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Tripous introduction

An open source desktop database (data entry) application framework

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Javascript parent and child window functions

- by Mike Thornley

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Lab 9-3</TITLE> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">  </SCRIPT> </HEAD> <BODY> <H3>CIW Web Languages</H3> <HR> <FORM NAME="myForm"> <INPUT TYPE="button" VALUE="open new window" onClick="myFunction();">  <input type="button" value="Click to open child window" onclick="javascript:void(myWin.myTest());"/> </FORM> <P> </BODY> </HTML> To explain further what my initial query was, the code above, should open the child window (myWin) with the second button, the 'Open child window' button without the need to open the window with the first button or do anything else. It should simply call the myWin.myTest()function The child window will open when the second button is pressed but needs to have the child window open first (first button push) before it'll work. This is not the intended purpose, the 'Open child window' button should work without anything else needing to be done. For some reason the parent window isn't communicating with the myWin window and myTest fucntion. It's not homework, it's part of a certification course lab and is coded in the manner I have been shown to understand as correct. DTD isn't included as the focus is the JavaScript. I code correctly with regards to that and other W3C requirements.

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Adding Login does not work. Error: "Cannot open database \ requested by the login. The login failed.\r\nLogin failed for user"

- by Jacob Pressures

I'm receiving this error message: Cannot open database \"Northwind\" requested by the login. The login failed.\r\nLogin failed for user 'Mike\Mike Simpson' When i try to add the user, which is me. Then sql server says Msg 15063, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The login already has an account under a different user name. HEre is my connection string: "Data Source=Localhost;Initial Catalog=Northwind;Integrated Security=True" I'm using SSMS not SQL Server express I don't know what else I should do. This application used to work before i zipped it up. Thanks!

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Releasing Excel after using Interop

- by figus

Hi everyone I've read many post looking for my answer, but all are similar to this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1610743/reading-excel-files-in-vb-net-leaves-excel-process-hanging My problem is that I don't quit the app... The idea is this: If a User has Excel Open, if he has the file I'm interested in open... get that Excel instance and do whatever I want to do... But I don't to close his File after I'm done... I want him to keep working on it, the problem is that when he closes Excel... The process keeps running... and running... and running after the user closes Excel with the X button... this is how I try to do it This piece is used to know if he has Excel open, and in the For I check for the file name I'm interested in. Try oApp = GetObject(, "Excel.Application") libroAbierto = True For Each libro As Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Workbook In oApp.Workbooks If libro.Name = EquipoASeccionIdSeccion.Text & ".xlsm" Then Exit Try End If Next libroAbierto = False Catch ex As Exception oApp = New Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application End Try here would be my code... if he hasn't Excel open, I create a new instance, open the file and everything else. My code ends with this: If Not libroAbierto Then libroSeccion.Close(SaveChanges:=True) oApp.Quit() Else oApp.UserControl = True libroSeccion.Save() End If System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(libroOriginal) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(libroSeccion) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(origen) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(copiada) System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FinalReleaseComObject(oApp) libroOriginal = Nothing libroSeccion = Nothing oApp = Nothing origen = Nothing copiada = Nothing nuevosGuardados = True So you can see that, if I opened the file, I call oApp.Quit() and everything else and the Excel Process ends after a few seconds (maybe 5 aprox.) BUT if I mean the user to keep the file open (not calling Quit()), Excel process keeps running after the user closes Excel with the X button. Is there any way to do what I try to do?? Control a open instance of excel and releasing everything so when the user closes it with the X button, the Excel Process dies normally??? Thanks!!!

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Can someone tell me what this Java class does? I/O related

- by anon

I am relatively new to Java and trying to learn the I/O syntax. Could someone give me a general overview of what this code does? Thanks!! import java.io.*; public class FileReader { private String openFile=""; private String saveFile=""; FileReader(openFile, saveFile) { this.openFile=openFile; this.saveFile=saveFile; } public String process(){ System.out.println(this.openFile); System.out.println(this.saveFile); BufferedReader open=null; FileReader openFR=null; FileWriter save=null; int counter=0; String output=""; if(openFile.equals("")){ return "No open file specifified\n"; } if(this.saveFile.equals("")){ return "No save file specified\n"; } try { openFR = new FileReader(this.openFile); open = new BufferedReader(openFR); } catch (FileNotFoundException e) { return ("Open file no longer exists\n"); } try { save = new FileWriter(saveFile); } catch (IOException e){ return ("Error saving the file\n"); } try{ String temp = open.readLine(); while(temp != null){ temp = open.readLine(); counter++; save.write(output + "\n"); } } catch (IOException e){ e.getStackTrace(); return ("Error reading open file"); } try { save.flush(); } catch (IOException e) { e.printStackTrace(); return ("Error writing save file"); } return "Operation completed successfully"; } }

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Most efficient way to write over file after reading

- by Ryan McClure

I'm reading in some data from a file, manipulating it, and then overwriting it to the same file. Until now, I've been doing it like so: open (my $inFile, $file) or die "Could not open $file: $!"; $retString .= join ('', <$inFile>); ... close ($inFile); open (my $outFile, $file) or die "Could not open $file: $!"; print $outFile, $retString; close ($inFile); However I realized I can just use the truncate function and open the file for read/write: open (my $inFile, '+<', $file) or die "Could not open $file: $!"; $retString .= join ('', <$inFile>); ... truncate $inFile, 0; print $inFile $retString; close ($inFile); I don't see any examples of this anywhere. It seems to work well, but am I doing it correctly? Is there a better way to do this?

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Reload images in a UIWebView after they have been downloaded by a background thread

- by dantastic

I have an application that frequently checks in with a server and downloads a batch of articles to the iphone. The articles are in html and just stored using core data. An article has 0-n images on the page. Downloading all associated images at the same time as the text will be too slow and take too much bandwidth. Users are not likely to open every article. If they open an article once it is likely they will open it several times. So I want to download and store the images locally when they are needed. These articles are listed in a UITableView. When you tap an article you pop open a UIWebView that displays the article. I have a function that checks if I have downloaded the images associated with the article already. If I have I just pop open the the UIWebView - everything works fine. If I don't have the images downloaded I go off and download them and store them to my Documents directory. Although this i working, the app is hanging while the images are downloading. Not very tidy. I want the article to open in a snap and download the images with the article open. So what I've done is I check if the images are downloaded, if they aren't I go ahead and just "touch" the files I need and load the webview. The UIWebView opens up but the images referenced contain no data. Then in a background thread I download the images and overwrite the "dummy" ones. This will save the images and everything but it won't reload the images in my current UIWebView. I have to go back out of the article back back in again to see the images. Are there any ways around this? reloading just an image in a UIWebView?

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Perl Capture and Modify STDERR before it prints to a file

- by MicrobicTiger

I have a perl script which performs multiple external commands and prints the outputs from STDERR and STDOUT to a logfile along with a series of my own print statements to act as documentation on the process. My problem is that the STDERR repeats ~identical prints as example below. I'd like to capture this before it prints and replace with the final result for each of the commands i run. blocks evaluated : 0 blocks evaluated : 10000 blocks evaluated : 20000 blocks evaluated : 30000 ... blocks evaluated : 3420000 blocks evaluated : 3428776 Here's how I'm getting STDOUT and STDERR my $logfile = "Logfile.log"; #log file name #--- Open log file for append if specified --- if ( $logfile ) { open ( OLDOUT, ">&", STDOUT ) or die "ERROR: Can't backup STDOUT location.\n"; close STDOUT; open ( STDOUT, ">", $logfile ) or die "ERROR: Logfile [$logfile] cannot be opened.\n"; } if ( $logfile ) { open ( OLDERR, ">&", STDERR ) or die "ERROR: Can't backup STDERR location.\n"; close STDERR; open ( STDERR, '>&STDOUT' ) or die "ERROR: failed to pass STDERR to STDOUT.\n"; } and closing them close STDERR; open ( STDERR, ">&", OLDERR ) or die "ERROR: Can't fix that first thing you broke!\n"; close STDOUT; open ( STDOUT, ">&", OLDOUT ) or die "ERROR: Can't fix that other thing you broke!\n"; How do I access the STDERR when each print is occurring to do the replace? Or prevent it from printing if it isn't the last of the batch. Many Thanks in advance.

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jquery to create array from form data

- by AndrewStevens

I've been wrestling with this problem for a couple hours now. Essentially, what I need to do is take the following or similar HTML: <div id="excpdivs"> <div class="excpdiv" id="excpdiv0"> Date: <input name="excp[0][date]"> Open: <input name="excp[0][open]"> Close: <input name="excp[0][close]"> </div> <div class="excpdiv" id="expdiv1"> Date: <input name="excp[1][date]"> Open: <input name="excp[1][open]"> Close: <input name="excp[1][close]"> </div> and get an array similar to the following to a php script: Array ( [0] => Array ( [date] => 2012-09-15 [open] => 3:00 [close] => 5:00 ) [1] => Array ( [date] => 2012-09-16 [open] => 2:00 [close] => 5:00 ) ) My main problem is getting the values from the input elements. My latest attempt is the following: var results = []; $(".excpdiv").each(function(){ var item = {}; var inpts = $(this).find("input"); item.date = $(inpts.get(0)).val(); item.open = $(inpts.get(1)).val(); item.close = $(inpts.get(2)).val(); results.push(item); }); Am I on the right track or am I hopelessly lost?

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3D Graphics with XNA Game Studio 4.0 bug in light map?

- by Eibis

i'm following the tutorials on 3D Graphics with XNA Game Studio 4.0 and I came up with an horrible effect when I tried to implement the Light Map http://i.stack.imgur.com/BUWvU.jpg this effect shows up when I look towards the center of the house (and it moves with me). it has this shape because I'm using a sphere to represent light; using other light shapes gives different results. I'm using a class PreLightingRenderer: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using Dhpoware; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; namespace XNAFirstPersonCamera { public class PrelightingRenderer { // Normal, depth, and light map render targets RenderTarget2D depthTarg; RenderTarget2D normalTarg; RenderTarget2D lightTarg; // Depth/normal effect and light mapping effect Effect depthNormalEffect; Effect lightingEffect; // Point light (sphere) mesh Model lightMesh; // List of models, lights, and the camera public List<CModel> Models { get; set; } public List<PPPointLight> Lights { get; set; } public FirstPersonCamera Camera { get; set; } GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice; int viewWidth = 0, viewHeight = 0; public PrelightingRenderer(GraphicsDevice GraphicsDevice, ContentManager Content) { viewWidth = GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width; viewHeight = GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height; // Create the three render targets depthTarg = new RenderTarget2D(GraphicsDevice, viewWidth, viewHeight, false, SurfaceFormat.Single, DepthFormat.Depth24); normalTarg = new RenderTarget2D(GraphicsDevice, viewWidth, viewHeight, false, SurfaceFormat.Color, DepthFormat.Depth24); lightTarg = new RenderTarget2D(GraphicsDevice, viewWidth, viewHeight, false, SurfaceFormat.Color, DepthFormat.Depth24); // Load effects depthNormalEffect = Content.Load<Effect>(@"Effects\PPDepthNormal"); lightingEffect = Content.Load<Effect>(@"Effects\PPLight"); // Set effect parameters to light mapping effect lightingEffect.Parameters["viewportWidth"].SetValue(viewWidth); lightingEffect.Parameters["viewportHeight"].SetValue(viewHeight); // Load point light mesh and set light mapping effect to it lightMesh = Content.Load<Model>(@"Models\PPLightMesh"); lightMesh.Meshes[0].MeshParts[0].Effect = lightingEffect; this.graphicsDevice = GraphicsDevice; } public void Draw() { drawDepthNormalMap(); drawLightMap(); prepareMainPass(); } void drawDepthNormalMap() { // Set the render targets to 'slots' 1 and 2 graphicsDevice.SetRenderTargets(normalTarg, depthTarg); // Clear the render target to 1 (infinite depth) graphicsDevice.Clear(Color.White); // Draw each model with the PPDepthNormal effect foreach (CModel model in Models) { model.CacheEffects(); model.SetModelEffect(depthNormalEffect, false); model.Draw(Camera.ViewMatrix, Camera.ProjectionMatrix, Camera.Position); model.RestoreEffects(); } // Un-set the render targets graphicsDevice.SetRenderTargets(null); } void drawLightMap() { // Set the depth and normal map info to the effect lightingEffect.Parameters["DepthTexture"].SetValue(depthTarg); lightingEffect.Parameters["NormalTexture"].SetValue(normalTarg); // Calculate the view * projection matrix Matrix viewProjection = Camera.ViewMatrix * Camera.ProjectionMatrix; // Set the inverse of the view * projection matrix to the effect Matrix invViewProjection = Matrix.Invert(viewProjection); lightingEffect.Parameters["InvViewProjection"].SetValue(invViewProjection); // Set the render target to the graphics device graphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(lightTarg); // Clear the render target to black (no light) graphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Black); // Set render states to additive (lights will add their influences) graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Additive; graphicsDevice.DepthStencilState = DepthStencilState.None; foreach (PPPointLight light in Lights) { // Set the light's parameters to the effect light.SetEffectParameters(lightingEffect); // Calculate the world * view * projection matrix and set it to // the effect Matrix wvp = (Matrix.CreateScale(light.Attenuation) * Matrix.CreateTranslation(light.Position)) * viewProjection; lightingEffect.Parameters["WorldViewProjection"].SetValue(wvp); // Determine the distance between the light and camera float dist = Vector3.Distance(Camera.Position, light.Position); // If the camera is inside the light-sphere, invert the cull mode // to draw the inside of the sphere instead of the outside if (dist < light.Attenuation) graphicsDevice.RasterizerState = RasterizerState.CullClockwise; // Draw the point-light-sphere lightMesh.Meshes[0].Draw(); // Revert the cull mode graphicsDevice.RasterizerState = RasterizerState.CullCounterClockwise; } // Revert the blending and depth render states graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; graphicsDevice.DepthStencilState = DepthStencilState.Default; // Un-set the render target graphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); } void prepareMainPass() { foreach (CModel model in Models) foreach (ModelMesh mesh in model.Model.Meshes) foreach (ModelMeshPart part in mesh.MeshParts) { // Set the light map and viewport parameters to each model's effect if (part.Effect.Parameters["LightTexture"] != null) part.Effect.Parameters["LightTexture"].SetValue(lightTarg); if (part.Effect.Parameters["viewportWidth"] != null) part.Effect.Parameters["viewportWidth"].SetValue(viewWidth); if (part.Effect.Parameters["viewportHeight"] != null) part.Effect.Parameters["viewportHeight"].SetValue(viewHeight); } } } } that uses three effect: PPDepthNormal.fx float4x4 World; float4x4 View; float4x4 Projection; struct VertexShaderInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float3 Normal : NORMAL0; }; struct VertexShaderOutput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 Depth : TEXCOORD0; float3 Normal : TEXCOORD1; }; VertexShaderOutput VertexShaderFunction(VertexShaderInput input) { VertexShaderOutput output; float4x4 viewProjection = mul(View, Projection); float4x4 worldViewProjection = mul(World, viewProjection); output.Position = mul(input.Position, worldViewProjection); output.Normal = mul(input.Normal, World); // Position's z and w components correspond to the distance // from camera and distance of the far plane respectively output.Depth.xy = output.Position.zw; return output; } // We render to two targets simultaneously, so we can't // simply return a float4 from the pixel shader struct PixelShaderOutput { float4 Normal : COLOR0; float4 Depth : COLOR1; }; PixelShaderOutput PixelShaderFunction(VertexShaderOutput input) { PixelShaderOutput output; // Depth is stored as distance from camera / far plane distance // to get value between 0 and 1 output.Depth = input.Depth.x / input.Depth.y; // Normal map simply stores X, Y and Z components of normal // shifted from (-1 to 1) range to (0 to 1) range output.Normal.xyz = (normalize(input.Normal).xyz / 2) + .5; // Other components must be initialized to compile output.Depth.a = 1; output.Normal.a = 1; return output; } technique Technique1 { pass Pass1 { VertexShader = compile vs_1_1 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PixelShaderFunction(); } } PPLight.fx float4x4 WorldViewProjection; float4x4 InvViewProjection; texture2D DepthTexture; texture2D NormalTexture; sampler2D depthSampler = sampler_state { texture = ; minfilter = point; magfilter = point; mipfilter = point; }; sampler2D normalSampler = sampler_state { texture = ; minfilter = point; magfilter = point; mipfilter = point; }; float3 LightColor; float3 LightPosition; float LightAttenuation; // Include shared functions #include "PPShared.vsi" struct VertexShaderInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; }; struct VertexShaderOutput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float4 LightPosition : TEXCOORD0; }; VertexShaderOutput VertexShaderFunction(VertexShaderInput input) { VertexShaderOutput output; output.Position = mul(input.Position, WorldViewProjection); output.LightPosition = output.Position; return output; } float4 PixelShaderFunction(VertexShaderOutput input) : COLOR0 { // Find the pixel coordinates of the input position in the depth // and normal textures float2 texCoord = postProjToScreen(input.LightPosition) + halfPixel(); // Extract the depth for this pixel from the depth map float4 depth = tex2D(depthSampler, texCoord); // Recreate the position with the UV coordinates and depth value float4 position; position.x = texCoord.x * 2 - 1; position.y = (1 - texCoord.y) * 2 - 1; position.z = depth.r; position.w = 1.0f; // Transform position from screen space to world space position = mul(position, InvViewProjection); position.xyz /= position.w; // Extract the normal from the normal map and move from // 0 to 1 range to -1 to 1 range float4 normal = (tex2D(normalSampler, texCoord) - .5) * 2; // Perform the lighting calculations for a point light float3 lightDirection = normalize(LightPosition - position); float lighting = clamp(dot(normal, lightDirection), 0, 1); // Attenuate the light to simulate a point light float d = distance(LightPosition, position); float att = 1 - pow(d / LightAttenuation, 6); return float4(LightColor * lighting * att, 1); } technique Technique1 { pass Pass1 { VertexShader = compile vs_1_1 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PixelShaderFunction(); } } PPShared.vsi has some common functions: float viewportWidth; float viewportHeight; // Calculate the 2D screen position of a 3D position float2 postProjToScreen(float4 position) { float2 screenPos = position.xy / position.w; return 0.5f * (float2(screenPos.x, -screenPos.y) + 1); } // Calculate the size of one half of a pixel, to convert // between texels and pixels float2 halfPixel() { return 0.5f / float2(viewportWidth, viewportHeight); } and finally from the Game class I set up in LoadContent with: effect = Content.Load(@"Effects\PPModel"); models[0] = new CModel(Content.Load(@"Models\teapot"), new Vector3(-50, 80, 0), new Vector3(0, 0, 0), 1f, Content.Load(@"Textures\prova_texture_autocad"), GraphicsDevice); house = new CModel(Content.Load(@"Models\house"), new Vector3(0, 0, 0), new Vector3((float)-Math.PI / 2, 0, 0), 35.0f, Content.Load(@"Textures\prova_texture_autocad"), GraphicsDevice); models[0].SetModelEffect(effect, true); house.SetModelEffect(effect, true); renderer = new PrelightingRenderer(GraphicsDevice, Content); renderer.Models = new List(); renderer.Models.Add(house); renderer.Models.Add(models[0]); renderer.Lights = new List() { new PPPointLight(new Vector3(0, 120, 0), Color.White * .85f, 2000) }; where PPModel.fx is: float4x4 World; float4x4 View; float4x4 Projection; texture2D BasicTexture; sampler2D basicTextureSampler = sampler_state { texture = ; addressU = wrap; addressV = wrap; minfilter = anisotropic; magfilter = anisotropic; mipfilter = linear; }; bool TextureEnabled = true; texture2D LightTexture; sampler2D lightSampler = sampler_state { texture = ; minfilter = point; magfilter = point; mipfilter = point; }; float3 AmbientColor = float3(0.15, 0.15, 0.15); float3 DiffuseColor; #include "PPShared.vsi" struct VertexShaderInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 UV : TEXCOORD0; }; struct VertexShaderOutput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 UV : TEXCOORD0; float4 PositionCopy : TEXCOORD1; }; VertexShaderOutput VertexShaderFunction(VertexShaderInput input) { VertexShaderOutput output; float4x4 worldViewProjection = mul(World, mul(View, Projection)); output.Position = mul(input.Position, worldViewProjection); output.PositionCopy = output.Position; output.UV = input.UV; return output; } float4 PixelShaderFunction(VertexShaderOutput input) : COLOR0 { // Sample model's texture float3 basicTexture = tex2D(basicTextureSampler, input.UV); if (!TextureEnabled) basicTexture = float4(1, 1, 1, 1); // Extract lighting value from light map float2 texCoord = postProjToScreen(input.PositionCopy) + halfPixel(); float3 light = tex2D(lightSampler, texCoord); light += AmbientColor; return float4(basicTexture * DiffuseColor * light, 1); } technique Technique1 { pass Pass1 { VertexShader = compile vs_1_1 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_2_0 PixelShaderFunction(); } } I don't have any idea on what's wrong... googling the web I found that this tutorial may have some bug but I don't know if it's the LightModel fault (the sphere) or in a shader or in the class PrelightingRenderer. Any help is very appreciated, thank you for reading!

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Cannot run "Automation Anywhere" exe files from console (session 0) on Windows Server 2003 64 bit

- by Tyler

I have a simple exe created from an Automation Anywhere task that displays a message box saying hello world. I created this simple exe just for debugging the following issue. When I log in to the console (session 0), and run the Automation Anywhere created executable, it starts to run the task, it shows up in the applications and processes list in the task manager and it shows the two "loading..." windows briefly on the screen, just like normal. But after that, nothing happens... the "hello world" message does not show up. The exe is done and is removed from the application and process list in the task manager. The user I am logged in as, has admin rights and the machine uses "autologin" to automatically log in using this profile when it starts up. If I right click on the exe and "run as" another admin user, the exe runs properly, showing the "hello world" message. Also, if I log into the server in a new session, with the original user (the one that has the problems in session 0), and then run the exe, it runs properly and shows the "hello world". It works fine in any session other than the console session. There is something about the console session that is causing the exe not to run properly... even though it does appear to start running the exe. I should also mention that everything was working fine until Monday at midnight, after which none of the executables could be run successfully. Nothing was changed on the server and no updates were installed. I have since installed windows updates, but that didn't change anything. Looking for some advice on how to get these executables working in the console session again. Thanks!

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X11 performance problem after upgrading from Centos3 to Centos5 with an ATI Rage XL

- by Marcelo Santos

After upgrading a computer from Centos3 to Centos5 an application that does a lot of scrolling took a very high performance hit. top tells me that X is using a lot of CPU and that was not happening before. The machine has an ATI Rage XL with 8MB and X is using the ati driver as there is no proprietary ATI driver for this board on linux. The xorg.conf: Section "Device" Identifier "Videocard0" Driver "ati" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Videocard0" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Viewport 0 0 Depth 24 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection EndSection Section "DRI" Group 0 Mode 0666 EndSection A similar machine that still has Centos3 installed is able to start DRI on the X server while this one is not, this is the Xorg.0.log for the Centos5 machine: drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0 drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address) drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address) drmOpenDevice: Open failed drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0 drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address) drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address) drmOpenDevice: Open failed [drm] failed to load kernel module "mach64" (II) ATI(0): [drm] drmOpen failed (EE) ATI(0): [dri] DRIScreenInit Failed (II) ATI(0): Largest offscreen areas (with overlaps): (II) ATI(0): 1024 x 1279 rectangle at 0,768 (II) ATI(0): 768 x 1280 rectangle at 0,768 (II) ATI(0): Using XFree86 Acceleration Architecture (XAA) Screen to screen bit blits Solid filled rectangles 8x8 mono pattern filled rectangles Indirect CPU to Screen color expansion Solid Lines Offscreen Pixmaps Setting up tile and stipple cache: 32 128x128 slots 10 256x256 slots (==) ATI(0): Backing store disabled (==) ATI(0): Silken mouse enabled (II) ATI(0): Direct rendering disabled (==) RandR enabled I also tried using EXA instead of XAA and setting: Option "AccelMethod" "XAA" Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true" uname -a Linux sir5.erg.inpe.br 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5 #1 SMP Mon Aug 24 08:20:55 EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux rpm -qa | grep xorg-x11-server xorg-x11-server-utils-7.1-4.fc6 xorg-x11-server-sdk-1.1.1-48.52.el5 xorg-x11-server-Xvfb-1.1.1-48.52.el5 xorg-x11-server-Xnest-1.1.1-48.52.el5 xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.1.1-48.52.el5 The drmOpenDevice error continues when using the suggested Option "AIGLX" "true".

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Unable to receive any emails using postfix, dovecot, mysql, and virtual domain/mailboxes

- by stkdev248

I have been working on configuring my mail server for the last couple of weeks using postfix, dovecot, and mysql. I have one virtual domain and a few virtual mailboxes. Using squirrelmail I have been able to log into my accounts and send emails out (e.g. I can send to googlemail just fine), however I am not able to receive any emails--not from the outside world nor from within my own network. I am able to telnet in using localhost, my private ip, and my public ip on port 25 without any problems (I've tried it from the server itself and from another computer on my network). This is what I get in my logs when I send an email from my googlemail account to my mail server: mail.log Apr 14 07:36:06 server1 postfix/qmgr[1721]: BE01B520538: from=, size=733, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Apr 14 07:36:06 server1 postfix/pipe[3371]: 78BC0520510: to=, relay=dovecot, delay=45421, delays=45421/0/0/0.13, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied) Apr 14 07:36:06 server1 postfix/pipe[3391]: 8261B520534: to=, relay=dovecot, delay=38036, delays=38036/0.06/0/0.12, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied ) Apr 14 07:36:06 server1 postfix/pipe[3378]: 63927520532: to=, relay=dovecot, delay=38105, delays=38105/0.02/0/0.17, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied ) Apr 14 07:36:06 server1 postfix/pipe[3375]: 07F65520522: to=, relay=dovecot, delay=39467, delays=39467/0.01/0/0.17, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied ) Apr 14 07:36:06 server1 postfix/pipe[3381]: EEDE9520527: to=, relay=dovecot, delay=38361, delays=38360/0.04/0/0.15, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied ) Apr 14 07:36:06 server1 postfix/pipe[3379]: 67DFF520517: to=, relay=dovecot, delay=40475, delays=40475/0.03/0/0.16, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied ) Apr 14 07:36:06 server1 postfix/pipe[3387]: 3C7A052052E: to=, relay=dovecot, delay=38259, delays=38259/0.05/0/0.13, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied ) Apr 14 07:36:06 server1 postfix/pipe[3394]: BE01B520538: to=, relay=dovecot, delay=37682, delays=37682/0.07/0/0.11, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied ) Apr 14 07:36:07 server1 postfix/pipe[3384]: 3C7A052052E: to=, relay=dovecot, delay=38261, delays=38259/0.04/0/1.3, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied ) Apr 14 07:39:23 server1 postfix/anvil[3368]: statistics: max connection rate 1/60s for (smtp:209.85.213.169) at Apr 14 07:35:32 Apr 14 07:39:23 server1 postfix/anvil[3368]: statistics: max connection count 1 for (smtp:209.85.213.169) at Apr 14 07:35:32 Apr 14 07:39:23 server1 postfix/anvil[3368]: statistics: max cache size 1 at Apr 14 07:35:32 Apr 14 07:41:06 server1 postfix/qmgr[1721]: ED6005203B7: from=, size=1463, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Apr 14 07:41:06 server1 postfix/pipe[4594]: ED6005203B7: to=, relay=dovecot, delay=334, delays=334/0.01/0/0.13, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied ) Apr 14 07:51:06 server1 postfix/qmgr[1721]: ED6005203B7: from=, size=1463, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Apr 14 07:51:06 server1 postfix/pipe[4604]: ED6005203B7: to=, relay=dovecot, delay=933, delays=933/0.02/0/0.12, dsn=4.3.0, status=deferred (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied ) mail-dovecot-log (the log I set for debugging): Apr 14 07:28:26 auth: Info: mysql(127.0.0.1): Connected to database postfixadmin Apr 14 07:28:26 auth: Debug: sql([email protected],127.0.0.1): query: SELECT password FROM mailbox WHERE username = '[email protected]' Apr 14 07:28:26 auth: Debug: client out: OK 1 [email protected] Apr 14 07:28:26 auth: Debug: master in: REQUEST 1809973249 3356 1 7cfb822db820fc5da67d0776b107cb3f Apr 14 07:28:26 auth: Debug: sql([email protected],127.0.0.1): SELECT '/home/vmail/mydomain.com/some.user1' as home, 5000 AS uid, 5000 AS gid FROM mailbox WHERE username = '[email protected]' Apr 14 07:28:26 auth: Debug: master out: USER 1809973249 [email protected] home=/home/vmail/mydomain.com/some.user1 uid=5000 gid=5000 Apr 14 07:28:26 imap-login: Info: Login: user=, method=PLAIN, rip=127.0.0.1, lip=127.0.0.1, mpid=3360, secured Apr 14 07:28:26 imap([email protected]): Debug: Effective uid=5000, gid=5000, home=/home/vmail/mydomain.com/some.user1 Apr 14 07:28:26 imap([email protected]): Debug: maildir++: root=/home/vmail/mydomain.com/some.user1/Maildir, index=/home/vmail/mydomain.com/some.user1/Maildir/indexes, control=, inbox=/home/vmail/mydomain.com/some.user1/Maildir Apr 14 07:48:31 imap([email protected]): Info: Disconnected: Logged out bytes=85/681 From the output above I'm pretty sure that my problems all stem from (temporary failure. Command output: Can't open log file /var/log/mail-dovecot.log: Permission denied ), but I have no idea why I'm getting that error. I've have the permissions to that log set just like the other mail logs: root@server1:~# ls -l /var/log/mail* -rw-r----- 1 syslog adm 196653 2012-04-14 07:58 /var/log/mail-dovecot.log -rw-r----- 1 syslog adm 62778 2012-04-13 21:04 /var/log/mail.err -rw-r----- 1 syslog adm 497767 2012-04-14 08:01 /var/log/mail.log Does anyone have any idea what I may be doing wrong? Here are my main.cf and master.cf files: main.cf: # See /usr/share/postfix/main.cf.dist for a commented, more complete version # Debian specific: Specifying a file name will cause the first # line of that file to be used as the name. The Debian default # is /etc/mailname. #myorigin = /etc/mailname smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Ubuntu) biff = no # appending .domain is the MUA's job. append_dot_mydomain = no # Uncomment the next line to generate "delayed mail" warnings #delay_warning_time = 4h readme_directory = no # TLS parameters smtpd_tls_cert_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem smtpd_tls_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key smtpd_use_tls=yes smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtpd_scache smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtp_scache # See /usr/share/doc/postfix/TLS_README.gz in the postfix-doc package for # information on enabling SSL in the smtp client. myhostname = server1.mydomain.com alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases myorigin = /etc/mailname mydestination = relayhost = mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128 mailbox_command = procmail -a "$EXTENSION" mailbox_size_limit = 0 recipient_delimiter = + inet_interfaces = all # Virtual Configs virtual_uid_maps = static:5000 virtual_gid_maps = static:5000 virtual_mailbox_base = /home/vmail virtual_mailbox_domains = mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql_virtual_mailbox_domains.cf virtual_mailbox_maps = mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql_virtual_mailbox_maps.cf virtual_alias_maps = mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql_virtual_alias_maps.cf relay_domains = mysql:/etc/postfix/mysql_relay_domains.cf smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks, permit_sasl_authenticated, reject_non_fqdn_hostname, reject_non_fqdn_sender, reject_non_fqdn_recipient, reject_unauth_destination, reject_unauth_pipelining, reject_invalid_hostname smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous virtual_transport=dovecot dovecot_destination_recipient_limit = 1 master.cf: # # Postfix master process configuration file. For details on the format # of the file, see the master(5) manual page (command: "man 5 master"). # # Do not forget to execute "postfix reload" after editing this file. # # ========================================================================== # service type private unpriv chroot wakeup maxproc command + args # (yes) (yes) (yes) (never) (100) # ========================================================================== smtp inet n - - - - smtpd #smtp inet n - - - 1 postscreen #smtpd pass - - - - - smtpd #dnsblog unix - - - - 0 dnsblog #tlsproxy unix - - - - 0 tlsproxy #submission inet n - - - - smtpd # -o smtpd_tls_security_level=encrypt # -o smtpd_sasl_auth_enable=yes # -o smtpd_client_restrictions=permit_sasl_authenticated,reject # -o milter_macro_daemon_name=ORIGINATING #smtps inet n - - - - smtpd # -o smtpd_tls_wrappermode=yes # -o smtpd_sasl_auth_enable=yes # -o smtpd_client_restrictions=permit_sasl_authenticated,reject # -o milter_macro_daemon_name=ORIGINATING #628 inet n - - - - qmqpd pickup fifo n - - 60 1 pickup cleanup unix n - - - 0 cleanup qmgr fifo n - n 300 1 qmgr #qmgr fifo n - - 300 1 oqmgr tlsmgr unix - - - 1000? 1 tlsmgr rewrite unix - - - - - trivial-rewrite bounce unix - - - - 0 bounce defer unix - - - - 0 bounce trace unix - - - - 0 bounce verify unix - - - - 1 verify flush unix n - - 1000? 0 flush proxymap unix - - n - - proxymap proxywrite unix - - n - 1 proxymap smtp unix - - - - - smtp # When relaying mail as backup MX, disable fallback_relay to avoid MX loops relay unix - - - - - smtp -o smtp_fallback_relay= # -o smtp_helo_timeout=5 -o smtp_connect_timeout=5 showq unix n - - - - showq error unix - - - - - error retry unix - - - - - error discard unix - - - - - discard local unix - n n - - local virtual unix - n n - - virtual lmtp unix - - - - - lmtp anvil unix - - - - 1 anvil scache unix - - - - 1 scache # # ==================================================================== # Interfaces to non-Postfix software. Be sure to examine the manual # pages of the non-Postfix software to find out what options it wants. # # Many of the following services use the Postfix pipe(8) delivery # agent. See the pipe(8) man page for information about ${recipient} # and other message envelope options. # ==================================================================== # # maildrop. See the Postfix MAILDROP_README file for details. # Also specify in main.cf: maildrop_destination_recipient_limit=1 # maildrop unix - n n - - pipe flags=DRhu user=vmail argv=/usr/bin/maildrop -d ${recipient} # # ==================================================================== # # Recent Cyrus versions can use the existing "lmtp" master.cf entry. # # Specify in cyrus.conf: # lmtp cmd="lmtpd -a" listen="localhost:lmtp" proto=tcp4 # # Specify in main.cf one or more of the following: # mailbox_transport = lmtp:inet:localhost # virtual_transport = lmtp:inet:localhost # # ==================================================================== # # Cyrus 2.1.5 (Amos Gouaux) # Also specify in main.cf: cyrus_destination_recipient_limit=1 # #cyrus unix - n n - - pipe # user=cyrus argv=/cyrus/bin/deliver -e -r ${sender} -m ${extension} ${user} # # ==================================================================== # Old example of delivery via Cyrus. # #old-cyrus unix - n n - - pipe # flags=R user=cyrus argv=/cyrus/bin/deliver -e -m ${extension} ${user} # # ==================================================================== # # See the Postfix UUCP_README file for configuration details. # uucp unix - n n - - pipe flags=Fqhu user=uucp argv=uux -r -n -z -a$sender - $nexthop!rmail ($recipient) # # Other external delivery methods. # ifmail unix - n n - - pipe flags=F user=ftn argv=/usr/lib/ifmail/ifmail -r $nexthop ($recipient) bsmtp unix - n n - - pipe flags=Fq. user=bsmtp argv=/usr/lib/bsmtp/bsmtp -t$nexthop -f$sender $recipient scalemail-backend unix - n n - 2 pipe flags=R user=scalemail argv=/usr/lib/scalemail/bin/scalemail-store ${nexthop} ${user} ${extension} mailman unix - n n - - pipe flags=FR user=list argv=/usr/lib/mailman/bin/postfix-to-mailman.py ${nexthop} ${user} dovecot unix - n n - - pipe flags=DRhu user=vmail:vmail argv=/usr/lib/dovecot/deliver -d ${recipient}

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Unicenter Software Delivery 4 not able to connect to MS SQL 2000 Database after W2003 SP2 upgrade

- by grub

Hello Everyone Yesterday I installed the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 on a Windows Server 2003 which has Unicenter Software Delivery 4 installed. Prior to the installation I disabled every CA service on the server (Brightstor, SDO , RCO, TNG) and the MS SQL 2000 service. After the installation of the SP2 I enabled the services again but the Unicenter Service is not able to connect to the MS SQL 2000 Database anymore. The database itself is up and running and I can connect to it with the Enterprise Manager. A dbcc checkdb doesnt return any errors on the Unicenter database. The Unicenter service throws the following error messages during startup: IM[1] 27/05 10:38:31,272 Installation Manager in init phase IM[1] 27/05 10:38:31,694 Process IM(L) - [004152] failed to open database SDDATA. dbopen() call failed. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:31,694 sqls error details: IM[1] 27/05 10:38:31,694 (null) IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 ##EXCEPTION## TableError T@:PS_SQLS\isam_db.cxx:744. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 ##EXCEPTION## TableError C@:TaskmgrL\ASMTML.CXX:596. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 ##EXCEPTION## ErrorCode: 4711 in SDDATA:Isam::Isam. Process IM(L) - [004152] failed to open database SDDATA. dbopen() call failed. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 sqls error details: IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 (null) IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 returned 0. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,084 Persistent Storage could not be opened. Error cause is found in the ASM Event Log. Restart Task Manager. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,084 Failed to open database. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,084 Installation Manager ends> If I check the Unicenter configutation with *chkmib_l* the tool throws an exception and creates a small dump file. An Exception Occurred: Time: 27/05 09:49:38,928 Reason: ChkMIB_l.exe caused an UNKNOWN_EXCEPTION in module kernel32.dll at 7C82001B:77E4BEE7 Registers: EAX=0012F908 EBX=00000000 ECX=00000000 EDX=02410004 ESI=0012F998 EDI=0012F998 EBP=0012F958 ESP=0012F904 EIP=77E4BEE7 FLG=00000206 CS =7C82001B DS =B90023 SS =120023 ES =120023 FS =7C82003B GS =3F0000 Call Stack: 7C82001B:77E4BEE7 (0xE06D7363 0x00000001 0x00000003 0x0012F98C) kernel32.dll 7C82001B:77BB3259 (0x0012F9B8 0x2B017C50 0x2B024404 0x00B68C98) MSVCRT.dll 7C82001B:2B010C42 (0x00020003 0x010C00FE 0x003F0190 0x00B69050) PS.dll << SOFTWARE DELIVERY INSTANCE INFO >> TRIGGER 0(1) instances: JCE 0(1) instances: TM 0(1) instances: IM 0(1) instances: DM 0(1) instances: DPU 0(71) instances: NATF 0(1) instances: MIBCONV 0(0) instances: API 0(4) instances: DTSFT 0(0) instances: TNGPOP 0(0) instances: DGATE 0(0) instances: << FLUSHING MEMORY TRACES >> << STOP FLUSHING MEMORY TRACES >> I compared the configuration of the SDO service and the system configuration with another server on which the Windows Server 2003 SP2 is installed and SDO is working. The configuration is the same and the same driver and software versions are used. Do you have any idea what causes the connection issue? Should I deinstall the unicenter service and make a fresh installation on the server or should I remove the Windows Server 2003 SP2? I don't want to remove the SP2 because it's a requirement for WSUS3 SP2 and I really don't want to know how many possible exploits are possible in such an old system ;-) Thank you very much and have a nice day. Below you can find more detailed information about the system and the SDO service. psinfo output (system information) System information for \\CZZAAS1003: Uptime: 0 days 14 hours 38 minutes 50 seconds Kernel version: Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Multiprocessor Free Product type: Standard Edition Product version: 5.2 Service pack: 2 Kernel build number: 3790 Install date: 23.9.2004, 11:16:11s IE version: 6.0000 System root: C:\WINDOWS Processors: 2 Processor speed: 2.3 GHz Processor type: Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU Physical memory: 1024 MB Video driver: RAGE XL PCI Family (Microsoft Corporation) sdver output (Unicenter Software delivery version) Unicenter Software Delivery 4.0 SP1 I2 ENU [2901] Copyright 2004 Computer Associates International, Incorporated ms sql 2000 version and odbc driver version MS SQL 2000 Server Standard Edition Product Version: 8.00.760 (SP3) ODBC Driver: SQL Server - Version 2000.86.3959.00 complete Unicenter Software delivery service log file TRIGGER[1] 27/05 10:38:28,366 SD Trigger Agent has started NATF[1] 27/05 10:38:28,928 Initiation phase finished IM[1] 27/05 10:38:31,272 Installation Manager in init phase IM[1] 27/05 10:38:31,694 Process IM(L) - [004152] failed to open database SDDATA. dbopen() call failed. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:31,694 sqls error details: IM[1] 27/05 10:38:31,694 (null) IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 ##EXCEPTION## TableError T@:PS_SQLS\isam_db.cxx:744. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 ##EXCEPTION## TableError C@:TaskmgrL\ASMTML.CXX:596. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 ##EXCEPTION## ErrorCode: 4711 in SDDATA:Isam::Isam. Process IM(L) - [004152] failed to open database SDDATA. dbopen() call failed. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 sqls error details: IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 (null) IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,069 returned 0. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,084 Persistent Storage could not be opened. Error cause is found in the ASM Event Log. Restart Task Manager. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,084 Failed to open database. IM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,084 Installation Manager ends TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,116 Task Manager in init phase TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,334 Process TM(L) - [006132] failed to open database SDDATA. dbopen() call failed. TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,334 sqls error details: TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,334 (null) TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,381 ##EXCEPTION## TableError T@:PS_SQLS\isam_db.cxx:744. TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,381 ##EXCEPTION## TableError C@:TaskmgrL\ASMTML.CXX:596. TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,381 ##EXCEPTION## ErrorCode: 4711 in SDDATA:Isam::Isam. Process TM(L) - [006132] failed to open database SDDATA. dbopen() call failed. TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,381 sqls error details: TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,381 (null) TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,381 returned 0. TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,381 Persistent Storage could not be opened. Error cause is found in the ASM Event Log. Restart Task Manager. TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,381 Failed to open database. TM[1] 27/05 10:38:32,381 Task Manager ends DM[1] 27/05 10:38:33,272 Dialogue Manager is now active API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,397 API Server Process in init phase API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,397 API - SDNLS_Init API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,397 API - connectEM API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,412 API - apiServ.init DM[1] 27/05 10:38:34,678 **AND** 1 Agents triggered API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,709 Process API(L) - [005680] failed to open database SDDATA. dbopen() call failed. API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,709 sqls error details: API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,709 (null) API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,756 ##EXCEPTION## TableError T@:PS_SQLS\isam_db.cxx:744. API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,756 ##EXCEPTION## TableError C@:MainAPIL\APISERVL.CXX:246. API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,756 ##EXCEPTION## ErrorCode: 4711 in SDDATA:Isam::Isam. Process API(L) - [005680] failed to open database SDDATA. dbopen() call failed. API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,756 sqls error details: API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,756 (null) API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,756 returned 0. API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,756 Open of the database failed. API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,756 API - apiServ.init complete API[1] 27/05 10:38:34,756 API - start_APIServer DM[1] 27/05 10:38:34,803 CZZAAR1037 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:35,772 DPU in init phase DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,100 >> GetManagerData DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,287 >> SetCompInfo DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,334 >> GetContainerList DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,350 getJobState 3 from 5b6ad DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,350 getJobState 3 from 5b6ad DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,350 getJobState 3 from 5b6b7 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,350 getJobState 3 from 5b6b7 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,350 getJobState 3 from 5b6c1 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,350 getJobState 3 from 5b6c1 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,366 getJobState 3 from 5b6cb DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,366 getJobState 3 from 5b6cb DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,366 getJobState 3 from 5b6f9 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,366 getJobState 3 from 5b6f9 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,366 getJobState 3 from 5b71a DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,366 getJobState 3 from 5b71a DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,366 getJobState 3 from 5b724 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,381 getJobState 3 from 5b724 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b72e DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b72e DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b738 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b738 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b742 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b742 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b74c DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b74c DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b756 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b756 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b78a DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b78a DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b7af DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,397 getJobState 3 from 5b7af DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,522 >> SetCompAttr DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,569 >> SetDetected DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 disconnect DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b6ad DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b6b7 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b6c1 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b6cb DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b6f9 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b71a DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b724 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b72e DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b738 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b742 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b74c DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b756 DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b78a DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 getJobState 3 from 5b7af DPU[1:CZZAAR1037] 27/05 10:38:36,584 DPU ends DM[1] 27/05 10:38:38,006 **AND** 0 Agents triggered JCE[1] 27/05 10:38:38,053 JCE starts DM[1] 27/05 10:38:38,287 CZZAAS1003 DPU[2:CZZAAS1003] 27/05 10:38:38,412 DPU in init phase DPU[2:CZZAAS1003] 27/05 10:38:38,647 >> GetManagerData DPU[2:CZZAAS1003] 27/05 10:38:38,756 >> SetCompInfo DPU[2:CZZAAS1003] 27/05 10:38:38,787 >> GetContainerList DM[1] 27/05 10:38:38,850 **AND** 1 Agents triggered DM[1] 27/05 10:38:38,928 CZZAAR1124 DPU[3:CZZAAR1124] 27/05 10:38:39,053 DPU in init phase DPU[3:CZZAAR1124] 27/05 10:38:39,272 >> GetManagerData DM[1] 27/05 10:38:39,334 **AND** 1 Agents triggered DPU[3:CZZAAR1124] 27/05 10:38:39,381 >> SetCompInfo DPU[3:CZZAAR1124] 27/05 10:38:39,412 >> GetContainerList DM[1] 27/05 10:38:39,412 CZZAAR1125 DPU[3:CZZAAR1124] 27/05 10:38:39,428 getJobState 3 from 5b88e DPU[3:CZZAAR1124] 27/05 10:38:39,428 getJobState 3 from 5b88e DPU[2:CZZAAS1003] 27/05 10:38:39,491 >> SetCompAttr DPU[3:CZZAAR1124] 27/05 10:38:39,522 >> SetCompAttr DPU[4:CZZAAR1125] 27/05 10:38:39,522 DPU in init phase DPU[3:CZZAAR1124] 27/05 10:38:39,584 >> SetDetected DPU[2:CZZAAS1003] 27/05 10:38:39,584 >> SetDetected DPU[3:CZZAAR1124] 27/05 10:38:39,584 disconnect DPU[3:CZZAAR1124] 27/05 10:38:39,600 getJobState 3 from 5b88e DPU[3:CZZAAR1124] 27/05 10:38:39,600 DPU ends DPU[2:CZZAAS1003] 27/05 10:38:39,631 disconnect DPU[2:CZZAAS1003] 27/05 10:38:39,631 DPU ends DPU[4:CZZAAR1125] 27/05 10:38:39,756 >> GetManagerData DPU[4:CZZAAR1125] 27/05 10:38:39,850 >> SetCompInfo DPU[4:CZZAAR1125] 27/05 10:38:39,881 >> GetContainerList DPU[4:CZZAAR1125] 27/05 10:38:39,897 getJobState 3 from 5b8a9 DPU[4:CZZAAR1125] 27/05 10:38:39,897 getJobState 3 from 5b8a9 DPU[4:CZZAAR1125] 27/05 10:38:39,991 >> SetCompAttr DPU[4:CZZAAR1125] 27/05 10:38:40,100 >> SetDetected DPU[4:CZZAAR1125] 27/05 10:38:40,116 disconnect DPU[4:CZZAAR1125] 27/05 10:38:40,116 getJobState 3 from 5b8a9 DPU[4:CZZAAR1125] 27/05 10:38:40,116 DPU ends DM[1] 27/05 10:38:40,741 **AND** 0 Agents triggered JCE[1] 27/05 10:38:42,756 JCE ends DM[1] 27/05 10:38:47,475 **AND** 0 Agents triggered DM[1] 27/05 10:38:54,241 **AND** 0 Agents triggered

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X11 performance problem after upgrading from Centos3 to Centos5 with an ATI Rage XL

- by Marcelo Santos

After upgrading a computer from Centos3 to Centos5 an application that does a lot of scrolling took a very high performance hit. top tells me that X is using a lot of CPU and that was not happening before. The machine has an ATI Rage XL with 8MB and X is using the ati driver as there is no proprietary ATI driver for this board on linux. The xorg.conf: Section "Device" Identifier "Videocard0" Driver "ati" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Videocard0" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Viewport 0 0 Depth 24 Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubSection EndSection Section "DRI" Group 0 Mode 0666 EndSection A similar machine that still has Centos3 installed is able to start DRI on the X server while this one is not, this is the Xorg.0.log for the Centos5 machine: drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0 drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address) drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address) drmOpenDevice: Open failed drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0 drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address) drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device or address) drmOpenDevice: Open failed [drm] failed to load kernel module "mach64" (II) ATI(0): [drm] drmOpen failed (EE) ATI(0): [dri] DRIScreenInit Failed (II) ATI(0): Largest offscreen areas (with overlaps): (II) ATI(0): 1024 x 1279 rectangle at 0,768 (II) ATI(0): 768 x 1280 rectangle at 0,768 (II) ATI(0): Using XFree86 Acceleration Architecture (XAA) Screen to screen bit blits Solid filled rectangles 8x8 mono pattern filled rectangles Indirect CPU to Screen color expansion Solid Lines Offscreen Pixmaps Setting up tile and stipple cache: 32 128x128 slots 10 256x256 slots (==) ATI(0): Backing store disabled (==) ATI(0): Silken mouse enabled (II) ATI(0): Direct rendering disabled (==) RandR enabled I also tried using EXA instead of XAA and setting: Option "AccelMethod" "XAA" Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true" uname -a Linux sir5.erg.inpe.br 2.6.18-128.7.1.el5 #1 SMP Mon Aug 24 08:20:55 EDT 2009 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux rpm -qa | grep xorg-x11-server xorg-x11-server-utils-7.1-4.fc6 xorg-x11-server-sdk-1.1.1-48.52.el5 xorg-x11-server-Xvfb-1.1.1-48.52.el5 xorg-x11-server-Xnest-1.1.1-48.52.el5 xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.1.1-48.52.el5 The drmOpenDevice error continues when using the suggested Option "AIGLX" "true".

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Why can't I specify the executable that opens file with extension on windows?

- by Glen S. Dalton

I am on windows server 2003, but I guess it is the same on windows xp. This is a superuser question, because it is definitly desktop, so do not move or close it. Question: I copied some movable applications (usually people create them for usb sticks) to locations like c:\bin\app1\app1.exe app1.exe can open files of type *.ap1 When I rightclick file.ap1 and choose "open with ..." the "Open with" dialog appears. But it is not working how I expect in this situation. I can choose c:\bin\app1\app1.exe with the "Browse" button, but: app1.exe will not appear in the dialog where I just choosed it in the programs list, like I am used to it after clicking OK on it in the browse dialog. app1.exe will not open it when I click ok in the "Open with" dialog, the application that was assigned until then will still open it What could be the reason? Edit: Additional Information: my account is member of the administrators group I just changed the permissions of the folder c:\bin\app1\ and made sure that the group "Administrators" has all rights. I also inherited this manually to all subfodlers and subfiles.

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linux Firewall question

- by bcrawl

I have few generic questions about firewalls and I thought the community up here could help me out. 1) So I recently installed Ubuntu server barebones. I checked for open ports, none were open which was great. Is that because there was a firewall installed or was it because there were no applications installed? 2) I installed some applications, (Apache, postgres,ssh, Java app and some few). Between these, I ended up opening a few ports (~10). Now I have a list of all the ports I would need open. So, how do I go about protecting them? [Is this the right question to ask? does the process go like this, Install Firewall - Allow Said needed ports - deny rest using IPtables rules] This is going to be open to the internet. Hosting low traffic ecommerce sites. 3) What do you think is the easiest way for me to quasi-secure the server, [low maintenance overhead/simplicity. Any open source "software" which can make my life easier?] 4) Finally, of the said open ports [2], I have 2 ports I need to close because they are telnet ports. Can I close these ports without installing a "firewall" Thanks all for the help and Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

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Pattern matching gnmap fields with SED

- by Ovid

I am testing the regex needed for creating field extraction with Splunk for nmap and think I might be close... Example full line: Host: 10.0.0.1 (host) Ports: 21/open|filtered/tcp//ftp///, 22/open/tcp//ssh//OpenSSH 5.9p1 Debian 5ubuntu1 (protocol 2.0)/, 23/closed/tcp//telnet///, 80/open/tcp//http//Apache httpd 2.2.22 ((Ubuntu))/, 10000/closed/tcp//snet-sensor-mgmt/// OS: Linux 2.6.32 - 3.2 Seq Index: 257 IP ID Seq: All zeros I've used underscore "_" as the delimiter because it makes it a little easier to read. root@host:/# sed -n -e 's_$[0-9]\{1,5\}\/[^/]*\/[^/]*\/\/[^/]*\/\/[^/]*\/.$_\n\1_pg' filename The same regex with the escape characters removed: root@host:/# sed -n -e 's_$[0-9]\{1,5\}/[^/]*/[^/]*//[^/]*//[^/]*/.$_\n\1_pg' filename Output: ... ... ... Host: 10.0.0.1 (host) Ports: 21/open|filtered/tcp//ftp///, 22/open/tcp//ssh//OpenSSH 2.0p1 Debian 2ubuntu1 (protocol 2.0)/, 23/closed/tcp//telnet///, 80/open/tcp//http//Apache httpd 5.4.32 ((Ubuntu))/, 10000/closed/tcp//snet-sensor-mgmt/// OS: Linux 9.8.76 - 7.3 Seq Index: 257 IPID Seq: All zeros ... ... ... As you can see, the pattern matching appears to be working - although I am unable to: 1 - match on both the end of line ( comma , and white/tabspace). The last line contains unwanted text (in this case, the OS and TCP timing info) and 2 - remove any of the un-necessary data - i.e. print only the matching pattern. It is actually printing the whole line. If i remove the sed -n flag, the remaining file contents are also printed. I can't seem to locate a way to only print the matched regex. Being fairly new to sed and regex, any help or pointers is greatly appreciated!

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How do I make rsync also check ctime?

- by Benoît

rsync detects files modification by comparing size and mtime. However, if for any reason, the mtime is unchanged, rsync won't detect the change, although it's possible to spot it by looking at the ctime. Of course, I can tell rsync do compare the whole files' contents, but that's very very expensive. Is there a way to make rsync smarter, for example by checking mtime+size are the same AND that ctime isn't newer than mtime (on both source and destination) ? Or should I open a feature request ? Here's an example: Create 2 files, same content and atime/mtime benoit@debian:~$ mkdir d1 && cd d1 benoit@debian:~/d1$ echo Hello > a benoit@debian:~/d1$ cp -a a b Rsync them to another (non-exisiting) directory: benoit@debian:~/d1$ cd .. benoit@debian:~$ rsync -av d1/ d2 sending incremental file list created directory d2 ./ a b sent 164 bytes received 53 bytes 434.00 bytes/sec total size is 12 speedup is 0.06 OK, everything is synced benoit@debian:~$ grep . d*/* d1/a:Hello d1/b:Hello d2/a:Hello d2/b:Hello Update file 'b', same size and then reset its atime/mtime benoit@debian:~$ echo World > d1/b benoit@debian:~$ touch -r d1/a d1/b Attempt to rsync again: benoit@debian:~$ rsync -av d1/ d2 sending incremental file list sent 63 bytes received 12 bytes 150.00 bytes/sec total size is 12 speedup is 0.16 Nope, rsync missed the change. benoit@debian:~$ grep . d*/* d1/a:Hello d1/b:World d2/a:Hello d2/b:Hello Tell rsync the compare the file content benoit@debian:~$ rsync -acv d1/ d2 sending incremental file list b sent 144 bytes received 31 bytes 350.00 bytes/sec total size is 12 speedup is 0.07 Gives the correct result: benoit@debian:~$ grep . d*/* d1/a:Hello d1/b:World d2/a:Hello d2/b:World

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Lots of strange IP addresses in my Windows Firewall logs. Concern?

- by gmoore

Was trying to debug a Samba sharing issue with Mac OS X so I turned on logging for my Windows Firewall. I didn't expect a lot of conections but the thing filled up quickly. Here's a sample: 2009-12-21 08:49:32 OPEN-INBOUND TCP 192.168.0.4 192.168.0.3 56335 139 - - - - - - - - - 2009-12-21 08:49:33 OPEN-INBOUND TCP 192.168.0.4 192.168.0.3 56337 139 - - - - - - - - - 2009-12-21 08:50:02 OPEN UDP 192.168.0.3 68.87.73.242 1389 53 - - - - - - - - - 2009-12-21 08:50:02 CLOSE TCP 192.168.0.3 212.96.161.238 1391 80 - - - - - - - - - 2009-12-21 08:50:02 OPEN UDP 192.168.0.3 68.87.71.226 60290 53 - - - - - - - - - 2009-12-21 08:50:02 OPEN TCP 192.168.0.3 212.96.161.238 1391 80 - - - - - - - - - 2009-12-21 08:50:02 OPEN TCP 192.168.0.3 212.96.161.238 1393 80 - - - - - - - - - 2009-12-21 08:50:04 CLOSE TCP 192.168.0.3 212.96.161.238 1393 80 - - - - - - - - - 2009-12-21 08:50:41 CLOSE UDP 192.168.0.3 192.168.0.4 137 50300 - - - - - - - - - I can pick out the local IP addresses (192.168.0.3 is my Windows XP machine, 192.169.0.4 is Mac OS X) as I debug the Samba issue. But some of the others resolve to Comcast (my ISP) and others resolve to weird hosts like van-dns.com and navisite.net. It doesn't look like any connection sent/received any bytes. I used the reference here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc758040%28WS.10%29.aspx. Is it a cause for concern?

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Performance-optimizing Oracle 10g on a server that is also a Tomcat JSP app server?

- by PKHunter

I have inherited a simple RedHat 5 - 64bit platform. It has SCSI disks on RAID1, with 16GB of RAM. Double Core CPU. Oracle 10g, Release 2. This would be a decent platform for running the DB only, perhaps, but the same server in an "A-A mode" clustering (very simple) also runs Tomcat and there are several Java servlets running on this. Sadly there is no caching platform etc. We only use an external CDN for some html caching. I am personally more familiar with web environments on the LAMPP platform (apache, php, mysql, postgresql). PROBLEM: Because the server has both Tomcat JSP/Java and Oracle 10g running on the same server, with no caching, I have some issues of the server going down. Often, sadly. QUESTION: What are my options in terms of improving performance of all these different apps? Connection Pooling? Example, in Postgresql world we have PgBouncer, which really helps things. Does Oracle have something similar? Or is there a famous Java-based external pooler that people use in production environments? (I'm not familiar with Java) Any "SQL cache" as in the MySQL and Postgresql world? Any other kind of application cache, as "APC" or "eAccelarator" in the PHP world? The "OSCache" stuff from the Java world (JSP thingie I found on Google: http://onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/01/05/jspcache.html?page=2) ... What else? Sorry if this is a noob question. I have googled and googled, but problem is I don't know what to google for, other than the broad general concepts above. So if not full answers, I would even appreciate basic pointers and I am happy to JFGI myself. Thanks!

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how to export bind and keyframe bone poses from blender to use in OpenGL

- by SaldaVonSchwartz

EDIT: I decided to reformulate the question in much simpler terms to see if someone can give me a hand with this. Basically, I'm exporting meshes, skeletons and actions from blender into an engine of sorts that I'm working on. But I'm getting the animations wrong. I can tell the basic motion paths are being followed but there's always an axis of translation or rotation which is wrong. I think the problem is most likely not in my engine code (OpenGL-based) but rather in either my misunderstanding of some part of the theory behind skeletal animation / skinning or the way I am exporting the appropriate joint matrices from blender in my exporter script. I'll explain the theory, the engine animation system and my blender export script, hoping someone might catch the error in either or all of these. The theory: (I'm using column-major ordering since that's what I use in the engine cause it's OpenGL-based) Assume I have a mesh made up of a single vertex v, along with a transformation matrix M which takes the vertex v from the mesh's local space to world space. That is, if I was to render the mesh without a skeleton, the final position would be gl_Position = ProjectionMatrix * M * v. Now assume I have a skeleton with a single joint j in bind / rest pose. j is actually another matrix. A transform from j's local space to its parent space which I'll denote Bj. if j was part of a joint hierarchy in the skeleton, Bj would take from j space to j-1 space (that is to its parent space). However, in this example j is the only joint, so Bj takes from j space to world space, like M does for v. Now further assume I have a a set of frames, each with a second transform Cj, which works the same as Bj only that for a different, arbitrary spatial configuration of join j. Cj still takes vertices from j space to world space but j is rotated and/or translated and/or scaled. Given the above, in order to skin vertex v at keyframe n. I need to: take v from world space to joint j space modify j (while v stays fixed in j space and is thus taken along in the transformation) take v back from the modified j space to world space So the mathematical implementation of the above would be: v' = Cj * Bj^-1 * v. Actually, I have one doubt here.. I said the mesh to which v belongs has a transform M which takes from model space to world space. And I've also read in a couple textbooks that it needs to be transformed from model space to joint space. But I also said in 1 that v needs to be transformed from world to joint space. So basically I'm not sure if I need to do v' = Cj * Bj^-1 * v or v' = Cj * Bj^-1 * M * v. Right now my implementation multiples v' by M and not v. But I've tried changing this and it just screws things up in a different way cause there's something else wrong. Finally, If we wanted to skin a vertex to a joint j1 which in turn is a child of a joint j0, Bj1 would be Bj0 * Bj1 and Cj1 would be Cj0 * Cj1. But Since skinning is defined as v' = Cj * Bj^-1 * v , Bj1^-1 would be the reverse concatenation of the inverses making up the original product. That is, v' = Cj0 * Cj1 * Bj1^-1 * Bj0^-1 * v Now on to the implementation (Blender side): Assume the following mesh made up of 1 cube, whose vertices are bound to a single joint in a single-joint skeleton: Assume also there's a 60-frame, 3-keyframe animation at 60 fps. The animation essentially is: keyframe 0: the joint is in bind / rest pose (the way you see it in the image). keyframe 30: the joint translates up (+z in blender) some amount and at the same time rotates pi/4 rad clockwise. keyframe 59: the joint goes back to the same configuration it was in keyframe 0. My first source of confusion on the blender side is its coordinate system (as opposed to OpenGL's default) and the different matrices accessible through the python api. Right now, this is what my export script does about translating blender's coordinate system to OpenGL's standard system: # World transform: Blender -> OpenGL worldTransform = Matrix().Identity(4) worldTransform *= Matrix.Scale(-1, 4, (0,0,1)) worldTransform *= Matrix.Rotation(radians(90), 4, "X") # Mesh (local) transform matrix file.write('Mesh Transform:\n') localTransform = mesh.matrix_local.copy() localTransform = worldTransform * localTransform for col in localTransform.col: file.write('{:9f} {:9f} {:9f} {:9f}\n'.format(col[0], col[1], col[2], col[3])) file.write('\n') So if you will, my "world" matrix is basically the act of changing blenders coordinate system to the default GL one with +y up, +x right and -z into the viewing volume. Then I also premultiply (in the sense that it's done by the time we reach the engine, not in the sense of post or pre in terms of matrix multiplication order) the mesh matrix M so that I don't need to multiply it again once per draw call in the engine. About the possible matrices to extract from Blender joints (bones in Blender parlance), I'm doing the following: For joint bind poses: def DFSJointTraversal(file, skeleton, jointList): for joint in jointList: bindPoseJoint = skeleton.data.bones[joint.name] bindPoseTransform = bindPoseJoint.matrix_local.inverted() file.write('Joint ' + joint.name + ' Transform {\n') translationV = bindPoseTransform.to_translation() rotationQ = bindPoseTransform.to_3x3().to_quaternion() scaleV = bindPoseTransform.to_scale() file.write('T {:9f} {:9f} {:9f}\n'.format(translationV[0], translationV[1], translationV[2])) file.write('Q {:9f} {:9f} {:9f} {:9f}\n'.format(rotationQ[1], rotationQ[2], rotationQ[3], rotationQ[0])) file.write('S {:9f} {:9f} {:9f}\n'.format(scaleV[0], scaleV[1], scaleV[2])) DFSJointTraversal(file, skeleton, joint.children) file.write('}\n') Note that I'm actually grabbing the inverse of what I think is the bind pose transform Bj. This is so I don't need to invert it in the engine. Also note I went for matrix_local, assuming this is Bj. The other option is plain "matrix", which as far as I can tell is the same only that not homogeneous. For joint current / keyframe poses: for kfIndex in keyframes: bpy.context.scene.frame_set(kfIndex) file.write('keyframe: {:d}\n'.format(int(kfIndex))) for i in range(0, len(skeleton.data.bones)): file.write('joint: {:d}\n'.format(i)) currentPoseJoint = skeleton.pose.bones[i] currentPoseTransform = currentPoseJoint.matrix translationV = currentPoseTransform.to_translation() rotationQ = currentPoseTransform.to_3x3().to_quaternion() scaleV = currentPoseTransform.to_scale() file.write('T {:9f} {:9f} {:9f}\n'.format(translationV[0], translationV[1], translationV[2])) file.write('Q {:9f} {:9f} {:9f} {:9f}\n'.format(rotationQ[1], rotationQ[2], rotationQ[3], rotationQ[0])) file.write('S {:9f} {:9f} {:9f}\n'.format(scaleV[0], scaleV[1], scaleV[2])) file.write('\n') Note that here I go for skeleton.pose.bones instead of data.bones and that I have a choice of 3 matrices: matrix, matrix_basis and matrix_channel. From the descriptions in the python API docs I'm not super clear which one I should choose, though I think it's the plain matrix. Also note I do not invert the matrix in this case. The implementation (Engine / OpenGL side): My animation subsystem does the following on each update (I'm omitting parts of the update loop where it's figured out which objects need update and time is hardcoded here for simplicity): static double time = 0; time = fmod((time + elapsedTime),1.); uint16_t LERPKeyframeNumber = 60 * time; uint16_t lkeyframeNumber = 0; uint16_t lkeyframeIndex = 0; uint16_t rkeyframeNumber = 0; uint16_t rkeyframeIndex = 0; for (int i = 0; i < aClip.keyframesCount; i++) { uint16_t keyframeNumber = aClip.keyframes[i].number; if (keyframeNumber <= LERPKeyframeNumber) { lkeyframeIndex = i; lkeyframeNumber = keyframeNumber; } else { rkeyframeIndex = i; rkeyframeNumber = keyframeNumber; break; } } double lTime = lkeyframeNumber / 60.; double rTime = rkeyframeNumber / 60.; double blendFactor = (time - lTime) / (rTime - lTime); GLKMatrix4 bindPosePalette[aSkeleton.jointsCount]; GLKMatrix4 currentPosePalette[aSkeleton.jointsCount]; for (int i = 0; i < aSkeleton.jointsCount; i++) { F3DETQSType& lPose = aClip.keyframes[lkeyframeIndex].skeletonPose.joints[i]; F3DETQSType& rPose = aClip.keyframes[rkeyframeIndex].skeletonPose.joints[i]; GLKVector3 LERPTranslation = GLKVector3Lerp(lPose.t, rPose.t, blendFactor); GLKQuaternion SLERPRotation = GLKQuaternionSlerp(lPose.q, rPose.q, blendFactor); GLKVector3 LERPScaling = GLKVector3Lerp(lPose.s, rPose.s, blendFactor); GLKMatrix4 currentTransform = GLKMatrix4MakeWithQuaternion(SLERPRotation); currentTransform = GLKMatrix4TranslateWithVector3(currentTransform, LERPTranslation); currentTransform = GLKMatrix4ScaleWithVector3(currentTransform, LERPScaling); GLKMatrix4 inverseBindTransform = GLKMatrix4MakeWithQuaternion(aSkeleton.joints[i].inverseBindTransform.q); inverseBindTransform = GLKMatrix4TranslateWithVector3(inverseBindTransform, aSkeleton.joints[i].inverseBindTransform.t); inverseBindTransform = GLKMatrix4ScaleWithVector3(inverseBindTransform, aSkeleton.joints[i].inverseBindTransform.s); if (aSkeleton.joints[i].parentIndex == -1) { bindPosePalette[i] = inverseBindTransform; currentPosePalette[i] = currentTransform; } else { bindPosePalette[i] = GLKMatrix4Multiply(inverseBindTransform, bindPosePalette[aSkeleton.joints[i].parentIndex]); currentPosePalette[i] = GLKMatrix4Multiply(currentPosePalette[aSkeleton.joints[i].parentIndex], currentTransform); } aSkeleton.skinningPalette[i] = GLKMatrix4Multiply(currentPosePalette[i], bindPosePalette[i]); } Finally, this is my vertex shader: #version 100 uniform mat4 modelMatrix; uniform mat3 normalMatrix; uniform mat4 projectionMatrix; uniform mat4 skinningPalette[6]; uniform lowp float skinningEnabled; attribute vec4 position; attribute vec3 normal; attribute vec2 tCoordinates; attribute vec4 jointsWeights; attribute vec4 jointsIndices; varying highp vec2 tCoordinatesVarying; varying highp float lIntensity; void main() { tCoordinatesVarying = tCoordinates; vec4 skinnedVertexPosition = vec4(0.); for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) { skinnedVertexPosition += jointsWeights[i] * skinningPalette[int(jointsIndices[i])] * position; } vec4 skinnedNormal = vec4(0.); for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) { skinnedNormal += jointsWeights[i] * skinningPalette[int(jointsIndices[i])] * vec4(normal, 0.); } vec4 finalPosition = mix(position, skinnedVertexPosition, skinningEnabled); vec4 finalNormal = mix(vec4(normal, 0.), skinnedNormal, skinningEnabled); vec3 eyeNormal = normalize(normalMatrix * finalNormal.xyz); vec3 lightPosition = vec3(0., 0., 2.); lIntensity = max(0.0, dot(eyeNormal, normalize(lightPosition))); gl_Position = projectionMatrix * modelMatrix * finalPosition; } The result is that the animation displays wrong in terms of orientation. That is, instead of bobbing up and down it bobs in and out (along what I think is the Z axis according to my transform in the export clip). And the rotation angle is counterclockwise instead of clockwise. If I try with a more than one joint, then it's almost as if the second joint rotates in it's own different coordinate space and does not follow 100% its parent's transform. Which I assume it should from my animation subsystem which I assume in turn follows the theory I explained for the case of more than one joint. Any thoughts?

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Zen and the Art of File and Folder Organization

- by Mark Virtue

Is your desk a paragon of neatness, or does it look like a paper-bomb has gone off? If you’ve been putting off getting organized because the task is too huge or daunting, or you don’t know where to start, we’ve got 40 tips to get you on the path to zen mastery of your filing system. For all those readers who would like to get their files and folders organized, or, if they’re already organized, better organized—we have compiled a complete guide to getting organized and staying organized, a comprehensive article that will hopefully cover every possible tip you could want. Signs that Your Computer is Poorly Organized If your computer is a mess, you’re probably already aware of it. But just in case you’re not, here are some tell-tale signs: Your Desktop has over 40 icons on it “My Documents” contains over 300 files and 60 folders, including MP3s and digital photos You use the Windows’ built-in search facility whenever you need to find a file You can’t find programs in the out-of-control list of programs in your Start Menu You save all your Word documents in one folder, all your spreadsheets in a second folder, etc Any given file that you’re looking for may be in any one of four different sets of folders But before we start, here are some quick notes: We’re going to assume you know what files and folders are, and how to create, save, rename, copy and delete them The organization principles described in this article apply equally to all computer systems. However, the screenshots here will reflect how things look on Windows (usually Windows 7). We will also mention some useful features of Windows that can help you get organized. Everyone has their own favorite methodology of organizing and filing, and it’s all too easy to get into “My Way is Better than Your Way” arguments. The reality is that there is no perfect way of getting things organized. When I wrote this article, I tried to keep a generalist and objective viewpoint. I consider myself to be unusually well organized (to the point of obsession, truth be told), and I’ve had 25 years experience in collecting and organizing files on computers. So I’ve got a lot to say on the subject. But the tips I have described here are only one way of doing it. Hopefully some of these tips will work for you too, but please don’t read this as any sort of “right” way to do it. At the end of the article we’ll be asking you, the reader, for your own organization tips. Why Bother Organizing At All? For some, the answer to this question is self-evident. And yet, in this era of powerful desktop search software (the search capabilities built into the Windows Vista and Windows 7 Start Menus, and third-party programs like Google Desktop Search), the question does need to be asked, and answered. I have a friend who puts every file he ever creates, receives or downloads into his My Documents folder and doesn’t bother filing them into subfolders at all. He relies on the search functionality built into his Windows operating system to help him find whatever he’s looking for. And he always finds it. He’s a Search Samurai. For him, filing is a waste of valuable time that could be spent enjoying life! It’s tempting to follow suit. On the face of it, why would anyone bother to take the time to organize their hard disk when such excellent search software is available? Well, if all you ever want to do with the files you own is to locate and open them individually (for listening, editing, etc), then there’s no reason to ever bother doing one scrap of organization. But consider these common tasks that are not achievable with desktop search software: Find files manually. Often it’s not convenient, speedy or even possible to utilize your desktop search software to find what you want. It doesn’t work 100% of the time, or you may not even have it installed. Sometimes its just plain faster to go straight to the file you want, if you know it’s in a particular sub-folder, rather than trawling through hundreds of search results. Find groups of similar files (e.g. all your “work” files, all the photos of your Europe holiday in 2008, all your music videos, all the MP3s from Dark Side of the Moon, all your letters you wrote to your wife, all your tax returns). Clever naming of the files will only get you so far. Sometimes it’s the date the file was created that’s important, other times it’s the file format, and other times it’s the purpose of the file. How do you name a collection of files so that they’re easy to isolate based on any of the above criteria? Short answer, you can’t. Move files to a new computer. It’s time to upgrade your computer. How do you quickly grab all the files that are important to you? Or you decide to have two computers now – one for home and one for work. How do you quickly isolate only the work-related files to move them to the work computer? Synchronize files to other computers. If you have more than one computer, and you need to mirror some of your files onto the other computer (e.g. your music collection), then you need a way to quickly determine which files are to be synced and which are not. Surely you don’t want to synchronize everything? Choose which files to back up. If your backup regime calls for multiple backups, or requires speedy backups, then you’ll need to be able to specify which files are to be backed up, and which are not. This is not possible if they’re all in the same folder. Finally, if you’re simply someone who takes pleasure in being organized, tidy and ordered (me! me!), then you don’t even need a reason. Being disorganized is simply unthinkable. Tips on Getting Organized Here we present our 40 best tips on how to get organized. Or, if you’re already organized, to get better organized. Tip #1. Choose Your Organization System Carefully The reason that most people are not organized is that it takes time. And the first thing that takes time is deciding upon a system of organization. This is always a matter of personal preference, and is not something that a geek on a website can tell you. You should always choose your own system, based on how your own brain is organized (which makes the assumption that your brain is, in fact, organized). We can’t instruct you, but we can make suggestions: You may want to start off with a system based on the users of the computer. i.e. “My Files”, “My Wife’s Files”, My Son’s Files”, etc. Inside “My Files”, you might then break it down into “Personal” and “Business”. You may then realize that there are overlaps. For example, everyone may want to share access to the music library, or the photos from the school play. So you may create another folder called “Family”, for the “common” files. You may decide that the highest-level breakdown of your files is based on the “source” of each file. In other words, who created the files. You could have “Files created by ME (business or personal)”, “Files created by people I know (family, friends, etc)”, and finally “Files created by the rest of the world (MP3 music files, downloaded or ripped movies or TV shows, software installation files, gorgeous desktop wallpaper images you’ve collected, etc).” This system happens to be the one I use myself. See below: Mark is for files created by meVC is for files created by my company (Virtual Creations)Others is for files created by my friends and familyData is the rest of the worldAlso, Settings is where I store the configuration files and other program data files for my installed software (more on this in tip #34, below). Each folder will present its own particular set of requirements for further sub-organization. For example, you may decide to organize your music collection into sub-folders based on the artist’s name, while your digital photos might get organized based on the date they were taken. It can be different for every sub-folder! Another strategy would be based on “currentness”. Files you have yet to open and look at live in one folder. Ones that have been looked at but not yet filed live in another place. Current, active projects live in yet another place. All other files (your “archive”, if you like) would live in a fourth folder. (And of course, within that last folder you’d need to create a further sub-system based on one of the previous bullet points). Put some thought into this – changing it when it proves incomplete can be a big hassle! Before you go to the trouble of implementing any system you come up with, examine a wide cross-section of the files you own and see if they will all be able to find a nice logical place to sit within your system. Tip #2. When You Decide on Your System, Stick to It! There’s nothing more pointless than going to all the trouble of creating a system and filing all your files, and then whenever you create, receive or download a new file, you simply dump it onto your Desktop. You need to be disciplined – forever! Every new file you get, spend those extra few seconds to file it where it belongs! Otherwise, in just a month or two, you’ll be worse off than before – half your files will be organized and half will be disorganized – and you won’t know which is which! Tip #3. Choose the Root Folder of Your Structure Carefully Every data file (document, photo, music file, etc) that you create, own or is important to you, no matter where it came from, should be found within one single folder, and that one single folder should be located at the root of your C: drive (as a sub-folder of C:\). In other words, do not base your folder structure in standard folders like “My Documents”. If you do, then you’re leaving it up to the operating system engineers to decide what folder structure is best for you. And every operating system has a different system! In Windows 7 your files are found in C:\Users\YourName, whilst on Windows XP it was C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\My Documents. In UNIX systems it’s often /home/YourName. These standard default folders tend to fill up with junk files and folders that are not at all important to you. “My Documents” is the worst offender. Every second piece of software you install, it seems, likes to create its own folder in the “My Documents” folder. These folders usually don’t fit within your organizational structure, so don’t use them! In fact, don’t even use the “My Documents” folder at all. Allow it to fill up with junk, and then simply ignore it. It sounds heretical, but: Don’t ever visit your “My Documents” folder! Remove your icons/links to “My Documents” and replace them with links to the folders you created and you care about! Create your own file system from scratch! Probably the best place to put it would be on your D: drive – if you have one. This way, all your files live on one drive, while all the operating system and software component files live on the C: drive – simply and elegantly separated. The benefits of that are profound. Not only are there obvious organizational benefits (see tip #10, below), but when it comes to migrate your data to a new computer, you can (sometimes) simply unplug your D: drive and plug it in as the D: drive of your new computer (this implies that the D: drive is actually a separate physical disk, and not a partition on the same disk as C:). You also get a slight speed improvement (again, only if your C: and D: drives are on separate physical disks). Warning: From tip #12, below, you will see that it’s actually a good idea to have exactly the same file system structure – including the drive it’s filed on – on all of the computers you own. So if you decide to use the D: drive as the storage system for your own files, make sure you are able to use the D: drive on all the computers you own. If you can’t ensure that, then you can still use a clever geeky trick to store your files on the D: drive, but still access them all via the C: drive (see tip #17, below). If you only have one hard disk (C:), then create a dedicated folder that will contain all your files – something like C:\Files. The name of the folder is not important, but make it a single, brief word. There are several reasons for this: When creating a backup regime, it’s easy to decide what files should be backed up – they’re all in the one folder! If you ever decide to trade in your computer for a new one, you know exactly which files to migrate You will always know where to begin a search for any file If you synchronize files with other computers, it makes your synchronization routines very simple. It also causes all your shortcuts to continue to work on the other machines (more about this in tip #24, below). Once you’ve decided where your files should go, then put all your files in there – Everything! Completely disregard the standard, default folders that are created for you by the operating system (“My Music”, “My Pictures”, etc). In fact, you can actually relocate many of those folders into your own structure (more about that below, in tip #6). The more completely you get all your data files (documents, photos, music, etc) and all your configuration settings into that one folder, then the easier it will be to perform all of the above tasks. Once this has been done, and all your files live in one folder, all the other folders in C:\ can be thought of as “operating system” folders, and therefore of little day-to-day interest for us. Here’s a screenshot of a nicely organized C: drive, where all user files are located within the \Files folder: Tip #4. Use Sub-Folders This would be our simplest and most obvious tip. It almost goes without saying. Any organizational system you decide upon (see tip #1) will require that you create sub-folders for your files. Get used to creating folders on a regular basis. Tip #5. Don’t be Shy About Depth Create as many levels of sub-folders as you need. Don’t be scared to do so. Every time you notice an opportunity to group a set of related files into a sub-folder, do so. Examples might include: All the MP3s from one music CD, all the photos from one holiday, or all the documents from one client. It’s perfectly okay to put files into a folder called C:\Files\Me\From Others\Services\WestCo Bank\Statements\2009. That’s only seven levels deep. Ten levels is not uncommon. Of course, it’s possible to take this too far. If you notice yourself creating a sub-folder to hold only one file, then you’ve probably become a little over-zealous. On the other hand, if you simply create a structure with only two levels (for example C:\Files\Work) then you really haven’t achieved any level of organization at all (unless you own only six files!). Your “Work” folder will have become a dumping ground, just like your Desktop was, with most likely hundreds of files in it. Tip #6. Move the Standard User Folders into Your Own Folder Structure Most operating systems, including Windows, create a set of standard folders for each of its users. These folders then become the default location for files such as documents, music files, digital photos and downloaded Internet files. In Windows 7, the full list is shown below: Some of these folders you may never use nor care about (for example, the Favorites folder, if you’re not using Internet Explorer as your browser). Those ones you can leave where they are. But you may be using some of the other folders to store files that are important to you. Even if you’re not using them, Windows will still often treat them as the default storage location for many types of files. When you go to save a standard file type, it can become annoying to be automatically prompted to save it in a folder that’s not part of your own file structure. But there’s a simple solution: Move the folders you care about into your own folder structure! If you do, then the next time you go to save a file of the corresponding type, Windows will prompt you to save it in the new, moved location. Moving the folders is easy. Simply drag-and-drop them to the new location. Here’s a screenshot of the default My Music folder being moved to my custom personal folder (Mark): Tip #7. Name Files and Folders Intelligently This is another one that almost goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: Do not allow files to be created that have meaningless names like Document1.doc, or folders called New Folder (2). Take that extra 20 seconds and come up with a meaningful name for the file/folder – one that accurately divulges its contents without repeating the entire contents in the name. Tip #8. Watch Out for Long Filenames Another way to tell if you have not yet created enough depth to your folder hierarchy is that your files often require really long names. If you need to call a file Johnson Sales Figures March 2009.xls (which might happen to live in the same folder as Abercrombie Budget Report 2008.xls), then you might want to create some sub-folders so that the first file could be simply called March.xls, and living in the Clients\Johnson\Sales Figures\2009 folder. A well-placed file needs only a brief filename! Tip #9. Use Shortcuts! Everywhere! This is probably the single most useful and important tip we can offer. A shortcut allows a file to be in two places at once. Why would you want that? Well, the file and folder structure of every popular operating system on the market today is hierarchical. This means that all objects (files and folders) always live within exactly one parent folder. It’s a bit like a tree. A tree has branches (folders) and leaves (files). Each leaf, and each branch, is supported by exactly one parent branch, all the way back to the root of the tree (which, incidentally, is exactly why C:\ is called the “root folder” of the C: drive). That hard disks are structured this way may seem obvious and even necessary, but it’s only one way of organizing data. There are others: Relational databases, for example, organize structured data entirely differently. The main limitation of hierarchical filing structures is that a file can only ever be in one branch of the tree – in only one folder – at a time. Why is this a problem? Well, there are two main reasons why this limitation is a problem for computer users: The “correct” place for a file, according to our organizational rationale, is very often a very inconvenient place for that file to be located. Just because it’s correctly filed doesn’t mean it’s easy to get to. Your file may be “correctly” buried six levels deep in your sub-folder structure, but you may need regular and speedy access to this file every day. You could always move it to a more convenient location, but that would mean that you would need to re-file back to its “correct” location it every time you’d finished working on it. Most unsatisfactory. A file may simply “belong” in two or more different locations within your file structure. For example, say you’re an accountant and you have just completed the 2009 tax return for John Smith. It might make sense to you to call this file 2009 Tax Return.doc and file it under Clients\John Smith. But it may also be important to you to have the 2009 tax returns from all your clients together in the one place. So you might also want to call the file John Smith.doc and file it under Tax Returns\2009. The problem is, in a purely hierarchical filing system, you can’t put it in both places. Grrrrr! Fortunately, Windows (and most other operating systems) offers a way for you to do exactly that: It’s called a “shortcut” (also known as an “alias” on Macs and a “symbolic link” on UNIX systems). Shortcuts allow a file to exist in one place, and an icon that represents the file to be created and put anywhere else you please. In fact, you can create a dozen such icons and scatter them all over your hard disk. Double-clicking on one of these icons/shortcuts opens up the original file, just as if you had double-clicked on the original file itself. Consider the following two icons: The one on the left is the actual Word document, while the one on the right is a shortcut that represents the Word document. Double-clicking on either icon will open the same file. There are two main visual differences between the icons: The shortcut will have a small arrow in the lower-left-hand corner (on Windows, anyway) The shortcut is allowed to have a name that does not include the file extension (the “.docx” part, in this case) You can delete the shortcut at any time without losing any actual data. The original is still intact. All you lose is the ability to get to that data from wherever the shortcut was. So why are shortcuts so great? Because they allow us to easily overcome the main limitation of hierarchical file systems, and put a file in two (or more) places at the same time. You will always have files that don’t play nice with your organizational rationale, and can’t be filed in only one place. They demand to exist in two places. Shortcuts allow this! Furthermore, they allow you to collect your most often-opened files and folders together in one spot for convenient access. The cool part is that the original files stay where they are, safe forever in their perfectly organized location. So your collection of most often-opened files can – and should – become a collection of shortcuts! If you’re still not convinced of the utility of shortcuts, consider the following well-known areas of a typical Windows computer: The Start Menu (and all the programs that live within it) The Quick Launch bar (or the Superbar in Windows 7) The “Favorite folders” area in the top-left corner of the Windows Explorer window (in Windows Vista or Windows 7) Your Internet Explorer Favorites or Firefox Bookmarks Each item in each of these areas is a shortcut! Each of those areas exist for one purpose only: For convenience – to provide you with a collection of the files and folders you access most often. It should be easy to see by now that shortcuts are designed for one single purpose: To make accessing your files more convenient. Each time you double-click on a shortcut, you are saved the hassle of locating the file (or folder, or program, or drive, or control panel icon) that it represents. Shortcuts allow us to invent a golden rule of file and folder organization: “Only ever have one copy of a file – never have two copies of the same file. Use a shortcut instead” (this rule doesn’t apply to copies created for backup purposes, of course!) There are also lesser rules, like “don’t move a file into your work area – create a shortcut there instead”, and “any time you find yourself frustrated with how long it takes to locate a file, create a shortcut to it and place that shortcut in a convenient location.” So how to we create these massively useful shortcuts? There are two main ways: “Copy” the original file or folder (click on it and type Ctrl-C, or right-click on it and select Copy): Then right-click in an empty area of the destination folder (the place where you want the shortcut to go) and select Paste shortcut: Right-drag (drag with the right mouse button) the file from the source folder to the destination folder. When you let go of the mouse button at the destination folder, a menu pops up: Select Create shortcuts here. Note that when shortcuts are created, they are often named something like Shortcut to Budget Detail.doc (windows XP) or Budget Detail – Shortcut.doc (Windows 7). If you don’t like those extra words, you can easily rename the shortcuts after they’re created, or you can configure Windows to never insert the extra words in the first place (see our article on how to do this). And of course, you can create shortcuts to folders too, not just to files! Bottom line: Whenever you have a file that you’d like to access from somewhere else (whether it’s convenience you’re after, or because the file simply belongs in two places), create a shortcut to the original file in the new location. Tip #10. Separate Application Files from Data Files Any digital organization guru will drum this rule into you. Application files are the components of the software you’ve installed (e.g. Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop or Internet Explorer). Data files are the files that you’ve created for yourself using that software (e.g. Word Documents, digital photos, emails or playlists). Software gets installed, uninstalled and upgraded all the time. Hopefully you always have the original installation media (or downloaded set-up file) kept somewhere safe, and can thus reinstall your software at any time. This means that the software component files are of little importance. Whereas the files you have created with that software is, by definition, important. It’s a good rule to always separate unimportant files from important files. So when your software prompts you to save a file you’ve just created, take a moment and check out where it’s suggesting that you save the file. If it’s suggesting that you save the file into the same folder as the software itself, then definitely don’t follow that suggestion. File it in your own folder! In fact, see if you can find the program’s configuration option that determines where files are saved by default (if it has one), and change it. Tip #11. Organize Files Based on Purpose, Not on File Type If you have, for example a folder called Work\Clients\Johnson, and within that folder you have two sub-folders, Word Documents and Spreadsheets (in other words, you’re separating “.doc” files from “.xls” files), then chances are that you’re not optimally organized. It makes little sense to organize your files based on the program that created them. Instead, create your sub-folders based on the purpose of the file. For example, it would make more sense to create sub-folders called Correspondence and Financials. It may well be that all the files in a given sub-folder are of the same file-type, but this should be more of a coincidence and less of a design feature of your organization system. Tip #12. Maintain the Same Folder Structure on All Your Computers In other words, whatever organizational system you create, apply it to every computer that you can. There are several benefits to this: There’s less to remember. No matter where you are, you always know where to look for your files If you copy or synchronize files from one computer to another, then setting up the synchronization job becomes very simple Shortcuts can be copied or moved from one computer to another with ease (assuming the original files are also copied/moved). There’s no need to find the target of the shortcut all over again on the second computer Ditto for linked files (e.g Word documents that link to data in a separate Excel file), playlists, and any files that reference the exact file locations of other files. This applies even to the drive that your files are stored on. If your files are stored on C: on one computer, make sure they’re stored on C: on all your computers. Otherwise all your shortcuts, playlists and linked files will stop working! Tip #13. Create an “Inbox” Folder Create yourself a folder where you store all files that you’re currently working on, or that you haven’t gotten around to filing yet. You can think of this folder as your “to-do” list. You can call it “Inbox” (making it the same metaphor as your email system), or “Work”, or “To-Do”, or “Scratch”, or whatever name makes sense to you. It doesn’t matter what you call it – just make sure you have one! Once you have finished working on a file, you then move it from the “Inbox” to its correct location within your organizational structure. You may want to use your Desktop as this “Inbox” folder. Rightly or wrongly, most people do. It’s not a bad place to put such files, but be careful: If you do decide that your Desktop represents your “to-do” list, then make sure that no other files find their way there. In other words, make sure that your “Inbox”, wherever it is, Desktop or otherwise, is kept free of junk – stray files that don’t belong there. So where should you put this folder, which, almost by definition, lives outside the structure of the rest of your filing system? Well, first and foremost, it has to be somewhere handy. This will be one of your most-visited folders, so convenience is key. Putting it on the Desktop is a great option – especially if you don’t have any other folders on your Desktop: the folder then becomes supremely easy to find in Windows Explorer: You would then create shortcuts to this folder in convenient spots all over your computer (“Favorite Links”, “Quick Launch”, etc). Tip #14. Ensure You have Only One “Inbox” Folder Once you’ve created your “Inbox” folder, don’t use any other folder location as your “to-do list”. Throw every incoming or created file into the Inbox folder as you create/receive it. This keeps the rest of your computer pristine and free of randomly created or downloaded junk. The last thing you want to be doing is checking multiple folders to see all your current tasks and projects. Gather them all together into one folder. Here are some tips to help ensure you only have one Inbox: Set the default “save” location of all your programs to this folder. Set the default “download” location for your browser to this folder. If this folder is not your desktop (recommended) then also see if you can make a point of not putting “to-do” files on your desktop. This keeps your desktop uncluttered and Zen-like: (the Inbox folder is in the bottom-right corner) Tip #15. Be Vigilant about Clearing Your “Inbox” Folder This is one of the keys to staying organized. If you let your “Inbox” overflow (i.e. allow there to be more than, say, 30 files or folders in there), then you’re probably going to start feeling like you’re overwhelmed: You’re not keeping up with your to-do list. Once your Inbox gets beyond a certain point (around 30 files, studies have shown), then you’ll simply start to avoid it. You may continue to put files in there, but you’ll be scared to look at it, fearing the “out of control” feeling that all overworked, chaotic or just plain disorganized people regularly feel. So, here’s what you can do: Visit your Inbox/to-do folder regularly (at least five times per day). Scan the folder regularly for files that you have completed working on and are ready for filing. File them immediately. Make it a source of pride to keep the number of files in this folder as small as possible. If you value peace of mind, then make the emptiness of this folder one of your highest (computer) priorities If you know that a particular file has been in the folder for more than, say, six weeks, then admit that you’re not actually going to get around to processing it, and move it to its final resting place. Tip #16. File Everything Immediately, and Use Shortcuts for Your Active Projects As soon as you create, receive or download a new file, store it away in its “correct” folder immediately. Then, whenever you need to work on it (possibly straight away), create a shortcut to it in your “Inbox” (“to-do”) folder or your desktop. That way, all your files are always in their “correct” locations, yet you still have immediate, convenient access to your current, active files. When you finish working on a file, simply delete the shortcut. Ideally, your “Inbox” folder – and your Desktop – should contain no actual files or folders. They should simply contain shortcuts. Tip #17. Use Directory Symbolic Links (or Junctions) to Maintain One Unified Folder Structure Using this tip, we can get around a potential hiccup that we can run into when creating our organizational structure – the issue of having more than one drive on our computer (C:, D:, etc). We might have files we need to store on the D: drive for space reasons, and yet want to base our organized folder structure on the C: drive (or vice-versa). Your chosen organizational structure may dictate that all your files must be accessed from the C: drive (for example, the root folder of all your files may be something like C:\Files). And yet you may still have a D: drive and wish to take advantage of the hundreds of spare Gigabytes that it offers. Did you know that it’s actually possible to store your files on the D: drive and yet access them as if they were on the C: drive? And no, we’re not talking about shortcuts here (although the concept is very similar). By using the shell command mklink, you can essentially take a folder that lives on one drive and create an alias for it on a different drive (you can do lots more than that with mklink – for a full rundown on this programs capabilities, see our dedicated article). These aliases are called directory symbolic links (and used to be known as junctions). You can think of them as “virtual” folders. They function exactly like regular folders, except they’re physically located somewhere else. For example, you may decide that your entire D: drive contains your complete organizational file structure, but that you need to reference all those files as if they were on the C: drive, under C:\Files. If that was the case you could create C:\Files as a directory symbolic link – a link to D:, as follows: mklink /d c:\files d:\ Or it may be that the only files you wish to store on the D: drive are your movie collection. You could locate all your movie files in the root of your D: drive, and then link it to C:\Files\Media\Movies, as follows: mklink /d c:\files\media\movies d:\ (Needless to say, you must run these commands from a command prompt – click the Start button, type cmd and press Enter) Tip #18. Customize Your Folder Icons This is not strictly speaking an organizational tip, but having unique icons for each folder does allow you to more quickly visually identify which folder is which, and thus saves you time when you’re finding files. An example is below (from my folder that contains all files downloaded from the Internet): To learn how to change your folder icons, please refer to our dedicated article on the subject. Tip #19. Tidy Your Start Menu The Windows Start Menu is usually one of the messiest parts of any Windows computer. Every program you install seems to adopt a completely different approach to placing icons in this menu. Some simply put a single program icon. Others create a folder based on the name of the software. And others create a folder based on the name of the software manufacturer. It’s chaos, and can make it hard to find the software you want to run. Thankfully we can avoid this chaos with useful operating system features like Quick Launch, the Superbar or pinned start menu items. Even so, it would make a lot of sense to get into the guts of the Start Menu itself and give it a good once-over. All you really need to decide is how you’re going to organize your applications. A structure based on the purpose of the application is an obvious candidate. Below is an example of one such structure: In this structure, Utilities means software whose job it is to keep the computer itself running smoothly (configuration tools, backup software, Zip programs, etc). Applications refers to any productivity software that doesn’t fit under the headings Multimedia, Graphics, Internet, etc. In case you’re not aware, every icon in your Start Menu is a shortcut and can be manipulated like any other shortcut (copied, moved, deleted, etc). With the Windows Start Menu (all version of Windows), Microsoft has decided that there be two parallel folder structures to store your Start Menu shortcuts. One for you (the logged-in user of the computer) and one for all users of the computer. Having two parallel structures can often be redundant: If you are the only user of the computer, then having two parallel structures is totally redundant. Even if you have several users that regularly log into the computer, most of your installed software will need to be made available to all users, and should thus be moved out of the “just you” version of the Start Menu and into the “all users” area. To take control of your Start Menu, so you can start organizing it, you’ll need to know how to access the actual folders and shortcut files that make up the Start Menu (both versions of it). To find these folders and files, click the Start button and then right-click on the All Programs text (Windows XP users should right-click on the Start button itself): The Open option refers to the “just you” version of the Start Menu, while the Open All Users option refers to the “all users” version. Click on the one you want to organize. A Windows Explorer window then opens with your chosen version of the Start Menu selected. From there it’s easy. Double-click on the Programs folder and you’ll see all your folders and shortcuts. Now you can delete/rename/move until it’s just the way you want it. Note: When you’re reorganizing your Start Menu, you may want to have two Explorer windows open at the same time – one showing the “just you” version and one showing the “all users” version. You can drag-and-drop between the windows. Tip #20. Keep Your Start Menu Tidy Once you have a perfectly organized Start Menu, try to be a little vigilant about keeping it that way. Every time you install a new piece of software, the icons that get created will almost certainly violate your organizational structure. So to keep your Start Menu pristine and organized, make sure you do the following whenever you install a new piece of software: Check whether the software was installed into the “just you” area of the Start Menu, or the “all users” area, and then move it to the correct area. Remove all the unnecessary icons (like the “Read me” icon, the “Help” icon (you can always open the help from within the software itself when it’s running), the “Uninstall” icon, the link(s)to the manufacturer’s website, etc) Rename the main icon(s) of the software to something brief that makes sense to you. For example, you might like to rename Microsoft Office Word 2010 to simply Word Move the icon(s) into the correct folder based on your Start Menu organizational structure And don’t forget: when you uninstall a piece of software, the software’s uninstall routine is no longer going to be able to remove the software’s icon from the Start Menu (because you moved and/or renamed it), so you’ll need to remove that icon manually. Tip #21. Tidy C:\ The root of your C: drive (C:\) is a common dumping ground for files and folders – both by the users of your computer and by the software that you install on your computer. It can become a mess. There’s almost no software these days that requires itself to be installed in C:\. 99% of the time it can and should be installed into C:\Program Files. And as for your own files, well, it’s clear that they can (and almost always should) be stored somewhere else. In an ideal world, your C:\ folder should look like this (on Windows 7): Note that there are some system files and folders in C:\ that are usually and deliberately “hidden” (such as the Windows virtual memory file pagefile.sys, the boot loader file bootmgr, and the System Volume Information folder). Hiding these files and folders is a good idea, as they need to stay where they are and are almost never needed to be opened or even seen by you, the user. Hiding them prevents you from accidentally messing with them, and enhances your sense of order and well-being when you look at your C: drive folder. Tip #22. Tidy Your Desktop The Desktop is probably the most abused part of a Windows computer (from an organization point of view). It usually serves as a dumping ground for all incoming files, as well as holding icons to oft-used applications, plus some regularly opened files and folders. It often ends up becoming an uncontrolled mess. See if you can avoid this. Here’s why… Application icons (Word, Internet Explorer, etc) are often found on the Desktop, but it’s unlikely that this is the optimum place for them. The “Quick Launch” bar (or the Superbar in Windows 7) is always visible and so represents a perfect location to put your icons. You’ll only be able to see the icons on your Desktop when all your programs are minimized. It might be time to get your application icons off your desktop… You may have decided that the Inbox/To-do folder on your computer (see tip #13, above) should be your Desktop. If so, then enough said. Simply be vigilant about clearing it and preventing it from being polluted by junk files (see tip #15, above). On the other hand, if your Desktop is not acting as your “Inbox” folder, then there’s no reason for it to have any data files or folders on it at all, except perhaps a couple of shortcuts to often-opened files and folders (either ongoing or current projects). Everything else should be moved to your “Inbox” folder. In an ideal world, it might look like this: Tip #23. Move Permanent Items on Your Desktop Away from the Top-Left Corner When files/folders are dragged onto your desktop in a Windows Explorer window, or when shortcuts are created on your Desktop from Internet Explorer, those icons are always placed in the top-left corner – or as close as they can get. If you have other files, folders or shortcuts that you keep on the Desktop permanently, then it’s a good idea to separate these permanent icons from the transient ones, so that you can quickly identify which ones the transients are. An easy way to do this is to move all your permanent icons to the right-hand side of your Desktop. That should keep them separated from incoming items. Tip #24. Synchronize If you have more than one computer, you’ll almost certainly want to share files between them. If the computers are permanently attached to the same local network, then there’s no need to store multiple copies of any one file or folder – shortcuts will suffice. However, if the computers are not always on the same network, then you will at some point need to copy files between them. For files that need to permanently live on both computers, the ideal way to do this is to synchronize the files, as opposed to simply copying them. We only have room here to write a brief summary of synchronization, not a full article. In short, there are several different types of synchronization: Where the contents of one folder are accessible anywhere, such as with Dropbox Where the contents of any number of folders are accessible anywhere, such as with Windows Live Mesh Where any files or folders from anywhere on your computer are synchronized with exactly one other computer, such as with the Windows “Briefcase”, Microsoft SyncToy, or (much more powerful, yet still free) SyncBack from 2BrightSparks. This only works when both computers are on the same local network, at least temporarily. A great advantage of synchronization solutions is that once you’ve got it configured the way you want it, then the sync process happens automatically, every time. Click a button (or schedule it to happen automatically) and all your files are automagically put where they’re supposed to be. If you maintain the same file and folder structure on both computers, then you can also sync files depend upon the correct location of other files, like shortcuts, playlists and office documents that link to other office documents, and the synchronized files still work on the other computer! Tip #25. Hide Files You Never Need to See If you have your files well organized, you will often be able to tell if a file is out of place just by glancing at the contents of a folder (for example, it should be pretty obvious if you look in a folder that contains all the MP3s from one music CD and see a Word document in there). This is a good thing – it allows you to determine if there are files out of place with a quick glance. Yet sometimes there are files in a folder that seem out of place but actually need to be there, such as the “folder art” JPEGs in music folders, and various files in the root of the C: drive. If such files never need to be opened by you, then a good idea is to simply hide them. Then, the next time you glance at the folder, you won’t have to remember whether that file was supposed to be there or not, because you won’t see it at all! To hide a file, simply right-click on it and choose Properties: Then simply tick the Hidden tick-box: Tip #26. Keep Every Setup File These days most software is downloaded from the Internet. Whenever you download a piece of software, keep it. You’ll never know when you need to reinstall the software. Further, keep with it an Internet shortcut that links back to the website where you originally downloaded it, in case you ever need to check for updates. See tip #33 below for a full description of the excellence of organizing your setup files. Tip #27. Try to Minimize the Number of Folders that Contain Both Files and Sub-folders Some of the folders in your organizational structure will contain only files. Others will contain only sub-folders. And you will also have some folders that contain both files and sub-folders. You will notice slight improvements in how long it takes you to locate a file if you try to avoid this third type of folder. It’s not always possible, of course – you’ll always have some of these folders, but see if you can avoid it. One way of doing this is to take all the leftover files that didn’t end up getting stored in a sub-folder and create a special “Miscellaneous” or “Other” folder for them. Tip #28. Starting a Filename with an Underscore Brings it to the Top of a List Further to the previous tip, if you name that “Miscellaneous” or “Other” folder in such a way that its name begins with an underscore “_”, then it will appear at the top of the list of files/folders. The screenshot below is an example of this. Each folder in the list contains a set of digital photos. The folder at the top of the list, _Misc, contains random photos that didn’t deserve their own dedicated folder: Tip #29. Clean Up those CD-ROMs and (shudder!) Floppy Disks Have you got a pile of CD-ROMs stacked on a shelf of your office? Old photos, or files you archived off onto CD-ROM (or even worse, floppy disks!) because you didn’t have enough disk space at the time? In the meantime have you upgraded your computer and now have 500 Gigabytes of space you don’t know what to do with? If so, isn’t it time you tidied up that stack of disks and filed them into your gorgeous new folder structure? So what are you waiting for? Bite the bullet, copy them all back onto your computer, file them in their appropriate folders, and then back the whole lot up onto a shiny new 1000Gig external hard drive! Useful Folders to Create This next section suggests some useful folders that you might want to create within your folder structure. I’ve personally found them to be indispensable. The first three are all about convenience – handy folders to create and then put somewhere that you can always access instantly. For each one, it’s not so important where the actual folder is located, but it’s very important where you put the shortcut(s) to the folder. You might want to locate the shortcuts: On your Desktop In your “Quick Launch” area (or pinned to your Windows 7 Superbar) In your Windows Explorer “Favorite Links” area Tip #30. Create an “Inbox” (“To-Do”) Folder This has already been mentioned in depth (see tip #13), but we wanted to reiterate its importance here. This folder contains all the recently created, received or downloaded files that you have not yet had a chance to file away properly, and it also may contain files that you have yet to process. In effect, it becomes a sort of “to-do list”. It doesn’t have to be called “Inbox” – you can call it whatever you want. Tip #31. Create a Folder where Your Current Projects are Collected Rather than going hunting for them all the time, or dumping them all on your desktop, create a special folder where you put links (or work folders) for each of the projects you’re currently working on. You can locate this folder in your “Inbox” folder, on your desktop, or anywhere at all – just so long as there’s a way of getting to it quickly, such as putting a link to it in Windows Explorer’s “Favorite Links” area: Tip #32. Create a Folder for Files and Folders that You Regularly Open You will always have a few files that you open regularly, whether it be a spreadsheet of your current accounts, or a favorite playlist. These are not necessarily “current projects”, rather they’re simply files that you always find yourself opening. Typically such files would be located on your desktop (or even better, shortcuts to those files). Why not collect all such shortcuts together and put them in their own special folder? As with the “Current Projects” folder (above), you would want to locate that folder somewhere convenient. Below is an example of a folder called “Quick links”, with about seven files (shortcuts) in it, that is accessible through the Windows Quick Launch bar: See tip #37 below for a full explanation of the power of the Quick Launch bar. Tip #33. Create a “Set-ups” Folder A typical computer has dozens of applications installed on it. For each piece of software, there are often many different pieces of information you need to keep track of, including: The original installation setup file(s). This can be anything from a simple 100Kb setup.exe file you downloaded from a website, all the way up to a 4Gig ISO file that you copied from a DVD-ROM that you purchased. The home page of the software manufacturer (in case you need to look up something on their support pages, their forum or their online help) The page containing the download link for your actual file (in case you need to re-download it, or download an upgraded version) The serial number Your proof-of-purchase documentation Any other template files, plug-ins, themes, etc that also need to get installed For each piece of software, it’s a great idea to gather all of these files together and put them in a single folder. The folder can be the name of the software (plus possibly a very brief description of what it’s for – in case you can’t remember what the software does based in its name). Then you would gather all of these folders together into one place, and call it something like “Software” or “Setups”. If you have enough of these folders (I have several hundred, being a geek, collected over 20 years), then you may want to further categorize them. My own categorization structure is based on “platform” (operating system): The last seven folders each represents one platform/operating system, while _Operating Systems contains set-up files for installing the operating systems themselves. _Hardware contains ROMs for hardware I own, such as routers. Within the Windows folder (above), you can see the beginnings of the vast library of software I’ve compiled over the years: An example of a typical application folder looks like this: Tip #34. Have a “Settings” Folder We all know that our documents are important. So are our photos and music files. We save all of these files into folders, and then locate them afterwards and double-click on them to open them. But there are many files that are important to us that can’t be saved into folders, and then searched for and double-clicked later on. These files certainly contain important information that we need, but are often created internally by an application, and saved wherever that application feels is appropriate. A good example of this is the “PST” file that Outlook creates for us and uses to store all our emails, contacts, appointments and so forth. Another example would be the collection of Bookmarks that Firefox stores on your behalf. And yet another example would be the customized settings and configuration files of our all our software. Granted, most Windows programs store their configuration in the Registry, but there are still many programs that use configuration files to store their settings. Imagine if you lost all of the above files! And yet, when people are backing up their computers, they typically only back up the files they know about – those that are stored in the “My Documents” folder, etc. If they had a hard disk failure or their computer was lost or stolen, their backup files would not include some of the most vital files they owned. Also, when migrating to a new computer, it’s vital to ensure that these files make the journey. It can be a very useful idea to create yourself a folder to store all your “settings” – files that are important to you but which you never actually search for by name and double-click on to open them. Otherwise, next time you go to set up a new computer just the way you want it, you’ll need to spend hours recreating the configuration of your previous computer! So how to we get our important files into this folder? Well, we have a few options: Some programs (such as Outlook and its PST files) allow you to place these files wherever you want. If you delve into the program’s options, you will find a setting somewhere that controls the location of the important settings files (or “personal storage” – PST – when it comes to Outlook) Some programs do not allow you to change such locations in any easy way, but if you get into the Registry, you can sometimes find a registry key that refers to the location of the file(s). Simply move the file into your Settings folder and adjust the registry key to refer to the new location. Some programs stubbornly refuse to allow their settings files to be placed anywhere other then where they stipulate. When faced with programs like these, you have three choices: (1) You can ignore those files, (2) You can copy the files into your Settings folder (let’s face it – settings don’t change very often), or (3) you can use synchronization software, such as the Windows Briefcase, to make synchronized copies of all your files in your Settings folder. All you then have to do is to remember to run your sync software periodically (perhaps just before you run your backup software!). There are some other things you may decide to locate inside this new “Settings” folder: Exports of registry keys (from the many applications that store their configurations in the Registry). This is useful for backup purposes or for migrating to a new computer Notes you’ve made about all the specific customizations you have made to a particular piece of software (so that you’ll know how to do it all again on your next computer) Shortcuts to webpages that detail how to tweak certain aspects of your operating system or applications so they are just the way you like them (such as how to remove the words “Shortcut to” from the beginning of newly created shortcuts). In other words, you’d want to create shortcuts to half the pages on the How-To Geek website! Here’s an example of a “Settings” folder: Windows Features that Help with Organization This section details some of the features of Microsoft Windows that are a boon to anyone hoping to stay optimally organized. Tip #35. Use the “Favorite Links” Area to Access Oft-Used Folders Once you’ve created your great new filing system, work out which folders you access most regularly, or which serve as great starting points for locating the rest of the files in your folder structure, and then put links to those folders in your “Favorite Links” area of the left-hand side of the Windows Explorer window (simply called “Favorites” in Windows 7): Some ideas for folders you might want to add there include: Your “Inbox” folder (or whatever you’ve called it) – most important! The base of your filing structure (e.g. C:\Files) A folder containing shortcuts to often-accessed folders on other computers around the network (shown above as Network Folders) A folder containing shortcuts to your current projects (unless that folder is in your “Inbox” folder) Getting folders into this area is very simple – just locate the folder you’re interested in and drag it there! Tip #36. Customize the Places Bar in the File/Open and File/Save Boxes Consider the screenshot below: The highlighted icons (collectively known as the “Places Bar”) can be customized to refer to any folder location you want, allowing instant access to any part of your organizational structure. Note: These File/Open and File/Save boxes have been superseded by new versions that use the Windows Vista/Windows 7 “Favorite Links”, but the older versions (shown above) are still used by a surprisingly large number of applications. The easiest way to customize these icons is to use the Group Policy Editor, but not everyone has access to this program. If you do, open it up and navigate to: User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer > Common Open File Dialog If you don’t have access to the Group Policy Editor, then you’ll need to get into the Registry. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ comdlg32 \ Placesbar It should then be easy to make the desired changes. Log off and log on again to allow the changes to take effect. Tip #37. Use the Quick Launch Bar as a Application and File Launcher That Quick Launch bar (to the right of the Start button) is a lot more useful than people give it credit for. Most people simply have half a dozen icons in it, and use it to start just those programs. But it can actually be used to instantly access just about anything in your filing system: For complete instructions on how to set this up, visit our dedicated article on this topic. Tip #38. Put a Shortcut to Windows Explorer into Your Quick Launch Bar This is only necessary in Windows Vista and Windows XP. The Microsoft boffins finally got wise and added it to the Windows 7 Superbar by default. Windows Explorer – the program used for managing your files and folders – is one of the most useful programs in Windows. Anyone who considers themselves serious about being organized needs instant access to this program at any time. A great place to create a shortcut to this program is in the Windows XP and Windows Vista “Quick Launch” bar: To get it there, locate it in your Start Menu (usually under “Accessories”) and then right-drag it down into your Quick Launch bar (and create a copy). Tip #39. Customize the Starting Folder for Your Windows 7 Explorer Superbar Icon If you’re on Windows 7, your Superbar will include a Windows Explorer icon. Clicking on the icon will launch Windows Explorer (of course), and will start you off in your “Libraries” folder. Libraries may be fine as a starting point, but if you have created yourself an “Inbox” folder, then it would probably make more sense to start off in this folder every time you launch Windows Explorer. To change this default/starting folder location, then first right-click the Explorer icon in the Superbar, and then right-click Properties:Then, in Target field of the Windows Explorer Properties box that appears, type %windir%\explorer.exe followed by the path of the folder you wish to start in. For example: %windir%\explorer.exe C:\Files If that folder happened to be on the Desktop (and called, say, “Inbox”), then you would use the following cleverness: %windir%\explorer.exe shell:desktop\Inbox Then click OK and test it out. Tip #40. Ummmmm…. No, that’s it. I can’t think of another one. That’s all of the tips I can come up with. I only created this one because 40 is such a nice round number… Case Study – An Organized PC To finish off the article, I have included a few screenshots of my (main) computer (running Vista). The aim here is twofold: To give you a sense of what it looks like when the above, sometimes abstract, tips are applied to a real-life computer, and To offer some ideas about folders and structure that you may want to steal to use on your own PC. Let’s start with the C: drive itself. Very minimal. All my files are contained within C:\Files. I’ll confine the rest of the case study to this folder: That folder contains the following: Mark: My personal files VC: My business (Virtual Creations, Australia) Others contains files created by friends and family Data contains files from the rest of the world (can be thought of as “public” files, usually downloaded from the Net) Settings is described above in tip #34 The Data folder contains the following sub-folders: Audio: Radio plays, audio books, podcasts, etc Development: Programmer and developer resources, sample source code, etc (see below) Humour: Jokes, funnies (those emails that we all receive) Movies: Downloaded and ripped movies (all legal, of course!), their scripts, DVD covers, etc. Music: (see below) Setups: Installation files for software (explained in full in tip #33) System: (see below) TV: Downloaded TV shows Writings: Books, instruction manuals, etc (see below) The Music folder contains the following sub-folders: Album covers: JPEG scans Guitar tabs: Text files of guitar sheet music Lists: e.g. “Top 1000 songs of all time” Lyrics: Text files MIDI: Electronic music files MP3 (representing 99% of the Music folder): MP3s, either ripped from CDs or downloaded, sorted by artist/album name Music Video: Video clips Sheet Music: usually PDFs The Data\Writings folder contains the following sub-folders: (all pretty self-explanatory) The Data\Development folder contains the following sub-folders: Again, all pretty self-explanatory (if you’re a geek) The Data\System folder contains the following sub-folders: These are usually themes, plug-ins and other downloadable program-specific resources. The Mark folder contains the following sub-folders: From Others: Usually letters that other people (friends, family, etc) have written to me For Others: Letters and other things I have created for other people Green Book: None of your business Playlists: M3U files that I have compiled of my favorite songs (plus one M3U playlist file for every album I own) Writing: Fiction, philosophy and other musings of mine Mark Docs: Shortcut to C:\Users\Mark Settings: Shortcut to C:\Files\Settings\Mark The Others folder contains the following sub-folders: The VC (Virtual Creations, my business – I develop websites) folder contains the following sub-folders: And again, all of those are pretty self-explanatory. Conclusion These tips have saved my sanity and helped keep me a productive geek, but what about you? What tips and tricks do you have to keep your files organized? Please share them with us in the comments. Come on, don’t be shy… Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fix For When Windows Explorer in Vista Stops Showing File NamesWhy Did Windows Vista’s Music Folder Icon Turn Yellow?Print or Create a Text File List of the Contents in a Directory the Easy WayCustomize the Windows 7 or Vista Send To MenuAdd Copy To / Move To on Windows 7 or Vista Right-Click Menu TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Track Daily Goals With 42Goals Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day Check the Average Speed of YouTube Videos You’ve Watched OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics

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SQL Authority News – Play by Play with Pinal Dave – A Birthday Gift

- by Pinal Dave

Today is my birthday. Personal Note When I was young, I was always looking forward to my birthday as on this day, I used to get gifts from everybody. Now when I am getting old on each of my birthday, I have almost same feeling but the direction is different. Now on each of my birthday, I feel like giving gifts to everybody. I have received lots of support, love and respect from everybody; and now I must return it back.Well, on this birthday, I have very unique gifts for everybody – my latest course on SQL Server. How I Tune Performance I often get questions where I am asked how do I work on a normal day. I am often asked that how do I work when I have performance tuning project is assigned to me. Lots of people have expressed their desire that they want me to explain and demonstrate my own method of solving performance problem when I am facing real world problem. It is a pretty difficult task as in the real world, nothing goes as planned and usually planned demonstrations have no place there. The real world, demands real solutions and in a timely fashion. If a consultant goes to industry and does not demonstrate his/her capabilities in very first few minutes, it does not matter how much fame he/she is, the door is shown to them eventually. It is true and in my early career, I have faced it quite commonly. I have learned the trick to be honest from the start and request absolutely transparent communication from the organization where I am to consult. Play by Play Play by Play is a very unique setup. It is not planned and it is a step by step course. It is like a reality show – a very real encounter to the problem and real problem solving approach. I had a great time doing this course. Geoffrey Grosenbach (VP of Pluralsight) sits down with me to see what a SQL Server Admin does in the real world. This Play-by-Play focuses on SQL Server performance tuning and I go over optimizing queries and fine-tuning the server. The table of content of this course is very simple. Introduction In the introduction I explained my basic strategies when I am approached by a customer for performance tuning. Basic Information Gathering In this module I explain how I do gather various information for performance tuning project. It is very crucial to demonstrate to customers for consultant his capability of solving problem. I attempt to resolve a small problem which gives a big positive impact on performance, consultant have to gather proper information from the start. I demonstrate in this module, how one can collect all the important performance tuning metrics. Removing Performance Bottleneck In this module, I build upon the previous module’s statistics collected. I analysis various performance tuning measures and immediately start implementing various tweaks on the performance, which will start improving the performance of my server. This is a very effective method and it gives immediate return of efforts. Index Optimization Indexes are considered as a silver bullet for performance tuning. However, it is not true always there are plenty of examples where indexes even performs worst after implemented. The key is to understand a few of the basic properties of the index and implement the right things at the right time. In this module, I describe in detail how to do index optimizations and what are right and wrong with Index. If you are a DBA or developer, and if your application is running slow – this is must attend module for you. I have some really interesting stories to tell as well. Optimize Query with Rewrite Every problem has more than one solution, in this module we will see another very famous, but hard to master skills for performance tuning – Query Rewrite. There are few do’s and don’ts for any query rewrites. I take a very simple example and demonstrate how query rewrite can improve the performance of the query at many folds. I also share some real world funny stories in this module. This course is hosted at Pluralsight. You will need a valid login for Pluralsight to watch Play by Play: Pinal Dave course. You can also sign up for FREE Trial of Pluralsight to watch this course. As today is my birthday – I will give 10 people (randomly) who will express their desire to learn this course, a free code. Please leave your comment and I will send you free code to watch this course for free. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Video

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An issue with tessellation a model with DirectX11

- by Paul Ske

I took the hardware tessellation tutorial from Rastertek and implemended texturing instead of color. This is great, so I wanted to implemended the same techique to a model inside my game editor and I noticed it doesn't draw anything. I compared the detailed tessellation from DirectX SDK sample. Inside the shader file - if I replace the HullInputType with PixelInputType it draws. So, I think because when I compiled the shaders inside the program it compiles VertexShader, PixelShader, HullShader then DomainShader. Isn't it suppose to be VertexShader, HullSHader, DomainShader then PixelShader or does it really not matter? I am just curious why wouldn't the model even be drawn when HullInputType but renders fine with PixelInputType. Shader Code: [code] cbuffer ConstantBuffer { float4x4 WVP; float4x4 World; // the rotation matrix float3 lightvec; // the light's vector float4 lightcol; // the light's color float4 ambientcol; // the ambient light's color bool isSelected; } cbuffer cameraBuffer { float3 cameraDirection; float padding; } cbuffer TessellationBuffer { float tessellationAmount; float3 padding2; } struct ConstantOutputType { float edges[3] : SV_TessFactor; float inside : SV_InsideTessFactor; }; Texture2D Texture; Texture2D NormalTexture; SamplerState ss { MinLOD = 5.0f; MipLODBias = 0.0f; }; struct HullOutputType { float3 position : POSITION; float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0; float3 normal : NORMAL; float3 tangent : TANGENT; }; struct HullInputType { float4 position : POSITION; float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0; float3 normal : NORMAL; float3 tangent : TANGENT; }; struct VertexInputType { float4 position : POSITION; float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD; float3 normal : NORMAL; float3 tangent : TANGENT; uint uVertexID : SV_VERTEXID; }; struct PixelInputType { float4 position : SV_POSITION; float2 texcoord : TEXCOORD0; // texture coordinates float3 normal : NORMAL; float3 tangent : TANGENT; float4 color : COLOR; float3 viewDirection : TEXCOORD1; float4 depthBuffer : TEXTURE0; }; HullInputType VShader(VertexInputType input) { HullInputType output; output.position.w = 1.0f; output.position = mul(input.position,WVP); output.texcoord = input.texcoord; output.normal = input.normal; output.tangent = input.tangent; //output.normal = mul(normal,World); //output.tangent = mul(tangent,World); //output.color = output.color; //output.texcoord = texcoord; // set the texture coordinates, unmodified return output; } ConstantOutputType TexturePatchConstantFunction(InputPatch inputPatch,uint patchID : SV_PrimitiveID) { ConstantOutputType output; output.edges[0] = tessellationAmount; output.edges[1] = tessellationAmount; output.edges[2] = tessellationAmount; output.inside = tessellationAmount; return output; } [domain("tri")] [partitioning("integer")] [outputtopology("triangle_cw")] [outputcontrolpoints(3)] [patchconstantfunc("TexturePatchConstantFunction")] HullOutputType HShader(InputPatch patch, uint pointId : SV_OutputControlPointID, uint patchId : SV_PrimitiveID) { HullOutputType output; // Set the position for this control point as the output position. output.position = patch[pointId].position; // Set the input color as the output color. output.texcoord = patch[pointId].texcoord; output.normal = patch[pointId].normal; output.tangent = patch[pointId].tangent; return output; } [domain("tri")] PixelInputType DShader(ConstantOutputType input, float3 uvwCoord : SV_DomainLocation, const OutputPatch patch) { float3 vertexPosition; float2 uvPosition; float4 worldposition; PixelInputType output; // Interpolate world space position with barycentric coordinates float3 vWorldPos = uvwCoord.x * patch[0].position + uvwCoord.y * patch[1].position + uvwCoord.z * patch[2].position; // Determine the position of the new vertex. vertexPosition = vWorldPos; // Calculate the position of the new vertex against the world, view, and projection matrices. output.position = mul(float4(vertexPosition, 1.0f),WVP); // Send the input color into the pixel shader. output.texcoord = uvwCoord.x * patch[0].position + uvwCoord.y * patch[1].position + uvwCoord.z * patch[2].position; output.normal = uvwCoord.x * patch[0].position + uvwCoord.y * patch[1].position + uvwCoord.z * patch[2].position; output.tangent = uvwCoord.x * patch[0].position + uvwCoord.y * patch[1].position + uvwCoord.z * patch[2].position; //output.depthBuffer = output.position; //output.depthBuffer.w = 1.0f; //worldposition = mul(output.position,WVP); //output.viewDirection = cameraDirection.xyz - worldposition.xyz; //output.viewDirection = normalize(output.viewDirection); return output; } [/code] Somethings are commented out but will be in place when fixed. I'm probably not connecting something correctly.

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