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• Installing isolated instance of MySQL on Windows using silent install with .msi

  - by Abram

  I'm trying to write an installer for an internal application we wrote. After it installs our application it then installs MySQL using the .msi installer in silent mode. I specify the install dir and data dir to that of a directory within my application's install directory, such as: msiexec /i @@MYSQL_INSTALLER_FILE@@ /qn INSTALLDIR="@@INSTALL_DIR@@\MySQL\" DATADIR="@@INSTALL_DIR@@\MySQL\" USERNAME="@@DB_USER@@" PASSWORD="@@DB_PASS@@" (the @@variable@@'s are replace by my installer routine using InstallJammer) Once installed, I use mysqld.exe to install a windows service with a custom service name and defaults file like so: mysqld.exe --install CustomMySQL --defaults-file="@@INSTALL_DIR@@\MySQL\my.ini" This works fine as long as there is not already another instance of MySQL installed. If there is it silently fails to install MySQL. Running the msi installer manually (double-click) shows an error that a previous version is already installed and just aborts. Is there a way to automate installing MySQL as an isolated instance, regardless of whether another version/instance is already installed?

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• Forcing Remote machine to serve RDP (or similar) session

  - by sMaN

  Due to a Dell/Nvidia design flaw in the Dell Inspiron 1420 series, my laptop no longer shows a display. I am looking for a solution to view it remotely. I have used it via RDP in the past (not for a year though) however for what ever reason I can no longer RDP, it could have been disabled some how. However, I'm on the same LAN, I can ping it, and know its login creditials. Is there a way I can hack into it remotely to force it to serve a RDP session or an alternative? Please bear in mind my only view I could have to its interface is via a remote session. Its running Windows 7 Pro

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• SQL SERVER – Follow up – Usage of $rowguid and $IDENTITY

  - by pinaldave

  The most common question I often receive is why do I blog? The answer is even simpler – I blog because I get an extremely constructive comment and conversation from people like DHall and Kumar Harsh. Earlier this week, I shared a conversation between Madhivanan and myself regarding how to find out if a table uses ROWGUID or not? I encourage all of you to read the conversation here: SQL SERVER – Identifying Column Data Type of uniqueidentifier without Querying System Tables. In simple words the conversation between Madhivanan and myself brought out a simple query which returns the values of the UNIQUEIDENTIFIER  without knowing the name of the column. David Hall wrote few excellent comments as a follow up and every SQL Enthusiast must read them first, second and third. David is always with positive energy, he first of all shows the limitation of my solution here and here which he follows up with his own solution here. As he said his solution is also not perfect but it indeed leaves learning bites for all of us – worth reading if you are interested in unorthodox solutions. Kumar Harsh suggested that one can also find Identity Column used in the table very similar way using $IDENTITY. Here is how one can do the same. DECLARE @t TABLE ( GuidCol UNIQUEIDENTIFIER DEFAULT newsequentialid() ROWGUIDCOL, IDENTITYCL INT IDENTITY(1,1), data VARCHAR(60) ) INSERT INTO @t (data) SELECT 'test' INSERT INTO @t (data) SELECT 'test1' SELECT $rowguid,$IDENTITY FROM @t There are alternate ways also to find an identity column in the database as well. Following query will give a list of all column names with their corresponding tablename. SELECT SCHEMA_NAME(so.schema_id) SchemaName, so.name TableName, sc.name ColumnName FROM sys.objects so INNER JOIN sys.columns sc ON so.OBJECT_ID = sc.OBJECT_ID AND sc.is_identity = 1 Let me know if you use any alternate method related to identity, I would like to know what you do and how you do when you have to deal with Identity Column. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• Another installation is in progress

  - by Steven

  Why I try to install any program I see "Another installation is in progress. You must complete that installation before continuing this one." error. Googled the web and found that solution would be to delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\InProgress registry key and reboot. That didn't help me unfortunately. When I open "Services" mmc snapin it shows that "Windows Installer" service is "Started", but "Start/Stop/Pause/Restart" buttons are grayed (the interesting thing is that startup type = "Manual", so I don't really know how to explain that I already have 2 instances of msiexec.exe in memory and one instance is consuming 50Mb of memory. Looks like there's a serious issue with my installer service - is there any way to fix it (please do mind - I can't install anything!) Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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• Yahoo search: different results shown in two identical searches

  - by Marco Demaio

  Hello,simple question: searching on http://www.yahoo.it for villa matrimonio bologna I noticed Yahoo shows different results. You need to retry few times to get this done maybe exiting the browser and openeing it again, or maybe searching once and then clearing browser cookies and then search again (it's even easier to test if you use two different browsers at the same time to search for the same phrase). Anyway in order to reproduce this easily I write down here the query shown in the address bar after the search, so you can just click on these to see the results shown by entering these query: http://it.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AirvLYKvBMPP_6MpAmONN14brK5_?vc=&p=villa+matrimonio+bologna&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-709 http://it.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AirvLYKvBMPP_6MpAmONN14brK5_?vc=&p=villa+matrimonio+bologna&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp Note the last parameter fr is different, but it's Yahoo that set it (not me), I don't even know what it means. You can see in the search box that the searched phrase is IDENTICAL in both cases. So why Yahoo is giving out different results on same search phrase? I used the same browser and performed the test in few minutes by simply trying more than once. You may also notice that the number of results returned (written on the left side of the page) is different, for the 1st search it returns 274K results, for the 2nd one 5.38M results. Actually you might think that this is just an error on Yahoo, but it's almost 1 year that while looking once in a while at some websites to see how they are ranking on Yahoo and also Google, I noticed that two searches on the same phrase show up different results even on the same day after few minutes/hours. I couldn't reproduce this behaviour also on Google so I can not say for sure, but since it seems to me it happened sometimes I was wondering if anyone of you noticed it too. Do you know if this is the normal behaviour of search engines? Because if it's normal (and it's just me that noticed it only now) I wonder how do you understand how well a site is ranking on a search engine, you could even see one of your customer's website ranking differently compared to what your customer sees on his PC.

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• Packard Bell EasyNote MZ35 freezes when AC unplugged and wireless on

  - by Sense Hofstede

  I would like to ask for some help debugging an irritating problem I'm having with my Packard Bell EasyNote MZ35 and Ubuntu 10.10. Always when the laptop is connected to a wireless network and the AC power lead is unplugged—so it's running on battery power—the system freezes. The screen turns black and shows the error GLib-WARNING **: getpwuid_r(): failed due to unknown user id (0), although this error is completely unrelated to the actual problem. Previous searches on the internet indicate that this error is unrelated to the bug I'm experiencing. It is suggested that Ubuntu tries to hibernate or suspend and that you're seeing the black screen running 'behind' the X server. That would explain the fact that curiously you still see—but cannot move—the mouse cursor. I've already set all the values of the GConf keys in /apps/gnome-power-manager/actions/ to 'nothing', disabled all power management actions I could find, but it didn't solve the problem. It is important to note that the freeze doesn't happen immediately after you unplug the AC power lead. The icon in the notification area may have changed already, but the freeze only occurs when the Notify OSD bubble appears that tells you how many time is left with your battery. Does anyone here have a clue about this problem? A workaround or the cause? If anyone could help me with disabling possible suspend/hibernate behaviour that might be related to this issue, that would be appreciated too. This issue has been reported as bug #666852.

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• Unity calendar lens not showing events

  - by David_G

  I'm trying to get proper/useful calendar integration into Ubuntu 12.04. I have a Google Calendar (& account) and I want to be able to use this without opening the browser. I want to get the Unity Calendar lens working, so that it shows events coming up, and it allows me a quick way to add new events. However, after installing it, it does not find any events, nor allow me to add a new event. Note that I've installed Lightning 1.4, Evolution mirror 0.2.3, Evolution, and unity-calendar lens. I've also installed Calendar-indicator. I suspect that somehow the lens is not getting the calendar information from thunderbird via evolution. A bit of searching around led me to try this command: /usr/lib/calendar-lens/calendar-lens-daemon.py. With this result: /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gobject/constants.py:24: Warning: g_boxed_type_register_static: assertion `g_type_from_name (name) == 0' failed import gobject._gobject Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/calendar-lens/calendar-lens-daemon.py", line 324, in daemon = Daemon() File "/usr/lib/calendar-lens/calendar-lens-daemon.py", line 80, in init for calendar in evolution.ecal.list_calendars(): AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'list_calendars' Any ideas?

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• Recurring lsb-release and Software Center glitch after installing MATE

  - by infomorph

  I just recently upgraded to Ubuntu 11.10. Not a fan of Unity, so I decided to try out the MATE desktop from Linux Mint. I added the Mint repository, grabbed and installed the MATE packages, and got rid of the repo so I wouldn't be downloading any other Mint packages. I did have some glitches with the packages (missing dependency stuff), but I fixed it. As other users have reported, installing MATE temporarily breaks the Ubuntu Software Center because lsb_release shows the machine as Linux Mint rather than Ubuntu. I can fix it as noted in this answer by editing /etc/*release and /etc/*issue. Problem is, this only works until I reboot the machine. Every time I reboot, /etc/lsb-release and /etc/issue revert to Linux Mint, breaking Software Center again until I edit them, again. Can anyone help me pin down what keeps changing these files? Much appreciated, thanks. Rephrasing the crux of the problem: where do /etc/lsb-release and /etc/issue get their info from? What would cause them to be revised on reboot?

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• USB DVD Drive not recognised in Windows 7

  - by Kieron

  I have an external DVD drive (USB) which I'm trying to attach to a notebook but it's not recognised by Windows 7. I can see the device in the control panel, says it's working properly but doesn't show up in the explorer window so can't access it. I've got a dual boot with Ubuntu and it shows up fine in there, no problems so I know the drive and connection are fine. Have tried the upper and lower filters but no success. Thanks for any help you can provide.

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• "Request not supported" in IPCONFIG (WinXP SP3)

  - by pablog

  In a customer PC (Windows XP SP3), suddenly the network went down: the network adapter appears with an error mark. I replaced the network card, but the new one does the same thing. When I enter IPCONFIG, XP shows this error (in standard and safe mode): Internal error occurred Request not supported Unable to query host name If I start the system with a boot cd the PC runs fine, so the problem seems to be in the XP installation. I tried: uninstalling and reinstalling the network card in the Device Manager disabling and reenabling the card netsh int ip reset netsh winsock reset catalog and a couple of "reset" programs (WinsockxpFix.exe, etc) with no luck. Is there any way to fix it without reinstalling XP? TIA, Pablo

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• Exposing a WebServer behind a firewall without Port Forwarding

  - by pbreault

  We are deploying web applications in java using tomcat on client machines across the country. Once they are installed, we want to allow a remote access to these web applications through a central server, but we do not want our clients to have to open ports on their routers. Is there a way to tunnel the http traffic so that people connected to the central server can access the web applications that are behind a firewall ? The central server has a static ip address and we have full control over it. Right now, it is a windows box but it could be changed to a linux box if necessary. Our clients are running windows xp and up. We don't need to access the filesystem, we only want to access the web application through a browser. We have looked at reverse ssh tunneling but it shows scaling problem since every packet would have to pass through the central server.

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• Can't access a partion that has a virus on it

  - by vaccano

  My wife's computer had a virus alarm go off, so I am looking into it. The virus is supposed to be on the D: drive. I wanted to talk a quick look at the file, but I cannot not. It has one file that I can get to. It is D:\Recovery. That shows a "Protected by PC Angel" graphic. How can I get past this? Should I do it? Is the virus scanner wrong? (I am using Avast).

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• Restrict Tile Map to its boundaries

  - by Farooq Arshed

  I have loaded a tmx file in cocos2dx and now I am trying to implement panning. I have successfully implemented the panning first part where the map moves. Now I want to restrict the map so it does not display the map beyond its boundary where it shows black screen. I am confused as to how to implement it. Below is my code any help would be appreciated. bool HelloWorld::init() { if ( !CCLayer::init() ) { return false; } const char* tmx= "isometric_grass_and_water.tmx"; _tileMap = new CCTMXTiledMap(); _tileMap->initWithTMXFile(tmx); this->addChild(_tileMap); this->setTouchEnabled(true); return true; } void HelloWorld::ccTouchesBegan(CCSet *touches, CCEvent *event){ CCSetIterator it; for (it=touches->begin(); it!=touches->end(); ++it){ CCTouch* touch = (CCTouch*)it.operator*(); CCLog("touches id: %d", touch->getID()); oldLoc = touch->getLocationInView(); oldLoc = CCDirector::sharedDirector()->convertToGL(oldLoc); } } void HelloWorld::ccTouchesMoved(CCSet *touches, CCEvent *event) { if (touches->count() == 1) { CCTouch* touch = (CCTouch*)( touches->anyObject() ); this->moveScreen(touch); } else if (touches->count() == 2) { this->scaleScreen(touches); } } void HelloWorld::moveScreen(CCTouch* touch) { CCPoint currentLoc = touch->getLocationInView(); currentLoc = CCDirector::sharedDirector()->convertToGL(currentLoc); CCPoint moveTo = ccpSub(oldLoc, currentLoc); moveTo = ccpMult(moveTo, -1); oldLoc = currentLoc; this->setPosition(ccpAdd(this->getPosition(), ccp(moveTo.x, moveTo.y))); }

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• Installation experiences with NDepend under Win7/64 with restricted user permissions

  - by Marko Apfel

  Today Patrick gives me a new license for his static code analysis tool NDepend for my fresh machine with Win7/64. This platform is new for me, so some things are different to Win XP. Maybe that till yet some of these things are not well enough understandanded from me. So i stepped in some traps. Here are my notes to get NDepend running. Download of NDepend Professional Edition from http://www.ndepend.com/NDependDownload.aspx   Extracted to c:\program files (x86)\NDepend   Started NDepend.Install.VisualStudioAddin.exe this failed with Okay – sounds plausible.   Copy NDependProLicense.xml to this folder   Next try with NDepend.Install.VisualStudioAddin.exe opens the integration dialog   Registering in Visual Studio failed with   Manually unblock as described (first solution hint)   and here comes my largest understanding problem. After unblocking this file   and closing this dialog the next opening shows the blocking again: Why? So the same error during integration pops up.   Okay – tried the second solution hint with copying folders Copy all to a full accessable folder under c:\temp\   Now the installation works   looks good   copying the folders back to c:\program files (x86)\NDepend   starting Visual Studio failed with     Okay – copying the folder to a private application folder c:\users\apf\My Applications\NDepend   Installing again   Now Visual Studio runs and NDepend is integrated Nevertheless my machine is only used by me, i prefer “all user”-installations. The described way works sadly only for my account.

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• SVN check out to samba directory

  - by Jon H

  I'm trying to svn co to a directory on Ubuntu, shared via samba, to OS X, but I get the following error (in OS X). svn: In directory 'site/product/tests' svn: Can't open file 'site/product/tests/.svn/tmp/text-base/._base.py.svn-base': No such file or directory My smb.conf file includes the following changes: unix extensions = no browseable = yes public = yes writable = yes delete readonly = yes create mask = 0775 directory mask = 0775 valid users = %S read only = no The checkout works fine locally (on the Ubuntu machine). What am I missing? More detail: Later inspection showed that the svn error couldn't find the file with 3, then 2 underscores: .___init__.py.svn-base Whereas listing the directory in OS X showed 2, then 2 underscores: __init__.py.svn-base And listing the same directory in a successful checkout on Ubuntu shows nothing (because it's a temporary directory?) I've tried the mangled = no setting in share settings, to no effect.

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• How to remove an "extra" (unwanted) network from a windows 2008 failover cluster?

  - by Trondh

  Hi, We had a severe crash on one node of our 2-node Windows 2008 / Exchange 2007 CCR Cluster the other day, and i tried to rebuild the node from scratch. I'm using this as a rough outline: http://edmckinzie.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!687C72A5909E4230!508.entry?sa=641979772 The problem: Our cluster was originally setup with only one NIC per host, as this is supposedly supported in Win2008 (no dedicated heartbeat NIC). When I add my freshly installed node to the cluster, it shows up with two cluster networks, "Cluster Network 1" & 2. The existing node's NIC has been placed in one cluster network and my fresh installed has ended up in the other. I can't find anywhere in the GUI to choose which cluster network each physical NIC should be part of, but i KNOW I have done this before. Time is of the essence on this one, so I was hoping someone in here had the answer on the top of their head... Thanks for any pointers. regards, Trond Hindenes

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• How to see ALT text in Firefox

  - by torbengb

  I know Mozilla thinks it's a bug that IE shows ALT text even after the image has loaded; while users think it's a bug that Firefox doesn't work exactly like IE. This disagreement is irrelevant to my question: How can I make my Firefox show the ALT tooltip when I hover the mouse over an image? Obviously XKCD is a bit tame without this essential functionality. I've tried the Firefox plugin Popup ALT Attribute but it doesn't work; after restarting the browser and hovering over an image with an ALT text, no tooltip appears. I reproduced this on several computers with several (Windows) OS versions.

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• Building a Store Locator ASP.NET Application Using Google Maps API (Part 1)

  Over the past couple of months I've been working on a couple of projects that have used the free Google Maps API to add interactive maps and geocoding capabilities to ASP.NET websites. In a nutshell, the Google Maps API allow you to display maps on your website, to add markers onto the map, and to compute the latitude and longitude of an address, among many other tasks. With some Google Maps API experience under my belt, I decided it would be fun to implement a store locator feature and share it here on 4Guys. A store locator lets a visitor enter an address or postal code and then shows the nearby stores. Typically, store locators display the nearby stores on both a map and in a grid, along with the distance between the entered address and each store within the area. To see a store locator in action, check out the Wells Fargo store locator. This article is the first in a multi-part series that walks through how to add a store locator feature to your ASP.NET application. In this inaugural article, we'll build the database table to hold the store information. Next, we'll explore how to use the Google Maps API's geocoding feature to allow for flexible address entry and how to translate an address into latitude and longitude pairs. Armed with the latitude and longitude coordinates, we'll see how to retrieve nearby locations as well as how to compute the distance between the address entered by the visitor and the each nearby store. (A future installment will examine how to display a map showing the nearby stores.) Read on to learn more! Read More >Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Building a Store Locator ASP.NET Application Using Google Maps API (Part 1)

  Over the past couple of months I've been working on a couple of projects that have used the free Google Maps API to add interactive maps and geocoding capabilities to ASP.NET websites. In a nutshell, the Google Maps API allow you to display maps on your website, to add markers onto the map, and to compute the latitude and longitude of an address, among many other tasks. With some Google Maps API experience under my belt, I decided it would be fun to implement a store locator feature and share it here on 4Guys. A store locator lets a visitor enter an address or postal code and then shows the nearby stores. Typically, store locators display the nearby stores on both a map and in a grid, along with the distance between the entered address and each store within the area. To see a store locator in action, check out the Wells Fargo store locator. This article is the first in a multi-part series that walks through how to add a store locator feature to your ASP.NET application. In this inaugural article, we'll build the database table to hold the store information. Next, we'll explore how to use the Google Maps API's geocoding feature to allow for flexible address entry and how to translate an address into latitude and longitude pairs. Armed with the latitude and longitude coordinates, we'll see how to retrieve nearby locations as well as how to compute the distance between the address entered by the visitor and the each nearby store. (A future installment will examine how to display a map showing the nearby stores.) Read on to learn more! Read More >

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• RAID-0 problem with a Sony sporting a new HDD

  - by redrock

  Sony Windows 7 PC. Originally had 2 x 300 Gb HDD. One HDD completely pancaked so have replaced with a new 500 Gb HDD. When both drives are connected the 300GB doesn't appear to be recognized as a 300Gb HDD as a separate entity. BIOS sees it but the operating system only sees a total of 465GB of HD space. When both disks are attached under disk management it shows one 465Gb as RAID 0 and the new drive as STxxxxxx 465Gb. My question I guess is what should I see in total HDD space and is this configured correctly as I thought I would see 2 separate drives 1x500Gb and 1x300Gb. My customer insisted that prior to the HDD crash he saw 2 drives both registering as 300Gb (a c: and d: drive).

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• Debugging / troubleshooting .inf driver install in Windows

  - by Jesus Cuenca

  I'm trying to install a graphics driver in a laptop with Windows 7 but the setup fails with a timeout. I checked the setup log but it does not include any details about the .inf installation. It only shows the error code, which I searched only to find what I already knew (timeout error, no more details) I also checked the .inf file, but it has hundreds of lines so it's hard to guess which step is failing. So I'm wondering, is there some procedure to debug a .inf file? Like, having a detailed log of what happened after executing each line of the .inf Thanks!

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• Shrew VPN Client gives default route- changing the policy stops me from accessing VPN network

  - by Lock

  I am using the shrew client to connect to what I believe is a Netscreen VPN. Now, when connected, the client adds the VPN as the default route. I do not want this- there is only 1 network behind the VPN that I need to access. I found that with the shrew client, you can change the "Policy" settings on the connection, and can add your own networks in that should tunnel over the VPN. I do this, and add my network in, but when I connect the VPN, I get nothing. Can't access the network. Any idea why this would be? I can see my network in the routing table, and its correctly pointing to the correct gateway. A traceroute shows all time-outs, so I can't be 100% sure that it is trying to tunnel over the VPN. Any idea how I can troubleshoot this?

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• Installing LBP 2900 ubuntu -> libs folders wrong?

  - by Peter Smit

  I am trying to get my Canon LBP2900 printer to work on Ubuntu 11.10 64 bit. What I have done is try to follow the steps on https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CanonCaptDrv190 So I downloaded the version 2.3 driver and tried to convert the rpm files to debian and installed them sudo alien cndrvcups-capt-2.30-1.x86_64.rpm cndrvcups-common-2.30-1.x86_64.rpm sudo dpkg -i cndrvcups-capt-2.30-1.x86_64.deb cndrvcups-common-2.30-1.x86_64.deb restarted cups and try to install the printer with lpadmin: sudo service cups restart sudo /usr/sbin/lpadmin -p LBP2900 -m /usr/share/cups/model/CNCUPSLBP2900CAPTK.ppd -v ccp://localhost:59787 -E What I noticed however that on the step with lpadmin it goes wrong with the error: lpadmin: Bad device-uri scheme "ccp" After trying to trace what has gone wrong, I think I nailed it to the fact that dpkg installed a file /usr/lib64/cups/backend/ccp instead of /usr/lib/cups/backend/ccp Checking the original rpm with archive manager shows indeed that /usr/lib and /usr/lib64 are used, with the backend/cpp file only installed in lib64. As I understand correctly, Ubuntu 11.10 uses /usr/lib32 and /usr/lib instead so the files are installed in the wrong place. Is there an automated method of converting the rpm/deb files with the wrong lib structure to one with the right lib structure for ubuntu 11.10? Or am I completely on the wrong track for getting my printer installed?

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• What is Java used for these days?

  - by Barry Brown

  Java is fifteen years old. It started life as an alternative to C++ with a comprehensive standard library. Riding on the coattails of the Internet boom, it was popular for writing web applets. Its supposed portability was touted as a way to write desktop apps that would run on any platform. Now it's 2010. Applets are long gone. Desktop apps are giving way to web and mobile apps. Scripting languages are very popular, as is Flash, especially among web-centric developers. People have been chanting "Java's death is near" for several years. Yet a quick job search shows that Java is still a desired skill among programmers. So what is Java used for these days? What kinds of apps are you writing in Java? This should give us an idea of the "state of Java" today. Has the Java tide shifted from Swing desktop apps to Android mobile apps? If you write programs in a JVM language (such as Scala or Groovy), mention it.

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• How Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server enable Compliance

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  One of the things that makes Team Foundation Server (TFS) the most powerful Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) platform is the traceability it provides to those that use it. This traceability is crucial to enable many companies to adhere to many of the Compliance regulations to which they are bound (e.g. CFR 21 Part 11 or Sarbanes–Oxley.)   From something as simple as relating Tasks to Check-in’s or being able to see the top 10 files in your codebase that are causing the most Bugs, to identifying which Bugs and Requirements are in which Release. All that information is available and more in TFS. Although all of this tradability is available within TFS you do need to understand that it is not for free. Well… I say that, but if you are using TFS properly you will have this information with no additional work except for firing up the reporting. Using Visual Studio ALM and Team Foundation Server you can relate every line of code changes all the way up to requirements and back down through Test Cases to the Test Results. Figure: The only thing missing is Build In order to build the relationship model below we need to examine how each of the relationships get there. Each member of your team from programmer to tester and Business Analyst to Business have their roll to play to knit this together. Figure: The relationships required to make this work can get a little confusing If Build is added to this to relate Work Items to Builds and with knowledge of which builds are in which environments you can easily identify what is contained within a Release. Figure: How are things progressing Along with the ability to produce the progress and trend reports the tractability that is built into TFS can be used to fulfil most audit requirements out of the box, and augmented to fulfil the rest. In order to understand the relationships, lets look at each of the important Artifacts and how they are associated with each other… Requirements – The root of all knowledge Requirements are the thing that the business cares about delivering. These could be derived as User Stories or Business Requirements Documents (BRD’s) but they should be what the Business asks for. Requirements can be related to many of the Artifacts in TFS, so lets look at the model: Figure: If the centre of the world was a requirement We can track which releases Requirements were scheduled in, but this can change over time as more details come to light. Figure: Who edited the Requirement and when There is also the ability to query Work Items based on the History of changed that were made to it. This is particularly important with Requirements. It might not be enough to say what Requirements were completed in a given but also to know which Requirements were ever assigned to a particular release. Figure: Some magic required, but result still achieved As an augmentation to this it is also possible to run a query that shows results from the past, just as if we had a time machine. You can take any Query in the system and add a “Asof” clause at the end to query historical data in the operational store for TFS. select <fields> from WorkItems [where <condition>] [order by <fields>] [asof <date>] Figure: Work Item Query Language (WIQL) format In order to achieve this you do need to save the query as a *.wiql file to your local computer and edit it in notepad, but one imported into TFS you run it any time you want. Figure: Saving Queries locally can be useful All of these Audit features are available throughout the Work Item Tracking (WIT) system within TFS. Tasks – Where the real work gets done Tasks are the work horse of the development team, but they only as useful as Excel if you do not relate them properly to other Artifacts. Figure: The Task Work Item Type has its own relationships Requirements should be broken down into Tasks that the development team work from to build what is required by the business. This may be done by a small dedicated group or by everyone that will be working on the software team but however it happens all of the Tasks create should be a Child of a Requirement Work Item Type. Figure: Tasks are related to the Requirement Tasks should be used to track the day-to-day activities of the team working to complete the software and as such they should be kept simple and short lest developers think they are more trouble than they are worth. Figure: Task Work Item Type has a narrower purpose Although the Task Work Item Type describes the work that will be done the actual development work involves making changes to files that are under Source Control. These changes are bundled together in a single atomic unit called a Changeset which is committed to TFS in a single operation. During this operation developers can associate Work Item with the Changeset. Figure: Tasks are associated with Changesets   Changesets – Who wrote this crap Changesets themselves are just an inventory of the changes that were made to a number of files to complete a Task. Figure: Changesets are linked by Tasks and Builds   Figure: Changesets tell us what happened to the files in Version Control Although comments can be changed after the fact, the inventory and Work Item associations are permanent which allows us to Audit all the way down to the individual change level. Figure: On Check-in you can resolve a Task which automatically associates it Because of this we can view the history on any file within the system and see how many changes have been made and what Changesets they belong to. Figure: Changes are tracked at the File level What would be even more powerful would be if we could view these changes super imposed over the top of the lines of code. Some people call this a blame tool because it is commonly used to find out which of the developers introduced a bug, but it can also be used as another method of Auditing changes to the system. Figure: Annotate shows the lines the Annotate functionality allows us to visualise the relationship between the individual lines of code and the Changesets. In addition to this you can create a Label and apply it to a version of your version control. The problem with Label’s is that they can be changed after they have been created with no tractability. This makes them practically useless for any sort of compliance audit. So what do you use? Branches – And why we need them Branches are a really powerful tool for development and release management, but they are most important for audits. Figure: One way to Audit releases The R1.0 branch can be created from the Label that the Build creates on the R1 line when a Release build was created. It can be created as soon as the Build has been signed of for release. However it is still possible that someone changed the Label between this time and its creation. Another better method can be to explicitly link the Build output to the Build. Builds – Lets tie some more of this together Builds are the glue that helps us enable the next level of tractability by tying everything together. Figure: The dashed pieces are not out of the box but can be enabled When the Build is called and starts it looks at what it has been asked to build and determines what code it is going to get and build. Figure: The folder identifies what changes are included in the build The Build sets a Label on the Source with the same name as the Build, but the Build itself also includes the latest Changeset ID that it will be building. At the end of the Build the Build Agent identifies the new Changesets it is building by looking at the Check-ins that have occurred since the last Build. Figure: What changes have been made since the last successful Build It will then use that information to identify the Work Items that are associated with all of the Changesets Changesets are associated with Build and change the “Integrated In” field of those Work Items . Figure: Find all of the Work Items to associate with The “Integrated In” field of all of the Work Items identified by the Build Agent as being integrated into the completed Build are updated to reflect the Build number that successfully integrated that change. Figure: Now we know which Work Items were completed in a build Now that we can link a single line of code changed all the way back through the Task that initiated the action to the Requirement that started the whole thing and back down to the Build that contains the finished Requirement. But how do we know wither that Requirement has been fully tested or even meets the original Requirements? Test Cases – How we know we are done The only way we can know wither a Requirement has been completed to the required specification is to Test that Requirement. In TFS there is a Work Item type called a Test Case Test Cases enable two scenarios. The first scenario is the ability to track and validate Acceptance Criteria in the form of a Test Case. If you agree with the Business a set of goals that must be met for a Requirement to be accepted by them it makes it both difficult for them to reject a Requirement when it passes all of the tests, but also provides a level of tractability and validation for audit that a feature has been built and tested to order. Figure: You can have many Acceptance Criteria for a single Requirement It is crucial for this to work that someone from the Business has to sign-off on the Test Case moving from the  “Design” to “Ready” states. The Second is the ability to associate an MS Test test with the Test Case thereby tracking the automated test. This is useful in the circumstance when you want to Track a test and the test results of a Unit Test designed to test the existence of and then re-existence of a a Bug. Figure: Associating a Test Case with an automated Test Although it is possible it may not make sense to track the execution of every Unit Test in your system, there are many Integration and Regression tests that may be automated that it would make sense to track in this way. Bug – Lets not have regressions In order to know wither a Bug in the application has been fixed and to make sure that it does not reoccur it needs to be tracked. Figure: Bugs are the centre of their own world If the fix to a Bug is big enough to require that it is broken down into Tasks then it is probably a Requirement. You can associate a check-in with a Bug and have it tracked against a Build. You would also have one or more Test Cases to prove the fix for the Bug. Figure: Bugs have many associations This allows you to track Bugs / Defects in your system effectively and report on them. Change Request – I am not a feature In the CMMI Process template Change Requests can also be easily tracked through the system. In some cases it can be very important to track Change Requests separately as an Auditor may want to know what was changed and who authorised it. Again and similar to Bugs, if the Change Request is big enough that it would require to be broken down into Tasks it is in reality a new feature and should be tracked as a Requirement. Figure: Make sure your Change Requests only Affect Requirements and not rewrite them Conclusion Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server together provide an exceptional Application Lifecycle Management platform that can help your team comply with even the harshest of Compliance requirements while still enabling them to be Agile. Most Audits are heavy on required documentation but most of that information is captured for you as long a you do it right. You don’t even need every team member to understand it all as each of the Artifacts are relevant to a different type of team member. Business Analysts manage Requirements and Change Requests Programmers manage Tasks and check-in against Change Requests and Bugs Testers manage Bugs and Test Cases Build Masters manage Builds Although there is some crossover there are still rolls or “hats” that are worn. Do you thing this is all achievable? Have I missed anything that you think should be there?

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