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• Awesome 10 Meter Curved Touchscreen at the University of Groningen [Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  Think that you have seen awesome touchscreen setups before? Then think again because the University of Groningen has put together the ultimate version with a super-sized 10 meter curved screen setup housed at their reality center. To learn more about the assorted hardware and software used in the creation of this touchscreen wonder see the detailed information section on the YouTube page (link provided below). Note: The video has approximately 1 minute of “blank” airplay at the end. Reality touchscreen University of Groningen [via Geeks are Sexy] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Learn To Adjust Contrast Like a Pro in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Have You Ever Wondered How Your Operating System Got Its Name? Should You Delete Windows 7 Service Pack Backup Files to Save Space? What Can Super Mario Teach Us About Graphics Technology? Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is Released: But Should You Install It? How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions Awesome 10 Meter Curved Touchscreen at the University of Groningen [Video] TV Antenna Helper Makes HDTV Antenna Calibration a Snap Turn a Green Laser into a Microscope Projector [Science] The Open Road Awaits [Wallpaper] N64oid Brings N64 Emulation to Android Devices Super-Charge GIMP’s Image Editing Capabilities with G’MIC [Cross-Platform]

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• E.T. II – Extinction [Fake Movie Sequel Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  It has been years since E.T. returned home and Elliot is all grown up now. But things are about to get a lot more interesting when E.T. returns to help save the Earth. The only problem is that the invaders are the people from E.T.’s own planet. Forget cute and cuddly…extinction is the name of the game in this well edited fake sequel trailer from YouTube user Robert Blankenheim. Warning: If you have fond, warm memories of the original E.T. movie, then you may want to skip this video. These extra-terrestrials are literally portrayed as pure, bloodthirsy evil. ET Sequel: “ET-X” (Extended Trailer) [via Geeks are Sexy] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Should You Delete Windows 7 Service Pack Backup Files to Save Space? What Can Super Mario Teach Us About Graphics Technology? Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is Released: But Should You Install It? How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) Manage Your Favorite Social Accounts in Chrome and Iron with Seesmic E.T. II – Extinction [Fake Movie Sequel Video] Remastered King’s Quest Games Offer Classic Gaming on Modern Machines Compare Your Internet Cost and Speed to Global Averages [Infographic] Orbital Battle for Terra Wallpaper WizMouse Enables Mouse Over Scrolling on Any Window

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• HTG Explains: Do Non-Windows Platforms Like Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux Get Viruses?

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Viruses and other types of malware seem largely confined to Windows in the real world. Even on a Windows 8 PC, you can still get infected with malware. But how vulnerable are other operating systems to malware? When we say “viruses,” we’re actually talking about malware in general. There’s more to malware than just viruses, although the word virus is often used to talk about malware in general. Why Are All the Viruses For Windows? Not all of the malware out there is for Windows, but most of it is. We’ve tried to cover why Windows has the most viruses in the past. Windows’ popularity is definitely a big factor, but there are other reasons, too. Historically, Windows was never designed for security in the way that UNIX-like platforms were — and every popular operating system that’s not Windows is based on UNIX. Windows also has a culture of installing software by searching the web and downloading it from websites, whereas other platforms have app stores and Linux has centralized software installation from a secure source in the form of its package managers. Do Macs Get Viruses? The vast majority of malware is designed for Windows systems and Macs don’t get Windows malware. While Mac malware is much more rare, Macs are definitely not immune to malware. They can be infected by malware written specifically for Macs, and such malware does exist. At one point, over 650,000 Macs were infected with the Flashback Trojan. [Source] It infected Macs through the Java browser plugin, which is a security nightmare on every platform. Macs no longer include Java by default. Apple also has locked down Macs in other ways. Three things in particular help: Mac App Store: Rather than getting desktop programs from the web and possibly downloading malware, as inexperienced users might on Windows, they can get their applications from a secure place. It’s similar to a smartphone app store or even a Linux package manager. Gatekeeper: Current releases of Mac OS X use Gatekeeper, which only allows programs to run if they’re signed by an approved developer or if they’re from the Mac App Store. This can be disabled by geeks who need to run unsigned software, but it acts as additional protection for typical users. XProtect: Macs also have a built-in technology known as XProtect, or File Quarantine. This feature acts as a blacklist, preventing known-malicious programs from running. It functions similarly to Windows antivirus programs, but works in the background and checks applications you download. Mac malware isn’t coming out nearly as quick as Windows malware, so it’s easier for Apple to keep up. Macs are certainly not immune to all malware, and someone going out of their way to download pirated applications and disable security features may find themselves infected. But Macs are much less at risk of malware in the real world. Android is Vulnerable to Malware, Right? Android malware does exist and companies that produce Android security software would love to sell you their Android antivirus apps. But that isn’t the full picture. By default, Android devices are configured to only install apps from Google Play. They also benefit from antimalware scanning — Google Play itself scans apps for malware. You could disable this protection and go outside Google Play, getting apps from elsewhere (“sideloading”). Google will still help you if you do this, asking if you want to scan your sideloaded apps for malware when you try to install them. In China, where many, many Android devices are in use, there is no Google Play Store. Chinese Android users don’t benefit from Google’s antimalware scanning and have to get their apps from third-party app stores, which may contain infected copies of apps. The majority of Android malware comes from outside Google Play. The scary malware statistics you see primarily include users who get apps from outside Google Play, whether it’s pirating infected apps or acquiring them from untrustworthy app stores. As long as you get your apps from Google Play — or even another secure source, like the Amazon App Store — your Android phone or tablet should be secure. What About iPads and iPhones? Apple’s iOS operating system, used on its iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches, is more locked down than even Macs and Android devices. iPad and iPhone users are forced to get their apps from Apple’s App Store. Apple is more demanding of developers than Google is — while anyone can upload an app to Google Play and have it available instantly while Google does some automated scanning, getting an app onto Apple’s App Store involves a manual review of that app by an Apple employee. The locked-down environment makes it much more difficult for malware to exist. Even if a malicious application could be installed, it wouldn’t be able to monitor what you typed into your browser and capture your online-banking information without exploiting a deeper system vulnerability. Of course, iOS devices aren’t perfect either. Researchers have proven it’s possible to create malicious apps and sneak them past the app store review process. [Source] However, if a malicious app was discovered, Apple could pull it from the store and immediately uninstall it from all devices. Google and Microsoft have this same ability with Android’s Google Play and Windows Store for new Windows 8-style apps. Does Linux Get Viruses? Malware authors don’t tend to target Linux desktops, as so few average users use them. Linux desktop users are more likely to be geeks that won’t fall for obvious tricks. As with Macs, Linux users get most of their programs from a single place — the package manager — rather than downloading them from websites. Linux also can’t run Windows software natively, so Windows viruses just can’t run. Linux desktop malware is extremely rare, but it does exist. The recent “Hand of Thief” Trojan supports a variety of Linux distributions and desktop environments, running in the background and stealing online banking information. It doesn’t have a good way if infecting Linux systems, though — you’d have to download it from a website or receive it as an email attachment and run the Trojan. [Source] This just confirms how important it is to only run trusted software on any platform, even supposedly secure ones. What About Chromebooks? Chromebooks are locked down laptops that only run the Chrome web browser and some bits around it. We’re not really aware of any form of Chrome OS malware. A Chromebook’s sandbox helps protect it against malware, but it also helps that Chromebooks aren’t very common yet. It would still be possible to infect a Chromebook, if only by tricking a user into installing a malicious browser extension from outside the Chrome web store. The malicious browser extension could run in the background, steal your passwords and online banking credentials, and send it over the web. Such malware could even run on Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of Chrome, but it would appear in the Extensions list, would require the appropriate permissions, and you’d have to agree to install it manually. And Windows RT? Microsoft’s Windows RT only runs desktop programs written by Microsoft. Users can only install “Windows 8-style apps” from the Windows Store. This means that Windows RT devices are as locked down as an iPad — an attacker would have to get a malicious app into the store and trick users into installing it or possibly find a security vulnerability that allowed them to bypass the protection. Malware is definitely at its worst on Windows. This would probably be true even if Windows had a shining security record and a history of being as secure as other operating systems, but you can definitely avoid a lot of malware just by not using Windows. Of course, no platform is a perfect malware-free environment. You should exercise some basic precautions everywhere. Even if malware was eliminated, we’d have to deal with social-engineering attacks like phishing emails asking for credit card numbers. Image Credit: stuartpilbrow on Flickr, Kansir on Flickr     

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• MSCC: Purpose and benefits of Version Control Systems (VCS)

  Unfortunately, there was no monthly meetup during May. Which means that it was even more important and interesting to go forward with a great topic for this month. Earlier this year I already spoke to Nayar Joolfoo about doing a presentation on version control systems (VCS), and he gladly agreed since then. It was just about finding the right date for the action. Furthermore, it was also a great coincidence that Avinash Meetoo announced on social media networks that Knowledge 7 is about to have a new training on "Effective git" - which correlates to a book title Avinash is currently working on - all the best with your approach on this and reach out to our MSCC craftsmen for recessions. Once again a big Thank you to Orange Ebene Accelerator on providing the venue for us, and the MSCC members involved on securing the time slot for our event. Unfortunately, it's kind of tough to get an early confirmation for our meetups these days. I'll keep you posted on that one as there are some interesting and exciting options coming up soon. Okay, let's talk about the meeting and version control systems again. As usual, I'm going to put my first impression of the meetup: "Absolutely great topic, questions and discussions on version control systems, like git or VSO. I was also highly pleased by the number of first timers and female IT geeks. Hopefully, we will be able to keep this trend for future get-togethers." And I really have to emphasise the amount of fresh blood coming to our gathering. Also, during the initial phase it was surprising to see that exactly those first-timers, most of them students at various campuses here on the island, had absolutely no idea about version control systems. More about further down... Reactions of other attendees If I counted correctly, we had a total of 17 attendees this month, and I'd like to give you feedback from some of them: "Inspiring. Helped me understand more about GIT." -- Sean on event comments "Joined the meetup today with literally no idea what is a version control system. I have several reasons why I should be starting to use VCS as from NOW in my projects. Thanks Nayar, Jochen and other participants :)" -- Yudish on event comments "Was present today and I'm very satisfied.I was not aware if there was a such tool like git available. Thanks to those who contributed for this meetup.It was great. Learned a lot from this meetup!!" -- Leonardo on event comments "Seriously, I can see how it’s going to ease my task and help me save time. Gone are the issues with files backups.  And since I’ll be doing my dissertation this year, using Git would help me a lot for my backups and I’m grateful to Nayar for the great explanation." -- Swan-Iyah on MSCC meetup : Version Controls Hopefully, I'll be able to get some other sources - personal blogs preferred - on our meeting. Geeks, thank you so much for those encouraging comments. It's really great to experience that we, all members of the MSCC, are doing the right thing to get more IT information out, and to help each other to improve and evolve in our professional careers. Our agenda of the day Honestly, we had a bumpy start... First, I was battling a little bit with the movable room divider in order to maximize the space. I mean, we had 24 RSVPs and usually there might additional people coming along. Then, for what ever reason, we were facing power outages - actually twice in short periods. Not too good for the projector after all, but hey it went smooth for the rest of the time being. And last but not least... our first speaker Nayar got stuck somewhere on the road. ;-) Anyway, not a real show-stopper and we used the time until Nayar's arrival to introduce ourselves a little bit. It is always important for me to get to know the "newbies" a little bit, and as a result we had lots of students of university - first year, second year and recent graduates - among them. Surprisingly, none of them was ever in contact with version control systems at all. I mean, this is a shocking discovery! Similar to the ability of touch-typing I'd say that being able to use (and master) any kind of version control system is compulsory in any job in the IT industry. Seriously, I'm wondering what is being taught during the classes on the campus. All of them have to work on semester assessments or final projects, even in small teams of 2-4 people. That's the perfect occasion to get started with VCS. Already in this phase, we had great input from more experienced VCS users, like Sean, Avinash and myself. git - a modern approach to VCS - Nayar What a tour! Nayar gave us the full round of git from start to finish, even touching some more advanced techniques. First, he started to explain about the importance of version control systems as an essential tool for software developers, even working alone on a project, and the ability to have a kind of "time machine" that allows you to inspect and revert to a previous version of source code at any time. Then he showed how easy it is to install git on an Ubuntu based system but also mentioned that git is literally available for any operating system, like Windows, Mac OS X and of course other Linux distributions. Next, he showed us how to set the initial configuration values of user name and email address which simplifies the daily usage of the git client while working with your repositories. Then he initialised and added a new repository for some local development of a blogging software. All commands were done using the command line interface (CLI) so that they can be repeated on any system as reference. The syntax and the procedure is always the same, and Nayar clearly mentioned this to the attendees. Now, having a git repository in place it was about time to work on some "important" changes on the blogging software - just for the sake of demonstrating the ease of use and power of git. One interesting question came very early: "How many commands do we have to learn? It looks quite difficult at the moment" - Well, rest assured that during daily development circles you will need less than 10 git commands on a regular base: git add, commit, push, pull, checkout, and merge And Nayar demo'd all of them. Much to the delight of everyone he also showed gitk which is the git repository browser. It's an UI tool to display changes in a repository or a selected set of commits. This includes visualizing the commit graph, showing information related to each commit, and the files in the trees of each revision. Using gitk to display and browse information of a local git repository And last but not least, we took advantage of the internet connectivity and reached out to various online portals offering git hosting for free. Nayar showed us how to push the local repository into a remote system on github. Showing the web-based git browser and history handling, and then also explained and demo'd on how to connect to existing online repositories in order to get access to either your own source code or other people's open source projects. Next to github, we also spoke about bitbucket and gitlab as potential online platforms for your projects. Have a look at the conditions and details about their free service packages and what you can get additionally as a paying customer. Usually, you already get a lot of services for up to five users for free but there might be other important aspects that might have an impact on your decision. Anyways, moving git-based repositories between systems is a piece of cake, and changing online platforms is possible at any stage of your development. Visual Studio Online (VSO) - Jochen Well, Nayar literally covered all elements of working with git during his session, including the use of external online platforms. So, what would be the advantage of talking about Visual Studio Online (VSO)? First of all, VSO is "just another" online platform for hosting and managing git repositories on remote systems, equivalent to github, bitbucket, or any other web site. At the moment (of writing), Microsoft also provides a free package of up to five users / developers on a git repository but there is more in that package. Of course, it is related to software development on the Windows systems and the bonds are tightened towards the use of Visual Studio but out of experience you are absolutely not restricted to that. Connecting a Linux or Mac OS X machine with a git client or an integrated development environment (IDE) like Eclipse or Xcode works as smooth as expected. So, why should one opt in for VSO? Well, one of the main aspects that I would like to mention here is that VSO integrates the Application Life Cycle Methodology (ALM) of Microsoft in their platform. Meaning that you get agile project management with Backlogs, Sprints, Burn-down charts as well as the ability to track tasks, bug reports and work items next to collaborative team chats. It's the whole package of agile development you'll get. And, something I mentioned briefly during the begin of our meeting, VSO gives you the possibility of an automated continuous integrated (CI) process which builds and can run tests of your source code after each commit of changes. Having a proper CI strategy is also part of the Clean Code Developer practices - on Level Green actually -, and not only simplifies your life as a software developer but also reduces the sources of potential errors. Seamless integration and automated deployment between Microsoft Azure Web Sites and git repository But my favourite feature is the seamless continuous deployment to Microsoft Azure. Especially, while working on web projects it's absolutely astounishing that as soon as you commit your chances it just takes a couple of seconds until your modifications are deployed and available on your Azure-hosted web sites. Upcoming Events and networking Due to the adjusted times, everybody was kind of hungry and we didn't follow up on networking or upcoming events - very unfortunate to my opinion and this will have an impact on future planning of our meetups. Because I rather would like to see more conversations during and at the end of our meetings than everyone just packing their laptops, bags and accessories and rush off to grab some food. I was hoping to get some information regarding this year's Code Challenge - supposedly to be organised during July? Maybe someone could leave a comment on that - but I couldn't get any updates. Well, I'll keep digging... In case that you would like to get more into git and how to use it effectively, please check out Knowledge 7's upcoming course on "Effective git". Thanks Avinash for your vital input into today's conversation and I'm looking forward to get a grip on your book title very soon. My resume of the day Do not work in IT without any kind of version control system! Seriously, without a VCS in place you're doing it wrong. It's like driving a car without seat belts attached or riding your bike without safety helmet. You don't do that! End of discussion. ;-) Nowadays, having access to free (as in cost) tools to install on your machine and numerous online platforms to host your source code for free for up to five users it's a no-brainer to get yourself familiar with VCS. Today's sessions gave a good overview on how to start using git and how to connect to various remote services like github or VSO.

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• The Legend of Zelda – 1980s High School Style [Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  What happens when you mix the Legend of Zelda with the 80s high school scene? Something fun and cheesy that makes you wish there really was a movie based on this! From YouTube: In this charming critically-acclaimed tale of first love, Link, an eternal optimist and adventurer, seeks to capture the heart of Zelda, an unattainable high school beauty and straight-A student. He surprises just about everyone-including himself-when she returns the sentiment. But the high school’s over-possessive, megalomaniacal Principal Ganondorf doesn’t approve and it’s going to take more than just the power of love to conquer all. The Legend of Zelda (1987) Trailer [via Geeks are Sexy] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The Legend of Zelda – 1980s High School Style [Video] Suspended Sentence is a Free Cross-Platform Point and Click Game Build a Batman-Style Hidden Bust Switch Make Your Clock Creates a Custom Clock for your Android Homescreen Download the Anime Angels Theme for Windows 7 CyanogenMod Updates; Rolls out Android 2.3 to the Less Fortunate

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• Microsoft Kinect Sales Are 2X Faster Than iPad

  - by Gopinath

  Apple iPad broke many records and it was crowned as the fastest adopted digital device in the history. 2 million iPads were sold in two months and Apple fan boys are all happy with the news. Here comes some good news for Microsoft lovers – Microsoft’s Kinect is selling twice as fast as Apple iPads. In just 25 days after the launch, 2 million Kinects are sold across the globe – that means 100K Kinect sales per day. Very impressive! Kinect was originally released for XBox 360 gaming console but hackers and geeks are able to connect Kinect to Windows 7 PC to control computers using gestures. The possibilities Kinect usage in building natural user interfaces looks very promising. If this growth sustains after the festive season, Microsoft Kinect will displace iPad from the crown of fastest adopted digital device. More details at Xbox 360 Surpasses 2.5 Million Kinect Sensors Sold This article titled,Microsoft Kinect Sales Are 2X Faster Than iPad, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• Tab Sweep: FacesMessage enhancements, Look up thread pool resources, JQuery/JSF integration, Galleria, ...

  - by arungupta

  Recent Tips and News on Java, Java EE 6, GlassFish & more : • Fixing remote GlassFish server errors on NetBeans (Igor Cardoso) • FacesMessage Enhancements (PrimeFaces) • How to create and look up thread pool resource in GlassFish (javahowto) • Jersey 1.12 is released (Jakub Podlesak) • VisualVM problem connecting to monitor Glassfish (Raymond Reid) • JSF 2.0 JQuery-JSF Integration (John Yeary) • JDBC-ODBC Bridge Example (John Yeary) • The Java EE 6 Example - Gracefully dealing with Errors in Galleria - Part 6 (Markus Eisele) • Logout functionality in Java web applications (JavaOnly) • LDAP PASSWORD POLICIES AND JAVAEE (Ricky's Hodgepodge) • Java User Groups Promote Java Education (java.net Editor's Daily Blog) • JavaEE Revisits Design Patterns: Aspects (Interceptor) (Developer Chronicles) • Java EE 6 Hand-on Workshop @ IIUI (Shahzad Badar) • javaee6-crud-example (Arjan Tims) • Sample CRUD application with JSF and RichFaces (Mark van der Tol) • 5 useful methods JSF developers should know (Java Code Geeks) Here are some tweets from this week ... Almost 9000 Parleys views at the #JavaEE6 #Devoxx talk I did with @BertErtman. Not even made available for free yet! #JavaEE6 is hot :-) Sent three proposals for Øredev, about #JavaEE6, #OSGi and a case study about Leren-op-Maat (OSGi in the cloud) together with @m4rr5 [blog] The Java EE 6 #Example - Gracefully dealing with #Errors in #Galleria - Part 6 http://t.co/Drg1EQvf #javaee6 Tomorrow, there is a session about Java EE6 #javaee6 at islamia university #bahawalpur under #pakijug.about 150 students going to attend it.

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• Is the Forcefield Really On or Not? [Star Wars Parody Video]

  - by Asian Angel

  What do you get when you mix two not so smart troopers, a very observant princess, and spotty forcefield service? Lots of trouble! Watch as these two troopers use their own brand of reverse psychology, spur-of-the-moment sound effects, and more to try and convince the princess that the forcefield is still on! TROOPERS – Forcefield [via Geeks are Sexy] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Learn To Adjust Contrast Like a Pro in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Have You Ever Wondered How Your Operating System Got Its Name? Should You Delete Windows 7 Service Pack Backup Files to Save Space? What Can Super Mario Teach Us About Graphics Technology? Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is Released: But Should You Install It? How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions Add a “Textmate Style” Lightweight Text Editor with Dropbox Syncing to Chrome and Iron Is the Forcefield Really On or Not? [Star Wars Parody Video] Google Updates Picasa Web Albums; Emphasis on Sharing and Showcasing Uwall.tv Turns YouTube into a Video Jukebox Early Morning Sunrise at the Beach Wallpaper Data Networks Visualized via Light Paintings [Video]

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• Fix Google Reader Lag by Blocking Google Plus Button

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Chrome: Many Google Reader fans have noticed, since the upgrades last month, that the service is unbearably slow. Speed things up by blocking the Google Plus button. Ever since the upgrade from the old Google Reader interface to the new integrated-with-Google-Plus interface, many Google Reader users were reporting a painfully long lag between reading entries in Reader. Previously hitting a keyboard shortcut or arrow button to move you through the new stories was instant with no noticeable lag. After the upgrade a lag of 3-5 seconds per individual story became common (we experienced this annoying lag around the How-To Geek office immediately after the upgrade). One of the theories was that the addition of the Google Plus button to every article was causing memory issues. Geeks Are Sexy tested the theory by blocking this address: plusone.google.com/u/0/_/+1/fastbutton using AdBlock. While people were reporting great success with that move (and you may find it works great too) we didn’t have any luck. What did work for us was installing Chromeblock and, while visiting reader.google.com, clicking on the ChromeBlock toolbar button and blocking Google +1. After that the 3-5 second lag vanished and browsing articles was as snappy as it had been. Hit up the link below to grab a copy of Chromeblock. Amazon’s New Kindle Fire Tablet: the How-To Geek Review HTG Explains: How Hackers Take Over Web Sites with SQL Injection / DDoS Use Your Android Phone to Comparison Shop: 4 Scanner Apps Reviewed

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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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• Red Sand – An Awesome Fan Made Mass Effect Prequel [Short Movie]

  - by Asian Angel

  Welcome to Mars where humanity has just discovered the Prothean Ruins and Element Zero, but danger abounds as the Red Sand terrorist group seeks to claim Mars for themselves! If you love the Mass Effect game series, then you will definitely want to watch this awesome fan made prequel set 35 years before the events of the first game. Synopsis From YouTube: Serving as a prequel to the MASS EFFECT game series,”Red Sand” is set 35 years before the time of Commander Shepard and tells the story of the discovery of ancient ruins on Mars. Left behind by the mysterious alien race known as the Protheans, the ruins are a treasure trove of advanced technology and the powerful Element Zero, an energy source beyond humanity’s wildest dreams. As the Alliance research team led by Dr. Averroes (Ayman Samman) seeks to unlock the secrets of the ruins, a band of marauders living in the deserts of Mars wants the ruins for themselves. Addicted to refined Element Zero in the form of a narcotic nicknamed “Red Sand” which gives them telekinetic “biotic” powers, these desert-dwelling terrorists will stop at nothing to control the ruins and the rich vein of Element Zero at its core. Standing between them and their goal are Colonel Jon Grissom (Mark Meer), Colonel Lily Sandhurst (Amy Searcy), and a team of Alliance soldiers tasked with defending the ruins at all costs. At stake – the future of humanity’s exploration of the galaxy, and the set up for the MASS EFFECT storyline loved by millions of gamers worldwide. RED SAND: a Mass Effect fan film – starring MARK MEER [via Geeks are Sexy] 7 Ways To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Windows HTG Explains: How System Restore Works in Windows HTG Explains: How Antivirus Software Works

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• Red Gate and the Community

  - by RedAndTheCommunity

  I was lucky enough to join the Communities team in April 2011, having worked in the equally awesome (but more number-crunchy), Finance team at Red Gate for about four years before that. Being totally passionate about Red Gate, and easily excitable, it seems like the perfect place to be. Not only do I get to talk to people who love Red Gate every day, I get to think up new ways to make them love us even more. Red Gate sponsored 178 SQL Server and .NET events and user group meetings in 2011. They ranged from SQL Saturdays and Code Camps to 10 person user group meetings, from California to Krakow. We've given away cash, software, Kindles, and of course swag. The Marketing Cupboard is like a wonderland of Red Gate goodies; it is guarded day and night to make sure the greedy Red Gaters don't pilfer the treasure inside. There are Red Gate yo-yos, books, pens, ice scrapers and, over the Holidays, there were some special bears. We had to double the patrols guarding the cupboard to protect them. You can see why: Over the Holidays, we gave funding and special Holiday swag (including the adorable bears), to 10 lucky user groups, who held Christmas parties - doing everything from theatre trips to going to shooting ranges. What next? So, what about this year? In 2012 our main aim is to be out there meeting more of you. So get ready to see an army of geeks in red t-shirts at your next event! We also want to do more fun things like our Christmas party giveaway. What cool ideas do you have for sponsorship in 2012? An Easter Egg hunt with SQL server clues? A coding competition? A duelling contest with a license of SQL Toolbelt for the winner? Let me know.

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• The lifecycle of "cool"

  - by Dori

  I've been thinking lately about how some programming projects/products become "cool," and in particular, how that trend can later reverse. Here are two examples that might better explain my context: Textmate Whenever someone asks about text editors on OS X, the answer on the SE sites is an automatic "Textmate!" But looked at objectively: Textmate 1.0 shipped October 2004 Textmate 1.5 shipped January 2006 Textmate 2 was announced February 2006 As of September 2010, the currently shipping version is 1.5.9 In all of 2010, there have been a total of three posts on the Textmate blog At what point (if ever) do Textmate fans start thinking about switching to another text editor? When it breaks after some future Apple update? When alpha geeks they respect start recommending something else? Or? jQuery Whenever a JavaScript-related question is asked on the SE sites, the knee-jerk response is "jQuery!" I've seen it happen even when the question itself only required a single line of JavaScript. Or when the question could be better answered by using CSS. Do the answerers understand they're suggesting a blowtorch to light a candle? That they're recommending adding 70K or so of code to do something trivial? Or is it a symptom of "When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail"—that is, jQuery is all they know how to do, so that's their recommendation? And do they understand that while they may know jQuery well, that doesn't necessarily mean that they know JavaScript? Is there a way to explain that learning JavaScript would make them better jQuery programmers? My bigger-picture questions: Is this niche focus primarily a trait of programmers? How do you get programmers to not immediately jump to recommending their personal favorites? What can motivate programmers to review their initial selection criteria and possibly modify their choice? Your thoughts?

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• How to Use and Customize Google Chrome Web Apps

  - by The Geek

  Google announced their new Chrome Web Store today, with loads of web sites and games that can be installed as applications in your browser, synced across every PC, and customized to launch the way you want them to. Here’s how it all works. Note: this guide really isn’t aimed at expert geeks, though you’re more than welcome to leave your thoughts in the comments. What Are Chrome Web Apps Again? The new Chrome Web Apps are really nothing more than regular web sites, optimized for Chrome and then wrapped up with a pretty icon and installed in your browser. Some of these sites, especially web-based games, can also be purchased through the Chrome Web Store for a small fee, though the majority of services are free Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography Fun and Colorful Firefox Theme for Windows 7 Happy Snow Bears Theme for Chrome and Iron [Holiday] Download Full Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun Game for Free Scorched Cometary Planet Wallpaper Quick Fix: Add the RSS Button Back to the Firefox Awesome Bar Dropbox Desktop Client 1.0.0 RC for Windows, Linux, and Mac Released

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• Social IT guy barrier [closed]

  - by sergiol

  Possible Duplicate: How do you deal with people who ask you to fix their computer? Hello. Almost every person that deserves the title of being a programmer as faced the problem of persons that do not even remember the mere existence of those professionals, unless they have serious problems in their computer or some other IT related problem. May be my post will be considered off-topic, but I think it is a very important question. As Joel Spolsky says, IT guys are not Asperger geeks, and they need social life like everybody. But the people that is always asking for favors from us, can ruin deeply our social and personal life. I could experience this by myself. This fact as generated articles like http://www.lifereboot.com/2007/10-reasons-it-doesnt-pay-to-be-the-computer-guy/ and http://ecraazul.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/o-gajo-da-informatica-de-a-a-z/ (I received this one in my mailbox. It is in Portuguese, but I believe it is translated from English). Basically the idea is to criticize people that is always asking us favors. It is even more annoying if you are person very specialized in some subject and a person asks you a completely out-of-that-context question. For example, you are a VBA programmer and somebody says you to that his/her Mobile Internet Pen stopped to work five days ago and needs your help to put it working again. When you go to a doctor to fix your legs, you don't go to an ophthalmologist. You go to an orthopedist. And you pay. I don't how it works in other countries, but in Portugal being a doctor is so an overvalued job, that they earn very much money and almost nobody asks them free favors. So, my question is: what kind of social barrier (or whatever else) do you use to protect yourself from that situation?

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• How to Uninstall Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 8

  - by Taylor Gibb

  We previously explained why so many geeks hate Internet Explorer, and even though Internet Explorer 9 and 10 are greatly improved, and on par with the competition, we’re still going to explain how to uninstall it from Windows 8 if you should want to do so. Uninstalling Internet Explorer 10 Press the Win + R keyboard combination and type appwiz.cpl into the run box, then hit enter. When the Programs and Features window opens, you are going to want to click on the “Turn Windows features on or off” hyperlink on the left hand side. Next, find Internet Explore and uncheck it. You will then be given a warning, you can just click yes to continue. Now click on the OK button, and then reboot your machine. Once you machine has restarted, you will see that Internet Explorer is no longer in the taskbar You should also notice that the Metro version of Internet Explorer has also been removed. That’s all there is to it. How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic 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?

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• How to Manage Technical Employees

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  In my current position as Software Engineering Manager I have been through a lot of ups and downs with staffing, ranging from laying-off everyone who was on my team as we went through the great economic downturn in 2007-2008, to numerous rounds of interviewing and hiring contractors, full-time employees, and converting some contractors to employee status.  I have not yet blogged much about my experiences, but I plan to do that more in the next few months.  But before I do that, let me point you to a great article that somebody else wrote on The Unspoken Truth About Managing Geeks that really hits the target.  If you are a non-technical person who manages technical employees, you definitely have to read that article.  And if you are a technical person who has been promoted into management, this article can really help you do your job and communicate up the line of command about your team.  When you move into management with all the new and different demands put on you, it is easy to forget how things work in the tech subculture, and to lose touch with your team.  This article will help you remember what’s going on behind the scenes and perhaps explain why people who used to get along great no longer are, or why things seem to have changed since your promotion. I have to give credit to Andy Leonard (blog | twitter) for helping me find that article.  I have been reading his series of ramble-rants on managing tech teams, and the above article is linked in the first rant in the series, entitled Goodwill, Negative and Positive.  I have read a handful of his entries in this series and so far I pretty much agree with everything he has said, so of course I would encourage you to read through that series, too.

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• HTG Explains: What Are Computer Algorithms and How Do They Work?

  - by YatriTrivedi

    Unless you’re into math or programming, the word “algorithm” might be Greek to you, but it’s one of the building blocks of everything you’re using to read this article. Here’s a quick explanation of what they are, and how they work. Disclaimer: I’m not a math or computer science teacher, so not all of the terms I use are technical. That’s because I’m trying to explain everything in plain English for people aren’t quite comfortable with math. That being said, there is some math involved, and that’s unavoidable. Math geeks, feel free to correct or better explain in the comments, but please, keep it simple for the mathematically disinclined among us. Image by Ian Ruotsala Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Lucky Kid Gets Playable Angry Birds Cake [Video] See the Lord of the Rings Epic from the Perspective of Mordor [eBook] Smart Taskbar Is a Thumb Friendly Android Task Launcher Comix is an Awesome Comics Archive Viewer for Linux Get the MakeUseOf eBook Guide to Speeding Up Windows for Free Need Tech Support? Call the Star Wars Help Desk! [Video Classic]

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• How do you motivate peers to become better developers?

  - by Brian Rasmussen

  In my experience there seems to be two kinds of developers (if we simplify matters a great deal of course). On the one hand we have the developers, who may do a perfectly acceptable job, but who do not really care about the computer science part of their craft. They usually know few languages / technologies and are happy to let things stay that way. For whatever reason, they don't try to improve their computer science skills unless this is required in their current position. On the other hand, we have the geeks or the pragmatic programmers if you subscribe to that idea. They play around with other languages and technologies and usually have knowledge about several topics outside the technical domain of their current job. I would like to see more developers, who are enthusiastic about software development. If you share this point of view, what do you do to push your peers in that direction? Edit: follow-up question inspired by one of the answers: As non-managers, should we really care about this? And why/why not?

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• Clean Code Development & Flexible work environment - MSCC 26.10.2013

  Finally, some spare time to summarize my impressions and experiences of the recent meetup of Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community. I already posted my comment on the event and on our social media networks: Professional - It's getting better with our meetups and I really appreciated that 'seniors' and 'juniors' were present today. Despite running a little bit out of time it was really great to see more students coming to the gathering. This time we changed location for our Saturday meetup and it worked out very well. A big thank you to Ebene Accelerator, namely Mrs Poonum, for the ability to use their meeting rooms for our community get-together. Already some weeks ago I had a very pleasant conversation with her about the MSCC aims, 'mission' and how we organise things. Additionally, I think that an environment like the Ebene Accelerator is a good choice as it acts as an incubator for young developers and start-ups. Reactions from other craftsmen Before I put my thoughts about our recent meeting down, I'd like to mention and cross-link to some of the other craftsmen that were present: "MSCC meet up is a massive knowledge gaining strategies for students, future entrepreneurs, or for geeks all around. Knowledge sharing becomes a fun. For those who have not been able to made it do subscribe on our MSCC meet up group at meetup.com." -- Nitin on Learning is fun with #MSCC #Ebene Accelerator "We then talked about the IT industry in Mauritius, salary issues in various field like system administration, software development etc. We analysed the reasons why people tend to hop from one company to another. That was a fun debate." -- Ish on MSCC meetup - Gang of Geeks "Flexible Learning Environment was quite interesting since these lines struck cords : "You're not a secretary....9 to 5 shouldn't suit you"....This allowed reflection...deep reflection....especially regarding the local mindset...which should be changed in a way which would promote creativity rather than choking it till death..." -- Yannick on 2nd MSCC Monthly Meet-up And others on Facebook... ;-) Visual impressions are available on our Meetup event page. More first time attendees We great pleasure I noticed that we have once again more first time visitors. A quick overlook showed that we had a majority of UoM students in first, second or last year. Some of them are already participating in the UoM Computer Club or are nominated as members of the Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) programme. Personally, I really appreciate the fact that the MSCC is able to gather such a broad audience. And as I wrote initially, the MSCC is technology-agnostic; we want IT people from any segment of this business. Of course, students which are about to delve into the 'real world' of working are highly welcome, and I hope that they might get one or other glimpse of experience or advice from employees. Sticking to the schedule? No, not really... And honestly, it was a good choice to go a little bit of the beaten tracks. I mean, yes we have a 'rough' agenda of topics that we would like to talk about or having a presentation about. But we keep it 'agile'. Due to the high number of new faces, we initiated another quick round of introductions and I gave a really brief overview of the MSCC. Next, we started to reflect on the Clean Code Developer (CCD) - Red Grade which we introduced on the last meetup. Nirvan was the lucky one and he did a good job on summarizing the various abbreviations of the first level of being a CCD. Actually, more interesting, we exchanged experience about the principles and practices of Red Grade, and it was very informative to get to know that Yann actually 'interviewed' a couple of friends, other students, local guys working in IT companies as well as some IT friends from India in order to counter-check on what he learned first-hand about Clean Code. Currently, he is reading the book of Robert C. Martin on that topic and I'm looking forward to his review soon. More output generates more input What seems to be like a personal mantra is working out pretty well for me since the beginning of this year. Being more active on social media networks, writing more article on my blog, starting the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community, and contributing more to other online communities has helped me to receive more project requests, job offers and possibilities to expand my business at IOS Indian Ocean Software Ltd. Actually, it is not a coincidence that one of the questions new craftsmen should answer during registration asks about having a personal blog. Whether you are just curious about IT, right in the middle of your Computer Studies, or already working in software development or system administration since a while you should consider to advertise and market yourself online. Easiest way to resolve this are to have online profiles on professional social media networks like LinkedIn, Xing, Twitter, and Google+ (no Facebook should be considered for private only), and considering to have a personal blog. Why? -- Be yourself, be proud of your work, and let other people know that you're passionate about your profession. Trust me, this is going to open up opportunities you might not have dreamt about... Exchanging ideas about having a professional online presence - MSCC meetup on the 26th October 2013 Furthermore, consider to put your Curriculum Vitae online, too. There are quite a number of service providers like 1ClickCV, Stack Overflow Careers 2.0, etc. which give you the ability to have an up to date CV online. At least put it on your site, next to your personal blog. Similar to what you would be able to see on my site here. Cyber Island Mauritius - are we there? A couple of weeks ago I got a 'cold' message on LinkedIn from someone living in the U.S. asking about the circumstances and conditions of the IT world of Mauritius. He has a great business idea, venture capital and is currently looking for a team of software developers (mainly mobile - iOS) for a new startup here in Mauritius. Since then we exchanged quite some details through private messages and Skype conversations, and I suggested that it might be a good chance to join our meetup through a conference call and see for yourself about potential candidates. During approximately 30 to 40 minutes the brief idea of the new startup was presented - very promising state-of-the-art technology aspects and integration of various public APIs -, and we had a good Q&A session about it. Also thanks to the excellent bandwidth provided by the Ebene Accelerator the video conference between three parties went absolutely well. Clean Code Developer - Orange Grade Hahaha - nice one... Being at the Orange Tower at Ebene and then talking about an Orange Grade as CCD. Well, once again I provided an overview of the principles and practices in that rank of Clean Code, and similar to our last meetup we discussed on the various aspect of each principle, whether someone already got in touch with it during studies or work, and how it could affect their future view on their source code. Following are the principles and practices of Clean Code Developer - Orange Grade: CCD Orange Grade - Principles Single Level of Abstraction (SLA) Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) Separation of Concerns (SoC) Source Code conventions CCD Orange Grade - Practices Issue Tracking Automated Integration Tests Reading, Reading, Reading Reviews Especially the part on reading technical books got some extra attention. We quickly gathered our views on that and came up with a result that ranges between Zero (0) and up to Fifteen (15) book titles per year. Personally, I'm keeping my progress between Six (6) and Eight (8) titles per year, but at least One (1) per quarter of a year. Which is also connected to the fact that I'm participating in the O'Reilly Reader Review Program and have a another benefit to get access to free books only by writing and publishing a review afterwards. We also had a good exchange on the extended topic of 'Reviews' - which to my opinion is abnormal difficult here in Mauritius for various reasons. As far as I can tell from my experience working with Mauritian software developers, either as colleagues, employees or during consulting services there are unfortunately two dominant pattern on that topic: Keeping quiet Running away Honestly, I have no evidence about why these are the two 'solutions' on reviews but that's the situation that I had to face over the last couple of years. Sitting together and talking about problematic issues, tackling down root causes of de-motivational activities and working on general improvements doesn't seem to have a ground within the IT world of Mauritius. Are you a typist or a creative software craftsman? - MSCC meetup on the 26th October 2013 One very good example that we talked about was the fact of 'job hoppers' as you can easily observe it on someone's CV - those people change job every single year; for no obvious reason! Frankly speaking, I wouldn't even consider an IT person like to for an interview. As a company you're investing money and effort into the abilities of your employees. Hiring someone that won't stay for a longer period is out of question. And sorry to say, these kind of IT guys smell fishy about their capabilities and more likely to cause problems than actually produce productive results. One of the reasons why there is a probation period on an employment contract is to give you the liberty to leave as early as possible in case that you don't like your new position. Don't fool yourself or waste other people's time and money by hanging around a full year only to snatch off the bonus payment... Future outlook: Developer's Conference Even though it is not official yet I already mentioned it several times during our weekly Code & Coffee sessions. The MSCC is looking forward to be able to organise or to contribute to an upcoming IT event. Currently, the rough schedule is set for April 2014 but this mainly depends on availability of location(s), a decent time frame for preparations, and the underlying procedures with public bodies to have it approved and so on. As soon as the information about date and location has been fixed there will be a 'Call for Papers' period in order to attract local IT enthusiasts to apply for a session slot and talk about their field of work and their passion in IT. More to come for sure... My resume of the day It was a great gathering and I am very pleased about the fact that we had another 15 craftsmen (plus 2 businessmen on conference call plus 2 young apprentices) in the same room, talking about IT related topics and sharing their experience as employees and students. Personally, I really appreciated the feedback from the students about their current view on their future career, and I really hope that some of them are going to pursue their dreams. Start promoting yourself and it will happen... Looking forward to your blogs! And last but not least our numbers on Meetup and Facebook have been increased as a direct consequence of this meetup. Please, spread the word about the MSCC and get your friends and colleagues to join our official site. The higher the number of craftsmen we have the better chances we have t achieve something great! Thanks!

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• Google Top Geek E05

  Google Top Geek E05 In Spanish! Google Top Geek (GTG) es un show semanal que generamos desde México con noticias, las tendencias en búsquedas y YouTube en América Latina, así como referencias a apps y eventos interesantes. GTG se transmite los lunes al medio día, 12 pm, desde Google Developers Live. Guión del programa Esta semana 1. Geeks interactuando y socializando en el mundo real, eso justamente es lo que ha logrado el juego masivo Ingress que liberó Google recientemente. Tienen que escoger un bando: resistance o enlightened, el proyecto Niantic. Campos de energía, elementos, intriga, combate, ... Y lo mejor de todo: mucha diversión. Cuando obtengan su código, si están del lado correcto, pueden encontrarnos en Ingress Enlightened Latin America +page en Google+. 2. Reality show para desarrolladores en Argentina: +Next Level, 40 estudiantes y profesionales de TI trabajarán siete días con cámaras todo el tiempo, expertos de toda América Latina via Google Hangouts... Del 26 de noviembre al 2 de diciembre, en la ciudad de Tandil. 3. Google Apps for Business Un tema relativamente nuevo en el mundo empresarial en nuestra región es la nube y cómo aprovecharla mejor. Google Apps for Business es un servicio basado en la nube que provee Mensajería y Colaboración a través de los productos que todos conocemos de Google pero con el nivel de controles y auditoría que requieren las empresas. El enfoque de Google es y siempre ha sido la satisfacción de nuestros usuarios y Google Apps for Business le <b>...</b> From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 1 0 ratings Time: 15:39 More in Science & Technology

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• Heading Out to Oracle Open World

  - by rickramsey

  In case you haven't figured it out by now, Oracle reserves an awful lot of announcements for Oracle Open World. As a result, the show is always a lot of fun for geeks. What will the Oracle Solaris team have to say? Will the Oracle Linux team have any surprises? And what about Oracle hardware? For my part, I'll be one of the lizards at the OTN Lounge with the OTN crew, handing out t-shirts to system admins and developers, or anyone who is willing to impersonate one. I understand, not everyone can have the raw animal magnetism of a sysadmin, or the debonair sophistication of a C++ developer, so some of you have no choice but to pretend. I won't judge. I'll also be doing video interviews of as many techie people as I can corner. I've got more than 30 interviews already scheduled. Most of them will be 3-5 minutes long. I'll be asking our best technical minds what's cool about their latest technologies and what impact it will have on system admins or system developers. I'll be posting those videos here: Find OTN Systems Videos from Oracle Open World Here! We've got some great topics in mind. A dummies guide to hardware-assisted cryptography with Glenn Brunette. ZFS deduplication. The momentum building around Oracle Solaris 11, with Lynn Rohrer, plus conversations with partners who have deployed Oracle Solaris 11. Migrating to Oracle Database with SQL Developer. The whole database cloud thing. Oracle VM and, of course, Oracle Linux. So even if you can't be part of the fun, keep an eye out for the videos on our YouTube channel. - Rick Website Newsletter Facebook Twitter

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• Pick Up BioShock and Bioshock 2 for Price of a Big Mac Meal

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Pre-ordering just opened on the third-installment of the highly-acclaimed horror-survival game series BioShock, BioShock Infinite. As part of the pre-order promotions, you can pick up a bundled copy of BioShock and BioShock 2 for a song. For the unfamiliar, BioShock is an atmospheric first-person-shooter backed up by an incredible storyline set in the underwater utopian-turned-dystopian city of Rapture. BioShock 2 continues the story in Rapture and the upcoming release (Febuary 2013) of BioShock Infinite takes place in the same game universe but fifty years before the events of the first two installments. If that seems like the kind of game you could dig into, Amazon has the Windows-platform version of BioShock and BioShock 2 bundled together for a scant $7.49–81% off the Steam and general retail price. The best part about the promotion is you can either download the games from Amazon or, for those of you that use Steam, you can simply plug the game product key into Steam. You can read more about the both the original two games and the upcoming release at the official BioShock site. BioShock Dual Pack [via Geeks Are Sexy] How Hackers Can Disguise Malicious Programs With Fake File Extensions Can Dust Actually Damage My Computer? What To Do If You Get a Virus on Your Computer

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• Using VirtualBox to test drive Windows Blue

  - by Fat Bloke

  Oracle VM VirtualBox is great for trying out the latest and greatest technologies and platforms. So when Microsoft recently announced the Developer Preview for Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1,  it was with eager anticipation that FatBloke ran to the TechNet Evaluation Center to download the isos. Once downloaded,  a new VM in VirtualBox Manager was created that used Windows 2012 (64-bit) OS type and all the defaults were selected. And on starting the VM, and pointing to the iso file to install from, the excitement rose as we saw a cool new splashscreen image: But suddenly our hopes are dashed.... It would seem that this platform requires an instruction (CMPXCHG16B) that VirtualBox doesn't offer "out-of-the-box".  Fear not, for the VirtualBox team knew that this day would finally arrive and have prepared an "in case of emergency" switch as follows: Power off the vm; At the command line type:  VBoxManage setextradata [vmname] VBoxInternal/CPUM/CMPXCHG16B 1 Start the VM and install Windows Server 2012 R2 This will be enabled by default in a future release, but geeks can't wait, hence this blog. Enjoy! -FB 

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• What You Said: How Do You Browse Securely Away From Home?

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Responses to this week’s Ask the Reader question show that just because you’re away from home doesn’t mean you have to give up the security and privacy that your home network provides. Earlier this week we asked you to share you browsing away from home security tips and tricks and obliged. JC offered one of the more entertaining tales of away-from-home browsing: Recently a bunch of us stayed at a high end resort down in Mexico. Internet was offered as a pay per device service at about $80/week/device. Considering we had about 12 wifi devices there among us(a few geeks), I decided to plan ahead. I setup a WRT54G as a WiFi client with a vpn back to my house and NAT. Setup a second one as a basic wireless access point with password and plugged it into the first. Onsite we setup the devices and connected to the wireless with one paid account(tied to the MAC address). Everyone connected to the other device for wireless access and it was all tunnelled through my home network with encryption. HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online Here’s How to Download Windows 8 Release Preview Right Now HTG Explains: Why Linux Doesn’t Need Defragmenting

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