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  • Webcast

    - by bwalstra
    v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} Invites You To: Monetizing Digital Media From Clicks To Cash Digital goods and services are booming, and smart businesses are transforming the way they sell and deliver their offerings in the exploding digital marketplace. Using information-services, credit-card, and digital-media examples Oracle’s Mustafa Oyumi and Tripp Partain will show the Oracle Digital Media solution - from clicks to cash: · Design, Model, and Launch New Products · Review Real Time Market Effectiveness and Respond · Rate, Bill, Invoice, Revenue Rec, and Collect · Determine Rights, Royalties, Licensing, and Commissions · Analyze Enterprise Results Friday, July 6, 2012 11:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. <Webcast Details> <Webcast Details> Agenda 11:00 a.m. Overview 11:10 a.m. Demo 11:30 a.m. Q&A Copyright © 2012, Oracle. All rights reserved. Contact Us | Legal Notices and Terms of Use | Privacy Statement 36526 Oracle Corporation - Worldwide Headquarters, 500 Oracle Parkway, OPL - E-mail Services, Redwood Shores, CA 94065, United States Create or update your profile to receive customized e-mail about Oracle products and services. If you do not wish to receive any further electronic marketing communications from Oracle you can Opt-Out completely, please note you will no longer receive newsletters and product information you may have subscribed to.

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  • PC BluRay - Multichannel HD Audio output

    - by sheepsimulator
    When playing a BluRay movie on a PC (any OS, Mac/Win/Linux), I have some questions about audio output: When playing a BluRay disc on the PC using a BluRay player program, can it decode the multichannel (7.1) LPCM/ Dolby Digital Plus / Dolby TrueHD / DTS-HD / DTS-HDMA soundtracks in their HD formats (ie, without downmixing to Dolby Digital or DTS or PCM) and output the audio directly to the soundcard's 7.1 line-level analog outputs? Is it possible to bitstream the the multichannel (7.1) LPCM/ Dolby Digital Plus / Dolby TrueHD / DTS-HD / DTS-HDMA soundtracks in their HD formats (ie, without downmixing to Dolby Digital or DTS or PCM) over the HDMI output to a receiver when using a BluRay player program? I'd kinda like to know. I'm contemplating building a home theater PC, and the above functionality is important. I'd prefer that #1 is possible, actually, because it would mean I wouldn't have to buy a receiver.

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  • Making sense of S.M.A.R.T

    - by James
    First of all, I think everyone knows that hard drives fail a lot more than the manufacturers would like to admit. Google did a study that indicates that certain raw data attributes that the S.M.A.R.T status of hard drives reports can have a strong correlation with the future failure of the drive. We find, for example, that after their first scan error, drives are 39 times more likely to fail within 60 days than drives with no such errors. First errors in re- allocations, offline reallocations, and probational counts are also strongly correlated to higher failure probabil- ities. Despite those strong correlations, we find that failure prediction models based on SMART parameters alone are likely to be severely limited in their prediction accuracy, given that a large fraction of our failed drives have shown no SMART error signals whatsoever. Seagate seems like it is trying to obscure this information about their drives by claiming that only their software can accurately determine the accurate status of their drive and by the way their software will not tell you the raw data values for the S.M.A.R.T attributes. Western digital has made no such claim to my knowledge but their status reporting tool does not appear to report raw data values either. I've been using HDtune and smartctl from smartmontools in order to gather the raw data values for each attribute. I've found that indeed... I am comparing apples to oranges when it comes to certain attributes. I've found for example that most Seagate drives will report that they have many millions of read errors while western digital 99% of the time shows 0 for read errors. I've also found that Seagate will report many millions of seek errors while Western Digital always seems to report 0. Now for my question. How do I normalize this data? Is Seagate producing millions of errors while Western digital is producing none? Wikipedia's article on S.M.A.R.T status says that manufacturers have different ways of reporting this data. Here is my hypothesis: I think I found a way to normalize (is that the right term?) the data. Seagate drives have an additional attribute that Western Digital drives do not have (Hardware ECC Recovered). When you subtract the Read error count from the ECC Recovered count, you'll probably end up with 0. This seems to be equivalent to Western Digitals reported "Read Error" count. This means that Western Digital only reports read errors that it cannot correct while Seagate counts up all read errors and tells you how many of those it was able to fix. I had a Seagate drive where the ECC Recovered count was less than the Read error count and I noticed that many of my files were becoming corrupt. This is how I came up with my hypothesis. The millions of seek errors that Seagate produces are still a mystery to me. Please confirm or correct my hypothesis if you have additional information. Here is the smart status of my western digital drive just so you can see what I'm talking about: james@ubuntu:~$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda smartctl version 5.38 [x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/ === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Device Model: WDC WD1001FALS-00E3A0 Serial Number: WD-WCATR0258512 Firmware Version: 05.01D05 User Capacity: 1,000,204,886,016 bytes Device is: Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall] ATA Version is: 8 ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated Local Time is: Thu Jun 10 19:52:28 2010 PDT SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability. SMART support is: Enabled === START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION === SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 0 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 179 175 021 Pre-fail Always - 4033 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 270 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 1468 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 262 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 46 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 223 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 105 102 000 Old_age Always - 42 196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 200 200 000 Old_age Offline - 0

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  • Loose component cables causing HDMI video problems

    - by jwir3
    I'm not sure this is the correct forum, but I'll ask anyway. I have an A/V setup at home that has something like the following: Five Components (actually a few more, like a CD player, but they don't really relate to this question): Older Pioneer Receiver Digital Set Top Box Sony BluRay Player Samsung Plasma TV Speakers The reason for the receiver is so that all the sound can go through the speakers, rather than some going to the TV speakers and some to the external speakers. They are connected as follows: Digital Set Top Box connects via component video to Samsung TV directly via Component 2 (audio goes to Older Pioneer Receiver). Sony BluRay player is connected via HDMI 1 to TV, but audio goes to the receiver. Now, the problem I'm having is that when I have the digital set top box connected, there are times when the Netflix or Hulu streams I watch through the Sony BluRay player (it's connected to a router for internet access) will lose video. What I mean by this is that the sound of the episode will keep playing, but the screen will go black. If I jiggle the component cables, it will often come back. If I disconnect the component cables, it will always come back. I've noticed that one of the connections (the red component cable) doesn't like to sit very well in the component socket in the back of the digital set top box. It seems like there is a bad connection here, but it doesn't seem like this should be affecting the HDMI input at all. What I've noticed, though, is that when I disconnect the digital set top box completely (i.e. remove the component cable from the back of the TV), the problem seems to resolve itself. I'm not talking about actually removing the cable physically, because I thought perhaps the cables were mashing against one another, and possibly jiggling each other loose. To correct this possible problem, I took the component cable completely out of the cable ties it was in in the back of my entertainment center, as well as pulled the digital set top box out from the entertainment center altogether. It's now connected directly to the TV, without any other cables touching it to cause some kind of weird interference or just physical pulling on the cable. Same problem. If, however, I disconnect the component cable and just leave it sitting behind the TV, then the problem goes away. So, my question is this - what could be causing this? Is it a case where it's an improperly shielded component cable that's causing interference with the HDMI input, or something that's wrong with the TV? It's an intermittent problem, so it's difficult to track down. The TV isn't that old, so it's probably still under warranty. I'm just wondering if there is something else I can do that might reduce this problem without having to haul a massive television set out of my house to get repaired/replaced.

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  • How to give wife emergency access to logins, passwords, etc.?

    - by Torben Gundtofte-Bruun
    I'm the digital guru in my household. My wife is good with email and forum websites but she trusts me with all our important digital stuff -- such as online banking and other things that require passwords, but also family photos and the plethora of other digital things in a modern home. We discuss relevant actions but it's always me that executes the actions. If I should get "hit by a bus" then my wife would be thoroughly stranded -- she would have no idea what digital stuff is where on our computer, how to access it, what online accounts we have, and their login credentials are. It would also leave my many public appearances (personal websites, email accounts, social networks, etc.) unresolved. To complicate things, I'm one of those people who don't use password as my password everywhere; I use a mix of SuperGenPass and LastPass, and also two-factor authentication whenever possible. I don't have much hope that she would find her way through a written explanation of all that in a stressful situation. I could just tell her that she should ask my tech-savvy twin brother and then entrust him with my LastPass master passphrase. I feel that would have a high chance of success, but it's inelegant and leaves my wife without control of the information. How can I ensure that my wife has access to my digital remains?

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  • When spliting MP4s with ffmpeg how do I include metadata?

    - by Josh
    I have a few MP4s that i want to upload to my flickr account but they have a maximum size of 500mb as mine is only about 550 i was planing to simply split them in half then upload them, but i want to make sure all the meta data is included but it does not seem to be. I have tried each of the following with no luck, (at the end of this post i have the original and the new ffprobe outputs): ffmpeg -ss 00:00:00.00 -t 00:04:19.35 -i SANY0069.MP4 -acodec copy -vcodec copy -map_metadata 0:0 SANY0069A.MP4 ffmpeg -ss 00:00:00.00 -t 00:04:19.35 -i SANY0069.MP4 -acodec copy -vcodec copy -map_meta_data SANY0069.MP4:SANY0069A.MP4 SANY0069A.MP4 with the this one I manually produced the individual meta tags that i took from this command ffmpeg -i SANY0069A.MP4 -f ffmetadata meta.txt ffmpeg -ss 00:00:00.00 -t 00:04:19.35 -i SANY0069.MP4 -acodec copy -vcodec copy -metadata major_brand="mp42" -metadata minor_version="1" -metadata compatible_brands="mp42avc1" -metadata creation_time="2012-09-29 09:05:50" -metadata comment="SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA CA9" -metadata comment-eng="SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA CA9" SANY0069A.MP4 using the output of the former command i also tried this: ffmpeg -ss 00:00:00.00 -t 00:04:19.35 -i SANY0069.MP4 -acodec copy -vcodec copy -f ffmetadata -i meta.txt SANY0069A.MP4 Output: sample output from my first command: ffmpeg -ss 00:00:00.00 -t 00:04:19.35 -i SANY0069.MP4 -acodec copy -vcodec copy -map_metadata 0:0 SANY0069A.MP4 ffmpeg version 0.8.12, Copyright (c) 2000-2011 the FFmpeg developers built on Jun 13 2012 09:57:38 with gcc 4.6.3 20120306 (Red Hat 4.6.3-2) configuration: --prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --datadir=/usr/share/ffmpeg --incdir=/usr/include/ffmpeg --libdir=/usr/lib64 --mandir=/usr/share/man --arch=x86_64 --extra-cflags='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m64 -mtune=generic' --enable-bzlib --enable-libcelt --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libdirac --enable-libfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab --enable-avfilter --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --disable-debug --disable-stripping --shlibdir=/usr/lib64 --enable-runtime-cpudetect libavutil 51. 9. 1 / 51. 9. 1 libavcodec 53. 8. 0 / 53. 8. 0 libavformat 53. 5. 0 / 53. 5. 0 libavdevice 53. 1. 1 / 53. 1. 1 libavfilter 2. 23. 0 / 2. 23. 0 libswscale 2. 0. 0 / 2. 0. 0 libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0 Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'SANY0069.MP4': Metadata: major_brand : mp42 minor_version : 1 compatible_brands: mp42avc1 creation_time : 2012-09-29 09:05:50 comment : SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA CA9 comment-eng : SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA CA9 Duration: 00:08:38.71, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 9142 kb/s Stream #0.0(eng): Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline), yuv420p, 1280x720 [PAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 9007 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 30k tbn, 59.94 tbc Metadata: creation_time : 2012-09-29 09:05:50 Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 127 kb/s Metadata: creation_time : 2012-09-29 09:05:50 File 'SANY0069A.MP4' already exists. Overwrite ? [y/N] y Output #0, mp4, to 'SANY0069A.MP4': Metadata: major_brand : mp42 minor_version : 1 compatible_brands: mp42avc1 creation_time : 2012-09-29 09:05:50 comment : SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA CA9 comment-eng : SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA CA9 encoder : Lavf53.5.0 Stream #0.0(eng): Video: libx264, yuv420p, 1280x720 [PAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 9007 kb/s, 30k tbn, 29.97 tbc Metadata: creation_time : 2012-09-29 09:05:50 Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, 127 kb/s Metadata: creation_time : 2012-09-29 09:05:50 Stream mapping: Stream #0.0 -> #0.0 Stream #0.1 -> #0.1 Press [q] to stop, [?] for help frame= 7773 fps=4644 q=-1.0 Lsize= 289607kB time=00:04:19.35 bitrate=9147.4kbits/s video:285416kB audio:4033kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.054571% and finaly, when i compare the ffprobe of the original and the first split part i get the 2 following outputs: original ffprobe version 0.8.12, Copyright (c) 2007-2011 the FFmpeg developers built on Jun 13 2012 09:57:38 with gcc 4.6.3 20120306 (Red Hat 4.6.3-2) configuration: --prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --datadir=/usr/share/ffmpeg --incdir=/usr/include/ffmpeg --libdir=/usr/lib64 --mandir=/usr/share/man --arch=x86_64 --extra-cflags='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m64 -mtune=generic' --enable-bzlib --enable-libcelt --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libdirac --enable-libfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab --enable-avfilter --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --disable-debug --disable-stripping --shlibdir=/usr/lib64 --enable-runtime-cpudetect libavutil 51. 9. 1 / 51. 9. 1 libavcodec 53. 8. 0 / 53. 8. 0 libavformat 53. 5. 0 / 53. 5. 0 libavdevice 53. 1. 1 / 53. 1. 1 libavfilter 2. 23. 0 / 2. 23. 0 libswscale 2. 0. 0 / 2. 0. 0 libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0 Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'SANY0069.MP4': Metadata: major_brand : mp42 minor_version : 1 compatible_brands: mp42avc1 creation_time : 2012-09-29 09:05:50 comment : SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA CA9 comment-eng : SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA CA9 Duration: 00:08:38.71, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 9142 kb/s Stream #0.0(eng): Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline), yuv420p, 1280x720 [PAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 9007 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 30k tbn, 59.94 tbc Metadata: creation_time : 2012-09-29 09:05:50 Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 127 kb/s Metadata: creation_time : 2012-09-29 09:05:50 Split ffprobe version 0.8.12, Copyright (c) 2007-2011 the FFmpeg developers built on Jun 13 2012 09:57:38 with gcc 4.6.3 20120306 (Red Hat 4.6.3-2) configuration: --prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --datadir=/usr/share/ffmpeg --incdir=/usr/include/ffmpeg --libdir=/usr/lib64 --mandir=/usr/share/man --arch=x86_64 --extra-cflags='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -m64 -mtune=generic' --enable-bzlib --enable-libcelt --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libdirac --enable-libfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab --enable-avfilter --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --disable-debug --disable-stripping --shlibdir=/usr/lib64 --enable-runtime-cpudetect libavutil 51. 9. 1 / 51. 9. 1 libavcodec 53. 8. 0 / 53. 8. 0 libavformat 53. 5. 0 / 53. 5. 0 libavdevice 53. 1. 1 / 53. 1. 1 libavfilter 2. 23. 0 / 2. 23. 0 libswscale 2. 0. 0 / 2. 0. 0 libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0 Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'SANY0069A.MP4': Metadata: major_brand : isom minor_version : 512 compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41 creation_time : 1970-01-01 00:00:00 encoder : Lavf53.5.0 comment : SANYO DIGITAL CAMERA CA9 Duration: 00:04:19.37, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 9146 kb/s Stream #0.0(eng): Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline), yuv420p, 1280x720 [PAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 9015 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 30k tbn, 59.94 tbc Metadata: creation_time : 1970-01-01 00:00:00 Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: aac, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 127 kb/s Metadata: creation_time : 1970-01-01 00:00:00 I know this is incredibly long but its actually a quite simple question. I thought it would be best to provide as much detail as possible. any advice here would be great, Thanks

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  • #1 O’Reilly eBook for 2010

    - by Jan Goyvaerts
    The year-end issue of O’Reilly’s author newsletter discussed the trends O’Reilly has been seeing the past few years, and their predictions for 2011. The key trend is that digital is now more than ever poised to take over print: Our digitally distributed products have grown from 18.36% of our publishing mix in 2009 to 28.09% of our mix in 2010. What is more impressive is that our digitally distributed products have produced more than double the revenue that has been lost with the decline of print. I think this is important because some say that digital cannibalizes print products. Our data indicates the contrary, as print is declining much more slowly than digital is growing. I think we may be seeing developers purchasing a print book, and then purchasing the electronic editions to search and copying code from, as the incremental cost for digital is more than reasonable. My own book seems to be leading this trend. Thanks to everyone who purchased it! And the five bestselling O’Reilly ebook products for 2010: 1) Regular Expressions Cookbook, 2) jQuery Cookbook, 3) Learning Python, 4) HTML5: Up and Running, and 5) JavaScript Cookbook. I think it’s interesting that the top five ebooks are code-intensive books. They’re great products for search and code reuse. It’s also interesting that none of the top 5 ebooks made the top 5 of print books.

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  • hdmi AC-3 audio broke after upgrading from 11.10 to 12.04.3

    - by Jim LastName
    I just updated my MythBuntu 11.10 to 12.04.3. Now, when I try to play 5.1 content (ripped DVD), my TV (and receiver) plays a "chattering" sound. I check my receiver and the digital dolby light isn't on--it's in PCM mode. So, either the audio is getting sent as AC-3, but the TV and receiver think it's PCM or the AC-3 audio got converted to multichannel PCM and they can't handle it. My setup: hdmi cable from htpc to TV. TV has an s/pdif output to my receiver. I know TV sends AC-3 audio out correctly because I see digital dolby light come on when I view a digital TV channel and PCM come on when I view an old analog channel. I can connect s/pdif from my htpc to my receiver and the digital dolby light comes on and it can decode the audio just fine. It's just not sending it right over hdmi. Now for some hints to the issue: I noticed in MythTV audio setup when I select alsa:hdmi.... the description only lists 2 channel PCM audio capability. speaker-test -Dhdmi:PCH -c6 errors about a bad channel count (only -c2 works). Finally, I tried vlc and it does the same chattering sound. These all make me think this isn't a MythTV issue, it's something lower than that. I think the best way to troubleshoot this is to start at the drivers and check each layer, one at a time all the way to alsa. I just don't know what the layers are and how to do it. So, I need to find some audio troubleshooting guide to assist me. Or, if one doesn't exist, I'd appreciate some steps. Thanks much, Jim

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  • The Freemium-Premium Puzzle

    The more time I spend thinking about the value of information, the more I found that digitalizing information significantly changed the 'information markets', potentially in an irreversible manner. The graph at the bottom outlines my current view. The existing business models tend to be the same in the digital and analogue information world, i.e. revenue is derived from a combination of consumers' payments and advertisement. Even monetizing 'meta-information' such as search engines isn't new. Just think of the once popular 'Who'sWho'. What really changed is the price-value ratio. The curve is pushed down, closer to the axis. You pay less for the same, or often even get more for less. If you recall the capabilities I described in relevance of information you will see that there are many additional features available for digital content compared to analogue content. I think this is a good 'blue ocean strategy' by combining existing capabilities in a new way. (Kim W.C. & Mauborgne, R. (2005) Blue Ocean Strategies. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.). In addition the different channels of digital information distribution significantly change the value of information. I will touch on this in one of my next blogs. Right now, many information providers started to offer 'freemium' content through digital channels, hoping to get a premium for the 'full' content. No freemium seems to take them out of business, because they are apparently no longer visible in today's most relevant channels of information consumption. But, the more freemium is provided, the lower the premium gets; a truly puzzling situation. To make it worse, channel providers increasingly regard information as a value adding and differentiating activity. Maybe new types of exclusive, strategic alliances will solve the puzzle, introducing new types of 'gate-keepers', which - to me - somehow does not match the spirit of the WWW and the generation Y's perception of information consumption and exchange.

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  • XNA Notes 009

    - by George Clingerman
    This past week the MVPs (myself included) were on Microsoft campus for the MVP summit. So I apologize in advance if you did something cool or heard of something cool happening with XNA and XBLIGs and it’s not in my notes. I did my best to stay on top of things, but honestly this community is fast and furious with what it’s doing and creating. I really can’t keep up and that’s fantastic! But here’s what I *did* notice while I was there on Microsoft Campus (and I did make sure to point out to the XNA team several of these very cool happenings while I had their ears). Time Critical XNA News: The XNA team wants you to know that Dream Build Play registration is now open! http://blogs.msdn.com/b/xna/archive/2011/02/28/registration-now-open-for-dream-build-play-2011-challenge.aspx Join the XNA-UK create on March 24, 2011 at the Microsoft Tech Days Conference http://xna-uk.net/blogs/darkgenesis/archive/2011/02/27/join-the-xna-uk-crew-at-the-microsoft-tech-days-conference-on-24th-march-2011.aspx XNA Team: Shawn Hargreaves shares one of the coolest things that’s happened in the XNA community http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2011/03/02/xbox-indies-pivot-view.aspx Nick Gravelyn continues his unique marketing/work prioritization strategy as he tries to get to 5,000 Pixel Man users before he makes Pixel Man 2 (and he’s almost there!) http://nickgravelyn.com/pixelman2/ XNA MVPs: A lot of the XNA MVPs were at the Microsoft MVP Summit 2011. Due to NDAs, most things can’t be shared, but I’m sure if you’re curious you could ask them about the general vibe and feeling they got from the team and the future of XNA/XBLIG and more. Catalin Zima and team release the free WP7 game Chickens Can Dream http://twitter.com/CatalinZima/statuses/41174062923390976 http://www.amusedsloth.com/2011/02/chickens-can-dream-is-live/ Charles Humphrey (NemoKrad) posts his March talk source and PowerPoint http://xna-uk.net/blogs/randomchaos/archive/2011/03/04/march-2011-talk-post-processing-framework.aspx XNA Developers: Michael B. McLaughlin posts about ANTS Memory Profile and creates a CheckMemoryAllocationGame sample (extremely useful if you’re looking to see how much memory some operation allocates!) http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/02/28/ants-memory-profiler-7.0-review.aspx http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/03/01/checkmemoryallocationgame-sample.aspx Andy Schatz (2009 IGF winner for Monaco) talking XNA at GDC 2011 http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/33313/GDC_2011_Andy_Schatz_Ill_Make_My_Last_Game_When_I_Die.php Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): Clover: A Curious Tale by BinaryTweed is coming as a Deal of the Week during St. Patricks Day http://majornelson.com/archive/2011/03/03/comingsoontothexboxlivemarketplacemarchthird.aspx Ska Studios away at GDC but still very post happy as always http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/02/swamped-picture-pack/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/02/28/the-february-showcase/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/02/25/good-morning-gato-51-smelling-the-roses/ Just Press Start interviews Matthew Mikuszewski of Darkwind Media about Blocks Indie http://justpressstart.net/?p=516 Gamergeddon Xbox Indie Game Round Up - February 27th http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/02/27/xbox-indie-game-round-up-february-27th/ http://www.gamergeddon.com/category/xbox-360/indie-games/ GameMarx does a round up of all the Xbox Live Indie Game podcasts that are currently available http://www.gamemarx.com/news/2011/02/27/xbox-live-indie-game-podcasts.aspx GameMarx episode 11 http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/26/ep-11-february-25-2011.aspx In perhaps what I feel is the most exciting news I’ve heard all week, Michael C. Neel (ViNull of GameMarx fame) re-launch XboxIndies.com! http://www.gamemarx.com/news/2011/03/01/the-relaunch-of-xboxindies-com.aspx http://xboxindies.com/ Armless Octopus shares a little of what they heard from Luke Schneider of Radiangames during his GDC 2011 talk http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/02/gdc-2011-luke-schneider-offers-insight-into-radiangames-success/ VVGindiecast Episode 1 with guests Derek Strickland(Mr_Deeke), Kris Steele(Kriswd40 from FunInfused Games) and Dave Voyles(From armlessoctopus.com) http://vvgtv.com/2011/02/25/vvgindiecast-xblig-podcast/ If you’re doing Xbox LIVE Indie Game Reviews get in touch with XboxIndies.com to get into their aggregated feed http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/76931/467189.aspx#467189 B.U.T.T.O.N and Flotilla represented XNA very well at the Independent Games Festival (are there any more games entered that were created using XNA? Stand up and be heard!) http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2011.php?id=374 Armless Ocotopus interview at GDC 2011 with Soulcaster creator Ian Stocker http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/04/gdc-2011-interview-with-soulcaster-creator-ian-stocker/ MommysBestGames gets a nod in the DarkBasic newsletter where it features the Explosionade Editor (just do a search for Explosionade to get to the interesting bits!) http://www.thegamecreators.com/pages/newsletters/newsletter_issue_98.html You may be hearing the cries of FortressCraft (coming soon to XBLIG) being so wrong for stealing the idea from MineCraft. But did you know the the game MineCraft started from was an XNA game called Infiniminer? XNA is getting it’s fingers into EVERYTHING! http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Infiniminer XNA Development: TorqueX is NOT dead thanks to the tremendous efforts of the XNA Community working on the CEV (special thanks to @PinoEire for all his hard work on making that happen!) http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/20878 http://torquecev.com/ Dave Henry has posted XNA 3.x adding platformer start kit to the network game state management on his new site http://twitter.com/#!/mort8088/status/43407715908853760 http://mort8088.com/2011/03/03/xna-3-x-adding-platformer-starter-kit-to-network-game-state-management/ Mark Bamford releases XNAViewer 4.0, great for running XNA games inside of a Windows Form (for building level editors, etc.) http://twitter.com/#!/xzodia04/status/43466830412660736 http://xnaviewer.codeplex.com/ Unit testing an XNA game with Resharper and NUnit http://smnbss.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/planetx-unit-testing-an-xna-game-with-resharper-and-nunit-wp7-xbox-xna/ XNA for Silverlight developers: Part 5 - Input (touch + gestures) http://ht.ly/1bxwUE Mike McLaughlin shares a link he stumbled across for those looking to understand vector and matrix math http://twitter.com/#!/mikebmcl/status/42587074725036032 http://chortle.ccsu.edu/VectorLessons/vectorIndex.html DigitalRune Resources Pooling in XNA (Part 1) http://www.digitalrune.com/Support/Blog/tabid/719/EntryId/84/DigitalRune-Helper-Library-Resource-Pooling-in-XNA-Part-1.aspx JohnK “bobthecbuilder” released a new SunBurn Update that lowers the requirements for Windows Games http://twitter.com/#!/bobthecbuilder/status/43457306578522112 http://www.synapsegaming.com/blogs/johnk/archive/2011/03/03/sunburn-update-windows-redistributable.aspx Quick update on the Indiefreaks Game Framework v0.4 development status http://indiefreaks.com/2011/03/04/quick-update-on-igf-v0-4-development/

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  • Microsoft Visual Studio Release History/Timelines/Milestones

    1975 – Bill Gates and Paul Allen write a version of Basic for Altair 8080 1982 – IBM releases BASCOM 1.0 (developed by Microsoft) 1983 – Microsoft Basic Compiler System v5.35 for MS-DOS release 1984 - Microsoft Basic Compiler System v5.36 release 1985 – Microsoft QuickBASIC 1.0 1986 – Microsoft QuickBASIC 1.01, 1.02, 2.00 1987 – Microsoft QuickBASIC 2.01, 3.00, 4.00 1987 – Microsoft BASIC 6.0 1988 – Microsoft QuickBASIC 4.00, 4.00b, 4.50 1989 – Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System 7.0 1990 - Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System 7.1 1991 – Microsoft Visual Basic released May 20-Windows World Convention –Atlanta 1992 – Microsoft Visual Basic 2.0 1993 – Microsoft Visual Basic 3.0 in Standard and Professional versions 1995 – Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 released, supported the new Windows 95 1997 – Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 – introduction of IntelliSense 1998 – Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 that included Visual Basic 6.0 released (first VS) 2002 – Microsoft Visual Basic .NET 7.0 2002 – Visual Studio .NET 2003 – Microsoft Visual Basic .NET 7.1 2003 – Microsoft Visual Studio w/Intellisense 2003 – Visual Studio .NET 2004 – Announce Visual Studios 2005 – Code name Whidbey 2005 – Visual Studio 2005 release w/Extensibility 2005 – Visual Studio Express released 2006 - Expression Tool Set released - devs and designers work together 2006 – Visual Studio Team release – November 30th 2007 – Visual Studio 2008 (code name Orcas) ships November = Video Studio Shell 2010 - Visual Studios (code name Rosario) span.fullpost {display:none;}

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  • XNA Notes 007

    - by George Clingerman
    Every week I keep wondering if there’s going to be enough activity in the community to keep doing these notes on a weekly basis and every week I’m reminded of just how awesome and active the XNA community is. There’s engines being made, tutorials being created, games being crafted. There’s information being shared, questions being answered and then there’s another whole community around the Xbox LIVE Indie Games themselves. It’s really incredibly to just watch all that’s going on and I’m glad I’m playing a small part in all of this. So here’s what I noticed happening in the XNA community last week. If there’s things I’m missing, always feel free to let me know. I love learning about new corners of the XNA community that I wasn’t aware of or just have been missing! XNA Developers: Uditha Bandara held an XNA Game Development Workshops at Singapore Universities http://uditha.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/xna-game-development-workshops-at-singapore-universities-event-update/ Binary Tweed gives his talks about Indie City and gives his opinion on the false promise of digital distribution http://www.develop-online.net/news/37053/OPINION-The-false-promise-of-digital-distribution Kris Steele posts his Trivia or Die postmortem http://www.krissteele.net/blogdetails.aspx?id=246 @MadNinjaSkills (James Johnston) posts his feelings on testing for XBLIG http://www.ezmuze.co.uk/101 Simon (@DDReaper) posts hints and tips for XNA developers to help get the size of their projects down http://twitter.com/#!/DDReaper/status/38279440924545024 http://xna-uk.net/blogs/darkgenesis/archive/2011/02/17/look-at-the-size-of-that-thing.aspx Michael B. McLaughlin proving why he should be an XNA MVP posts the list of commonly used value types in XNA games http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/02/17/list-of-commonly-used-value-types-in-xna-games.aspx http://twitter.com/#!/mikebmcl/status/38166541354811392 Paul Powell (@ITSligoPaul) posts about a common sprite batch as a game service http://itspaulsblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/xna-common-sprite-batch-as-game-service.html @SigilXNA (John Defenbaugh) posts his new level editor video for the sequel to Opac’s Journey http://twitter.com/SigilXNA/statuses/36548174373982209 http://twitter.com/#!/SigilXNA/status/36548174373982209 http://youtu.be/QHbmxB_2AW8 @jwatte updates kW Animation for XNA 4.0 http://www.enchantedage.com/xna-animation @DSebJ posts Blender to SunBurn http://twitter.com/#!/DSebJ/status/36564920224976896 http://dsebj.evolvingsoftware.com/?p=187 Ads and WP7 Games - @mechaghost shares his revenue data for his ad based games http://www.occasionalgamer.com/2011/02/09/ads-and-wp7-games/ Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): Steven Hurdle posts day 100 of his quest to find a fantastic XBLIG purchase every day http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/02/17/day-100-radiangames-ballistic/ Xbox 360 Indie Game Buying Guide - 12 games for $60 including several Xbox LIVE Indie games! (although if the XNA community was asked we could have recommended 60 games for $60...) http://www.indiegamemag.com/xbox360-indie-games-buying-guide/ The best selling Xbox LIVE Indie games of 2010 http://www.1up.com/news/xbox-live-most-popular-games I’d buy that for a dollar! - the California Literary Review points out a few gems on the XBLIG marketplace (and other places) where you can game on the cheap. http://calitreview.com/14125 Armless Octopus Episode 39 - The Indie Gem Octocast http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/02/17/armless-octocast-episode-39-the-indie-gem-octocast/ Ska Studios posts a plethora of updates http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/02/11/good-morning-gato-49/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/02/14/vampire-smile-valentines/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/02/16/the-dishwasher-vs-finds-a-home/ Kotaku posts about the Xbox LIVE Indie Game that makes you go Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew http://kotaku.com/#!5760632/the-game-that-makes-you-go-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew GameMarx continues to be active and doing a ton for the XBLIG community reviews and Top 5 indie games of the week 2/4-2/10 http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/22/ep-9-february-11-2010.aspx a new podcast Xbox Indie New Releases http://twitter.com/#!/gamemarx/status/36888849107910656 http://www.gamemarx.com/news/2011/02/13/a-new-podcast-xbox-indie-new-releases.aspx @MasterBlud uploads Indocalypse XBLIG Collections #2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzCZSv075mc&feature=youtu.be&a http://twitter.com/#!/MasterBlud/status/37100029697064960 Just Press Start interviews Michael Hicks from MichaelArts, 18 year old creator of Honor in Vengeance http://justpressstart.net/?p=465 Achievement Locked interviews Kris Steele of FunInfused Games http://xboxindies.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/interview-fun-infused-games/ XNA Game Development: XNA -UK launches their XAP test service to help the XNA community http://xna-uk.net/blogs/news/archive/2011/02/18/xna-uk-xap-test-service-now-live.aspx Transmute shows off a video of the standard character editor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqH6gErG948&feature=youtu.be Microsoft Tech Student introduces their first tech student of the month.  Meet Daniel Van Tassel from the University of Utah and learn how he created an Xbox LIVE Indie Game using XNA Studio http://blogs.msdn.com/b/techstudent/archive/2010/12/22/introducing-our-first-tech-student-of-the-month-daniel-van-tassel.aspx XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 3 - Animation (transforms) http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/XNA-for-Silverlight-developers-Part-3-Animation-transforms.aspx XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 4 - Animation (frame based) http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/XNA-for-Silverlight-developers-Part-4-Animation-frame-based.aspx @suhinini tweets about an XNA Sprite Font generation tool http://twitter.com/#!/suhinini/status/36841370131890176 http://www.nubik.com/SpriteFont/ XNATouch 1.5 is out and in it’s words is faster, simpler, more reliable and has the XNA 4.0 API http://monogame.codeplex.com/releases/view/60815 IndieCity is hosting marketing workshops for Indie Developers (UK and US) http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/75197/457654.aspx#457654 New York Students - Learn XNA and Silverlight for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/72753/456964.aspx#456964 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/andrewparsons/archive/2011/01/13/learn-to-build-your-own-games-for-xbox-360-and-windows-phone-7.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/andrewparsons/archive/2011/01/13/build-a-game-in-48-hours-win-a-kinect-or-windows-phone-7.aspx Extra Credits: Videogame Music http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2019-Videogame-Music Steve Pavlina posts an article with useful information for all XNA/XBLIG developers http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2011/02/completion-vs-perfection/

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  • SpaceX’s Dragon Spacecraft Docks with the ISS [Video]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    This weekend was the first time a commercial space craft successfully rendezvoused with the International Space Station. Check out this video to see the opening of the hatch. From the notes on NASA’s video release: Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit and Joe Acaba of NASA and European Space Agency Flight Engineer Andre Kuipers opened the hatch to SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft and entered the vehicle May 26, one day after the world’s first commercial cargo spacecraft was berthed to the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module. Dragon will remain berthed to Harmony until May 31, enabling the crew to unload supplies for the station’s residents before it is re-grappled and released to return to Earth for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern California. If you’re interested in learning more about the SpaceX program, hit up the link below. SpaceX How To Customize Your Wallpaper with Google Image Searches, RSS Feeds, and More 47 Keyboard Shortcuts That Work in All Web Browsers How To Hide Passwords in an Encrypted Drive Even the FBI Can’t Get Into

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  • Set up iis7.5 to deny connections outside of LAN for certain folder

    - by Darkcat Studios
    Im setting up a combined website and extranet currently, they both read from the same database on the same server as the site is hosted on. The reason being that the website is fed from the data that the staff plug into the extranet interface. it also links in to AD for authorising access to the extranet. I have the extranet in a folder within the website folder. What I want to do is only allow the extranet to be accessed from computers within our LAN, but allow the main website to be freely accessible to internet users. I have it set up as a generic web server currently, so anyone can view anything (well up to the point where the user is asked to log into the extranet of course! I have read a lot on this but nothing I read applies to, or works in IIS7.5

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  • Lending epub files for limited time to users

    - by JP Hellemons
    I am looking for components to build a digital library who lends people epub (ebooks) for about a week. It's like a digital version of the offline old public library. Now I have found several flash (pdf) file streaming solutions. But that would require an active internet link. And like the public library, you are able to take your books to the beach or pool on holiday abroad where you have no connection. So streaming is no option. The other file restriction method I have found was DRM, but that would require a really expensive license of Adobe Content Server 4 which is not suitable for my little hobby project. But it seems that adobe content server and Adobe Digital Editions is the only option at the moment. Or are there open source alternatives?

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  • HTG Explains: Photography with Film-Based Cameras

    - by Eric Z Goodnight
    We’ve become reliant on digital cameras since they are so easy to use. But have you ever wondered how film-based photography works? Read on to increase your photographic knowledge—or to develop an new appreciation for your point and click camera. Film-based cameras, to some, are a relic of the past. Simply an old technology made obsolete by the new and improved. But to many, film is an artisan’s material, and a photographic experience no digital system could hope to ever recreate. While many photographers, professional and amateur will swear by the quality of both film-based or digital cameras—the fact remains that film is still a valid way to take great photographs, and a fascinating way to learn more about how photography works.  HTG Explains: Photography with Film-Based CamerasHow to Clean Your Dirty Smartphone (Without Breaking Something)What is a Histogram, and How Can I Use it to Improve My Photos?

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  • The Island of Lost Apple Products

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    While Apple has has a mountain of commercial successes, every once in awhile the crew in Cupertino strikes out. Here are some of the less successful and prematurely retired Apple products from the last two decades. Courtesy of Wired, we find nine of the least favorably received products in the Apple portfolio. Pictured here, the QuickTake Camera: Life Span: 1994 – 1997 Back in 1994, Apple was actually at the forefront of digital photography. The QuickTake Camera’s photos (640 x 480 at 0.3 megapixels) were borderline unusable for anything other than your Geocities homepage. But technology has to start somewhere. Still, Apple killed the line after just three years. And while the iPhone and other smartphones have replaced most people’s digital cameras, Apple could have had a reaped the benefits of the digital point-and-shoot salad years. 6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7 HTG Explains: Why It’s Good That Your Computer’s RAM Is Full 10 Awesome Improvements For Desktop Users in Windows 8

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  • I need to go from Linux to VS2012 fast. Anybody have a guide?

    - by Mikhail
    I need to parallelize a library through the use of a graphic accelerator. I have had no trouble doing similar work on Linux but I am struggling with using Visual Studios 2012. I can't figure out how to do analogs to simple things. I can't figure out how to do simple things like specifying linkage, libraries, and include files. I need to move quickly from understanding the Linux build system to the Windows build system. Does anybody have a guide or some advice on moving from Linux to Visual Studios development? I feel like I am crawling through a labyrinth of menus. With frequent dead ends saying that this feature has moved to another place. Also this code must build with VS2012.

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  • 7-Eleven Mobile App Powered by Oracle SOA Suite

    - by Bruce Tierney
    When you slurp that Slurpee, do you ever think about the sub 100 millisecond processing of 20 million 7-Eleven digital transactions ever day supported by Oracle SOA Suite?  Maybe next time.  Check out this impressive video of Ronald Clanton, 7-Eleven's Digital Guest Experience Program Manager, describing how 7-Eleven provides a consistent view across all the end points of over 10,000 stores and their digital entities by using Oracle SOA Suite on Oracle Exalogic.  Managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager, they were able to provision their "Rapid-Fire" Middleware as a Service (MWaaS) in only "10 minutes" and deliver on time and complete testing ahead of schedule. So what are you waiting for?  Download your Slurpee App to get your free Pillsbury Cinnamon pastry and enjoy your contribution to the 20 million messages/day.   When your done, take picture of your tongue...red or blue?  Watch the video here:

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  • WF -- how do I use a custom activity without creating it in a separate Workflow Activity Library?

    - by Kevin Craft
    I am trying to accomplish something that seems like it should be very simple. I have a State Machine Workflow Console Application with a workflow in it. I have created a custom activity for it. This activity will NEVER be used ANYWHERE ELSE. I just want to use this activity on my workflow, but: It does not appear in the toolbox. I cannot drag it from the Solution Explorer onto the workflow designer. I absolutely do not want to create a separate State Machine Workflow Activity Library, since that will just clutter my solution. Like I said, I will never use this activity in any other project, so I would like to keep it confined to this one...but I just can't figure out how to get it onto the designer! Am I going crazy!? Here is the code for the activity: public partial class GameSearchActivity: Activity { public GameSearchActivity() { InitializeComponent(); } public static DependencyProperty QueryProperty = System.Workflow.ComponentModel.DependencyProperty.Register("Query", typeof(string), typeof(GameSearchActivity)); [Description("Query")] [Category("Dependency Properties")] [Browsable(true)] [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)] public string Query { get { return ((string)(base.GetValue(GameSearchActivity.QueryProperty))); } set { base.SetValue(GameSearchActivity.QueryProperty, value); } } public static DependencyProperty ResultsProperty = System.Workflow.ComponentModel.DependencyProperty.Register("Results", typeof(string), typeof(GameSearchActivity)); [Description("Results")] [Category("Dependency Properties")] [Browsable(true)] [DesignerSerializationVisibility(DesignerSerializationVisibility.Visible)] public IEnumerable<Game_GamePlatform> Results { get { return ((IEnumerable<Game_GamePlatform>)(base.GetValue(GameSearchActivity.ResultsProperty))); } set { base.SetValue(GameSearchActivity.ResultsProperty, value); } } protected override ActivityExecutionStatus Execute(ActivityExecutionContext executionContext) { IDataService ds = executionContext.GetService<IDataService>(); Results = ds.SearchGames(Query); return ActivityExecutionStatus.Closed; } } Thanks. EDIT: OK, so I've discovered that if I change the project type from Console Application to Class Library, the custom activity appears in the toolbox. However, this is not acceptable. It needs to be a Console/Windows Application. Anyone know a way around this?

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  • DBA Best Practices - A Blog Series: Episode 2 - Password Lists

    - by Argenis
      Digital World, Digital Locks One of the biggest digital assets that any company has is its secrets. These include passwords, key rings, certificates, and any other digital asset used to protect another asset from tampering or unauthorized access. As a DBA, you are very likely to manage some of these assets for your company - and your employer trusts you with keeping them safe. Probably one of the most important of these assets are passwords. As you well know, the can be used anywhere: for service accounts, credentials, proxies, linked servers, DTS/SSIS packages, symmetrical keys, private keys, etc., etc. Have you given some thought to what you're doing to keep these passwords safe? Are you backing them up somewhere? Who else besides you can access them? Good-Ol’ Post-It Notes Under Your Keyboard If you have a password-protected Excel sheet for your passwords, I have bad news for you: Excel's level of encryption is good for your grandma's budget spreadsheet, not for a list of enterprise passwords. I will try to summarize the main point of this best practice in one sentence: You should keep your passwords on an encrypted, access and version-controlled, backed-up, well-known shared location that every DBA on your team is aware of, and maintain copies of this password "database" on your DBA's workstations. Now I have to break down that statement to you: - Encrypted: what’s the point of saving your passwords on a file that any Windows admin with enough privileges can read? - Access controlled: This one is pretty much self-explanatory. - Version controlled: Passwords change (and I’m really hoping you do change them) and version control would allow you to track what a previous password was if the utility you’ve chosen doesn’t handle that for you. - Backed-up: You want a safe copy of the password list to be kept offline, preferably in long term storage, with relative ease of restoring. - Well-known shared location: This is critical for teams: what good is a password list if only one person in the team knows where it is? I have seen multiple examples of this that work well. They all start with an encrypted database. Certainly you could leverage SQL Server's native encryption solutions like cell encryption for this. I have found such implementations to be impractical, for the most part. Enter The World Of Utilities There are a myriad of open source/free software solutions to help you here. One of my favorites is KeePass, which creates encrypted files that can be saved to a network share, Sharepoint, etc. KeePass has UIs for most operating systems, including Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Other solutions I've used before worth mentioning include PasswordSafe and 1Password, with the latter one being a paid solution – but wildly popular in mobile devices. There are, of course, even more "enterprise-level" solutions available from 3rd party vendors. The truth is that most of the customers that I work with don't need that level of protection of their digital assets, and something like a KeePass database on Sharepoint suits them very well. What are you doing to safeguard your passwords? Leave a comment below, and join the discussion! Cheers, -Argenis

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  • The new direction of the gaming industry

    - by raccoon_tim
    Just recently I read a great blog post by David Darling, the founder of Codemasters: http://www.develop-online.net/blog/347/Jurassic-consoles-could-become-extinct. In the blog post he talks about how traditional retail games are experiencing a downfall thanks to the increasing popularity of digital distribution. I personally think of retail games as being relics of the past. It does not really make much sense to still keep distributing boxed games when the same game can be elegantly downloaded and updated over the air through a digital distribution channel. The world is not all rainbows, however. One big issue with mixing digital distribution with boxed retail games is that resellers will not condone you selling your game for 10€ digitally while their selling the same game for 70€. The only way to get around this issue is to move to full digital distribution. This has the added benefit of minimizing piracy as the game can be tightly bound to the service you downloaded the game from. Many players are, however, complaining about not being able to play the games offline. Having games tightly bound to the internet is a problem when games are bought from a retailer as we tend to expect that once we have the product we can use it anywhere because we physically own it. The truth is that we don’t actually own the product. Instead, the typical EULA actually states that we only have a license to use the product. We’re not, for instance, allowed to disassemble the product, which the owner is indeed permitted to do. Digital distribution allows us to provide games as services, instead of selling them as standalone products. This means that for a service to work you have to be connected to the internet but you still have the same rights to use the product. It’s really straightforward; if you downloaded a client from the internet you are expected to have an internet connection so you’re able to connect to the server. A game distributed digitally that is built using a client-server architecture has the added benefit of allowing you to play anywhere as long as you have the client installed and you are able to log in with your user information. Your save games can be backed up and your game can continue anywhere. Another development we’re seeing in the gaming industry is the increasing popularity of free-to-play games. These are games that let you play for free but allow you to boost your gaming experience with real world money. The nature of these games is that players are constantly rewarded with new content and the game can evolve according to their way of playing and their wishes can be incorporated into the product. Free-to-play games can quickly gain a large player basis and monetization is done by providing players valuable things to buy making their gaming experience more fun. I am personally very excited about free-to-play games as it’s possible to start building the game together with your players and there is no need to work on the game for 5 years from start to finish and only then see if it’s actually something the players like. This is a typical problem with big movie-like retail games and recent news about Radical Entertainment practically closing its doors paints a clear picture of what can happen when the risk does not pay off: http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/25874/Prototype-Developer-Radical-Entertainment-Closes/.

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  • .com domain transfer failing

    - by digital
    Hi, I'm trying to transfer one of my .com addresses between registrars. I'm down as the owner contact (confirmed working) and the losing registrar is down as the tech and admin contact. Last week I received an email stating that the domain transfer had been rejected by the losing registrar. I contacted the losing registrar and they denied that. My money from the winning registrar was refunded and I was told to try again. I've initiated the transfer again and received confirmation of pending transfer, I gave the correct EPP code and confirmed the transfer. Currently the status on the domain is set as OK, should it not be transfer pending? According to my name.com transfer page if the transfer is not authd in 5 days it will auto transfer anyway. I don't believe this will happen. Name.com have been really helpful but they can't really do much more now. The losing registrar is not being helpful hence me turning here. What can I do to make sure the domain transfers? The domain transfer is set to expire on the 17th. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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