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Search found 2017 results on 81 pages for 'jason morhardt'.

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• Can Dust Actually Damage My Computer?

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Thousands of hours per year of fan-driven air movement combined with electrostatic charges make computers veritable dust magnets. Is all that dust simply a nuisance or is it actually harmful? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-drive grouping of Q&A web sites. What To Do If You Get a Virus on Your Computer Why Enabling “Do Not Track” Doesn’t Stop You From Being Tracked HTG Explains: What is the Windows Page File and Should You Disable It?

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• Use Your Android Phone to Comparison Shop: 4 Scanner Apps Reviewed

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  A smart phone in your pocket is great for on the go news, web browsing, and—of course—mobile gaming. It’s also fantastic for comparison shopping. Today we take a look at four Android scanners and price comparison engines. It’s quite a neat time to be a consumer. Historically if you wanted to do serious price comparisons you had to haul yourself around town, gather flyers from the newspapers, and otherwise invest way too much energy into potential savings that might not even break into double digits. Now you can comparison shop with an ease that borders on magic: by simply pulling out your smart phone and scanning the barcode or typing in the name of the item you wish to compare. Today we’re taking a look at some of the more popular and powerful barcode scanners and price comparison engines available for the Android platform. Before we get to that, a word on our methodology. To test the barcode scanners and the resulting search results we wandered around and rounded up some relatively random items from around the How-To Geek offices. This included a children’s graphic novel, a Wii game, a board game, a pack of razors, a box of tea, and a bottle of nail polish. It’s a decent spread of consumer items that covers several genres. For each application we scanned all the items, looked for the best price at the time, and noted any other relevant benefits of using one scanner over another. It’s worth noting that our primary focus was on the speed and ease of use. You may find that certain scanners have specific features that best suit your needs. What we focused on was how fast you could scan, compare prices, and purchase items if you desired. Since all the scanners are free-as-in-beer, feel free to download them all and run your own tests to confirm our conclusions. Use Your Android Phone to Comparison Shop: 4 Scanner Apps Reviewed How to Run Android Apps on Your Desktop the Easy Way HTG Explains: Do You Really Need to Defrag Your PC?

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• Five Fake Sounds Engineered to Make Your Feel Better [Science]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  As objects in our environment (like cars, ATMs, and phones) have grown lighter and quieter scientists have been carefully engineering their sounds so that they continue to sound like we expect them to. Read on to see how. At the design blog Humans Invent they share five interesting ways that the world around us is being engineered so it sounds the way we expect it to. They start with the example of the car door. Years ago cars were almost entirely steel, the doors were weighty, and when you slammed them it sounded like one big hunk of steel locking into another big hunk of steel (which, in fact, it was). Newer cars are lighter but people still crave that substantial clunk. Humans Invent highlights the effect of consumer desire: A car door is essentially a hollow shell with parts placed inside it. Without careful design the door frame amplifies the rattling of mechanisms inside. Car companies know that if buyers don’t get a satisfying thud when they close the door, it dents their confidence in the entire vehicle. To produce the ideal clunk, car doors are designed to minimise the amount of high frequencies produced (we associate them with fragility and weakness) and emphasise low, bass-heavy frequencies that suggest solidity. The effect is achieved in a range of different ways – car companies have piled up hundreds of patents on the subject – but usually involves some form of dampener fitted in the door cavity. Locking mechanisms are also tailored to produce the right sort of click and the way seals make contact is precisely controlled. On average it takes 1.8 seconds to close a car door but in that time you’re witnessing a strange kind of symphony composed by engineers and designers whose goal is to reassure you that its rock solid. They mention lock mechanisms, something you may never have thought about. A friend of mine had a Ford Focus some years ago and that particular model had electric locks that, instead of giving a satisfying thunk or solid click, made this horrible gates-of-the-prison-buzzing sound that was completely unnerving. Hit up the link below to see how sounds are engineered for car doors, electric motors, ATM machines, and more. 5 Fake Sounds Designed to Help Humans [Humans Invent via Boing Boing] How To Easily Access Your Home Network From Anywhere With DDNSHow To Recover After Your Email Password Is CompromisedHow to Clean Your Filthy Keyboard in the Dishwasher (Without Ruining it)

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• Hack a Linksys Router into a Ambient Data Monitor

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you have a data source (like a weather report, bus schedule, or other changing data set) you can pull it and display it with an ambient data monitor; this fun build combines a hacked Linksys router and a modified toy bus to display transit arrival times. John Graham-Cumming wanted to keep an eye on the current bus arrival time tables without constantly visiting the web site to check them. His workaround turns a hacked Linksys router, a display, a modified London city bus (you could hack apart a more project-specific enclosure, of course), and a simple bit code that polls the bus schedule’s API, into a cool ambient data monitor that displays the arrival time, in minutes, of the next two buses that will pass by his stop. The whole thing could easily be adapted to another API to display anything from stock prices to weather temps. Hit up the link below for more information on the project. Ambient Bus Arrival Monitor Hacked from Linksys Router [via Make] Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Reader Request: How To Repair Blurry Photos HTG Explains: What Can You Find in an Email Header?

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• The Birth and Life of a Disk Galaxy [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  In this video, rendered over a million CPU hours by the Pleiades supercomputer at NASA’s Ames Research Center, we see the birth and life of a massive disk galaxy. Computer Model Shows a Disk Galaxy’s Life History [via Geeks Are Sexy] HTG Explains: Why It’s Good That Your Computer’s RAM Is Full 10 Awesome Improvements For Desktop Users in Windows 8 How To Play DVDs on Windows 8

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• Museum of Modern Art Starts Video Game Collection; Acquires Myst, Pac-Man, and More

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  The Museum of Modern Art is weighing in on the video-games-as-art debate by starting a collection of iconic video games and putting them up for public display. Read on to see what games are included in the initial batch and the MoMA’s reasons behind starting a video game collection. Although the MoMA is slated to grow to over 40 titles, the seed batch is 14 titles including: Pac-Man, Tetris, Sim City 2000, Myst, Portal, and Dwarf Fortress. In the announcement they explain the motivation for building a video game collection: Are video games art? They sure are, but they are also design, and a design approach is what we chose for this new foray into this universe. The games are selected as outstanding examples of interaction design—a field that MoMA has already explored and collected extensively, and one of the most important and oft-discussed expressions of contemporary design creativity. Our criteria, therefore, emphasize not only the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, but also the many other aspects—from the elegance of the code to the design of the player’s behavior—that pertain to interaction design. In order to develop an even stronger curatorial stance, over the past year and a half we have sought the advice of scholars, digital conservation and legal experts, historians, and critics, all of whom helped us refine not only the criteria and the wish list, but also the issues of acquisition, display, and conservation of digital artifacts that are made even more complex by the games’ interactive nature. This acquisition allows the Museum to study, preserve, and exhibit video games as part of its Architecture and Design collection. The above quote is only a small snippet of a much lengthier look at the benefits of examining and preserving video games, hit up the link below to check out the full post including future titles the MoMA would like to include in their archive. Video Games: 14 in the Collection, for Starters [Inside/Out] How To Boot Your Android Phone or Tablet Into Safe Mode HTG Explains: Does Your Android Phone Need an Antivirus? How To Use USB Drives With the Nexus 7 and Other Android Devices

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• How an LED-lit LCD Monitor Works [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  There’s a good chance you’re staring at one right now, the common LCD monitor. How exactly does it work? Find out by watching this informative video. Bill Hammack, the engineer behind the Engineer Guy video series, takes apart an LCD monitor and gives a detailed analysis of what’s going on inside as he rebuilds it–including how the pixels function, what the screen is constructed off, and how the light is diffused. LCD Monitor Teardown [YouTube via Hack A Day] HTG Explains: What’s the Difference Between the Windows 7 HomeGroups and XP-style Networking?Internet Explorer 9 Released: Here’s What You Need To KnowHTG Explains: How Does Email Work?

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• How to add a holding page in front of a domain

  - by Jason Bradberry

  I have set up a holding page to announce a new version of a website coming soon. I wanted people to still be able to access the original site, so my approach was to place the holding page in the root folder on the server, and move the original site to a subfolder and link to it from the holding page. However, on testing this setup it appears to have hurt the SEO placing of the website. Is there a better approach to this? I'm a bit stumped as I want both to share the same URL.

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• The Chemistry of Fireworks [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Fireworks are the dazzling and loud end result of complex chemical process. Watch this video to see the chemistry behind a fireworks display explained by none other than the father of modern pyrotechnics, John Conkling. Courtesy of Bytesize Science: From the sizzle of the fuse to the boom and burst of colors, this video brings you all of the exciting sights and sounds of Fourth of July fireworks, plus a little chemical knowhow. The video features John A. Conkling, Ph.D., who literally wrote the book on fireworks — he is the author of The Chemistry of Pyrotechnics, Basic Principles and Theory. Conkling shows how the familiar rockets and other neat products that light up the night sky all represent chemistry in action. [via Geeks Are Sexy] How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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• Inverted LACK Table Serves as a Perfect Gear Rack [DIY]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  We’ve seen IKEA gear hacked to hold audio and computer gear before, but this mod adds in a simple and effective twist. LACK end tables are, conveniently, the same width as a standard server rack. This makes it super simple for DIYers to mount their gear right into the legs of the table with no modification necessary. In this case, however, Winston Smith included a clever update to the mod. Rather than leave it like a standard table, he flipped the table upside down for increased stability and a stronger connection between the legs of his improvised audio rack and the table-top-turned-floor-plate. He then finished it with a matching LACK shelf piece to serve as a turn-table stand. His gear is stored cleanly, off the floor, and in a sturdy container all for about $25–a definite bargain when it comes to storage racks. Hit up the link below for more information and pictures. LACK Rack & EXPEDIT Desktop [IKEA Hackers] HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows? Java is Insecure and Awful, It’s Time to Disable It, and Here’s How

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• What You Said: How You Find New Books

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Earlier this week we asked you to share your tips and tricks for finding fresh books to enjoy. Now we’re back with tips ranging from the old school to the digital. SJ highlights several of the most popular web-based tools for finding new books: Goodreads.com is quick and easy. Yournextread.com is fun and helps a lot. But I gotta be honest, Amazon’s suggestions are probably the most useful to me. TheFu suggests checking out award-winning lists and one rather quirky way to pick a good Sci-Fi book: For scifi, see Hugo winning books. Life is too short to read bad books. Sometimes that leads to an author with an entire series of books to enjoy. I really enjoy some of the scifi from the 40s and 50s. Wells stuff is always timeless too (and free). I’m less happy with Nebula winners–-different type of writers and not my personal taste. Secure Yourself by Using Two-Step Verification on These 16 Web Services How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot

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• The Science Behind Technological Moral Panics

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Why do some new technologies cause ripples and reactionary backlash in society but others slip into our daily lives almost entirely uncontested? It turns out there’s a rather specific combination of things the new technology must do to upset the public. At Wired they highlight the work of Genevieve Bell and her studies of how society reacts to new technology: Genevieve Bell believes she’s cracked this puzzle. Bell, director of interaction and experience research at Intel, has long studied how everyday people incorporate new tech into their lives. In a 2011 interview with The Wall Street Journal‘s Tech Europe blog, she outlined an interesting argument: To provoke moral panic, a technology must satisfy three rules. First, it has to change our relationship to time. Then it has to change our relationship to space. And, crucially, it has to change our relationship to one another. Individually, each of these transformations can be unsettling, but if you hit all three? Panic! Why We Freak Out About Some Technologies but Not Others [Wired] How To Play DVDs on Windows 8 6 Start Menu Replacements for Windows 8 What Is the Purpose of the “Do Not Cover This Hole” Hole on Hard Drives?

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• How to Make a 9 Layer Density Column [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Density columns, layers of varying density liquid in a glass cylinder, are nothing new in the world of science demonstrations, but this nine layer one with seven floating objects is something to see. Courtesy of Steve Spangler Science, the experiment goes above and beyond the traditional five layer column by adding another four layers and sinking objects of varying density into the column. The end result is a colorful demonstration of the varying densities of liquids and solids. [via Boing Boing] How To Get a Better Wireless Signal and Reduce Wireless Network Interference How To Troubleshoot Internet Connection Problems 7 Ways To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Windows

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• 12.04's music players won't stream radio stations

  - by Jason

  I cannot get any music player in 12.04 to stream radio stations. My previous OS (ubuntu 10.04) had no problems with this. I have tried Rhythmbox and Exaile. neither works in 12.04 (but both work fine in 10.04. I inputted this stream: http://ummedia12.rs.itd.umich.edu:8004 I see that an internet connection is established by "Python" and I hear the "Advertisement" that plays right before the stream begins. But then just silence. The stream works fine in VLC, but I like to use the music players because they "store" the URL and have a tab that says Radio. I can find no way to "store" the URL in VLC. Anyone know what's wrong and why it's not working in the music players? I have fluendo plugins installed. I have python installed. I have ffmpeg installed.

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• Build Your Own Adapter For Cheap Mains Power on Portable Devices

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you’re looking for a way to build a battery-to-wall-power adapter for one of your portable devices, this tutorial can serve as a template for your DIY adventures. Mike Worth wanted an outlet adapter for his Canon camera, but Canon wanted $75 for it. Not looking to spend that kind of cash on a very simple adapter, he set out to build his own. The build is quite simple, consisting of a transformer with the proper voltage, and a set of dummy battery casings with thumb tacks and washers to serve as the negative and positive leads. Hit up the link below to see the full build. Making a Mains Adapter [via Hack A Day] HTG Explains: What Is RSS and How Can I Benefit From Using It? HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online

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• Top 10 Vulnerabilidades de Seguridad en el WEB.CONFIG- PARTE 1

  - by Jason Ulloa

  Durante estos post, mostraré los 10 problemas o errores de configuración en el web.config que provocan grandes vulnerabilidades en las aplicaciones. Estos errores, en su mayoría vienen dados por desconocimiento a fondo del manejo de las secciones de configuración de nuestras aplicaciones. En esta primera parte, veremos los primeros 5 de ellos. 1. El modo Custom Errors Este es el primero de nuestra lista, ya que, será uno de los que casi siempre habilitemos cuando estamos desarrollando una aplicación web y que es de mucho cuidado. Una etiqueta común y vulnerable de esta configuración sería <configuration> <system.web> <customErrors mode="Off">   Una forma de corregir la vulnerabilidad que se expone a continuación sería cambiando la etiqueta por <configuration> <system.web> <customErrors mode="RemoteOnly">

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• Humble Bundle Gives You DRM-Free Games at Pay-What-You-Want Prices

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  The Humble Bundle is back–score cross-platform games at a pay-what-you-want price and even send the proceeds to charity in the process. Between now and April 2nd, score great independent games like Zen Bound 2 and Avadaon: The Black Fortress with a name-your-price deal courtesy of The Humble Bundle. You pay what you want and specify how you want the money divided among the developers and the Electronic Frontier Foundation/Child’s Play charities. Check out the video above to see the games included in the bundle. All games are cross-platform, available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android, and DRM-Free. The Humble Bundle The HTG Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Reader Request: How To Repair Blurry Photos

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• eBook Exchange Helps Kindle and Nook Owners Swap Books

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you have a Kindle or Nook and are looking to do a little free reading, eBook Exchange makes it easy to borrow books from others and to share your books in turn. The service is completely free; in order to use it you simply sign up for an account and begin listing books you have to share. Even if you have no books to share at the moment you can still use the service (although be aware that eBook Exchange ranks requests and in the case of multiple users requesting the same book the system will favor a user who has shared the most). Hit up the link below take eBook Exchange for spin. eBook Exchange [via Gadgetopia] How To Delete, Move, or Rename Locked Files in Windows HTG Explains: Why Screen Savers Are No Longer Necessary 6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7

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• The Future According to Films [Infographic]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Curious what the future will look like? According to movie directors, casting their lens towards the future of humanity, it’s quite a mixed bag. Check out this infographic timeline to check out the next 300,000 years of human evolution. A quick glance over the timeline shows a series of future where things can quickly go from the fun times to the end-of-the-world times. We’d like to, for example, live it up in the Futurama future of 3000 AD and not the Earth-gets-destroyed future of Titan A.E’s 3028. Hit up the link below for a high-res copy of the infographic. The Future According to Films [Tremulant Design via Geeks Are Sexy] HTG Explains: How Hackers Take Over Web Sites with SQL Injection / DDoS Use Your Android Phone to Comparison Shop: 4 Scanner Apps Reviewed How to Run Android Apps on Your Desktop the Easy Way

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• What You Said: How You Sync and Organize Your Bookmarks

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite techniques for synchronizing and organizing your browser bookmarks. Now we’re back to highlight the most popular techniques, tricks, and services. By far and away, Xmarks was the most frequently mentioned service. For the unfamiliar, Xmarks is a bookmark syncing service that is packed with features. Not only does Xmarks sync bookmarks between browsers and/or computers it also supports iOS, Android, and BlackBerry (mobile integration requires an upgrade to the premium account). In addition to syncing the bookmarks it also integrates with your search results so you can see how other Xmarks users have ranked sites within your search results. Steve-O-Rama highlights one of the many benefits of Xmarks: Xmarks seems to do the job for me. I’ve got a handful of machines, each with three or four browsers; over the years, I’ve accumulated thousands of bookmarks, stretching across many areas of interest. Trying to keep them all straight had been quite a struggle until Xmarks came along. I freaked out when the company was acquired by LastPass, but was subsequently relieved when they continued the free service. Xmarks has a very nice web interface to access, export, search, organize, and do many other things with your bookmarks. In this way, even if I’m on the go, I can access every bookmark I’ve made. Even so, I still make occasional local backups, directly from the browsers to a network folder. Delicious bookmarks, another veteran of the bookmark syncing services, had a fair number of supporters among the HTG readership. Use Amazon’s Barcode Scanner to Easily Buy Anything from Your Phone How To Migrate Windows 7 to a Solid State Drive Follow How-To Geek on Google+

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• The Dangers of Vertical Video; A Public Service Announcement [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  According to the puppets in this tongue-in-cheek PSA, you’d better start shooting your video in the right orientation or very bad things–potentially involving George Lucas–will come to pass. [via Mashable] HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me? HTG Explains: How Windows 8′s Secure Boot Feature Works & What It Means for Linux Hack Your Kindle for Easy Font Customization

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• Image Collector Rips Web Page Images to Your Dropbox Account

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Chrome: Image Collector is a simple Chrome extension that rips the images on the page you’re visiting to your Dropbox (or Google Drive) accounts. Just click the icon, uncheck any images you don’t want it to download, and click save. You can, technically, modify the script to download the images directly to your hard drive, but modifying it was a bit of a hassle and the default save-to-Dropbox action is so smooth we saw little reason to do so. Hit up the link below to grab a free copy. Image Collector [via Freeware Genuis] How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It? HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me?

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• From the Tips Box: Drone Hacks Galor, DIY Solder Dispensers, and Mood-based Music

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Once a week we round up some of the great reader-submitted tips and share them with everyone. This week we’re looking at AR Drone hacks, crafting a DIY solder dispenser, and enjoying mood-based music. HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows? Java is Insecure and Awful, It’s Time to Disable It, and Here’s How What Are the Windows A: and B: Drives Used For?

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• Hack Your Kindle for Easy Font Customization

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  The font options included with the Kindle are certainly serviceable, but why limit yourself? Today we’ll show you how to easily swap out the font files on your Kindle for a completely customized reading experience. Why customize the font? Why not! It’s your ebook reader and if you want the font to be crisper, thicker, look like it belongs on Star Trek, or pack more words per line, there’s no need to let Amazon’s design decisions stand in your way. Today we’re going to show you how you can install new fonts on your Amazon Kindle with free tools and about 20 minutes of tinkering (most of which will be spent waiting for the Kindle to reboot and rebuild the fonts). Hack Your Kindle for Easy Font Customization HTG Explains: What Is RSS and How Can I Benefit From Using It? HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It

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• Metrics - A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing (or 'Why you're not clever enough to interpret metrics data')

  - by Jason Crease

  At RedGate Software, I work on a .NET obfuscator  called SmartAssembly.  Various features of it use a database to store various things (exception reports, name-mappings, etc.) The user is given the option of using either a SQL-Server database (which requires them to have Microsoft SQL Server), or a Microsoft Access MDB file (which requires nothing). MDB is the default option, but power-users soon switch to using a SQL Server database because it offers better performance and data-sharing. In the fashionable spirit of optimization and metrics, an obvious product-management question is 'Which is the most popular? SQL Server or MDB?' We've collected data about this fact, using our 'Feature-Usage-Reporting' technology (available as part of SmartAssembly) and more recently our 'Application Metrics' technology: Parameter Number of users % of total users Number of sessions Number of usages SQL Server 28 19.0 8115 8115 MDB 114 77.6 1449 1449 (As a disclaimer, please note than SmartAssembly has far more than 132 users . This data is just a selection of one build) So, it would appear that SQL-Server is used by fewer users, but more often. Great. But here's why these numbers are useless to me: Only the original developers understand the data What does a single 'usage' of 'MDB' mean? Does this happen once per run? Once per option change? On clicking the 'Obfuscate Now' button? When running the command-line version or just from the UI version? Each question could skew the data 10-fold either way, and the answers only known by the developer that instrumented the application in the first place. In other words, only the original developer can interpret the data - product-managers cannot interpret the data unaided. Most of the data is from uninterested users About half of people who download and run a free-trial from the internet quit it almost immediately. Only a small fraction use it sufficiently to make informed choices. Since the MDB option is the default one, we don't know how many of those 114 were people CHOOSING to use the MDB, or how many were JUST HAPPENING to use this MDB default for their 20-second trial. This is a problem we see across all our metrics: Are people are using X because it's the default or are they using X because they want to use X? We need to segment the data further - asking what percentage of each percentage meet our criteria for an 'established user' or 'informed user'. You end up spending hours writing sophisticated and dubious SQL queries to segment the data further. Not fun. You can't find out why they used this feature Metrics can answer the when and what, but not the why. Why did people use feature X? If you're anything like me, you often click on random buttons in unfamiliar applications just to explore the feature-set. If we listened uncritically to metrics at RedGate, we would eliminate the most-important and more-complex features which people actually buy the software for, leaving just big buttons on the main page and the About-Box. "Ah, that's interesting!" rather than "Ah, that's actionable!" People do love data. Did you know you eat 1201 chickens in a lifetime? But just 4 cows? Interesting, but useless. Often metrics give you a nice number: '5.8% of users have 3 or more monitors' . But unless the statistic is both SUPRISING and ACTIONABLE, it's useless. Most metrics are collected, reviewed with lots of cooing. and then forgotten. Unless a piece-of-data could change things, it's useless collecting it. People get obsessed with significance levels The first things that lots of people do with this data is do a t-test to get a significance level ("Hey! We know with 99.64% confidence that people prefer SQL Server to MDBs!") Believe me: other causes of error/misinterpretation in your data are FAR more significant than your t-test could ever comprehend. Confirmation bias prevents objectivity If the data appears to match our instinct, we feel satisfied and move on. If it doesn't, we suspect the data and dig deeper, plummeting down a rabbit-hole of segmentation and filtering until we give-up and move-on. Data is only useful if it can change our preconceptions. Do you trust this dodgy data more than your own understanding, knowledge and intelligence?  I don't. There's always multiple plausible ways to interpret/action any data Let's say we segment the above data, and get this data: Post-trial users (i.e. those using a paid version after the 14-day free-trial is over): Parameter Number of users % of total users Number of sessions Number of usages SQL Server 13 9.0 1115 1115 MDB 5 4.2 449 449 Trial users: Parameter Number of users % of total users Number of sessions Number of usages SQL Server 15 10.0 7000 7000 MDB 114 77.6 1000 1000 How do you interpret this data? It's one of: Mostly SQL Server users buy our software. People who can't afford SQL Server tend to be unable to afford or unwilling to buy our software. Therefore, ditch MDB-support. Our MDB support is so poor and buggy that our massive MDB user-base doesn't buy it.  Therefore, spend loads of money improving it, and think about ditching SQL-Server support. People 'graduate' naturally from MDB to SQL Server as they use the software more. Things are fine the way they are. We're marketing the tool wrong. The large number of MDB users represent uninformed downloaders. Tell marketing to aggressively target SQL Server users. To choose an interpretation you need to segment again. And again. And again, and again. Opting-out is correlated with feature-usage Metrics tends to be opt-in. This skews the data even further. Between 5% and 30% of people choose to opt-in to metrics (often called 'customer improvement program' or something like that). Casual trial-users who are uninterested in your product or company are less likely to opt-in. This group is probably also likely to be MDB users. How much does this skew your data by? Who knows? It's not all doom and gloom. There are some things metrics can answer well. Environment facts. How many people have 3 monitors? Have Windows 7? Have .NET 4 installed? Have Japanese Windows? Minor optimizations.  Is the text-box big enough for average user-input? Performance data. How long does our app take to start? How many databases does the average user have on their server? As you can see, questions about who-the-user-is rather than what-the-user-does are easier to answer and action. Conclusion Use SmartAssembly. If not for the metrics (called 'Feature-Usage-Reporting'), then at least for the obfuscation/error-reporting. Data raises more questions than it answers. Questions about environment are the easiest to answer.

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