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  • Default file manager changed, can't change back

    - by user16171
    (Using ubuntu 11.04) I tried to open a torrent file in chrome, and it asked for my default application, so I clicked Transmission, and then I got an error: "Failed to execute default file manager, Failed to execute child process "transmission" (No such file or directory)." Now if I click on any shortcut on the unity bar, such as the trash folder or the icon for my portable hard drive, I get this error, as well as with any download or folder from chrome or firefox. I can't seem to figure out how to fix this, as there seems to be no easy way to do it.

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  • Will Unity allow users to change the color/appearance of the top-Panel?

    - by Sam
    I'm very excited by the functional design principles and keyboard shortcuts that are being implemented for Unity. And function of use is more important to me than looks. However, after experiencing the aesthetic beauty of the display of the top panel in gnome-shell, I was wondering if users would be able to alter the color of Unity's top panel? IMHO it does not look as good as the gnome-shell implementation (or mac OS X/iPad). I think if an alternate color/appearance were chosen for the panel, it would make a big difference aesthetically. Is there a way to make it Black like gnome-shell? Or are the color choices limited to theme-designs as pointed out in this answer? For efficiency and clarity, the Panel should be better differentiated from application controls. The panel should be a different color because it has a "constant (always present) state," unlike application controls. For contrast and easy-recognition, I would like to make the Panel black (like gnome-shell) but make the application controls (e.g., those of Firefox) "Inverted"

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  • Looking for a light weight note program.

    - by Erin
    This might belongs on superuser but for me it's part of programming so i will ask it here. I find I use notepad to keep chunks of data that are important but not important enough to keep in my head. The one problem with this is I end up with a lot of files on my desktop that I don't know what they are for, or I don't save the file and my computer gets rebooted for some reason. So that big ramble leads to the question. I am looking for a note taking system that is light weight and easy to manage. I would rather it not be a huge application like onenote but if that is what you are using and is is working well for you could you explain how you are doing it? Thanks Erin.

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  • Google I/O 2010 - Scripting Google Apps for business

    Google I/O 2010 - Scripting Google Apps for business Google I/O 2010 - Scripting Google Apps for business process automation Enterprise 201 Evin Levey Learn how to use Google Apps for business process automation, and custom work-flow. We'll introduce the powerful scripting service along with several easy-to-use interfaces including Spreadsheets, Calendar, Sites and the Document List. We'll also demonstrate interoperability with third party web services and showcase exciting new developments in Google Apps Script. For all I/O 2010 sessions, please go to code.google.com From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 8 0 ratings Time: 53:16 More in Science & Technology

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  • Realistic planetary terrain generation with weights

    - by Programmdude
    I need terrain generation for a planet. The planet will be divided up into several hundred hexes, and I need it to be realistic and based on weights. I have dabbled in terrain generation before, but nothing like this. So I figure it would be a good idea to ask the community for answers, recommended articles or the like. By realistic, I mean not just random hexes, but continent shaped things with a few islands. More desert around the equator and more ice around the poles. I also have two weights I need to base it around: ice percentage and water percentage. That means that around XX% of the planet will need to be water. Does anyone have any advice or places to start? Generating arbitrary terrain is easy, but something a bit more "organic" like this seems rather difficult. It also needs to be seamless. Should be obvious since it's a planet, but no harm in pointing it out.

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  • How to Use the File History Feature in Windows 8 to Restore Files

    - by Taylor Gibb
    Jealous of your Mac OS X friends and their great Time Machine feature? Windows 8 has a new feature called File History that works much the same way, giving you an easy method to restore previous versions of your files. We are going to use a networked folder in for our article but you could always skip creating the network folder, and just use a USB drive. To use a USB drive you can just go to the setting for File History and turn it on, it should automatically find your USB and immediately start working. How to Sync Your Media Across Your Entire House with XBMC How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 2 How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 1

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  • Gotcha | Installing .net 4.0 and IIS 6

    - by Steve Clements
    Just a quick one, seems pretty weird to me. I installed .net 4.0 on an old IIS6 box, ready to deploy a asp.net mvc app targeting .net 4.0.  I thought, which to me seems logical, that I install .net 4.0, setup a new web site, new app pool, set the web site to asp.net 4.0 (other configuration also needed to run MVC on IIS6 here and here) and it would just work. Errr… No.  The page cannot be displayed!  Nothing to do with MVC. Apparently just because you have installed .net 4 and the option is available in IIS, it’s not enabled.  I’m not going to repeat anything here…take a look at this post – clear, easy steps on exactly what you need to do and how to check if this is the problem. http://johan.driessen.se/archive/2010/04/13/getting-an-asp.net-4-application-to-work-on-iis6.aspx

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  • Animation file format

    - by Paul
    I'm trying to make a simple 2D animation file format. It'll be very rudimentary: only an XML file containing some parameters (such as frame duration) and metadata, and some images, each representing a frame. I'd like to have the whole animation (frames and XML document) packed in a single file. How do you suggest I do that? What libraries are there that would allow easy access to the files inside the animation file itself? The language I'm using is C++ and the platform is Windows, but I'd rather not use a platform dependent library, if possible.

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  • Design pattern and best practices

    - by insane-36
    I am an iphone developer. I am quite confident on developing iphone application with some minimal feature. I would consider myself as a fair application developer but the code I write is not so much structured. I make vey little use of MVC because I dont seem to find places to impose MVC. Most of the time, I create application with viewcontrollers and very few models only. How could I improve the skill for making my code more reusable, standard, easy and maintainable. I have seen few books on design patterns and tried few chapters myself but I dont seem to skip my habit. I know few of them but I am not being able to apply those patterns into my app. What is the best way to learn the design patterns and coding habit. Any kind of suggestion is warmly welcomed.

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  • How do you organize information?

    - by zvrba
    I have a relatively large collection of useful books (paper and electronic), [academic] papers (mostly electronic) and web bookmarks. However, I don't have an overview of the material. Currently I have most of the electronic (PDF/DJVU) material in a single hierarchical folder and use filename search. Two questions. Do you have a similar problem, and how do you deal with it? Can you recommend some software to help with organizing bibliographic information, including web links. Easy editing of hierarchy and tags is a must. I would also like to be able to write own comments for each entry. [With my current scheme, just using the filesystem, does not provide other metadata.] A plugin for emacs would be perfect, but it's not a must. (org-mode MIGHT be adequate).

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  • The right way to find a SPUser in SharePoint 2013

    - by Sahil Malik
    SharePoint, WCF and Azure Trainings: more information Obvious stuff out of the way, SharePoint 2013 is claims and claims only. If you’re still pimping classic windows identities, you’re a fool. But this creates an interesting wrinkle. How the hell is one supposed to find a SPUser? This, especially given that a user id now looks like this - i:0#.w|ws\administrator .. all of those have a meaning .. i stands for identity 0 is the zero’th registered claims provider w before the pipe is windows and after pipe is the final username. What if I had a hotmail account called ws\administrator? You see, browsing through web.SiteUsers, is no longer enough. Not only is it error prone, it won’t work for any other identity type besides Windows. So what is a poor SharePoint developer to do? Easy. Use the cod below instead, Read full article ....

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  • How to insert countdown into a video file

    - by student
    Is there an easy way to insert a big countdown clock after a given time position of a video file in linux? The countdown clock should count down in seconds from n to 0. Edit: I don't want to insert manually pictures showing the nth second. It is clear to me how to do that. What I want is an automatic way to do this: Set the number of seconds for the countdown (e.g. 64 or 80 seconds) Set the time where to insert the countdown in a given video And finally get the video with inserted countdown at specified position as a result. It would be nice if this would be possible in a graphical video editor like openshot. However it would also be ok to have a command line solution for this.

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  • How to Navigate Directly From One Table to Another in Word 2013

    - by Lori Kaufman
    Jumping to a specific page in Word is a common task and easy to do using the Find and Replace dialog box. You can also use this same tab to jump from one table directly to the next table in your document. Your cursor does not have to be in a table to jump to the next table. Put the cursor in any paragraph or table and press F5 or use the Ctrl + G keystroke combination to open the Find and Replace dialog box. The Go To tab is automatically selected. Select Table from the Go to what list and click Next. The next table in your document is selected and the Find and Replace dialog box stays open.    

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  • When should I use AtomPub?

    - by Gary Rowe
    I have been conducting some research into RESTful web service design and I've reached what I think is a key decision point so I thought I'd offer it up to the community to get some advice. In keeping with the principles of a RESTful architecture I want to present a discoverable API, so I will be supporting the various HTTP verbs as fully as possible. My difficulty comes with the choice of representation of those resources. You see, it would be easy for me to come up with my own API that covers how search results are to be presented and how links to other resources are provided, but this would be unique to my application. I've read about the Atom Publishing Protocol (RFC 5023), and how OData promotes its use, but it seems to add an extra level of abstraction over what is (currently) a rather simple API. So my question is, when should a developer select AtomPub as their choice of representation - if at all? And if not, what is the current recommended approach?

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  • How to disable three finger gestures on touchpad?

    - by oznah
    I am using 12.04 on a macbook pro. Everything works really well. I want to disable 3 finger gestures. It is way to easy to accidentally drag/move a window(3 finger gesture) while scrolling(2 finger gesture) when using a touchpad. I found this answer on ask ubuntu. It was marked answered but it is not. The functionality is still there. All this recommendation does is disable the drag marks on the window. This may be tricky because I want to disable 3 finger gestures but not 2 finger gestures. (ie I don't want to disable touchpad gestures all together)

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  • Orbital Battle for Terra Wallpaper

    - by Asian Angel
    Battle for Terra [DesktopNexus] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Should You Delete Windows 7 Service Pack Backup Files to Save Space? What Can Super Mario Teach Us About Graphics Technology? Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is Released: But Should You Install It? How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) Manage Your Favorite Social Accounts in Chrome and Iron with Seesmic E.T. II – Extinction [Fake Movie Sequel Video] Remastered King’s Quest Games Offer Classic Gaming on Modern Machines Compare Your Internet Cost and Speed to Global Averages [Infographic] Orbital Battle for Terra Wallpaper WizMouse Enables Mouse Over Scrolling on Any Window

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  • How can I convert an image from raw data in Android without any munging?

    - by stephelton
    I have raw image data (may be png, jpg, ...) and I want it converted in Android without changing its pixel depth (bpp). In particular, when I load a grayscale (8 bpp) image that I want to use as alpha (glTexImage() with GL_ALPHA), it converts it to 16 bpp (presumably 5_6_5). While I do have a plan b (actually, I'm probably on plan 'e' by now, this is really becoming annoying) I would really like to discover an easy way to do this using what is readily available in the api. So far, I'm using BitmapFactory.decodeByteArray(). While I'm at it. I'm doing this from a native environment via jni (passing the buffer in from C, and a new buffer back to C from Java). Any portable solution in C/C++ would be preferable, but I don't want to introduce anything that might break in future versions of Android, etc.

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  • How are you using the Managed Extensibility Framework?

    - by dboarman
    I have been working with MEF for about 2 weeks. I started thinking about what MEF is for, researching to find out how to use MEF, and finally implementing a Host with 3 modules. The contracts are proving to be easy to grasp and the modules are easily managed. Although MEF has a very practical use, I am wondering to what extent? I mean, is everyone going to be rewriting existing applications for extensibility? Yes, that sounds, and is insanely impractical. Rhetorically speaking: how is MEF affecting the current trends in programming? have you begun looking for opportunities to use MEF? have you begun planning a major re-write of an existing app that may benefit from extensibility? That said, my questions are: how do I know when I should plan a new project with extensibility? how will I know if an existing project needs to be re-written for extensibility? Is anyone using MEF?

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  • Showing All Pages in a SharePoint Wiki Library

    - by Damon Armstrong
    Opening a SharePoint wiki takes you to the wiki homepage, which is what most users want and expect.  Administrators, on the other hand, will occasionally need to see a full list of wiki pages in the wiki library.  Getting to this view is really easy, but you have to know where to look. The problem is that when viewing a wiki page SharePoint conveniently removes the Library tab from the ribbon, and the Library tab houses the controls you normally use to switch views.  Many an admin has been frustrated by the fact that they cannot get to this functionality.  A bit more searching, however, reveals that the Page tab in the ribbon contains a button in the Page Library group called View All Pages.  As the name suggests, clicking this button displays a document library style view all the pages in the wiki.  It also makes the Library tab available to switch views and gives administrators access to all of the standard Library tab functionality.

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  • Top 50 ASP.Net Interview Questions & Answers

    - by Samir R. Bhogayta
    1. What is ASP.Net? It is a framework developed by Microsoft on which we can develop new generation web sites using web forms(aspx), MVC, HTML, Javascript, CSS etc. Its successor of Microsoft Active Server Pages(ASP). Currently there is ASP.NET 4.0, which is used to develop web sites. There are various page extensions provided by Microsoft that are being used for web site development. Eg: aspx, asmx, ascx, ashx, cs, vb, html, xml etc. 2. What’s the use of Response.Output.Write()? We can write formatted output  using Response.Output.Write(). 3. In which event of page cycle is the ViewState available?   After the Init() and before the Page_Load(). 4. What is the difference between Server.Transfer and Response.Redirect?   In Server.Transfer page processing transfers from one page to the other page without making a round-trip back to the client’s browser.  This provides a faster response with a little less overhead on the server.  The clients url history list or current url Server does not update in case of Server.Transfer. Response.Redirect is used to redirect the user’s browser to another page or site.  It performs trip back to the client where the client’s browser is redirected to the new page.  The user’s browser history list is updated to reflect the new address. 5. From which base class all Web Forms are inherited? Page class.  6. What are the different validators in ASP.NET? Required field Validator Range  Validator Compare Validator Custom Validator Regular expression Validator Summary Validator 7. Which validator control you use if you need to make sure the values in two different controls matched? Compare Validator control. 8. What is ViewState? ViewState is used to retain the state of server-side objects between page post backs. 9. Where the viewstate is stored after the page postback? ViewState is stored in a hidden field on the page at client side.  ViewState is transported to the client and back to the server, and is not stored on the server or any other external source. 10. How long the items in ViewState exists? They exist for the life of the current page. 11. What are the different Session state management options available in ASP.NET? In-Process Out-of-Process. In-Process stores the session in memory on the web server. Out-of-Process Session state management stores data in an external server.  The external server may be either a SQL Server or a State Server.  All objects stored in session are required to be serializable for Out-of-Process state management. 12. How you can add an event handler?  Using the Attributes property of server side control. e.g. [csharp] btnSubmit.Attributes.Add(“onMouseOver”,”JavascriptCode();”) [/csharp] 13. What is caching? Caching is a technique used to increase performance by keeping frequently accessed data or files in memory. The request for a cached file/data will be accessed from cache instead of actual location of that file. 14. What are the different types of caching? ASP.NET has 3 kinds of caching : Output Caching, Fragment Caching, Data Caching. 15. Which type if caching will be used if we want to cache the portion of a page instead of whole page? Fragment Caching: It caches the portion of the page generated by the request. For that, we can create user controls with the below code: [xml] <%@ OutputCache Duration=”120? VaryByParam=”CategoryID;SelectedID”%> [/xml] 16. List the events in page life cycle.   1) Page_PreInit 2) Page_Init 3) Page_InitComplete 4) Page_PreLoad 5) Page_Load 6) Page_LoadComplete 7) Page_PreRender 8)Render 17. Can we have a web application running without web.Config file?   Yes 18. Is it possible to create web application with both webforms and mvc? Yes. We have to include below mvc assembly references in the web forms application to create hybrid application. [csharp] System.Web.Mvc System.Web.Razor System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations [/csharp] 19. Can we add code files of different languages in App_Code folder?   No. The code files must be in same language to be kept in App_code folder. 20. What is Protected Configuration? It is a feature used to secure connection string information. 21. Write code to send e-mail from an ASP.NET application? [csharp] MailMessage mailMess = new MailMessage (); mailMess.From = “[email protected]”; mailMess.To = “[email protected]”; mailMess.Subject = “Test email”; mailMess.Body = “Hi This is a test mail.”; SmtpMail.SmtpServer = “localhost”; SmtpMail.Send (mailMess); [/csharp] MailMessage and SmtpMail are classes defined System.Web.Mail namespace.  22. How can we prevent browser from caching an ASPX page?   We can SetNoStore on HttpCachePolicy object exposed by the Response object’s Cache property: [csharp] Response.Cache.SetNoStore (); Response.Write (DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString ()); [/csharp] 23. What is the good practice to implement validations in aspx page? Client-side validation is the best way to validate data of a web page. It reduces the network traffic and saves server resources. 24. What are the event handlers that we can have in Global.asax file? Application Events: Application_Start , Application_End, Application_AcquireRequestState, Application_AuthenticateRequest, Application_AuthorizeRequest, Application_BeginRequest, Application_Disposed,  Application_EndRequest, Application_Error, Application_PostRequestHandlerExecute, Application_PreRequestHandlerExecute, Application_PreSendRequestContent, Application_PreSendRequestHeaders, Application_ReleaseRequestState, Application_ResolveRequestCache, Application_UpdateRequestCache Session Events: Session_Start,Session_End 25. Which protocol is used to call a Web service? HTTP Protocol 26. Can we have multiple web config files for an asp.net application? Yes. 27. What is the difference between web config and machine config? Web config file is specific to a web application where as machine config is specific to a machine or server. There can be multiple web config files into an application where as we can have only one machine config file on a server. 28.  Explain role based security ?   Role Based Security used to implement security based on roles assigned to user groups in the organization. Then we can allow or deny users based on their role in the organization. Windows defines several built-in groups, including Administrators, Users, and Guests. [xml] <AUTHORIZATION>< authorization > < allow roles=”Domain_Name\Administrators” / >   < !– Allow Administrators in domain. — > < deny users=”*”  / >                            < !– Deny anyone else. — > < /authorization > [/xml] 29. What is Cross Page Posting? When we click submit button on a web page, the page post the data to the same page. The technique in which we post the data to different pages is called Cross Page posting. This can be achieved by setting POSTBACKURL property of  the button that causes the postback. Findcontrol method of PreviousPage can be used to get the posted values on the page to which the page has been posted. 30. How can we apply Themes to an asp.net application? We can specify the theme in web.config file. Below is the code example to apply theme: [xml] <configuration> <system.web> <pages theme=”Windows7? /> </system.web> </configuration> [/xml] 31: What is RedirectPermanent in ASP.Net?   RedirectPermanent Performs a permanent redirection from the requested URL to the specified URL. Once the redirection is done, it also returns 301 Moved Permanently responses. 32: What is MVC? MVC is a framework used to create web applications. The web application base builds on  Model-View-Controller pattern which separates the application logic from UI, and the input and events from the user will be controlled by the Controller. 33. Explain the working of passport authentication. First of all it checks passport authentication cookie. If the cookie is not available then the application redirects the user to Passport Sign on page. Passport service authenticates the user details on sign on page and if valid then stores the authenticated cookie on client machine and then redirect the user to requested page 34. What are the advantages of Passport authentication? All the websites can be accessed using single login credentials. So no need to remember login credentials for each web site. Users can maintain his/ her information in a single location. 35. What are the asp.net Security Controls? <asp:Login>: Provides a standard login capability that allows the users to enter their credentials <asp:LoginName>: Allows you to display the name of the logged-in user <asp:LoginStatus>: Displays whether the user is authenticated or not <asp:LoginView>: Provides various login views depending on the selected template <asp:PasswordRecovery>:  email the users their lost password 36: How do you register JavaScript for webcontrols ? We can register javascript for controls using <CONTROL -name>Attribtues.Add(scriptname,scripttext) method. 37. In which event are the controls fully loaded? Page load event. 38: what is boxing and unboxing? Boxing is assigning a value type to reference type variable. Unboxing is reverse of boxing ie. Assigning reference type variable to value type variable. 39. Differentiate strong typing and weak typing In strong typing, the data types of variable are checked at compile time. On the other hand, in case of weak typing the variable data types are checked at runtime. In case of strong typing, there is no chance of compilation error. Scripts use weak typing and hence issues arises at runtime. 40. How we can force all the validation controls to run? The Page.Validate() method is used to force all the validation controls to run and to perform validation. 41. List all templates of the Repeater control. ItemTemplate AlternatingltemTemplate SeparatorTemplate HeaderTemplate FooterTemplate 42. List the major built-in objects in ASP.NET?  Application Request Response Server Session Context Trace 43. What is the appSettings Section in the web.config file? The appSettings block in web config file sets the user-defined values for the whole application. For example, in the following code snippet, the specified ConnectionString section is used throughout the project for database connection: [csharp] <em><configuration> <appSettings> <add key=”ConnectionString” value=”server=local; pwd=password; database=default” /> </appSettings></em> [/csharp] 44.      Which data type does the RangeValidator control support? The data types supported by the RangeValidator control are Integer, Double, String, Currency, and Date. 45. What is the difference between an HtmlInputCheckBox control and anHtmlInputRadioButton control? In HtmlInputCheckBoxcontrol, multiple item selection is possible whereas in HtmlInputRadioButton controls, we can select only single item from the group of items. 46. Which namespaces are necessary to create a localized application? System.Globalization System.Resources 47. What are the different types of cookies in ASP.NET? Session Cookie – Resides on the client machine for a single session until the user does not log out. Persistent Cookie – Resides on a user’s machine for a period specified for its expiry, such as 10 days, one month, and never. 48. What is the file extension of web service? Web services have file extension .asmx.. 49. What are the components of ADO.NET? The components of ADO.Net are Dataset, Data Reader, Data Adaptor, Command, connection. 50. What is the difference between ExecuteScalar and ExecuteNonQuery? ExecuteScalar returns output value where as ExecuteNonQuery does not return any value but the number of rows affected by the query. ExecuteScalar used for fetching a single value and ExecuteNonQuery used to execute Insert and Update statements.

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  • PHPForm Generate PDF Send to Email

    - by tom
    I'm a beginner in PHP I was wondering if this is easy to do or if i'd have to outsource this to a programmer - Basically when a user fills in the PHP Form and submits it I need this to generate as a PDF which will then email/attach to MY email and NOT the user who submitted this form. I have looked at tcpdf, fpdi but i dont think any of those scripts allow me to do this specifically as from what i heard it generates a download link for the user, and that is not what i need. If anyone can help me it would be greatly appreciated. Regards Tom

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  • Grams to Pounds: A Domino Chain Reaction [Video]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Most of us have seen a domino knock down or two in our day, but this demonstration video shows how a series of increasingly larger dominoes allow a tiny domino to knock over a 100 pound domino. A domino can knock over another domino about 50% larger than itself. A chain of dominos of increasing size makes a kind of mechanical chain reaction that starts with a tiny push and knocks down an impressively large domino. The only question we have after watching the video is: where can we find 29 appropriately sized dominoes? [via Neatorama] HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me? HTG Explains: How Windows 8′s Secure Boot Feature Works & What It Means for Linux Hack Your Kindle for Easy Font Customization

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  • How to add support for the JPEG image format

    - by Samir Sabri
    After installing Imagemagick, I've tested it with jpg image, like this: identify 1.jpg But, I got this result: identify: no decode delegate for this image format `1.jpg' @ error/constitute.c/ReadImage/550. Then, I tried to add support for JPEG format by: yum install libjpeg libjpeg-devel but, I got: Setting up Install Process No package libjpeg available. No package libjpeg-devel available. Nothing to do I thought I need to update the apt-get, I did: apt-get install libjpeg libjpeg-devel but, I got: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done E: Unable to locate package libjpeg E: Unable to locate package libjpeg-devel Is there an easy way to get those libraries installed ? I am using Ubuntu 12.04.

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  • Parsing stdout with custom format or standard format?

    - by linquize
    To integrate with other executables, a executable may launch another executable and capture its output from stdout. But most programs writes the output message to stdout in custom format and usually in human readable format. So it requires the system integrator to write a function to parse the output, which is considered trouble and the parser code may be buggy. Do you think this is old fashioned? Most Unix-style programs do that. Very few programs write to stdout in standard format such as XML or JSON, which is more modern. Example: Veracity (DVCS) writes JSON to stdout. Should we switch to use modern formats? For a console program, human readable or easy parsable: which is more important ?

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  • Poor Customer Service Example

    - by MightyZot
    Lately I have been frustrated by examples of poor customer service. At least one is worth writing about because I don’t think companies realize the effects of their service policies on loyal customers. Bad Customer Service Example #1 Recently, I received an offer in the mail from my cable company, suddenLink. The offer was for an updated TiVo for $12/mo. Normally I ignore offers like this one because I already have the service they’re offering and many times advertisers are offering alternatives to what is already an excellent product offering. I tend to exhibit a high level of loyalty to the products and brands that I use. In this case, we were looking to upgrade our TiVo and this deal is attractive for several reasons: I don’t want to pay a huge amount up-front for the device, so paying a monthly amount for the device is attractive to me. My entertainment is almost all on a single invoice. I’m no longer going to be billed by suddenLink and TiVo. TiVo is still involved, so I am still loyal to the brand I love. I have resisted moving to other DVRs and services for over a decade. I called suddenLink to order the new TiVo and was rewarded with great customer service. In fact, I can’t remember ever getting poor customer service from suddenLink. They are always there to answer my technical support questions and they are very responsive to outages. Then I called TiVo. First of all, I chose the option on the phone system to change or cancel my service, which was consequently met by an inordinate hold time. (I’m calling this time inordinate because I get through very quickly if I want to purchase something.) This is a trend that I’ve noticed with companies – if you want me to be loyal to you, it should be just as easy to cancel your service as it is to purchase it. Because, I should never be cancelling because I am unhappy. And, if you ever want my business again, or more importantly a reference, then you’d better make the exit door open just as easy as the enter door. After quite some time on hold, I talked to “Victor” who was very courteous. Victor canceled my service and then told me that I could keep my current TiVo and transfer recorded programs to it from the new TiVo.  Cool I said, but what about the cost?  He said there was no extra cost.  This was also attractive to me because I paid for my TiVo and it would be good to use it for something at least.  That was four months ago. This month I noticed that TiVo was still charging me for my original service. I was a little upset, but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, I am a loyal TiVo customer and I have resisted moving to other solutions for over a decade. I’m sure they will do whatever it takes to keep my business, through TiVo or through suddenLink. After quite some time on hold, I was able to talk to a customer service representative, “Les”. I explained that I am a loyal TiVo customer, but I purchased this deal through my cable provider. I’m still with TiVo, I just wanted a single bill and to take advantage of the pay-over-time option. “Les” told me that he was very sorry to hear that I’m leaving TiVo, to which I responded again that I wasn’t leaving TiVo, I just want one invoice, and to take advantage of the pay-over-time. So, after explaining that I requested a termination of the non-suddenLink account (TiVo can see both of course), I was put on hold again for quite some time while my refund was “approved”.  “Les” said that he could see my cancellation request back in July. Note that it is now November, so they have billed me inappropriately four times. After quite some time, he came back on the line and told me that he was able to “get me most of my money back.” He got approval to refund 90 days. Even though I requested cancellation of one of my accounts, TiVo has that cancellation request on file and they admit overbilling me, I am going to get “most” of my money back. To top this experience off, when we were ready to hang up, “Les” told me that he was sorry to see me go and that he hoped I would come back to TiVo again. Again, I explained to “Les” that I have not left TiVo. I am just paying them through suddenLink. At that point, he went into a small dissertation about how this is a special arrangement they have with suddenLink and very few others. He made me feel like I was doing something wrong. Why should I feel that way? TiVo made the deal with suddenLink, not me, and the deal seemed like a good compromise for me to be able to get what I need. Here is what TiVo Customer Service accomplished on those two calls – I no longer feel like I need to be loyal to the TiVo brand or service. If I had been treated better on these two calls, I would still be recommending TiVo to my friends. They would still be getting revenue from a loyal customer, who paid the same rate for over a decade, and this article wouldn’t be here for you to read. Interesting… In my opinion, if you want brand loyalty, be loyal to your customers!

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