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• C++ vs Matlab vs Python as a main language for Computer Vision Research

  - by Hough

  Hi all, Firstly, sorry for a somewhat long question but I think that many people are in the same situation as me and hopefully they can also gain some benefit from this. I'll be starting my PhD very soon which involves the fields of computer vision, pattern recognition and machine learning. Currently, I'm using opencv (2.1) C++ interface and I especially like its powerful Mat class and the overloaded operations available for matrix and image operations and seamless transformations. I've also tried (and implemented many small vision projects) using opencv python interface (new bindings; opencv 2.1) and I really enjoy python's ability to integrate opencv, numpy, scipy and matplotlib. But recently, I went back to opencv C++ interface because I felt that the official python new bindings were not stable enough and no overloaded operations are available for matrices and images, not to mention the lack of machine learning modules and slow speeds in certain operations. I've also used Matlab extensively in the past and although I've used mex files and other means to speed up the program, I just felt that Matlab's performance was inadequate for real-time vision tasks, be it for fast prototyping or not. When the project becomes larger and larger, many tasks have to be re-written in C and compiled into Mex files increasingly and Matlab becomes nothing more than a glue language. Here comes the sub-questions: For carrying out research in these fields (machine learning, vision, pattern recognition), what is your main or ideal programming language for rapid prototyping of ideas and testing algorithms contained in papers? For computer vision research work, can you list down the pros and cons of using the following languages? C++ (with opencv + gsl + svmlib + other libraries) vs Matlab (with all its toolboxes) vs python (with the imcomplete opencv bindings + numpy + scipy + matplotlib). Are there computer vision PhD/postgrad students here who are using only C++ (with all its availabe libraries including opencv) without even needing to resort to Matlab or python? In other words, given the current existing computer vision or machine learning libraries, is C++ alone sufficient for fast prototyping of ideas? If you're currently using Java or C# for your research, can you list down the reasons why they should be used and how they compare to other languages in terms of available libraries? What is the de facto vision/machine learning programming language and its associated libraries used in your research group? Thanks in advance. Edit: As suggested, I've opened the question to both academic and non-academic computer vision/machine learning/pattern recognition researchers and groups.

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• NHibernate (3.1.0.4000) NullReferenceException using Query<> and NHibernate Facility

  - by TigerShark

  I have a problem with NHibernate, I can't seem to find any solution for. In my project I have a simple entity (Batch), but whenever I try and run the following test, I get an exception. I've triede a couple of different ways to perform a similar query, but almost identical exception for all (it differs in which LINQ method being executed). The first test: [Test] public void QueryLatestBatch() { using (var session = SessionManager.OpenSession()) { var batch = session.Query<Batch>() .FirstOrDefault(); Assert.That(batch, Is.Not.Null); } } The exception: System.NullReferenceException : Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at NHibernate.Linq.NhQueryProvider.PrepareQuery(Expression expression, ref IQuery query, ref NhLinqExpression nhQuery) at NHibernate.Linq.NhQueryProvider.Execute(Expression expression) at System.Linq.Queryable.FirstOrDefault(IQueryable`1 source) The second test: [Test] public void QueryLatestBatch2() { using (var session = SessionManager.OpenSession()) { var batch = session.Query<Batch>() .OrderBy(x => x.Executed) .Take(1) .SingleOrDefault(); Assert.That(batch, Is.Not.Null); } } The exception: System.NullReferenceException : Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at NHibernate.Linq.NhQueryProvider.PrepareQuery(Expression expression, ref IQuery query, ref NhLinqExpression nhQuery) at NHibernate.Linq.NhQueryProvider.Execute(Expression expression) at System.Linq.Queryable.SingleOrDefault(IQueryable`1 source) However, this one is passing (using QueryOver<): [Test] public void QueryOverLatestBatch() { using (var session = SessionManager.OpenSession()) { var batch = session.QueryOver<Batch>() .OrderBy(x => x.Executed).Asc .Take(1) .SingleOrDefault(); Assert.That(batch, Is.Not.Null); Assert.That(batch.Executed, Is.LessThan(DateTime.Now)); } } Using the QueryOver< API is not bad at all, but I'm just kind of baffled that the Query< API isn't working, which is kind of sad, since the First() operation is very concise, and our developers really enjoy LINQ. I really hope there is a solution to this, as it seems strange if these methods are failing such a simple test. EDIT I'm using Oracle 11g, my mappings are done with FluentNHibernate registered through Castle Windsor with the NHibernate Facility. As I wrote, the odd thing is that the query works perfectly with the QueryOver< API, but not through LINQ.

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• Is it too early to start designing for Task Parallel Library?

  - by Joe Erickson

  I have been following the development of the .NET Task Parallel Library (TPL) with great interest since Microsoft first announced it. There is no doubt in my mind that we will eventually take advantage of TPL. What I am questioning is whether it makes sense to start taking advantage of TPL when Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 are released, or whether it makes sense to wait a while longer. Why Start Now? The .NET 4.0 Task Parallel Library appears to be well designed and some relatively simple tests demonstrate that it works well on today's multi-core CPUs. I have been very interested in the potential advantages of using multiple lightweight threads to speed up our software since buying my first quad processor Dell Poweredge 6400 about seven years ago. Experiments at that time indicated that it was not worth the effort, which I attributed largely to the overhead of moving data between each CPU's cache (there was no shared cache back then) and RAM. Competitive advantage - some of our customers can never get enough performance and there is no doubt that we can build a faster product using TPL today. It sounds fun. Yes, I realize that some developers would rather poke themselves in the eye with a sharp stick, but we really enjoy maximizing performance. Why Wait? Are today's Intel Nehalem CPUs representative of where we are going as multi-core support matures? You can purchase a Nehalem CPU with 4 cores which share a single level 3 cache today, and most likely a 6 core CPU sharing a single level 3 cache by the time Visual Studio 2010 / .NET 4.0 are released. Obviously, the number of cores will go up over time, but what about the architecture? As the number of cores goes up, will they still share a cache? One issue with Nehalem is the fact that, even though there is a very fast interconnect between the cores, they have non-uniform memory access (NUMA) which can lead to lower performance and less predictable results. Will future multi-core architectures be able to do away with NUMA? Similarly, will the .NET Task Parallel Library change as it matures, requiring modifications to code to fully take advantage of it? Limitations Our core engine is 100% C# and has to run without full trust, so we are limited to using .NET APIs.

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• Workflow for statistical analysis and report writing

  - by ws

  Does anyone have any wisdom on workflows for data analysis related to custom report writing? The use-case is basically this: Client commissions a report that uses data analysis, e.g. a population estimate and related maps for a water district. The analyst downloads some data, munges the data and saves the result (e.g. adding a column for population per unit, or subsetting the data based on district boundaries). The analyst analyzes the data created in (2), gets close to her goal, but sees that needs more data and so goes back to (1). Rinse repeat until the tables and graphics meet QA/QC and satisfy the client. Write report incorporating tables and graphics. Next year, the happy client comes back and wants an update. This should be as simple as updating the upstream data by a new download (e.g. get the building permits from the last year), and pressing a "RECALCULATE" button, unless specifications change. At the moment, I just start a directory and ad-hoc it the best I can. I would like a more systematic approach, so I am hoping someone has figured this out... I use a mix of spreadsheets, SQL, ARCGIS, R, and Unix tools. Thanks! PS: Below is a basic Makefile that checks for dependencies on various intermediate datasets (w/ ".RData" suffix) and scripts (".R" suffix). Make uses timestamps to check dependencies, so if you 'touch ss07por.csv', it will see that this file is newer than all the files / targets that depend on it, and execute the given scripts in order to update them accordingly. This is still a work in progress, including a step for putting into SQL database, and a step for a templating language like sweave. Note that Make relies on tabs in its syntax, so read the manual before cutting and pasting. Enjoy and give feedback! http://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html%5Fnode/index.html#Top R=/home/wsprague/R-2.9.2/bin/R persondata.RData : ImportData.R ../../DATA/ss07por.csv Functions.R $R --slave -f ImportData.R persondata.Munged.RData : MungeData.R persondata.RData Functions.R $R --slave -f MungeData.R report.txt: TabulateAndGraph.R persondata.Munged.RData Functions.R $R --slave -f TabulateAndGraph.R report.txt

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• Text Obfuscation using base64_encode()

  - by user271619

  I'm playing around with encrypt/decrypt coding in php. Interesting stuff! However, I'm coming across some issues involving what text gets encrypted into. Here's 2 functions that encrypt and decrypt a string. It uses an Encryption Key, which I set as something obscure. I actually got this from a php book. I modified it slightly, but not to change it's main goal. I created a small example below that anyone can test. But, I notice that some characters show up as the "encrypted" string. Characters like "=" and "+". Sometimes I pass this encrypted string via the url. Which may not quite make it to my receiving scripts. I'm guessing the browser does something to the string if certain characters are seen. I'm really only guessing. is there another function I can use to ensure the browser doesn't touch the string? or does anyone know enough php bas64_encode() to disallow certain characters from being used? I'm really not going to expect the latter as a possibility. But, I'm sure there's a work-around. enjoy the code, whomever needs it! define('ENCRYPTION_KEY', "sjjx6a"); function encrypt($string) { $result = ''; for($i=0; $i<strlen($string); $i++) { $char = substr($string, $i, 1); $keychar = substr(ENCRYPTION_KEY, ($i % strlen(ENCRYPTION_KEY))-1, 1); $char = chr(ord($char)+ord($keychar)); $result.=$char; } return base64_encode($result)."/".rand(); } function decrypt($string){ $exploded = explode("/",$string); $string = $exploded[0]; $result = ''; $string = base64_decode($string); for($i=0; $i<strlen($string); $i++) { $char = substr($string, $i, 1); $keychar = substr(ENCRYPTION_KEY, ($i % strlen(ENCRYPTION_KEY))-1, 1); $char = chr(ord($char)-ord($keychar)); $result.=$char; } return $result; } echo $encrypted = encrypt("reaplussign.jpg"); echo "<br>"; echo decrypt($encrypted);

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• Coping with feelings of technical mediocrity

  - by Karim

  As I've progressed as a programmer, I noticed more nuance and areas I could study in depth. In part, I've come to think of myself from, at one point, a "guru" to now much less, even mediocre or inadequate. Is this normal, or is it a sign of a destructive excessive ambition? Background I started to program when I was still a kid, I had about 10 or 11 years. I really enjoy my work and never get bored from it. It's amazing how somebody could be paid for what he really likes to do and would be doing it anyway even for free. When I first started to program, I was feeling proud of what I was doing, each application I built was for me a success and after 2-3 year I had a feeling that I'm a coding guru. It was a nice feeling. ;-) But the more I was in the field and the more types of software I started to develop, I was starting to have a feeling that I'm completely wrong in thinking I'm a guru. I felt that I'm not even a mediocre developer. Each new field I start to work on is giving me this feeling. Like when I once developed a device driver for a client, I saw how much I need to learn about device drivers. When I developed a video filter for an application, I saw how much do I still need to learn about DirectShow, Color Spaces, and all the theory behind that. The worst thing was when I started to learn algorithms. It was several years ago. I knew then the basic structures and algorithms like the sorting, some types of trees, some hashtables, strings, etc. and when I really wanted to learn a group of structures I learned about 5-6 new types and saw that in fact even this small group has several hundred subtypes of structures. It's depressing how little time people have in their lives to learn all this stuff. I'm now a software developer with about 10 years of experience and I still feel that I'm not a proficient developer when I think about things that others do in the industry.

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• multiple webapps in tomcat -- what is the optimal architecture?

  - by rvdb

  I am maintaining a growing base of mainly Cocoon-2.1-based web applications [http://cocoon.apache.org/2.1/], deployed in a Tomcat servlet container [http://tomcat.apache.org/], and proxied with an Apache http server [http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/]. I am conceptually struggling with the best way to deploy multiple web applications in Tomcat. Since I'm not a Java programmer and we don't have any sysadmin staff I have to figure out myself what is the most sensible way to do this. My setup has evolved through 2 scenarios and I'm considering a third for maximal separation of the distinct webapps. [1] 1 Tomcat instance, 1 Cocoon instance, multiple webapps -tomcat |_ webapps |_ webapp1 |_ webapp2 |_ webapp[n] |_ WEB-INF (with Cocoon libs) This was my first approach: just drop all web applications inside a single Cocoon webapps folder inside a single Tomcat container. This seemed to run fine, I did not encounter any memory issues. However, this poses a maintainability drawback, as some Cocoon components are subject to updates, which often affect the webapp coding. Hence, updating Cocoon becomes unwieldy: since all webapps share the same pool of Cocoon components, updating one of them would require the code in all web applications to be updated simultaneously. In order to isolate the web applications, I moved to the second scenario. [2] 1 Tomcat instance, each webapp in its dedicated Cocoon environment -tomcat |_ webapps |_ webapp1 | |_ WEB-INF (with Cocoon libs) |_ webapp1 | |_ WEB-INF (with Cocoon libs) |_ webapp[n] |_ WEB-INF (with Cocoon libs) This approach separates all webapps into their own Cocoon environment, run inside a single Tomcat container. In theory, this works fine: all webapps can be updated independently. However, this soon results in PermGenSpace errors. It seemed that I could manage the problem by increasing memory allocation for Tomcat, but I realise this isn't a structural solution, and that overloading a single Tomcat in this way is prone to future memory errors. This set me thinking about the third scenario. [3] multiple Tomcat instances, each with a single webapp in its dedicated Cocoon environment -tomcat |_ webapps |_ webapp1 |_ WEB-INF (with Cocoon libs) -tomcat |_ webapps |_ webapp2 |_ WEB-INF (with Cocoon libs) -tomcat |_ webapps |_ webapp[n] |_ WEB-INF (with Cocoon libs) I haven't tried this approach, but am thinking of the $CATALINA_BASE variable. A single Tomcat distribution can be multiply instanciated with different $CATALINA_BASE environments, each pointing to a Cocoon instance with its own webapp. I wonder whether such an approach could avoid the structural memory-related problems of approach [2], or will the same issues apply? On the other hand, this approach would complicate management of the Apache http frontend, as it will require the AJP connectors of the different Tomcat instances to be listening at different ports. Hence, Apache's worker configuration has to be updated and reloaded whenever a new webapp (in its own Tomcat instance) is added. And there seems no way to reload worker.properties without restarting the entire Apache http server. Is there perhaps another / more dynamic way of 'modularizing' multiple Tomcat-served webapps, or can one of these scenarios be refined? Any thoughts, suggestions, advice much appreciated. Ron

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• How can I simulate blocking RTMP over port 80 on Windows?

  - by Christian Nunciato

  It seems like this should be so simple, but since this isn't my area of expertise, I'm having a hell of a time figuring out how to do it. Basically, I have a Flash app and I'm connecting to a Flash Media Server to stream some content. The URL I'm using to do this, for example, looks like this: rtmp://someserver.com/some/path/mp3:somefile Everything works -- but that's sort of the problem. When I'm trying to do is simulate my users attempting to play back my media under more restrictive conditions than the ones I have here (i.e., none) -- namely being stuck behind firewalls or proxy servers that block access to RTMP streams. Flash, according to Adobe, is equipped to handle proxy servers and firewalls automatically, like so (from the docs): When you do not specify a port number in an RTMP address, Flash will attempt to connect to port 1935. If it fails it will then try to connect to port 443; if that fails, it will try port 80. [And if that fails, it will attempt to connect via RTMPT (i.e., HTTP tunneling) on port 80.] So no coding is required to access ports 1935, 443, or port 80 if you do not specify a port in the RTMP address. The problem I'm having is setting up a reliable environment in which to test that this behavior actually happens. I'm on a Windows machine, for example, so with Windows Firewall, I can block certain ports and protocols (1935, 443), but I don't want to block port 80, because the final fallback protocol (RTMPT) is supposed to run on port 80, and Windows Firewall only gives me enough granularity (as far as I know, anyway) to block "all outbound TCP traffic to remote port 80" -- that is, I can't, apparently, block "all outbound RTMP traffic to port 80" while leaving RTMPT traffic to port 80 unaffected. My understanding thus far is that I'll probably need to set up a proxy server to do this. Is this correct? Or is there a simpler way (on Win 7, at least) to filter out RTMP to 1935, RTMP to 443, RTMP to 80, but still allow RTMPT to 80 (where all four hostnames are identical)? And if I do have to set up a proxy server, what's the simplest way to go on Windows? I've set up WinProxy, which seems a bit janky but apparently works -- but then what I can't figure out is how to tell Windows to force all TCP traffic (including RTMP, RTMPT and HTTO) through this proxy server so I can turn around and reject the requests for RTMP. Any help would be hugely appreciated. This isn't my realm of expertise and I've alreasdy spent more time on it than I probably should. :)

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• Having troubles connectiong Magento to external Windows Database Server using Windows Azure

  - by Kevin H

  "I tried to make this easy to read through" I am using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS for Magento and installed these commands onto the system: sudo apt-get install apache2 sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5 sudo apt-get install php5-mysql sudo apt-get install php5-curl php5-mcrypt php5-gd php5-common sudo apt-get install php5-gd I used Windows Server 2008 R2 August 2012 for Mysql Server For a reference, I used http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/common-tasks/install-mysql/ When the server was setup, I added an empty disk to it Then, I added endpoints 3306 Next I accessed the server remotely After that, I formatted the empty disk and was inserted as F: Next I downloaded Mysql from http://*.mysql.com version Windows (x86, 64-bit), MSI Installer 5.5.28 In the installation process, I used these settings: Typical Setup - Clicked Next, install, next Chose Detailed Configuration - Clicked next Chose Dedicated MySQL Server Machine - Clicked Next Chose Transactional Database Only - Clicked Next Chose the "F:" Drive - Clicked Next Chose Online Transactional Processing (OLTP) - Clicked Next For Networking Options, I checkmarked 'Enable TCP/IP Networking" 'Add firewall exception for this port' 'Enable Strict Mode' - Clicked Next Chose Standard Character Set - Clicked Next For Windows Options, I checkedmarked 'Install as Window Service" 'Launch the MySQL Server automatically' 'Include Bin Directory in Windows PATH - Clicked Next For Security Options, I checkmarked 'Modify Security Settings' and set root password - Clicked Next Finally clicked Execute and Finish These are the Firewall Setting that I set I clicked inbound rules Properties Scope Allow IP Address and used the internal Address for Magento Server Clicked Apply and exited Next, I opened up MySQL 5.x Command Line Client Entered Root Password Then entered these commands mysql create database magento; mysql Create user magentouser identified by 'password'; mysql Grant select, insert, create, alter, update, delete, lock tables on magento.* to magentouser mysql exit Finally, I opened up the Magento Downloader Magento validation has approved all PHP version is right. Your version is 5.3.10-1ubuntu3.4. PHP Extension curl is loaded PHP Extension dom is loaded PHP Extension gd is loaded PHP Extension hash is loaded PHP Extension iconv is loaded PHP Extension mcrypt is loaded PHP Extension pcre is loaded PHP Extension pdo is loaded PHP Extension pdo_mysql is loaded PHP Extension simplexml is loaded These are all installed on Magento Server For the Database Connection, I used: The Database server only has MySQL 5.5 Server installed on it Host - Internal IP address User Name - The User I created when setting up database Password - The Password I created when setting up database For the password, I did some research and found out that Magento only accepts alphanumeric, so I went and set it up again and used only alphanumeric for the User password Now, I am still getting Accessed denied for database Connection. Also, I have tryed to setup mysql on independant Linux Server but kept getting errors. When, I found the solution. Wouldn't work, so I decided to try Windows. These is the questions, I have been asking and researching to debug this issue Is it because I am using Linux for magento and Windows for Database. I have had no luck in finding a reason why this wouldn't work There must be something, I am missing I also researched the difference between linux sql databases and windows sql databases but have not come to conclusion, if installing Mysql on windows would make a difference in syntax and coding. I have spent a lot of time looking into this and need some help with direction on how to complete my project. Any type of help would be appreciated.

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• T60 Screen/LCD gets black after some minutes with a highpitched sound rising and fading

  - by Edward De Leau

  Just now my T60 screen got "black" (so no display). On my second monitor: no problems so the vga output works. symptom: Screen blanks / no display but works on second monitor steps to reproduce: - boot - wait (it does not matter what you do you do not have to login or anything) - (now the monitor of the laptop slowly begins to make a ssssssssHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHWOEOEssssssss noice of about 10 seconds) - right after the sounds ends the monitor gets black times seem to be the same each time. software: installed no new software before/after, running zone alarm and antivirus. other: it does not feel hot in any place, there dont seem to be running processes with strange behaviour. warranty: out of warranty what was i doing: typing text on a website and doing some php coding in a text editor. Anyone any idea what I can do here other than buy a new laptop? / does it sound familiar to known cases? update: * exactly the same problem: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-prior-T-series-ThinkPad/T60-Screen-Blackout/m-p/288772 and the second poster (garyj) here: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-prior-T-series-ThinkPad/Black-Screen-on-T60/m-p/235053#M48627 and here: "i have that same problem. i replaced the CCRL on mine and it works fine when the screen is not screwed in. once the frame of the LCD screen (metal portion) touches the metal on the laptop which holds the screen the screen goes black. If the metal is touching the screen when you boot up it boots up with it being very dimmly lit. " from http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-prior-T-series-ThinkPad/T60-screen-problems/m-p/205047#M44995 (it seems replacing the lcd is no use, he tried it 3 times). same problem: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-prior-T-series-ThinkPad/T60-black-screen/m-p/80604#M25914 Hmmm... not handy 3 or 4 months ago I ordered and installed a new fan. Now the LCD. Which does not seem the core isse but some electric issue so it seems replacing the LCD is not the thing todo here. I have the following question: If it is not the LCD that needs to be replaced (see other threads) which parts can I order to fix this? Has anyone got any information which could lead me to identify the issue? I have read replacing the "inverter" AND the "backlightning" would that make sense?

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• Router 2wire, Slackware desktop in DMZ mode, iptables policy aginst ping, but still pingable

  - by user135501

  I'm in DMZ mode, so I'm firewalling myself, stealthy all ok, but I get faulty test results from Shields Up that there are pings. Yesterday I couldn't make a connection to game servers work, because ping block was enabled (on the router). I disabled it, but this persists even due to my firewall. What is the connection between me and my router in DMZ mode (for my machine, there is bunch of others too behind router firewall)? When it allows router affecting if I'm pingable or not and if router has setting not blocking ping, rules in my iptables for this scenario do not work. Please ignore commented rules, I do uncomment them as I want. These two should do the job right? iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j DROP echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_all Here are my iptables: #!/bin/sh # Begin /bin/firewall-start # Insert connection-tracking modules (not needed if built into the kernel). #modprobe ip_tables #modprobe iptable_filter #modprobe ip_conntrack #modprobe ip_conntrack_ftp #modprobe ipt_state #modprobe ipt_LOG # allow local-only connections iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT # free output on any interface to any ip for any service # (equal to -P ACCEPT) iptables -A OUTPUT -j ACCEPT # permit answers on already established connections # and permit new connections related to established ones (eg active-ftp) iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT #Gamespy&NWN #iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp -m multiport --ports 5120:5129 -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 6667 --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 28910 --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 29900 --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 29901 --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 29920 --tcp-flags SYN,RST,ACK SYN -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp -m multiport --ports 5120:5129 -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 6500 -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 27900 -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 27901 -j ACCEPT #iptables -A INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 29910 -j ACCEPT # Log everything else: What's Windows' latest exploitable vulnerability? iptables -A INPUT -j LOG --log-prefix "FIREWALL:INPUT" # set a sane policy: everything not accepted > /dev/null iptables -P INPUT DROP iptables -P FORWARD DROP iptables -P OUTPUT DROP iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j DROP # be verbose on dynamic ip-addresses (not needed in case of static IP) echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_dynaddr # disable ExplicitCongestionNotification - too many routers are still # ignorant echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_ecn #ping death echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_all # If you are frequently accessing ftp-servers or enjoy chatting you might # notice certain delays because some implementations of these daemons have # the feature of querying an identd on your box for your username for # logging. Although there's really no harm in this, having an identd # running is not recommended because some implementations are known to be # vulnerable. # To avoid these delays you could reject the requests with a 'tcp-reset': #iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 113 -j REJECT --reject-with tcp-reset #iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp --sport 113 -m state --state RELATED -j ACCEPT # To log and drop invalid packets, mostly harmless packets that came in # after netfilter's timeout, sometimes scans: #iptables -I INPUT 1 -p tcp -m state --state INVALID -j LOG --log-prefix \ "FIREWALL:INVALID" #iptables -I INPUT 2 -p tcp -m state --state INVALID -j DROP # End /bin/firewall-start

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• Problems with MGCP proxy creation

  - by Popof

  Hi, I'm trying to bypass my ISP router with my FreeBSD server (I've an optical connection so I've a RJ45 used to connect the box to WAN) Internet and TV are working fine (Using igmpproxy to forward TV stream) but I've a problem with phone. ISP's box is connected to the server which gives it a LAN address. The problem is that when the box builds MGCP packets (and especially SDP ones) it uses its LAN address. So I've think of writing an UDP proxy to handle MGCP and SDP packets in order to replace LAN address with server WAN address and then forward packet to WAN. Before starting coding I've captured stream packets using my server as a bridge between WAN connection and the ISP's box. And, in order to see if my solution is viable, I've tried to send those packets to the box using nemesis. I tried to send a packet (found in capture) containing an endpoint audit: AUEP 1447 aaln/[email protected] MGCP 1.0 F: A In the wireshark capture the box replied: 200 1447 OK A: a:PCMU;PCMA;G726-16;G726-24;G726-32;G726-40;G.723.1-5.3;G.723.1-6.3;G729;TELEPHONE-EVENT, fmtp:"TELEPHONE-EVENT 0-15,144,149,159", p:10-30, b:4-40, e:on, t:00, s:on, v:L;M;G;D, m:sendonly;recvonly;sendrecv;inactive;confrnce;replcate;netwtest;netwloop, dq-gi But when I use nemesis, I got an ICMP error: Port unreachable (Type 3, Code 3). To build this packet, WAN source address of the capture is replaced with my server LAN address, using the mgcp-callagent port (2727) and the packet is sent to the LAN address of the box at mgcp-gateway port (2427). The command I use is nemesis udp -S 192.168.2.1 -D 192.168.2.2 -x 2727 -y 2427 -P packet_to_send. I also tried an UDP scan to the box on callagent and gateway port: PORT STATE SERVICE 2727/udp open|filtered unknown 2427/udp closed unknown I found those results a little bit strange because it should be the 2427 port opened, as it was in capture. Internet Protocol, Src: <ISP MGCP Server>, Dst: <My WAN Address> User Datagram Protocol, Src Port: mgcp-callagent (2727), Dst Port: mgcp-gateway (2427) Does someone has any idea about how having my box responding to my requests ? Thanks in advance and sorry for my english.

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• Windows 7 & Virtual PC and Internet (gateway) problems on host PC

  - by Mufasa

  I upgraded to Windows 7 on a PC that is a few years old. The CPU was one revision away from having Hyper-V on it. So, I had to install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 (v6.0.156.0) to run full XP instances instead of the seamless XP virtualization that is advertised so much. That's fine though; the 'older' version is useful since I use it to run different versions of the whole XP/IE stack for testing. (I'm a web developer.) ...And for the one 16-bit application we still use at the office for scheduling. * sigh * The virtual instances work fine, including networking. My issue is that after a reboot or coming out of sleep mode, my host Windows 7 won't connect to the Internet. It will connect to the local network fine. If I disable the "Virtual Machine Network Services" item (I'll call "VMNS" from here on) in the LAN Connection properties box, it starts working. But than the Virtual PC instances lose their network connectivity. If I re-enable VMNS again in the same instance, everything works (Internet on host and in the virtualized instances). But after the next reboot/sleep cycle this starts over. The route table gave me a clue though. When doing a cycle w/ VMNS enabled: IPv4 Route Table =========================================================================== Active Routes: Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 On-link 10.0.3.51 20 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.0.10.10 10.0.3.51 276 ... After VMNS is disabled, the first route goes away. I assume that is for VMNS to intercept virtualized instance's network connections and forward them correctly? Just a guess though. More info: I checked my Firewall settings and Services (because I'm sort of a control nazi and turn off a lot) but couldn't find anything that made sense and if turned on changed anything. So it might be something there I'm missing, but I don't know what. My current hacked solution: So, I figured I'd mess with the routes myself to see if that helped, it did. If I run a route delete 0.0.0.0 on the universal (0.0.0.0) gateway routes, and add back in just the 2nd line with route add 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 10.0.10.10--the one that points to my actual gateway (10.0.10.10)--then I don't have to mess with the disable/enable cycle of VMNS, and everything works. Running those two commands is faster then bringing up connection options and disabling and re-enabling VMNS, but I still don't want to have use that hack script every boot either. (Oh, and I also tried messing with hard-coding TCP/IP settings in my network adapter, including setting high metrics, etc., but that didn't help either.) Any suggestions on the right way to fix this?

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• bluetooth connection using pybluez

  - by srj0408

  I am working on bluetooth not exactly on bluetooth stack-development but to use bluetooth in one of my project. I had done all that before using some of the py-bluez commands like hciconfig, hcitool scan , then simple-agents and using serial module inside python. But that was quite random. We were able to connect only one specific device based on its bluetooth address and there was no facility of reconnection once the devices are disconnected. Now i want to try out this stuff in a sequential manner like this (i am doing that all on a RPI and for at present on ubuntu 12.04.) i) Store some names in a file along with some other information with respect to that device. ii) Run a script to find out the device in locality with those names and if any one if found, report that. For this step, i had taken a reference from BTBook , made available from MIT. Below is the script for the same, but that script only search for the single name. from bluetooth import * target_name = "XT1033" target_address = None nearby_devices = discover_devices() for address in nearby_devices: if target_name == lookup_name( address ): target_address = address break if target_address is not None: print "found target bluetooth device with address ", target_address connect_socket(target_address); else: print "could not find target bluetooth device nearby" iii) Connect the device using client sock. But i dont have any device on which i can write a simple python script. My client can be any device that will be publishing data. Now i came through a script in the same book, that actually connect to a client requesting permission to connect to server. from bluetooth import * port = 1 server_sock=BluetoothSocket( RFCOMM ) server_sock.bind(("",port)) server_sock.listen(1) client_sock, client_info = server_sock.accept() print "Accepted connection from ", client_info data = client_sock.recv(1024) print "received [%s]" % data client_sock.close() server_sock.close() here client_sock, client_info = server_sock.accept() provide the client address and port requested to be connected. Can i pass address obtained from the earlier script to this, so that it connect server to the client? iv) Then if client get disconnected, re-connect(a simple polling can be used.) All this stuff can be done using bash and py-bluez functions but i want to do that in a sequential manner.I am not a master in python but i can do some small stuff. Can any one guide me for the same or can direct me to more usefull resource through which i can continue my coding part after finding the "X", "Y" named devices.

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• Week in Geek: USDA Chooses Microsoft for Cloud Services Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to create geeky LED holiday lights with old bottles, dig deeper in Windows Defrag via the command prompt, use Google Chrome’s drag/drop feature to upload files easier, find great gift recommendations by looking through the How-To Geek holiday gift guide, and have fun adding Merry Christmas fonts to our computers. Photo by ntr23. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week, so we have extra news link goodness with information that is good for you to know. USDA making the move to Microsoft The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it has chosen Microsoft to host things like e-mail, instant messaging, and collaboration through the software giant’s Business Productivity Online Suite. Google says it was cut off from USDA project bid Google is claiming that it was not given a chance to bid on a cloud-computing project for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for which the contract was awarded to rival Microsoft. Apache is being forced into a Java Fork When Oracle rolled over Apache and Google’s objections to its Java plans in December, the scene was set for Apache to leave and, eventually, force a Java code fork. Tumblr explains daylong outage After experiencing an outage that started on Sunday afternoon and stretched through most of the day yesterday, Tumblr has explained what happened. Google demos Chrome OS, launches pilot program During a press briefing this week in San Francisco, Google launched the Chrome application store and demonstrated Chrome OS, its browser-centric netbook operating system. Don’t expect Spotify in U.S. this holiday season As of last week, Spotify had yet to sign a single licensing deal with a major label, after spending more than a year negotiating, multiple music sources told CNET. December 2010 Patch Tuesday will come with most bulletins ever According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue 17 Security Bulletins addressing 40 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, December 14. It will also host a webcast to address customer questions the following day. Hacker plants back door in Symbian firmware Indian hacker Atul Alex has had a look at the firmware for Symbian S60 smartphones and come up with a back door for it. PC quarantines raise tough complexities The concept of quarantining PCs to prevent widespread infection is “interesting, but difficult to implement, with far too many problems”, said security experts. Symantec: DDoS attacks hard to defend It has surfaced that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Visa and MasterCard Web sites on Wednesday were carried out by a toolkit known as low orbit ion cannon (LOIC). Web Sockets and the risks of unfinished standards Enthusiasm for a promising new standard called Web Sockets has quickly cooled in some quarters as a potential security problem led some browser makers to hastily postpone support. Internet Explorer 9 to get tracking protection Microsoft is making changes to Internet Explorer 9’s security features that will better enable users to keep sites from tracking their activity across browsing sessions. NASA sold PCs with sensitive data NASA failed to remove sensitive data from computers that it sold, according to an audit report released this week. Cybercrooks create fake Amazon receipts The bad guys have created yet another online scam, this one involving fake Amazon receipts. World of Warcraft character move fees waived Until December 22, Blizzard will allow free realm transfers from 25 highly populated servers to alleviate log-in queues or performance issues. (The free transfers are one-way and one-time only.) SpaceX Dragon reaches orbit atop a Falcon with a fiery tail The Space Exploration Technologies corporation has become the first nongovernmental entity to put a vehicle into low Earth orbit. Geek Video of the Week If birds have wings, then why are the Angry Birds using slingshots? Photo by Dorkly Bits. Wait… Birds have Wings, Why are the Angry Ones Using Slingshots? Sysadmin Geek Tips How To Setup Email Alerts on Linux Using Gmail or SMTP Linux machines may require administrative intervention in countless ways, but without manually logging into them how would you know about it? Here’s how to setup emails to get notified when your machines want some tender love and attention. Random TinyHacker Links Red Panda Webcam Support Firefox and the Knoxville Zoo’s Red Panda program. Christmas Icons (Icons we like) Superb set of holiday icons by lgp85 at deviantArt. Download the .zip and use as .png or convert to .ico at Convertico.com or with tiny app Imagicon. Super User Questions Enjoy reading the great answers to this week’s popular questions from Super User Useful USB boot disks? DVD/CD burning .zip: is it more reliable, faster, longer lasting to burn a zip of files rather than the files as a folder? What are other ways to backup my files if I do not have an external drive? Anti virus what is the difference between these all? How can I block all Facebook elements/content? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Have you had a busy week between work and preparing for the holidays? Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles of the week. 20 Windows Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? How to Use and Customize Google Chrome Web Apps One Year Ago on How-To Geek This week’s batch of retro geeky goodness is all about customizing Windows 7. ClassicShell Adds Classic Start Menu and Explorer Features to Windows 7 Get an Aero-Styled Classic Start Menu in Windows 7 Customize the Windows 7 Logon Screen Get the Classic Style Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7 How To Enable Check Boxes for Items In Windows 7 The Geek Note We would like you to join us in welcoming Jason Fitzpatrick to the writing staff here at How-To Geek. He started with us this past week, so take some time to read through his articles about the Wii, Kindle, & PlayStation 2 Peripherals and leave a friendly comment to say “Hi”! Got a great tip to share? Make sure to send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by real00. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better 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 Settle into Orbit with the Voyage Theme for Chrome and Iron Awesome Safari Compass Icons Set Escape from the Exploding Planet Wallpaper Move Your Tumblr Blog to WordPress Pytask is an Easy to Use To-Do List Manager for Your Ubuntu System Snowy Christmas House Personas Theme for Firefox

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• Embedding ADF UI Components into OAF regions

  - by Juan Camilo Ruiz

  Having finished the 2 Webcast on ADF integration with Oracle E-Business Suite, Sara Woodhull, Principal Product Manager on the Oracle E-Business Suite Applications Technology team and I are going to continue adding entries to the series on this topic, trying to cover as many use cases as possible. In this entry, Sara created an overview on how Oracle ADF pages can be embedded into an Oracle Application Framework region. This is a very interesting approach that will enable those of you who are exploring ADF as a technology stack to enhanced some of the Oracle E-Business Suite flows and leverage your skill on Oracle Applications Framework (OAF). In upcoming entries we will start unveiling the internals needed to achieve session sharing between the regions. Stay tuned for more entries and enjoy this new post.   Document Scope This document only covers information that is specific to embedding an Oracle ADF page in an Oracle Application Framework–based page. It assumes knowledge of Oracle ADF and Oracle Application Framework development. It also assumes knowledge of the material in My Oracle Support Note 974949.1, “Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java” and My Oracle Support Note 1296491.1, "FAQ for Integration of Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Applications". Prerequisite Patch Download Patch 12726556:R12.FND.B from My Oracle Support and install it. The implementation described below requires Patch 12726556:R12.FND.B to provide the accessors for the ADF page. This patch is required in addition to the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java patch described in My Oracle Support Note 974949.1. Development Environments You need two different JDeveloper environments: Oracle ADF and OA Framework. Oracle ADF Development Environment You build your Oracle ADF page using JDeveloper 11g. You should use JDeveloper 11g R1 (the latest is 11.1.1.6.0) if you need to use other products in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Stack, such as Oracle WebCenter, Oracle SOA Suite, or BI. You should use JDeveloper 11g R2 (the latest is 11.1.2.3.0) if you do not need other Oracle Fusion Middleware products. JDeveloper 11g R2 is an Oracle ADF-specific release that supports the latest Java EE standards and has various core improvements. Oracle Application Framework Development Environment Build your OA Framework page using a development environment corresponding to your Oracle E-Business Suite version. You must use Release 12.1.2 or later because the rich content container was introduced in Release 12.1.2. See “OA Framework - How to find the correct version of JDeveloper to use with eBusiness Suite 11i or Release 12.x” (My Oracle Support Doc ID 416708.1). Building your Oracle ADF Page Typically you build your ADF page using the session management feature of the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java as described in My Oracle Support Note 974949.1. Also see My Oracle Support Note 1296491.1, "FAQ for Integration of Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Applications". Building an ADF Page with the Hierarchy Viewer If you are using the ADF hierarchy viewer, you should set up the structure and settings of the ADF page as follows or the hierarchy viewer may not fill the entire area it is supposed to fill (especially a problem in Firefox). Create a stretchable component as the parent component for the hierarchy viewer, such as af:panelStretchLayout (underneath the af:form component in the structure). Use af:panelStretchLayout for Oracle ADF 11.1.1.6 and earlier. For later versions of Oracle ADF, use af:panelGridLayout. Create your hierarchy viewer component inside the stretchable component. Create Function in Oracle E-Business Suite Instance In your Oracle E-Business Suite instance, create a function for your ADF page with the following parameters. You can use either the Functions window in the System Administrator responsibility or the Functions page in the Functional Administrator responsibility. Function Function Name Type=External ADF Function (ADFX) HTML Call=GWY.jsp?targetPage=faces/<your ADF page> ">You must also add your function to an Oracle E-Business Suite menu or permission set and set up function security or role-based access control (RBAC) so that the user has authorization to access the function. If you do not want the function to appear on the navigation menu, add the function without a menu prompt. See the Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide Documentation Set for more information. Testing the Function from the Oracle E-Business Suite Home Page It’s a good idea to test launching your ADF page from the Oracle E-Business Suite Home Page. Add your function to the navigation menu for your responsibility with a prompt and try launching it. If your ADF page expects parameters from the surrounding page, those might not be available, however. Setting up the Oracle Application Framework Rich Container Once you have built your Oracle ADF 11g page, you need to embed it in your Oracle Application Framework page. Create Rich Content Container in your OA Framework JDeveloper environment In the OA Extension Structure pane for your OAF page, select the region where you want to add the rich content, and add a richContainer item to the region. Set the following properties on the richContainer item: id Content Type=Others (for Release 12.1.3. This property value may change in a future release.) Destination Function=[function code] Width (in pixels or percent, such as 100%) Height (in pixels) Parameters=[any parameters your Oracle ADF page is expecting to receive from the Oracle Application Framework page] Parameters In the Parameters property, specify parameters that will be passed to the embedded content as a list of comma-separated, name-value pairs. Dynamic parameters may be specified as paramName={@viewAttr}. Dynamic Rich Content Container Properties If you want your rich content container to display a different Oracle ADF page depending on other information, you would set up a different function for each different Oracle ADF page. You would then set the Destination Function and Parameters properties programmatically, instead of setting them in the Property Inspector. In the processRequest() method of your Oracle Application Framework page controller, where OAFRichContentPage is the ID of your richContainer item and the parameters are whatever parameters your ADF page expects, your code might look similar to this code fragment: OARichContainerBean richBean = (OARichContainerBean) webBean.findChildRecursive("OAFRichContentPage"); if(richBean != null){ if(isFirstCondition){ richBean.setFunctionName("ADF_EXAMPLE_EMBEDDED"); richBean.setParameters("ParamLoginPersonId="+loginPersonId +"&ParamPersonId="+personId+"&ParamUserId="+userId +"&ParamRespId="+respId+"&ParamRespApplId="+respApplId +"&ParamFromOA=Y"+"&ParamSecurityGroupId="+securityGroupId); } else if(isSecondCondition){ richBean.setFunctionName("ADF_EXAMPLE_OTHER_FUNCTION"); richBean.setParameters("ParamLoginPersonId=" +loginPersonId+"&ParamPersonId="+personId +"&ParamUserId="+userId+"&ParamRespId="+respId +"&ParamRespApplId="+respApplId +"&ParamFromOA=Y" +"&ParamSecurityGroupId="+securityGroupId); } }

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• Week in Geek: LastPass Rescues Xmarks Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to breathe new life into an aging Windows Mobile 6.x device, use filters in Photoshop, backup and move VirtualBox machines, use the BitDefender Rescue CD to clean an infected PC, and had fun setting up a pirates theme on our computers. Photo by _nash. Weekly Feature Do you love using the Faenza icon set on your Ubuntu system but feel that there are a few much needed icons missing (or you desire a different version of a particular icon)? Then you may want to take a look at the Faenza Variants icon pack. The icons are available in the following sizes: 16px, 22px, 32px, 48px and scalable sizes. Photo by Asian Angel. Faenza Variants Random Geek Links Another week with extra link goodness to help keep you on top of the news. Photo by Asian Angel. LastPass acquires Xmarks, premium service announced Xmarks announced that it has been acquired by LastPass, a cross-platform password management service. This also means that Xmarks is now in transition from a “free” to a “freemium” business model. WikiLeaks reappears on European Net domains WikiLeaks has re-emerged on a Swiss Internet domain followed by domains in Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands, sidestepping a move that had in effect taken the controversial site off the Internet. Iran: Yes, Stuxnet hurt our nuclear program The Stuxnet worm got some big play from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who acknowledged that the malware dinged his nuclear program. More Windows Rogues than Just AV – Fake Defragmenter Check Disk Don’t think for a second that rogues are limited to scareware, because as so-called products such as “System Defragmenter”, “Scan Disk” “Check Disk” prove, they’re not. Internet Explorer’s Protected Mode can be bypassed Researchers from Verizon Business have now described a way of bypassing Protected Mode in IE 7 and 8 in order to gain access to user accounts. Can you really see who viewed your Facebook profile? Rogue application spreads virally Once again, a rogue application is spreading virally between Facebook users pretending to offer you a way of seeing who has viewed your profile. More holes in Palm’s WebOS Researchers Orlando Barrera and Daniel Herrera, who both work for security firm SecTheory, have discovered a gaping security hole in Palm’s WebOS smartphone operating system. Next-gen banking Trojans hit APAC With the proliferation of banking Trojans, Web and smartphone users of online banking services have to be on constant alert to avoid falling prey to fraud schemes, warned Etay Maor, project manager for RSA Fraud Action. AVG update cripples 64-bit computers A signature update automatically deployed by the AVG virus scanner Thursday has crippled numerous computers. Article includes link to forums to fix computers affected after a restart. Congress moves to outlaw ‘mystery charges’ for Web shoppers Legislation that makes it illegal for Web merchants and so-called post-transaction marketers to charge credit cards without the card owners’ say-so came closer to becoming law this week. Ballmer Set to “Look Into” Windows Home Server Drive Extender Fiasco Tuesday’s announcement from Microsoft regarding the removal of Drive Extender from Windows Home Server has sent shock waves across the web. Google tweaks search recipe to ding scam artists Google has changed its search algorithm to penalize sites deemed to provide an “extremely poor user experience” following a New York Times story on a merchant who justified abusive behavior towards customers as a search-engine optimization tactic. Geek Video of the Week Watch as our two friends debate back and forth about the early adoption of new technology through multiple time periods (Stone Age to the far future). Will our reluctant friend finally succumb to the temptation? Photo by CollegeHumor. Early Adopters Through History Random TinyHacker Links Fix Issues in Windows 7 Using Reliability Monitor Learn how to analyze Windows 7 errors and then fix them using the built-in reliability monitor. Learn About IE Tab Groups Tab groups is a useful feature in IE 8. Here’s a detailed guide to what it is all about. Google’s Book Helps You Learn About Browsers and Web A cool new online book by the Google Chrome team on browsers and the web. TrustPort Internet Security 2011 – Good Security from a Less Known Provider TrustPort is not exactly a well-known provider of security solutions. At least not in the consumer space. This review tests in detail their latest offering. How the World is Using Cell phones An infographic showing the shocking demographics of cell phone use. Super User Questions See the great answers to these questions from Super User. I am unable to access my C drive. It says it is unable to display current owner. List of Windows special directories/shortcuts like ‘%TEMP%’ Is using multiple passes for wiping a disk really necessary? How can I view two files side by side in Notepad++ Is there any tool that automatically puts screenshots to my Dropbox? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Look through our hottest articles from this past week at How-To Geek. How to Create a Software RAID Array in Windows 7 9 Alternatives for Windows Home Server’s Drive Extender Why Doesn’t Disk Cleanup Delete Everything from the Temp Folder? Ask the Readers: How Much Do You Customize Your Operating System? How to Upload Really Large Files to SkyDrive, Dropbox, or Email One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy reading through these awesome articles from one year ago. How To Upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium Edition How To Fix No Aero Transparency in Windows 7 Troubleshoot Startup Problems with Startup Repair Tool in Windows 7 & Vista Rename the Guest Account in Windows 7 for Enhanced Security Disable Error Reporting in XP, Vista, and Windows 7 The Geek Note That wraps things up here for this week. Regardless of the weather wherever you may be, we hope that you have an opportunity to get outside and have some fun! Remember to keep sending those great tips in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Tony the Misfit. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Get the Complete Android Guide eBook for Only 99 Cents [Update: Expired] Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography How to Choose What to Back Up on Your Linux Home Server How To Harmonize Your Dual-Boot Setup for Windows and Ubuntu Hang in There Scrat! – Ice Age Wallpaper How Do You Know When You’ve Passed Geek and Headed to Nerd? On The Tip – A Lamborghini Theme for Chrome and Iron What if Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were Human? [Video] Peaceful Winter Cabin Wallpaper Store Tabs for Later Viewing in Opera with Tab Vault

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• Complete Guide to Networking Windows 7 with XP and Vista

  - by Mysticgeek

  Since there are three versions of Windows out in the field these days, chances are you need to share data between them. Today we show how to get each version to be share files and printers with one another. In a perfect world, getting your computers with different Microsoft operating systems to network would be as easy as clicking a button. With the Windows 7 Homegroup feature, it’s almost that easy. However, getting all three of them to communicate with each other can be a bit of a challenge. Today we’ve put together a guide that will help you share files and printers in whatever scenario of the three versions you might encounter on your home network. Sharing Between Windows 7 and XP The most common scenario you’re probably going to run into is sharing between Windows 7 and XP.  Essentially you’ll want to make sure both machines are part of the same workgroup, set up the correct sharing settings, and making sure network discovery is enabled on Windows 7. The biggest problem you may run into is finding the correct printer drivers for both versions of Windows. Share Files and Printers Between Windows 7 & XP  Map a Network Drive Another method of sharing data between XP and Windows 7 is mapping a network drive. If you don’t need to share a printer and only want to share a drive, then you can just map an XP drive to Windows 7. Although it might sound complicated, the process is not bad. The trickiest part is making sure you add the appropriate local user. This will allow you to share the contents of an XP drive to your Windows 7 computer. Map a Network Drive from XP to Windows 7 Sharing between Vista and Windows 7 Another scenario you might run into is having to share files and printers between a Vista and Windows 7 machine. The process is a bit easier than sharing between XP and Windows 7, but takes a bit of work. The Homegroup feature isn’t compatible with Vista, so we need to go through a few different steps. Depending on what your printer is, sharing it should be easier as Vista and Windows 7 do a much better job of automatically locating the drivers. How to Share Files and Printers Between Windows 7 and Vista Sharing between Vista and XP When Windows Vista came out, hardware requirements were intensive, drivers weren’t ready, and sharing between them was complicated due to the new Vista structure. The sharing process is pretty straight-forward if you’re not using password protection…as you just need to drop what you want to share into the Vista Public folder. On the other hand, sharing with password protection becomes a bit more difficult. Basically you need to add a user and set up sharing on the XP machine. But once again, we have a complete tutorial for that situation. Share Files and Folders Between Vista and XP Machines Sharing Between Windows 7 with Homegroup If you have one or more Windows 7 machine, sharing files and devices becomes extremely easy with the Homegroup feature. It’s as simple as creating a Homegroup on on machine then joining the other to it. It allows you to stream media, control what data is shared, and can also be password protected. If you don’t want to make your Windows 7 machines part of the same Homegroup, you can still share files through the Public Folder, and setup a printer to be shared as well.   Use the Homegroup Feature in Windows 7 to Share Printers and Files Create a Homegroup & Join a New Computer To It Change which Files are Shared in a Homegroup Windows Home Server If you want an ultimate setup that creates a centralized location to share files between all systems on your home network, regardless of the operating system, then set up a Windows Home Server. It allows you to centralize your important documents and digital media files on one box and provides easy access to data and the ability to stream media to other machines on your network. Not only that, but it provides easy backup of all your machines to the server, in case disaster strikes. How to Install and Setup Windows Home Server How to Manage Shared Folders on Windows Home Server Conclusion The biggest annoyance is dealing with printers that have a different set of drivers for each OS. There is no real easy way to solve this problem. Our best advice is to try to connect it to one machine, and if the drivers won’t work, hook it up to the other computer and see if that works. Each printer manufacturer is different, and Windows doesn’t always automatically install the correct drivers for the device. We hope this guide helps you share your data between whichever Microsoft OS scenario you might run into! Here are some other articles that will help you accomplish your home networking needs: Share a Printer on a Home Network from Vista or XP to Windows 7 How to Share a Folder the XP Way in Windows Vista Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Delete Wrong AutoComplete Entries in Windows Vista MailSvchost Viewer Shows Exactly What Each svchost.exe Instance is DoingFixing "BOOTMGR is missing" Error While Trying to Boot Windows VistaShow Hidden Files and Folders in Windows 7 or VistaAdd Color Coding to Windows 7 Media Center Program Guide TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Icelandic Volcano Webcams Open Multiple Links At One Go NachoFoto Searches Images in Real-time Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi

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• Our Look at Opera 10.50 Web Browser

  - by Asian Angel

  Everyone has been talking about the newest version of Opera recently but perhaps you have not looked at it too closely yet. Today we will take a look at 10.50 and let you see what this “new browser” is all about. The New Engines Carakan JavaScript Engine: Runs web applications up to 7 times faster than its predecessor Futhark Vega Graphics Library: Enables super fast and smooth graphics on everything from tab switching to webpage animation Presto 2.5: Provides support for HTML5, CSS2.1 and the latest CSS3 standards A Look at the Features Available If you have installed or used older versions of Opera before then the default look after a clean install will probably seem rather different. The main differences in appearance are mainly located within the “glass border” areas of the browser. The “Speed Dial” setup looks and works just as well as in previous versions. You can set a favorite wallpaper or image as your background and choose the number of “dials” using the “Configure Speed Dial Command”. One of the “standout” differences is the “O Button”. All of the menus have been condensed into this single access point but it only takes a few moments to find what you are looking for. If you have used the style before in earlier versions of Opera some of the items have been moved around. For those who prefer the “Menu Bar” that can be easily restored using the “Show Menu Bar Command”. If desired you can actually “extend” the “Tab Bar” downwards to display thumbnails of your open tabs. Just use your mouse to grab the bottom of the “Tab Bar” and adjust it to suit your personal needs. The only problem with this feature is that it will quickly use up a good sized portion of your available UI and browser window space. The “Password Manager” is ready to access when needed…the background for the button will turn a shiny metallic blue when you open a webpage that you have “Login Information” saved for. One of the new features is a small “Recycle Bin Button” in the upper right corner. Clicking on this will display a list of recently closed tabs letting you have easy access to any tabs that you may have accidentally closed. This is definitely a great feature to have as an easy access button. For those who were used to how the “Zoom Feature” looked before it has a new “look” to it. Instead of the pop-up menu-type listing of “view sizes” present before you now have a slider button that you can use to adjust the zooming level. For our default setup here the “Sidebar Panels” available were: “Bookmarks, Widgets, Unite, Notes, Downloads, History, & Panels”. Additional panels such as “Links, Windows, Search, Info, etc.” are available if you want and/or need them (accessible using the “Panels Plus Sign Button”). The “Opera Link Button” makes it easy for you to synchronize your “Speed Dial, Bookmarks, Personal Bar, Custom Searches, History & Notes”. Note: “Opera Link” requires an account and can be signed up for using the link provided below. Want to share files with your family and friends? “Unite” allows you to do that and more. With “Unite” you can: “Stream Music, Show Photo Galleries, Share Files and/or Folders, & host webpages directly from your browser”. We have a more in-depth look at “Unite” in our article here. Note: Use of “Unite” requires an Opera account. Got a slow internet connection? “Opera Turbo” can help with that by running the web traffic through their “compression servers” to speed up your web browsing. Keep in mind that “Opera Turbo” will not engage if you are accessing a secure website (i.e. your bank’s website) thus preserving your security. Note: “Opera Turbo” can be set up to automatically detect slow internet connections (i.e. crowded Wi-Fi in a cafe). Opera has a built-in “Private Browsing Mode” now for those who prefer anonymous browsing and want to keep the “history records clean” on their computer. To access it go to “Tabs and windows” and select “New private tab” or “New private window” as desired. When you open your new “Private Tab or Window” you will see the following message with details on how Opera will handle browsing information and a large “door hanger symbol”. Notice that the one tab is locked into “Private Browsing Mode” while the others are still working in “Regular Browsing Mode”. Very nice! A miniature version of the “door hanger symbol” will be present on any tab that is locked into “Private Browsing Mode”. If you are using Windows 7 then you will love how things look from your “Taskbar”. Here you can see four very nice looking thumbnails for the tabs that we had open. All that you have to do is click on the desired thumbnail… The “Context Menu” looks just as lovely as the thumbnails and definitely has some terrific functionality built into it. Add Enhanced Aero Capability If you love “Aero” and want more for your new Opera install then we have the perfect theme for you. The theme’s name is Z1-AV69 and once you have downloaded it you will need to place it in the “Skins Subfolder” in Opera’s “Program Files Folder”. Note: For our example we used version 1.10 but version 2.00 is now available (link provided below). Once you have restarted Opera, go to the “O Menu” and select “Appearance”. When the “Appearance Window” opens click on “Z1-Glass Skin” and then click “OK”. All of a sudden you will have more “Aero Goodness” to enjoy. Compare this screenshot with the one at the top of this article…the only part that is not transparent now is the browser window area itself. Want even more “Aero Goodness”? Right click on the “Tab Bar” and set “Tab Bar Placement” to “Left”. Note: You can achieve the same effect by setting the “Tab Bar Placement” to “Right”. With the “Speed Dial” visible you will be able to see your wallpaper with ease. While this is obviously not for everyone it does make for a great visual trick. Portable Versions Perhaps you need this wonderful new version of Opera to go with you wherever you do during the day. Not a problem…just visit the Opera USB website to choose a version that works best for you. You can select from “Zip or Exe” setup files and if needed update an older portable version using a “Zipped Update Files Package”. If you are updating an older version keep in mind that you will need to delete the old “OperaUSB.exe. File” due to changes with the new setup files. During our tests updating older portable versions went well for the most part but we did experience a few “odd UI quirks” here and there…so we recommend setting up a clean install if possible. Conclusion The new 10.50 release is a pleasure to use and is a recommended install for your system. Whether you are considering trying Opera for the first time or have been using it for a bit we think that you will pleased with everything that the 10.50 release has to offer. For those who would like to add User Scripts to Opera be certain to look at our how-to article here. Links Download Opera 10.50 for your location (Windows) Get the latest Snapshot versions for Linux & Mac Sign up for an Opera Link account View In-Depth detail on Opera 10.50’s features Download the Z1-AV69 Aero Theme Download Portable Opera 10.50 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Set the Speed Dial as the Opera Startup PageSet Up User Scripts in Opera BrowserScan Files for Viruses Before You Download With Dr.WebTurn Your Computer into a File, Music, and Web Server with Opera UniteSet the Default Browser on Ubuntu From the Command Line TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

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• Week in Geek: FBI Back Door in OpenBSD Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to migrate bookmarks from Delicious to Diigo, fix annoying arrows, play old-school DOS games, schedule smart computer shutdowns, use breaks in Microsoft Word to better format documents, check the condition of hard-disks using Linux disk utilities, & what the Linux fstab is and how it works. Photo by Jameson42. Random Geek Links Another week with extra news link goodness to help keep you up to date. Photo by justmakeit. Report of FBI back door roils OpenBSD community Allegations that the FBI surreptitiously placed a back door into the OpenBSD operating system have alarmed the computer security community, prompting calls for an audit of the source code and claims that the charges must be a hoax. Fortinet: Job outlook improving for cybercrooks In an ironic twist in the job market, more positions will open up for developers who can write customized malware packers, people who can break CAPTCHA codes, and distributors who can spread malicious code, according to Fortinet. Enisa: Malware for smartphones is a ’serious risk’ Businesses and consumers are at risk of data breaches through smartphone use, according to the European Network and Information Security Agency. The trick with the f: Google and Microsoft web sites distribute malware Last week, Google’s DoubleClick advertising platform and Microsoft’s rad.msn.com online ad network briefly distributed malware to other web sites in the form of advertising banners. New scam tactic: Fake disk defraggers It would appear that scammers are trying out new programs to see which might best confuse potential victims and evade detection by legitimate antivirus software. Microsoft closes IE and Stuxnet holes As previously announced, Microsoft has released 17 security updates to close 40 security holes. All four Windows holes so far disclosed in connection with Stuxnet have now been closed. Microsoft Offers H.264 Support to Firefox on Windows via Add-On The new HTML5 Extension for Windows Media Player Firefox Plug-in add-on from Microsoft offers users that are running Firefox on Windows 7 H.264 support for HTML5 video playback. Google proclaims Chrome business-ready Google has announced that Chrome is ready for corporate use. Microsoft Tells Exchange Customers to Think Twice Before Opting for Google Message Continuity This week, Microsoft is telling companies still running Exchange 2010’s precursors that they should carefully consider the implications of embracing Google Message Continuity. Who Google has in mind for its Chrome OS users Steven Vaughan-Nichols explains why he feels that Chrome OS will be ideal for either office-workers or people who need a computer, but do not know the first thing about how to use one safely. Oracle takes office suite to the cloud Oracle has introduced Cloud Office 1.0, a cloud-based version of its office suite, which is aimed at web and mobile users. Mozilla pays premiums for reports of vulnerabilities The Mozilla Foundation has followed Google’s example by expanding its rewards program for reports of vulnerabilities in its Web applications. Who bought those 882 Novell patents? Not just Microsoft The mysterious CPTN Holdings — the organization that bought the 882 Novell patents as part of the terms of the Attachmate acquisition of Novell – has been unmasked (Microsoft, Apple, EMC and Oracle). Appeals court: Feds need warrants for e-mail Police must obtain search warrants before perusing Internet users’ e-mail records, a federal appeals court ruled today in a landmark decision that struck down part of a 1986 law allowing warrantless access. Geek Video of the Week What happens when someone plays a wicked prank by shoveling crazy snow paths that lead to dead ends or turn back on themselves? Watch to find out! Photo by CollegeHumor. Janitor Snow Shoveling Prank Random TinyHacker Links The Oatmeal on Cat vs Internet What lengths will our poor neglected kitty hero have to go to in order to get some attention? Guide On Using JoliCloud With Windows JoliCloud is a nifty operating system that’s made for people who need a light-weight OS that’s mostly cloud based. Check this guide on using it with Windows. Use Cameyo to Easily Create Portable Programs Here’s a nifty tool to make portable apps out of programs in Windows. Check out the guide to do it. Better Family Tech Support A nice new site by Google to help members of family understand how computers work. Track Your Stolen Mobile Phone With F-Secure A useful anti-theft tool for your mobile phone. Super User Questions Another week with great answers to popular questions from Super User. What Chrome password manager fits my requirements? What’s the best way to be able to reimage windows computers? Could you suggest feature-rich disk-based personal backup program for linux (and I’ve seen a few)? What is IPv6 and why should I care? Is there any way to find out what programs are trying to connect to Internet on windows? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Here are our hottest articles full of geeky goodness from this past week at HTG. 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 Kills Viruses Dead. Download It Now. Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? Ask the Readers: Would You Be Willing to Give Windows Up and Use a Different O.S.? The Twelve Days of Geekmas One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy reading through our latest batch of retro-geek goodness from one year ago. Macrium Reflect is a Free and Easy To Use Backup Utility How To Turn a Physical Computer Into A Virtual Machine with Disk2vhd How To Restore Windows 7 from a System Image How To Manage Hard Drive Space Used by Windows 7 Backup and Restore How To Manage Hibernate Mode in Windows 7 The Geek Note That is all we have for you this week, so see you back here again after the holidays! Got a great tip? Send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by mitjamavsar. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better 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 Deathwing the Destroyer – WoW Cataclysm Dragon Wallpaper Drag2Up Lets You Drag and Drop Files to the Web With Ease The Spam Police Parts 1 and 2 – Goodbye Spammers [Videos] Snow Angels Theme for Windows 7 Exploring the Jungle Ruins Wallpaper Protect Your Privacy When Browsing with Chrome and Iron Browser

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• Week in Geek: US Govt E-card Scam Siphons Confidential Data Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to “back up photos to Flickr, automate repetitive tasks, & normalize MP3 volume”, enable “stereo mix” in Windows 7 to record audio, create custom papercraft toys, read up on three alternatives to Apple’s flaky iOS alarm clock, decorated our desktops & app docks with Google icon packs, and more. Photo by alexschlegel. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week on the security & malware fronts and we have a roundup of the latest news to help keep you updated. Photo by TopTechWriter.US. US govt e-card scam hits confidential data A fake U.S. government Christmas e-card has managed to siphon off gigabytes of sensitive data from a number of law enforcement and military staff who work on cybersecurity matters, many of whom are involved in computer crime investigations. Security tool uncovers multiple bugs in every browser Michal Zalewski reports that he discovered the vulnerability in Internet Explorer a while ago using his cross_fuzz fuzzing tool and reported it to Microsoft in July 2010. Zalewski also used cross_fuzz to discover bugs in other browsers, which he also reported to the relevant organisations. Microsoft to fix Windows holes, but not ones in IE Microsoft said that it will release two security bulletins next week fixing three holes in Windows, but it is still investigating or working on fixing holes in Internet Explorer that have been reportedly exploited in attacks. Microsoft warns of Windows flaw affecting image rendering Microsoft has warned of a Windows vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take control of a computer if the user is logged on with administrative rights. Windows 7 Not Affected by Critical 0-Day in the Windows Graphics Rendering Engine While confirming that details on a Critical zero-day vulnerability have made their way into the wild, Microsoft noted that customers running the latest iteration of Windows client and server platforms are not exposed to any risks. Microsoft warns of Office-related malware Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center issued a warning this week that it has spotted malicious code on the Internet that can take advantage of a flaw in Word and infect computers after a user does nothing more than read an e-mail. *Refers to a flaw that was addressed in the November security patch releases. Make sure you have all of the latest security updates installed. Unpatched hole in ImgBurn disk burning application According to security specialist Secunia, a highly critical vulnerability in ImgBurn, a lightweight disk burning application, can be used to remotely compromise a user’s system. Hole in VLC Media Player Virtual Security Research (VSR) has identified a vulnerability in VLC Media Player. In versions up to and including 1.1.5 of the VLC Media Player. Flash Player sandbox can be bypassed Flash applications run locally can read local files and send them to an online server – something which the sandbox is supposed to prevent. Chinese auction site touts hacked iTunes accounts Tens of thousands of reportedly hacked iTunes accounts have been found on Chinese auction site Taobao, but the company claims it is unable to take action unless there are direct complaints. What happened in the recent Hotmail outage Mike Schackwitz explains the cause of the recent Hotmail outage. DOJ sends order to Twitter for Wikileaks-related account info The U.S. Justice Department has obtained a court order directing Twitter to turn over information about the accounts of activists with ties to Wikileaks, including an Icelandic politician, a legendary Dutch hacker, and a U.S. computer programmer. Google gets court to block Microsoft Interior Department e-mail win The U.S. Federal Claims Court has temporarily blocked Microsoft from proceeding with the $49.3 million, five-year DOI contract that it won this past November. Google Apps customers get email lockdown Companies and organisations using Google Apps are now able to restrict the email access of selected users. LibreOffice Is the Default Office Suite for Ubuntu 11.04 Matthias Klose has announced some details regarding the replacement of the old OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 packages with the new LibreOffice 3.3 ones, starting with the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Alpha 2 release. Sysadmin Geek Tips Photo by Filomena Scalise. How to Setup Software RAID for a Simple File Server on Ubuntu Do you need a file server that is cheap and easy to setup, “rock solid” reliable, and has Email Alerting? This tutorial shows you how to use Ubuntu, software RAID, and SaMBa to accomplish just that. How to Control the Order of Startup Programs in Windows While you can specify the applications you want to launch when Windows starts, the ability to control the order in which they start is not available. However, there are a couple of ways you can easily overcome this limitation and control the startup order of applications. Random TinyHacker Links Using Opera Unite to Send Large Files A tutorial on using Opera Unite to easily send huge files from your computer. WorkFlowy is a Useful To-do List Tool A cool to-do list tool that lets you integrate multiple tasks in one single list easily. Playing Flash Videos on iOS Devices Yes, you can play flash videos on jailbroken iPhones. Here’s a tutorial. Clear Safari History and Cookies On iPhone A tutorial on clearing your browser history on iPhone and other iOS devices. Monitor Your Internet Usage Here’s a cool, cross-platform tool to monitor your internet bandwidth. Super User Questions See what the community had to say on these popular questions from Super User this week. Why is my upload speed much less than my download speed? Where should I find drivers for my laptop if it didn’t come with a driver disk? OEM Office 2010 without media – how to reinstall? Is there a point to using theft tracking software like Prey on my laptop, if you have login security? Moving an “all-in-one” PC when turned on/off How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles from this past week. How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? Did You Know Facebook Has Built-In Shortcut Keys? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy looking through our latest gathering of retro article goodness. Learning Windows 7: Create a Homegroup & Join a New Computer To It How To Disconnect a Machine from a Homegroup Use Remote Desktop To Access Other Computers On a Small Office or Home Network How To Share Files and Printers Between Windows 7 and Vista Allow Users To Run Only Specified Programs in Windows 7 The Geek Note That is all we have for you this week and we hope your first week back at work or school has gone very well now that the holidays are over. Know a great tip? Send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Pamela Machado. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Arctic Theme for Windows 7 Gives Your Desktop an Icy Touch Install LibreOffice via PPA and Receive Auto-Updates in Ubuntu Creative Portraits Peek Inside the Guts of Modern Electronics Scenic Winter Lane Wallpaper to Create a Relaxing Mood Access Your Web Apps Directly Using the Context Menu in Chrome The Deep – Awesome Use of Metal Objects as Deep Sea Creatures [Video]

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• Creating packages in code – Execute SQL Task

  The Execute SQL Task is for obvious reasons very well used, so I thought if you are building packages in code the chances are you will be using it. Using the task basic features of the task are quite straightforward, add the task and set some properties, just like any other. When you start interacting with variables though it can be a little harder to grasp so these samples should see you through. Some of these more advanced features are explained in much more detail in our ever popular post The Execute SQL Task, here I’ll just be showing you how to implement them in code. The abbreviated code blocks below demonstrate the different features of the task. The complete code has been encapsulated into a sample class which you can download (ExecSqlPackage.cs). Each feature described has its own method in the sample class which is mentioned after the code block. This first sample just shows adding the task, setting the basic properties for a connection and of course an SQL statement. Package package = new Package(); // Add the SQL OLE-DB connection ConnectionManager sqlConnection = AddSqlConnection(package, "localhost", "master"); // Add the SQL Task package.Executables.Add("STOCK:SQLTask"); // Get the task host wrapper TaskHost taskHost = package.Executables[0] as TaskHost; // Set required properties taskHost.Properties["Connection"].SetValue(taskHost, sqlConnection.ID); taskHost.Properties["SqlStatementSource"].SetValue(taskHost, "SELECT * FROM sysobjects"); For the full version of this code, see the CreatePackage method in the sample class. The AddSqlConnection method is a helper method that adds an OLE-DB connection to the package, it is of course in the sample class file too. Returning a single value with a Result Set The following sample takes a different approach, getting a reference to the ExecuteSQLTask object task itself, rather than just using the non-specific TaskHost as above. Whilst it means we need to add an extra reference to our project (Microsoft.SqlServer.SQLTask) it makes coding much easier as we have compile time validation of any property and types we use. For the more complex properties that is very valuable and saves a lot of time during development. The query has also been changed to return a single value, one row and one column. The sample shows how we can return that value into a variable, which we also add to our package in the code. To do this manually you would set the Result Set property on the General page to Single Row and map the variable on the Result Set page in the editor. Package package = new Package(); // Add the SQL OLE-DB connection ConnectionManager sqlConnection = AddSqlConnection(package, "localhost", "master"); // Add the SQL Task package.Executables.Add("STOCK:SQLTask"); // Get the task host wrapper TaskHost taskHost = package.Executables[0] as TaskHost; // Add variable to hold result value package.Variables.Add("Variable", false, "User", 0); // Get the task object ExecuteSQLTask task = taskHost.InnerObject as ExecuteSQLTask; // Set core properties task.Connection = sqlConnection.Name; task.SqlStatementSource = "SELECT id FROM sysobjects WHERE name = 'sysrowsets'"; // Set single row result set task.ResultSetType = ResultSetType.ResultSetType_SingleRow; // Add result set binding, map the id column to variable task.ResultSetBindings.Add(); IDTSResultBinding resultBinding = task.ResultSetBindings.GetBinding(0); resultBinding.ResultName = "id"; resultBinding.DtsVariableName = "User::Variable"; For the full version of this code, see the CreatePackageResultVariable method in the sample class. The other types of Result Set behaviour are just a variation on this theme, set the property and map the result binding as required. Parameter Mapping for SQL Statements This final example uses a parameterised SQL statement, with the coming from a variable. The syntax varies slightly between connection types, as explained in the Working with Parameters and Return Codes in the Execute SQL Taskhelp topic, but OLE-DB is the most commonly used, for which a question mark is the parameter value placeholder. Package package = new Package(); // Add the SQL OLE-DB connection ConnectionManager sqlConnection = AddSqlConnection(package, ".", "master"); // Add the SQL Task package.Executables.Add("STOCK:SQLTask"); // Get the task host wrapper TaskHost taskHost = package.Executables[0] as TaskHost; // Get the task object ExecuteSQLTask task = taskHost.InnerObject as ExecuteSQLTask; // Set core properties task.Connection = sqlConnection.Name; task.SqlStatementSource = "SELECT id FROM sysobjects WHERE name = ?"; // Add variable to hold parameter value package.Variables.Add("Variable", false, "User", "sysrowsets"); // Add input parameter binding task.ParameterBindings.Add(); IDTSParameterBinding parameterBinding = task.ParameterBindings.GetBinding(0); parameterBinding.DtsVariableName = "User::Variable"; parameterBinding.ParameterDirection = ParameterDirections.Input; parameterBinding.DataType = (int)OleDBDataTypes.VARCHAR; parameterBinding.ParameterName = "0"; parameterBinding.ParameterSize = 255; For the full version of this code, see the CreatePackageParameterVariable method in the sample class. You’ll notice the data type has to be specified for the parameter IDTSParameterBinding .DataType Property, and these type codes are connection specific too. My enumeration I wrote several years ago is shown below was probably done by reverse engineering a package and also the API header file, but I recently found a very handy post that covers more connections as well for exactly this, Setting the DataType of IDTSParameterBinding objects (Execute SQL Task). /// <summary> /// Enumeration of OLE-DB types, used when mapping OLE-DB parameters. /// </summary> private enum OleDBDataTypes { BYTE = 0x11, CURRENCY = 6, DATE = 7, DB_VARNUMERIC = 0x8b, DBDATE = 0x85, DBTIME = 0x86, DBTIMESTAMP = 0x87, DECIMAL = 14, DOUBLE = 5, FILETIME = 0x40, FLOAT = 4, GUID = 0x48, LARGE_INTEGER = 20, LONG = 3, NULL = 1, NUMERIC = 0x83, NVARCHAR = 130, SHORT = 2, SIGNEDCHAR = 0x10, ULARGE_INTEGER = 0x15, ULONG = 0x13, USHORT = 0x12, VARCHAR = 0x81, VARIANT_BOOL = 11 } Download Sample code ExecSqlPackage.cs (10KB)

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• Security Trimmed Cross Site Collection Navigation

  - by Sahil Malik

  Ad:: SharePoint 2007 Training in .NET 3.5 technologies (more information). This article will serve as documentation of a fully functional codeplex project that I just created. This project will give you a WebPart that will give you security trimmed navigation across site collections. The first question is, why create such a project? In every single SharePoint project you will do, one question you will always be faced with is, what should the boundaries of sites be, and what should the boundaries of site collections be? There is no good or bad answer to this, because it really really depends on your needs. There are some factors in play here. Site Collections will allow you to scale, as a Site collection is the smallest entity you can put inside a content database Site collections will allow you to offer different levels of SLAs, because you put a site collection on a separate content database, and put that database on a separate server. Site collections are a security boundary – and they can be moved around at will without affecting other site collections. Site collections are also a branding boundary. They are also a feature deployment boundary, so you can have two site collections on the same web application with completely different nature of services. But site collections break navigation, i.e. a site collection at “/”, and a site collection at “/sites/mySiteCollection”, are completely independent of each other. If you have access to both, the navigation of / won’t show you a link to /sites/mySiteCollection. Some people refer to this as a huge issue in SharePoint. Luckily, some workarounds exist. A long time ago, I had blogged about “Implementing Consistent Navigation across Site Collections”. That approach was a no-code solution, it worked – it gave you a consistent navigation across site collections. But, it didn’t work in a security trimmed fashion! i.e., if I don’t have access to Site Collection ‘X’, it would still show me a link to ‘X’. Well this project gets around that issue. Simply deploy this project, and it’ll give you a WebPart. You can use that WebPart as either a webpart or as a server control dropped via SharePoint designer, and it will give you Security Trimmed Cross Site Collection Navigation. The code has been written for SP2010, but it will work in SP2007 with the help of http://spwcfsupport.codeplex.com . What do I need to do to make it work? I’m glad you asked! Simple! Deploy the .wsp (which you can download here). This will give you a site collection feature called “Winsmarts Cross Site Collection Navigation” as shown below. Go ahead and activate it, and this will give you a WebPart called “Winsmarts Navigation Web Part” as shown below: Just drop this WebPart on your page, and it will show you all site collections that the currently logged in user has access to. Really it’s that easy! This is shown as below - In the above example, I have two site collections that I created at /sites/SiteCollection1 and /sites/SiteCollection2. The navigation shows the titles. You see some extraneous crap as well, you might want to clean that – I’ll talk about that in a minute. What? You’re running into problems? If the problem you’re running into is that you are prompted to login three times, and then it shows a blank webpart that says “Loading your applications ..” and then craps out!, then most probably you’re using a different authentication scheme. Behind the scenes I use a custom WCF service to perform this job. OOTB, I’ve set it to work with NTLM, but if you need to make it work alternate authentications such as forms based auth, or client side certs, you will need to edit the %14%\ISAPI\Winsmarts.CrossSCNav\web.config file, specifically, this section - 1: <bindings> 2: <webHttpBinding> 3: <binding name="customWebHttpBinding"> 4: <security mode="TransportCredentialOnly"> 5: <transport clientCredentialType="Ntlm"/> 6: </security> 7: </binding> 8: </webHttpBinding> 9: </bindings> For Kerberos, change the “clientCredentialType” to “Windows” For Forms auth, remove that transport line For client certs – well that’s a bit more involved, but it’s just web.config changes – hit a good book on WCF or hire me for a billion trillion $. But fair warning, I might be too busy to help immediately. If you’re running into a different problem, please leave a comment below, but the code is pretty rock solid, so .. hmm .. check what you’re doing! BTW, I don’t  make any guarantee/warranty on this – if this code makes you sterile, unpopular, bad hairstyle, anything else, that is your problem! But, there are some known issues - I wrote this as a concept – you can easily extend it to be more flexible. Example, hierarchical nav, or, horizontal nav, jazzy effects with jquery or silverlight– all those are possible very very easily. This webpart is not smart enough to co-exist with another instance of itself on the same page. I can easily extend it to do so, which I will do in my spare(!?) time! Okay good! But that’s not all! As you can see, just dropping the WebPart may show you many extraneous site collections, or maybe you want to restrict which site collections are shown, or exclude a certain site collection to be shown from the navigation. To support that, I created a property on the WebPart called “UrlMatchPattern”, which is a regex expression you specify to trim the results :). So, just edit the WebPart, and specify a string property of “http://sp2010/sites/” as shown below. Note that you can put in whatever regex expression you want! So go crazy, I don’t care! And this gives you a cleaner look.   w00t! Enjoy! Comment on the article ....

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• Adobe Photoshop Vs Lightroom Vs Aperture

  - by Aditi

  Adobe Photoshop is the standard choice for photographers, graphic artists and Web designers. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom  & Apple’s Aperture are also in the same league but the usage is vastly different. Although Photoshop is most popular & widely used by photographers, but in many ways it’s less relevant to photographers than ever before. As Lightroom & Aperture is aimed squarely at photographers for photo-processing. With this write up we are going to help you choose what is right for you and why. Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is the most liked tool for the detailed photo editing & designing work. Photoshop provides great features for rollover and Image slicing. Adobe Photoshop includes comprehensive optimization features for producing the highest quality Web graphics with the smallest possible file sizes. You can also create startling animations with it. Designers & Editors know how important precise masking is, PhotoShop lets you do that with various detailing tools. Art history brush, contact sheets, and history palette are some of the smart features, which add to its viability. Download Whether you’re producing printed pages or moving images, you can work more efficiently and produce better results because of its smooth integration across other adobe applications. Buy supporting layer effects, it allows you to quickly add drop shadows, inner and outer glows, bevels, and embossing to layers. It also provides Seamless Web Graphics Workflow. Photoshop is hands-down the BEST for editing. Photoshop Cons: • Slower, less precise editing features in Bridge • Processing lots of images requires actions and can be slower than exporting images from Lightroom • Much slower with editing and processing a large number of images Aperture Apple Aperture is aimed at the professional photographer who shoots predominantly raw files. It helps them to manage their workflow and perform their initial Raw conversion in a better way. Aperture provides adjustment tools such as Histogram to modify color and white balance, but most of the editing of photos is left for Photoshop. It gives users the option of seeing their photographs laid out like slides or negatives on a light table. It boasts of – stars, color-coding and easy techniques for filtering and picking images. Aperture has moved forward few steps than Photoshop, but most of the editing work has been left for Photoshop as it features seamless Photoshop integration. Aperture Pros: Aperture is a step up from the iPhoto software that comes with every Mac, and fairly easy to learn. Adjustments are made in a logical order from top to bottom of the menu. You can store the images in a library or any folder you choose. Aperture also works really well with direct Canon files. It is just $79 if you buy it through Apple’s App Store Moving forward, it will run on the iPad, and possibly the iPhone – Adobe products like Lightroom and Photoshop may never offer these options It is much nicer and simpler user interface. Lightroom Lightroom does a smashing job of basic fixing and editing. It is more advanced tool for photographers. They can use it to have a startling photography effect. Light room has many advanced features, which makes it one of the best tools for photographers and far ahead of the other two. They are Nondestructive editing. Nothing is actually changed in an image until the photo is exported. Better controls over organizing your photos. Lightroom helps to gather a group of photos to use in a slideshow. Lightroom has larger Compare and Survey views of images. Quickly customizable interface. Simple keystrokes allow you to perform different All Lightroom controls are kept available in panels right next to the photos. Always-available History palette, it doesn’t go when you close lightroom. You gain more colors to work with compared to Photoshop and with more precise control. Local control, or adjusting small parts of a photo without affecting anything else, has long been an important part of photography. In Lightroom 2, you can darken, lighten, and affect color and change sharpness and other aspects of specific areas in the photo simply by brushing your cursor across the areas. Photoshop has far more power in its Cloning and Healing Brush tools than Lightroom, but Lightroom offers simple cloning and healing that’s nondestructive. Lightroom supports the RAW formats of more cameras than Aperture. Lightroom provides the option of storing images outside the application in the file system. It costs less than photoshop. Download Why PhotoShop is advanced than Lightroom? There are countless image processing plug-ins on the market for doing specialized processing in Photoshop. For example, if your image needs sophisticated noise reduction, you can use the Noiseware plug-in with Photoshop to do a much better job or noise removal than Lightroom can do. Lightroom’s advantages over Aperture 3 Will always have better integration with Photoshop. Lightroom is backed by bigger and more active user community (So abundant availability for tutorials, etc.) Better noise reduction tool. Especially for photographers the Lens-distortion correction tool  is perfect Lightroom Cons: • Have to Import images to work on them • Slows down with over 10,000 images in the catalog • For processing just one or two images this is a slower workflow Photoshop Pros: • ACR has the same RAW processing controls as Lightroom • ACR Histogram is specialized to the chosen color space (Lightroom is locked into ProPhoto RGB color space with an sRGB tone curve) • Don’t have to Import images to open in Bridge or ACR • Ability to customize processing of RAW images with Photoshop Actions Pricing and Availability Get LightRoomGet PhotoShop Latest version Of Photoshop can be purchased from Adobe store and Adobe authorized reseller and it costs US$999. Latest version of Aperture can be bought for US$199 from Apple Online store or Mac App Store. You can buy latest version of LightRoom from Adobe Store or Adobe Authorized reseller for US$299. Related posts:Adobe Photoshop CS5 vs Photoshop CS5 extended Web based Alternatives to Photoshop 10 Free Alternatives for Adobe Photoshop Software

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• Creating packages in code – Execute SQL Task

  The Execute SQL Task is for obvious reasons very well used, so I thought if you are building packages in code the chances are you will be using it. Using the task basic features of the task are quite straightforward, add the task and set some properties, just like any other. When you start interacting with variables though it can be a little harder to grasp so these samples should see you through. Some of these more advanced features are explained in much more detail in our ever popular post The Execute SQL Task, here I’ll just be showing you how to implement them in code. The abbreviated code blocks below demonstrate the different features of the task. The complete code has been encapsulated into a sample class which you can download (ExecSqlPackage.cs). Each feature described has its own method in the sample class which is mentioned after the code block. This first sample just shows adding the task, setting the basic properties for a connection and of course an SQL statement. Package package = new Package(); // Add the SQL OLE-DB connection ConnectionManager sqlConnection = AddSqlConnection(package, "localhost", "master"); // Add the SQL Task package.Executables.Add("STOCK:SQLTask"); // Get the task host wrapper TaskHost taskHost = package.Executables[0] as TaskHost; // Set required properties taskHost.Properties["Connection"].SetValue(taskHost, sqlConnection.ID); taskHost.Properties["SqlStatementSource"].SetValue(taskHost, "SELECT * FROM sysobjects"); For the full version of this code, see the CreatePackage method in the sample class. The AddSqlConnection method is a helper method that adds an OLE-DB connection to the package, it is of course in the sample class file too. Returning a single value with a Result Set The following sample takes a different approach, getting a reference to the ExecuteSQLTask object task itself, rather than just using the non-specific TaskHost as above. Whilst it means we need to add an extra reference to our project (Microsoft.SqlServer.SQLTask) it makes coding much easier as we have compile time validation of any property and types we use. For the more complex properties that is very valuable and saves a lot of time during development. The query has also been changed to return a single value, one row and one column. The sample shows how we can return that value into a variable, which we also add to our package in the code. To do this manually you would set the Result Set property on the General page to Single Row and map the variable on the Result Set page in the editor. Package package = new Package(); // Add the SQL OLE-DB connection ConnectionManager sqlConnection = AddSqlConnection(package, "localhost", "master"); // Add the SQL Task package.Executables.Add("STOCK:SQLTask"); // Get the task host wrapper TaskHost taskHost = package.Executables[0] as TaskHost; // Add variable to hold result value package.Variables.Add("Variable", false, "User", 0); // Get the task object ExecuteSQLTask task = taskHost.InnerObject as ExecuteSQLTask; // Set core properties task.Connection = sqlConnection.Name; task.SqlStatementSource = "SELECT id FROM sysobjects WHERE name = 'sysrowsets'"; // Set single row result set task.ResultSetType = ResultSetType.ResultSetType_SingleRow; // Add result set binding, map the id column to variable task.ResultSetBindings.Add(); IDTSResultBinding resultBinding = task.ResultSetBindings.GetBinding(0); resultBinding.ResultName = "id"; resultBinding.DtsVariableName = "User::Variable"; For the full version of this code, see the CreatePackageResultVariable method in the sample class. The other types of Result Set behaviour are just a variation on this theme, set the property and map the result binding as required. Parameter Mapping for SQL Statements This final example uses a parameterised SQL statement, with the coming from a variable. The syntax varies slightly between connection types, as explained in the Working with Parameters and Return Codes in the Execute SQL Taskhelp topic, but OLE-DB is the most commonly used, for which a question mark is the parameter value placeholder. Package package = new Package(); // Add the SQL OLE-DB connection ConnectionManager sqlConnection = AddSqlConnection(package, ".", "master"); // Add the SQL Task package.Executables.Add("STOCK:SQLTask"); // Get the task host wrapper TaskHost taskHost = package.Executables[0] as TaskHost; // Get the task object ExecuteSQLTask task = taskHost.InnerObject as ExecuteSQLTask; // Set core properties task.Connection = sqlConnection.Name; task.SqlStatementSource = "SELECT id FROM sysobjects WHERE name = ?"; // Add variable to hold parameter value package.Variables.Add("Variable", false, "User", "sysrowsets"); // Add input parameter binding task.ParameterBindings.Add(); IDTSParameterBinding parameterBinding = task.ParameterBindings.GetBinding(0); parameterBinding.DtsVariableName = "User::Variable"; parameterBinding.ParameterDirection = ParameterDirections.Input; parameterBinding.DataType = (int)OleDBDataTypes.VARCHAR; parameterBinding.ParameterName = "0"; parameterBinding.ParameterSize = 255; For the full version of this code, see the CreatePackageParameterVariable method in the sample class. You’ll notice the data type has to be specified for the parameter IDTSParameterBinding .DataType Property, and these type codes are connection specific too. My enumeration I wrote several years ago is shown below was probably done by reverse engineering a package and also the API header file, but I recently found a very handy post that covers more connections as well for exactly this, Setting the DataType of IDTSParameterBinding objects (Execute SQL Task). /// <summary> /// Enumeration of OLE-DB types, used when mapping OLE-DB parameters. /// </summary> private enum OleDBDataTypes { BYTE = 0x11, CURRENCY = 6, DATE = 7, DB_VARNUMERIC = 0x8b, DBDATE = 0x85, DBTIME = 0x86, DBTIMESTAMP = 0x87, DECIMAL = 14, DOUBLE = 5, FILETIME = 0x40, FLOAT = 4, GUID = 0x48, LARGE_INTEGER = 20, LONG = 3, NULL = 1, NUMERIC = 0x83, NVARCHAR = 130, SHORT = 2, SIGNEDCHAR = 0x10, ULARGE_INTEGER = 0x15, ULONG = 0x13, USHORT = 0x12, VARCHAR = 0x81, VARIANT_BOOL = 11 } Download Sample code ExecSqlPackage.cs (10KB)

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