Search Results

Search found 40339 results on 1614 pages for 'best settings'.

Page 264/1614 | < Previous Page | 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271  | Next Page >

• How can I get Windows to apply its settings?

  - by Jouke van der Maas

  I have a computer with a major problem; it gives a blue screen when the login screen loads. I've been using this guide to troubleshoot the issue, and now I've run into a problem. I have determined the issue is not bad memory or a bad hard drive. According to the guide, this means the problem is in the OS. I've tried to follow the steps, but Windows (Vista SP1) somehow doesn't remember any changes. On every reboot, the computer is in exactly the same state it was in before. Any changes to system settings or files won't be recorded. As this means I can't check what is causing the problem, I can't fix my PC. Is there a way to find out what's causing this? Is it just a mode Windows goes into to protect itself, or is it some other problem? Anything to help troubleshoot will be of great help here. PS. I'm kind of new to this site. If I messed up, please tell me in the comments.

  Read the article

• Apache APC (Windows) Can I optimize these APC settings more?

  - by ar099968

  I would like to optimize APC some more but I am not sure where I could do something. First here is the stats after 1 week of running with the current configuration: General Cache Information APC Version 3.1.9 PHP Version 5.4.4 APC Host XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Server Software Apache Shared Memory 1 Segment(s) with 128.0 MBytes (IPC shared memory, Windows Slim RWLOCK (native) locking) Start Time 2014/06/08 05:00:00 Uptime 6 days, 11 hours and 55 minutes File Upload Support 1 Host Status Diagrams Memory Usage Free: 99.7 MBytes (77.9%) Used: 28.3 MBytes (22.1%) Hits & Misses Hits: 510818 (99.9%) Misses: 608 (0.1%) Detailed Memory Usage and Fragmentation Fragmentation: 0.60% (609.8 KBytes out of 99.7 MBytes in 83 fragments) File Cache Information Cached Files 693 ( 35.4 MBytes) Hits 5143359 Misses 1087 Request Rate (hits, misses) 13.24 cache requests/second Hit Rate 13.24 cache requests/second Miss Rate 0.00 cache requests/second Insert Rate 0.01 cache requests/second Cache full count 0 User Cache Information Cached Variables 0 ( 0.0 Bytes) Hits 0 Misses 0 Request Rate (hits, misses) 0.00 cache requests/second Hit Rate 0.00 cache requests/second Miss Rate 0.00 cache requests/second Insert Rate 0.00 cache requests/second Cache full count 0 Runtime Settings apc.cache_by_default 1 apc.canonicalize 1 apc.coredump_unmap 0 apc.enable_cli 0 apc.enabled 1 apc.file_md5 0 apc.file_update_protection 2 apc.filters -/apc.php$, -/apc_clean.php$, -.tpl.cache.php$, -.tpl.php$, -.string.cache.php$, -.string.php$ apc.gc_ttl 3600 apc.include_once_override 0 apc.lazy_classes 0 apc.lazy_functions 0 apc.max_file_size 2M apc.num_files_hint 7000 apc.preload_path apc.report_autofilter 0 apc.rfc1867 0 apc.rfc1867_freq 0 apc.rfc1867_name APC_UPLOAD_PROGRESS apc.rfc1867_prefix upload_ apc.rfc1867_ttl 3600 apc.serializer default apc.shm_segments 1 apc.shm_size 128M apc.shm_strings_buffer 4M apc.slam_defense 0 apc.stat 1 apc.stat_ctime 0 apc.ttl 7200 apc.use_request_time 1 apc.user_entries_hint 4096 apc.user_ttl 7200 apc.write_lock 1

  Read the article

• Does Google sometimes ignore "special" characters, possibly depending on your location or font type settings? [closed]

  - by RLH

  TLDR Google tends to ignore special characters in my search strings. Is there anything that I can do about it and is it, possibly, happening because Google makes certain assumptions based off of my default text-encoding settings and my location? I just posted this question over at StackOverflow. I had found a C preprocessor that I'd never seen before. As I should have done, I Googled it and tried to find out further information. I attempted various search terms which were all variations of "C Operator ##" (some times with and some times without the double-quotes.) Google didn't bring back anything of use so I posted my question on SO. As you can see from the comments, someone mentioned a search string (ironically one which I did try to search) and stated that I could have even hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button and have gotten my answer. The problem is I did search that, and the results that I received were far more basic and even after following the top results and searching the resulting pages, I could find nothing referencing the string "##". I'm not posting this question to complain but it does provide an empirical example of something I've seen before that really bugs me-- Google often ignores special characters in my search strings and the results are often useless. As a developer I often need to search for string values containing non-alphanumeric characters. Some characters (like the underscore or hyphen) can be used without trouble. However, other characters (such as the ampersand, carat, tilde and pound sign) are often ignored in my query strings. Is there a way to prevent this from happening so that I can get meaningful results from Google? NOTE I stay logged into Google and I live in the US. I wonder if Google detects some form of text-encoding setting or derives my results based off of certain, localized text-based assumptions. Regardless, I would like to for Google to search for what I give it. Is there anything that I can do to improve my results?

  Read the article

• What is best configuration settings for Wordpress and MySQL on Win2008 + IIS7 stack?

  - by holiveira

  I currently have four blogs that uses Wordpress running on a shared hosting company. This blogs have a considerable amount of visits and I'm constantly receiving warnings from the hosting company saying that I'm consuming too much server CPU. Considering the fact that I have a dedicated server in another company with plenty of idle resources (it has a quad core Xeon 2.5GHz and 8GB of Ram and run on Win2008) I'm planning to move the blogs to this server in order to have some more freedom. I'm currently using this server to host some web applications using ASP.Net and SQL Express. I've installed a blog to test and it worked fine, but some issues appeared and raised some questions in my mind: How to properly set the permissions in the folders used by wordpress plugins, I mean, what permissions should I set for the IIS_User in some folders so that the plugins works correctly? What's the best caching plugin to use considering this is a Window Server? In the previous hosting company I used the WPSuperCache, but it was a Linux Stack. Or should I ignore the caching plugins and use the Dynamic Caching Feature of IIS7? How can I optmize the MySQL server running in this server (specially the settings regarding memory and caching) How can I protect the admin folders against hacker attacks? I know some people will advice me not to run Wordpress in a Windows stack, but that's my only choice. I don't even know were to start managing and LAMP stack, don't have the time to do so nor the money to rent another server.

  Read the article

• What's the best way to expose a Model object in a ViewModel?

  - by Angel

  In a WPF MVVM application, I exposed my model object into my viewModel by creating an instance of Model class (which cause dependency) into ViewModel. Instead of creating separate VM properties, I wrap the Model properties inside my ViewModel Property. My model is just an entity framework generated proxy class: public partial class TblProduct { public TblProduct() { this.TblPurchaseDetails = new HashSet<TblPurchaseDetail>(); this.TblPurchaseOrderDetails = new HashSet<TblPurchaseOrderDetail>(); this.TblSalesInvoiceDetails = new HashSet<TblSalesInvoiceDetail>(); this.TblSalesOrderDetails = new HashSet<TblSalesOrderDetail>(); } public int ProductId { get; set; } public string ProductCode { get; set; } public string ProductName { get; set; } public int CategoryId { get; set; } public string Color { get; set; } public Nullable<decimal> PurchaseRate { get; set; } public Nullable<decimal> SalesRate { get; set; } public string ImagePath { get; set; } public bool IsActive { get; set; } public virtual TblCompany TblCompany { get; set; } public virtual TblProductCategory TblProductCategory { get; set; } public virtual TblUser TblUser { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<TblPurchaseDetail> TblPurchaseDetails { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<TblPurchaseOrderDetail> TblPurchaseOrderDetails { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<TblSalesInvoiceDetail> TblSalesInvoiceDetails { get; set; } public virtual ICollection<TblSalesOrderDetail> TblSalesOrderDetails { get; set; } } Here is my ViewModel: public class ProductViewModel : WorkspaceViewModel { #region Constructor public ProductViewModel() { StartApp(); } #endregion //Constructor #region Properties private IProductDataService _dataService; public IProductDataService DataService { get { if (_dataService == null) { if (IsInDesignMode) { _dataService = new ProductDataServiceMock(); } else { _dataService = new ProductDataService(); } } return _dataService; } } //Get and set Model object private TblProduct _product; public TblProduct Product { get { return _product ?? (_product = new TblProduct()); } set { _product = value; } } #region Public Properties public int ProductId { get { return Product.ProductId; } set { if (Product.ProductId == value) { return; } Product.ProductId = value; RaisePropertyChanged("ProductId"); } } public string ProductName { get { return Product.ProductName; } set { if (Product.ProductName == value) { return; } Product.ProductName = value; RaisePropertyChanged(() => ProductName); } } private ObservableCollection<TblProduct> _productRecords; public ObservableCollection<TblProduct> ProductRecords { get { return _productRecords; } set { _productRecords = value; RaisePropertyChanged("ProductRecords"); } } //Selected Product private TblProduct _selectedProduct; public TblProduct SelectedProduct { get { return _selectedProduct; } set { _selectedProduct = value; if (_selectedProduct != null) { this.ProductId = _selectedProduct.ProductId; this.ProductCode = _selectedProduct.ProductCode; } RaisePropertyChanged("SelectedProduct"); } } #endregion //Public Properties #endregion // Properties #region Commands private ICommand _newCommand; public ICommand NewCommand { get { if (_newCommand == null) { _newCommand = new RelayCommand(() => ResetAll()); } return _newCommand; } } private ICommand _saveCommand; public ICommand SaveCommand { get { if (_saveCommand == null) { _saveCommand = new RelayCommand(() => Save()); } return _saveCommand; } } private ICommand _deleteCommand; public ICommand DeleteCommand { get { if (_deleteCommand == null) { _deleteCommand = new RelayCommand(() => Delete()); } return _deleteCommand; } } #endregion //Commands #region Methods private void StartApp() { LoadProductCollection(); } private void LoadProductCollection() { var q = DataService.GetAllProducts(); this.ProductRecords = new ObservableCollection<TblProduct>(q); } private void Save() { if (SelectedOperateMode == OperateModeEnum.OperateMode.New) { //Pass the Model object into Dataservice for save DataService.SaveProduct(this.Product); } else if (SelectedOperateMode == OperateModeEnum.OperateMode.Edit) { //Pass the Model object into Dataservice for Update DataService.UpdateProduct(this.Product); } ResetAll(); LoadProductCollection(); } #endregion //Methods } Here is my Service class: class ProductDataService:IProductDataService { /// <summary> /// Context object of Entity Framework model /// </summary> private MaizeEntities Context { get; set; } public ProductDataService() { Context = new MaizeEntities(); } public IEnumerable<TblProduct> GetAllProducts() { using(var context=new R_MaizeEntities()) { var q = from p in context.TblProducts where p.IsDel == false select p; return new ObservableCollection<TblProduct>(q); } } public void SaveProduct(TblProduct _product) { using(var context=new R_MaizeEntities()) { _product.LastModUserId = GlobalObjects.LoggedUserID; _product.LastModDttm = DateTime.Now; _product.CompanyId = GlobalObjects.CompanyID; context.TblProducts.Add(_product); context.SaveChanges(); } } public void UpdateProduct(TblProduct _product) { using (var context = new R_MaizeEntities()) { context.TblProducts.Attach(_product); context.Entry(_product).State = EntityState.Modified; _product.LastModUserId = GlobalObjects.LoggedUserID; _product.LastModDttm = DateTime.Now; _product.CompanyId = GlobalObjects.CompanyID; context.SaveChanges(); } } public void DeleteProduct(int _productId) { using (var context = new R_MaizeEntities()) { var product = (from c in context.TblProducts where c.ProductId == _productId select c).First(); product.LastModUserId = GlobalObjects.LoggedUserID; product.LastModDttm = DateTime.Now; product.IsDel = true; context.SaveChanges(); } } } I exposed my model object in my viewModel by creating an instance of it using new keyword, also I instantiated my DataService class in VM. I know this will cause a strong dependency. So: What's the best way to expose a Model object in a ViewModel? What's the best way to use DataService in VM?

  Read the article

• Best way for an external (remote) graphics designer to style ASP.NET MVC 4 app?

  - by Tom K

  My customer has his own graphics designer he wants to use to style his web application we're building in ASP.NET MVC 4. Our solution is in Bitbucket, but if he can't run it what choices do we have? I doubt he uses Visual Studio 2012. One idea is for us to publish to our solution to a file system, send it to him, have him create a local IIS website on his machine (assuming he isn't using a Mac). Mocking data or pointing to a test SQL in Azure isn't a problem. Then he can make changes to .css and .cshtml files. Will this even work? The point is that he needs to be able to test his changes. I know he can modify the views and just check-in. But he needs to deliver a working design. So it seems inefficient. The graphics designer will have access to our test site so he can see how it works, what data we have and fields. Another idea is for him to build a static mock site using just HTML/CSS. Later I'd integrate his styles into customer's solution, split his html into partial views which we use and add Razor syntax. Again, we'd like to leverage graphics designer for all of this. Is there a best practice documented around this subject? How do other teams deal with this situation?

  Read the article

• How can I check if Python´s ConfigParser has a section or not?

  - by Voidcode

  How can I check if the ConfigParser mainfile has a section or not, And if it don´t then add a new section to it? I am trying with this code: import ConfigParser config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser() #if the config file don´t has the section 'globel', then add it to the config-file if not config.has_section("globel"): config.add_section("globel") config.set("globel", "settings", "someting") config.write(open("/tmp/myfile.conf", "w")) print "The new sestion globel is now added!!" #else just return the the value of globle->settings else: config.read("/tmp/myfile.conf") print "else... globle->settings == "+config.get("globel", "settings")

  Read the article

• Ask The Readers: What Are Your Best Malware Fighting Tricks?

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Malware has become increasingly sophisticated and widespread; it’s more important than ever to have a robust toolkit for dealing with it. This week we want to hear about your favorite tips and tricks for dealing with malware infestations. Photo background by clix. Dealing with malware infestations usually takes more than simply running an anti-virus scanner. This week we want to hear your best tips, tricks, and unique tools for dealing with malware on your computer or, more likely, the computers of unwitting friends and relatives. Here’s a few tips we’ve shared in the past to highlight what we’re talking about when we ask for tips (as opposed to simple recommendations for a certain AV application): Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How To Remove Internet Security 2010 and other Rogue/Fake Antivirus Malware How To Remove Antivirus Live and Other Rogue/Fake Antivirus Malware How To Remove Security Tool and other Rogue/Fake Antivirus Malware Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Learn To Adjust Contrast Like a Pro in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Have You Ever Wondered How Your Operating System Got Its Name? Should You Delete Windows 7 Service Pack Backup Files to Save Space? What Can Super Mario Teach Us About Graphics Technology? Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is Released: But Should You Install It? How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions Add a “Textmate Style” Lightweight Text Editor with Dropbox Syncing to Chrome and Iron Is the Forcefield Really On or Not? [Star Wars Parody Video] Google Updates Picasa Web Albums; Emphasis on Sharing and Showcasing Uwall.tv Turns YouTube into a Video Jukebox Early Morning Sunrise at the Beach Wallpaper Data Networks Visualized via Light Paintings [Video]

  Read the article

• Read & Write app.config

  - by Rodney Vinyard

  Imports System.Configuration   Public Class Form1       Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load           Dim config As System.Configuration.Configuration = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.None)         Me.txtFromFolder.Text = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("fromFolder")         Me.txtToFolder.Text = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("toFolder")         End Sub       Private Sub Form1_FormClosing(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.FormClosingEventArgs) Handles MyBase.FormClosing             'to write         Dim config As System.Configuration.Configuration = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.None)           config.AppSettings.Settings.Remove("fromFolder")         config.AppSettings.Settings.Add("fromFolder", txtFromFolder.Text.Trim)           config.AppSettings.Settings.Remove("toFolder")         config.AppSettings.Settings.Add("toFolder", txtToFolder.Text.Trim)           config.Save(ConfigurationSaveMode.Modified)           ConfigurationManager.RefreshSection("appSettings")       End Sub

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – SSMS 2012 Reset Keyboard Shortcuts to Default

  - by pinaldave

  As a technologist, I love my laptop very much and I do not lend it to anyone as I am usually worried that my settings would be messed up when I get it back from its borrower. Honestly, I love how I have set up my laptop and I enjoy the settings and programs I have placed on my computer. If someone changes things there – it will surely be annoying for me. Recently at one of the conferences I was attending in, a small accident happened – one of the speaker’s hard drives failed. The owner immediately panicked due to this and had no clue what to do. I suggested that he may not be able to show the demos but can still show a few things with the product. He accepted my suggestion and finished the presentation. Good thing everybody looked satisfied. Little did I know that a small accident was waiting for me later that day. When I opened my SQL Server Denali, all my shortcuts were totally out of order. When I hit F5, instead of executing query, it was opening up some debugging screen for me. I was very much annoyed so I decided to surf the Internet for me to know how I could reset it to SQL Server 2012 default shortcut. There were so many different advices which further confused me. After reading 4-5 different methods, I used the following method to reset my SQL Server 2012 keyboard shortcuts: Go to SSMS > Tools >> Import and Export Settings… As I wanted to reset all the settings I selected the “Reset all settings” option, but you can select other options as per your need. I suggest you save your current Settings; however, in my case, I did not like the current option so I just decided to overwrite my settings. Here I have two options –  I can either set my shortcut to SQL Server 2012 settings or Visual Studio 2010. I went ahead with the SQL Server 2012 option. Success! Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• How to stream H264 Video from camera over FTP?

  - by Jay

  I bought a h264 security camera system last year and set it up to ftp video to my computer. I was able to get the video to play (even though it played a little fast) on Ubuntu 11.04 using mplayer. A few months ago, I did a fresh install of 12.04 and I cannot seem to get the video to play with mplayer, smplayer or VLC. I have the restricted formats video packages installed and when playing with any of the players, all I get is a gray video. When calling mplayer from the command line to play the video with no options, I get a lot of these errors: [h264 @ 0x7f278c61f280]concealing 1320 DC, 1320 AC, 1320 MV errors No pts value from demuxer to use for frame! pts after filters MISSING I'm not a video expert and have been coming up with a lot of dead ends when Googling for this. Could someone offer some advice about how to play these videos? Here is the output of mediainfo for a sample file. mediainfo -f sec-cam01-m-20120921-212454.h264 General Count : 278 Count of stream of this kind : 1 Kind of stream : General Kind of stream : General Stream identifier : 0 Count of video streams : 1 Video_Format_List : AVC Video_Format_WithHint_List : AVC Codecs Video : AVC Complete name : sec-cam01-m-20120921-212454.h264 File name : sec-cam01-m-20120921-212454 File extension : h264 Format : AVC Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format/Url : http://developers.videolan.org/x264.html Format/Extensions usually used : avc h264 Commercial name : AVC Internet media type : video/H264 Codec : AVC Codec : AVC Codec/Info : Advanced Video Codec Codec/Url : http://developers.videolan.org/x264.html Codec/Extensions usually used : avc h264 File size : 1097315 File size : 1.05 MiB File size : 1 MiB File size : 1.0 MiB File size : 1.05 MiB File size : 1.046 MiB File last modification date : UTC 2012-09-22 01:27:12 File last modification date (local) : 2012-09-21 21:27:12 Video Count : 205 Count of stream of this kind : 1 Kind of stream : Video Kind of stream : Video Stream identifier : 0 Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format/Url : http://developers.videolan.org/x264.html Commercial name : AVC Format profile : [email protected] Format settings : 1 Ref Frames Format settings, CABAC : No Format settings, CABAC : No Format settings, ReFrames : 1 Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=3 Internet media type : video/H264 Codec : AVC Codec : AVC Codec/Family : AVC Codec/Info : Advanced Video Codec Codec/Url : http://developers.videolan.org/x264.html Codec profile : [email protected] Codec settings : 1 Ref Frames Codec settings, CABAC : No Codec_Settings_RefFrames : 1 Width : 704 Width : 704 pixels Height : 480 Height : 480 pixels Pixel aspect ratio : 1.000 Display aspect ratio : 1.467 Display aspect ratio : 3:2 Standard : NTSC Resolution : 8 Resolution : 8 bits Colorimetry : 4:2:0 Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Scan type : Progressive Interlacement : PPF Interlacement : Progressive Edit: Here is a sample video using the same encoding: https://www.dropbox.com/s/l5acwzy8rtqn9xe/sec-cam08-m-20121118-105815.h264 (not the same video as mediainfo output)

  Read the article

• Kerberos Policy section not appearing in RSop / GPResult

  - by Chloraphil

  I am attempting to confirm via RSoP or GPResult that the correct settings for "\Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Account Policies\Kerberos Policy" are being applied, however the "Kerberos Policy" node is missing from the treeview / report. These settings are set in the "Default Domain Controllers Policy" which is linked in the "Domain Controllers" OU. Should "Kerberos Policy" appear at all? If not, how can I confirm the correct settings are being applied?

  Read the article

• Is there a pattern or best practice for passing a reference type to multiple classes vs a static class?

  - by Dave

  My .NET application creates HTML files, and as such, the structure looks like variable myData BuildHomePage() variable graph = new BuildGraphPage(myData) variable table = BuildTablePage(myData) BuildGraphPage and BuildTablePage both require access data, the myData object. In the above example, I've passed the myData object to 2 constructors. This is what I'm doing now, in my current project. The myData object, and it's properties are all readonly. The problem is, the number of pages which will require this object has grown. In the real project, there are currently 4, but the new spec is to have about 20. Passing this object to the constructor of each new object and assigning it to a field is a little time consuming, but not a hardship! This poses the question whether it's better practice to continue as I have, or to refactor and create a new static class for myData which can be referenced from any where in my project. I guess my abilities to use Google are poor, because I did try and find an appropriate pattern as I am sure this type of design must be common place but my results returned nothing. Is there a pattern which is suited, or do best practices lean towards one implementation over another.

  Read the article

• What is the best approach for inline code comments?

  - by d1egoaz

  We are doing some refactoring to a 20 years old legacy codebase, and I'm having a discussion with my colleague about the comments format in the code (plsql, java). There is no a default format for comments, but in most cases people do something like this in the comment: // date (year, year-month, yyyy-mm-dd, dd/mm/yyyy), (author id, author name, author nickname) and comment the proposed format for future and past comments that I want is: // {yyyy-mm-dd}, unique_author_company_id, comment My colleague says that we only need the comment, and must reformat all past and future comments to this format: // comment My arguments: I say for maintenance reasons, it's important to know when and who did a change (even this information is in the SCM). The code is living, and for that reason has a history. Because without the change dates it's impossible to know when a change was introduced without open the SCM tool and search in the long object history. because the author is very important, a change of authors is more credible than a change of authory Agility reasons, no need to open and navigate through the SCM tool people would be more afraid to change something that someone did 15 years ago, than something that was recently created or changed. etc. My colleague's arguments: The history is in the SCM Developers must not be aware of the history of the code directly in the code Packages gets 15k lines long and unstructured comments make these packages harder to understand What do you think is the best approach? Or do you have a better approach to solve this problem?

  Read the article

• As an indie game dev, what processes are the best for soliciting feedback on my design/spec/idea? [closed]

  - by Jess Telford

  Background I have worked in a professional environment where the process usually goes like the following: Brain storm idea Solidify the game mechanics / design Iterate on design/idea to create a more solid experience Spec out the details of the design/idea Build it Step 3. is generally done with the stakeholders of the game (developers, designers, investors, publishers, etc) to reach an 'agreement' which meets the goals of all involved. Due to this process involving a series of often opposing and unique view points, creative solutions can surface through discussion / iteration. This is backed up by a process for collating the changes / new ideas, as well as structured time for discussion. As a (now) indie developer, I have to play the role of all the stakeholders (developers, designers, investors, publishers, etc), and often find myself too close to the idea / design to do more than minor changes, which I feel to be local maxima when it comes to the best result (I'm looking for the global maxima, of course). I have read that ideas / game designs / unique mechanics are merely multipliers of execution, and that keeping them secret is just silly. In sharing the idea with others outside the realm of my own thinking, I hope to replicate the influence other stakeholders have. I am struggling with the collation of changes / new ideas, and any kind of structured method of receiving feedback. My question: As an indie game developer, how and where can I share my ideas/designs to receive meaningful / constructive feedback? How can I successfully collate the feedback into a new iteration of the design? Are there any specialized websites, etc?

  Read the article

• What are the best practices for phasing out obsolete code?

  - by P.Brian.Mackey

  I have the need to phase out an obsolete method. I am aware of the [Obsolete] attribute. Does Microsoft have a recommended best practice guide for doing this? Here's my current plan: A. I do not want to create a new assembly because developers would have to add a new reference to their projects and I expect to get a lot of grief from my boss and co-workers if they must do this. We also do not maintain multiple assembly versions. We only use the latest version. Changing this practice would require changing our deployment process which is a big issue (have to teach people how to do things with TFS instead of FinalBuilder and get them to give up FinalBuilder) B. Mark the old method obsolete. C. Because the implementation is changing (not the method signature), I need to rename the method rather than create an overload. So, to make users aware of the proper method I plan to add a message to the [Obsolete] attribute. This part bothers me, because the only change I'm making is decoupling the method from the connection string. But, because I'm not adding a new assembly, I see no way around this. Result: [Obsolete("Please don't use this anymore because it does not implement IMyDbProvider. Use XXX instead.")]; /// <summary> /// /// </summary> /// <param name="settingName"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static Dictionary<string, Setting> ReadSettings(string settingName) { return ReadSettings(settingName, SomeGeneralClass.ConnectionString); } public Dictionary<string, Setting> ReadSettings2(string settingName) { return ReadSettings(settingName);// IMyDbProvider.ConnectionString private member added to class. Probably have to make this an instance method. }

  Read the article

• What is the best way to design a table with an arbitrary id?

  - by P.Brian.Mackey

  I have the need to create a table with a unique id as the PK. The ID is a surrogate key. Originally, I had a natural key, but requirement changes have undermined this idea. Then, I considered adding an auto incrementing identity. But, this presents problems. A. I can't specify my own ID. B. The ID's are difficult to reset. Both of these together make it difficult to copy over this table with new data or move the table across domains, e.g. Dev to QA. I need to refer to these ID's from the front end, JavaScript...so they must not change. So, the only way I am aware of to meet all these challenges is to make a GUID ID. This way, I can overwrite the ID's when I need to or I can generate a new one without concern for order (E.G. an int based id would require I know the last inserted ID). Is a GUID the best way to accomplish my goals? Considering that a GUID is a string and joining on a string is an expensive task, is there a better way?

  Read the article

• What is the best way to "carve" a terrain created from a heightmap?

  - by tigrou

  I have a 3d landscape created from a heightmap. I'd like to "carve" some holes in that terrain. That will allow me to create bridges, caverns and tunnels inside it. That operation will be done in the game editor so it doesn't need to be realtime. In the end, rendering is done using traditional polygons. What would be the best/easiest way to do that ? I already think about several solutions : Solution 1 1) Create voxels from the heightmap (very easy). In other words, fill a 3D array like this : voxels[32][32][32] from the heightmap values. 2) Carve holes in the voxels as i want (easy too). 3) Convert voxels to polygons using some iso-surface extraction technique (like marching cubes). 4) Reduce (decimate) polygons created in 3). This technique seems to be the most promising for giving good results (untested). However the problem with marching cubes is that they tends to produce lots of polygons thus reducing them is mandatory. Implementing 4) also seems not trivial, i have read several papers on the web and it seems pretty complex. I was also unable to find an example, code snippet or something to start writing an algorithm for triangle mesh decimation. Maybe there is a special decimation algorithm (simpler) for meshes created from marching cubes ? Solution 2 1) Create some triangle mesh from the heighmap (easy). 2) Apply severals 3D boolean operation (eg: subtraction with a sphere) to carve the mesh. 3) apply some procedure to reduce polygons (optional). Operation 2) seems to be very complex and to be honest i have no idea how to do that. Also applying many boolean operation seems to be slow and will maybe degrade the triangle mesh every time a boolean operation is applied.

  Read the article

• What are the best ways to professionally increase your online presence?

  - by Rob S.

  I've been hunting around the job market for a little bit now and I've been shocked by some of the things I am seeing. Software developers who make themselves more "known" online are getting far more and far better positions than people competing against them who are not as well "known" online. After doing some reading on the subject I realized that I actually shouldn't be so shocked by this. We are living in the most fast paced era of mankind and employers want to be able to learn as much as they can about a potential employee before they hire them. The easier we as software developers make it for us to be found it seems the better are chances of landing that dream job become. In some cases, employers are even finding us instead of us applying to them. So what are some of the best ways for me as a software developer to increase my online presence? I already hang around stack exchange sites such as programmers and stack overflow increasing my rep whenever I can. I maintain many open source projects as both a committer and project owner on Google Code and Github. I have a Twitter account, a website, and a blog. What else can I do to give myself a bigger online presence? Additionally, are there any good do's and don'ts for handling your web presence? Bashing your employer is an obvious don't but I'm interested in everything from the most basic to most subtle suggestions to give yourself a more appealing online presence. Thank you very much in advance for your time.

  Read the article

• How best to keep bumbling, non-technical managers at bay and still deliver good work?

  - by Curious

  This question may be considered subjective (I got a warning) and be closed, but I will risk it, as I need some good advice/experience on this. I read the following at the 'About' page of Fog Creek Software, the company that Joel Spolsky founded and is CEO of: Back in the year 2000, the founders of Fog Creek, Joel Spolsky and Michael Pryor, were having trouble finding a place to work where programmers had decent working conditions and got an opportunity to do great work, without bumbling, non-technical managers getting in the way. Every high tech company claimed they wanted great programmers, but they wouldn’t put their money where their mouth was. It started with the physical environment (with dozens of cubicles jammed into a noisy, dark room, where the salespeople shouting on the phone make it impossible for developers to concentrate). But it went much deeper than that. Managers, terrified of change, treated any new idea as a bizarre virus to be quarantined. Napoleon-complex junior managers insisted that things be done exactly their way or you’re fired. Corporate Furniture Police writhed in agony when anyone taped up a movie poster in their cubicle. Disorganization was so rampant that even if the ideas were good, it would have been impossible to make a product out of them. Inexperienced managers practiced hit-and-run management, issuing stern orders on exactly how to do things without sticking around to see the farcical results of their fiats. And worst of all, the MBA-types in charge thought that coding was a support function, basically a fancy form of typing. A blunt truth about most of today's big software companies! Unfortunately not every developer is as gutsy (or lucky, may I say?) as Joel Spolsky! So my question is: How best to work with such managers, keep them at bay and still deliver great work?

  Read the article

• Windows 7+ desktop apps - what's the best UI toolkit for a new project?

  - by Chris Adams

  I'm trying to make a decision for a new Windows desktop app: what to use for the UI. (This is a desktop app that needs to have compatibility with Windows 7. It won't be distributed on the Windows Store.) This application is going to be cross-platform. I intend on writing the core in C++, and using each platform's native UI toolkit. I feel this is preferable to using a cross-platform toolkit like Qt, as it allows me to keep the native look and feel of each platform. On the Windows side, the UI situation isn't exactly clear. I'm getting the feeling that Microsoft is slowly abandoning .NET, particularly as their preferred toolkit for desktop apps. Indeed, the Getting Started chapter for Windows 7, as well as the rest of Microsoft's documentation, seems to be more suited for C++. I have a few options here: C# with WPF - This sesms like this might be the best Microsoft has to offer for Windows 7 desktop apps, even if it isn't their "preferred" toolkit. I'd need to use P/Invoke to call my C++ code. C++ with Direct2D - This is what Microsoft used in one of their examples. This feels like it's too low-level. Part of the appeal of a higher-level UI toolkit is the consistency with the native look and feel of the platform, so doing this would just feel strange. C++ with a third-party UI toolkit, like Qt There might be some other options I'm missing, which I'd love to hear about. So, if you were starting a new Windows 7+ desktop app today, what would you use?

  Read the article

• Good maintained privacy Add-On/settings set that takes usability into account?

  - by Foo Bar

  For some weeks I've been trying to find a good set of Firefox Addons that give me a good portion of privacy/security without losing to much of usability. But I can't seem to find a nice combination of add-ons/settings that I'm happy with. Here's what I tried, together with the pros and cons that I discovered: HTTPS Everywhere: Has only pro's: just install and be happy (no interaction needed), loads known pages SLL-encrypted, is updated fairly often NoScript - Fine, but needs a lot of fine-tuning, often maintained, mainly blocks all non-HTML/CSS Content, but the author sometimes seems to do "untrustworthy" decission RequestPolicy - seems dead (last activity 6 months ago, has some annoying bugs, official support mail address is dead), but the purpose of this is really great: gives you full control over cross-site requests: blocks by default, let's you add sites to a whitelist, once this is done it works interaction-less in the background AdBlock Edge: blocks specific cross-site requests from a pre-defined whitelist (can never be fully sure, need to trust others) Disconnect: like AdBlock Edge, just looking different, has no interaction possibilities (can never be fully sure, need to trust others, can not interact even if I wanted to) Firefox own Cookie Managment (block by default, whitelist specific sites), after building own whitelist it does it's work in the background and I have full control All These addons together basically block everything unsecure. But there are a lot of redundancies: NoScript has a mixed-content blocker, but FF has it's own for a while now. Also the Cookie blocker from NoScript is reduntant to my FF-Cookie setting. NoScript also has an XSS-blocker, which is redundant to RequestPolicy. Disconnect and AdBlock are extremly redundant, but not fully. And there are some bugs (especially RequestPolicy). And RequestPolicy seems to be dead. All in all, this list is great but has these heavy drawbacks. My favourite set would be "NoScript Light" (only script blocking, without all the additonal redundant-to-other-addons hick-hack it does) + HTTPS Everywhere + RequestPolicy-clone (maintained, less buggy), because RequestPolicy makes all other "site-blockers" obsolete (because it blocks everything by default and let's me create a whitelist). But since RequestPolicy is buggy and seems to be dead I have to fallback to AdBlock Edge and Disconnect, which don't block all and and need more maintaining (whitelist updates, trust-check). Are there addons that fulfill my wishes?

  Read the article

• What is the best way to track / record the current programming project you work on? [duplicate]

  - by user2424160

  This question already has an answer here: Methodology for Documenting Existing Code Base 6 answers When do you start documenting the code? 13 answers Where should a programmer explain the extended logic behind the code? 5 answers I have been in this problem for long time and I want to know how it's done in real / big companies project? Suppose I have the project to build a website. Now I divide the project into sub tasks and do it. But you know that suppose I have task1 in hand like export the page to pdf. Now I spend 3 days to do that , came across various problems, many Stack Overflow questions and in the end I solve it. Now 4 months after someone told me that there is some error in the code. Now by that I completely forgot about (60%) of how I did it and why I do this way. I document the code but I can't write the whole story of that in the code. Then I have to spend much time on code to find what was the problem so that I added this line etc. I want to know that is there any way that i can log steps in completing the project. So that I can see how I end up with code, what errors I got, what questions I asked on SO and etc. How people do it in real time? Which software to use? I know in our project management software called JIRA we have tasks but that does not cover what steps I took to solve that tasks. What is the best way so that when I look back at my 2 year old project, I know how I solve particular task?

  Read the article

• What's the best way to generate an NPC's face using web technologies?

  - by Vael Victus

  I'm in the process of creating a web app. I have many randomly-generated non-player characters in a database. I can pull a lot of information about them - their height, weight, down to eye color, hair color, and hair style. For this, I am solely interested in generating a graphical representation of the face. Currently the information is displayed with text in the nicest way possible, but I believe it's worth generating these faces for a more... human experience. Problem is, I'm not artist. I wouldn't mind commissioning an artist for this system, but I wouldn't know where to start. Were it 2007, I'd naturally think to myself that using Flash would be the best choice. I'd love to see "breathing" simulated. However, since Flash is on its way out, I'm not sure of a solid solution. With a previous game, I simply used layered .pngs to represent various aspects of the player's body: their armor, the face, the skin color. However, these solutions weren't very dynamic and felt very amateur. I can't go deep into this project feeling like that's an inferior way to present these faces, and I'm certain there's a better way. Can anyone give some suggestion on how to pull this off well?

  Read the article

• What's the best way to learn/increase problem-solving skills?

  - by tucaz

  Hi all! I'm not sure this is the right place to ask this question, neither if this is the right way to ask this question but I hope you help me if it is not. I work as a programmer since I was 15 (will be 24 next week) so learning programming logic was somehow natural during the course of my career and I think that it helped me to get pretty good problem-solving. One thing none of us (programmers) can deny is that programming logic helps us in a lot of fields outside computer programming. So I'd say it is a very valuable resource that one should learn. My girlfriend is not a programmer and graduated in college on a non related course (Foreign Relations) because she didn't know what to study back then. As the years passed she discovered that she liked Logistics and started to work with it almost two years ago. However, since she does not have a technical background (not even basic Math) she is really having a hard time with it. She is already trying to catch up with Math, but even simple questions/brain-teasers are hard to her. For example, trying to find the missing numbers of this sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, _, _, 34 and so on. We know that this is Fibonacci but if we didn't we would probably be able to get to the correct answer just by "guessing" (using our acquired problem-solving skills). I'm not sure if problem-solving skills or logic are the correct name for it, but this is what I mean: quick solve problems, brain-teasers, find patterns, have a "sharp" mind. So, the question is: what is the best way for someone to learn this kind of skills without being a programmer (or studying algorithms and such)? If you say it is a book, could you please recommend one? Thanks a lot!

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271  | Next Page >