use with the docking station for the second Acer Monitor, but that isn't going to happen for a few days. So I guess what I'm wondering is; is there any way to continue to use the side VGA port on my laptop while using the docking station VGA port? and as a secondary 'followup' pending resolution of the initial issue with getting both monitors up and running (at the moment I have both monitors on my desk but am just using my laptop screen as one of my dual monitor display with one of the monitors [the one connected to dock]), is there any way to CONTINUE to use my laptop monitor to in effect have a triple monitor display (2 monitors + docked laptop)? I am wondering this because internal IT told me that they were aware of some issues with the particular display drivers in my box and triple monitor displays but weren't really going to look TOO much in-depth into that (which is perfectly understandable) since getting the adapter for the dual monitors up and running was the greater priority within their purview. So this is a two parter; Can I dual monitor using two vga cables with 1 docking station vga port and one laptop vga port? is there a setting that can be tweaked somewhere? because plugging the box into the station seems to make the side port stop working and... Is there any reasonably simple and cost-effective work around (e.g. I am find with shelling out maybe a few dollars out of my own pocket for some hardware or software to make my company box tri-display capable) but if this requires some extensive rebuild or new OSs or doing stuff to the BIOS I'd rather have a straight answer about this being untenable as a slight modification to a (once again) company laptop and stop wasting time looking into it Thanks! and please let me know if you guys need any more details (tech specs or something) to answer this question [EDIT] 2/10/2014 Just an update; turned out it really was just a hardware limitation issue. The old laptop just couldn't hack it. Got a new laptop with a better video card and different monitors from my company and am successfully using a triple display currently (2 monitors + laptop screen)

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• SQL Server 2000 and SSL Encryption

  - by Angry_IT_Guru

  We are a datacenter that hsots a SQL Server 2000 environment which provides database services for a product we sell that is loaded as a rich-client applicatin at each of our many clients and their workstations. Currently today, the application uses straight ODBC connections from the client site to our datacenter. We need to begin encrypting the credentials -- since everything is clear-text today and the authentication is weakly encrypted -- and I'm trying to determine the best way to implement SSL on the server with minimizing the impact of the client. A few things, however: 1) We have our own Windows domain and all our servers are joined to our private domain. Our clietns no nothing of our domain. 2) Typically, our clients connect to our datacenter servers either by: a) Using TCP/IP address b) Using a DNS name that we publish via internet, zone transfers from our DNS servers to our customers, or the client can add static HOSTS entries. 3) From what I understand from enabling encryption is that I can go to the Network Utility and select the "encryption" option for the protocol that I wish to encrypt. Such as TCP/IP. 4) When the encryption option is selected, I have a choice of installing a third-party certificate or a self-signed. I have tested the self-signed, but do have potential issues. I'll explain in a bit. If I go with a third-party cert, such as Verisign, or Network solutions... what kind of certificate do I request? These aren't IIS certificates? When I go create a self-signed via Microsoft's certificate server, I have to select "Authentication certificate". What does this translate to in the third-party world? 5) If I create a self-signed certificate, I understand that the "issue to" name has to match the FQDN for the server that is running SQL. In my case, I have to use my private domain name. If I use this, what does this do for my clients when trying to connect to my SQL Server? Surely they cannot resolve my private DNS names on their network.... I've also verified that when the self-signed certificate is installed, it has to be in the local personal store for the user account that is running SQL Server. SQL Server will only start if the FQDN matches the "issue to" of the certificate and SQL is running under the account that has the certificate installed. If I use a self-signed certificate, does this mean I have to have every one of my clients install it to verify? 6) If I used a third-party certificate, which sounds like the best option, do all my clients have to have internet access when accessing my private servers of their private WAN connection to use to verify the certificate? What do I do about the FQDN? It sounds like they have to use my private domain name -- which is not published -- and can no longer use the one that I setup for them to use? 7) I plan on upgrading to SQL 2000 soon. Is setup of SSL any easier/better with SQL 2005 than SQL 2000? Any help or guiadance would be appreciated

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• The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials

  - by Ross

  The Apple iPad is the latest new toy, and we’ve put together a comprehensive list of every tip, trick, and tutorial that we could find to help you get the most out of it—and we’re even giving one away to one lucky reader. So read on! Note: We’ll be keeping this page updated as we find more great articles, so you should bookmark this page for future reference. Want Your Own iPad? How-To Geek is Giving One Away! All you have to do to enter is become a fan of our Facebook page, and we’ll pick a random fan to win the prize. Win an iPad on the How-To Geek Facebook Fan Page Disable the “clicking sound” on the iPad Keyboard Does the clicking sound when you tap the iPad keyboard bother you? Thankfully it’s easy to disable with a couple of taps. How to disable the “clicking sound” on your iPad’s keyboard Enable and add bookmarks to the Safari Bookmarks Bar on your iPad By default, Safari doesn’t display the Bookmarks Bar. This tip shows you how to change that. How to enable and add bookmarks to the Safari Bookmarks Bar on your iPad Clear the Cache, History and Cookies in Safari for the iPad You’re probably used to clearing this kind of data right from within the browser. Not so with Safari on the iPad – but here’s how you can. How to clear the cache, history and cookies in Safari for iPad How to add more Apps to your iPad Dock The iPad has four icons in its ‘dock’. Did you know it can hold 6? How to add more Apps to your iPad Dock Convert PDF files to ePub files to read on your iPad with iBooks ePub is the format that iBooks are in. So for those of you with large eBook collections in PDF, here’s how you convert them to read in iBooks. How to convert PDF files to ePub files to read on your iPad with iBooks How to force your iPad to restart Has an app caused your iPad to freeze up, and you can’t escape? This tip shows you how to force your iPad to restart. How to force your iPad to restart How to export Keynote for iPad presentations to your Mac or PC Exporting Keynote presentations from your iPad to your Mac or PC isn’t as straight forward as you might have expected. This tutorial shows you how. How to export Keynote for iPad presentations to your Mac or PC How to import presentations to Keynote on your iPad Having trouble getting your presentations onto your iPad? How to import presentations to Keynote on your iPad How to import documents to Pages on your iPad This guide shows you how to transfer documents (MS Word or Pages) from your Mac/PC to your iPad. How to import documents to Pages on your iPad How to insert photos in a Pages document using iPad and share it as a PDF Want to spice up that doc with a picture you just took? This tutorial will show you how – and how to export that document as a PDF. How to insert photos in a Pages document using iPad and share it as a PDF How to lock your iPad If you have kids or co-workers/friends who think it’s funny to mess with your iPad – lock it. How to lock your iPad How to remove the “Sent from my iPad” signature from outgoing email on your iPad Does everyone need to know you just sent that email from your iPad? Probably not. This guide shows you how to remove the “Sent from my iPad” signature and replace it with your own (or none). How to remove the “Sent from my iPad” signature from outgoing email on your iPad How To Sync Multiple Calendars to the iPad With Google Sync This tutorial will show you a workaround on how to sync multiple calendars on your iPad using Google Sync. How to Sync Multiple Calendars to the iPad With Google Sync How to determine the MAC address of your iPad If your network restricts connections via MAC address – this guide will show you how to determine what yours is. How to determine the MAC address of your iPad How to take a screenshot of your iPad Do you need to take a screenshot of your iPad? This quick tip shows you how to do just that. How to take a screenshot of your iPad How to delete apps from your iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad Anyone who had an iPod Touch or iPhone before they had an iPad won’t need this tutorial. But if you’re new to the experience, this one will help. How to delete apps from your iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad How to determine the iPad ECID on Windows and Mac iPadintosh shows us how to determine the iPad’s ECID code – something you’ll want to have come Jailbreak time. How to grab the iPad ECID in Windows or OS X iPad Apps: Twitter and social networking essentials Enggadget has you covered with reviews of the first slew of iPad specific Twitter and other social networking apps. iPad Apps: Twitter and social networking essentials What does your website look like on an iPad? iPad Peek is a web based tool that allows you to enter any given URL, and it will display that page the same way Safari on the iPad does. Great for web site owners who don’t have access to an iPad. iPadPeek Stream Music and Videos to your iPad Gizmodo reviews the iPad app StreamToMe, which allows you to stream media from your Mac to your iPad across your local network. Their feelings in a nutshell – worth the $3, but not perfect. Review: StreamToMe for the iPad Apple iPad : Change links in Google Reader to point to full HTML webpage How to change links in Safari for iPad so that Google Reader points to a full HTML webpage How to connect an iPad to your existing wireless keyboard This video will show you how to connect your iPad to a wireless keyboard if you’re having any problems – and from the sound of things, quite a few folks are. via TUAW How to get started with the iPad Mashable has a very entry-level guide that will help you set up your iPad for the first time. Mashable’s Guide to Setting up the iPad Essential iPad Apps Downloadsquad gives mini-reviews to 8 iPad apps that you should install as soon as you get your iPad. iPad App Buyers Guide: Essential Apps you should get on day one Videos: The Official iPad Guided Tours From none other than Apple! Great getting started videos for all the included iPad apps. The Official iPad Guided Tours The Official iPad Manual When you buy an iPad, you don’t get a manual. But that’s not to say there isn’t one. Apple provides a 150 guide for your iPad in PDF format. The Official iPad Manual (pdf) How to print from your iPad Sure, it’s actually just an App (PrintCentral – $9.99 USD), but as of right now, it’s the only way. PrintCentral How to make your own iPad Wallpaper A perfectly detailed tutorial on how to make your own wallpaper for your iPad. The author also provides a really nice sample wallpaper, published under the Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license. How to make your own iPad Wallpaper Got any more tips? Share them in the comments, and we’ll update the post with the links, or just the tip itself. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Want an iPad? How-To Geek is Giving One Away!Why Wait? Amazing New Add-on Turns Your iPhone into an iPad! [Comic]Clear the Auto-Complete Email Address Cache in OutlookAsk the Readers: Share Your Tips for Defeating Viruses and MalwareStupid Geek Tricks: Tile or Cascade Multiple Windows in 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 DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Are You Blocked On Gtalk? Find out Discover Latest Android Apps On AppBrain The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos

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• Multi-tenant ASP.NET MVC – Introduction

  - by zowens

  I’ve read a few different blogs that talk about multi-tenancy and how to resolve some of the issues surrounding multi-tenancy. What I’ve come to realize is that these implementations overcomplicate the issues and give only a muddy implementation! I’ve seen some really illogical code out there. I have recently been building a multi-tenancy framework for internal use at eagleenvision.net. Through this process, I’ve realized a few different techniques to make building multi-tenant applications actually quite easy. I will be posting a few different entries over the issue and my personal implementation. In this first post, I will discuss what multi-tenancy means and how my implementation will be structured.   So what’s the problem? Here’s the deal. Multi-tenancy is basically a technique of code-reuse of web application code. A multi-tenant application is an application that runs a single instance for multiple clients. Here the “client” is different URL bindings on IIS using ASP.NET MVC. The problem with different instances of the, essentially, same application is that you have to spin up different instances of ASP.NET. As the number of running instances of ASP.NET grows, so does the memory footprint of IIS. Stack Exchange shifted its architecture to multi-tenancy March. As the blog post explains, multi-tenancy saves cost in terms of memory utilization and physical disc storage. If you use the same code base for many applications, multi-tenancy just makes sense. You’ll reduce the amount of work it takes to synchronize the site implementations and you’ll thank your lucky stars later for choosing to use one application for multiple sites. Multi-tenancy allows the freedom of extensibility while relying on some pre-built code.   You’d think this would be simple. I have actually seen a real lack of reference material on the subject in terms of ASP.NET MVC. This is somewhat surprising given the number of users of ASP.NET MVC. However, I will certainly fill the void ;). Implementing a multi-tenant application takes a little thinking. It’s not straight-forward because the possibilities of implementation are endless. I have yet to see a great implementation of a multi-tenant MVC application. The only one that comes close to what I have in mind is Rob Ashton’s implementation (all the entries are listed on this page). There’s some really nasty code in there… something I’d really like to avoid. He has also written a library (MvcEx) that attempts to aid multi-tenant development. This code is even worse, in my honest opinion. Once I start seeing Reflection.Emit, I have to assume the worst :) In all seriousness, if his implementation makes sense to you, use it! It’s a fine implementation that should be given a look. At least look at the code. I will reference MvcEx going forward as a comparison to my implementation. I will explain why my approach differs from MvcEx and how it is better or worse (hopefully better).   Core Goals of my Multi-Tenant Implementation The first, and foremost, goal is to use Inversion of Control containers to my advantage. As you will see throughout this series, I pass around containers quite frequently and rely on their use heavily. I will be using StructureMap in my implementation. However, you could probably use your favorite IoC tool instead. <RANT> However, please don’t be stupid and abstract your IoC tool. Each IoC is powerful and by abstracting the capabilities, you’re doing yourself a real disservice. Who in the world swaps out IoC tools…? No one!</RANT> (It had to be said.) I will outline some of the goodness of StructureMap as we go along. This is really an invaluable tool in my tool belt and simple to use in my multi-tenant implementation. The second core goal is to represent a tenant as easily as possible. Just as a dependency container will be a first-class citizen, so will a tenant. This allows us to easily extend and use tenants. This will also allow different ways of “plugging in” tenants into your application. In my implementation, there will be a single dependency container for a single tenant. This will enable isolation of the dependencies of the tenant. The third goal is to use composition as a means to delegate “core” functions out to the tenant. More on this later.   Features In MvcExt, “Modules” are a code element of the infrastructure. I have simplified this concept and have named this “Features”. A feature is a simple element of an application. Controllers can be specified to have a feature and actions can have “sub features”. Each tenant can select features it needs and the other features will be hidden to the tenant’s users. My implementation doesn’t require something to be a feature. A controller can be common to all tenants. For example, (as you will see) I have a “Content” controller that will return the CSS, Javascript and Images for a tenant. This is common logic to all tenants and shouldn’t be hidden or considered a “feature”; Content is a core component.   Up next My next post will be all about the code. I will reveal some of the foundation to the way I do multi-tenancy. I will have posts dedicated to Foundation, Controllers, Views, Caching, Content and how to setup the tenants. Each post will be in-depth about the issues and implementation details, while adhering to my core goals outlined in this post. As always, comment with questions of DM me on twitter or send me an email.

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• Mulit-tenant ASP.NET MVC – Controllers

  - by zowens

  Part I – Introduction Part II – Foundation   The time has come to talk about controllers in a multi-tenant ASP.NET MVC architecture. This is actually the most critical design decision you will make when dealing with multi-tenancy with MVC. In my design, I took into account the design goals I mentioned in the introduction about inversion of control and what a tenant is to my design. Be aware that this is only one way to achieve multi-tenant controllers.   The Premise MvcEx (which is a sample written by Rob Ashton) utilizes dynamic controllers. Essentially a controller is “dynamic” in that multiple action results can be placed in different “controllers” with the same name. This approach is a bit too complicated for my design. I wanted to stick with plain old inheritance when dealing with controllers. The basic premise of my controller design is that my main host defines a set of universal controllers. It is the responsibility of the tenant to decide if the tenant would like to utilize these core controllers. This can be done either by straight usage of the controller or inheritance for extension of the functionality defined by the controller. The controller is resolved by a StructureMap container that is attached to the tenant, as discussed in Part II.   Controller Resolution I have been thinking about two different ways to resolve controllers with StructureMap. One way is to use named instances. This is a really easy way to simply pull the controller right out of the container without a lot of fuss. I ultimately chose not to use this approach. The reason for this decision is to ensure that the controllers are named properly. If a controller has a different named instance that the controller type, then the resolution has a significant disconnect and there are no guarantees. The final approach, the one utilized by the sample, is to simply pull all controller types and correlate the type with a controller name. This has a bit of a application start performance disadvantage, but is significantly more approachable for maintainability. For example, if I wanted to go back and add a “ControllerName” attribute, I would just have to change the ControllerFactory to suit my needs.   The Code The container factory that I have built is actually pretty simple. That’s really all we need. The most significant method is the GetControllersFor method. This method makes the model from the Container and determines all the concrete types for IController.  The thing you might notice is that this doesn’t depend on tenants, but rather containers. You could easily use this controller factory for an application that doesn’t utilize multi-tenancy. public class ContainerControllerFactory : IControllerFactory { private readonly ThreadSafeDictionary<IContainer, IDictionary<string, Type>> typeCache; public ContainerControllerFactory(IContainerResolver resolver) { Ensure.Argument.NotNull(resolver, "resolver"); this.ContainerResolver = resolver; this.typeCache = new ThreadSafeDictionary<IContainer, IDictionary<string, Type>>(); } public IContainerResolver ContainerResolver { get; private set; } public virtual IController CreateController(RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName) { var controllerType = this.GetControllerType(requestContext, controllerName); if (controllerType == null) return null; var controller = this.ContainerResolver.Resolve(requestContext).GetInstance(controllerType) as IController; // ensure the action invoker is a ContainerControllerActionInvoker if (controller != null && controller is Controller && !((controller as Controller).ActionInvoker is ContainerControllerActionInvoker)) (controller as Controller).ActionInvoker = new ContainerControllerActionInvoker(this.ContainerResolver); return controller; } public void ReleaseController(IController controller) { if (controller != null && controller is IDisposable) ((IDisposable)controller).Dispose(); } internal static IEnumerable<Type> GetControllersFor(IContainer container) { Ensure.Argument.NotNull(container); return container.Model.InstancesOf<IController>().Select(x => x.ConcreteType).Distinct(); } protected virtual Type GetControllerType(RequestContext requestContext, string controllerName) { Ensure.Argument.NotNull(requestContext, "requestContext"); Ensure.Argument.NotNullOrEmpty(controllerName, "controllerName"); var container = this.ContainerResolver.Resolve(requestContext); var typeDictionary = this.typeCache.GetOrAdd(container, () => GetControllersFor(container).ToDictionary(x => ControllerFriendlyName(x.Name))); Type found = null; if (typeDictionary.TryGetValue(ControllerFriendlyName(controllerName), out found)) return found; return null; } private static string ControllerFriendlyName(string value) { return (value ?? string.Empty).ToLowerInvariant().Without("controller"); } } One thing to note about my implementation is that we do not use namespaces that can be utilized in the default ASP.NET MVC controller factory. This is something that I don’t use and have no desire to implement and test. The reason I am not using namespaces in this situation is because each tenant has its own namespaces and the routing would not make sense in this case.   Because we are using IoC, dependencies are automatically injected into the constructor. For example, a tenant container could implement it’s own IRepository and a controller could be defined in the “main” project. The IRepository from the tenant would be injected into the main project’s controller. This is quite a useful feature.   Again, the source code is on GitHub here.   Up Next Up next is the view resolution. This is a complicated issue, so be prepared. I hope that you have found this series useful. If you have any questions about my implementation so far, send me an email or DM me on Twitter. I have had a lot of great conversations about multi-tenancy so far and I greatly appreciate the feedback!

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• Create a Bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash Drive

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  The Ubuntu Live CD isn’t just useful for trying out Ubuntu before you install it, you can also use it to maintain and repair your Windows PC. Even if you have no intention of installing Linux, every Windows user should have a bootable Ubuntu USB drive on hand in case something goes wrong in Windows. Creating a bootable USB flash drive is surprisingly easy with a small self-contained application called UNetbootin. It will even download Ubuntu for you! Note: Ubuntu will take up approximately 700 MB on your flash drive, so choose a flash drive with at least 1 GB of free space, formatted as FAT32. This process should not remove any existing files on the flash drive, but to be safe you should backup the files on your flash drive. Put Ubuntu on your flash drive UNetbootin doesn’t require installation; just download the application and run it. Select Ubuntu from the Distribution drop-down box, then 9.10_Live from the Version drop-down box. If you have a 64-bit machine, then select 9.10_Live_x64 for the Version. At the bottom of the screen, select the drive letter that corresponds to the USB drive that you want to put Ubuntu on. If you select USB Drive in the Type drop-down box, the only drive letters available will be USB flash drives. Click OK and UNetbootin will start doing its thing. First it will download the Ubuntu Live CD. Then, it will copy the files from the Ubuntu Live CD to your flash drive. The amount of time it takes will vary depending on your Internet speed, an when it’s done, click on Exit. You’re not planning on installing Ubuntu right now, so there’s no need to reboot. If you look at the USB drive now, you should see a bunch of new files and folders. If you had files on the drive before, they should still be present. You’re now ready to boot your computer into Ubuntu 9.10! How to boot into Ubuntu When the time comes that you have to boot into Ubuntu, or if you just want to test and make sure that your flash drive works properly, you will have to set your computer to boot off of the flash drive. The steps to do this will vary depending on your BIOS – which varies depending on your motherboard. To get detailed instructions on changing how your computer boots, search for your motherboard’s manual (or your laptop’s manual for a laptop). For general instructions, which will suffice for 99% of you, read on. Find the important keyboard keys When your computer boots up, a bunch of words and numbers flash across the screen, usually to be ignored. This time, you need to scan the boot-up screen for a few key words with some associated keys: Boot menu and Setup. Typically, these will show up at the bottom of the screen. If your BIOS has a Boot Menu, then read on. Otherwise, skip to the Hard: Using Setup section. Easy: Using the Boot Menu If your BIOS offers a Boot Menu, then during the boot-up process, press the button associated with the Boot Menu. In our case, this is ESC. Our example Boot Menu doesn’t have the ability to boot from USB, but your Boot Menu should have some options, such as USB-CDROM, USB-HDD, USB-FLOPPY, and others. Try the options that start with USB until you find one that works. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work – you can just restart and try again. Using the Boot Menu does not change the normal boot order on your system, so the next time you start up your computer it will boot from the hard drive as normal. Hard: Using Setup If your BIOS doesn’t offer a Boot Menu, then you will have to change the boot order in Setup. Note: There are some options in BIOS Setup that can affect the stability of your machine. Take care to only change the boot order options. Press the button associated with Setup. In our case, this is F2. If your BIOS Setup has a Boot tab, then switch to it and change the order such that one of the USB options occurs first. There may be several USB options, such as USB-CDROM, USB-HDD, USB-FLOPPY, and others; try them out to see which one works for you. If your BIOS does not have a boot tab, boot order is commonly found in Advanced CMOS Options. Note that this changes the boot order permanently until you change it back. If you plan on only plugging in a bootable flash drive when you want to boot from it, then you could leave the boot order as it is, but you may find it easier to switch the order back to the previous order when you reboot from Ubuntu. Booting into Ubuntu If you set the right boot option, then you should be greeted with the UNetbootin screen. Press enter to start Ubuntu with the default options, or wait 10 seconds for this to happen automatically. Ubuntu will start loading. It should go straight to the desktop with no need for a username or password. And that’s it! From this live desktop session, you can try out Ubuntu, and even install software that is not included in the live CD. Installed software will only last for the duration of your session – the next time you start up the live CD it will be back to its original state. Download UNetbootin from sourceforge.net Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy WayReset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CDHow-To Geek on Lifehacker: Control Your Computer with Shortcuts & Speed Up Vista SetupHow To Setup a USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 7Speed up Your Windows Vista Computer with ReadyBoost 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 New Stinger from McAfee Helps Remove ‘FakeAlert’ Threats Google Apps Marketplace: Tools & Services For Google Apps Users Get News Quick and Precise With Newser Scan for Viruses in Ubuntu using ClamAV Replace Your Windows Task Manager With System Explorer Create Talking Photos using Fotobabble

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• C# 4: The Curious ConcurrentDictionary

  - by James Michael Hare

  In my previous post (here) I did a comparison of the new ConcurrentQueue versus the old standard of a System.Collections.Generic Queue with simple locking.  The results were exactly what I would have hoped, that the ConcurrentQueue was faster with multi-threading for most all situations.  In addition, concurrent collections have the added benefit that you can enumerate them even if they're being modified. So I set out to see what the improvements would be for the ConcurrentDictionary, would it have the same performance benefits as the ConcurrentQueue did?  Well, after running some tests and multiple tweaks and tunes, I have good and bad news. But first, let's look at the tests.  Obviously there's many things we can do with a dictionary.  One of the most notable uses, of course, in a multi-threaded environment is for a small, local in-memory cache.  So I set about to do a very simple simulation of a cache where I would create a test class that I'll just call an Accessor.  This accessor will attempt to look up a key in the dictionary, and if the key exists, it stops (i.e. a cache "hit").  However, if the lookup fails, it will then try to add the key and value to the dictionary (i.e. a cache "miss").  So here's the Accessor that will run the tests: 1: internal class Accessor 2: { 3: public int Hits { get; set; } 4: public int Misses { get; set; } 5: public Func<int, string> GetDelegate { get; set; } 6: public Action<int, string> AddDelegate { get; set; } 7: public int Iterations { get; set; } 8: public int MaxRange { get; set; } 9: public int Seed { get; set; } 10:  11: public void Access() 12: { 13: var randomGenerator = new Random(Seed); 14:  15: for (int i=0; i<Iterations; i++) 16: { 17: // give a wide spread so will have some duplicates and some unique 18: var target = randomGenerator.Next(1, MaxRange); 19:  20: // attempt to grab the item from the cache 21: var result = GetDelegate(target); 22:  23: // if the item doesn't exist, add it 24: if(result == null) 25: { 26: AddDelegate(target, target.ToString()); 27: Misses++; 28: } 29: else 30: { 31: Hits++; 32: } 33: } 34: } 35: } Note that so I could test different implementations, I defined a GetDelegate and AddDelegate that will call the appropriate dictionary methods to add or retrieve items in the cache using various techniques. So let's examine the three techniques I decided to test: Dictionary with mutex - Just your standard generic Dictionary with a simple lock construct on an internal object. Dictionary with ReaderWriterLockSlim - Same Dictionary, but now using a lock designed to let multiple readers access simultaneously and then locked when a writer needs access. ConcurrentDictionary - The new ConcurrentDictionary from System.Collections.Concurrent that is supposed to be optimized to allow multiple threads to access safely. So the approach to each of these is also fairly straight-forward.  Let's look at the GetDelegate and AddDelegate implementations for the Dictionary with mutex lock: 1: var addDelegate = (key,val) => 2: { 3: lock (_mutex) 4: { 5: _dictionary[key] = val; 6: } 7: }; 8: var getDelegate = (key) => 9: { 10: lock (_mutex) 11: { 12: string val; 13: return _dictionary.TryGetValue(key, out val) ? val : null; 14: } 15: }; Nothing new or fancy here, just your basic lock on a private object and then query/insert into the Dictionary. Now, for the Dictionary with ReadWriteLockSlim it's a little more complex: 1: var addDelegate = (key,val) => 2: { 3: _readerWriterLock.EnterWriteLock(); 4: _dictionary[key] = val; 5: _readerWriterLock.ExitWriteLock(); 6: }; 7: var getDelegate = (key) => 8: { 9: string val; 10: _readerWriterLock.EnterReadLock(); 11: if(!_dictionary.TryGetValue(key, out val)) 12: { 13: val = null; 14: } 15: _readerWriterLock.ExitReadLock(); 16: return val; 17: }; And finally, the ConcurrentDictionary, which since it does all it's own concurrency control, is remarkably elegant and simple: 1: var addDelegate = (key,val) => 2: { 3: _concurrentDictionary[key] = val; 4: }; 5: var getDelegate = (key) => 6: { 7: string s; 8: return _concurrentDictionary.TryGetValue(key, out s) ? s : null; 9: };                    Then, I set up a test harness that would simply ask the user for the number of concurrent Accessors to attempt to Access the cache (as specified in Accessor.Access() above) and then let them fly and see how long it took them all to complete.  Each of these tests was run with 10,000,000 cache accesses divided among the available Accessor instances.  All times are in milliseconds. 1: Dictionary with Mutex Locking 2: --------------------------------------------------- 3: Accessors Mostly Misses Mostly Hits 4: 1 7916 3285 5: 10 8293 3481 6: 100 8799 3532 7: 1000 8815 3584 8:  9:  10: Dictionary with ReaderWriterLockSlim Locking 11: --------------------------------------------------- 12: Accessors Mostly Misses Mostly Hits 13: 1 8445 3624 14: 10 11002 4119 15: 100 11076 3992 16: 1000 14794 4861 17:  18:  19: Concurrent Dictionary 20: --------------------------------------------------- 21: Accessors Mostly Misses Mostly Hits 22: 1 17443 3726 23: 10 14181 1897 24: 100 15141 1994 25: 1000 17209 2128 The first test I did across the board is the Mostly Misses category.  The mostly misses (more adds because data requested was not in the dictionary) shows an interesting trend.  In both cases the Dictionary with the simple mutex lock is much faster, and the ConcurrentDictionary is the slowest solution.  But this got me thinking, and a little research seemed to confirm it, maybe the ConcurrentDictionary is more optimized to concurrent "gets" than "adds".  So since the ratio of misses to hits were 2 to 1, I decided to reverse that and see the results. So I tweaked the data so that the number of keys were much smaller than the number of iterations to give me about a 2 to 1 ration of hits to misses (twice as likely to already find the item in the cache than to need to add it).  And yes, indeed here we see that the ConcurrentDictionary is indeed faster than the standard Dictionary here.  I have a strong feeling that as the ration of hits-to-misses gets higher and higher these number gets even better as well.  This makes sense since the ConcurrentDictionary is read-optimized. Also note that I tried the tests with capacity and concurrency hints on the ConcurrentDictionary but saw very little improvement, I think this is largely because on the 10,000,000 hit test it quickly ramped up to the correct capacity and concurrency and thus the impact was limited to the first few milliseconds of the run. So what does this tell us?  Well, as in all things, ConcurrentDictionary is not a panacea.  It won't solve all your woes and it shouldn't be the only Dictionary you ever use.  So when should we use each? Use System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary when: You need a single-threaded Dictionary (no locking needed). You need a multi-threaded Dictionary that is loaded only once at creation and never modified (no locking needed). You need a multi-threaded Dictionary to store items where writes are far more prevalent than reads (locking needed). And use System.Collections.Concurrent.ConcurrentDictionary when: You need a multi-threaded Dictionary where the writes are far more prevalent than reads. You need to be able to iterate over the collection without locking it even if its being modified. Both Dictionaries have their strong suits, I have a feeling this is just one where you need to know from design what you hope to use it for and make your decision based on that criteria.

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