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• Building an Infrastructure Cloud with Oracle VM for x86 + Enterprise Manager 12c

  - by Richard Rotter

  Cloud Computing? Everyone is talking about Cloud these days. Everyone is explaining how the cloud will help you to bring your service up and running very fast, secure and with little effort. You can find these kinds of presentations at almost every event around the globe. But what is really behind all this stuff? Is it really so simple? And the answer is: Yes it is! With the Oracle SW Stack it is! In this post, I will try to bring this down to earth, demonstrating how easy it could be to build a cloud infrastructure with Oracle's solution for cloud computing.But let me cover some basics first: How fast can you build a cloud?How elastic is your cloud so you can provide new services on demand? How much effort does it take to monitor and operate your Cloud Infrastructure in order to meet your SLAs?How easy is it to chargeback for your services provided? These are the critical success factors of Cloud Computing. And Oracle has an answer to all those questions. By using Oracle VM for X86 in combination with Enterprise Manager 12c you can build and control your cloud environment very fast and easy. What are the fundamental building blocks for your cloud? Oracle Cloud Building Blocks #1 Hardware Surprise, surprise. Even the cloud needs to run somewhere, hence you will need hardware. This HW normally consists of servers, storage and networking. But Oracles goes beyond that. There are Optimized Solutions available for your cloud infrastructure. This is a cookbook to build your HW cloud platform. For example, building your cloud infrastructure with blades and our network infrastructure will reduce complexity in your datacenter (Blades with switch network modules, splitter cables to reduce the amount of cables, TOR (Top Of the Rack) switches which are building the interface to your infrastructure environment. Reducing complexity even in the cabling will help you to manage your environment more efficient and with less risk. Of course, our engineered systems fit into the cloud perfectly too. Although they are considered as a PaaS themselves, having the database SW (for Exadata) and the application development environment (for Exalogic) already deployed on them, in general they are ideal systems to enable you building your own cloud and PaaS infrastructure. #2 Virtualization The next missing link in the cloud setup is virtualization. For me personally, it's one of the most hidden "secret", that oracle can provide you with a complete virtualization stack in terms of a hypervisor on both architectures: X86 and Sparc CPUs. There is Oracle VM for X86 and Oracle VM for Sparc available at no additional  license costs if your are running this virtualization stack on top of Oracle HW (and with Oracle Premier Support for HW). This completes the virtualization portfolio together with Solaris Zones introduced already with Solaris 10 a few years ago. Let me explain how Oracle VM for X86 works: Oracle VM for x86 consists of two main parts: - The Oracle VM Server: Oracle VM Server is installed on bare metal and it is the hypervisor which is able to run virtual machines. It has a very small footprint. The ISO-Image of Oracle VM Server is only 200MB large. It is very small but efficient. You can install a OVM-Server in less than 5 mins by booting the Server with the ISO-Image assigned and providing the necessary configuration parameters (like installing an Linux distribution). After the installation, the OVM-Server is ready to use. That's all. - The Oracle VM-Manager: OVM-Manager is the central management tool where you can control your OVM-Servers. OVM-Manager provides the graphical user interface, which is an Application Development Framework (ADF) application, with a familiar web-browser based interface, to manage Oracle VM Servers, virtual machines, and resources. The Oracle VM Manager has the following capabilities: Create virtual machines Create server pools Power on and off virtual machines Manage networks and storage Import virtual machines, ISO files, and templates Manage high availability of Oracle VM Servers, server pools, and virtual machines Perform live migration of virtual machines I want to highlight one of the goodies which you can use if you are running Oracle VM for X86: Preconfigured, downloadable Virtual Machine Templates form edelivery With these templates, you can download completely preconfigured Virtual Machines in your environment, boot them up, configure them at first time boot and use it. There are templates for almost all Oracle SW and Applications (like Fusion Middleware, Database, Siebel, etc.) available. #3) Cloud Management The management of your cloud infrastructure is key. This is a day-to-day job. Acquiring HW, installing a virtualization layer on top of it is done just at the beginning and if you want to expand your infrastructure. But managing your cloud, keeping it up and running, deploying new services, changing your chargeback model, etc, these are the daily jobs. These jobs must be simple, secure and easy to manage. The Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud provides this functionality from one management cockpit. Enterprise Manager 12c uses Oracle VM Manager to control OVM Serverpools. Once you registered your OVM-Managers in Enterprise Manager, then you are able to setup your cloud infrastructure and manage everything from Enterprise Manager. What you need to do in EM12c is: ">Register your OVM Manager in Enterprise ManagerAfter Registering your OVM Manager, all the functionality of Oracle VM for X86 is also available in Enterprise Manager. Enterprise Manager works as a "Manger" of the Manager. You can register as many OVM-Managers you want and control your complete virtualization environment Create Roles and Users for your Self Service Portal in Enterprise ManagerWith this step you allow users to logon on the Enterprise Manager Self Service Portal. Users can request Virtual Machines in this portal. Setup the Cloud InfrastructureSetup the Quotas for your self service users. How many VMs can they request? How much of your resources ( cpu, memory, storage, network, etc. etc.)? Which SW components (templates, assemblys) can your self service users request? In this step, you basically set up the complete cloud infrastructure. Setup ChargebackOnce your cloud is set up, you need to configure your chargeback mechanism. The Enterprise Manager collects the resources metrics, which are used in a very deep level. Almost all collected Metrics could be used in the chargeback module. You can define chargeback plans based on configurations (charge for the amount of cpu, memory, storage is assigned to a machine, or for a specific OS which is installed) or chargeback on resource consumption (% of cpu used, storage used, etc). Or you can also define a combination of configuration and consumption chargeback plans. The chargeback module is very flexible. Here is a overview of the workflow how to handle infrastructure cloud in EM: Summary As you can see, setting up an Infrastructure Cloud Service with Oracle VM for X86 and Enterprise Manager 12c is really simple. I personally configured a complete cloud environment with three X86 servers and a small JBOD san box in less than 3 hours. There is no magic in it, it is all straightforward. Of course, you have to have some experience with Oracle VM and Enterprise Manager. Experience in setting up Linux environments helps as well. I plan to publish a technical cookbook in the next few weeks. I hope you found this post useful and will see you again here on our blog. Any hints, comments are welcome!

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• first install for windows eight.....da beta

  - by raysmithequip

  The W8 preview is now installed and I am enjoying it.  I remember the learning curve of my first unix machine back in the eighties, this ain't that.It is normal for me to do the first os install with a keyboard and low end monitor...you never know what you'll encounter out in the field.  The OS took like a fish to water.  I used a low end INTEL motherboard dp55w I gathered on the cheap, an 1157 i5 from the used bin a pair of 6 gig ddr3 sticks, a rosewell 550 watt power supply a cheap used twenty buck sub 200g wd sata drive, a half working dvd burner and an asus fanless nvidia vid card, not a great one but Sub 50.00 on newey eggey...I did have to hunt the ms forums for a key and of course to activate the thing, if dos would of needed this outmoded ritual, we would still be on cpm and osborne would be a household name, of course little do people know that this ritual was common as far back as the seventies on att unix installs....not, but it was possible, I used to joke about when I ran a bbs, what hell would of been wrought had dos 3.2 machines been required to dial into my bbs to send fido mail to ms and wait for an acknowledgement.  All in all the thing was pushing a seven on the ms richter scale, not including the vid card, sadly it came in at just a tad over three....I wanted to evaluate it for a possible replacement on critical machines that in the past went down due to a vid card fan failure....you have no idea what a customer thinks when you show them a failed vid card fan..."you mean that little plastic piece of junk caused all this!!??!!!"...yea man.  Some production machines don't need any sort of vid, I will at least keep it on the maybe list for those, MTBF is a very important factor, some big box stores should put percentage of failure rate within 24 month estimates on the outside of the carton for sure.  And a warning that the power supplies are already at their limit.  Let's face it, today even 550w can be iffy.A few neat eye candy improvements over the earlier windows is nice, the metro screen is nice, anyone who has used a newer phone recently will intuitively drag their fingers across the screen....lot of good that was with no mouse or touch screen though.  Lucky me, I have been using windows since day one, I still have a copy of win 2.0 (and every other version) for no good reason.  Still the old ix collection of disks is much larger, recompiling any kernal is another silly ritual, same machine, different day, same recompile...argh. Rh is my all time fav, mandrake was always missing something, like it rewrote the init file or something, novell is ok as long as you stay on the beaten path and of course ubuntu normally recompiles with the same errors consistantly....makes life easy that way....no errors on windows eight, just a screen that did not match the installed hardware, natuarally I alt tabbed right out of it, then hit the flag key to find the start menu....no start button. I miss the start button already. Keyboard cowboy funnin and I was browsing the harddrive, nothing stunning there, I like that, means I can find stuff. Only I can't find what I want, the start button....the start menu is that first screen for touch tablets. No biggie for useruser, that is where they will want to be, I can see that. Admins won't want to be there, it is easy enough to get the control panel a bazzilion other ways though, just not the start button. (see a pattern here?). Personally, from the keyboard I find it fun to hit the carets along the location bar at the top of the explorer screen with tabs and arrows and choose SHOW ALL CONTROL PANEL ITEMS, or thereabouts. Bottom line, I love seven and I'll love eight even more!...very happy I did not have to follow the normal rule of thumb (a customer watching me build a system and asking questions said "oh I get it, so every piece you put in there is basically a hundred bucks, right?)...ok, sure, pretty much, more or less, well, ya dude.  It will be WAY past october till I get a real touch screen but I did pick up a pair of cheap tatungs so I can try the NEW main start screen, I parse a lot of folders and have a vision of how a pair of touch screens will be easier than landing a rover on mars.  Ok.  fine, they are way smallish, and I don't expect multitouch to work but we are talking a few percent of a new 21 inch viewsonic touch screen.  Will this OS be a game changer?  I don't know.  Bottom line with all the pads and droids in the world, it is more of a catch up move at first glance.  Not something ms is used to.  An app store?  I can see ms's motivation, the others have it.  I gather there will not be gadgets there, go ahead and see what ms did  to the once populated gadget page...go ahead, google gadgets and take a gander, used to hundreds of gadgets, they are already gone.  They replaced gadgets?  sort of, I'll drop that, it's a bit of a sore point for me.  More of interest was what happened when I downloaded stuff off codeplex and some other normal programs that I like, like orbitron, top o' my list!!...cardware it is...anyways, click on the exe, get a screen, normal for windows, this one indicated that I was not running a normal windows program and had a button for  exit the install, naw, I hit details, a hidden run program anyways came into view....great, my path to the normal windows has detected a program tha.....yea ok, acl is on, fine, moving along I got orbitron installed in record time and was tracking the iss on the newest Microsoft OS, beta of course, felt like the first time I setup bsd all those year ago...FUN!!...I suppose I gotta start to think about budgeting for the real os when it comes out in october, by then I should have a rasberry pi and be done with fedora remixed.  Of course that sounds like fun too!!  I would use this OS on a tablet or phone.  I don't like the idea of being hearded to an app store, don't like that on anything, we are americans and want real choices not marketed hype, lest you are younger with opm (other peoples money).   This os would be neat on a zune, but I suspect the zune is a gonner, I am rooting for microsoft, after all their default password is not admin anymore, nor alpine,  it's blank. Others force a password, my first fawn password was so long I could not even log into it with the password in front of me, who the heck uses %$# anyways, and if I was writing a brute force attack what the heck kinda impasse is that anyways at .00001 microseconds of a code execution cycle (just a non qualified number, not a real clock speed)....AI is where it will be before too long, MS is on that path, perhaps soon someone will sit down and write an app for the kinect that watches your eyes while you scan the new main start screen, clicking on the big E icon when you blink.....boy is that going to be fun!!!! sure. Blink,dammit,blink,dammit...... OPM no doubt.I like windows eight, we are moving forwards, better keep a close eye on ubuntu.  The real clinch comes when open source becomes paid source......don't blink, I already see plenty of very expensive 'ix apps, some even in app stores already.  more to come.......

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• Probation is Over: PASS Board Year 1, Q2

  - by Denise McInerney

  Though it's not always official every job begins with a probation period. You start out with lots of questions and every day you find out how much more you have to learn. Usually after a few months you discover that you can actually answer some questions and have at least an idea of what you are supposed to be doing. Now at the end of my second quarter on the "job" of serving on the PASS Board I have reached that point. My probation period is over. The last three months were busy for the entire Board with the budget process, an in-person meeting and moving forward with PASS Global Growth plans. I had also set a specific goal for myself for my 2nd quarter: to see the Board to adopt a Code of Conduct for the PASS Summit. Code of Conduct When I ran for the Board I included my desire to see PASS establish a code of conduct in my campaign platform.  I was motivated to do this for a few reasons. Other technical conferences have had incidents of harassment. Most of these did not have a policy in place prior to having a problem, though several conference organizers have since adopted anti-harassment policies or codes of conduct. I felt it would be in PASS' interest to establish a policy so we would be prepared should there be an incident.   "This is Community" Adopting a code of conduct would reinforce our community orientation and send a message about the positive character of the Summit. PASS is a leader among technical organizations for its promotion and support of women. Adopting a code of conduct would further demonstrate our leadership in this area. After researching similar polices from other organizations I published a first draft in April. I solicited feedback from the Board, HQ staff and some PASS members. Incorporating that feedback I presented version 4 at the May Board meeting, where we had a good discussion. You can read the meeting minutes for details. I incorporated points from  the Board discussion as well as feedback from a legal review to produce a final version which has been submitted to the Board. It will be discussed at the Board meeting July 12. You can read the full text at the end of this post. Virtual Chapters In the first quarter we started ramping up marketing support for the Virtual Chapters. Since then each edition of the Connector has highlighted a different VC to help get out the message about the variety of eductional opporutnities that are offered. These VC profiles will continue in the coming months. I was very pleased to welcome the new DBA Fundamentals VC which is geared toward new DBAs, people who are considering entering the field and those transitioning from a different IT role. Thanks to the contributions of Erin Stellato, Michelle Nalliah and Karla Landrum we published a "Virtual Chapter Guidebook". This document includes great advice on how to build and promote a VC. It's also a reference for how things work, from budgets to webinar hosting. I think this document will be extremely valuable to all our VC leaders and am grateful to those who put it together. Board Meeting/SQL Rally The Board met in May in Dallas. Among the items discussed were Global Growth, the budget, future events and the upcoming elections. We covered a lot of ground in two days and I will again refer you to the meeting minutes for details. The meeting schedule allowed us to participate in the SQL Rally networking events and one full day of the conference. I enjoyed having the opportunity to meet and talk with many PASS members. And my hat is off to the SQL Rally organizers who put on an outstanding event. Global Growth PASS has undertaken a major intitiative to reach and engage SQL Server professionals around the world. This Global Growth plan is ambitious and will have a significant impact on the strategic direction of the organization. We have been reaching out to the community for feedback, including hosting Twitter chats and live Town Hall meetings. I co-hosted two of these events and appreciated hearing the different perspectives of the people who participated If you have not done so I encourage you to read about the Global Growth vision and proposed governance changes  and submit your feedback. FY13 Budget July 1 is the beginning of PASS' fiscal year, which makes the end of June the deadline for approving a budget. Each director submits a budget for his or her portfolio. For the Virtual Chapter portfolio I focused on how we can allocate resources to grow the VCs. Budgeting is a give-and-take process, and while I didn't get everything I asked for I'm pleased the FY13 budget includes a significant increase in financial support for the Virtual Chapters. Many people put a lot of work into the budget, but no two people deserve credit more than VP of Finance Douglas McDowell and Accounting Manager Sandy Cherry. Thanks to both of them for getting us across the goal line on time. SQL Saturday I attended SQL Saturdays in Orange Co. CA and Phoenix. It's always inspiring to see the enthusiasm in the community for learning and networking. These events are successful due to the hard work of many volunteers. Thanks to the organizers in both cities for all your efforts. Next Up This quarter we'll be gearing up plans for the VCs at the Summit and exploring ways the VCs can best support PASS' Global Growth work. I'll also be wrapping up work on the Code of Conduct and attending a Board meeting in September. And I will be at SQL Saturday #144 in Sacramento later this month. Here is the language of the Code of Conduct I have submitted to the Board for consideration: PASS Code of Conduct The PASS Summit provides database professionals from a variety of backgrounds with an opportunity to connect, share and learn.  We value the strong sense of community that characterizes this event and we seek to foster an inclusive, professional atmosphere. We are dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, religion or any other protected classification.  Everyone at the Summit is expected to follow the Code of Conduct. This includes but is not limited to: PASS Staff, Exhibitors, Speakers, Attendees and anyone affiliated with the event. Participants are expected to follow the Code of Conduct at all Summit events, including PASS-sponsored social events. Participant behavior Harassment includes, but is not limited to, offensive verbal comments related to gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, religion, or any other protected classification.  Intimidation, threats, stalking, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact and unwelcome attention will also be considered harassment. Similarly, sexual, racist, derogatory, threatening or other inappropriate language and imagery are not appropriate for any conference venue, including sessions.  Recourse If a participant engages in any conduct that is prohibited under this Code of Conduct, the conference organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expelling the offender from the conference. No refunds will be granted to attendees expelled from the Summit due to violations of the Code of Conduct. If you are being harassed, witness harassment, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of conference staff immediately. Conference staff can be identified by their “Headquarters/Staff” shirts and are trained to handle the situation appropriately. A Code of Conduct Committee (CCC) made up of the Executive Manager and three members of the Board of Directors designated by the President will be authorized to take action in response to an incident or behavior that violates the Code of Conduct.

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• Unlocking Productivity

  - by Michael Snow

  Unlocking Productivity in Life Sciences with Consolidated Content Management by Joe Golemba, Vice President, Product Management, Oracle WebCenter As life sciences organizations look to become more operationally efficient, the ability to effectively leverage information is a competitive advantage. Whether data mining at the drug discovery phase or prepping the sales team before a product launch, content management can play a key role in developing, organizing, and disseminating vital information. The goal of content management is relatively straightforward: put the information that people need where they can find it. A number of issues can complicate this; information sits in many different systems, each of those systems has its own security, and the information in those systems exists in many different formats. Identifying and extracting pertinent information from mountains of farflung data is no simple job, but the alternative—wasted effort or even regulatory compliance issues—is worse. An integrated information architecture can enable health sciences organizations to make better decisions, accelerate clinical operations, and be more competitive. Unstructured data matters Often when we think of drug development data, we think of structured data that fits neatly into one or more research databases. But structured data is often directly supported by unstructured data such as experimental protocols, reaction conditions, lot numbers, run times, analyses, and research notes. As life sciences companies seek integrated views of data, they are typically finding diverse islands of data that seemingly have no relationship to other data in the organization. Information like sales reports or call center reports can be locked into siloed systems, and unavailable to the discovery process. Additionally, in the increasingly networked clinical environment, Web pages, instant messages, videos, scientific imaging, sales and marketing data, collaborative workspaces, and predictive modeling data are likely to be present within an organization, and each source potentially possesses information that can help to better inform specific efforts. Historically, content management solutions that had 21CFR Part 11 capabilities—electronic records and signatures—were focused mainly on content-enabling manufacturing-related processes. Today, life sciences companies have many standalone repositories, requiring different skills, service level agreements, and vendor support costs to manage them. With the amount of content doubling every three to six months, companies have recognized the need to manage unstructured content from the beginning, in order to increase employee productivity and operational efficiency. Using scalable and secure enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, organizations can better manage their unstructured content. These solutions can also be integrated with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems or research systems, making content available immediately, in the context of the application and within the flow of the employee’s typical business activity. Administrative safeguards—such as content de-duplication—can also be applied within ECM systems, so documents are never recreated, eliminating redundant efforts, ensuring one source of truth, and maintaining content standards in the organization. Putting it in context Consolidating structured and unstructured information in a single system can greatly simplify access to relevant information when it is needed through contextual search. Using contextual filters, results can include therapeutic area, position in the value chain, semantic commonalities, technology-specific factors, specific researchers involved, or potential business impact. The use of taxonomies is essential to organizing information and enabling contextual searches. Taxonomy solutions are composed of a hierarchical tree that defines the relationship between different life science terms. When overlaid with additional indexing related to research and/or business processes, it becomes possible to effectively narrow down the amount of data that is returned during searches, as well as prioritize results based on specific criteria and/or prior search history. Thus, search results are more accurate and relevant to an employee’s day-to-day work. For example, a search for the word "tissue" by a lab researcher would return significantly different results than a search for the same word performed by someone in procurement. Of course, diverse data repositories, combined with the immense amounts of data present in an organization, necessitate that the data elements be regularly indexed and cached beforehand to enable reasonable search response times. In its simplest form, indexing of a single, consolidated data warehouse can be expected to be a relatively straightforward effort. However, organizations require the ability to index multiple data repositories, enabling a single search to reference multiple data sources and provide an integrated results listing. Security and compliance Beyond yielding efficiencies and supporting new insight, an enterprise search environment can support important security considerations as well as compliance initiatives. For example, the systems enable organizations to retain the relevance and the security of the indexed systems, so users can only see the results to which they are granted access. This is especially important as life sciences companies are working in an increasingly networked environment and need to provide secure, role-based access to information across multiple partners. Although not officially required by the 21 CFR Part 11 regulation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administraiton has begun to extend the type of content considered when performing relevant audits and discoveries. Having an ECM infrastructure that provides centralized management of all content enterprise-wide—with the ability to consistently apply records and retention policies along with the appropriate controls, validations, audit trails, and electronic signatures—is becoming increasingly critical for life sciences companies. Making the move Creating an enterprise-wide ECM environment requires moving large amounts of content into a single enterprise repository, a daunting and risk-laden initiative. The first key is to focus on data taxonomy, allowing content to be mapped across systems. The second is to take advantage new tools which can dramatically speed and reduce the cost of the data migration process through automation. Additional content need not be frozen while it is migrated, enabling productivity throughout the process. The ability to effectively leverage information into success has been gaining importance in the life sciences industry for years. The rapid adoption of enterprise content management, both in operational processes as well as in scientific management, are clear indicators that the companies are looking to use all available data to be better informed, improve decision making, minimize risk, and increase time to market, to maintain profitability and be more competitive. As more and more varieties and sources of information are brought under the strategic management umbrella, the ability to divine knowledge from the vast pool of information is increasingly difficult. Simple search engines and basic content management are increasingly unable to effectively extract the right information from the mountains of data available. By bringing these tools into context and integrating them with business processes and applications, we can effectively focus on the right decisions that make our organizations more profitable. More Information Oracle will be exhibiting at DIA 2012 in Philadelphia on June 25-27. Stop by our booth Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} (#2825) to learn more about the advantages of a centralized ECM strategy and see the Oracle WebCenter Content solution, our 21 CFR Part 11 compliant content management platform.

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• Top 10 Browser Productivity Tips

  - by Renso

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/renso/archive/2013/10/14/top-10-browser-productivity-tips.aspxYou don’t have to be a geek to be a productive browser user. The tips below have been selected by actions users take most of the time to navigate a web-site but use long-standing keyboard or mouse actions to get them done, when there are keyboard short-cuts you can use instead. Since you hands are already on the keyboard it is almost always faster to sue a keyboard shortcut to get something done that you usually used the mouse for. For example right-clicking on something to copy it and then doing to same for pasting something is very time consuming, keyboard shortcuts have been created that simplify the task. All it takes are a few memory brain cells to remember them. Here are the tips, in no particular order:   Tip 1 Hold down the spacebar on your keyboard to page to the end of your web page rather than using your mouse. This is really a slow way of doing it. If you want to page one page at a time, hit the spacebar once, and again to page again. But if you want to page all the way to the end of the web page simply hit Ctrl+End (that is hold down the Ctrl key and hit the End button on your keyboard). To get to the top of your web page, simply hit Ctrl + Home to go all the way to the top of your web page. Tip 2 Where are my downloads? Some folks run downloads again-and-again because they do not know where the last one went and they do not see the popup, or browser note on their web page in the footer, etc. Simply hit Ctrl+J. Works in most browsers. Tip 3 Selecting a US state from a drop down box. Don’t use the mouse, takes just way too long to scroll. When you tab to the drop down box or click on it with your mouse, simply hit the first character of the state and it will be selected. For Texas for example hit the letter “T” twice on your keyboard to get to it. The same concept can be applied to any drop down box that is alphabetical or numerically sorted. Tip 4 Fixing spelling errors. All modern-day browsers support this now. You see the red wavy lines underscoring a word, yes it is a spelling error. How do you fix it? Don’t overtype it or try and fix it manually, fist right-click on it and a list of suggestions comes up. If it does not show up, like my name “Renso” and you know how to spell your name as in this example, look further down the list of options (the little window popup that appears when you right click) and you should see an option to “Add to Dictionary”. Be warned, when you add it, it only adds it to the browser you’re using’s dictionary. If you use Google Chrome, Firefox and IE, each one will have their own list. Tip 5 So you have trouble seeing the text on the screen. Or you are looking at a photo, for example in Facebook. You want to zoom in to read better or zoom into a photo a bit more. Hit Ctrl++ (hold down Ctrl key and hit the plus key – actually it’s the equal key but it is easier to remember that it is plus for bigger). Hit the minus to zoom out. Now you can’t remember what the original size was since you were so excited to hit it 20 times, or was that 21… Simply hit Ctrl+0 (that is zero) and it will reset it to the default. Tip 6 So you closed a couple of tabs in your browser. Suddenly you remember something you wanted to double-check something on one of the tabs, you cannot remember the URL ad the tab is gone forever, or is it? Simply hit Ctrl+Shift+t and it will bring back your tabs one by one each time you click the T. This has also been a great way for me to quickly close some tabs because I don’t want my boss to see I’m shopping and then hitting Ctrl+Shift+t to quickly get it back and complete my check-put and purchase. Or, for parents, when you walk into your daughter’s room and you see she quickly clicks and closes a window/tab in here browser. Not to worry my little darling, daddy will Ctrl+Shift+t and see what boys on Facebook you were talking too… Tip 7 The web browser is frozen on your PC/Laptop/Whatever, in this example it may be your Internet Explorer browser. I don’t mention Firefox or Chrome here because it probably never happens in their world. You cannot close it, it won’t respond to anything you have done s far except for the next step you are about to take, which is throw your two-day old coffee on your keyboard. This happens especially on sites that want to force you to complete a purchase order. Hit Ctrl+Alt+Del on your keyboard on any version of windows, select TASK MANAGER. In the  First Tab, which is the Process Tab, look for the item in question. In this example you should see Internet Explorer. Right-click it and select “End Task”. It will force the thread out of memory and terminate that process. You can of course do this with any program running under your account. Tip 8 This is a personal favorite of mine. To select words in the paragraph without using the mouse. You don’t want to select one character at a time like when you use the Ctrl+arrows as it can be very slow if you want to select a lot of text. You also want to select whole words. Simply use the Ctrl+Shift_arrow (right or left depending which direction you want to go. Tip 9 I was a bit reluctant to add this one, but being in the professional services industry still come across many-a-folk that simply can’t copy-and-paste them-all text or images that reside on them screens, y’all. Ctrl+c to copy and Ctrl+v to paste it. Works a lot faster than using the mouse. You may be asking: “Well why in the devil did they not use Ctrl+p for paste…. because that is for printing. This is of course not limited to the browser world, it applies to almost any piece of software running on PC or Mac. Go try it on an image on your browser, right-click it and select copy. Open a word document and Ctrl+v to paste the image in there. Please consider copyright laws. Tip 10 Getting rid of annoying ads. Now this only works when you load a web page, meaning when you get back to the same page later you will have to do this again and you will need to learn a tool to do it, WELL WORTH IT. For example, I use GrooveShark to listen to music but I don’t like the ads they show. Install a tool like Firebug for Firefox or use the Ctrl+Shift+I on Chrome to bring up the developer toolbar. Shows at the bottom of the page. With Firefox, once you have installed Firebug as an add-on, a yellow bug should appear on the top right-hand-side of your browser, click on it to display the developer toolbar. You will need to learn how to use it, but once you know how to select an item/section on the window (usually just right-click the add you don’t want to see and select “Inspect Element”, the developer toolbar will appear (if not already there)) and then simply hit delete and it will remove the add from the screen. If you don’t know HTML you may need to play with it a bit, but once you understand how it works can open up a whole new world for you on how web pages actually work. If you can think of any others that have saved you a ton of time please let me know so I can add them to a top 99 list.

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• Book Review: Brownfield Application Development in .NET

  - by DotNetBlues

  I recently finished reading the book Brownfield Application Development in .NET by Kyle Baley and Donald Belcham.  The book is available from Manning.  First off, let me say that I'm a huge fan of Manning as a publisher.  I've found their books to be top-quality, over all.  As a Kindle owner, I also appreciate getting an ebook copy along with the dead tree copy.  I find ebooks to be much more convenient to read, but hard-copies are easier to reference. The book covers, surprisingly enough, working with brownfield applications.  Which is well and good, if that term has meaning to you.  It didn't for me.  Without retreading a chunk of the first chapter, the authors break code bases into three broad categories: greenfield, brownfield, and legacy.  Greenfield is, essentially, new development that hasn't had time to rust and is (hopefully) being approached with some discipline.  Legacy applications are those that are more or less stable and functional, that do not expect to see a lot of work done to them, and are more likely to be replaced than reworked. Brownfield code is the gray (brown?) area between the two and the authors argue, quite effectively, that it is the most likely state for an application to be in.  Brownfield code has, in some way, been allowed to tarnish around the edges and can be difficult to work with.  Although I hadn't realized it, most of the code I've worked on has been brownfield.  Sometimes, there's talk of scrapping and starting over.  Sometimes, the team dismisses increased discipline as ivory tower nonsense.  And, sometimes, I've been the ignorant culprit vexing my future self. The book is broken into two major sections, plus an introduction chapter and an appendix.  The first section covers what the authors refer to as "The Ecosystem" which consists of version control, build and integration, testing, metrics, and defect management.  The second section is on actually writing code for brownfield applications and discusses object-oriented principles, architecture, external dependencies, and, of course, how to deal with these when coming into an existing code base. The ecosystem section is just shy of 140 pages long and brings some real meat to the matter.  The focus on "pain points" immediately sets the tone as problem-solution, rather than academic.  The authors also approach some of the topics from a different angle than some essays I've read on similar topics.  For example, the chapter on automated testing is on just that -- automated testing.  It's all well and good to criticize a project as conflating integration tests with unit tests, but it really doesn't make anyone's life better.  The discussion on testing is more focused on the "right" level of testing for existing projects.  Sometimes, an integration test is the best you can do without gutting a section of functional code.  Even if you can sell other developers and/or management on doing so, it doesn't actually provide benefit to your customers to rewrite code that works.  This isn't to say the authors encourage sloppy coding.  Far from it.  Just that they point out the wisdom of ignoring the sleeping bear until after you deal with the snarling wolf. The other sections take a similarly real-world, workable approach to the pain points they address.  As the section moves from technical solutions like version control and continuous integration (CI) to the softer, process issues of metrics and defect tracking, the authors begin to gently suggest moving toward a zero defect count.  While that really sounds like an unreasonable goal for a lot of ongoing projects, it's quite apparent that the authors have first-hand experience with taming some gruesome projects.  The suggestions are grounded and workable, and the difficulty of some situations is explicitly acknowledged. I have to admit that I started getting bored by the end of the ecosystem section.  No matter how valuable I think a good project manager or business analyst is to a successful ALM, at the end of the day, I'm a gear-head.  Also, while I agreed with a lot of the ecosystem ideas, in theory, I didn't necessarily feel that a lot of the single-developer projects that I'm often involved in really needed that level of rigor.  It's only after reading the sidebars and commentary in the coding section that I had the context for the arguments made in favor of a strong ecosystem supporting the development process.  That isn't to say that I didn't support good product management -- indeed, I've probably pushed too hard, on occasion, for a strong ALM outside of just development.  This book gave me deeper insight into why some corners shouldn't be cut and how damaging certain sins of omission can be. The code section, though, kept me engaged for its entirety.  Many technical books can be used as reference material from day one.  The authors were clear, however, that this book is not one of these.  The first chapter of the section (chapter seven, over all) addresses object oriented (OO) practices.  I've read any number of definitions, discussions, and treatises on OO.  None of the chapter was new to me, but it was a good review, and I'm of the opinion that it's good to review the foundations of what you do, from time to time, so I didn't mind. The remainder of the book is really just about how to apply OOP to existing code -- and, just because all your code exists in classes does not mean that it's object oriented.  That topic has the potential to be extremely condescending, but the authors miraculously managed to never once make me feel like a dolt or that they were wagging their finger at me for my prior sins.  Instead, they continue the "pain points" and problem-solution presentation to give concrete examples of how to apply some pretty academic-sounding ideas.  That's a point worth emphasizing, as my experience with most OO discussions is that they stay in the academic realm.  This book gives some very, very good explanations of why things like the Liskov Substitution Principle exist and why a corporate programmer should even care.  Even if you know, with absolute certainty, that you'll never have to work on an existing code-base, I would recommend this book just for the clarity it provides on OOP. This book goes beyond just theory, or even real-world application.  It presents some methods for fixing problems that any developer can, and probably will, encounter in the wild.  First, the authors address refactoring application layers and internal dependencies.  Then, they take you through those layers from the UI to the data access layer and external dependencies.  Finally, they come full circle to tie it all back to the overall process.  By the time the book is done, you're left with a lot of ideas, but also a reasonable plan to begin to improve an existing project structure. Throughout the book, it's apparent that the authors have their own preferred methodology (TDD and domain-driven design), as well as some preferred tools.  The "Our .NET Toolbox" is something of a neon sign pointing to that latter point.  They do not beat the reader over the head with anything resembling a "One True Way" mentality.  Even for the most emphatic points, the tone is quite congenial and helpful.  With some of the near-theological divides that exist within the tech community, I found this to be one of the more remarkable characteristics of the book.  Although the authors favor tools that might be considered Alt.NET, there is no reason the advice and techniques given couldn't be quite successful in a pure Microsoft shop with Team Foundation Server.  For that matter, even though the book specifically addresses .NET, it could be applied to a Java and Oracle shop, as well.

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• Why people don't patch and upgrade?!?

  - by Mike Dietrich

  Discussing the topic "Why Upgrade" or "Why not Upgrade" is not always fun. Actually the arguments repeat from customer to customer. Typically we hear things such as: A PSU or Patch Set introduces new bugs A new PSU or Patch Set introduces new features which lead to risk and require application verification  Patching means risk Patching changes the execution plans Patching requires too much testing Patching is too much work for our DBAs Patching costs a lot of money and doesn't pay out And to be very honest sometimes it's hard for me to stay calm in such discussions. Let's discuss some of these points a bit more in detail. A PSU or Patch Set introduces new bugsWell, yes, that is true as no software containing more than some lines of code is bug free. This applies to Oracle's code as well as too any application or operating system code. But first of all, does that mean you never patch your OS because the patch may introduce new flaws? And second, what is the point of saying "it introduces new bugs"? Does that mean you will never get rid of the mean issues we know about and we fixed already? Scroll down from MOS Note:161818.1 to the patch release you are on, no matter if it's 10.2.0.4 or 11.2.0.3 and check for the Known Issues And Alerts.Will you take responsibility to know about all these issues and refuse to upgrade to 11.2.0.4? I won't. A new PSU or Patch Set introduces new featuresOk, we can discuss that. Offering new functionality within a database patch set is a dubious thing. It has advantages such as in 11.2.0.4 where we backported Database Redaction to. But this is something you will only use once you have an Advanced Security license. I interpret that statement I've heard quite often from customers in a different way: People don't want to get surprises such as new behaviour. This certainly gives everybody a hard time. And we've had many examples in the past (SESSION_CACHED_CURSROS in 10.2.0.4,  _DATAFILE_WRITE_ERRORS_CRASH_INSTANCE in 11.2.0.2 and others) where those things weren't documented, not even in the README. Thanks to many friends out there I learned about those as well. So new behaviour is the topic people consider as risky - not really new features. And just to point this out: A PSU never brings in new features or new behaviour by definition! Patching means riskDoes it really mean risk? Yes, there were issues in the past (and sometimes in the present as well) where a patch didn't get installed correctly. But personally I consider it way more risky to not patch. Keep that in mind: The day Oracle publishes an PSU (or CPU) containing security fixes all the great security experts out there go public with their findings as well. So from that day on even my grandma can find out about those issues and try to attack somebody. Now a lot of people say: "My database does not face the internet." And I will answer: "The enemy is sitting already behind your firewalls. And knows potentially about these things." My statement: Not patching introduces way more risk to your environment than patching. Seriously! Patching changes the execution plansDo they really? I agree - there's a very small risk for this happening with Patch Sets. But not with PSUs or CPUs as they contain no optimizer fixes changing behaviour (but they may contain fixes curing wrong-query-result-bugs). But what's the point of a changing execution plan? In Oracle Database 11g it is so simple to be prepared. SQL Plan Management is a free EE feature - so once that occurs you'll put the plan into the Plan Baseline. Basta! Yes, you wouldn't like to get such surprises? Than please use the SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA) from Real Application Testing and you'll detect that easily upfront in minutes. And not to forget this, a plan change can also be very positive!Yes, there's a little risk with a database patchset - and we have many possibilites to detect this before patching. Patching requires too much testingWell, does it really? I have seen in the past 12 years how people test. There are very different efforts and approaches on this. I have seen people spending a hell of money on licenses or on project team staffing. And I have seen people sailing blindly without any tests just going the John-Wayne-approach.Proper tools will allow you to test easily without too much efforts. See the paragraph above. We have used Real Application Testing in so many customer projects reducing the amount of work spend on testing by over 50%. But apart from that at some point you will have to stop testing. If you don't you'll get lost and you'll burn money. There's no 100% guaranty. You will have to deal with a little risk as reaching the final 5% of certainty will cost you the same as it did cost to reach 95%. And doing this will lead to abnormal long product cycles that you'll run behind forever. And this will cost even more money. Patching is too much work for our DBAsPatching is a lot of work. I agree. And it's no fun work. It's boring, annoying. You don't learn much from that. That's why you should try to automate this task. Use the Database's Lifecycle Management Pack. And don't cry about the fact that it costs money. Yes it does. But it will ease the process and you'll save a lot of costs as you don't waste your valuable time with patching. Or use Oracle Database 12c Oracle Multitenant and patch either by unplug/plug or patch an entire container database with all PDBs with one patch in one task. We have customer reference cases proofing it saved them 75% of time, effort and cost since they've used Lifecycle Management Pack. So why don't you use it? Patching costs a lot of money and doesn't pay outWell, see my statements in the paragraph above. And it pays out as flying with a database with 100 known critical flaws in it which are already fixed by Oracle (such as in the Oct 2013 PSU for Oracle Database 12c) will cost ways more in case of failure or even data loss. Bet with me? Let me finally ask you some questions. What cell phone are you using and which OS does it run? Do you have an iPhone 5 and did you upgrade already to iOS 7.0.3? I've just encountered on mine that the alarm (which I rely on when traveling) has gotten now a dependency on the physical switch "sound on/off". If it is switched to "off" physically the alarm rings "silently". What a wonderful example of a behaviour change coming in with a patch set. Will this push you to stay with iOS5 or iOS6? No, because those have security flaws which won't be fixed anymore. What browser are you surfing with? Do you use Mozilla 3.6? Well, congratulations to all the hackers. It will be easy for them to attack you and harm your system. I'd guess you have the auto updater on.  Same for Google Chrome, Safari, IE. Right? -Mike The T.htmtableborders, .htmtableborders td, .htmtableborders th {border : 1px dashed lightgrey ! important;} html, body { border: 0px; } body { background-color: #ffffff; } img, hr { cursor: default }

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• Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Tips and Tricks&ndash;Part 1: Extensions

  - by ToStringTheory

  I don’t know about you, but when it comes to development, I prefer my environment to be as free of clutter as possible.  It may surprise you to know that I have tried ReSharper, and did not like it, for the reason that I stated above.  In my opinion, it had too much clutter.  Don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of features that I did like about it (inversion of if blocks, code feedback), but for the most part, I actually felt that it was slowing me down. Introduction Another large factor besides intrusiveness/speed in my choice to dislike ReSharper would probably be that I have become comfortable with my current setup and extensions.  I believe I have a good collection, and am quite happy with what I can accomplish in a short amount of time.  I figured that I would share some of my tips/findings regarding Visual Studio productivity here, and see what you had to say. The first section of things that I would like to cover, are Visual Studio Extensions.  In case you have been living under a rock for the past several years, Extensions are available under the Tools menu in Visual Studio: The extension manager enables integrated access to the Microsoft Visual Studio Gallery online with access to a few thousand different extensions.  I have tried many extensions, but for reasons of lack reliability, usability, or features, have uninstalled almost all of them.  However, I have come across several that I find I can not do without anymore: NuGet Package Manager (Microsoft) Perspectives (Adam Driscoll) Productivity Power Tools (Microsoft) Web Essentials (Mads Kristensen) Extensions NuGet Package Manager To be honest, I debated on whether or not to put this in here.  Most people seem to have it, however, there was a time when I didn’t, and was always confused when blogs/posts would say to right click and “Add Package Reference…” which with one of the latest updates is now “Manage NuGet Packages”.  So, if you haven’t downloaded the NuGet Package Manager yet, or don’t know what it is, I would highly suggest downloading it now! Features Simply put, the NuGet Package Manager gives you a GUI and command line to access different libraries that have been uploaded to NuGet. Some of its features include: Ability to search NuGet for packages via the GUI, with information in the detail bar on the right. Quick access to see what packages are in a solution, and what packages have updates available, with easy 1-click updating. If you download a package that requires references to work on other NuGet packages, they will be downloaded and referenced automatically. Productivity Tip If you use any type of source control in Visual Studio as well as using NuGet packages, be sure to right-click on the solution and click "Enable NuGet Package Restore". What this does is add a NuGet package to the solution so that it will be checked in along side your solution, as well as automatically grab packages from NuGet on build if needed. This is an extremely simple system to use to manage your package references, instead of having to manually go into TFS and add the Packages folder. Perspectives I can't stand developing with just one monitor. Especially if it comes to debugging. The great thing about Visual Studio 2010, is that all of the panels and windows are floatable, and can dock to other screens. The only bad thing is, I don't use the same toolset with everything that I am doing. By this, I mean that I don't use all of the same windows for debugging a web application, as I do for coding a WPF application. Only thing is, Visual Studio doesn't save the screen positions for all of the undocked windows. So, I got curious one day and decided to check and see if there was an extension to help out. This is where I found Perspectives. Features Perspectives gives you the ability to configure window positions across any or your monitors, and then to save the positions in a profile. Perspectives offers a Panel to manage different presets/favorites, and a toolbar to add to the toolbars at the top of Visual Studio. Ability to 'Favorite' a profile to add it to the perspectives toolbar. Productivity Tip Take the time to setup profiles for each of your scenarios - debugging web/winforms/xaml, coding, maintenance, etc. Try to remember to use the profiles for a few days, and at the end of a week, you may find that your productivity was never better. Productivity Power Tools Ah, the Productivity Power Tools... Quite possibly one of my most used extensions, if not my most used. The tool pack gives you a variety of enhancements ranging from key shortcuts, interface tweaks, and completely new features to Visual Studio 2010. Features I don't want to bore you with all of the features here, so here are my favorite: Quick Find - Unobtrusive search box in upper-right corner of the code window. Great for searching in general, especially in a file. Solution Navigator - The 'Solution Explorer' on steroids. Easy to search for files, see defined members/properties/methods in files, and my favorite feature is the 'set as root' option. Updated 'Add Reference...' Dialog - This is probably my favorite enhancement period... The 'Add Reference...' dialog redone in a manner that resembles the Extension/Package managers. I especially love the ability to search through all of the references. "Ctrl - Click" for Definition - I am still getting used to this as I usually try to use my keyboard for everything, but I love the ability to hold Ctrl and turn property/methods/variables into hyperlinks, that you click on to see their definitions. Great for travelling down a rabbit hole in an application to research problems. While there are other commands/utilities, I find these to be the ones that I lean on the most for the usefulness. Web Essentials If you have do any type of web development in ASP .Net, ASP .Net MVC, even HTML, I highly suggest grabbing the Web Essentials right NOW! This extension alone is great for productivity in web development, and greatly decreases my development time on new features. Features Some of its best features include: CSS Previews - I say 'previews' because of the multiple kinds of previews in CSS that you get font-family, color, background/background-image previews. This is great for just tweaking UI slightly in different ways and seeing how they look in the CSS window at a glance. Live Preview - One word - awesome! This goes well with my multi-monitor setup. I put the site on one monitor in a Live Preview panel, and then as I make changes to CSS/cshtml/aspx/html, the preview window will update with each save/build automatically. For CSS, you can even turn on live-update, so as you are tweaking CSS, the style changes in real time. Great for tweaking colors or font-sizes. Outlining - Small, but I like to be able to collapse regions/declarations that are in the way of new work, or are just distracting. Commenting Shortcuts - I don't know why it wasn't included by default, but it is nice to have the key shortcuts for commenting working in the CSS editor as well. Productivity Tip When working on a site, hit CTRL-ALT-ENTER to launch the Live Preview window. Dock it to another monitor. When you make changes to the document/css, just save and glance at the other monitor. No need to alt tab, then alt tab before continuing editing. Conclusion These extensions are only the most useful and least intrusive - ones that I use every day. The great thing about Visual Studio 2010 is the extensibility options that it gives developers to utilize. Have an extension that you use that isn't intrusive, but isn't listed here? Please, feel free to comment. I love trying new things, and am always looking for new additions to my toolset of the most useful. Finally, please keep an eye out for Part 2 on key shortcuts in Visual Studio. Also, if you are visiting my site (http://tostringtheory.com || http://geekswithblogs.net/tostringtheory) from an actual browser and not a feed, please let me know what you think of the new styling!

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• Advice for a distracted, unhappy, recently graduated programmer? [closed]

  - by Re-Invent

  I graduated 4 months ago. I had offers from a few good places to work at. At the same time I wanted to stick to building a small software business of my own, still have some ideas with good potential, some half done projects frozen in my github. But due to social pressures, I chose a job, the pay is great, but I am half-passionate about it. A small team of smart folks building useful product, working out contracts across the world. I've started finding it extremely boring. Boring to the extent that I skip 2-3 days a week together not doing work. Neither do I spend that time progressing any of my own projects. Yes, I feel stupid at the way I'm wasting time, but I don't understand exactly why is it happening. It's as if all the excitement has been drained. What can I do about it? Long version: School - I was in third standard. Only students, 6th grade had access to computer labs. I once peeked into the lab from the little door opening. No hard-disks, MS DOS on 5 1/2 inch floppies. I asked a senior student to play some sound in BASIC. He used PLAY to compose a tune. Boy! I was so excited, I was jumping from within. Back home, asked my brother to teach me some programming. We bought a book "MODERN All About GW-BASIC for Schools & Colleges". The book had everything, right from printing, to taking input, file i/o, game programming, machine level support, etc. I was in 6th standard, wrote my first game - a wheel of fortune, rotated the wheel by manipulating 16 color palette's definition. Got internet soon, got hooked to QuickBasic programming community. Made some more games "007 in Danger", "Car Crush 2" for submission to allbasiccode archives. I was extremely excited about all this. My interests now swayed into "hacking" (computer security). Taught myself some perl, found it annoying, learnt PHP and a bit of SQL. Also taught myself Visual Basic one of the winters and wrote a pacman clone with Direct X. By the time I was in 10th standard, I created some evil tools using visual basic, php and mysql and eventually landed myself into an unpaid side-job at a government facility, building evil tools for them. It was a dream come true for crackers of that time. And so was I, still very excited. Things changed soon, last two years of school were not so great as I was balancing preps for college, work at govt. and studies for school at same time. College - College was opposite of all I had wished it to be. I imagined it to be a place where I'd spend my 4 years building something awesome. It was rather an epitome of rote learning, attendance, rules, busy schedules, ban on personal laptops, hardly any hackers surrounding you and shit like that. We had to take permissions to even introduce some cultural/creative activities in our annual schedule. The labs won't be open on weekends because the lab employees had to have their leaves. Yes, a horrible place for someone like me. I still managed to pull out a project with a friend over 2 months. Showed it to people high in the academia hierarchy. They were immensely impressed, we proposed to allow personal computers for students. They made up half-assed reasons and didn't agree. We felt frustrated. And so on, I still managed to teach myself new languages, do new projects of my own, do an intern at the same govt. facility, start a small business for sometime, give a talk at a conference I'm passionate about, win game-dev and hacking contest at most respected colleges, solve good deal of programming contest problems, etc. At the same time I was not content with all these restrictions, great emphasis on rote learning, and sheer wastage of time due to college. I never felt I was overdoing, but now I feel I burnt myself out. During my last days at college, I did an intern at a bigco. While I spent my time building prototypes for certain LBS, the other interns around me, even a good friend, was just skipping time. I thought maybe, in a few weeks he would put in some serious efforts at work assigned to him, but all he did was to find creative ways to skip work, hide his face from manager, engage people in talks if they try to question his progress, etc. I tried a few time to get him on track, but it seems all he wanted was to "not to work hard at all and still reap the fruits". I don't know how others take such people, but I find their vicinity very very poisonous to one's own motivation and productivity. Over that, the place where I come from, HRs don't give much value to what have you done past 4 years. So towards the end of out intern, we all were offered work at the bigco, but the slacker, even after not writing more than 200 lines of code was made a much better offer. I felt enraged instantly - "Is this how the corp world treats someone who does fruitful, if not extra-ordinary work form them for past 6 months?". Yes, I did try to negotiate and debate. The bigcos seem blind due to departmentalization of responsibilities and many layers of management. I decided not to be in touch with any characters of that depressing play. Probably the busy time I had at college, ignoring friends, ignoring fun and squeezing every bit of free time for myself is also responsible. Probably this is what has drained all my willingness to work for anyone. I find my day job boring, at the same time I with to maintain it for financial reasons. I feel a bit burnt out, unsatisfied and at the same time an urge to quit working for someone else and start finishing my frozen side-projects (which may be profitable). Though I haven't got much to support myself with food, office, internet bills, etc in savings. I still have my day job, but I don't find it very interesting, even though the pay is higher than the slacker, I don't find money to be a great motivator here. I keep comparing myself to my past version. I wonder how to get rid of this and reboot myself back to the way I was in school days - excited about it, tinkering, building, learning new things daily, and NOT BORED?

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• Feedback on meeting of the Linux User Group of Mauritius

  Once upon a time in a country far far away... Okay, actually it's not that bad but it has been a while since the last meeting of the Linux User Group of Mauritius (LUGM). There have been plans in the past but it never really happened. Finally, Selven took the opportunity and organised a new meetup with low administrative overhead, proper scheduling on alternative dates and a small attendee's survey on the preferred option. All the pre-work was nicely executed. First, I wasn't sure whether it would be possible to attend. Luckily I got some additional information, like children should come, too, and I was sold to this community gathering. According to other long-term members of the LUGM it was the first time 'ever' that a gathering was organised outside of Quatre Bornes, and I have to admit it was great! LUGM - user group meeting on the 15.06.2013 in L'Escalier Quick overview of Linux & the LUGM With a little bit of delay the LUGM meeting officially started with a quick overview and introduction to Linux presented by Avinash. During the session he told the audience that there had been quite some activity over the island some years ago but unfortunately it had been quiet during recent times. Of course, we also spoke about the acknowledged world dominance of Linux - thanks to Android - and the interesting possibilities for countries like Mauritius. It is known that a couple of public institutions have there back-end infrastructure running on Red Hat Linux systems but the presence on the desktop is still very low. Users are simply hanging on to Windows XP and older versions of Microsoft Office. Following the introduction of the LUGM Ajay joined into the session and it quickly changed into a panel discussion with lots of interesting questions and answers, sharing of first-hand experience either on the job or in private use of Linux, and a couple of ideas about how the LUGM could promote Linux a bit more in Mauritius. It was great to get an insight into other attendee's opinion and activities. Especially taking into consideration that I'm already using Linux since around 1996/97. Frankly speaking, I bought a SuSE 4.x distribution back in those days because I couldn't achieve certain tasks on Windows NT 4.0 without spending a fortune. OpenELEC Mediacenter Next, Selven gave us decent introduction on OpenELEC: Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center (OpenELEC) is a small Linux distribution built from scratch as a platform to turn your computer into an XBMC media center. OpenELEC is designed to make your system boot fast, and the install is so easy that anyone can turn a blank PC into a media machine in less than 15 minutes. I didn't know about it until this presentation. In the past, I was mainly attached to Video Disk Recorder (VDR) as it allows the use of satellite receiver cards very easily. Hm, somehow I'm still missing my precious HTPC that I had to leave back in Germany years ago. It was great piece of hardware and software; self-built PC in a standard HiFi-sized (43cm) black desktop casing with 2 full-featured Hauppauge DVB-s cards, an old-fashioned Voodoo graphics card, WiFi card, Pioneer slot-in DVD drive, and fully remote controlled via infra-red thanks to Debian, VDR and LIRC. With EP Guide, scheduled recordings and general multimedia centre it offered all the necessary comfort in the living room, besides a Nintendo game console; actually a GameCube at that time... But I have to admit that putting OpenELEC on a Raspberry Pi would be a cool DIY project in the near future. LUGM - our next generation of linux users (15.06.2013) Project Evil Genius (PEG) Don't be scared of the paragraph header. Ish gave us a cool explanation why he named it PEG - Project Evil Genius; it's because of the time of the day when he was scripting down his ideas to be able to build, package and provide software applications to various Linux distributions. The main influence came from openSuSE but the platform didn't cater for his needs and ideas, so he started to work out something on his own. During his passionate session he also talked about the amazing experience he had due to other Linux users from all over the world. During the next couple of days Ish promised to put his script to GitHub... Looking forward to that. Check out Ish's personal blog over at hacklog.in. Highly recommended to read. Why India? Simply because the registration fees per year for an Indian domain are approximately 20 times less than for a Mauritian domain (.mu). Exploring the beach of L'Escalier af the meeting 'After-party' at the beach of L'Escalier Puh, after such interesting sessions, ideas around Linux and good conversation during the breaks and over lunch it was time for a little break-out. Selven suggested that we all should head down to the beach of L'Escalier and get some impressions of nature down here in the south of the island. Talking about 'beach' ;-) - absolutely not comparable to the white-sanded ones here in Flic en Flac... There are no lagoons down at the south coast of Mauriitus, and watching the breaking waves is a different experience and joy after all. Unfortunately, I was a little bit worried about the thoughtless littering at such a remote location. You have to drive on natural paths through the sugar cane fields and I was really shocked by the amount of rubbish lying around almost everywhere. Sad, really sad and it concurs with Yasir's recent article on the same topic. Resumé & outlook It was a great event. I met with new people, had some good conversations, and even my children enjoyed themselves the whole day. The location was well-chosen, enough space for each and everyone, parking spaces and even a playground for the children. Also, a big "Thank You" to Selven and his helpers for the organisation and preparation of lunch. I'm kind of sure that this was an exceptional meeting of LUGM and I'm really looking forward to the next gathering of Linux geeks. Hopefully, soon. All images are courtesy of Avinash Meetoo. More pictures are available on Flickr.

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• Blogging locally and globally–my experience

  - by DigiMortal

  In Baltic MVP Summit 2011 there was discussion about having two blogs - one for local and another for global audience – and how to publish once written information in these blogs. There are many ways how to optimize your blogging activities if you have more than one audience and here you can find my experiences, best practices and advices about this topic. My two blogs I have to working blogs: this one here technology and programming blog for local market My local blog is almost five years old and it makes it one of the oldest company blogs in Estonia. It is still active and I write there as much as I have time for it. This blog here is active since September 2007, so it is about 3.5 years old right now. Both of these blogs are  my major hits in my MVP carrier and they have very good web statistics too. My local blog My local blog is about programming, web and technology. It has way wider target audience then this blog here has. By example, in my local blog I blog also about local events, cool new concept phones, different webs providing some interesting services etc. But local guys can find there also my postings about how to solve one or another programming problem and postings about Microsoft technologies I am playing with. This far my local blog has a lot of readers for such a small country that Estonia is. This blog has made me a lot of cool contacts and I have had there a lot of interesting discussions about different technical topics. Why I started this blog? Living in small country is different than living in big country. In small country you have less people and therefore smaller audience so you have to target more than one technical topic to find enough readers. In a same time you are still interested in your main topics and you want to reach to more people who are sharing same interests with you. Practically one day y will grow out from local market and you go global. This is how this blog was born. Was it worth to create, promote and mess with it? Every second I have put on my time to this blog has been worth of it. Thanks to this blog I have found new good friends and without them I think it is more boring to work on different problems and solutions. Defining target audiences One thing you should always do when having more than one blog is defining target audiences. If you are just technomaniac interested in sharing your stuff and make some new friends and have something to write to your MVP nomination form then you don’t have to go through complex targeting process. You can do it simple way and same effectively. Here is how I defined target audiences to my blogs: local blog – reader of my local blog is IT professional, software developer, technology innovator or just some guy who is interested in technology,   this blog – reader of this blog is experienced professional software developer who works on Microsoft technologies or software developer who is open minded and open to new technologies and interesting solutions to development problems. You can see how local blog – due to small market with less people – has wider definition for audience while this blog is heavily targeted to Microsoft technologies and specially to software development. On practical side these decisions are also made well I think because it is very hard to build up popular common IT blog. On global level it is better to target some specific niche and find readers who are professionals on your favorite topics. Thanks to this blog I have found new friends who are professional developers and I am very happy about all the discussions I have had with them. Publishing content to different blogs My local blog and this blog have some overlapping topics like .NET, databases and SEO. Due to this overlapping there is question: when I write posting to my local blog then should I have to publish same thing in my global blog? And if I write something to my global blog then should I publish same thing also in my local blog? Well, it really depends on the definition of your target audiences. If they match then of course it is good idea to translate you post and publish it also to another blog. But if you have different audiences then you may need to modify your posting before publishing it. The questions you have to answer are: is target audience interested in this topic? is target audience expecting more specific and deeper handling of this topic or are they expecting more general handling of topic? is the problem you are discussing actual for target audience or not? You have to answer these questions and after that make your decision. If you need to modify your original posting then take some time and do it. Provide quality to all your readers because they will respect you if you respect them. Cross-posting and referencing It is tempting to save time that preparing some blog post takes and if you have are done with posting in one blog it may seem like good idea to make short posting to another blog and add reference to first one where topic is discussed longer. Well, don’t do it – all your readers expect good quality content from you and jumping from one blog post to another is disturbing for them. Of course, there is problem with differences between target audiences. You may have wider target audience and some people may be interested in more specific handling of topic. In this case feel free to refer your blog you are writing in english. This is not working very well in opposite direction because almost all my global blog readers understand english but not estonian. By example, estonian language is complex one and online translating tools make very poor translations from estonian language. This is why I don’t even plan to publish postings here that refer to my local blog for more information. I am keeping these two blogs as two different worlds and if there is posting that fits well to both blogs I will write my posting to one blog and then answer previous three questions before posting same thing to another blog. Conclusion Growing out of your local market is not anything mysterious if you are living in small country. As it is harder to find people there who are interested in same topics with you then sooner or later you will start finding these new contacts from global audience. Global audience is bigger and to be visible there you must provide high quality content to your audience. It is something you will learn over time and you will learn every day something new when you are posting to your global blog. You may ask: if global blog is much more complex thing to do then is it worth to do at all? My answer is: yes, do it for sure. It is not easy thing to do when you start but if you work on your global blog and improve it over time you will get over all obstacles pretty soon. Just don’t forget one thing – content is king and your readers expect high quality from you.

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• Testing Workflows &ndash; Test-First

  - by Timothy Klenke

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/05/30/testing-workflows-ndash-test-first.aspxThis is the second of two posts on some common strategies for approaching the job of writing tests.  The previous post covered test-after workflows where as this will focus on test-first.  Each workflow presented is a method of attack for adding tests to a project.  The more tools in your tool belt the better.  So here is a partial list of some test-first methodologies. Ping Pong Ping Pong is a methodology commonly used in pair programing.  One developer will write a new failing test.  Then they hand the keyboard to their partner.  The partner writes the production code to get the test passing.  The partner then writes the next test before passing the keyboard back to the original developer. The reasoning behind this testing methodology is to facilitate pair programming.  That is to say that this testing methodology shares all the benefits of pair programming, including ensuring multiple team members are familiar with the code base (i.e. low bus number). Test Blazer Test Blazing, in some respects, is also a pairing strategy.  The developers don’t work side by side on the same task at the same time.  Instead one developer is dedicated to writing tests at their own desk.  They write failing test after failing test, never touching the production code.  With these tests they are defining the specification for the system.  The developer most familiar with the specifications would be assigned this task. The next day or later in the same day another developer fetches the latest test suite.  Their job is to write the production code to get those tests passing.  Once all the tests pass they fetch from source control the latest version of the test project to get the newer tests. This methodology has some of the benefits of pair programming, namely lowering the bus number.  This can be good way adding an extra developer to a project without slowing it down too much.  The production coder isn’t slowed down writing tests.  The tests are in another project from the production code, so there shouldn’t be any merge conflicts despite two developers working on the same solution. This methodology is also a good test for the tests.  Can another developer figure out what system should do just by reading the tests?  This question will be answered as the production coder works there way through the test blazer’s tests. Test Driven Development (TDD) TDD is a highly disciplined practice that calls for a new test and an new production code to be written every few minutes.  There are strict rules for when you should be writing test or production code.  You start by writing a failing (red) test, then write the simplest production code possible to get the code working (green), then you clean up the code (refactor).  This is known as the red-green-refactor cycle. The goal of TDD isn’t the creation of a suite of tests, however that is an advantageous side effect.  The real goal of TDD is to follow a practice that yields a better design.  The practice is meant to push the design toward small, decoupled, modularized components.  This is generally considered a better design that large, highly coupled ball of mud. TDD accomplishes this through the refactoring cycle.  Refactoring is only possible to do safely when tests are in place.  In order to use TDD developers must be trained in how to look for and repair code smells in the system.  Through repairing these sections of smelly code (i.e. a refactoring) the design of the system emerges. For further information on TDD, I highly recommend the series “Is TDD Dead?”.  It discusses its pros and cons and when it is best used. Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) Whereas TDD focuses on small unit tests that concentrate on a small piece of the system, Acceptance Tests focuses on the larger integrated environment.  Acceptance Tests usually correspond to user stories, which come directly from the customer. The unit tests focus on the inputs and outputs of smaller parts of the system, which are too low level to be of interest to the customer. ATDD generally uses the same tools as TDD.  However, ATDD uses fewer mocks and test doubles than TDD. ATDD often complements TDD; they aren’t competing methods.  A full test suite will usually consist of a large number of unit (created via TDD) tests and a smaller number of acceptance tests. Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) BDD is more about audience than workflow.  BDD pushes the testing realm out towards the client.  Developers, managers and the client all work together to define the tests. Typically different tooling is used for BDD than acceptance and unit testing.  This is done because the audience is not just developers.  Tools using the Gherkin family of languages allow for test scenarios to be described in an English format.  Other tools such as MSpec or FitNesse also strive for highly readable behaviour driven test suites. Because these tests are public facing (viewable by people outside the development team), the terminology usually changes.  You can’t get away with the same technobabble you can with unit tests written in a programming language that only developers understand.  For starters, they usually aren’t called tests.  Usually they’re called “examples”, “behaviours”, “scenarios”, or “specifications”. This may seem like a very subtle difference, but I’ve seen this small terminology change have a huge impact on the acceptance of the process.  Many people have a bias that testing is something that comes at the end of a project.  When you say we need to define the tests at the start of the project many people will immediately give that a lower priority on the project schedule.  But if you say we need to define the specification or behaviour of the system before we can start, you’ll get more cooperation.   Keep these test-first and test-after workflows in your tool belt.  With them you’ll be able to find new opportunities to apply them.

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• Rendering Flickr Cats Via Backbone.js

  - by Geertjan

  Create a JavaScript file and refer to it inside an HTML file. Then put this into the JavaScript file: (function($) {     var CatCollection = Backbone.Collection.extend({         url: 'http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=cat&tagmode=any&format=json&jsoncallback=?',         parse: function(response) {             return response.items;         }     });     var CatView = Backbone.View.extend({         el: $('body'),         initialize: function() {             _.bindAll(this, 'render');             carCollectionInstance.fetch({                 success: function(response, xhr) {                     catView.render();                 }             });         },         render: function() {             $(this.el).append("<ul></ul>");             for (var i = 0; i < carCollectionInstance.length; i++) {                 $('ul', this.el).append("<li>" + i + carCollectionInstance.models[i].get("description") + "</li>");             }         }     });     var carCollectionInstance = new CatCollection();     var catView = new CatView(); })(jQuery); Apologies for any errors or misused idioms. It's my second day with Backbone.js, in fact, my second day with JavaScript. I haven't seen anywhere online so far where an example such as the above is found, though plenty that do kind of or pieces of the above, or explain in text, without an actual full example. The next step, and the only reason for the above experiment, is to create some JPA entities and expose them via RESTful webservices created on EJB methods, for consumption into an HTML5 application via a Backbone.js script very similar to the above. 

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• ANY way to consolidate this code?

  - by JM4

  I am building a PHP registration form which takes the following fields for up to 20 athletes: First Name Middle Initial Last Name Federation Number Address City State Zip DOB SSN Phone Email I am only through 7 of the fields for each fighter and my php file is very large (over 40kb). Is there ANY way to consolidate this code at all? I am also having to validate the information on each field (as I said - 20 athletes x 12 fields = 240 validations on a single page). If I can send any further code let me know! <form id="Form" action="<?php $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post" name="Form" onsubmit="return Enroll_Form_Validator(this)"> <p class="title">Your Fighters' Information</p> <p>Please complete the following fields with your <span style="color:red;"> Fighters' Information</span> to continue your enrollment.</p> <br /> <?php // if $errors is not empty, the form must have failed one or more validation // tests. Loop through each and display them on the page for the user if (!empty($errors)) { echo "<div class='error'>Please fix the following errors:\n<ul>"; foreach ($errors as $error) echo "<li>$error</li>\n"; echo "</ul></div>"; } ?> <?php if ($_SESSION['Num_Fighters'] > "0") { ?> <table class="demoTable"> <tr> <td>First Name: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1FirstName" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1FirstName']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Middle Initial: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1MI" size="2" maxlength="1" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1MI']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Last Name: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1LastName" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1LastName']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Federation No: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1FedNum" maxlength="10" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1FedNum']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>SSN: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1SSN1" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1SSN1']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F1SSN2" size="2" maxlength="2" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1SSN2']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F1SSN3" size="4" maxlength="4" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1SSN3']; ?>" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Date of Birth</td> <td> <select name="F1DOB1"> <option value="">Month</option> <?php for ($i=1; $i<=12; $i++) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F1DOB1"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> / <select name="F1DOB2"> <option value="">Day</option> <?php for ($i=1; $i<=31; $i++) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F1DOB2"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> / <select name="F1DOB3"> <option value="">Year</option> <?php for ($i=date('Y'); $i>=1900; $i--) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F1DOB3"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Address: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1Address" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Address']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>City: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1City" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1City']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>State: </td> <td><select name="F1State"><option value="">Choose a State</option><?php showOptionsDrop($states_arr, null, true); ?></select></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Zip Code: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F1Zip" size="6" maxlength="5" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Zip']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Contact Telephone No: </td> <td>( <input type="text" name="F1Phone1" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Phone1']; ?>" /> ) <input type="text" name="F1Phone2" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Phone2']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F1Phone3" size="4" maxlength="4" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Phone3']; ?>" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Email:</td> <td><input type="text" name="F1Email" value="<?php echo $fields['F1Email']; ?>" /></td> </tr> </table> <?php } ?> <br /> <?php if ($_SESSION['Num_Fighters'] > "1") { ?> <table class="demoTable"> <tr> <td>First Name: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F2FirstName" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2FirstName']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Middle Initial: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F2MI" size="2" maxlength="1" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2MI']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Last Name: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F2LastName" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2LastName']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Federation No: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F2FedNum" maxlength="10" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2FedNum']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>SSN: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F2SSN1" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2SSN1']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F2SSN2" size="2" maxlength="2" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2SSN2']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F2SSN3" size="4" maxlength="4" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2SSN3']; ?>" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Date of Birth</td> <td> <select name="F2DOB1"> <option value="">Month</option> <?php for ($i=1; $i<=12; $i++) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F2DOB1"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> / <select name="F2DOB2"> <option value="">Day</option> <?php for ($i=1; $i<=31; $i++) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F2DOB2"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> / <select name="F2DOB3"> <option value="">Year</option> <?php for ($i=date('Y'); $i>=1900; $i--) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F2DOB3"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Address: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F2Address" value="<?php echo $fields['F2Address']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>City: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F2City" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2City']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>State: </td> <td><select name="F2State"><option value="">Choose a State</option><?php showOptionsDrop($states_arr, null, true); ?></select></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Zip Code: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F2Zip" size="6" maxlength="5" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2Zip']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Contact Telephone No: </td> <td>( <input type="text" name="F2Phone1" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2Phone1']; ?>" /> ) <input type="text" name="F2Phone2" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2Phone2']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F2Phone3" size="4" maxlength="4" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F2Phone3']; ?>" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Email:</td> <td><input type="text" name="F2Email" value="<?php echo $fields['F2Email']; ?>" /></td> </tr> </table> <?php } ?> <br /> <?php if ($_SESSION['Num_Fighters'] > "2") { ?> <table class="demoTable"> <tr> <td>First Name: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F3FirstName" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3FirstName']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Middle Initial: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F3MI" size="2" maxlength="1" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3MI']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Last Name: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F3LastName" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3LastName']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Federation No: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F3FedNum" maxlength="10" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3FedNum']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>SSN: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F3SSN1" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3SSN1']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F3SSN2" size="2" maxlength="2" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3SSN2']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F3SSN3" size="4" maxlength="4" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3SSN3']; ?>" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Date of Birth</td> <td> <select name="F3DOB1"> <option value="">Month</option> <?php for ($i=1; $i<=12; $i++) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F3DOB1"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> / <select name="F3DOB2"> <option value="">Day</option> <?php for ($i=1; $i<=31; $i++) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F3DOB2"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> / <select name="F3DOB3"> <option value="">Year</option> <?php for ($i=date('Y'); $i>=1900; $i--) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F3DOB3"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Address: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F3Address" value="<?php echo $fields['F3Address']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>City: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F3City" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3City']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>State: </td> <td><select name="F3State"><option value="">Choose a State</option><?php showOptionsDrop($states_arr, null, true); ?></select></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Zip Code: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F3Zip" size="6" maxlength="5" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3Zip']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Contact Telephone No: </td> <td>( <input type="text" name="F3Phone1" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3Phone1']; ?>" /> ) <input type="text" name="F3Phone2" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3Phone2']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F3Phone3" size="4" maxlength="4" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F3Phone3']; ?>" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Email:</td> <td><input type="text" name="F3Email" value="<?php echo $fields['F3Email']; ?>" /></td> </tr> </table> <?php } ?> <br /> <?php if ($_SESSION['Num_Fighters'] > "3") { ?> <table class="demoTable"> <tr> <td>First Name: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F4FirstName" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4FirstName']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Middle Initial: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F4MI" size="2" maxlength="1" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4MI']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Last Name: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F4LastName" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4LastName']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Federation No: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F4FedNum" maxlength="10" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4FedNum']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>SSN: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F4SSN1" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4SSN1']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F4SSN2" size="2" maxlength="2" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4SSN2']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F4SSN3" size="4" maxlength="4" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4SSN3']; ?>" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Date of Birth</td> <td> <select name="F4DOB1"> <option value="">Month</option> <?php for ($i=1; $i<=12; $i++) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F4DOB1"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> / <select name="F4DOB2"> <option value="">Day</option> <?php for ($i=1; $i<=31; $i++) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F4DOB2"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> / <select name="F4DOB3"> <option value="">Year</option> <?php for ($i=date('Y'); $i>=1900; $i--) { echo "<option value='$i'"; if ($fields["F4DOB3"] == $i) echo " selected"; echo ">$i</option>"; } ?> </select> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Address: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F4Address" value="<?php echo $fields['F4Address']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>City: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F4City" onkeyup="if(!this.value.match(/^([a-z]+\s?)*$/i))this.value=this.value.replace(/[^a-z ]/ig,'').replace(/\s+/g,' ')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4City']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>State: </td> <td><select name="F4State"><option value="">Choose a State</option><?php showOptionsDrop($states_arr, null, true); ?></select></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Zip Code: </td> <td><input type="text" name="F4Zip" size="6" maxlength="5" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4Zip']; ?>" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Contact Telephone No: </td> <td>( <input type="text" name="F4Phone1" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4Phone1']; ?>" /> ) <input type="text" name="F4Phone2" size="3" maxlength="3" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4Phone2']; ?>" /> - <input type="text" name="F4Phone3" size="4" maxlength="4" onkeyup="this.value=this.value.replace(/[^0-9]/ig, '')" value="<?php echo $fields['F4Phone3']; ?>" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td>Email:</td> <td><input type="text" name="F4Email" value="<?php echo $fields['F4Email']; ?>" /></td> </tr> </table> <?php } ?> <div align="right"><input class="enrbutton" type="submit" name="submit" value="Continue" /></div> </form> This only goes through 4 athletes and I need it to capture 20. Any ideas? I am forced to keep all 200+ elements in SESSION assuming somebody enrolls 20 athletes.

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• WordPress contact form email as PDF

  - by lock

  I am using the below code for my WordPress site which is emailing all the form details as an HTML text but I need the details to be written into a PDF first and then have to email the PDF as an attachment. How can I achieve this? This is not a PHP code to use PHP's writePDF modules. So, any idea or any code to implement this? <div style="padding-left: 100px;"> [raw] [contact-form subject="Best Aussie Broker" to="[email protected]"] <div id="main34" style="border: 1px solid black; border-radius: 15px; width: 720px; padding: 15px;"> &nbsp; <h2><span style="color: #ff6600;">Express Application</span></h2> &nbsp; [contact-field label="First Name" type="name" required="true" /] [contact-field label="Last Name" type="text" /] [contact-field label="Email" type="email" required="true" /] [contact-field label="Purpose of Finance?" type="select" options="Home Loan,Refinance,Investment Loan,Debt Consolidation,Other" /] [contact-field label="Your deposit amount" type="text" /] [contact-field label="Amount you need to borrow?" type="text" /] [contact-field label="Brief description of the purpose for finance" type="textarea" required="true" /] <div><label></label> <input class="radio" type="radio" name="19" value="Single Application" onchange="showsingle();" /> <label class="radio">Single Application</label> <div class="clear-form"></div> <input class="radio" type="radio" name="19" value="Joint Application" onchange="showjoint();" /> <label class="radio">Joint Application</label> <div class="clear-form"></div> [contact-field label="Privacy Act" type="checkbox" required="true" /] I have read the Privacy Act 1988 (as Amended) and understand that by selecting the submit button I/we Authorize Best Aussie Broker to act on my/our behalf and manage personal information in relation to this application.<br> <a href="http://googleplex.com.au/pdf.pdf"><img src="http://googleplex.com.au/pdf.png" alt="" /> </a> </div> </div> <div id="single" style="display: none; width: 720px; border: 1px solid black; border-radius: 15px; padding: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"> <div style="padding-top: 10px; width: 720px; text-align: left;"> <h4><span style="color: #ff6600;">Last step then we will get all listed Australian vendors to fight it out for your best deal</span></h4> </div> <div> <label class="select" for="19-date-of-birth">Date of Birth</label> [contact-field label="Day" type="select" options="1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31" /] [contact-field label="Month" type="select" options="January,February,March,April,May,June,July,August,September,October,November,December" /] [contact-field label="Year" type="select" options="2000,1999,1998,1997,1996,1995,1994,1993,1992,1991,1990,1989,1988,1987,1986,1985,1984,1983,1982,1981,1980,1979,1978,197,1976,1975,1974,1973,1972,1971,1970,1969,1968,1967,1966,1965,1964,1963,1962,1961,1960,1959,1958,1957,1956,1955,1954,1953,1952,1951,1950,1949,1948,1947,1946,1945,1944,1943,1942,1941,1940,1939,1938,1937,1936,1935,1934,1933,1932,1931,1930,1929,1928,1927,1926,1925,1924,1923,1922,1921,1920, 1919,1918,1917,1916,1915,1914,1913,1912,1911,1910,1909" /] </div> [contact-field label="Address" type="text" /] [contact-field label="Suburb" type="text" /] [contact-field label="Postcode" type="text" /] <div> [contact-field label="State" type="select" options="VIC,NSW,QLD,SA,WA,TAS,NZ,Other" /] </div> [contact-field label="Best Contact" type="radio" options="Landline,Mobile" /] [contact-field label="Phone Number" type="text" /] [contact-field label="Marital Status" type="select" options="Married,Single,Other" /] [contact-field label="Residential Status" type="select" options="Renting, Home Owned, Home Mortgage, Board, Other" /] [contact-field label="Children/Dependents" type="select" options="0,1,2,3,4,5,6" /] <div></div> [contact-field label="Gross Yearly Income" type="text" /] [contact-field label="Current Employer" type="text" /] <div> <label class="select" for="19-year-of-empl">Time at this employer</label> [contact-field label="Year" type="select" options="0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,More" /] [contact-field label="Month" type="select" options="0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12" /] </div> <div style="padding-right: 15px;"></div> </div> <div id="joint" style="display: none; width: 720px; border: 1px solid black; border-radius: 15px; padding: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"> <div style="padding-top: 10px; width: 720px; text-align: left;"> <h4><span style="color: #ff6600;">Last step then we will get all listed Australian vendors to fight it out for your best deal</span></h4> </div> <div style="float: left; width: 320px;"> <div> <label class="select" for="19-date-of-birth1">Date of Birth</label> [contact-field label="Day" type="select" options="1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31" /] [contact-field label="Month" type="select" options="January,February,March,April,May,June,July,August,September,October,November,December" /] [contact-field label="Year" type="select" options="2000,1999,1998,1997,1996,1995,1994,1993,1992,1991,1990,1989,1988,1987,1986,1985,1984,1983,1982,1981,1980,1979,1978,197,1976,1975,1974,1973,1972,1971,1970,1969,1968,1967,1966,1965,1964,1963,1962,1961,1960,1959,1958,1957,1956,1955,1954,1953,1952,1951,1950,1949,1948,1947,1946,1945,1944,1943,1942,1941,1940,1939,1938,1937,1936,1935,1934,1933,1932,1931,1930,1929,1928,1927,1926,1925,1924,1923,1922,1921,1920, 1919,1918,1917,1916,1915,1914,1913,1912,1911,1910,1909" /] </div> [contact-field label="Address" type="text" /] [contact-field label="Suburb" type="text" /] [contact-field label="Postcode" type="text" /] <div> [contact-field label="State" type="select" options="VIC,NSW,QLD,SA,WA,TAS,NZ,Other" /] </div> [contact-field label="Best Contact" type="radio" options="Landline,Mobile" /] [contact-field label="Phone Number" type="text" /] <div></div> <div></div> [contact-field label="Marital Status" type="select" options="Married,Single,Other" /] [contact-field label="Residential Status" type="select" options="Renting, Home Owned, Home Mortgage, Board, Other" /] [contact-field label="Children/Dependents" type="select" options="0,1,2,3,4,5,6" /] <div></div> <div><label class="text" for="netincome">Net Income</label> <input id="netincome" type="text" name="netincome" /> <select id="netincome-dropdown" name="netincome-dropdown"> <option>Monthly</option> <option>Yearly</option> </select></div> [contact-field label="Current Employer" type="text" /] <div> <label class="select" for="19-year-of-empl2">Time at this employer</label> [contact-field label="Year" type="select" options="0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,More" /] [contact-field label="Month" type="select" options="0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12" /] </div> </div> <div style="float: right; width: 320px; padding-right: 50px;"> <div> <label class="select" for="19-date-of-birth3">Date of Birth</label> [contact-field label="Day" type="select" options="1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31" /] [contact-field label="Month" type="select" options="January,February,March,April,May,June,July,August,September,October,November,December" /] [contact-field label="Year" type="select" options="2000,1999,1998,1997,1996,1995,1994,1993,1992,1991,1990,1989,1988,1987,1986,1985,1984,1983,1982,1981,1980,1979,1978,197,1976,1975,1974,1973,1972,1971,1970,1969,1968,1967,1966,1965,1964,1963,1962,1961,1960,1959,1958,1957,1956,1955,1954,1953,1952,1951,1950,1949,1948,1947,1946,1945,1944,1943,1942,1941,1940,1939,1938,1937,1936,1935,1934,1933,1932,1931,1930,1929,1928,1927,1926,1925,1924,1923,1922,1921,1920, 1919,1918,1917,1916,1915,1914,1913,1912,1911,1910,1909" /] </div> [contact-field label="Address" type="text" /] [contact-field label="Suburb" type="text" /] [contact-field label="Postcode" type="text" /] <div> [contact-field label="State" type="select" options="VIC,NSW,QLD,SA,WA,TAS,NZ,Other" /] </div> [contact-field label="Best Contact" type="radio" options="Landline,Mobile" /] [contact-field label="Phone Number" type="text" /] <div></div> <div></div> [contact-field label="Marital Status" type="select" options="Married,Single,Other" /] [contact-field label="Residential Status" type="select" options="Renting, Home Owned, Home Mortgage, Board, Other" /] [contact-field label="Children/Dependents" type="select" options="0,1,2,3,4,5,6" /] <div></div> <div><label class="text" for="netincome">Net Income</label> <input id="netincome" type="text" name="netincome" /> <select id="netincome-dropdown" name="netincome-dropdown"> <option>Monthly</option> <option>Yearly</option> </select></div> [contact-field label="Current Employer" type="text" /] <div> <label class="select" for="19-year-of-empl">Time at this employer</label> [contact-field label="Year" type="select" options="0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,More" /] [contact-field label="Month" type="select" options="0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12" /] </div> </div> <div style="clear: both;"></div> <div></div> </div> &nbsp; [/contact-form][/raw] </div>

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• Tor : Stuck at Connecting to Relay Directory

  - by Ghassan

  i have never ever worked with tor before. the company where i work allows us to have access to any site we wish. nonetheless as of the the beginning of this month, they installed a proxy server to filter which sites can be accessed and which ones cant. the filter isnt only on URLS, but IPS as well, even hexa IPS wont work. so after some research, i decided to use tor, the first day i installed it, everything went smooth and i was accessing any website i wish. just 2day, everything stopped. i try 2 start vidalia, it gets stuck at Connecting to Relay Directory. i work on windows 7 platform. Please help me out! thanks in advance.

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• Name resolution for the name <name> timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded.

  - by Paul Brown

  Installed Windows 7 (previously ran XP and Vista with no problems) a couple of weeks ago and I'm at least once a day getting the above error show up in the event logs and losing all internet connection. The only current way to resolve it is to reboot my cable modem. My ISP have been running diagnostics on it and tell me there is no problem whatsoever. I've configured my router (and PC on occasion) to point at OpenDNS - still occurs. I've had the PC directly connected to the modem - still occurs. If I can give more info that might of use please ask thanks Update: After moaning at my ISP for a couple of weeks (VirginMedia) they agreed to send me out a new cable modem ... and I've not had the issue since.

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• Continual "The Windows Filtering Platform has blocked a connection" errors?

  - by Richard

  Our systems have been compromised by something recently which has lead us to carry out a more detailed look at what is happening on our workstations. I have noticed an issue where the Security log of this Windows 7 workstation is continually logging a security "Audit Failure" where the detail is that "The Windows Filtering Platform has blocked a connection". This is happening thousands of times a day and would appear to be our BT Business Broadband HGV 2700 ADSL router attempting to connect to Port 137 (NET Bios) on my workstation and being blocked. This has unfortunately had the effect of filling up the log files so much that anything which might have been of use which was logged over the weekend to help debug the intrusion has been "overwritten off the end" of the Security log. (I've since increased the log file size limits massively and turned on archiving). Does anyone know if this is standard behaviour of a BT ADSL router or whether this indicates that the router is compromised in some way or malfunctioning, or have any further suggestions as to how to diagnose this problem?

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• How do you force Outlook 2007 to re-index it's seach on Windows XP SP 3?

  - by Aaron K

  So I have a Windows XP SP 3 machine which is running Outlook 2007. When I search in Outlook for an email that exists using a basic keyword, like say "MySQL", I get no results. However, Outlook gives me the following message: Search results may be incomplete because items are still being indexed. Click here for more details. When I click, I get the following: Outlook is currently indexing your items. Search results may be incomplete because items are still being indexed. 8783 items remaining in "Mailbox - USER" 8812 items remaining across all open mailboxes. The thing is, these are the numbers it has been reporting for several days, and Outlook is open for 8 hours a day. It does not seem like the index is working. As best I can tell, the index seemed to stop about 3 weeks ago. How can I force Outlook 2007 to re-index everything and start working properly again?

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• Firefox addon (for firefox 3.5) to monitor web usage

  - by 2meaning

  I am looking for a firefox addon that would tell me where I have spent how much time browsing. I came across quite a few addons but they are either not supported in 3.5 or they are no longer supported or cannot be installed. I work on ubuntu linux (9.04) and Shiretoko (Firefox 3.5). I need a solution for this environment. I need stats like Website Time spent (hh:mm) % (day) % (week) %(month) www.stackoverflow.com 20:00 90 xx yy www.google.com 1:35 x www.theserverside.com 80:23 x www.facebook.com 200:30 x

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• Microsoft Office document is "locked for editing by 'another user'"

  - by Chris

  A few of my users are in and out of various Excel 2007 spreadsheets all day. One of them reports that "50% of the time" she tries to open a spreadsheet from the file server, an information message comes up stating: foo.xlsx is locked for editing by 'another user'. Open "Read-Only" or click "Notify" to open read-only and receive notification when the document is no longer in use. Nine times out of ten the document is not open by another user. My users immediately try to open the same document again, and it works. I imagine this is caused by Excel leaving owner files on the server, but I do not know why. An added clue: When one of my users selects "Notify," a dialog pops up in a moment informing them the file is available for them to edit. Any guidance on how to solve this issue and make my users' days flow better?

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• postfwd not rate limiting sasl users

  - by golemwashere

  I would like to use postfwd version 2 to limit the amount of daily mail sent by my sasl authenticated users. I installed latest tarball: postfwd-1.35 with latest postfix from Centos 6.4 In my I have only this rule id=RULEZEROSASL sasl_username=~/^(\S+)$/ action=rcpt(sasl_username/500/86400/REJECT only 500 recipients per day for $$sasl_username) which should reject only mail with authenticated users (not mail from trusted mailservers). My postfwd2 listens on tcp 10045 and in my postfix main.cf I have # Restriction Classes smtpd_restriction_classes = postfwdcheck postfwdcheck = check_policy_service inet:127.0.0.1:10045 127.0.0.1:10045_time_limit = 3600 ... smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks permit_sasl_authenticated permit_tls_clientcerts reject_unauth_destination check_recipient_access hash:/etc/postfix/access reject_invalid_helo_hostname # postfwd con rate limiting check_policy_service inet:127.0.0.1:10045 warn_if_reject reject_non_fqdn_helo_hostname warn_if_reject reject_unknown_helo_hostname warn_if_reject reject_unknown_client reject_non_fqdn_sender reject_non_fqdn_recipient reject_unknown_sender_domain reject_unknown_recipient_domain warn_if_reject reject_unverified_sender reject_unverified_recipient reject_rbl_client zen.spamhaus.org permit in /etc/postfix/policy . postfwdcheck I see no rule matching entries in log and the command postfwd2 -vv --dumpcache -f /etc/postfwd.cf shows the request number [STATS] postfwd2::policy 1.35: **5** requests since 0 days, 01:05:31 hours increasing only for manual tests done with: nc 127.0.0.1 10045 <request.sample Any idea why postfwd is not engaged by postfix?

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• Baseline 2952-SFP normal?

  - by Atlas

  I just installed a 3com 2952-sfp, and I had its port #48 connected to another gigabit switch through a cat5e cable. Now when I look at the logs, I see the lines shown below: Mar 23 11:20:15:829 2010 MSTP Critical PFWD Instance 0's GigabitEthernet1/0/48 has been set to forwarding state! Mar 23 11:20:15:822 2010 IFNET Warning LINK UPDOWN GigabitEthernet1/0/48: link status is UP Mar 23 11:20:12:974 2010 IFNET Warning LINK UPDOWN GigabitEthernet1/0/48: link status is DOWN The above happens like dozens of times per day, is there something wrong with my setup?

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• Redhat Software RAID 1 not syncing

  - by hamstar

  Hey guys, I setup a software RAID 1 on a Redhat server, everything went sweet and it synced the first time. The other day the raid failedover for some reason and the disks hadn't been syncing since that first time, so it went back to 2 weeks ago when we did the first sync. We got the system back up running off the master only. However what would cause the software raid to not sync? I used mdadm to setup the RAID. Any ideas? EDIT: Sorry I don't have the output from /proc/mdstat before the raid failedover, it is now running on only the master... I can put the slave back in no problems but I was wondering how to make it sync all the time instead of only when I add it.

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• Apache2 worker mpm too many processes

  - by delerious010

  I've got Apache installed with the worker mpm which seems to have too many processes active in spite of the configurations in place. I'll detail the configs below : StartServers 2 MinSpareThreads 10 MaxSpareThreads 25 ThreadsPerChild 25 MaxClients 150 Based on these settings, we should be seeing a maximum of 1 Apache control process (uid:root) and 6 Apache client processes (uid:www). This being due to MaxClients/ThreadsPerChild. However, I'm seeing a total of 1 Apache control process and 9 Apache client processes. init -- apache2(root) -- -- apache2(www) -- -- apache2(www) -- 1 thread -- -- apache2(www) -- 26 threads -- -- apache2(www) -- 26 threads init -- apache2(www) -- 2 threads -- apache2(www) -- apache2(www) -- apache2(www) We do not make it a habit of restarting Apache nor the Server, and will perform a reload 2-3 times a day at times so as to add new VHOSTs. Would anyone be able to enlighten me as to what might be causing this ? enter code here

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