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• Unity 3d support for multiple X-screens

  - by stewbond

  I've installed Ubuntu 12.04 this weekend and have had problems getting Unity3d to work with my triple monitor set-up. I've installed the latest nVidia drivers for my 2 nVidia video cards and have used NVIDIA X Server Settings to configure everything. If I stick each monitor on a separate X screen, all but the primary X screen will appear white and the cursor will be a black X. I can start a terminal on this screen but cannot drag other windows to it. If I kill the "Nautilus" process, the white background disappears and I see my desktop background, but my cursor is still an X and I still cannot drag windows to it. If I enable TwinView, I can get one screen on two monitors to work properly, but the white screen remains on my third monitor. In addition, I don't like using TwinView because my full-screen applications get stretched. My current solution is to "Enable Xinerama", use all separate X screens and revert to Unity2d. I'd love a solution to this as Ubuntu 12.10 is not planned to support Unity-2d and prefer the aesthetics of 3d anyways. I can provide Xorg.conf for all configurations and any other suggested diagnostic information. Below is my closest-to-working xorg.conf: # nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings # nvidia-settings: version 295.33 (buildd@zirconium) Fri Mar 30 13:38:49 UTC 2012 Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Layout0" Screen 0 "Screen0" RightOf "Screen2" Screen 1 "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0" Screen 2 "Screen2" 0 0 InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" Option "Xinerama" "1" EndSection Section "Files" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "kbd" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "Microvitec PLC MV191" HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor1" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "CRT-1" HorizSync 28.0 - 55.0 VertRefresh 43.0 - 72.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor2" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "Microvitec PLC MV191" HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor3" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "Microvitec PLC MV191" HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0 VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device0" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce GTS 450" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Screen 0 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device1" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce 9500 GT" BusID "PCI:2:0:0" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device2" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce GTS 450" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Screen 1 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device3" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" BoardName "GeForce GTS 450" BusID "PCI:1:0:0" Screen 2 EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Device0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "0" Option "metamodes" "DFP-0: 1280x1024_75 +0+0; DFP-0: 1280x1024 +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen1" Device "Device1" Monitor "Monitor1" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "0" Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen2" Device "Device2" Monitor "Monitor2" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "0" Option "metamodes" "DFP-2: 1280x1024_75 +0+0; DFP-2: nvidia-auto-select +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen3" Device "Device3" Monitor "Monitor3" DefaultDepth 24 Option "TwinView" "0" Option "metamodes" "DFP-2: nvidia-auto-select +0+0" SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Section "Extensions" Option "Composite" "Disable" EndSection Other people have had similar issues. I haven't been successful at any of the few suggestions submitted. Can not get Dual Monitors to work on Different GPUs http://askubuntu.com/questions/30412/3-monitors-with-2-video-cards-not-working?rq=1 How to get second display to work alongside primary display? http://askubuntu.com/questions/148007/multiple-monitors-only-work-with-unity-2d/201086#201086 xorg.conf and Unity3D?

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• 2013 Predictions for Retail

  - by David Dorf

  Its that time of year to roll out the predictions for next year.  I can't say I've really nailed it in the past, but feel free to look back at my 2012, 2011, and 2010 predictions.  I'm not expecting anything earth-shattering this year; just continued maturation of several technologies that are finally taking hold. 1. Next day delivery -- Amazon finally decided it wasn't worth fighting state taxes and instead decided to place distribution centers everywhere so they can potentially offer next-day deliveries.  Not to be outdone, Walmart is looking to leverage its huge physical presence to offer the same.  Clubs like ShopRunner are pushing delivery barriers as well, so the norm is shifting to free shipping in a few days or relatively cheap shipping overnight.  Retailers need be thinking about how to ship from physical stores. 2. Bring your own device -- Earlier this year Intuit bought AisleBuyer, a mobile self-checkout start-up, at least somewhat validating the BYOD approach.  Grocery stores, especially in Europe, have been supporting in-aisle self-scanning for a while and I'm betting it will find a home in certain verticals in the US too.  There's also the BYOD concept for employees.  Some retailers are considering issuing mobile devices at hiring along side the shirt and name-tag.  Employees become responsible for the hardware until they leave. 3. TV shopping -- Will Apple finally release a TV product in 2013?  Who knows?  But the industry isn't standing still. Companies like QVC and HSN are already successfully combining the TV and online experiences for shopping.  Comcast is partnering with Tivo to allow viewers to interact with ads with Paypal handing payment.  This will be a slow maturation, but expect TVs to get smarter and eventually become a new selling channel (pun intended) for retailers. 4. Privacy backlash -- It only takes one big incident to stir the public, and I'm betting we have one in 2013.  Facebook, Google, or Apple will test the boundaries of what the public is willing to accept.  It could involve a retailer using geo-location technology, or possibly video analytics.  And as is always the case, the offender will apologize, temporarily remove the technology, and wait 2-3 years for it to be generally accepted.  Privacy is a moving target. 5. More NFC -- I've come to the conclusion that adoption of any banking technology is going to be slow.  It was slow for credit cards, ATMs, and online billpay so why should it be any different for NFC?  Maybe, just maybe the iPhone 5S will have an NFC chip, but we're not going to see mainstream uptake for years.  Next year we'll continue to see incremental improvements from Isis, Google, and Paypal and a plethora of new startups, but don't toss your magstripe cards just yet. 6. In-store location -- The technologies for tracking people inside stores is really improving.  Retailers can track people using video cameras, infrared, and by the WiFi radios in mobile phones.  We're getting closer to the point where accuracy could be a shelf-facing, which will help retailers understand how people shop, where they spend time, and what displays attract them.  Expect CPG companies to get involved and partner with retailers, since the data benefits both parties.  Consumers will benefit by being directed right to the products they seek.  (In 2013 ARTS is forming a workteam to develop new standards in this area.) 7. M&A -- Looking back at 2012 there were some really big deals involving IBM, Oracle, JDA, and NCR and I expect that trend will likely continue as vendors add assets to bolster their portfolios.  Many retailers are due for an IT transformation to support anywhere, anytime shoppers, and one-stop-vendors can minimize complexity and costs. Predictions from other sources: Independent Retailer Stores Magazine IDC Insights Mobile Commerce Daily

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• Why does Ubuntu only detect one USB LAN adapters at a time?

  - by EGO

  I try to connect real switch with my computer for an exam preparation, for this purpose I need more than one LAN cards, and there is only one built in LAN card in my computer. So, to get more LAN cards, I bought 4 USB Ethernet adapters (as I have 4 usb ports in may laptop 2 usb 2.0 ports, 2 usb 3.0 ports). When I plug these adapters in my computer Ubuntu only detects one LAN card from 2.0 usb ports, and one LAN card from 3.0 ports. And sometimes detects only one USB LAN from all the usb ports. Actually the real problem is Ubuntu shows these USB LAN adapters in the "lsusb", but does not list them in "ifconfig". Kontron (Industrial Computer Source / ICS Advent) is my LAN USB ethernet. abc@ubuntu:~$ lsusb Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hu Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hu Bus 002 Device 012: ID 0fe6:9700 Kontron (Industrial Computer Source / ICS Advent) Bus 001 Device 003: ID 138a:0018 Validity Sensors, Inc. Bus 001 Device 004: ID 064e:e258 Suyin Corp. Bus 003 Device 011: ID 0fe6:9700 Kontron (Industrial Computer Source / ICS Advent) Bus 002 Device 013: ID 0fe6:9700 Kontron (Industrial Computer Source / ICS Advent) Bus 003 Device 012: ID 0fe6:9700 Kontron (Industrial Computer Source / ICS Advent) Bus 002 Device 005: ID 0a5c:21b4 Broadcom Corp. BCM2070 Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR -- etho is my built in LAN card, while eth1 is the only USB LAN card that ubuntu has detected. abc@ubuntu:~$ ifconfig eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 2c:27:d7:a5:d2:39 inet6 addr: fe80::2e27:d7ff:fea5:d239/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:21056 errors:0 dropped:1 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:5669 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:1407289 (1.4 MB) TX bytes:372566 (372.5 KB) Interrupt:49 Base address:0xa000 eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:e0:4c:53:44:58 inet6 addr: fe80::2e0:4cff:fe53:4458/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:9230 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:9230 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:557648 (557.6 KB) TX bytes:557648 (557.6 KB) wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr cc:52:af:5e:78:05 inet addr:192.168.1.65 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe80::ce52:afff:fe5e:7805/64 Scope:LinkU UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:17389 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:12231 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:22452248 (22.4 MB) TX bytes:1502750 (1.5 MB) If I unplug the USB LAN card which Ubuntu has detected, then Ubuntu will detect a USB LAN card from the remaining plugged adapters, and process go on untill I plug all the USB LAN adapters. Looking for some urgent help. Thanks

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• History of Mobile Technology

  - by David Dorf

  Over the last ten years, mobile phones have gone through several incremental technology leaps that have added capabilities that impact the retail industry.  I've listed the six major ones below, along with their long-lasting impact. 1. Location In the US, the FCC required mobile phones to implement E911 (emergency calls) by 2006, requiring the caller to be located to within 300 meters.  Back in 2000, GPS was opened up for civilian use, and by 2004 Qualcomm had figured out how to use GPS in mobile phones.  So mobile operators moved from cell tower triangulation to GPS, principally for E911.  But then lots of other uses became apparent, especially navigation.  The earliest mobile apps from retailers made it easy to find nearby stores, and companies are looking at ways to use WiFi triangulation inside stores. 2. Computer Vision In 1997 Philippe Kahn shared a photo of his newborn using a mobile phone thus launching the popularity of instant visual communications.  Over the years the quality of the cameras got better, reaching the point where barcodes could be read around 2008.  That's when Occipital came on the scene with their Red Laser application, which was eventually acquired by eBay.  This opened up the ability for consumers to easily price compare inside stores.  Other interesting apps included Tesco's Wine Finder and Amazon's Price Checker, both allowing products to be identified by picture. 3. Augmented Reality Once the mobile phone had GPS, a video camera, and compass functionality it was suddenly possible to overlay digital information on the screen in real-time.  Yelp, which was using GPS to find nearby merchants, created a backdoor called Monocle on the iPhone that showed nearby merchants overlayed on the video camera view.  Today AR apps are mostly used by retailers for marketing, like Moosejaw's app that undresses models in their catalog. 4. Geo-Fencing So if we're able to track the location of a mobile phone, why not use that context to offer timely information?  My first experience with geo-fencing came courtesy of North Face, the outdoor enthusiast store. When a mobile phone enters a predetermined area, like near a store, a text message is sent to phone with an offer or useful information.  Of course retailers can geo-fence their competitors as well and find out which customers are aren't so loyal. 5. Digital Wallet Mobile payments leverage different technologies such as NFC, QRCodes, bluetooth, and SMS to facilitate communication between the consumers's phone and the retailer's point-of-sale. The key here is the potential to consolidate loyalty cards, coupons, and bank cards into the mobile phone and enable faster checkout.  Nobody does this better than Starbucks today, but McDonald's and Duncan Donuts aren't far behind.  Google, Isis, Paypal, Square, and MCX are all vying for leadership in this area.  If NFC does finally take off, it will be leveraged by retailers in more places than just the POS. 6. Voice Response Mobile Phones have had the ability to interpret simple voice commands for a while, but Google and Amazon were the first to use voice to allow searches for products.  Allowing searches by text, barcode, and voice makes it easy to comparison shop in the aisles.  Walmart even uses voice to build shopping lists, and if the Siri API is even opened we could see lots more innovation in this area.

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• Rijndael encryption from Action Script to C#

  - by Coppermill

  I am trying to share encryption between Action Script and C# My task is to decrypt the following message within C# f1ca22a365ba54c005c3eb599d84b19c354d26dcf475ab4be775b991ac97884791017b12471000def05bb77bfe9c3a97d44ef78c9449f12daf6e25b61ab1a281 It uses Rijndael encyption , ECB mode (electronic code book), Key: Pas5pr@se , 128 bit key size and block size. The problem I have is I can't seem to do it, anyone help me on this?

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• How to get cursor to follow text when reading a web page?

  - by Jack BeNimble

  I know this isn't strictly program related, but I think I've seen this answer on SO before and lost track of it. The specific question has to do with reading an electronic document. I find it helpful to move the cursor across the words as I'm reading them. This works great with Word documents, but I'm unable to do it with web pages. Is there a way to make a web page see and respond to cursor movement?

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• What eletronic scrum/kanban board do you use and recommend for distributed teams?

  - by Derick Bailey

  I have a coworker on a team that is fairly distributed, fairly large (for our company) and wants to take advantage of visual management tools like scrum / kanban boards. Since they are a somewhat distributed team, though, all of the issue management / work management must be done via an electronic tool (we currently use Trac). What issue / work management tools, with a visualization of a scrum / kanban board, do you use for your distributed scrum / kanban teams? would you recommend it, and if so, why? Thanks.

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• Making Noise with Python

  - by Elliot

  I am trying to get python to make noise when certain things happen. Preferably, i would like to play music of some kind, however some kind of distinctive beeping would be sufficient, like an electronic timer going off. I have thus far only been able to make the system speaker chime using pywin32's Beep, however this simply does not have the volume for my application. Any ideas on how I can do this?

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• PayPal: IPN vs PDT

  - by Tom

  Hi, I'm having some trouble choosing between PayPal's Instant Payment Notification (IPN) and Payment Data Transfer (PDT). Basically, users buy a one-off product on my site, pay on PayPal, and return to my site. I understand how IPN works but I'm now seeing that I might be able to trigger the various actions that take place after a successful purchase more easily with PDT, as the data gets returned there and then (as opposed to needing a separate listener). However, PayPal's PDT documentation contains this cryptic line: "PDT is not meant to be used with credit card or Express Checkout transactions." ... but I can't find anything further whatsoever on the topic. (1) Are credit cards REALLY not meant to be used with PDT? I would like more than a sentence. (2) Does that mean that a user must have/create a PayPal account to pay? (3) Does it mean that if I want to allow users to pay with their PayPal accounts AND/OR with credit cards directly, I must implement IPN? Could anyone who's gone through this kindly shed some light? Thank you.

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• Programming Technique: How to create a simple card game

  - by Shyam

  Hi, As I am learning the Ruby language, I am getting closer to actual programming. So I was thinking of creating a simple card game. My question isn't Ruby orientated, but I do know want to learn how to solve this problem with a genuine OOP approach. In my card game I want to have four players. Using a standard deck with 52 cards, no jokers/wildcards. In the game I won't use the Ace as a dual card, it is always the highest card. So, the programming problems I wonder about are the following: How can I sort/randomize the deck of cards? There are four types, each having 13 values. Eventually there can be only unique values, so picking random values could generate duplicates. How can I implement a simple AI? As there are tons of card games, someone would have figured this part out already, so references would be great. I am a truly Ruby nuby, and my goal here is to learn to solve problems, so pseudo code would be great, just to understand how to solve the problem programmatically. I apologize for my grammar and writing style if it's unclear, for it is not my native language. Also pointers to sites where such challenges are explained, would be a great resource! Thank you for your comments, answers and feedback!

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• Memory Leak question

  - by franz

  I am having a memory leak issue with the following code. As much as I can tell I don't see why the problem persists but it still does not release when called. I am detecting the problem in instruments and the following code is keeping its "cards" classes alive even when it should had released them. Any help welcome. ... ... -(id)initDeckWithCardsPicked: (NSMutableArray*)cardsPicked andColors:(NSMutableArray*)cardColors { self = [self init]; if (self != nil) { int count = [cardsPicked count]; for (int i=0; i<count; i++) { int cardNum = [[cardsPicked objectAtIndex:i] integerValue]; Card * card = [[MemoryCard alloc] initWithSerialNumber:cardNum position: CGPointZero color:[cardColors objectAtIndex:i]]; [_cards addObject: card]; [card release]; } } return self; } - (id) init { self = [super init]; if (self != nil) { self.bounds = (CGRect){{0,0},[Card cardSize]}; self.cornerRadius = 8; self.backgroundColor = kAlmostInvisibleWhiteColor; self.borderColor = kHighlightColor; self.cards = [NSMutableArray array]; } return self; } ... ...

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• Flash CS4 [AS3]: Playing Card Deck Array

  - by Ben

  I am looking to make a card game in Flash CS4 using AS3 and I am stuck on the very first step. I have created graphics for a standard 52 card deck of playing cards and imported them into the library in Flash and then proceeded to convert them all to Movie Clips. I have also used the linkage to make them available in the code. The movie clips and the linkage are named in sequence, as in the Ace of Clubs would be C1, two of Diamonds is called D2, Jack of Spades is S11. (C = Clubs, D = Diamonds, S = Spades, H = Hearts and numbers 1 through 13 are the card values. 1 being Ace, 11 being Jack, 12 being Queen, 13 being King). As far as I know my next step would be to arrange the cards into an array. This is the part that I am having problems with. Can someone please point me in the right direction, what would be the best way to do this. Could you provide me with a bit of sample code as well? I have had a look at few tutorials online but they are all telling me different things, some are incomplete and the rest...well...they're just cr*ppy. Thanks in advance! Ben

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• Detecting an online poker cheat

  - by Tom Gullen

  It recently emerged on a large poker site that some players were possibly able to see all opponents cards as they played through exploiting a security vulnerability that was discovered. A naïve cheater would win at an incredibly fast rate, and these cheats are caught very quickly usually, and if not caught quickly they are easy to detect through a quick scan through their hand histories. The more difficult problem occurs when the cheater exhibits intelligence, bluffing in spots they are bound to be called in, calling river bets with the worst hands, the basic premise is that they lose pots on purpose to disguise their ability to see other players cards, and they win at a reasonably realistic rate. Given: A data set of millions of verified and complete information hand histories Theoretical unlimited computer power Assume the game No Limit Hold'em, although suggestions on Omaha or limit poker may be beneficial How could we reasonably accurately classify these cheaters? The original 2+2 thread appeals for ideas, and I thought that the SO community might have some useful suggestions. It's an interesting problem also because it is current, and has real application in bettering the world if someone finds a creative solution, as there is a good chance genuine players will have funds refunded to them when identified cheaters are discovered.

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• Driver denied access to PCI card

  - by Corin

  We wrote a Windows device driver to access our custom PCI card. The driver uses CreateFile to get a handle to the card. We recently had trouble at one installation were the card appeared to stop working. We tried replacing the card (the replacement appeared not work either). The computer vendor replaced the motherboard and both cards still failed to work. We put the cards in a different computer and both worked fine. We now have the computer at our office for examination. The Windows Device Manager lists our card in Other Devices as usual and says it's working fine. However, our driver initialization fails when it attempts to connect to the card. We created a test version of our driver with some extra debugging and determined that CreateFile is failing. It returns INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE as it is supposed to on failure. GetLastError indicates the error is Access is Denied. Since we're logged into the system as a local administrator, what can deny access to the device?

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• How to use a class's type as the type argument for an inherited collection property in C#

  - by Edelweiss Peimann

  I am trying to create a representation of various types of card that inherit from a generic card class and which all contain references to their owning decks. I tried re-declaring them, as suggested here, but it still won't convert to the specific card type. The code I currently have is as such: public class Deck<T> : List<T> where T : Card { void Shuffle() { throw new NotImplementedException("Shuffle not yet implemented."); } } public class Card { public Deck<Card> OwningDeck { get; set; } } public class FooCard : Card { public Deck<FooCard> OwningDeck { get { return (Deck<FooCard>)base.OwningDeck; } set { OwningDeck = value; } } } The compile-time error I am getting: Error 2 Cannot convert type 'Game.Cards.Deck' to 'Game.Cards.Deck' And a warning suggesting I use a new operator to specify that the hiding is intentional. Would doing so be a violation of convention? Is there a better way? My question to stackoverflow is this: Can what I am trying to do be done elegantly in the .NET type system? If so, can some examples be provided?

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• How can I use TDD to solve a puzzle with an unknown answer?

  - by matthewsteele

  Recently I wrote a Ruby program to determine solutions to a "Scramble Squares" tile puzzle: I used TDD to implement most of it, leading to tests that looked like this: it "has top, bottom, left, right" do c = Cards.new card = c.cards[0] card.top.should == :CT card.bottom.should == :WB card.left.should == :MT card.right.should == :BT end This worked well for the lower-level "helper" methods: identifying the "sides" of a tile, determining if a tile can be validly placed in the grid, etc. But I ran into a problem when coding the actual algorithm to solve the puzzle. Since I didn't know valid possible solutions to the problem, I didn't know how to write a test first. I ended up writing a pretty ugly, untested, algorithm to solve it: def play_game working_states = [] after_1 = step_1 i = 0 after_1.each do |state_1| step_2(state_1).each do |state_2| step_3(state_2).each do |state_3| step_4(state_3).each do |state_4| step_5(state_4).each do |state_5| step_6(state_5).each do |state_6| step_7(state_6).each do |state_7| step_8(state_7).each do |state_8| step_9(state_8).each do |state_9| working_states << state_9[0] end end end end end end end end end So my question is: how do you use TDD to write a method when you don't already know the valid outputs? If you're interested, the code's on GitHub: Tests: https://github.com/mattdsteele/scramblesquares-solver/blob/master/golf-creator-spec.rb Production code: https://github.com/mattdsteele/scramblesquares-solver/blob/master/game.rb

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• Game design flaw, need help investigating

  - by Snake

  I am not sure if I will be able to get help here but I would give it a shot. The problem is I dont know where the problem is. I have a cards game, in which when you "human" play by dragging a card, then at the end of card being dragged, a handler using postExecute is called with delay of 0.5 sec to start the next player in turn (which is a bot) The bot chooses the color and plays it and at the end of the animation (the card moving to the middle) a handler is started for the next bot and so on. Once the play reaches again to the human player, it waits for his touchs to drag the crad and start the cycle again. The problem that in production, sometimes I am getting errors. The error is resulting in somehow messing up the sequence which ends up with players having more cards than others. After investigation, I found that the transition from human to bot is the problem. Somehow, the transition is happening twice (meaning handler calling post execute twice and the bot is playing twice and everything is messed up). Its been mutliple months and I can't reproduce it (to fix it) and I cna't figure out why this is happeneing? ANY IDEA how I can go after it? How can I get more info about or how can I solve something like that? any pointer would help me

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 11, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 11, 2011Popular ReleasesSnoop, the WPF Spy Utility: Snoop 2.6.1: This release is a bug fixing release. Most importantly, issues have been seen around WPF 4.0 applications not always showing up in the app chooser. Hopefully, they are fixed now. I thought this issue warranted a minor release since more and more people are going WPF 4.0 and I don't want anyone to have any problems. Dan Hanan also contributes again with several usability features. Thanks Dan! Happy Snooping! p.s. By request, I am also attaching a .zip file ... so that people can install it ...RIBA - Rich Internet Business Application for Silverlight: Preview of MVVM Framework Source + Tutorials: This is a first public release of the MVVM Framework which is part of the final RIBA application. The complete RIBA example LOB application has yet to be published. Further Documentation on the MVVM part can be found on the Blog, http://www.SilverlightBlog.Net and in the downloadable source ( mvvm/doc/ ). Please post all issues and suggestions in the issue tracker.SharePoint Learning Kit: 1.5: SharePoint Learning Kit 1.5 has the following new functionality: *Support for SharePoint 2010 *E-Learning Actions can be localised *Two New Document Library Edit Options *Automatically add the Assignment List Web Part to the Web Part Gallery *Various Bug Fixes for the Drop Box There are 2 downloads for this release SLK-1.5-2010.zip for SharePoint 2010 SLK-1.5-2007.zip for SharePoint 2007 (WSS3 & MOSS 2007)Facebook C# SDK: 5.0.3 (BETA): This is fourth BETA release of the version 5 branch of the Facebook C# SDK. Remember this is a BETA build. Some things may change or not work exactly as planned. We are absolutely looking for feedback on this release to help us improve the final 5.X.X release. For more information about this release see the following blog posts: Facebook C# SDK - Writing your first Facebook Application Facebook C# SDK v5 Beta Internals Facebook C# SDK V5.0.0 (BETA) Released We have spend time trying ...NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel Template, version 1.0.1.161: The NodeXL Excel template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 workbook. What's NewThis release adds a new Twitter List network importer, makes some minor feature improvements, and fixes a few bugs. See the Complete NodeXL Release History for details. Installation StepsFollow these steps to install and use the template: Download the Zip file. Unzip it into any folder. Use WinZip or a similar program, or just right-click the Zip file...WatchersNET.TagCloud: WatchersNET.TagCloud 01.09.03: Whats NewAdded New Skin TagTastic http://www.watchersnet.de/Portals/0/screenshots/dnn/TagCloud-TagTastic-Skin.jpg Added New Skin RoundedButton http://www.watchersnet.de/Portals/0/screenshots/dnn/TagCloud-RoundedButton-Skin.jpg changes Tag Count fixed on Tag Source Referrals Fixed Tag Count when multiple Tag Sources are usedExtremeML: ExtremeML v1.0 Beta 3: VS solution source code updated for compatibility with VS2010 (accommodates VS2010 breaking changes in T4 template support).Finestra Virtual Desktops: 1.1: This release adds a few more performance and graphical enhancements to 1.0. Switching desktops is now about as fast as you can blink. Desktop switching optimizations New welcome wizard for Vista/7 Fixed a few minor bugs Added a few more options to the options dialog (including ability to disable the taskbar switching)WCF Data Services Toolkit: WCF Data Services Toolkit: The source code and binary releases of the WCF Data Services Toolkit. For simplicity, the source code download doesn't include any of the MSTest files. If you want those, you can pull the code down via MercurialyoutubeFisher: youtubeFisher 3.0 [beta]: What's new: Video capturing improved Supports YouTube's new layout (january 2011) Internal refactoringNearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v5.0: Version 5.0 of the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine, containing the following improvements: .NET 4.0 as target framework using ASP.NET MVC 3. All views migrated to Razor for cleaner markup. Alternate template (Layout file) for mobile devices 4 Bug Fixes since Version 4.1 Visit the project Roadmap for more details. Webdeploy package sha1 checksum: 28785b7248052465ea0738a7775e8e8744d84c27fuv: 1.0 release, codename Chopper Joe: features: search/replace :o to open file :s to save file :q to quitASP.NET MVC Project Awesome, jQuery Ajax helpers (controls): 1.7: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager html generation optimized new features for the lookup (add additional search data ) live demo went aeroEnhSim: EnhSim 2.3.6 BETA: 2.3.6 BETAThis release supports WoW patch 4.06 at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 Changes since 2.3.0 ...TestApi - a library of Test APIs: TestApi v0.6: TestApi v0.6 comes with the following changes: TestApi code development has been moved to Codeplex: Moved TestApi soluton to VS 2010; Moved all source code to Codeplex. All development work is done there now. Fault Injection API: Integrated the unmanaged FaultInjectionEngine.dll COM component in the build; Cleaned up FaultInjectionEngine.dll to build at warning level 4; Implemented “FaultScope” which allows for in-process fault injection; Added automation scripts & sample program; ...AutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.5.5: AutoChat now allows up to 6 items. Items with nr. 7-0 will be removed! News page url's are now opened in the default browser Added a context menu to the system tray icon (thanks to Alex Banagos) AutoChat now allows configuring the Chat Keys and the Modifier Key The recent files list now supports compact and full mode Fix: Swapped mouse buttons are now properly detected Fix: Sometimes the Play button was pressed while still greyed out Champion: Karma Note: You can also run the u...mojoPortal: 2.3.6.2: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2362-released.aspx Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code. To download the source code see the Source Code Tab I recommend getting the latest source code using TortoiseHG, you can get the source code corresponding to this release here.Rawr: Rawr 4.0.19 Beta: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Beta Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a pre-alpha release of the WPF version, there are likely to be a lot of issues. If you have a problem, please follow the Posting Guidelines and put it into the Issue Trac...IronRuby: 1.1.2: IronRuby 1.1.2 is a servicing release that keeps on improving compatibility with Ruby 1.9.2 and includes IronRuby integration to Visual Studio 2010. We decided to drop 1.8.6 compatibility mode in all post-1.0 releases. We recommend using IronRuby 1.0 if you need 1.8.6 compatibility. In this release we fixed several major issues: - problems that blocked Gem installation in certain cases - regex syntax: the parser was replaced with a new one that is much more compatible with Ruby 1.9.2 - cras...MVVM Light Toolkit: MVVM Light Toolkit V3 SP1 (4): There was a small issue with the previous release that caused errors when installing the templates in VS10 Express. This release corrects the error. Only use this if you encountered issues when installing the previous release. No changes in the binaries.New ProjectsAlchemySearch: A middleware application that allows the searching of Open Text's Alchemy application from a command line or from a calling application. C# .NET 4alltuan: all tuan infoasp.net mvc 2.0 ??????: asp.net mvc 2.0 ??????Basic Text File Generator: This is an investigatory development that creates text files from a windows forms app.bisolu_luc: nothing yetCriteria Pack for EPiServer CMS: This is a collection of useful criteria for extending the personalization mechanism, Visitor Groups, in EPiServer CMS 6 R2 (or later).CTRNN.NET: CTRNN.NET is a C# implementation of Continuous Time Recurrent Neural Networks.DXperience Toolkit: Complimentary controls and libraries from DevExpress.Excel Library for Small Basic: This library extend Small Basic to allows you to read or write contents of a cell in the Excel file from Small Basic program. ???????? Small Basic ????、Small Basic ??? Excel ???????????????????。HealthVault Eventing Sample: A sample application demonstrating the new HealthVault Eventing feature.Hitcents Blog - Example Code: Contains various source code examples from articles at http://www.hitcents.com/blog. Brought to you by Hitcents.INI Modifier: A proprietary application to amend users ini files for JBAe automatically from a central control file.issueIT.net - ”I just found the last bug”: issueIT is the best open source web-based issue tracker for .NET. It’s easy to customize to suit your organization. This project is not finished yet - it is only at a very early stage Leage of Legends Masteries Tool: -Small, portable and fast tool to help you set your masteries. -No Install. -Masteries saved in the same folder: "lolMasterSet.dat" (text file) How to use: - Run and then go to masteries tab in League of Legends luncher. You should see the overlay. Memory View controls: Memory View controls are a pair of controls for real time and static viewing and editing of a memory space. MemoryHexEditor is a hex editor that supports viewing and editing memory, and MemoryHeatMap is a time-based graphical view that shows how memory is read and written to.Moq Contrib: Community contributions to Moq.Operating System Basic: Sistema operacional desenvolvido em QuickBasic, durante minha adolecência.PAiRS - A WPF Memory Card Game: PAiRS is an implementation of a card matching game in which you are given an even number of cards face down in a grid, and you try to flip over 2 cards at a time to create a match until all cards are matched. PAiRS is built using C#, .Net 3.5+ and WPF.RIBA - Rich Internet Business Application for Silverlight: RIBA is an example LOB application with many features to show how to build distributed and secure Line of Business applications based on Silverlight 4. You can find the official blog on www.silverlightblog.netSearcher: Searcher is a Windows Phone project which allows you to quickly search using multiple search engines. SharePoint Term Store Powershell Utilities: An assortment of PowerShell script-based utilities to perform actions on the SharePoint Managed Metadata Term Store. PowerShell script-based utilities have been chosen rather than cmdlets as they are more suitable for environments that have strict installation policies.SmartHotelFoundation: Smart Hotel FoundationSumer Filemanager: This project ensured fully ajax based file management.The Open Source PMU: The Open Source PMU Project provides resources that enable you to build your own SynchroPhasor sensor for use with the openPDC project, research, development, or electric grid observation.Trail Blazer: Movie Trailer Fetcher - Downloads trailers for movies in a collection and saves them in movie folder. It is being developed as a companion to Meta Data Fetchers for the Media Browser project. It is being developed as a standalone C# app but a frontend in MCML is being considered.University Project Tracker: University Project TrackerVideo Backup Fusion: The complete and simply to use backup solution for video portalsWPF ShellFactory: WPF ShellFactory is an easy-to-use application framework for WPF, using a system derived from M-V-VM for its views. It supports multiple modules, either statically or dynamically loaded (i.e. plugins). It also contains mechanisms for application-wide services.

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• European Interoperability Framework - a new beginning?

  - by trond-arne.undheim

  The most controversial document in the history of the European Commission's IT policy is out. EIF is here, wrapped in the Communication "Towards interoperability for European public services", and including the new feature European Interoperability Strategy (EIS), arguably a higher strategic take on the same topic. Leaving EIS aside for a moment, the EIF controversy has been around IPR, defining open standards and about the proper terminology around standardization deliverables. Today, as the document finally emerges, what is the verdict? First of all, to be fair to those among you who do not spend your lives in the intricate labyrinths of Commission IT policy documents on interoperability, let's define what we are talking about. According to the Communication: "An interoperability framework is an agreed approach to interoperability for organisations that want to collaborate to provide joint delivery of public services. Within its scope of applicability, it specifies common elements such as vocabulary, concepts, principles, policies, guidelines, recommendations, standards, specifications and practices." The Good - EIF reconfirms that "The Digital Agenda can only take off if interoperability based on standards and open platforms is ensured" and also confirms that "The positive effect of open specifications is also demonstrated by the Internet ecosystem." - EIF takes a productive and pragmatic stance on openness: "In the context of the EIF, openness is the willingness of persons, organisations or other members of a community of interest to share knowledge and stimulate debate within that community, the ultimate goal being to advance knowledge and the use of this knowledge to solve problems" (p.11). "If the openness principle is applied in full: - All stakeholders have the same possibility of contributing to the development of the specification and public review is part of the decision-making process; - The specification is available for everybody to study; - Intellectual property rights related to the specification are licensed on FRAND terms or on a royalty-free basis in a way that allows implementation in both proprietary and open source software" (p. 26). - EIF is a formal Commission document. The former EIF 1.0 was a semi-formal deliverable from the PEGSCO, a working group of Member State representatives. - EIF tackles interoperability head-on and takes a clear stance: "Recommendation 22. When establishing European public services, public administrations should prefer open specifications, taking due account of the coverage of functional needs, maturity and market support." - The Commission will continue to support the National Interoperability Framework Observatory (NIFO), reconfirming the importance of coordinating such approaches across borders. - The Commission will align its internal interoperability strategy with the EIS through the eCommission initiative. - One cannot stress the importance of using open standards enough, whether in the context of open source or non-open source software. The EIF seems to have picked up on this fact: What does the EIF says about the relation between open specifications and open source software? The EIF introduces, as one of the characteristics of an open specification, the requirement that IPRs related to the specification have to be licensed on FRAND terms or on a royalty-free basis in a way that allows implementation in both proprietary and open source software. In this way, companies working under various business models can compete on an equal footing when providing solutions to public administrations while administrations that implement the standard in their own software (software that they own) can share such software with others under an open source licence if they so decide. - EIF is now among the center pieces of the Digital Agenda (even though this demands extensive inter-agency coordination in the Commission): "The EIS and the EIF will be maintained under the ISA Programme and kept in line with the results of other relevant Digital Agenda actions on interoperability and standards such as the ones on the reform of rules on implementation of ICT standards in Europe to allow use of certain ICT fora and consortia standards, on issuing guidelines on essential intellectual property rights and licensing conditions in standard-setting, including for ex-ante disclosure, and on providing guidance on the link between ICT standardisation and public procurement to help public authorities to use standards to promote efficiency and reduce lock-in.(Communication, p.7)" All in all, quite a few good things have happened to the document in the two years it has been on the shelf or was being re-written, depending on your perspective, in any case, awaiting the storms to calm. The Bad - While a certain pragmatism is required, and governments cannot migrate to full openness overnight, EIF gives a bit too much room for governments not to apply the openness principle in full. Plenty of reasons are given, which should maybe have been put as challenges to be overcome: "However, public administrations may decide to use less open specifications, if open specifications do not exist or do not meet functional interoperability needs. In all cases, specifications should be mature and sufficiently supported by the market, except if used in the context of creating innovative solutions". - EIF does not use the internationally established terminology: open standards. Rather, the EIF introduces the notion of "formalised specification". How do "formalised specifications" relate to "standards"? According to the FAQ provided: The word "standard" has a specific meaning in Europe as defined by Directive 98/34/EC. Only technical specifications approved by a recognised standardisation body can be called a standard. Many ICT systems rely on the use of specifications developed by other organisations such as a forum or consortium. The EIF introduces the notion of "formalised specification", which is either a standard pursuant to Directive 98/34/EC or a specification established by ICT fora and consortia. The term "open specification" used in the EIF, on the one hand, avoids terminological confusion with the Directive and, on the other, states the main features that comply with the basic principle of openness laid down in the EIF for European Public Services. Well, this may be somewhat true, but in reality, Europe is 30 year behind in terminology. Unless the European Standardization Reform gets completed in the next few months, most Member States will likely conclude that they will go on referencing and using standards beyond those created by the three European endorsed monopolists of standardization, CEN, CENELEC and ETSI. Who can afford to begin following the strict Brussels rules for what they can call open standards when, in reality, standards stemming from global standardization organizations, so-called fora/consortia, dominate in the IT industry. What exactly is EIF saying? Does it encourage Member States to go on using non-ESO standards as long as they call it something else? I guess I am all for it, although it is a bit cumbersome, no? Why was there so much interest around the EIF? The FAQ attempts to explain: Some Member States have begun to adopt policies to achieve interoperability for their public services. These actions have had a significant impact on the ecosystem built around the provision of such services, e.g. providers of ICT goods and services, standardisation bodies, industry fora and consortia, etc... The Commission identified a clear need for action at European level to ensure that actions by individual Member States would not create new electronic barriers that would hinder the development of interoperable European public services. As a result, all stakeholders involved in the delivery of electronic public services in Europe have expressed their opinions on how to increase interoperability for public services provided by the different public administrations in Europe. Well, it does not take two years to read 50 consultation documents, and the EU Standardization Reform is not yet completed, so, more pragmatically, you finally had to release the document. Ok, let's leave some of that aside because the document is out and some people are happy (and others definitely not). The Verdict Considering the controversy, the delays, the lobbying, and the interests at stake both in the EU, in Member States and among vendors large and small, this document is pretty impressive. As with a good wine that has not yet come to full maturity, let's say that it seems to be coming in in the 85-88/100 range, but only a more fine-grained analysis, enjoyment in good company, and ultimately, implementation, will tell. The European Commission has today adopted a significant interoperability initiative to encourage public administrations across the EU to maximise the social and economic potential of information and communication technologies. Today, we should rally around this achievement. Tomorrow, let's sit down and figure out what it means for the future.

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• Optimizing AES modes on Solaris for Intel Westmere

  - by danx

  Optimizing AES modes on Solaris for Intel Westmere Review AES is a strong method of symmetric (secret-key) encryption. It is a U.S. FIPS-approved cryptographic algorithm (FIPS 197) that operates on 16-byte blocks. AES has been available since 2001 and is widely used. However, AES by itself has a weakness. AES encryption isn't usually used by itself because identical blocks of plaintext are always encrypted into identical blocks of ciphertext. This encryption can be easily attacked with "dictionaries" of common blocks of text and allows one to more-easily discern the content of the unknown cryptotext. This mode of encryption is called "Electronic Code Book" (ECB), because one in theory can keep a "code book" of all known cryptotext and plaintext results to cipher and decipher AES. In practice, a complete "code book" is not practical, even in electronic form, but large dictionaries of common plaintext blocks is still possible. Here's a diagram of encrypting input data using AES ECB mode: Block 1 Block 2 PlainTextInput PlainTextInput | | | | \/ \/ AESKey-->(AES Encryption) AESKey-->(AES Encryption) | | | | \/ \/ CipherTextOutput CipherTextOutput Block 1 Block 2 What's the solution to the same cleartext input producing the same ciphertext output? The solution is to further process the encrypted or decrypted text in such a way that the same text produces different output. This usually involves an Initialization Vector (IV) and XORing the decrypted or encrypted text. As an example, I'll illustrate CBC mode encryption: Block 1 Block 2 PlainTextInput PlainTextInput | | | | \/ \/ IV >----->(XOR) +------------->(XOR) +---> . . . . | | | | | | | | \/ | \/ | AESKey-->(AES Encryption) | AESKey-->(AES Encryption) | | | | | | | | | \/ | \/ | CipherTextOutput ------+ CipherTextOutput -------+ Block 1 Block 2 The steps for CBC encryption are: Start with a 16-byte Initialization Vector (IV), choosen randomly. XOR the IV with the first block of input plaintext Encrypt the result with AES using a user-provided key. The result is the first 16-bytes of output cryptotext. Use the cryptotext (instead of the IV) of the previous block to XOR with the next input block of plaintext Another mode besides CBC is Counter Mode (CTR). As with CBC mode, it also starts with a 16-byte IV. However, for subsequent blocks, the IV is just incremented by one. Also, the IV ix XORed with the AES encryption result (not the plain text input). Here's an illustration: Block 1 Block 2 PlainTextInput PlainTextInput | | | | \/ \/ AESKey-->(AES Encryption) AESKey-->(AES Encryption) | | | | \/ \/ IV >----->(XOR) IV + 1 >---->(XOR) IV + 2 ---> . . . . | | | | \/ \/ CipherTextOutput CipherTextOutput Block 1 Block 2 Optimization Which of these modes can be parallelized? ECB encryption/decryption can be parallelized because it does more than plain AES encryption and decryption, as mentioned above. CBC encryption can't be parallelized because it depends on the output of the previous block. However, CBC decryption can be parallelized because all the encrypted blocks are known at the beginning. CTR encryption and decryption can be parallelized because the input to each block is known--it's just the IV incremented by one for each subsequent block. So, in summary, for ECB, CBC, and CTR modes, encryption and decryption can be parallelized with the exception of CBC encryption. How do we parallelize encryption? By interleaving. Usually when reading and writing data there are pipeline "stalls" (idle processor cycles) that result from waiting for memory to be loaded or stored to or from CPU registers. Since the software is written to encrypt/decrypt the next data block where pipeline stalls usually occurs, we can avoid stalls and crypt with fewer cycles. This software processes 4 blocks at a time, which ensures virtually no waiting ("stalling") for reading or writing data in memory. Other Optimizations Besides interleaving, other optimizations performed are Loading the entire key schedule into the 128-bit %xmm registers. This is done once for per 4-block of data (since 4 blocks of data is processed, when present). The following is loaded: the entire "key schedule" (user input key preprocessed for encryption and decryption). This takes 11, 13, or 15 registers, for AES-128, AES-192, and AES-256, respectively The input data is loaded into another %xmm register The same register contains the output result after encrypting/decrypting Using SSSE 4 instructions (AESNI). Besides the aesenc, aesenclast, aesdec, aesdeclast, aeskeygenassist, and aesimc AESNI instructions, Intel has several other instructions that operate on the 128-bit %xmm registers. Some common instructions for encryption are: pxor exclusive or (very useful), movdqu load/store a %xmm register from/to memory, pshufb shuffle bytes for byte swapping, pclmulqdq carry-less multiply for GCM mode Combining AES encryption/decryption with CBC or CTR modes processing. Instead of loading input data twice (once for AES encryption/decryption, and again for modes (CTR or CBC, for example) processing, the input data is loaded once as both AES and modes operations occur at in the same function Performance Everyone likes pretty color charts, so here they are. I ran these on Solaris 11 running on a Piketon Platform system with a 4-core Intel Clarkdale processor @3.20GHz. Clarkdale which is part of the Westmere processor architecture family. The "before" case is Solaris 11, unmodified. Keep in mind that the "before" case already has been optimized with hand-coded Intel AESNI assembly. The "after" case has combined AES-NI and mode instructions, interleaved 4 blocks at-a-time. « For the first table, lower is better (milliseconds). The first table shows the performance improvement using the Solaris encrypt(1) and decrypt(1) CLI commands. I encrypted and decrypted a 1/2 GByte file on /tmp (swap tmpfs). Encryption improved by about 40% and decryption improved by about 80%. AES-128 is slighty faster than AES-256, as expected. The second table shows more detail timings for CBC, CTR, and ECB modes for the 3 AES key sizes and different data lengths. » The results shown are the percentage improvement as shown by an internal PKCS#11 microbenchmark. And keep in mind the previous baseline code already had optimized AESNI assembly! The keysize (AES-128, 192, or 256) makes little difference in relative percentage improvement (although, of course, AES-128 is faster than AES-256). Larger data sizes show better improvement than 128-byte data. Availability This software is in Solaris 11 FCS. It is available in the 64-bit libcrypto library and the "aes" Solaris kernel module. You must be running hardware that supports AESNI (for example, Intel Westmere and Sandy Bridge, microprocessor architectures). The easiest way to determine if AES-NI is available is with the isainfo(1) command. For example, $ isainfo -v 64-bit amd64 applications pclmulqdq aes sse4.2 sse4.1 ssse3 popcnt tscp ahf cx16 sse3 sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov amd_sysc cx8 tsc fpu 32-bit i386 applications pclmulqdq aes sse4.2 sse4.1 ssse3 popcnt tscp ahf cx16 sse3 sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov sep cx8 tsc fpu No special configuration or setup is needed to take advantage of this software. Solaris libraries and kernel automatically determine if it's running on AESNI-capable machines and execute the correctly-tuned software for the current microprocessor. Summary Maximum throughput of AES cipher modes can be achieved by combining AES encryption with modes processing, interleaving encryption of 4 blocks at a time, and using Intel's wide 128-bit %xmm registers and instructions. References "Block cipher modes of operation", Wikipedia Good overview of AES modes (ECB, CBC, CTR, etc.) "Advanced Encryption Standard", Wikipedia "Current Modes" describes NIST-approved block cipher modes (ECB,CBC, CFB, OFB, CCM, GCM)

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• Evaluating Solutions to Manage Product Compliance? Don't Wait Much Longer

  - by Kerrie Foy

  Depending on severity, product compliance issues can cause all sorts of problems from run-away budgets to business closures. But effective policies and safeguards can create a strong foundation for innovation, productivity, market penetration and competitive advantage. If you’ve been putting off a systematic approach to product compliance, it is time to reconsider that decision, or indecision. Why now?  No matter what industry, companies face a litany of worldwide and regional regulations that require proof of product compliance and environmental friendliness for market access.  For example, Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) is a regulation that restricts the use of six dangerous materials used in the manufacture of electronic and electrical equipment.  ROHS was originally adopted by the European Union in 2003 for implementation in 2006, and it has evolved over time through various regional versions for North America, China, Japan, Korea, Norway and Turkey.  In addition, the RoHS directive allowed for material exemptions used in Medical Devices, but that exemption ends in 2014.   Additional regulations worth watching are the Battery Directive, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) directives.  Additional evolving regulations are coming from governing bodies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Corporate sustainability initiatives are also gaining urgency and influencing product design. In a survey of 405 corporations in the Global 500 by Carbon Disclosure Project, co-written by PwC (CDP Global 500 Climate Change Report 2012 entitled Business Resilience in an Uncertain, Resource-Constrained World), 48% of the respondents indicated they saw potential to create new products and business services as a response to climate change. Just 21% reported a dedicated budget for the research. However, the report goes on to explain that those few companies are winning over new customers and driving additional profits by exploiting their abilities to adapt to environmental needs. The article cites Dell as an example – Dell has invested in research to develop new products designed to reduce its customers’ emissions by more than 10 million metric tons of CO2e per year. This reduction in emissions should save Dell’s customers over $1billion per year as a result! Over time we expect to see many additional companies prove that eco-design provides marketplace benefits through differentiation and direct customer value. How do you meet compliance requirements and also successfully invest in eco-friendly designs? No doubt companies struggle to answer this question. After all, the journey to get there may involve transforming business models, go-to-market strategies, supply networks, quality assurance policies and compliance processes per the rapidly evolving global and regional directives. There may be limited executive focus on the initiative, inability to quantify noncompliance, or not enough resources to justify investment. To make things even more difficult to address, compliance responsibility can be a passionate topic within an organization, making the prospect of change on an enterprise scale problematic and time-consuming. Without a single source of truth for product data and without proper processes in place, ensuring product compliance burgeons into a crushing task that is cost-prohibitive and overwhelming to an organization. With all the overhead, certain markets or demographics become simply inaccessible. Therefore, the risk to consumer goodwill and satisfaction, revenue, business continuity, and market potential is too great not to solve the compliance challenge. Companies are beginning to adapt and even thrive in today’s highly regulated and transparent environment by implementing systematic approaches to product compliance that are more than functional bandages but revenue-generating engines. Consider partnering with Oracle to help you address your compliance needs. Many of the world’s most innovative leaders and pioneers are leveraging Oracle’s Agile Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) portfolio of enterprise applications to manage the product value chain, centralize product data, automate processes, and launch more eco-friendly products to market faster.   Particularly, the Agile Product Governance & Compliance (PG&C) solution provides out-of-the-box functionality to integrate actionable regulatory information into the enterprise product record from the ideation to the disposal/recycling phase. Agile PG&C makes it possible to efficiently manage compliance per corporate green initiatives as well as regional and global directives. Options are critical, but so is ease-of-use. Anyone who’s grappled with compliance policy knows legal interpretation plays a major role in determining how an organization responds to regulation. Agile PG&C gives you the freedom to configure product compliance per your needs, while maintaining rigorous control over the product record in an easy-to-use interface that facilitates adoption efforts. It allows you to assign regulations as specifications for a part or BOM roll-up. Each specification has a threshold value that alerts you to a non-compliance issue if the threshold value is exceeded. Set however many regulations as specifications you need to make sure a product can be sold in your target countries. Another option is to implement like one of our leading consumer electronics customers and define your own “catch-all” specification to ensure compliance in all markets. You can give your suppliers secure access to enter their component data or integrate a third party’s data. With Agile PG&C you are able to design compliance earlier into your products to reduce cost and improve quality downstream when stakes are higher. Agile PG&C is a comprehensive solution that makes product compliance more reliable and efficient. Throughout product lifecycles, use the solution to support full material disclosures, efficiently manage declarations with your suppliers, feed compliance data into a corrective action if a product must be changed, and swiftly satisfy audits by showing all due diligence tracked in one solution. Given the compounding regulation and consumer focus on urgent environmental issues, now is the time to act. Implementing an enterprise, systematic approach to product compliance is a competitive investment. From the start, Agile Product Governance & Compliance enables companies to confidently design for compliance and sustainability, reduce the cost of compliance, minimize the risk of business interruption, deliver responsible products, and inspire new innovation.  Don’t wait any longer! To find out more about Agile Product Governance & Compliance download the data sheet, contact your sales representative, or call Oracle at 1-800-633-0738. Many thanks to Shane Goodwin, Senior Manager, Oracle Agile PLM Product Management, for contributions to this article. 

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• Unlocking Productivity

  - by Michael Snow

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

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• Kde no sound from Phonon or most KDE apps but mplayer,skype and firefox are ok

  - by zeonglow

  Can somebody tell me why I cannot get any sound with most of KDE 4? I'm running a Gentoo box, I'm in both the 'audio' and 'video' groups. I can get sound with mplayer ( but not smplayer ) Firefox and Skype but nothing else. I can't get the test sound to play from the settings window, but Phonon is not whining about broken sound cards when I start up. I have checked with kmix, we seem to be completely unmuted ( and I can get sound with some apps)

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• Attach radeon driver to specific PCI devices?

  - by genpfault

  I have two Radeon cards in this machine, a 6570 and a 6950: lspci | grep VGA: 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Turks [Radeon HD 6570] 02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Cayman PRO [Radeon HD 6950] I'm trying to get VGA passthrough to work with KVM on Debian Wheezy, passing through the 6950 as a secondary video card to a Windows 7 guest. This works fine if I blacklist the radeon kernel module via /etc/modprobe.d/. If I remove the blacklist to run X11 (or even just a KMS console) on the 6570 the radeon module seems to attach to both cards: dmesg | egrep "01:00.0|02:00.0|radeon": pci 0000:01:00.0: [1002:6759] type 0 class 0x000300 pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 10: [mem 0xe0000000-0xefffffff 64bit pref] pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 18: [mem 0xf7e20000-0xf7e3ffff 64bit] pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 20: [io 0xe000-0xe0ff] pci 0000:01:00.0: reg 30: [mem 0xf7e00000-0xf7e1ffff pref] pci 0000:01:00.0: supports D1 D2 pci 0000:02:00.0: [1002:6719] type 0 class 0x000300 pci 0000:02:00.0: reg 10: [mem 0xd0000000-0xdfffffff 64bit pref] pci 0000:02:00.0: reg 18: [mem 0xf7d20000-0xf7d3ffff 64bit] pci 0000:02:00.0: reg 20: [io 0xd000-0xd0ff] pci 0000:02:00.0: reg 30: [mem 0xf7d00000-0xf7d1ffff pref] pci 0000:02:00.0: supports D1 D2 vgaarb: device added: PCI:0000:01:00.0,decodes=io+mem,owns=io+mem,locks=none vgaarb: device added: PCI:0000:02:00.0,decodes=io+mem,owns=none,locks=none vgaarb: bridge control possible 0000:02:00.0 vgaarb: bridge control possible 0000:01:00.0 pci 0000:01:00.0: Boot video device [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled. radeon 0000:01:00.0: setting latency timer to 64 radeon 0000:01:00.0: VRAM: 1024M 0x0000000000000000 - 0x000000003FFFFFFF (1024M used) radeon 0000:01:00.0: GTT: 512M 0x0000000040000000 - 0x000000005FFFFFFF [drm] radeon: 1024M of VRAM memory ready [drm] radeon: 512M of GTT memory ready. radeon 0000:01:00.0: irq 46 for MSI/MSI-X radeon 0000:01:00.0: radeon: using MSI. [drm] radeon: irq initialized. radeon 0000:01:00.0: WB enabled [drm] radeon: ib pool ready. [drm] radeon: power management initialized fbcon: radeondrmfb (fb0) is primary device fb0: radeondrmfb frame buffer device [drm] Initialized radeon 2.12.0 20080528 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 0 radeon 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0003) radeon 0000:02:00.0: setting latency timer to 64 radeon 0000:02:00.0: VRAM: 2048M 0x0000000000000000 - 0x000000007FFFFFFF (2048M used) radeon 0000:02:00.0: GTT: 512M 0x0000000080000000 - 0x000000009FFFFFFF [drm] radeon: 2048M of VRAM memory ready [drm] radeon: 512M of GTT memory ready. radeon 0000:02:00.0: irq 49 for MSI/MSI-X radeon 0000:02:00.0: radeon: using MSI. [drm] radeon: irq initialized. radeon 0000:02:00.0: WB enabled [drm] radeon: ib pool ready. [drm] radeon: power management initialized fb1: radeondrmfb frame buffer device [drm] Initialized radeon 2.12.0 20080528 for 0000:02:00.0 on minor 1 [drm] radeon: finishing device. radeon 0000:02:00.0: ffff88041a941800 unpin not necessary [drm] radeon: ttm finalized pci-stub 0000:02:00.0: claimed by stub pci-stub 0000:02:00.0: irq 49 for MSI/MSI-X This causes the Win7 VM to bluescreen on boot. How can I configure things so that the radeon module only attaches to the 6570 and not the 6950?

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• Cannot increase monitor refresh rate on second monitor

  - by Seany84

  I just purchased an Asus VG248 monitor (supports 144Hz refresh rate) and I can not increase the monitor's refresh rate beyond 60Hz from Windows. My system setup: 2x AMD 6990 graphics cards 1x Asus VG236 connected via DVI cable to graphics card #1 DVI port #1 (120Hz) 1x Asus VG248 connected via DVI cable to graphics card #1 DVI port #2 (60Hz) Does anyone know why I can not set the new monitor to a higher refresh rate?

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