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• How to Force Graphics Options in PC Games with NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel Graphics

  - by Chris Hoffman

  PC games usually have built-in graphics options you can change. But you’re not limited to the options built into games — the graphics control panels bundled with graphics drivers allow you to tweak options from outside PC games. For example, these tools allow you to force-enabling antialiasing to make old games look better, even if they don’t normally support it. You can also reduce graphics quality to get more performance on slow hardware. If You Don’t See These Options If you don’t have the NVIDIA Control Panel, AMD Catalyst Control Center, or Intel Graphics and Media Control Panel installed, you may need to install the appropriate graphics driver package for your hardware from the hardware manufacturer’s website. The drivers provided via Windows Update don’t include additional software like the NVIDIA Control Panel or AMD Catalyst Control Center. Drivers provided via Windows Update are also more out of date. If you’re playing PC games, you’ll want to have the latest graphics drivers installed on your system. NVIDIA Control Panel The NVIDIA Control Panel allows you to change these options if your computer has NVIDIA graphics hardware. To launch it, right-click your desktop background and select NVIDIA Control Panel. You can also find this tool by performing a Start menu (or Start screen) search for NVIDIA Control Panel or by right-clicking the NVIDIA icon in your system tray and selecting Open NVIDIA Control Panel. To quickly set a system-wide preference, you could use the Adjust image settings with preview option. For example, if you have old hardware that struggles to play the games you want to play, you may want to select “Use my preference emphasizing” and move the slider all the way to “Performance.” This trades graphics quality for an increased frame rate. By default, the “Use the advanced 3D image settings” option is selected. You can select Manage 3D settings and change advanced settings for all programs on your computer or just for specific games. NVIDIA keeps a database of the optimal settings for various games, but you’re free to tweak individual settings here. Just mouse-over an option for an explanation of what it does. If you have a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus technology — that is, both NVIDIA and Intel graphics — this is the same place you can choose which applications will use the NVIDIA hardware and which will use the Intel hardware. AMD Catalyst Control Center AMD’s Catalyst Control Center allows you to change these options on AMD graphics hardware. To open it, right-click your desktop background and select Catalyst Control Center. You can also right-click the Catalyst icon in your system tray and select Catalyst Control Center or perform a Start menu (or Start screen) search for Catalyst Control Center. Click the Gaming category at the left side of the Catalyst Control Center window and select 3D Application Settings to access the graphics settings you can change. The System Settings tab allows you to configure these options globally, for all games. Mouse over any option to see an explanation of what it does. You can also set per-application 3D settings and tweak your settings on a per-game basis. Click the Add option and browse to a game’s .exe file to change its options. Intel Graphics and Media Control Panel Intel integrated graphics is nowhere near as powerful as dedicated graphics hardware from NVIDIA and AMD, but it’s improving and comes included with most computers. Intel doesn’t provide anywhere near as many options in its graphics control panel, but you can still tweak some common settings. To open the Intel graphics control panel, locate the Intel graphics icon in your system tray, right-click it, and select Graphics Properties. You can also right-click the desktop and select Graphics Properties. Select either Basic Mode or Advanced Mode. When the Intel Graphics and Media Control Panel appears, select the 3D option. You’ll be able to set your Performance or Quality setting by moving the slider around or click the Custom Settings check box and customize your Anisotropic Filtering and Vertical Sync preference. Different Intel graphics hardware may have different options here. We also wouldn’t be surprised to see more advanced options appear in the future if Intel is serious about competing in the PC graphics market, as they say they are. These options are primarily useful to PC gamers, so don’t worry about them — or bother downloading updated graphics drivers — if you’re not a PC gamer and don’t use any intensive 3D applications on your computer. Image Credit: Dave Dugdale on Flickr     

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• Enum driving a Visual State change via the ViewModel

  - by Chris Skardon

  Exciting title eh? So, here’s the problem, I want to use my ViewModel to drive my Visual State, I’ve used the ‘DataStateBehavior’ before, but the trouble with it is that it only works for bool values, and the minute you jump to more than 2 Visual States, you’re kind of screwed. A quick search has shown up a couple of points of interest, first, the DataStateSwitchBehavior, which is part of the Expression Samples (on Codeplex), and also available via Pete Blois’ blog. The second interest is to use a DataTrigger with GoToStateAction (from the Silverlight forums). So, onwards… first let’s create a basic switch Visual State, so, a DataObj with one property: IsAce… public class DataObj : NotifyPropertyChanger { private bool _isAce; public bool IsAce { get { return _isAce; } set { _isAce = value; RaisePropertyChanged("IsAce"); } } } The ‘NotifyPropertyChanger’ is literally a base class with RaisePropertyChanged, implementing INotifyPropertyChanged. OK, so we then create a ViewModel: public class MainPageViewModel : NotifyPropertyChanger { private DataObj _dataObj; public MainPageViewModel() { DataObj = new DataObj {IsAce = true}; ChangeAcenessCommand = new RelayCommand(() => DataObj.IsAce = !DataObj.IsAce); } public ICommand ChangeAcenessCommand { get; private set; } public DataObj DataObj { get { return _dataObj; } set { _dataObj = value; RaisePropertyChanged("DataObj"); } } } Aaaand finally – hook it all up to the XAML, which is a very simple UI: A Rectangle, a TextBlock and a Button. The Button is hooked up to ChangeAcenessCommand, the TextBlock is bound to the ‘DataObj.IsAce’ property and the Rectangle has 2 visual states: IsAce and NotAce. To make the Rectangle change it’s visual state I’ve used a DataStateBehavior inside the Layout Root Grid: <i:Interaction.Behaviors> <ei:DataStateBehavior Binding="{Binding DataObj.IsAce}" Value="true" TrueState="IsAce" FalseState="NotAce"/> </i:Interaction.Behaviors> So now we have the button changing the ‘IsAce’ property and giving us the other visual state: Great! So – the next stage is to get that to work inside a DataTemplate… Which (thankfully) is easy money. All we do is add a ListBox to the View and an ObservableCollection to the ViewModel. Well – ok, a little bit more than that. Once we’ve got the ListBox with it’s ItemsSource property set, it’s time to add the DataTemplate itself. Again, this isn’t exactly taxing, and is purely going to be a Grid with a Textblock and a Rectangle (again, I’m nothing if not consistent). Though, to be a little jazzy I’ve swapped the rectangle to the other side (living the dream). So, all that’s left is to add some States to the template.. (Yes – you can do that), these can be the same names as the others, or indeed, something else, I have chosen to stick with the same names and take the extra confusion hit right on the nose. Once again, I add the DataStateBehavior to the root Grid element: <i:Interaction.Behaviors> <ei:DataStateBehavior Binding="{Binding IsAce}" Value="true" TrueState="IsAce" FalseState="NotAce"/> </i:Interaction.Behaviors> The key difference here is the ‘Binding’ attribute, where I’m now binding to the IsAce property directly, and boom! It’s all gravy!   So far, so good. We can use boolean values to change the visual states, and (crucially) it works in a DataTemplate, bingo! Now. Onwards to the Enum part of this (finally!). Obviously we can’t use the DataStateBehavior, it' only gives us true/false options. So, let’s give the GoToStateAction a go. Now, I warn you, things get a bit complex from here, instead of a bool with 2 values, I’m gonna max it out and bring in an Enum with 3 (count ‘em) 3 values: Red, Amber and Green (those of you with exceptionally sharp minds will be reminded of traffic lights). We’re gonna have a rectangle which also has 3 visual states – cunningly called ‘Red’, ‘Amber’ and ‘Green’. A new class called DataObj2: public class DataObj2 : NotifyPropertyChanger { private Status _statusValue; public DataObj2(Status status) { StatusValue = status; } public Status StatusValue { get { return _statusValue; } set { _statusValue = value; RaisePropertyChanged("StatusValue"); } } } Where ‘Status’ is my enum. Good times are here! Ok, so let’s get to the beefy stuff. So, we’ll start off in the same manner as the last time, we will have a single DataObj2 instance available to the Page and bind to that. Let’s add some Triggers (these are in the LayoutRoot again). <i:Interaction.Triggers> <ei:DataTrigger Binding="{Binding DataObject2.StatusValue}" Value="Amber"> <ei:GoToStateAction StateName="Amber" UseTransitions="False" /> </ei:DataTrigger> <ei:DataTrigger Binding="{Binding DataObject2.StatusValue}" Value="Green"> <ei:GoToStateAction StateName="Green" UseTransitions="False" /> </ei:DataTrigger> <ei:DataTrigger Binding="{Binding DataObject2.StatusValue}" Value="Red"> <ei:GoToStateAction StateName="Red" UseTransitions="False" /> </ei:DataTrigger> </i:Interaction.Triggers> So what we’re saying here is that when the DataObject2.StatusValue is equal to ‘Red’ then we’ll go to the ‘Red’ state. Same deal for Green and Amber (but you knew that already). Hook it all up and start teh project. Hmm. Just grey. Not what I wanted. Ok, let’s add a ‘ChangeStatusCommand’, hook that up to a button and give it a whirl: Right, so the DataTrigger isn’t picking up the data on load. On the plus side, changing the status is making the visual states change. So. We’ll cross the ‘Grey’ hurdle in a bit, what about doing the same in the DataTemplate? <Codey Codey/> Grey again, but if we press the button: (I should mention, pressing the button sets the StatusValue property on the DataObj2 being represented to the next colour). Right. Let’s look at this ‘Grey’ issue. First ‘fix’ (and I use the term ‘fix’ in a very loose way): The Dispatcher Fix This involves using the Dispatcher on the View to call something like ‘RefreshProperties’ on the ViewModel, which will in turn raise all the appropriate ‘PropertyChanged’ events on the data objects being represented. So, here goes, into turdcode-ville – population – me: First, add the ‘RefreshProperties’ method to the DataObj2: internal void RefreshProperties() { RaisePropertyChanged("StatusValue"); } (shudder) Now, add it to the hosting ViewModel: public void RefreshProperties() { DataObject2.RefreshProperties(); if (DataObjects != null && DataObjects.Count > 0) { foreach (DataObj2 dataObject in DataObjects) dataObject.RefreshProperties(); } } (double shudder) and now for the cream on the cake, adding the following line to the code behind of the View: Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() => ((MoreVisualStatesViewModel)DataContext).RefreshProperties()); So, what does this *ahem* code give us: Awesome, it makes the single bound data object show the colour, but frankly ignores the DataTemplate items. This (by the way) is the same output you get from: Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() => ((MoreVisualStatesViewModel)DataContext).ChangeStatusCommand.Execute(null)); So… Where does that leave me? What about adding a button to the Page to refresh the properties – maybe it’s a timer thing? Yes, that works. Right, what about using the Loaded event then eh? Loaded += (s, e) => ((MoreVisualStatesViewModel) DataContext).RefreshProperties(); Ahhh No. What about converting the DataTemplate into a UserControl? Anything is worth a shot.. Though – I still suspect I’m going to have to ‘RefreshProperties’ if I want the rectangles to update. Still. No. This DataTemplate DataTrigger binding is becoming a bit of a pain… I can’t add a ‘refresh’ button to the actual code base, it’s not exactly user friendly. I’m going to end this one now, and put some investigating into the use of the DataStateSwitchBehavior (all the ones I’ve found, well, all 2 of them are working in SL3, but not 4…)

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• 466 ADF sample applications and growing - ADF EMG Kaleidoscope announcement

  - by Chris Muir

  Interested in finding more ADF sample applications?  How does 466 applications take your fancy? Today at ODTUG's Kaleidoscope conference in San Antonio the ADF EMG announced the launch of a new ADF Samples website, an index of 466 ADF applications gathered from expert ADF bloggers including customers and Oracle staff. For more details on this great ADF community resource head over to the ADF EMG announcement.

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• Creating an SMF service for mercurial web server

  - by Chris W Beal

  I'm working on a project at the moment, which has a number of contributers. We're managing the project gate (which is stand alone) with mercurial. We want to have an easy way of seeing the changelog, so we can show management what is going on.  Luckily mercurial provides a basic web server which allows you to see the changes, and drill in to change sets. This can be run as a daemon, but as it was running on our build server, every time it was rebooted, someone needed to remember to start the process again. This is of course a classic usage of SMF. Now I'm not an experienced person at writing SMF services, so it took me 1/2 an hour or so to figure it out the first time. But going forward I should know what I'm doing a bit better. I did reference this doc extensively. Taking a step back, the command to start the mercurial web server is $ hg serve -p <port number> -d So we somehow need to get SMF to run that command for us. In the simplest form, SMF services are really made up of two components. The manifest Usually lives in /var/svc/manifest somewhere Can be imported from any location The method Usually live in /lib/svc/method I simply put the script straight in that directory. Not very repeatable, but it worked Can take an argument of start, stop, or refresh Lets start with the manifest. This looks pretty complex, but all it's doing is describing the service name, the dependencies, the start and stop methods, and some properties. The properties can be by instance, that is to say I could have multiple hg serve processes handling different mercurial projects, on different ports simultaneously Here is the manifest I wrote. I stole extensively from the examples in the Documentation. So my manifest looks like this $ cat hg-serve.xml <?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE service_bundle SYSTEM "/usr/share/lib/xml/dtd/service_bundle.dtd.1"> <service_bundle type='manifest' name='hg-serve'> <service name='application/network/hg-serve' type='service' version='1'> <dependency name='network' grouping='require_all' restart_on='none' type='service'> <service_fmri value='svc:/milestone/network:default' /> </dependency> <exec_method type='method' name='start' exec='/lib/svc/method/hg-serve %m' timeout_seconds='2' /> <exec_method type='method' name='stop' exec=':kill' timeout_seconds='2'> </exec_method> <instance name='project-gate' enabled='true'> <method_context> <method_credential user='root' group='root' /> </method_context> <property_group name='hg-serve' type='application'> <propval name='path' type='astring' value='/src/project-gate'/> <propval name='port' type='astring' value='9998' /> </property_group> </instance> <stability value='Evolving' /> <template> <common_name> <loctext xml:lang='C'>hg-serve</loctext> </common_name> <documentation> <manpage title='hg' section='1' /> </documentation> </template> </service> </service_bundle> So the only things I had to decide on in this are the service name "application/network/hg-serve" the start and stop methods (more of which later) and the properties. This is the information I need to pass to the start method script. In my case the port I want to start the web server on "9998", and the path to the source gate "/src/project-gate". These can be read in to the start method. So now lets look at the method scripts $ cat /lib/svc/method/hg-serve #!/sbin/sh # # # Copyright (c) 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. # # Standard prolog # . /lib/svc/share/smf_include.sh if [ -z $SMF_FMRI ]; then echo "SMF framework variables are not initialized." exit $SMF_EXIT_ERR fi # # Build the command line flags # # Get the port and directory from the SMF properties port=`svcprop -c -p hg-serve/port $SMF_FMRI` dir=`svcprop -c -p hg-serve/path $SMF_FMRI` echo "$1" case "$1" in 'start') cd $dir /usr/bin/hg serve -d -p $port ;; *) echo "Usage: $0 {start|refresh|stop}" exit 1 ;; esac exit $SMF_EXIT_OK This is all pretty self explanatory, we read the port and directory using svcprop, and use those simply to run a command in the start case. We don't need to implement a stop case, as the manifest says to use "exec=':kill'for the stop method. Now all we need to do is import the manifest and start the service, but first verify the manifest # svccfg verify /path/to/hg-serve.xml If that doesn't give an error try importing it # svccfg import /path/to/hg-serve.xml If like me you originally put the hg-serve.xml file in /var/svc/manifest somewhere you'll get an error and told to restart the import service svccfg: Restarting svc:/system/manifest-import The manifest being imported is from a standard location and should be imported with the command : svcadm restart svc:/system/manifest-import # svcadm restart svc:/system/manifest-import and you're nearly done. You can look at the service using svcs -l # svcs -l hg-serve fmri svc:/application/network/hg-serve:project-gate name hg-serve enabled false state disabled next_state none state_time Thu May 31 16:11:47 2012 logfile /var/svc/log/application-network-hg-serve:project-gate.log restarter svc:/system/svc/restarter:default contract_id 15749 manifest /var/svc/manifest/network/hg/hg-serve.xml dependency require_all/none svc:/milestone/network:default (online) And look at the interesting properties # svcprop hg-serve hg-serve/path astring /src/project-gate hg-serve/port astring 9998 ...stuff deleted.... Then simply enable the service and if every things gone right, you can point your browser at http://server:9998 and get a nice graphical log of project activity. # svcadm enable hg-serve # svcs -l hg-serve fmri svc:/application/network/hg-serve:project-gate name hg-serve enabled true state online next_state none state_time Thu May 31 16:18:11 2012 logfile /var/svc/log/application-network-hg-serve:project-gate.log restarter svc:/system/svc/restarter:default contract_id 15858 manifest /var/svc/manifest/network/hg/hg-serve.xml dependency require_all/none svc:/milestone/network:default (online) None of this is rocket science, but a bit fiddly. Hence I thought I'd blog it. It might just be you see this in google and it clicks with you more than one of the many other blogs or how tos about it. Plus I can always refer back to it myself in 3 weeks, when I want to add another project to the server, and I've forgotten how to do it.

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• Oracle VM networking under the hood and 3 new templates

  - by Chris Kawalek

  We have a few cool things to tell you about:  First up: have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes in the network when you Live Migrate your Oracle VM server workload? Or how Oracle VM implements the network infrastructure you configure through your point & click action in the GUI? Really….how do they do this? For an in-depth view of the Oracle VM for x86 Networking model, Look ‘Under the Hood’ at Networking in Oracle VM Server for x86 with our best practices engineer in a blog post on OTN Garage. Next, making things simple in Oracle VM is what we strive every day to deliver to our user community. With that, we are pleased to bring you updates on three new Oracle Application templates: E-Business Suite 12.1.3 for Oracle ExalogicOracle VM templates for Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.3 (x86 64-bit for Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud) contain all the required elements to create an Oracle E-Business Suite R12 demonstration system on an Exalogic server. You can use these templates to quickly build an EBS 12.1.3 demonstration environment, bypassing the operating system and the software install (via the EBS Rapid Install). For further details, please review the announcement.   JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1 and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools 9.1.2.1 for x86 servers and Oracle Exalogic The Oracle VM Templates for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne provide a method to rapidly install JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1  and Tools 9.1.2.1. The complete stack includes Oracle Database 11g R2 and Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3.5 running on Oracle Linux 5. The templates can be installed to Oracle VM Server for x86 release 3.x and to the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud.  PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.5.2.10 for Oracle Exalogic This virtual deployment package delivers a "quick start" of PeopleSoft Middle-tier template on Oracle Linux for Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. And last, are you wondering why we talk about “fast”, “rapid” when we refer to using Oracle VM templates to virtualize Oracle applications? Read the Evaluator Group Lab Validation report quantifying speeds of deployment up to 10x faster than with VMware vSphere. Or you can also check out our on demand webcast Quantifying the Value of Application-Driven Virtualization.

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• Cannot install shell-themes using gnome-tweak-tool

  - by Chris

  How do I fix this? I will attempt to upload a screenshot of the problem. Notice there is an error like triangle near the shell themes and nothing is select-able. Also there are no shell extensions under the shell extensions tab. I have come across many postings on how to fix this but none worked for me. I currently have 12.04 LTS. I have a custom Phenom quad core machine with Radeon HD 5770 graphics if that helps.

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• 7 Ubuntu File Manager Features You May Not Have Noticed

  - by Chris Hoffman

  The Nautilus file manager included with Ubuntu includes some useful features you may not notice unless you go looking for them. You can create saved searches, mount remote file systems, use tabs in your file manager, and more. Ubuntu’s file manager also includes built-in support for sharing folders on your local network – the Sharing Options dialog creates and configures network shares compatible with both Linux and Windows machines. How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It? HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me?

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• 10 Windows Tweaking Myths Debunked

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Windows is big, complicated, and misunderstood. You’ll still stumble across bad advice from time to time when browsing the web. These Windows tweaking, performance, and system maintenance tips are mostly just useless, but some are actively harmful. Luckily, most of these myths have been stomped out on mainstream sites and forums. However, if you start searching the web, you’ll still find websites that recommend you do these things. Erase Cache Files Regularly to Speed Things Up You can free up disk space by running an application like CCleaner, another temporary-file-cleaning utility, or even the Windows Disk Cleanup tool. In some cases, you may even see an old computer speed up when you erase a large amount of useless files. However, running CCleaner or similar utilities every day to erase your browser’s cache won’t actually speed things up. It will slow down your web browsing as your web browser is forced to redownload the files all over again, and reconstruct the cache you regularly delete. If you’ve installed CCleaner or a similar program and run it every day with the default settings, you’re actually slowing down your web browsing. Consider at least preventing the program from wiping out your web browser cache. Enable ReadyBoost to Speed Up Modern PCs Windows still prompts you to enable ReadyBoost when you insert a USB stick or memory card. On modern computers, this is completely pointless — ReadyBoost won’t actually speed up your computer if you have at least 1 GB of RAM. If you have a very old computer with a tiny amount of RAM — think 512 MB — ReadyBoost may help a bit. Otherwise, don’t bother. Open the Disk Defragmenter and Manually Defragment On Windows 98, users had to manually open the defragmentation tool and run it, ensuring no other applications were using the hard drive while it did its work. Modern versions of Windows are capable of defragmenting your file system while other programs are using it, and they automatically defragment your disks for you. If you’re still opening the Disk Defragmenter every week and clicking the Defragment button, you don’t need to do this — Windows is doing it for you unless you’ve told it not to run on a schedule. Modern computers with solid-state drives don’t have to be defragmented at all. Disable Your Pagefile to Increase Performance When Windows runs out of empty space in RAM, it swaps out data from memory to a pagefile on your hard disk. If a computer doesn’t have much memory and it’s running slow, it’s probably moving data to the pagefile or reading data from it. Some Windows geeks seem to think that the pagefile is bad for system performance and disable it completely. The argument seems to be that Windows can’t be trusted to manage a pagefile and won’t use it intelligently, so the pagefile needs to be removed. As long as you have enough RAM, it’s true that you can get by without a pagefile. However, if you do have enough RAM, Windows will only use the pagefile rarely anyway. Tests have found that disabling the pagefile offers no performance benefit. Enable CPU Cores in MSConfig Some websites claim that Windows may not be using all of your CPU cores or that you can speed up your boot time by increasing the amount of cores used during boot. They direct you to the MSConfig application, where you can indeed select an option that appears to increase the amount of cores used. In reality, Windows always uses the maximum amount of processor cores your CPU has. (Technically, only one core is used at the beginning of the boot process, but the additional cores are quickly activated.) Leave this option unchecked. It’s just a debugging option that allows you to set a maximum number of cores, so it would be useful if you wanted to force Windows to only use a single core on a multi-core system — but all it can do is restrict the amount of cores used. Clean Your Prefetch To Increase Startup Speed Windows watches the programs you run and creates .pf files in its Prefetch folder for them. The Prefetch feature works as a sort of cache — when you open an application, Windows checks the Prefetch folder, looks at the application’s .pf file (if it exists), and uses that as a guide to start preloading data that the application will use. This helps your applications start faster. Some Windows geeks have misunderstood this feature. They believe that Windows loads these files at boot, so your boot time will slow down due to Windows preloading the data specified in the .pf files. They also argue you’ll build up useless files as you uninstall programs and .pf files will be left over. In reality, Windows only loads the data in these .pf files when you launch the associated application and only stores .pf files for the 128 most recently launched programs. If you were to regularly clean out the Prefetch folder, not only would programs take longer to open because they won’t be preloaded, Windows will have to waste time recreating all the .pf files. You could also modify the PrefetchParameters setting to disable Prefetch, but there’s no reason to do that. Let Windows manage Prefetch on its own. Disable QoS To Increase Network Bandwidth Quality of Service (QoS) is a feature that allows your computer to prioritize its traffic. For example, a time-critical application like Skype could choose to use QoS and prioritize its traffic over a file-downloading program so your voice conversation would work smoothly, even while you were downloading files. Some people incorrectly believe that QoS always reserves a certain amount of bandwidth and this bandwidth is unused until you disable it. This is untrue. In reality, 100% of bandwidth is normally available to all applications unless a program chooses to use QoS. Even if a program does choose to use QoS, the reserved space will be available to other programs unless the program is actively using it. No bandwidth is ever set aside and left empty. Set DisablePagingExecutive to Make Windows Faster The DisablePagingExecutive registry setting is set to 0 by default, which allows drivers and system code to be paged to the disk. When set to 1, drivers and system code will be forced to stay resident in memory. Once again, some people believe that Windows isn’t smart enough to manage the pagefile on its own and believe that changing this option will force Windows to keep important files in memory rather than stupidly paging them out. If you have more than enough memory, changing this won’t really do anything. If you have little memory, changing this setting may force Windows to push programs you’re using to the page file rather than push unused system files there — this would slow things down. This is an option that may be helpful for debugging in some situations, not a setting to change for more performance. Process Idle Tasks to Free Memory Windows does things, such as creating scheduled system restore points, when you step away from your computer. It waits until your computer is “idle” so it won’t slow your computer and waste your time while you’re using it. Running the “Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks” command forces Windows to perform all of these tasks while you’re using the computer. This is completely pointless and won’t help free memory or anything like that — all you’re doing is forcing Windows to slow your computer down while you’re using it. This command only exists so benchmarking programs can force idle tasks to run before performing benchmarks, ensuring idle tasks don’t start running and interfere with the benchmark. Delay or Disable Windows Services There’s no real reason to disable Windows services anymore. There was a time when Windows was particularly heavy and computers had little memory — think Windows Vista and those “Vista Capable” PCs Microsoft was sued over. Modern versions of Windows like Windows 7 and 8 are lighter than Windows Vista and computers have more than enough memory, so you won’t see any improvements from disabling system services included with Windows. Some people argue for not disabling services, however — they recommend setting services from “Automatic” to “Automatic (Delayed Start)”. By default, the Delayed Start option just starts services two minutes after the last “Automatic” service starts. Setting services to Delayed Start won’t really speed up your boot time, as the services will still need to start — in fact, it may lengthen the time it takes to get a usable desktop as services will still be loading two minutes after booting. Most services can load in parallel, and loading the services as early as possible will result in a better experience. The “Delayed Start” feature is primarily useful for system administrators who need to ensure a specific service starts later than another service. If you ever find a guide that recommends you set a little-known registry setting to improve performance, take a closer look — the change is probably useless. Want to actually speed up your PC? Try disabling useless startup programs that run on boot, increasing your boot time and consuming memory in the background. This is a much better tip than doing any of the above, especially considering most Windows PCs come packed to the brim with bloatware.     

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• 10 Package Management Operations You Need Synaptic for on Ubuntu

  - by Chris Hoffman

  The Ubuntu Software Center is a solid, user-friendly application, but sometimes you need more power. The Synaptic package manager – previously included with Ubuntu by default – can do many things the Ubuntu Software Center can’t. You can install Synaptic from the Ubuntu Software Center – just search for Synaptic. You can also perform all these operations from the terminal – but, if you need a powerful graphical application for managing packages, Synaptic can’t be beat. How to Play Classic Arcade Games On Your PC How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8

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• COM+, DTC, and 80070422

  - by Chris Miller

  One of our  "packaged" software bits that accesses my servers is going through an upgrade right now.  Apparently this software requires DTC to be installed on my SQL Server, and able to accept remote connections.  So I look up how to do that in the knowledge base: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=555017 And immediately hit a roadblock.  The DTC components aren't showing up in my Component Services console.  The entire console's acting weird (well, weirder than usual) and when I go into the console and click "Options" it insists on having a timeout entered, and when I enter one, close the box, and go back, the setting's gone again and I'm required to re-enter it.  Lots of weirdness, and no DTC tab.  If you open the COM+ folders, you immediately get error 80070422. After a lot of searching I was looking through the Services listing on the box (after restarting DTC for the twelfth time) and saw that "Com+ System Application" was disabled.  I set it to manual, rebooted the box (test server) and everything started working. So, if you're trying to follow those instructions and discover that the Component Services tool is acting odder than usual, make sure that service isn't disabled.

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• How to Disable Home Folder Encryption After Installing Ubuntu

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Ubuntu offers to encrypt your home directory during installation. The encryption has some drawbacks – there’s a performance penalty and recovering your files is more difficult. If you change your mind later, you can remove the encryption without reinstalling Ubuntu. The process of removing the encryption involves creating a backup copy of your home directory without encryption, deleting the existing home directory, removing the encryption utilities, and moving the unencrypted copy back into place. HTG Explains: What Is RSS and How Can I Benefit From Using It? HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online

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• How to Work with the Network from the Linux Terminal: 11 Commands You Need to Know

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Whether you want to download files, diagnose network problems, manage your network interfaces, or view network statistics, there’s a terminal command for that. This collection contains the tried and true tools and a few newer commands. You can do most of this from a graphical desktop, although even Linux users that rarely use the terminal often launch one to use ping and other network diagnostic tools. Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Reader Request: How To Repair Blurry Photos HTG Explains: What Can You Find in an Email Header?

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• 8 Deadly Commands You Should Never Run on Linux

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Linux’s terminal commands are powerful, and Linux won’t ask you for confirmation if you run a command that won’t break your system. It’s not uncommon to see trolls online recommending new Linux users run these commands as a joke. Learning the commands you shouldn’t run can help protect you from trolls while increasing your understanding of how Linux works. This isn’t an exhaustive guide, and the commands here can be remixed in a variety of ways. Note that many of these commands will only be dangerous if they’re prefixed with sudo on Ubuntu – they won’t work otherwise. On other Linux distributions, most commands must be run as root. Image Credit: Skull and Crossbones remixed from Jason Ford on Twitter How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates How to Get Pro Features in Windows Home Versions with Third Party Tools HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using?

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• How to Create a Custom Ubuntu Live CD or USB the Easy Way

  - by Chris Hoffman

  There are several different ways to create custom Ubuntu live CDs. We’ve covered using the Reconstructor web app in the past, but some commenters recommended the Ubuntu Customization Kit instead. It’s an open-source utility found in Ubuntu’s software repositories. UCK offers more powerful features than Reconstructor does, but Reconstructor makes most tasks easier for novice users. Be sure to take a look at Reconstructor, too. How To Be Your Own Personal Clone Army (With a Little Photoshop) How To Properly Scan a Photograph (And Get An Even Better Image) The HTG Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume

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• 6 Ways to Speed Up Your Ubuntu PC

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Ubuntu is pretty snappy out-of-the-box, but there are some ways to take better advantage of your system’s memory and speed up the boot process. Some of these tips can really speed things up, especially on older hardware. In particular, selecting a lightweight desktop environment and lighter applications can give an older system a new lease on life. That old computer that struggles with Ubuntu’s Unity desktop can provide decent performance for years to come. HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online Here’s How to Download Windows 8 Release Preview Right Now

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• How to Recover an Encrypted Home Directory on Ubuntu

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Access an encrypted home directory when you’re not logged in – say, from a live CD – and all you’ll see is a README file. You’ll need a terminal command to recover your encrypted files. You should also back up your mount passphrase ahead of time – you may need this in the future. While eCryptfs normally decrypts your files with your login passphrase, the mount passphrase may be necessary if eCryptfs’s files become lost. HTG Explains: What Is RSS and How Can I Benefit From Using It? HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online

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• HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It

  - by Chris Hoffman

  The Windows Event Viewer shows a log of application and system messages – errors, information messages, and warnings. Scammers have used the Event Viewer to deceive people – event a properly functioning system will have error messages here. In one infamous scam, a person claiming to be from Microsoft phones someone up and instructs them to open the Event Viewer. The person is sure to see error messages here, and the scammer will ask for the person’s credit card number to fix them. As a rule of thumb, you can generally ignore all of the errors and warnings that appear in the Event Viewer – assuming your computer is working properly. HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows?

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• Stack Trace Logger [migrated]

  - by Chris Okyen

  I need to write a parent Java class that classes using recursion can extend. The parent class will be be able to realize whenever the call stack changes ( you enter a method, temporarily leave it to go to another method call, or you are are finsihed with the method ) and then print it out. I want it to print on the console, but clear the console as well every time so it shows the stack horizantaly so you can see the height of each stack to see what popped off and what popped on... Also print out if a baseline was reached for recursive functions. First. How can I using the StackTraceElements and Thread classes to detect automatically whenever the stack has popped or pushed an element on without calling it manually? Second, how would I do the clearing thing? For instance , if I had the code: public class recursion(int i) { private static void recursion(int i) { if( i < 10) System.out.println('A'); else { recursion(i / 10 ); System.out.println('B'); } } public static void main(String[] argv) { recursion(102); } } It would need to print out the stack when entering main(), when entering recursion(102) from main(), when it enters recursion(102 / 10), which is recursion(10), from recursion(102), when it enters recursion(10 / 10), which is recursion(1) from recursion(10). Print out a message out when it reaches the baseline recursion(1).. then print out the stacks of reversed revisitation of function recursion(10), recursion(102) and main(). finally print out we are exiting main().

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• Secure Yourself by Using Two-Step Verification on These 16 Web Services

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Two-factor authentication, also known as 2-step verification, provides additional security for your online accounts. Even if someone discovers your password, they’ll need a special one-time code to log in after you enable two-factor authentication on these services. Notably absent from this list are banks and other financial institutions. It’s a shame that you can use two-factor authentication to protect your in-game currency in an MMORPG, but not the real money in your bank account. Secure Yourself by Using Two-Step Verification on These 16 Web Services How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot

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• CSS Style Element if it does not contain another specific type of Element [migrated]

  - by Chris S

  My CSS includes the following: #mainbody a[href ^='http'] { background:transparent url('/images/icons/external.svg') no-repeat top right; padding-right: 12px; } This places an "external" icon next to links that start with "http" (all internal site links are relative). Works perfectly except if I link an Image, it also get this icon. For example: <a href='http://example.com'><img src='whatever.jpg'/></a> would also get the "external" icon next to the image. I can live with this if necessary, but would like to eliminate it. This must be implement in CSS (no JS); must not require any special IDs, Classes, styling in the html for the image or anchor around the image. Is this possible?

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• Working with EO composition associations via ADF BC SDO web services

  - by Chris Muir

  ADF Business Components support the ability to publish the underlying Application Modules (AMs) and View Objects (VOs) as web services through Service Data Objects (SDOs).  This blog post looks at a minor challenge to overcome when using SDOs and Entity Objects (EOs) that use a composition association. Using the default ADF BC EO association behaviour ADF BC components allow you to work with VOs that are based on EOs that are a part of a parent-child composition association.  A composition association enforces that you cannot create records for the child outside the context of the parent.  As example when creating invoice-lines you want to enforce the individual lines have a relating parent invoice record, it just simply doesn't make sense to save invoice-lines without their parent invoice record. In the following screenshot using the ADF BC Tester it demonstrates the correct way to create a child Employees record as part of a composition association with Departments: And the following screenshot shows you the wrong way to create an Employee record: Note the error which is enforced by the composition association: (oracle.jbo.InvalidOwnerException) JBO-25030: Detail entity Employees with row key null cannot find or invalidate its owning entity.  Working with composition associations via the SDO web services  Shay Shmeltzer recently recorded a good video which demonstrates how to expose your ADF Business Components through the SDO interface. On exposing the VOs you get a choice of operation to publish including create, update, delete and more: For example through the SDO test interface we can see that the create operation will request the attributes for the VO exposed, in this case EmployeesView1: In this specific case though, just like the ADF BC Tester, an attempt to create this record will fail with JBO-25030, the composition association is still enforced: The correct way to to do this is through the create operation on the DepartmentsView1 which also lets you create employees record in context of the parent, thus satisfying the composition association rule: Yet at issue here is the create operation will always create both the parent Departments and Employees records.  What do we do if we've already previously created the parent Departments records, and we just want to create additional Employees records for that Department?  The create method of the EmployeeView1 as we saw previously doesn't allow us to do that, the JBO-3050 error will be raised. The solution is the "merge" operation on the parent Departments record: In this case for the Departments record you just need to supply the DepartmentId of the Department you want the Employees record to be associated with, as well as the new Employees record.  When invoked only the Employees record is created, and the supply of the DepartmentId of the Departments record satisfies the composition association without actually creating or updating the associated Department record that already exists in the database. Be warned however if you supply any more attributes for the Department record, it will result in a merge (update) of the associated Departments record too. 

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• Integrating Facebook Comments into your DotNetNuke Pages

  - by Chris Hammond

  Last week Facebook announced a new feature that websites can use to get Facebook Comments onto their web pages . I thought this was interesting as I have a few car racing sites that are using Forums, but also have the DNNSimpleArticle module for main page content. The forums are active, but the DNNSimpleArticle module doesn’t allow for comments as of right now (or in the foreseeable future) so I started to look into the Facebook comments a bit. From a quick read of their blog post/announcement it...(read more)

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• The Command Prompt is Outdated: 2 Command Prompt Replacements for Windows

  - by Chris Hoffman

  The Command Prompt window included with Windows is outdated. The command line itself isn’t outdated – the Command Prompt just lacks modern features like tabs, transparency, support for other shells, easy selection of text, and other modern Windows features. If you spend any time at all with the Command Prompt, you’ll want to check out one of these two open-source Command Prompt replacements that improves on the original Command Prompt. HTG Explains: Does Your Android Phone Need an Antivirus? How To Use USB Drives With the Nexus 7 and Other Android Devices Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder?

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• Gui Batch program on USB

  - by Chris Okyen

  When I put my USB drive into a computer, I want autorun.inf to run a batch file that will have a win32/winform GUI windows interface to allow the user to select a program to run from the beginning similiar to like this: Please let me know if windows allows this without it being done programmatically. I know their are some automation programs that work by generating code based on what it records you do. But I don't knwo of any already built windows prompt like this, so I don't knwo how to record such an action.

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• regarding the Windows Phone 7 series, XNA and Visual Basic

  - by Chris Williams

  as long as we're talking about VB... I figured I would share this as well. Hi everyone, I'm about to express a sentiment that might ruffle a few feathers, but I think most of you know me well enough to know I love like accept VB for what it is and that what I'm about to say is with good intentions. (The rest of you, who don't know me, please take my word for it.) The world is full of VB developers, I was one of them for a long time. I think it's safe to assume that none of us are ignorant people who require handholding. We're working professionals, making a living by using our skills as developers. I'm also willing to bet that quite a few of us are fluent in C# as well as VB. It may not be your preferred language, but many of you can do it and you prove that nearly every day. Honestly, I don't know ANY developers or consultants that have only known ONE language ever. So it pains me greatly when I see the word "CAN'T" being tossed around like a crutch... as in "we CAN'T develop for the windows phone or we CAN'T develop XNA games." At MIX, Microsoft hath decreed that C# is the language of choice for developing for the Windows Phone 7. I think it's a safe bet that you won't see VB support if it isn't there already. (Just like XNA... which is up to version 4.0 by now.)  So what? (Yeah... I said it.) I think everyone here can agree that actual coding is only one part of software design and development. There is nothing stopping ANY of you from beginning the process of designing your killer phone app, writing up specs, requirements, doing UI design, workflow, mockups, storyboards, art, etc.... None of these things are language dependent. IF by the time you've got that stuff out of the way, and there's still no VB support, then start doing some rapid prototyping of your app in C# (I know, I know... heresy!)  You still have to spend time learning how the phone does things, what UI tricks do what, what paradigms make sense, how to use to accelerometer and the tilt and the multitouch functionality. I can guarantee you that time spent doing this is a great investment, no matter WHAT extension your code files have. Eventually, you may have a working prototype. IF by this time, there's STILL no VB support... fret not, you've made significant progress on your app. You've designed it, prototyped it, figured out how to use the phone specific features... so you might as well finish it and pat yourself on the back for learning something new... and possibly being first to market with your new app. I'll be happy to argue any and all of these points online or off with anyone who cares to do so, but there is one undeniable point that you simply can't argue:  Your potential customers do not care AT ALL what programming language you used to write the app they are about to purchase. They care that it works. If your biggest concern is being first to market, than stop complaining and get busy because you're running out of time and the 3000+ people who were at MIX certainly aren't waiting for you. They've already started working on their apps.

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