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• Remotely port forward/launch process or a client-less remote desktop app?

  - by DC177E

  I have an XP box running Logmein at a remote location behind a linksys router, which was running well for a whole of four days, until we had a power failure. Our ISP gave us a new IP, the machine restarted, and logmein did not autorun (or, at least, it did not automatically sign in), and our service (which may or may not be a Minecraft server with non-backed-up save files) also did not run upon startup. Logmein does not register the new IP (it still displays the old one). I have a DDNS updater service, so I do know the new dynamic address. I have tried using the built in XP remote desktop service, but, as with almost all non-cloud-based remote desktop services, it requires a port forward. Thus, I would appreciate it if anyone has any ideas as to: A: Any way of accessing our router remotely to forward the remote desktop port. I've seen the Remote Management option (forwarding the setup page to port 8080), but I do not have it enabled. I've tried UPnP, but again, the setup page for our router is not forwarded. B: Any way of remotely launching a process that does not require port forwarding (or uses ports 255XX, 18XXX, or 9000.), such as a remote console service built into XP. I realize this is a near impossibility. C: A Way to remotely start logmein, and sign in, which is likely a definite impossibility. Sorry if this is too specific for Stackexchange, or if I've put it into the wrong section (is SuperUser the correct place for this?). Ideas would, again be much appreciated, as shot-in-the-dark-like this may be.

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• Need software to convert RAR to ZIP ("store" mode - no compression) * Extract->re-archive changes date/time attributes

  - by Larry78

  I have tried all of the following applications (download.cnet.com - the free ones), and none of them will convert an RAR archive to a ZIP, without compressing the files ("store" mode). 7-ZIP would be fine, too. [The RAR is a "solid" archive with password (I know it), files "stored" - no compression, used WinRAR 3.5.1] PeaZip, 7-Zip, FilZip, TugZip, SimplyZipSE, QuickZip, WinShrink. (A couple of the apps let you try, but the program gives an error - indicating how bad the software is. (Like "unknown header # #.") None of these apps will do the conversion at all. IZArc 4.1 comes the closest. It will convert an RAR to a ZIP, but it compresses the zip. There is a general preference setting to "store" - but it doesn't effect conversions. I don't want to extract the RAR files and re-archive them because I need to preserve the modified/created file attributes. IZArc preserves them, but it compresses the files. WinRAR has the option to convert archives, but I get the error "skipping encryped archive" when I try to convert it. It asks for the password first, and I know it's right because that password opens the archive, and I can read/view all the files in the archive.

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• When using software RAID and LVM on Linux, which IO scheduler and readahead settings are honored?

  - by andrew311

  In the case of multiple layers (physical drives - md - dm - lvm), how do the schedulers, readahead settings, and other disk settings interact? Imagine you have several disks (/dev/sda - /dev/sdd) all part of a software RAID device (/dev/md0) created with mdadm. Each device (including physical disks and /dev/md0) has its own setting for IO scheduler (changed like so) and readahead (changed using blockdev). When you throw in things like dm (crypto) and LVM you add even more layers with their own settings. For example, if the physical device has a read ahead of 128 blocks and the RAID has a readahead of 64 blocks, which is honored when I do a read from /dev/md0? Does the md driver attempt a 64 block read which the physical device driver then translates to a read of 128 blocks? Or does the RAID readahead "pass-through" to the underlying device, resulting in a 64 block read? The same kind of question holds for schedulers? Do I have to worry about multiple layers of IO schedulers and how they interact, or does the /dev/md0 effectively override underlying schedulers? In my attempts to answer this question, I've dug up some interesting data on schedulers and tools which might help figure this out: Linux Disk Scheduler Benchmarking from Google blktrace - generate traces of the i/o traffic on block devices Relevant Linux kernel mailing list thread

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• What Logs / Process Stats to monitor on a Ubuntu FTP server?

  - by Adam Salkin

  I am administering a server with Ubuntu Server which is running pureFTP. So far all is well, but I would like to know what I should be monitoring so that I can spot any potential stability and security issues. I'm not looking for sophisticated software, more an idea of what logs and process statistics are most useful for checking on the health of the system. I'm thinking that I can look at various parameters output from the "ps" command and compare to see if I have things like memory leaks. But I would like to know what experienced admins do. Also, how do I do a disk check so that when I reboot, I don't get a message saying something like "disk not checked for x days, forcing check" which delays the reboot? I assume there is command that I can run as a cron job late at night. How often should it be run? What things should I be looking at to spot intrusion attempts? The only shell access is SSH on a non-standard port through UFW firewall, and I regularly do a grep on auth.log for "Fail" or "Invalid". Is there anything else I should look at? I was logging the firewall (UFW) but I have very few open ports (FTP and SSH on a non standard port) so looking at lists of IP's that have been blocked did not seem useful. Many thanks

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• How two completely unrelated software can affect each other in a very strange manner?

  - by user40602

  I installed an old game on my old PC and it doesn't work; its process/exe file was listed in task manager but nothing appeared on the screen. then some time later i discovered that when some specific program was running an my pc, that game could be executed without that problem! although i am myself a power user and also a programmer, i couldn't find the reason, and don't have any good guesses about it. i just know that when i want to run that game i should have another specific and unrelated program running. i ask if anyone has any idea/guess about the possible reasons for this rare phenomenon! oh and if u ask about the details/names of those programs, i am afraid of telling that, because others may think i am kidding, but i am not (please believe me!), that game is NFS2 and the other program is mysqld.exe (i said before that i am a programmer!). I don't know how mysqld.exe (yes it is the windows version of the famous MySQL DBMS server) can affect NFS2 in such an strange manner, and my curiosity and profession don't let me to forget seeking for the answer, so i decided to take the help of others to see if someone has had a similar experience or a reasonable idea about it.

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• Consume WCF Service InProcess using Agatha and WCF

  - by REA_ANDREW

  I have been looking into this lately for a specific reason.  Some integration tests I want to write I want to control the types of instances which are used inside the service layer but I want that control from the test class instance.  One of the problems with just referencing the service is that a lot of the time this will by default be done inside a different process.  I am using StructureMap as my DI of choice and one of the tools which I am using inline with RhinoMocks is StructureMap.AutoMocking.  With StructureMap the main entry point is the ObjectFactory.  This will be process specific so if I decide that the I want a certain instance of a type to be used inside the ServiceLayer I cannot configure the ObjectFactory from my test class as that will only apply to the process which it belongs to. This is were I started thinking about two things: Running a WCF in process Being able to share mocked instances across processes A colleague in work pointed me to a project which is for the latter but I thought that it would be a better solution if I could run the WCF Service in process.  One of the projects which I use when I think about WCF Services is AGATHA, and the one which I have to used to try and get my head around doing this. Another asset I have is a book called Programming WCF Services by Juval Lowy and if you have not heard of it or read it I would definately recommend it.  One of the many topics that is inside this book is the type of configuration you need to communicate with a service in the same process, and it turns out to be quite simple from a config point of view. <system.serviceModel> <services> <service name="Agatha.ServiceLayer.WCF.WcfRequestProcessor"> <endpoint address ="net.pipe://localhost/MyPipe" binding="netNamedPipeBinding" contract="Agatha.Common.WCF.IWcfRequestProcessor"/> </service> </services> <client> <endpoint name="MyEndpoint" address="net.pipe://localhost/MyPipe" binding="netNamedPipeBinding" contract="Agatha.Common.WCF.IWcfRequestProcessor"/> </client> </system.serviceModel>   You can see here that I am referencing the Agatha object and contract here, but also that my binding and the address is something called Named Pipes.  THis is sort of the “Magic” which makes it happen in the same process. Next I need to open the service prior to calling the methods on a proxy which I also need.  My initial attempt at the proxy did not use any Agatha specific coding and one of the pains I found was that you obviously need to give your proxy the known types which the serializer can be aware of.  So we need to add to the known types of the proxy programmatically.  I came across the following blog post which showed me how easy it was http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/vagif/archive/2009/05/18/how-to-programmatically-define-known-types-in-wcf.aspx. First Pass So with this in mind, and inside a console app this was my first pass at consuming a service in process.  First here is the proxy which I made making use of the Agatha IWcfRequestProcessor contract. public class InProcProxy : ClientBase<Agatha.Common.WCF.IWcfRequestProcessor>, Agatha.Common.WCF.IWcfRequestProcessor { public InProcProxy() { } public InProcProxy(string configurationName) : base(configurationName) { } public Agatha.Common.Response[] Process(params Agatha.Common.Request[] requests) { return Channel.Process(requests); } public void ProcessOneWayRequests(params Agatha.Common.OneWayRequest[] requests) { Channel.ProcessOneWayRequests(requests); } } So with the proxy in place I could then use this after opening the service so here is the code which I use inside the console app make the request. static void Main(string[] args) { ComponentRegistration.Register(); ServiceHost serviceHost = new ServiceHost(typeof(Agatha.ServiceLayer.WCF.WcfRequestProcessor)); serviceHost.Open(); Console.WriteLine("Service is running...."); using (var proxy = new InProcProxy()) { foreach (var operation in proxy.Endpoint.Contract.Operations) { foreach (var t in KnownTypeProvider.GetKnownTypes(null)) { operation.KnownTypes.Add(t); } } var request = new GetProductsRequest(); var responses = proxy.Process(new[] { request }); var response = (GetProductsResponse)responses[0]; Console.WriteLine("{0} Products have been retrieved", response.Products.Count); } serviceHost.Close(); Console.WriteLine("Finished"); Console.ReadLine(); } So what I used here is the KnownTypeProvider of Agatha to easily get all the types I need for the service/proxy and add them to the proxy.  My Request handler for this was just a test one which always returned 2 products. public class GetProductsHandler : RequestHandler<GetProductsRequest,GetProductsResponse> { public override Agatha.Common.Response Handle(GetProductsRequest request) { return new GetProductsResponse { Products = new List<ProductDto> { new ProductDto{}, new ProductDto{} } }; } } Second Pass Now after I did this I started reading up some more on some resources including more by Davy Brion and others on Agatha.  Now it turns out that the work I did above to create a derived class of the ClientBase implementing Agatha.Common.WCF.IWcfRequestProcessor was not necessary due to a nice class which is present inside the Agatha code base, RequestProcessorProxy which takes care of this for you! :-) So disregarding that class I made for the proxy and changing my code to use it I am now left with the following: static void Main(string[] args) { ComponentRegistration.Register(); ServiceHost serviceHost = new ServiceHost(typeof(Agatha.ServiceLayer.WCF.WcfRequestProcessor)); serviceHost.Open(); Console.WriteLine("Service is running...."); using (var proxy = new RequestProcessorProxy()) { var request = new GetProductsRequest(); var responses = proxy.Process(new[] { request }); var response = (GetProductsResponse)responses[0]; Console.WriteLine("{0} Products have been retrieved", response.Products.Count); } serviceHost.Close(); Console.WriteLine("Finished"); Console.ReadLine(); }   Cheers for now, Andy References Agatha WCF InProcess Without WCF StructureMap.AutoMocking Cross Process Mocking Agatha Programming WCF Services by Juval Lowy

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• Master Data

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Let's take a deeper look at what we mean when we talk about 'Master' data. In its most general sense, master data is data that exists in more than one operational application. These are the applications that automate business processes. These applications require significant amounts of data to function correctly.  This includes data about the objects that are involved in transactions, as well as the transaction data itself.  For example, when a customer buys a product, the transaction is managed by a sales application.  The objects of the transaction are the Customer and the Product.  The transactional data is the time, place, price, discount, payment methods, etc. used at the point of sale. Many thousands of transactional data attributes are needed within the application. These important data elements are local to the applications and have no bearing on other applications. Harmonization and synchronization across applications is not necessary. The Customer and Product objects of the transaction also have a large number of attributes. Customer for example, includes hierarchies, hierarchical and matrixed relationships, contacts, classifications, preferences, accounts, identifiers, profiles, and addresses galore for 'ship to', 'mail to'; 'service at'; etc. Dozens of attributes exist for individuals, hundreds for organizations, and thousands for products. This data has meaning beyond any particular application. It exists in many applications and drives the vital cross application enterprise business processes. These are the processes that define and differentiate the organization. At every decision point, information about the objects of the process determines the direction of the process flow. This is the nature of the data that exists in more than one application, and this is why we call it 'master data'. Let me elaborate. Parties Oracle has developed a party schema to model all participants in your daily business operations. It models people, organizations, groups, customers, contacts, employees, and suppliers. It models their accounts, locations, classifications, and preferences.  And most importantly, it models the vast array of hierarchical and matrixed relationships that exist between all the participants in your real world operations.  The model logically separates people and organizations from their relationships and accounts.  This separation creates flexibility unmatched in the industry and accounts for the fact that the Oracle schema for Customers, Suppliers, and Accounts is a true superset of the wide variety of commercial and homegrown customer models in existence. Sites Sites are places where business is conducted. They can be addresses, clusters such as retail malls, locations within a cluster, floors within a building, places where meters are located, rooms on floors, etc.  Fully understanding all attributes of a site is key to many business processes. Attributes such as 'noise abatement policy' at a point of delivery, or the size of an oven in a business kitchen drive day-to-day activities such as delivery schedules or food promotions. Typically this kind of data is siloed in departments and scattered across applications and spreadsheets.  This leads to conflicting information and poor operational efficiencies. Oracle's Global Single Schema can hold all site attributes in one place and enables a single version of authoritative site information across the enterprise. Products and Services The Oracle Global Single Schema also includes a number of entities that define the products and services a company creates and offers for sale. Key entities include Items organized into Catalogs and Price Lists. The Catalog structures provide for the ability to capture different views of a product such as engineering, manufacturing, and service which are based on a unified product model. As a result, designers, manufacturing engineers, purchasers and partners can work simultaneously on a common product definition. The Catalog schema allows for unlimited attributes, combines them into meaningful groups, and maps them to catalog categories to track these different types of information. The model also maps an unlimited number of functional structures for each item. For example, multiple Bills of Material (BOMs) can be constructed representing requirements BOM, features BOM, and packaging BOM for an item. The Catalog model also supports hierarchical information about each item and all standard Global Data Synchronization attributes. Business Processes Utilizing Linked Data Entities Each business entity codified into a centralized master data environment significantly improves the efficiency of the automated business processes that use the consolidated data.  When all the key business entities used by an organization's process are so consolidated, the advantages are multiplied.  The primary reason for business process breakdowns (i.e. data errors across application boundaries) is eliminated. All processes are positively impacted and business process automation is itself automated.  I like to use the "Call to Resolution" business process as an example to help illustrate this important point. It involves call center applications, service applications, RMA applications, transportation applications, inventory applications, etc. Customer, Site, Product and Supplier master data must all be correct and consistent across these applications.  What's more, the data relationships between customer and product, and product and suppliers must be right. This is the minimum quality needed to insure the business process flows without error. But that is not the end of the story. Critical master data attributes such as customer loyalty, profitability, credit worthiness, and propensity to buy can optimize the call center point of contact component of the process. Critical product information such as alternative parts or equivalent products can optimize the resolution selected by the process. A comprehensive understanding of the 'service at' location can help insure multiple trips are avoided in the process. Full supplier information on reliability, delivery delays, and potential alternates can prevent supplier exceptions and play a significant role in optimizing the process.  In other words, these master data attributes enable the optimization of the "Call to Resolution" enterprise business process. Master data supports and guides business process flows. Thus the phrase 'Master Data' is indeed appropriate. MDM is the software that houses, manages, and governs the master data that resides in all applications and controls the enterprise business processes. A complete master data solution takes a data model that holds fully attributed master data entities and their inter-relationships. Oracle has this model. Oracle, with its deep understanding of application data is the logical choice for managing all your master data within the enterprise whether or not your organization actually runs any Oracle Applications.

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• What are the requirements to consider someone as a Software Engineer? Is it just a job title? [close

  - by mike

  I am employed as a Software Engineer with a background in C# and .NET. I am trying to interface with an web API. I asked for help because I didn't know to connect to it or handle the results. Someone told me that I shouldn't consider myself a Software Engineer because I didn't know to how to do it. They said the API was well documented, required no authentication, and returned XML that I could easily parse. They said the documentation should be enough to figure out how to use the API. Isn't having a job title of Software Engineer the only consideration for being a Software Engineer?

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• Release Management as Orchestra

  - by ericajanine

  I read an excellent, concise article (http://www.buildmeister.com/articles/software_release_management_best_practices) on the basics of release management practices. In the article, it states "Release Management is often likened to the conductor of an orchestra, with the individual changes to be implemented the various instruments within it." I played in music ensembles for years, so this is especially close to my heart as example. I learned most of my discipline from hours and hours of practice at the hand of a very skilled conductor and leader. I also learned that the true magic in symphonic performance is one where everyone involved is focused on one sound, one goal. In turn, that solid focus creates a sound and experience bigger than just mechanics alone accomplish. In symphony, a conductor's true purpose is to make you, a performer, better so the overall sound and end product is better. The big picture (the performance of the composition) is the end-game, and all musicians in the orchestra know without question their part makes up an important but incomplete piece of that performance. A good conductor works with each section (e.g. group) to ensure their individual pieces are solid. Let's restate: The conductor leads and is responsible for ensuring those pieces are solid. While the performers themselves are doing the work, the conductor is the final authority on when the pieces are ready or not. If not, the conductor initiates the efforts to get them ready or makes the decision to scrap their parts altogether for the sake of an overall performance. Let it sink in, because it's clear--It is not the performer's call if they play their part as agreed, it's the conductor's final call to allow it. In comparison, if a software release manager is a conductor, the only way for that manager to be effective is to drive the overarching process and execution of individual pieces of a software development lifecycle. It does not mean the release manager performs each and every piece, it means the release manager has oversight and influence because the end-game is a successful software enhancin a useable environment. It means the release manager, not the developer or development manager, has the final call if something goes into a software release. Of course, this is not a process of autocracy or dictation of absolute rule, it's cooperative effort. But the release manager must have the final authority to make a decision if something is ready to be added to the bigger piece, the overall symphony of software changes being considered for package and release. It also goes without saying a release manager, like a conductor, must have full autonomy and isolation from other software groups. A conductor is the one on the podium waving a little stick at the each section and cueing them for their parts, not yelling from the back of the room while also playing a tuba and taking direction from the horn section. I have personally seen where release managers are relegated to being considered little more than coordinators, red-tapers to "satisfy" the demands of an audit group without being bothered to actually respect all that a release manager gives a group willing to employ them fully. In this dysfunctional scenario, development managers, project managers, business users, and other stakeholders have been given nearly full clearance to demand and push their agendas forward, causing a tail-wagging-the-dog scenario where an inherent conflict will ensue. Depending on the strength, determination for peace, and willingness to overlook a built-in expectation that is wrong, the release manager here must face the crafted conflict head-on and diffuse it as quickly as possible. Then, the release manager must clearly make a case why a change cannot be released without negative impact to all parties involved. If a political agenda is solely driving a software release, there IS no symphony, there is no "software lifecycle". It's just out-of-tune noise. More importantly, there is no real conductor. Sometimes, just wanting to make a beautiful sound is not enough. If you are a release manager, are you freed up enough to move, to conduct the sections of software creation to ensure a solid release performance is possible? If not, it's time to take stock in what your role actually is and see if that is what you truly want to achieve in your position. If you are, then you can successfully build your career and that of the people in your groups to create truly beautiful software (music) together.

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• Can't add repos after upgrading to 12.04 LTS

  - by joao

  I'm a complete Linux newbie. I've just upgraded from 10.04 to 12.04 LTS and all sorts of things have started to go wrong. One main problem is the fact that I can't add repos. Example: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc outputs: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/add-apt-repository", line 8, in <module> from softwareproperties.SoftwareProperties import SoftwareProperties File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/softwareproperties/SoftwareProperties.py", line 53, in <module> from ppa import AddPPASigningKeyThread, expand_ppa_line File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/softwareproperties/ppa.py", line 27, in <module> import pycurl ImportError: librtmp.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory /etc/apt/sources.list # deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS _Lucid Lynx_ - Release i386 (20100816.1)]/ lucid main restricted # deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS _Lucid Lynx_ - Release i386 (20100816.1)]/ maverick main restricted # See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to # newer versions of the distribution. deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main restricted deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main restricted ## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the ## distribution. deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-updates main restricted deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-updates main restricted ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any ## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team. deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise universe deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise universe deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-updates universe deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-updates universe ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to ## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in ## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu ## security team. deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise multiverse deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise multiverse deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-updates multiverse deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-updates multiverse ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports' ## repository. ## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as ## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes ## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features. ## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review ## or updates from the Ubuntu security team. # deb-src http://pt.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-backports main restricted universe multiverse ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's ## 'partner' repository. ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the ## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users. # deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu lucid partner # deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu lucid partner deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security main restricted deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security main restricted deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security universe deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security universe deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security multiverse deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security multiverse # deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/stebbins/handbrake-snapshots/ubuntu precise main # disabled on upgrade to precise I have no clue what do do next. Should I just scrap this installation and start from scratch or is this fixable? librtmp.so.0 also shows up in error logs I've started to get from XBMC (I'm not sure if this is relevant info). Thanks in advance for any help you can give me!

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• Help finding missing mumble-server dependencies

  - by Otoris

  I'm trying to install the mumble-server package using apt-get install mumble-server on Ubuntu 11.10 Server Edition on Rackspace Cloud. Problem is it can't find dependencies it should have found because they exist on launchpad.net? Dependencies message: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following information may help to resolve the situation: The following packages have unmet dependencies: mumble-server : Depends: libavahi-compat-libdnssd1 (>= 0.6.16) but it is not installable Depends: libprotobuf7 but it is not installable Depends: libqt4-dbus (>= 4:4.5.3) but it is not installable Depends: libqt4-network (>= 4:4.5.3) but it is not installable Depends: libqt4-sql (>= 4:4.5.3) but it is not installable Depends: libqt4-xml (>= 4:4.5.3) but it is not installable Depends: libqtcore4 (>= 4:4.7.0~beta1) but it is not installable Depends: libqt4-sql-sqlite but it is not installable E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. Any ideas on if I might be missing sources? I've been googling around and haven't found anyone else in this situation or anyone else not able to install the aforementioned packages. Thanks for your time! sources.list: deb http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric restricted deb-src http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric restricted ## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the ## distribution. deb http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-updates restricted deb-src http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-updates restricted ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any ## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team. deb http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric universe deb-src http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric universe deb http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-updates universe deb-src http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-updates universe ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to ## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in ## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu ## security team. deb http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric multiverse deb-src http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric multiverse deb http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-updates multiverse deb-src http://mirror.rackspace.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-updates multiverse ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports' ## repository. ## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as ## extensively as that contained in the release, although it includes ## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features. ## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review ## or updates from the Ubuntu security team. # deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-backports restricted universe multiverse # deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric-backports restricted universe multiverse ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's ## 'partner' repository. This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is ## offered by Canonical and the respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu ## users. # deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu oneiric partner # deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu oneiric partner deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric-security restricted deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric-security restricted deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric-security universe deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric-security universe deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric-security multiverse deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu oneiric-security multiverse # Cool Kid Webmin/Usermin Here Brah deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib deb http://webmin.mirror.somersettechsolutions.co.uk/repository sarge contrib

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• Dealing with "I-am-cool-and-you-are-dumb" manager [closed]

  - by Software Guy

  I have been working with a software company for about 6 months now. I like the projects I work on there and I really like all the people there except for 1 guy. That guy is technically smart, and he is a co-founder of the company. He is an okay guy in person (the kind you wouldn't want to care about much) but things get tricky when he is your manager. In general I am all okay but there are times when I feel I am not being treated fairly: He doesn't give much thought to when he makes mistakes and when I do something similar, he is super critical. Recently he went as far as to say "I am not sure if I can trust you with this feature". The detais of this specific case are this: I was working on this feature, and I was already a couple of hours over my normal working hours, and then I decided to stop and continue tomorrow. We use git, and I like to commit changes locally and only push when I feel they are ready. This manager insists that I push all the changes to the central repo (in case my hard drive crashes). So I push the change, and the ticket is marked as "to be tested". Next day I come in, he sits next to me and starts complaining and says that I posted above. I really didn't know what to say, I tried to explain to him that the ticket is still being worked upon but he didn't seem to listen. He interrupts me in-between when I am coding, which I do not mind, but when I do that same, his face turns like this :| and reacts as if his work was super important and I am just wasting his time. He asks me to accumulate all questions, and then ask him altogether which is not always possible, as you need a clarification before you can continue on a feature implementation. And when I am coding, he talks on the phone with his customers next to me (when he can go to the meeting room with his laptop) and doesn't care. He made me switch to a whole new IDE (from Netbeans to a commercial IDE costing a lot of money) for a really tiny feature (which I later found out was in Netbeans as well!). I didn't make a big deal out of it as I am equally comfortable working with this new IDE, but I couldn't get the science behind his obsession. He said this feature makes sure that if any method is updated by a programmer, the IDE will turn the method name to red in places where it is used. I told him that I do not have a problem since I always search for method usage in the project and make sure its updated. IDEs even have refactoring features for exactly that, but... I recently implemented a feature for a project, and I was happy about it and considering him a senior, I asked him his comments about the implementation quality.. he thought long and hard, made a few funny faces, and when he couldn't find anything, he said "ummm, your program will crash if JS is disabled" - he was wrong, since I had made sure it would work fine with default values even if JS was disabled. I told him that and then he said "oh okay". BUT, the funny thing is, a few days back, he implemented something and I objected with "But that would not run if JS is disabled" and his response was "We don't have to care about people who disable JS" :-/ Once he asked me to investigate if there was a way to modify a CMS generated menu programmatically by extending the CMS, I did my research and told him that the only was is to inject a menu item using JavaScript / jQuery and his reaction was "ah that's ugly, and hacky, not acceptable" and two days later, I see that feature implemented in the same way as I had suggested. The point is, his reaction was not respectful at all, even if what I proposed was hacky, he should be respectful, that I know what's hacky and if I am suggesting something hacky, there must be a reason for it. There are plenty of other reasons / examples where I feel I am not being treated fairly. I want your advice as to what is it that I am doing wrong and how to deal with such a situation. The other guys in the team are actually very good people, and I do not want to leave the job either (although I could, if I want to). All I want is respect and equal treatment. I have thought about talking to this guy in a face to face meeting, but that worries me that his attitude might get worse and make things more difficult for me (since he doesn't seem to be the guy who thinks he can be wrong too). I am also considering talking to the other co-founder but I am not sure how he will take it (as both founders have been friends forever). Thanks for reading the long message, I really appreciate your help.

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• Why is my spawned process still causing IntelliJ to wait?

  - by itsadok

  I'm trying to start a server as part of an Ant artifact. Here are the relevant lines: <exec dir="." executable="cmd.exe" spawn="true"> <arg line="/c c:\Java\james-2.3.2\bin\debug.bat" /> </exec> If I start it with ant from the command line, a process is spawned and I get a command prompt and everything seems fine. However, if I start it from IntelliJ 6, my IDE, the build stays alive until I kill the server. Here's the line IntelliJ uses to start ant: C:\Java\jdk1.6.0_02\bin\java -Xmx128m -Dant.home=C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1 -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -classpath "C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-antlr.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-apache-bcel.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-apache-bsf.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-apache-log4j.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-apache-oro.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-apache-regexp.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-apache-resolver.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-commons-logging.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-commons-net.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-jai.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-javamail.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-jdepend.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-jmf.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-jsch.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-junit.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-launcher.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-netrexx.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-nodeps.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-starteam.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-stylebook.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-swing.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-testutil.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-trax.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant-weblogic.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\ant.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\xercesImpl.jar;C:\Java\apache-ant-1.7.1\lib\xml-apis.jar;C:\Java\jdk1.6.0_02\lib\tools.jar;C:\Program Files\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 6.0\lib\idea_rt.jar" com.intellij.rt.ant.execution.AntMain2 -logger com.intellij.rt.ant.execution.IdeaAntLogger2 -inputhandler com.intellij.rt.ant.execution.IdeaInputHandler -buildfile C:\Java\Projects\CcMailer\ccmailer.xml jar I suspect the inputhandler parameter has something to do with the problem, but if I run it myself the problem is not reproduced. Either way, I have only limited control over what IntelliJ does. My question is: how does IntelliJ even know the process is running? The Ant process is long gone. Is there a way to start a subprocess in a more sneaky way, so that IntelliJ won't even know there's anything to wait around for? Here's what I've tried so far: I tried using the start command, like this: <exec dir="." executable="cmd.exe" spawn="true"> <arg line="/c start cmd /c c:\Java\james-2.3.2\bin\debug.bat" /> </exec> I also tried using python, with code like this: import os.path import subprocess subprocess.Popen(["cmd.exe", "/c", "debug.bat"], stdin=open(os.path.devnull), stdout=open(os.path.devnull, "w"), stderr=subprocess.STDOUT) To no avail. The build window always stays up until I kill the server. Any ideas?

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• Software Raid 10 corrupted superblock after dual disk failure, how do I recover it?

  - by Shoshomiga

  I have a software raid 10 with 6 x 2tb hard drives (raid 1 for /boot), ubuntu 10.04 is the os. I had a raid controller failure that put 2 drives out of sync, crashed the system and initially the os didnt boot up and went into initramfs instead, saying that drives were busy but I eventually managed to bring the raid up by stopping and assembling the drives. The os booted up and said that there were filesystem errors, I chose to ignore because it would remount the fs in read-only mode if there was a problem. Everything seemed to be working fine and the 2 drives started to rebuild, I was sure that it was a sata controller failure because I had dma errors in my log files. The os crashed soon after that with ext errors. Now its not bringing up the raid, it says that there is no superblock on /dev/sda2, even if I assemble manually with all the device names. I also did a memtest and changed the motherboard in addition to everything else. EDIT: This is my partition layout Disk /dev/sdb: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes Disk identifier: 0x0009c34a Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 2048 511999 254976 83 Linux /dev/sdb2 512000 3904980991 1952234496 83 Linux /dev/sdb3 3904980992 3907028991 1024000 82 Linux swap / Solaris All 6 disks have the same layout, partition #1 is for raid 1 /boot, partition #2 is for raid 10 far plan, partition #3 is swap, but sda did not have swap enabled EDIT2: This is the output of mdadm --detail /dev/md1 Layout : near=1, far=2 Chunk Size : 64k UUID : a0feff55:2018f8ff:e368bf24:bd0fce41 Events : 0.3112126 Number Major Minor RaidDevice State 0 8 34 0 spare rebuilding /dev/sdc2 1 0 0 1 removed 2 8 18 2 active sync /dev/sdb2 3 8 50 3 active sync /dev/sdd2 4 0 0 4 removed 5 8 82 5 active sync /dev/sdf2 6 8 66 - spare /dev/sde2 EDIT3: I ran ddrescue and it has copied everything from sda except a single 4096 byte sector that I suspect is the raid superblock EDIT4: Here is some more info too long to fit here lshw: http://pastebin.com/2eKrh7nF mdadm --detail /dev/sd[abcdef]1 (raid1): http://pastebin.com/cgMQWerS mdadm --detail /dev/sd[abcdef]2 (raid10): http://pastebin.com/V5dtcGPF dumpe2fs of /dev/sda2 (from the ddrescue cloned drive): http://pastebin.com/sp0GYcJG I tried to recreate md1 based on this info with the command mdadm --create /dev/md1 -v --assume-clean --level=10 --raid-devices=6 --chunk=64K --layout=f2 /dev/sda2 missing /dev/sdc2 /dev/sdd2 missing /dev/sdf2 But I can't mount it, I also tried to recreate it based on my initial mdadm --detail /dev/md1 but it still doesn't mount It also warns me that /dev/sda2 is an ext2fs file system but I guess its because of ddrescue

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• Is there a Telecommunications Reference Architecture?

  - by raul.goycoolea

  @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Abstract   Reference architecture provides needed architectural information that can be provided in advance to an enterprise to enable consistent architectural best practices. Enterprise Reference Architecture helps business owners to actualize their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. It evaluates the IT systems, based on Reference Architecture goals, principles, and standards. It helps to reduce IT costs by increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc. Telecom Reference Architecture provides customers with the flexibility to view bundled service bills online with the provision of multiple services. It provides real-time, flexible billing and charging systems, to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Enterprises. It lays the foundation for a Telecom Reference Architecture by articulating the requirements, drivers, and pitfalls for telecom service providers. It describes generic reference architecture for telecom enterprises and moves on to explain how to achieve Enterprise Reference Architecture by using SOA.   Introduction   A Reference Architecture provides a methodology, set of practices, template, and standards based on a set of successful solutions implemented earlier. These solutions have been generalized and structured for the depiction of both a logical and a physical architecture, based on the harvesting of a set of patterns that describe observations in a number of successful implementations. It helps as a reference for the various architectures that an enterprise can implement to solve various problems. It can be used as the starting point or the point of comparisons for various departments/business entities of a company, or for the various companies for an enterprise. It provides multiple views for multiple stakeholders.   Major artifacts of the Enterprise Reference Architecture are methodologies, standards, metadata, documents, design patterns, etc.   Purpose of Reference Architecture   In most cases, architects spend a lot of time researching, investigating, defining, and re-arguing architectural decisions. It is like reinventing the wheel as their peers in other organizations or even the same organization have already spent a lot of time and effort defining their own architectural practices. This prevents an organization from learning from its own experiences and applying that knowledge for increased effectiveness.   Reference architecture provides missing architectural information that can be provided in advance to project team members to enable consistent architectural best practices.   Enterprise Reference Architecture helps an enterprise to achieve the following at the abstract level:   ·       Reference architecture is more of a communication channel to an enterprise ·       Helps the business owners to accommodate to their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. ·       Evaluates the IT systems based on Reference Architecture Principles ·       Reduces IT spending through increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc ·       A Real-time Integration Model helps to reduce the latency of the data updates Is used to define a single source of Information ·       Provides a clear view on how to manage information and security ·       Defines the policy around the data ownership, product boundaries, etc. ·       Helps with cost optimization across project and solution portfolios by eliminating unused or duplicate investments and assets ·       Has a shorter implementation time and cost   Once the reference architecture is in place, the set of architectural principles, standards, reference models, and best practices ensure that the aligned investments have the greatest possible likelihood of success in both the near term and the long term (TCO).     Common pitfalls for Telecom Service Providers   Telecom Reference Architecture serves as the first step towards maturity for a telecom service provider. During the course of our assignments/experiences with telecom players, we have come across the following observations – Some of these indicate a lack of maturity of the telecom service provider:   ·       In markets that are growing and not so mature, it has been observed that telcos have a significant amount of in-house or home-grown applications. In some of these markets, the growth has been so rapid that IT has been unable to cope with business demands. Telcos have shown a tendency to come up with workarounds in their IT applications so as to meet business needs. ·       Even for core functions like provisioning or mediation, some telcos have tried to manage with home-grown applications. ·       Most of the applications do not have the required scalability or maintainability to sustain growth in volumes or functionality. ·       Applications face interoperability issues with other applications in the operator's landscape. Integrating a new application or network element requires considerable effort on the part of the other applications. ·       Application boundaries are not clear, and functionality that is not in the initial scope of that application gets pushed onto it. This results in the development of the multiple, small applications without proper boundaries. ·       Usage of Legacy OSS/BSS systems, poor Integration across Multiple COTS Products and Internal Systems. Most of the Integrations are developed on ad-hoc basis and Point-to-Point Integration. ·       Redundancy of the business functions in different applications • Fragmented data across the different applications and no integrated view of the strategic data • Lot of performance Issues due to the usage of the complex integration across OSS and BSS systems   However, this is where the maturity of the telecom industry as a whole can be of help. The collaborative efforts of telcos to overcome some of these problems have resulted in bodies like the TM Forum. They have come up with frameworks for business processes, data, applications, and technology for telecom service providers. These could be a good starting point for telcos to clean up their enterprise landscape.   Industry Trends in Telecom Reference Architecture   Telecom reference architectures are evolving rapidly because telcos are facing business and IT challenges.   “The reality is that there probably is no killer application, no silver bullet that the telcos can latch onto to carry them into a 21st Century.... Instead, there are probably hundreds – perhaps thousands – of niche applications.... And the only way to find which of these works for you is to try out lots of them, ramp up the ones that work, and discontinue the ones that fail.” – Martin Creaner President & CTO TM Forum.   The following trends have been observed in telecom reference architecture:   ·       Transformation of business structures to align with customer requirements ·       Adoption of more Internet-like technical architectures. The Web 2.0 concept is increasingly being used. ·       Virtualization of the traditional operations support system (OSS) ·       Adoption of SOA to support development of IP-based services ·       Adoption of frameworks like Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) and IP Multimedia Subsystem ·       (IMS) to enable seamless deployment of various services over fixed and mobile networks ·       Replacement of in-house, customized, and stove-piped OSS/BSS with standards-based COTS products ·       Compliance with industry standards and frameworks like eTOM, SID, and TAM to enable seamless integration with other standards-based products   Drivers of Reference Architecture   The drivers of the Reference Architecture are Reference Architecture Goals, Principles, and Enterprise Vision and Telecom Transformation. The details are depicted below diagram. @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Figure 1. Drivers for Reference Architecture @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Today’s telecom reference architectures should seamlessly integrate traditional legacy-based applications and transition to next-generation network technologies (e.g., IP multimedia subsystems). This has resulted in new requirements for flexible, real-time billing and OSS/BSS systems and implications on the service provider’s organizational requirements and structure.   Telecom reference architectures are today expected to:   ·       Integrate voice, messaging, email and other VAS over fixed and mobile networks, back end systems ·       Be able to provision multiple services and service bundles • Deliver converged voice, video and data services ·       Leverage the existing Network Infrastructure ·       Provide real-time, flexible billing and charging systems to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. ·       Support charging of advanced data services such as VoIP, On-Demand, Services (e.g.  Video), IMS/SIP Services, Mobile Money, Content Services and IPTV. ·       Help in faster deployment of new services • Serve as an effective platform for collaboration between network IT and business organizations ·       Harness the potential of converging technology, networks, devices and content to develop multimedia services and solutions of ever-increasing sophistication on a single Internet Protocol (IP) ·       Ensure better service delivery and zero revenue leakage through real-time balance and credit management ·       Lower operating costs to drive profitability   Enterprise Reference Architecture   The Enterprise Reference Architecture (RA) fills the gap between the concepts and vocabulary defined by the reference model and the implementation. Reference architecture provides detailed architectural information in a common format such that solutions can be repeatedly designed and deployed in a consistent, high-quality, supportable fashion. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Application Usage and how to achieve the Enterprise Level Reference Architecture using SOA.   • Telecom Reference Architecture • Enterprise SOA based Reference Architecture   Telecom Reference Architecture   Tele Management Forum’s New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) is an architectural framework for organizing, integrating, and implementing telecom systems. NGOSS is a component-based framework consisting of the following elements:   ·       The enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) is a business process framework. ·       The Shared Information Data (SID) model provides a comprehensive information framework that may be specialized for the needs of a particular organization. ·       The Telecom Application Map (TAM) is an application framework to depict the functional footprint of applications, relative to the horizontal processes within eTOM. ·       The Technology Neutral Architecture (TNA) is an integrated framework. TNA is an architecture that is sustainable through technology changes.   NGOSS Architecture Standards are:   ·       Centralized data ·       Loosely coupled distributed systems ·       Application components/re-use  ·       A technology-neutral system framework with technology specific implementations ·       Interoperability to service provider data/processes ·       Allows more re-use of business components across multiple business scenarios ·       Workflow automation   The traditional operator systems architecture consists of four layers,   ·       Business Support System (BSS) layer, with focus toward customers and business partners. Manages order, subscriber, pricing, rating, and billing information. ·       Operations Support System (OSS) layer, built around product, service, and resource inventories. ·       Networks layer – consists of Network elements and 3rd Party Systems. ·       Integration Layer – to maximize application communication and overall solution flexibility.   Reference architecture for telecom enterprises is depicted below. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 2. Telecom Reference Architecture   The major building blocks of any Telecom Service Provider architecture are as follows:   1. Customer Relationship Management   CRM encompasses the end-to-end lifecycle of the customer: customer initiation/acquisition, sales, ordering, and service activation, customer care and support, proactive campaigns, cross sell/up sell, and retention/loyalty.   CRM also includes the collection of customer information and its application to personalize, customize, and integrate delivery of service to a customer, as well as to identify opportunities for increasing the value of the customer to the enterprise.   The key functionalities related to Customer Relationship Management are   ·       Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of a customer request for products. ·       Create and manage customer profiles. ·       Manage all interactions with customers – inquiries, requests, and responses. ·       Provide updates to Billing and other south bound systems on customer/account related updates such as customer/ account creation, deletion, modification, request bills, final bill, duplicate bills, credit limits through Middleware. ·       Work with Order Management System, Product, and Service Management components within CRM. ·       Manage customer preferences – Involve all the touch points and channels to the customer, including contact center, retail stores, dealers, self service, and field service, as well as via any media (phone, face to face, web, mobile device, chat, email, SMS, mail, the customer's bill, etc.). ·       Support single interface for customer contact details, preferences, account details, offers, customer premise equipment, bill details, bill cycle details, and customer interactions.   CRM applications interact with customers through customer touch points like portals, point-of-sale terminals, interactive voice response systems, etc. The requests by customers are sent via fulfillment/provisioning to billing system for ordering processing.   2. Billing and Revenue Management   Billing and Revenue Management handles the collection of appropriate usage records and production of timely and accurate bills – for providing pre-bill usage information and billing to customers; for processing their payments; and for performing payment collections. In addition, it handles customer inquiries about bills, provides billing inquiry status, and is responsible for resolving billing problems to the customer's satisfaction in a timely manner. This process grouping also supports prepayment for services.   The key functionalities provided by these applications are   ·       To ensure that enterprise revenue is billed and invoices delivered appropriately to customers. ·       To manage customers’ billing accounts, process their payments, perform payment collections, and monitor the status of the account balance. ·       To ensure the timely and effective fulfillment of all customer bill inquiries and complaints. ·       Collect the usage records from mediation and ensure appropriate rating and discounting of all usage and pricing. ·       Support revenue sharing; split charging where usage is guided to an account different from the service consumer. ·       Support prepaid and post-paid rating. ·       Send notification on approach / exceeding the usage thresholds as enforced by the subscribed offer, and / or as setup by the customer. ·       Support prepaid, post paid, and hybrid (where some services are prepaid and the rest of the services post paid) customers and conversion from post paid to prepaid, and vice versa. ·       Support different billing function requirements like charge prorating, promotion, discount, adjustment, waiver, write-off, account receivable, GL Interface, late payment fee, credit control, dunning, account or service suspension, re-activation, expiry, termination, contract violation penalty, etc. ·       Initiate direct debit to collect payment against an invoice outstanding. ·       Send notification to Middleware on different events; for example, payment receipt, pre-suspension, threshold exceed, etc.   Billing systems typically get usage data from mediation systems for rating and billing. They get provisioning requests from order management systems and inquiries from CRM systems. Convergent and real-time billing systems can directly get usage details from network elements.   3. Mediation   Mediation systems transform/translate the Raw or Native Usage Data Records into a general format that is acceptable to billing for their rating purposes.   The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Mediation system in the end-to-end solution.   ·       Collect Usage Data Records from different data sources – like network elements, routers, servers – via different protocol and interfaces. ·       Process Usage Data Records – Mediation will process Usage Data Records as per the source format. ·       Validate Usage Data Records from each source. ·       Segregates Usage Data Records coming from each source to multiple, based on the segregation requirement of end Application. ·       Aggregates Usage Data Records based on the aggregation rule if any from different sources. ·       Consolidates multiple Usage Data Records from each source. ·       Delivers formatted Usage Data Records to different end application like Billing, Interconnect, Fraud Management, etc. ·       Generates audit trail for incoming Usage Data Records and keeps track of all the Usage Data Records at various stages of mediation process. ·       Checks duplicate Usage Data Records across files for a given time window.   4. Fulfillment   This area is responsible for providing customers with their requested products in a timely and correct manner. It translates the customer's business or personal need into a solution that can be delivered using the specific products in the enterprise's portfolio. This process informs the customers of the status of their purchase order, and ensures completion on time, as well as ensuring a delighted customer. These processes are responsible for accepting and issuing orders. They deal with pre-order feasibility determination, credit authorization, order issuance, order status and tracking, customer update on customer order activities, and customer notification on order completion. Order management and provisioning applications fall into this category.   The key functionalities provided by these applications are   ·       Issuing new customer orders, modifying open customer orders, or canceling open customer orders; ·       Verifying whether specific non-standard offerings sought by customers are feasible and supportable; ·       Checking the credit worthiness of customers as part of the customer order process; ·       Testing the completed offering to ensure it is working correctly; ·       Updating of the Customer Inventory Database to reflect that the specific product offering has been allocated, modified, or cancelled; ·       Assigning and tracking customer provisioning activities; ·       Managing customer provisioning jeopardy conditions; and ·       Reporting progress on customer orders and other processes to customer.   These applications typically get orders from CRM systems. They interact with network elements and billing systems for fulfillment of orders.   5. Enterprise Management   This process area includes those processes that manage enterprise-wide activities and needs, or have application within the enterprise as a whole. They encompass all business management processes that   ·       Are necessary to support the whole of the enterprise, including processes for financial management, legal management, regulatory management, process, cost, and quality management, etc.;   ·       Are responsible for setting corporate policies, strategies, and directions, and for providing guidelines and targets for the whole of the business, including strategy development and planning for areas, such as Enterprise Architecture, that are integral to the direction and development of the business;   ·       Occur throughout the enterprise, including processes for project management, performance assessments, cost assessments, etc.     (i) Enterprise Risk Management:   Enterprise Risk Management focuses on assuring that risks and threats to the enterprise value and/or reputation are identified, and appropriate controls are in place to minimize or eliminate the identified risks. The identified risks may be physical or logical/virtual. Successful risk management ensures that the enterprise can support its mission critical operations, processes, applications, and communications in the face of serious incidents such as security threats/violations and fraud attempts. Two key areas covered in Risk Management by telecom operators are:   ·       Revenue Assurance: Revenue assurance system will be responsible for identifying revenue loss scenarios across components/systems, and will help in rectifying the problems. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Revenue Assurance system in the end-to-end solution. o   Identify all usage information dropped when networks are being upgraded. o   Interconnect bill verification. o   Identify where services are routinely provisioned but never billed. o   Identify poor sales policies that are intensifying collections problems. o   Find leakage where usage is sent to error bucket and never billed for. o   Find leakage where field service, CRM, and network build-out are not optimized.   ·       Fraud Management: Involves collecting data from different systems to identify abnormalities in traffic patterns, usage patterns, and subscription patterns to report suspicious activity that might suggest fraudulent usage of resources, resulting in revenue losses to the operator.   The key roles and responsibilities of the system component are as follows:   o   Fraud management system will capture and monitor high usage (over a certain threshold) in terms of duration, value, and number of calls for each subscriber. The threshold for each subscriber is decided by the system and fixed automatically. o   Fraud management will be able to detect the unauthorized access to services for certain subscribers. These subscribers may have been provided unauthorized services by employees. The component will raise the alert to the operator the very first time of such illegal calls or calls which are not billed. o   The solution will be to have an alarm management system that will deliver alarms to the operator/provider whenever it detects a fraud, thus minimizing fraud by catching it the first time it occurs. o   The Fraud Management system will be capable of interfacing with switches, mediation systems, and billing systems   (ii) Knowledge Management   This process focuses on knowledge management, technology research within the enterprise, and the evaluation of potential technology acquisitions.   Key responsibilities of knowledge base management are to   ·       Maintain knowledge base – Creation and updating of knowledge base on ongoing basis. ·       Search knowledge base – Search of knowledge base on keywords or category browse ·       Maintain metadata – Management of metadata on knowledge base to ensure effective management and search. ·       Run report generator. ·       Provide content – Add content to the knowledge base, e.g., user guides, operational manual, etc.   (iii) Document Management   It focuses on maintaining a repository of all electronic documents or images of paper documents relevant to the enterprise using a system.   (iv) Data Management   It manages data as a valuable resource for any enterprise. For telecom enterprises, the typical areas covered are Master Data Management, Data Warehousing, and Business Intelligence. It is also responsible for data governance, security, quality, and database management.   Key responsibilities of Data Management are   ·       Using ETL, extract the data from CRM, Billing, web content, ERP, campaign management, financial, network operations, asset management info, customer contact data, customer measures, benchmarks, process data, e.g., process inputs, outputs, and measures, into Enterprise Data Warehouse. ·       Management of data traceability with source, data related business rules/decisions, data quality, data cleansing data reconciliation, competitors data – storage for all the enterprise data (customer profiles, products, offers, revenues, etc.) ·       Get online update through night time replication or physical backup process at regular frequency. ·       Provide the data access to business intelligence and other systems for their analysis, report generation, and use.   (v) Business Intelligence   It uses the Enterprise Data to provide the various analysis and reports that contain prospects and analytics for customer retention, acquisition of new customers due to the offers, and SLAs. It will generate right and optimized plans – bolt-ons for the customers.   The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Business Intelligence system at the Enterprise Level:   ·       It will do Pattern analysis and reports problem. ·       It will do Data Analysis – Statistical analysis, data profiling, affinity analysis of data, customer segment wise usage patterns on offers, products, service and revenue generation against services and customer segments. ·       It will do Performance (business, system, and forecast) analysis, churn propensity, response time, and SLAs analysis. ·       It will support for online and offline analysis, and report drill down capability. ·       It will collect, store, and report various SLA data. ·       It will provide the necessary intelligence for marketing and working on campaigns, etc., with cost benefit analysis and predictions.   It will advise on customer promotions with additional services based on loyalty and credit history of customer   ·       It will Interface with Enterprise Data Management system for data to run reports and analysis tasks. It will interface with the campaign schedules, based on historical success evidence.   (vi) Stakeholder and External Relations Management   It manages the enterprise's relationship with stakeholders and outside entities. Stakeholders include shareholders, employee organizations, etc. Outside entities include regulators, local community, and unions. Some of the processes within this grouping are Shareholder Relations, External Affairs, Labor Relations, and Public Relations.   (vii) Enterprise Resource Planning   It is used to manage internal and external resources, including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the enterprise and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise wide system environment.   The key roles and responsibilities for Enterprise System are given below:   ·        It will handle responsibilities such as core accounting, financial, and management reporting. ·       It will interface with CRM for capturing customer account and details. ·       It will interface with billing to capture the billing revenue and other financial data. ·       It will be responsible for executing the dunning process. Billing will send the required feed to ERP for execution of dunning. ·       It will interface with the CRM and Billing through batch interfaces. Enterprise management systems are like horizontals in the enterprise and typically interact with all major telecom systems. E.g., an ERP system interacts with CRM, Fulfillment, and Billing systems for different kinds of data exchanges.   6. External Interfaces/Touch Points   The typical external parties are customers, suppliers/partners, employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders. External interactions from/to a Service Provider to other parties can be achieved by a variety of mechanisms, including:   ·       Exchange of emails or faxes ·       Call Centers ·       Web Portals ·       Business-to-Business (B2B) automated transactions   These applications provide an Internet technology driven interface to external parties to undertake a variety of business functions directly for themselves. These can provide fully or partially automated service to external parties through various touch points.   Typical characteristics of these touch points are   ·       Pre-integrated self-service system, including stand-alone web framework or integration front end with a portal engine ·       Self services layer exposing atomic web services/APIs for reuse by multiple systems across the architectural environment ·       Portlets driven connectivity exposing data and services interoperability through a portal engine or web application   These touch points mostly interact with the CRM systems for requests, inquiries, and responses.   7. Middleware   The component will be primarily responsible for integrating the different systems components under a common platform. It should provide a Standards-Based Platform for building Service Oriented Architecture and Composite Applications. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Middleware component in the end-to-end solution.   ·       As an integration framework, covering to and fro interfaces ·       Provide a web service framework with service registry. ·       Support SOA framework with SOA service registry. ·       Each of the interfaces from / to Middleware to other components would handle data transformation, translation, and mapping of data points. ·       Receive data from the caller / activate and/or forward the data to the recipient system in XML format. ·       Use standard XML for data exchange. ·       Provide the response back to the service/call initiator. ·       Provide a tracking until the response completion. ·       Keep a store transitional data against each call/transaction. ·       Interface through Middleware to get any information that is possible and allowed from the existing systems to enterprise systems; e.g., customer profile and customer history, etc. ·       Provide the data in a common unified format to the SOA calls across systems, and follow the Enterprise Architecture directive. ·       Provide an audit trail for all transactions being handled by the component.   8. Network Elements   The term Network Element means a facility or equipment used in the provision of a telecommunications service. Such terms also includes features, functions, and capabilities that are provided by means of such facility or equipment, including subscriber numbers, databases, signaling systems, and information sufficient for billing and collection or used in the transmission, routing, or other provision of a telecommunications service.   Typical network elements in a GSM network are Home Location Register (HLR), Intelligent Network (IN), Mobile Switching Center (MSC), SMS Center (SMSC), and network elements for other value added services like Push-to-talk (PTT), Ring Back Tone (RBT), etc.   Network elements are invoked when subscribers use their telecom devices for any kind of usage. These elements generate usage data and pass it on to downstream systems like mediation and billing system for rating and billing. They also integrate with provisioning systems for order/service fulfillment.   9. 3rd Party Applications   3rd Party systems are applications like content providers, payment gateways, point of sale terminals, and databases/applications maintained by the Government.   Depending on applicability and the type of functionality provided by 3rd party applications, the integration with different telecom systems like CRM, provisioning, and billing will be done.   10. Service Delivery Platform   A service delivery platform (SDP) provides the architecture for the rapid deployment, provisioning, execution, management, and billing of value added telecom services. SDPs are based on the concept of SOA and layered architecture. They support the delivery of voice, data services, and content in network and device-independent fashion. They allow application developers to aggregate network capabilities, services, and sources of content. SDPs typically contain layers for web services exposure, service application development, and network abstraction.   SOA Reference Architecture   SOA concept is based on the principle of developing reusable business service and building applications by composing those services, instead of building monolithic applications in silos. It’s about bridging the gap between business and IT through a set of business-aligned IT services, using a set of design principles, patterns, and techniques.   In an SOA, resources are made available to participants in a value net, enterprise, line of business (typically spanning multiple applications within an enterprise or across multiple enterprises). It consists of a set of business-aligned IT services that collectively fulfill an organization’s business processes and goals. We can choreograph these services into composite applications and invoke them through standard protocols. SOA, apart from agility and reusability, enables:   ·       The business to specify processes as orchestrations of reusable services ·       Technology agnostic business design, with technology hidden behind service interface ·       A contractual-like interaction between business and IT, based on service SLAs ·       Accountability and governance, better aligned to business services ·       Applications interconnections untangling by allowing access only through service interfaces, reducing the daunting side effects of change ·       Reduced pressure to replace legacy and extended lifetime for legacy applications, through encapsulation in services   ·       A Cloud Computing paradigm, using web services technologies, that makes possible service outsourcing on an on-demand, utility-like, pay-per-usage basis   The following section represents the Reference Architecture of logical view for the Telecom Solution. The new custom built application needs to align with this logical architecture in the long run to achieve EA benefits.   Packaged implementation applications, such as ERP billing applications, need to expose their functions as service providers (as other applications consume) and interact with other applications as service consumers.   COT applications need to expose services through wrappers such as adapters to utilize existing resources and at the same time achieve Enterprise Architecture goal and objectives.   The following are the various layers for Enterprise level deployment of SOA. This diagram captures the abstract view of Enterprise SOA layers and important components of each layer. Layered architecture means decomposition of services such that most interactions occur between adjacent layers. However, there is no strict rule that top layers should not directly communicate with bottom layers.   The diagram below represents the important logical pieces that would result from overall SOA transformation. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 3. Enterprise SOA Reference Architecture 1.          Operational System Layer: This layer consists of all packaged applications like CRM, ERP, custom built applications, COTS based applications like Billing, Revenue Management, Fulfilment, and the Enterprise databases that are essential and contribute directly or indirectly to the Enterprise OSS/BSS Transformation.   ERP holds the data of Asset Lifecycle Management, Supply Chain, and Advanced Procurement and Human Capital Management, etc.   CRM holds the data related to Order, Sales, and Marketing, Customer Care, Partner Relationship Management, Loyalty, etc.   Content Management handles Enterprise Search and Query. Billing application consists of the following components:   ·       Collections Management, Customer Billing Management, Invoices, Real-Time Rating, Discounting, and Applying of Charges ·       Enterprise databases will hold both the application and service data, whether structured or unstructured.   MDM - Master data majorly consists of Customer, Order, Product, and Service Data.     2.          Enterprise Component Layer:   This layer consists of the Application Services and Common Services that are responsible for realizing the functionality and maintaining the QoS of the exposed services. This layer uses container-based technologies such as application servers to implement the components, workload management, high availability, and load balancing.   Application Services: This Service Layer enables application, technology, and database abstraction so that the complex accessing logic is hidden from the other service layers. This is a basic service layer, which exposes application functionalities and data as reusable services. The three types of the Application access services are:   ·       Application Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application level functionalities as a reusable service between BSS to BSS and BSS to OSS integration. This layer is enabled using disparate technology such as Web Service, Integration Servers, and Adaptors, etc.   ·       Data Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application data services as a reusable reference data service. This is done via direct interaction with application data. and provides the federated query.   ·       Network Access Service: This Service Layer exposes provisioning layer as a reusable service from OSS to OSS integration. This integration service emphasizes the need for high performance, stateless process flows, and distributed design.   Common Services encompasses management of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data such as information services, portal services, interaction services, infrastructure services, and security services, etc.   3.          Integration Layer:   This consists of service infrastructure components like service bus, service gateway for partner integration, service registry, service repository, and BPEL processor. Service bus will carry the service invocation payloads/messages between consumers and providers. The other important functions expected from it are itinerary based routing, distributed caching of routing information, transformations, and all qualities of service for messaging-like reliability, scalability, and availability, etc. Service registry will hold all contracts (wsdl) of services, and it helps developers to locate or discover service during design time or runtime.   • BPEL processor would be useful in orchestrating the services to compose a complex business scenario or process. • Workflow and business rules management are also required to support manual triggering of certain activities within business process. based on the rules setup and also the state machine information. Application, data, and service mediation layer typically forms the overall composite application development framework or SOA Framework.   4.          Business Process Layer: These are typically the intermediate services layer and represent Shared Business Process Services. At Enterprise Level, these services are from Customer Management, Order Management, Billing, Finance, and Asset Management application domains.   5.          Access Layer: This layer consists of portals for Enterprise and provides a single view of Enterprise information management and dashboard services.   6.          Channel Layer: This consists of various devices; applications that form part of extended enterprise; browsers through which users access the applications.   7.          Client Layer: This designates the different types of users accessing the enterprise applications. The type of user typically would be an important factor in determining the level of access to applications.   8.          Vertical pieces like management, monitoring, security, and development cut across all horizontal layers Management and monitoring involves all aspects of SOA-like services, SLAs, and other QoS lifecycle processes for both applications and services surrounding SOA governance.     9.          EA Governance, Reference Architecture, Roadmap, Principles, and Best Practices:   EA Governance is important in terms of providing the overall direction to SOA implementation within the enterprise. This involves board-level involvement, in addition to business and IT executives. At a high level, this involves managing the SOA projects implementation, managing SOA infrastructure, and controlling the entire effort through all fine-tuned IT processes in accordance with COBIT (Control Objectives for Information Technology).   Devising tools and techniques to promote reuse culture, and the SOA way of doing things needs competency centers to be established in addition to training the workforce to take up new roles that are suited to SOA journey.   Conclusions   Reference Architectures can serve as the basis for disparate architecture efforts throughout the organization, even if they use different tools and technologies. Reference architectures provide best practices and approaches in the independent way a vendor deals with technology and standards. Reference Architectures model the abstract architectural elements for an enterprise independent of the technologies, protocols, and products that are used to implement an SOA. Telecom enterprises today are facing significant business and technology challenges due to growing competition, a multitude of services, and convergence. Adopting architectural best practices could go a long way in meeting these challenges. The use of SOA-based architecture for communication to each of the external systems like Billing, CRM, etc., in OSS/BSS system has made the architecture very loosely coupled, with greater flexibility. Any change in the external systems would be absorbed at the Integration Layer without affecting the rest of the ecosystem. The use of a Business Process Management (BPM) tool makes the management and maintenance of the business processes easy, with better performance in terms of lead time, quality, and cost. Since the Architecture is based on standards, it will lower the cost of deploying and managing OSS/BSS applications over their lifecycles.

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• Can't start mysql - mysql respawning too fast, stopped

  - by Tom

  Today I did a fresh install of ubuntu 12.04 and went about setting up my local development environment. I installed mysql and edited /etc/mysql/my.cnf to optimise InnoDB but when I try to restart mysql, it fails with a error: [20:53][tom@Pochama:/var/www/website] (master) $ sudo service mysql restart start: Job failed to start The syslog reveals there is a problem with the init script: > tail -f /var/log/syslog Apr 28 21:17:46 Pochama kernel: [11840.884524] type=1400 audit(1335644266.033:184): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" name="/usr/sbin/mysqld" pid=760 comm="apparmor_parser" Apr 28 21:17:47 Pochama kernel: [11842.603773] init: mysql main process (764) terminated with status 7 Apr 28 21:17:47 Pochama kernel: [11842.603841] init: mysql main process ended, respawning Apr 28 21:17:48 Pochama kernel: [11842.932462] init: mysql post-start process (765) terminated with status 1 Apr 28 21:17:48 Pochama kernel: [11842.950393] type=1400 audit(1335644268.101:185): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" name="/usr/sbin/mysqld" pid=811 comm="apparmor_parser" Apr 28 21:17:49 Pochama kernel: [11844.656598] init: mysql main process (815) terminated with status 7 Apr 28 21:17:49 Pochama kernel: [11844.656665] init: mysql main process ended, respawning Apr 28 21:17:50 Pochama kernel: [11845.004435] init: mysql post-start process (816) terminated with status 1 Apr 28 21:17:50 Pochama kernel: [11845.021777] type=1400 audit(1335644270.173:186): apparmor="STATUS" operation="profile_replace" name="/usr/sbin/mysqld" pid=865 comm="apparmor_parser" Apr 28 21:17:51 Pochama kernel: [11846.721982] init: mysql main process (871) terminated with status 7 Apr 28 21:17:51 Pochama kernel: [11846.722001] init: mysql respawning too fast, stopped Any ideas? Things I tried already: I googled and found a Ubuntu bug with apparmor (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mysql-5.5/+bug/970366), I changed apparmor from enforce mode to complain mode: sudo apt-get install apparmor-utils sudo aa-complain /usr/sbin/mysqld sudo /etc/init.d/apparmor reload but it didn't help. I still can't start mysql. I also thought the issue may be because the InnoDB logfiles were a different size than mysql was expecting. I removed the innodb log files before restarting using: sudo mv /var/lib/mysql/ib_logfile* /tmp. No luck though. Workaround: I re-installed 12.04, made sure not to touch /etc/mysql/my.cnf in any way. Mysql is working so I can get on with what I need to do. But I will need to edit it at some point - Hopefully I'll have figured out a solution, or this question will have been answered by that point...

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• Hosting a website on Heroku.... I know how to, but im running into problems!

  - by Thomas Miller

  I'm starting to learn more on the back-end scale of programing. Recently I started up Heroku for the second or third time. This time I actually installed the Git update to my Mac and installed Heroku in the terminal. I wanted to upload a static html site with the sinatra gem. Everything worked out fine inside the terminal, though I added sinatra after I got everything working and the file with the site hooked up to Heroku. In my logs I did see that I was missing the sinatra gem, so I installed it. My site contains both the proper app.rb and config.ru files. I have nothing showing up online. Just a blank screen! Contacting Heroku on this problem has been very difficult. I get a responce every day, and on every day I respond with a question to the answer that didn't help me at all. 2011-05-18T00:25:20+00:00 app[web.1]: 71.198.0.51 - - [17/May/2011 17:25:20] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T00:25:20+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T00:25:26+00:00 app[web.1]: 71.198.0.51 - - [17/May/2011 17:25:26] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T00:25:26+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=5ms bytes=313 2011-05-17T18:25:51-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-17T18:26:01-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T01:26:01+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T01:26:01+00:00 app[web.1]: Stopping ... 2011-05-18T01:26:02+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-17T20:12:46-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-17T20:12:47-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T03:12:48+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: thin -p 40055 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start 2011-05-18T03:12:49+00:00 app[web.1]: Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T03:12:49+00:00 app[web.1]: Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T03:12:49+00:00 app[web.1]: Listening on 0.0.0.0:40055, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T03:12:50+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=9954ms service=6ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T03:12:50+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:12:50] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0012 2011-05-18T03:12:50+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-17T20:12:50-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T03:12:51+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:12:51] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T03:12:51+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=5ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:13:05] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0011 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:13:05] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0007 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 172.18.33.56, 58.96.134.66 - - [17/May/2011 20:57:05] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0007 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 172.18.33.56, 58.96.134.66 - - [17/May/2011 20:57:05] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0007 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-18T03:57:08+00:00 app[web.1]: 172.18.33.56, 58.96.134.66 - - [17/May/2011 20:57:08] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-17T21:58:27-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T04:58:30+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T04:58:30+00:00 app[web.1]: Stopping ... 2011-05-18T04:58:30+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-17T21:58:33-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-17T23:11:58-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-17T23:11:58-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T06:12:00+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: thin -p 40091 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: Listening on 0.0.0.0:40091, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: 183.97.156.226 - - [17/May/2011 23:12:01] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0017 2011-05-18T06:12:02+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=3209ms service=5ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T06:12:03+00:00 app[web.1]: 183.97.156.226 - - [17/May/2011 23:12:03] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0019 2011-05-17T23:12:08-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T00:13:13-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T00:13:16-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T07:13:16+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T07:13:16+00:00 app[web.1]: Stopping ... 2011-05-18T07:13:17+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-18T01:54:21-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-18T01:54:21-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T08:54:23+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: thin -p 59491 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start 2011-05-18T08:54:24+00:00 app[web.1]: Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T08:54:24+00:00 app[web.1]: Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T08:54:24+00:00 app[web.1]: Listening on 0.0.0.0:59491, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T01:54:28-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=6943ms service=6ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0018 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0014 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=1ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=1ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T02:55:23-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T02:55:33-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T09:55:34+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T09:55:34+00:00 app[web.1]: Stopping ... 2011-05-18T09:55:34+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-18T07:23:10-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T14:23:12+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: thin -p 20560 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start 2011-05-18T14:23:13+00:00 app[web.1]: Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T14:23:13+00:00 app[web.1]: Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T14:23:13+00:00 app[web.1]: Listening on 0.0.0.0:20560, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T07:23:13-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 app[web.1]: 12.183.19.10 - - [18/May/2011 07:23:14] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0018 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=7ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 app[web.1]: 12.183.19.10 - - [18/May/2011 07:23:14] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0015 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 app[web.1]: 12.183.19.10 - - [18/May/2011 07:23:14] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0009 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T08:24:03-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T08:24:07-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T15:24:07+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T15:24:07+00:00 app[web.1]: Stopping ... 2011-05-18T17:34:27-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-18T17:34:28-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-19T00:34:29+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: thin -p 57621 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start 2011-05-18T17:34:31-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=5ms bytes=565 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 app[web.1]: 97.83.58.74 - - [18/May/2011 17:34:32] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0016 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 app[web.1]: 97.83.58.74 - - [18/May/2011 17:34:32] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0011 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-19T00:34:34+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=313 2011-05-19T00:34:34+00:00 app[web.1]: 97.83.58.74 - - [18/May/2011 17:34:34] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0007 2011-05-18T18:35:48-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T18:35:51-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down

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• Not All “Viruses” Are Viruses: 10 Malware Terms Explained

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Most people seem to call every type of malware a “virus”, but that isn’t technically accurate. You’ve probably heard of many more terms beyond virus: malware, worm, Trojan, rootkit, keylogger, spyware, and more. But what do all these terms mean? These terms aren’t just used by geeks. They make their way into even mainstream news stories about the latest web security problems and tech scares. Understanding them will help you understand the dangers your\ hear about. Malware The word “malware” is short for “malicious software.” Many people use the word “virus” to indicate any type of harmful software, but a virus is actually just a specific type of malware. The word “malware” encompasses all harmful software, including all the ones listed below. Virus Let’s start with viruses. A virus is a type of malware that copies itself by infecting other files,  just as viruses in the real world infect biological cells and use those biological cells to reproduce copies of themselves. A virus can do many different things — watch in the background and steal your passwords, display advertisements, or just crash your computer — but the key thing that makes it a virus is how it spreads. When you run a virus, it will infect programs on your computer. When you run the program on another computer, the virus will infect programs on that computer, and so on. For example, a virus might infect program files on a USB stick. When the programs on that USB stick are run on another computer, the virus runs on the other computer and infects more program files. The virus will continue to spread in this way. Worm A worm is similar to a virus, but it spreads a different way. Rather than infecting files and relying on human activity to move those files around and run them on different systems, a worm spreads over computer networks on its own accord. For example, the Blaster and Sasser worms spread very quickly in the days of Windows XP because Windows XP did not come properly secured and exposed system services to the Internet. The worm accessed these system services over the Internet, exploited a vulnerability, and infected the computer. The worm then used the new infected computer to continue replicating itself. Such worms are less common now that Windows is properly firewalled by default, but worms can also spread in other ways — for example, by mass-emailing themselves to every email address in an effected user’s address book. Like a virus, a worm can do any number of other harmful things once it infects a computer. The key thing that makes it a worm is simply how it spreads copies of itself. Trojan (or Trojan Horse) A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is a type of malware that disguises itself as a legitimate file. When you download and run the program, the Trojan horse will run in the background, allowing third-parties to access your computer. Trojans can do this for any number of reasons — to monitor activity on your computer, to join your computer to a botnet. Trojans may also be used to open the floodgates and download many other types of malware onto your computer. The key thing that makes this type of malware a Trojan is how it arrives. It pretends to be a useful program and, when run, it hides in the background and gives malicious people access to your computer. It isn’t obsessed with copying itself into other files or spreading over the network, as viruses and worms are. For example, a piece of pirated software on an unscrupulous website may actually contain a Trojan. Spyware Spyware is a type of malicious software that spies on you without your knowledge. It collects a variety of different types of data, depending on the piece of spyware. Different types of malware can function as spyware — there may be malicious spyware included in Trojans that spies on your keystrokes to steal financial data, for example. More “legitimate” spyware may be bundled along with free software and simply monitor your web browsing habits, uploading this data to advertising servers so the software’s creator can make money from selling their knowledge of your activities. Adware Adware often comes along with spyware. It’s any type of software that displays advertising on your computer. Programs that display advertisements inside the program itself aren’t generally classified as malware. The kind of “adware” that’s particularly malicious is the kind that abuses its access to your system to display ads when it shouldn’t. For example, a piece of harmful adware may cause pop-up advertisements to appear on your computer when you’re not doing anything else. Or, adware may inject additional advertising into other web pages as you browse the web. Adware is often combined with spyware — a piece of malware may monitor your browsing habits and use them to serve you more targeted ads. Adware is more “socially acceptable” than other types of malware on Windows and you may see adware bundled with legitimate programs. For example, some people consider the Ask Toolbar included with Oracle’s Java software adware. Keylogger A keylogger is a type of malware that runs in the background, recording every key stroke you make. These keystrokes can include usernames, passwords, credit card numbers, and other sensitive data. The keylogger then, most likely, uploads these keystrokes to a malicious server, where it can be analyzed and people can pick out the useful passwords and credit card numbers. Other types of malware can act as keyloggers. A virus, worm, or Trojan may function as a keylogger, for example. Keyloggers may also be installed for monitoring purposes by businesses or even jealous spouses. Botnet, Bot A botnet is a large network of computers that are under the botnet creator’s control. Each computer functions as a “bot” because it’s infected with a specific piece of malware. Once the bot software infects the computer, ir will connect to some sort of control server and wait for instructions from the botnet’s creator. For example, a botnet may be used to initiate a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack. Every computer in the botnet will be told to bombard a specific website or server with requests at once, and such millions or requests can cause a server to become unresponsive or crash. Botnet creators may sell access to their botnets, allowing other malicious individuals to use large botnets to do their dirty work. Rootkit A rootkit is a type of malware designed to burrow deep into your computer, avoiding detection by security programs and users. For example, a rootkit might load before most of Windows, burying itself deep into the system and modifying system functions so that security programs can’t detect it. A rootkit might hide itself completely, preventing itself from showing up in the Windows task manager. The key thing that makes a type of malware a rootkit is that it’s stealthy and focused on hiding itself once it arrives. Ransomware Ransomware is a fairly new type of malware. It holds your computer or files hostage and demands a ransom payment. Some ransomware may simply pop up a box asking for money before you can continue using your computer. Such prompts are easily defeated with antivirus software. More harmful malware like CryptoLocker literally encrypts your files and demands a payment before you can access them. Such types of malware are dangerous, especially if you don’t have backups. Most malware these days is produced for profit, and ransomware is a good example of that. Ransomware doesn’t want to crash your computer and delete your files just to cause you trouble. It wants to take something hostage and get a quick payment from you. So why is it called “antivirus software,” anyway? Well, most people continue to consider the word “virus” synonymous with malware as a whole. Antivirus software doesn’t just protect against viruses, but against all types of malware. It may be more accurately referred to as “antimalware” or “security” software. Image Credit: Marcelo Alves on Flickr, Tama Leaver on Flickr, Szilard Mihaly on Flickr     

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• build a Database from Ms Word list information...

  - by Jayron Soares

  Please someone can advise me how to approach a given problem: I have a sequential list of metadata in a document in MS Word. The basic idea is create a python algorithm to iterate over of the information, retrieving just the name of PROCESS, when is made a queue, from a database. for example. Process: Process Walker (1965) Exact reference: Walker Process Equipment., nc. v. Food Machinery Corp.. Link: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=382&invol= Type of procedure: Certiorari To The United States Court of Appeals for the SeventhCircuit. Parties: Walker Process Equipment, Inc. Sector: Systems is … Start Date: October 12-13 Arguedas, 1965 Summary: Food Machinery Company has initiated a process to stop or slow the entry of competitors through the use of a patent obtained by fraud. The case concerned a patenton "knee ction swing diffusers" used in aeration equipment for sewage treatment systems, and the question was whether "the maintenance and enforcement of a patent obtained by fraud before the patent office" may be a basis for antitrust punishment. Report of the evolution process: petitioner, in answer to respond .. Importance: a) First case which established an analysis for the diagnosis of dispute… There are about 200 pages containing the information above. I have in mind the idea of creating an algorithm in python to be able to break this information sequenced and try to store them in a web database[open source application that I’m looking for] in order to allow for free consultations ...

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• New TFS Template Available - "Agile Dev in a Waterfall Environment"–GovDev

  - by Hosam Kamel

    Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 is the collaboration platform at the core of Microsoft’s application lifecycle management solution. In addition to core features like source control, build automation and work-item tracking, TFS enables teams to align projects with industry processes such as Agile, Scrum and CMMi via the use of customable XML Process Templates. Since 2005, TFS has been a welcomed addition to the Microsoft developer tool line-up by Government Agencies of all sizes and missions. However, many government development teams consistently struggle with leveraging an iterative development process all while providing the structure, visibility and status reporting that is required by many Government, waterfall-centric, project methodologies. GovDev is an open source, TFS Process Template that combines the formality of CMMi/Waterfall with the flexibility of Agile/Iterative: The GovDev for TFS Accelerator also implements two new custom reports to support the customized process and provide the real-time visibility across the lifecycle with full traceability and drill down to tasks, tests and code: The TFS Accelerator contains: A custom TFS process template that implements a requirements centric, yet iterative process with extreme traceability throughout the lifecycle. A custom “Requirements Traceability Report” that provides a single view of traceability for the project.   Within the Traceability Report, you can also view live status indicators and “click-through” to the individual assets (even changesets). A custom report that focuses on “Contributions by Team Member” tracking things like “number of check-ins” and “Net lines added”.  Fully integrated documentation on the entire process and features. For a 45min demo of GovDev, visit: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032508359&culture=en-us Download it from Codeplex here.     Originally posted at "Hosam Kamel| Developer & Platform Evangelist" http://blogs.msdn.com/hkamel

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• Hosting a website on Heroku.... I know how to, but im running into problems!

  - by Thomas Miller

  I'm starting to learn more on the back-end scale of programing. Recently I started up Heroku for the second or third time. This time I actually installed the Git update to my Mac and installed Heroku in the terminal. I wanted to upload a static html site with the Sinatra gem. Everything worked out fine inside the terminal, though I added Sinatra after I got everything working and the file with the site hooked up to Heroku. In my logs I did see that I was missing the Sinatra gem, so I installed it. My site contains both the proper app.rb and config.ru files. I have nothing showing up online. Just a blank screen! Contacting Heroku on this problem has been very difficult. I get a response every day, and on every day I respond with a question to the answer that didn't help me at all. 2011-05-18T00:25:20+00:00 app[web.1]: 71.198.0.51 - - [17/May/2011 17:25:20] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T00:25:20+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T00:25:26+00:00 app[web.1]: 71.198.0.51 - - [17/May/2011 17:25:26] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T00:25:26+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=5ms bytes=313 2011-05-17T18:25:51-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-17T18:26:01-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T01:26:01+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T01:26:01+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Stopping ... 2011-05-18T01:26:02+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-17T20:12:46-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-17T20:12:47-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T03:12:48+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: `thin -p 40055 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start` 2011-05-18T03:12:49+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T03:12:49+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T03:12:49+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Listening on 0.0.0.0:40055, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T03:12:50+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=9954ms service=6ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T03:12:50+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:12:50] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0012 2011-05-18T03:12:50+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-17T20:12:50-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T03:12:51+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:12:51] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T03:12:51+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=5ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:13:05] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0011 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T03:13:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 70.91.206.114 - - [17/May/2011 20:13:05] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0007 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 172.18.33.56, 58.96.134.66 - - [17/May/2011 20:57:05] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0007 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 app[web.1]: 172.18.33.56, 58.96.134.66 - - [17/May/2011 20:57:05] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0007 2011-05-18T03:57:05+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-18T03:57:08+00:00 app[web.1]: 172.18.33.56, 58.96.134.66 - - [17/May/2011 20:57:08] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-17T21:58:27-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T04:58:30+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T04:58:30+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Stopping ... 2011-05-18T04:58:30+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-17T21:58:33-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-17T23:11:58-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-17T23:11:58-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T06:12:00+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: `thin -p 40091 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start` 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Listening on 0.0.0.0:40091, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T06:12:01+00:00 app[web.1]: 183.97.156.226 - - [17/May/2011 23:12:01] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0017 2011-05-18T06:12:02+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=3209ms service=5ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T06:12:03+00:00 app[web.1]: 183.97.156.226 - - [17/May/2011 23:12:03] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0019 2011-05-17T23:12:08-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T00:13:13-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T00:13:16-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T07:13:16+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T07:13:16+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Stopping ... 2011-05-18T07:13:17+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-18T01:54:21-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-18T01:54:21-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T08:54:23+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: `thin -p 59491 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start` 2011-05-18T08:54:24+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T08:54:24+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T08:54:24+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Listening on 0.0.0.0:59491, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T01:54:28-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=6943ms service=6ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0018 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0014 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=1ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 app[web.1]: 62.244.82.72 - - [18/May/2011 01:54:28] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0008 2011-05-18T08:54:28+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=1ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T02:55:23-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T02:55:33-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T09:55:34+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T09:55:34+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Stopping ... 2011-05-18T09:55:34+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited 2011-05-18T07:23:10-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-18T14:23:12+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: `thin -p 20560 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start` 2011-05-18T14:23:13+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Thin web server (v1.2.6 codename Crazy Delicious) 2011-05-18T14:23:13+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Maximum connections set to 1024 2011-05-18T14:23:13+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Listening on 0.0.0.0:20560, CTRL+C to stop 2011-05-18T07:23:13-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 app[web.1]: 12.183.19.10 - - [18/May/2011 07:23:14] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0018 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=7ms bytes=565 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 app[web.1]: 12.183.19.10 - - [18/May/2011 07:23:14] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0015 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 app[web.1]: 12.183.19.10 - - [18/May/2011 07:23:14] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0009 2011-05-18T14:23:14+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=313 2011-05-18T08:24:03-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T08:24:07-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down 2011-05-18T15:24:07+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGTERM 2011-05-18T15:24:07+00:00 app[web.1]: >> Stopping ... 2011-05-18T17:34:27-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Unidling 2011-05-18T17:34:28-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from created to starting 2011-05-19T00:34:29+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Starting process with command: `thin -p 57621 -e production -R /home/heroku_rack/heroku.ru start` 2011-05-18T17:34:31-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to up 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/ dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=5ms bytes=565 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 app[web.1]: 97.83.58.74 - - [18/May/2011 17:34:32] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 293 0.0016 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 app[web.1]: 97.83.58.74 - - [18/May/2011 17:34:32] "GET /style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 - 0.0011 2011-05-19T00:34:32+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/style.css dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=2ms bytes=269 2011-05-19T00:34:34+00:00 heroku[router]: GET pxlc.heroku.com/favicon.ico dyno=web.1 queue=0 wait=0ms service=4ms bytes=313 2011-05-19T00:34:34+00:00 app[web.1]: 97.83.58.74 - - [18/May/2011 17:34:34] "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1" 404 18 0.0007 2011-05-18T18:35:48-07:00 heroku[web.1]: Idling 2011-05-18T18:35:51-07:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from up to down

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• What is the best way to build a database from a MS Word document?

  - by Jayron Soares

  Please advise me on how to approach this problem: I have a sequential list of metadata in a document in MS Word. The basic idea is to create a Python algorithm to iterate over the information, retrieving just the name of the PROCESS, when is made a queue, from a database. Example metadata: Process: Process Walker (1965) Exact reference: Walker Process Equipment., Inc. v. Food Machinery Corp. Link: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=382&invol= Type of procedure: Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Parties: Walker Process Equipment, Inc. Sector: Systems is ... Start Date: October 12-13 Arguedas, 1965 Summary: Food Machinery Company has initiated a process to stop or slow the entry of competitors through the use of a patent obtained by fraud. The case concerned a patent on "knee action swing diffusers" used in aeration equipment for sewage treatment systems, and the question was whether "the maintenance and enforcement of a patent obtained by fraud before the patent office" may be a basis for antitrust punishment. Report of the evolution process: petitioner, in answer to respond... Importance: a) First case which established an analysis for the diagnosis of dispute… There are about 200 pages containing the information above. I have in mind the idea of implementing an algorithm in Python to be able to break this information sequence and try to store it in a web database (an open source application that I’m looking for) in order to allow for free consultations.

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• What is private bytes, virtual bytes, working set?

  - by Devil Jin

  I am using perfmon windows utility to debug memory leak in a process. Perfmon explaination: Working Set- Working Set is the current size, in bytes, of the Working Set of this process. The Working Set is the set of memory pages touched recently by the threads in the process. If free memory in the computer is above a threshold, pages are left in the Working Set of a process even if they are not in use. When free memory falls below a threshold, pages are trimmed from Working Sets. If they are needed they will then be soft-faulted back into the Working Set before leaving main memory. Virtual Bytes- Virtual Bytes is the current size, in bytes, of the virtual address space the process is using. Use of virtual address space does not necessarily imply corresponding use of either disk or main memory pages. Virtual space is finite, and the process can limit its ability to load libraries. Private Bytes- Private Bytes is the current size, in bytes, of memory that this process has allocated that cannot be shared with other processes. Q1. Is it the private byte should I measure to be sure if the process is having any leak as it does not involve any shared libraries and any leak if happening will be coming from the process itself? Q2. What is the total memory consumed by the process? Is it the Virtual byte size? or Is it the sum of Virtual Bytes and Working Set Q3. Is there any relation between private bytes, working set and virtual bytes. Q4. Any tool which gives a better idea memory information?

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• New Oracle Tutor Class: Create Procedures and Support Documents

  - by [email protected]

  Offered by Oracle University Course Code D66797GC10 July 14-16, 2010 in Chicago, IL This three day Instructor Led class is only US$ 2,250 Oracle® Tutor provides organizations with a powerful pair of applications to develop, deploy, and maintain employee business process documentation. Tutor includes a repository of prewritten process, procedure, and support documents that can be readily modified to reflect your company's unique business processes. The result is a set of job-role specific desk manuals that are easy to update and deploy online. Use Tutor to create content to: Implement new business applications Document for any regulatory compliance initiative Turn every desk into a self service reference center Increase employee productivity The primary challenge for companies faced with documenting policies, processes, and procedures is to realize that they can do this documentation in-house, with existing resources, using Oracle Tutor. Process documentation is a critical success component when implementing or upgrading to a new business application and for supporting corporate governance or other regulatory compliance initiatives. There are over 1000 Oracle Tutor customers worldwide that have used Tutor to create, distribute, and maintain their business procedures. This is easily accomplished because of Tutor's: Ease of use by those who have to write procedures (Microsoft Word based authoring) Ease of company-wide implementation (complex document management activities are centralized) Ease of use by workers who have to follow the procedures (play script format) Ease of access by remote workers (web-enabled) This course is an introduction to the Oracle Tutor suite of products. It focuses on the process documentation feature set of the Tutor applications. Participants will learn about writing procedures and maintaining these particular process document types, all using the Tutor method. Audience Business Analysts End Users Functional Implementer Project Manager Sales Consultants Security Compliance Auditors User Adoption Consultants Prerequisites No Prerequisite Courses strong working knowledge of MS Windows strong working knowledge of MS Word (2007) Objectives • Provide your organization with the next steps to implement the Tutor procedure writing method and system in your organization • Use the Tutor Author application to write employee focused process documents (procedures, instructions, references, process maps) • Use the Tutor Publisher application to create impact analysis reports, Employee Desk Manuals, and Owner Manuals Web site on OU Link to a PDF of the class summary Oracle University Training Centre - Chicago Emily Chorba Product Manager for Oracle Tutor

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• 8 Reasons Why Even Microsoft Agrees the Windows Desktop is a Nightmare

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Let’s be honest: The Windows desktop is a mess. Sure, it’s extremely powerful and has a huge software library, but it’s not a good experience for average people. It’s not even a good experience for geeks, although we tolerate it. Even Microsoft agrees about this. Microsoft’s Surface tablets with Windows RT don’t support any third-party desktop apps. They consider this a feature — users can’t install malware and other desktop junk, so the system will always be speedy and secure. Malware is Still Common Malware may not affect geeks, but it certainly continues to affect average people. Securing Windows, keeping it secure, and avoiding unsafe programs is a complex process. There are over 50 different file extensions that can contain harmful code to keep track of. It’s easy to have theoretical discussions about how malware could infect Mac computers, Android devices, and other systems. But Mac malware is extremely rare, and has  generally been caused by problem with the terrible Java plug-in. Macs are configured to only run executables from identified developers by default, whereas Windows will run everything. Android malware is talked about a lot, but Android malware is rare in the real world and is generally confined to users who disable security protections and install pirated apps. Google has also taken action, rolling out built-in antivirus-like app checking to all Android devices, even old ones running Android 2.3, via Play Services. Whatever the reason, Windows malware is still common while malware for other systems isn’t. We all know it — anyone who does tech support for average users has dealt with infected Windows computers. Even users who can avoid malware are stuck dealing with complex and nagging antivirus programs, especially since it’s now so difficult to trust Microsoft’s antivirus products. Manufacturer-Installed Bloatware is Terrible Sit down with a new Mac, Chromebook, iPad, Android tablet, Linux laptop, or even a Surface running Windows RT and you can enjoy using your new device. The system is a clean slate for you to start exploring and installing your new software. Sit down with a new Windows PC and the system is a mess. Rather than be delighted, you’re stuck reinstalling Windows and then installing the necessary drivers or you’re forced to start uninstalling useless bloatware programs one-by-one, trying to figure out which ones are actually useful. After uninstalling the useless programs, you may end up with a system tray full of icons for ten different hardware utilities anyway. The first experience of using a new Windows PC is frustration, not delight. Yes, bloatware is still a problem on Windows 8 PCs. Manufacturers can customize the Refresh image, preventing bloatware rom easily being removed. Finding a Desktop Program is Dangerous Want to install a Windows desktop program? Well, you’ll have to head to your web browser and start searching. It’s up to you, the user, to know which programs are safe and which are dangerous. Even if you find a website for a reputable program, the advertisements on that page will often try to trick you into downloading fake installers full of adware. While it’s great to have the ability to leave the app store and get software that the platform’s owner hasn’t approved — as on Android — this is no excuse for not providing a good, secure software installation experience for typical users installing typical programs. Even Reputable Desktop Programs Try to Install Junk Even if you do find an entirely reputable program, you’ll have to keep your eyes open while installing it. It will likely try to install adware, add browse toolbars, change your default search engine, or change your web browser’s home page. Even Microsoft’s own programs do this — when you install Skype for Windows desktop, it will attempt to modify your browser settings t ouse Bing, even if you’re specially chosen another search engine and home page. With Microsoft setting such an example, it’s no surprise so many other software developers have followed suit. Geeks know how to avoid this stuff, but there’s a reason program installers continue to do this. It works and tricks many users, who end up with junk installed and settings changed. The Update Process is Confusing On iOS, Android, and Windows RT, software updates come from a single place — the app store. On Linux, software updates come from the package manager. On Mac OS X, typical users’ software updates likely come from the Mac App Store. On the Windows desktop, software updates come from… well, every program has to create its own update mechanism. Users have to keep track of all these updaters and make sure their software is up-to-date. Most programs now have their act together and automatically update by default, but users who have old versions of Flash and Adobe Reader installed are vulnerable until they realize their software isn’t automatically updating. Even if every program updates properly, the sheer mess of updaters is clunky, slow, and confusing in comparison to a centralized update process. Browser Plugins Open Security Holes It’s no surprise that other modern platforms like iOS, Android, Chrome OS, Windows RT, and Windows Phone don’t allow traditional browser plugins, or only allow Flash and build it into the system. Browser plugins provide a wealth of different ways for malicious web pages to exploit the browser and open the system to attack. Browser plugins are one of the most popular attack vectors because of how many users have out-of-date plugins and how many plugins, especially Java, seem to be designed without taking security seriously. Oracle’s Java plugin even tries to install the terrible Ask toolbar when installing security updates. That’s right — the security update process is also used to cram additional adware into users’ machines so unscrupulous companies like Oracle can make a quick buck. It’s no wonder that most Windows PCs have an out-of-date, vulnerable version of Java installed. Battery Life is Terrible Windows PCs have bad battery life compared to Macs, IOS devices, and Android tablets, all of which Windows now competes with. Even Microsoft’s own Surface Pro 2 has bad battery life. Apple’s 11-inch MacBook Air, which has very similar hardware to the Surface Pro 2, offers double its battery life when web browsing. Microsoft has been fond of blaming third-party hardware manufacturers for their poorly optimized drivers in the past, but there’s no longer any room to hide. The problem is clearly Windows. Why is this? No one really knows for sure. Perhaps Microsoft has kept on piling Windows component on top of Windows component and many older Windows components were never properly optimized. Windows Users Become Stuck on Old Windows Versions Apple’s new OS X 10.9 Mavericks upgrade is completely free to all Mac users and supports Macs going back to 2007. Apple has also announced their intention that all new releases of Mac OS X will be free. In 2007, Microsoft had just shipped Windows Vista. Macs from the Windows Vista era are being upgraded to the latest version of the Mac operating system for free, while Windows PCs from the same era are probably still using Windows Vista. There’s no easy upgrade path for these people. They’re stuck using Windows Vista and maybe even the outdated Internet Explorer 9 if they haven’t installed a third-party web browser. Microsoft’s upgrade path is for these people to pay $120 for a full copy of Windows 8.1 and go through a complicated process that’s actaully a clean install. Even users of Windows 8 devices will probably have to pay money to upgrade to Windows 9, while updates for other operating systems are completely free. If you’re a PC geek, a PC gamer, or someone who just requires specialized software that only runs on Windows, you probably use the Windows desktop and don’t want to switch. That’s fine, but it doesn’t mean the Windows desktop is actually a good experience. Much of the burden falls on average users, who have to struggle with malware, bloatware, adware bundled in installers, complex software installation processes, and out-of-date software. In return, all they get is the ability to use a web browser and some basic Office apps that they could use on almost any other platform without all the hassle. Microsoft would agree with this, touting Windows RT and their new “Windows 8-style” app platform as the solution. Why else would Microsoft, a “devices and services” company, position the Surface — a device without traditional Windows desktop programs — as their mass-market device recommended for average people? This isn’t necessarily an endorsement of Windows RT. If you’re tech support for your family members and it comes time for them to upgrade, you may want to get them off the Windows desktop and tell them to get a Mac or something else that’s simple. Better yet, if they get a Mac, you can tell them to visit the Apple Store for help instead of calling you. That’s another thing Windows PCs don’t offer — good manufacturer support. Image Credit: Blanca Stella Mejia on Flickr, Collin Andserson on Flickr, Luca Conti on Flickr     

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