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• Linux: Apple Wireless A1314 Fn key not registered, looks like software bug

  - by ramplank

  I'm trying to set up my Apple Wireless Keyboard with my Kubuntu systems. These are PC hardware powered by Intel Atom and Intel i5 respectively. The keyboard has a US keyboard layout and has model number A1314 written on the back. It takes two AA batteries. I'm saying that because it appears there are multiple types of model A1314. I have tried this on a 10.04, 11.04, 11.10 and 12.04 system with no success. Every time using a bluetooth dongle and the KDE bluetooth notification tray applet, the keyboard can be connected. In both cases it shows up as "Apple Wireless Keyboard". Almost everything works as expected, in fact, I'm typing on it right now. But one thing doesn't: The Fn key. I'd like to use Fn + Down Arrow as PgDn / Page Down, I understand this is default behaviour on Apple keyboards. And of course I'd like the same for Page Up, Home and End. I'll stick to Page Down in my example. I used the xev tool to see the keycodes the system receives, and if I press on Fn nothing happens, and nothing is registered. If I press Fn + Down Arrow, xev only registers the down arrow. Here's the output from my 11.04 system to illustrate: Press just the Fn key: no output Press Down Arrow key: KeyPress event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15d, subw 0x4400002, time 2699773, (44,45), root:(1352,298), state 0x10, keycode 116 (keysym 0xff54, Down), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False KeyRelease event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15d, subw 0x4400002, time 2699860, (44,45), root:(1352,298), state 0x10, keycode 116 (keysym 0xff54, Down), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False Press Fn+Down Arrow Keys together: KeyPress event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15d, subw 0x4400002, time 2701548, (44,45), root:(1352,298), state 0x10, keycode 116 (keysym 0xff54, Down), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False KeyRelease event, serial 36, synthetic NO, window 0x4400001, root 0x15d, subw 0x4400002, time 2701623, (44,45), root:(1352,298), state 0x10, keycode 116 (keysym 0xff54, Down), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False I've been searching this forum and other Linux-related forums for hours but I still have not found a solution. I mostly found advice on how to fix this when using an actual apple laptop or desktop, but I don't have that. They said to try something like the following echo 2 > /sys/module/hid_apple/ ... But since there's no hid_apple directory present on my systems, I've needed to modprobe hid_apple first. That didn't help either. I'm cool with changing some config files, or compiling my own patched kernel if that's necessary. I currently have a 10.04 and 12.04 system available to test. The same issue occurs when hooked up to Windows 7. Fn key still does nothing, not by itself or in combination with other keys. With some AutoHotkey fiddling, I was able to confirm the key is registered as pressed, but ignored by default. A custom AutoHotkey script can fix that. But AutoHotkey is only for Windows, I want my problem fixed on Linux. Hooked up to an iPad 2 it only works in combination with the F1-F12 keys. Not with the arrow keys. If the screen of the ipad is off, and I press just the Fn key, the screen will come on, so the key itself is registered as pressed. So to sum up my question: Can anyone help me get Page Up, Page Down, Home and End to work on this keyboard, when that requires me to use an Fn key which is currently not registered?

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• Samba with Active Directory - shares are readonly, NT_STATUS_MEDIA_WRITE_PROTECTED

  - by froh42

  I've set a samba server that seems to work, all shares are seemingly exported as readonly, however. The machine is called "lx". When I'm on lx I can run the following command: froh@lx:~$ smbclient //lx/export -UAdministrator Enter Administrator's password: Domain=[CUSTOMER] OS=[Unix] Server=[Samba 3.5.4] smb: \> mkdir wrzlbrmpf NT_STATUS_MEDIA_WRITE_PROTECTED making remote directory \wrzlbrmpf smb: \> ls . D 0 Fri Dec 3 19:04:20 2010 .. D 0 Sun Nov 28 01:32:37 2010 zork D 0 Fri Dec 3 18:53:33 2010 bar D 0 Sun Nov 28 23:52:43 2010 ork 1 Fri Dec 3 18:53:02 2010 foo 1 Sun Nov 28 23:52:41 2010 gaga D 0 Fri Dec 3 19:04:20 2010 How can I troubleshoot this? What I did: First I set up a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.10 x64. Second I got kerberos working with the following krb5.conf file: [libdefaults] ticket_lifetime = 24000 clock_skew = 300 default_realm = CUSTOMER.LOCAL [realms] CUSTOMER.LOCAL = { kdc = SB4.customer.local:88 admin_server = SB4.customer.local:464 default_domain = CUSTOMER.LOCAL } [domain_realm] .customer.local = CUSTOMER.LOCAL customer.local = CUSTOMER.LOCAL #[login] # krb4_convert = true # krb4_get_tickets = false I also added winbind to group, passwd and shadow in nsswitch.conf. Seemingly Kerberos works: root@lx:~# net ads testjoin Join is OK root@lx:~# wbinfo -a 'Administrator%MYSECRETPASSWORD' plaintext password authentication succeeded challenge/response password authentication succeeded wbinfo -u and wbinfo -g also spit out a list of users and a list of groups respectiveley. I noted that domain accounts did NOT include a domain and they are in german (as on the SBS 2003 that is the domain server). So I get a "Domänenbenutzer" in wbinfo -u's output not a "CUSTOMER+Domain User" or something similar. I'm not sure anymore what I did to the PAM configuration, but here is what I currently have: root@lx:/etc/pam.d# cat samba @include common-auth @include common-account @include common-session-noninteractive root@lx:/etc/pam.d# grep -ve '^#' common-auth auth [success=3 default=ignore] pam_krb5.so minimum_uid=1000 auth [success=2 default=ignore] pam_unix.so nullok_secure try_first_pass auth [success=1 default=ignore] pam_winbind.so krb5_auth krb5_ccache_type=FILE cached_login try_first_pass auth requisite pam_deny.so auth required pam_permit.so root@lx:/etc/pam.d# grep -ve '^#' common-account account [success=2 new_authtok_reqd=done default=ignore] pam_unix.so account [success=1 new_authtok_reqd=done default=ignore] pam_winbind.so account requisite pam_deny.so account required pam_permit.so account required pam_krb5.so minimum_uid=1000 root@lx:/etc/pam.d# grep -ve '^#' common-session-noninteractive session [default=1] pam_permit.so session requisite pam_deny.so session required pam_permit.so session optional pam_krb5.so minimum_uid=1000 session required pam_unix.so session optional pam_winbind.so At some point I joined the linux box into the AD domain. After (manually) creating a home directory on the linux box I can log in using the Adminstrator user with the password taken from AD. Now I run samba with the following setup: [global] netbios name = LX realm = CUSTOMER.LOCAL workgroup = CUSTOMER security = ADS encrypt passwords = yes password server = 192.168.20.244 #IP des Domain Controllers os level = 0 socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=16384 SO_SNDBUF=16384 idmap uid = 10000-20000 idmap gid = 10000-20000 winbind enum users = Yes winbind enum groups = Yes preferred master = no winbind separator = + dns proxy = no wins proxy = no # client NTLMv2 auth = Yes log level = 2 logfile = /var/log/samba/log.smbd.%U template homedir = /home/%U template shell = /bin/bash [export] path = /mnt/sdc1/export read only = No public = Yes Currently I don't care whether export is exported to everyone or just one user, I want to see somebody WRITING to that directory before I start fiddling with the authentication settings. (Who may access it). As mentioned, accessing the share from smbclient results in this NT_STATUS_MEDIA_WRITE_PROTECTED . Accessing it from windows shows ACLs that look correct (The user may write) - but it does not work, I can only read files not write. The directory to be exported looks like this: root@lx:/etc/pam.d# ls -ld /mnt/ drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 2010-11-28 01:29 /mnt/ root@lx:/etc/pam.d# ls -ld /mnt/sdc1/ drwxr-xr-x 4 froh froh 4096 2010-11-28 01:32 /mnt/sdc1/ root@lx:/etc/pam.d# ls -ld /mnt/sdc1/export/ drwxrwxrwx+ 5 administrator domänen-admins 4096 2010-12-03 19:04 /mnt/sdc1/export/ root@lx:/etc/pam.d# getfacl /mnt/ getfacl: Entferne führende '/' von absoluten Pfadnamen # file: mnt/ # owner: root # group: root user::rwx group::r-x other::r-x root@lx:/etc/pam.d# getfacl /mnt/sdc1/ getfacl: Entferne führende '/' von absoluten Pfadnamen # file: mnt/sdc1/ # owner: froh # group: froh user::rwx group::r-x other::r-x root@lx:/etc/pam.d# getfacl /mnt/sdc1/export/ getfacl: Entferne führende '/' von absoluten Pfadnamen # file: mnt/sdc1/export/ # owner: administrator # group: domänen-admins user::rwx group::rwx group:domänen-admins:rwx mask::rwx other::rwx default:user::rwx default:group::rwx default:group:domänen-admins:rwx default:mask::rwx default:other::rwx My, oh my what am I overlooking? What am I to blind to see?

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• What's going on with my server? High load, lots of idle CPU time, low disk utilization

  - by Jonathan

  I run a web site and send a legitimate opt-in, daily email newsletter to subscribers. Both the web hosting and email sending are done by the same machine. I have about 100,000 subscribers who have opted in to my daily email newsletter. My PHP script did a pretty good job sending mail to all of them until fairly recently, but as the list has grown I can't keep up. When I run top, I have very high load--usually at least 6 or 7, sometimes as high as 15--even though I only have two CPUs. However, when I run sar, my CPU is idle an average of about 30% of the time. So, it seems I'm not CPU bound. When I run iostat, it seems as though I'm not disk bound because my %util for each device is very low (no more than 5%). Given that I don't seem to be CPU bound or disk bound, why is top reporting such high load? Additionally, since I don't seem to be CPU bound or disk bound, why is my email sending script not able to keep up? Here's what I see when running top: top - 11:33:28 up 74 days, 18:49, 2 users, load average: 7.65, 8.79, 8.28 Tasks: 168 total, 5 running, 162 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie Cpu(s): 38.9%us, 58.6%sy, 0.8%ni, 0.0%id, 0.7%wa, 0.2%hi, 0.8%si, 0.0%st Mem: 3083012k total, 2144436k used, 938576k free, 281136k buffers Swap: 2048248k total, 39164k used, 2009084k free, 1470412k cached Here's what I see when running iostat -mx: avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle 34.80 1.20 55.24 0.37 0.00 8.38 Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rMB/s wMB/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util sda 0.19 71.70 1.59 29.45 0.02 0.07 5.90 0.55 17.82 1.16 3.59 sda1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 7.10 0.00 13.80 13.72 0.00 sda2 0.05 50.45 1.13 24.57 0.01 0.29 24.25 0.35 13.43 1.15 2.97 sda3 0.05 10.17 0.20 2.33 0.01 0.05 43.75 0.05 20.96 2.45 0.62 sda4 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.00 0.00 70.50 70.50 0.00 sda5 0.07 0.22 0.03 0.07 0.00 0.00 32.84 0.08 856.19 8.03 0.08 sda6 0.02 5.45 0.03 0.72 0.00 0.02 67.55 0.02 26.72 5.26 0.39 sda7 0.00 1.56 0.00 0.42 0.00 0.01 38.04 0.00 8.88 5.84 0.24 sda8 0.01 3.84 0.20 1.35 0.00 0.02 28.55 0.05 31.90 4.08 0.63 Here's what I see when running sar: 09:40:02 AM CPU %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle 09:50:01 AM all 30.59 1.01 49.80 0.23 0.00 18.37 10:00:08 AM all 31.73 0.92 51.66 0.13 0.00 15.55 10:10:06 AM all 30.43 0.99 48.94 0.26 0.00 19.38 10:20:01 AM all 29.58 1.00 47.76 0.25 0.00 21.42 10:30:01 AM all 29.37 1.02 47.30 0.18 0.00 22.13 10:40:06 AM all 32.50 1.01 52.94 0.16 0.00 13.39 10:50:01 AM all 30.49 1.00 49.59 0.15 0.00 18.77 11:00:01 AM all 29.43 0.99 47.71 0.17 0.00 21.71 11:10:07 AM all 30.26 0.93 49.48 0.83 0.00 18.50 11:20:02 AM all 29.83 0.81 48.51 1.32 0.00 19.52 11:30:06 AM all 31.18 0.88 51.33 1.15 0.00 15.47 Average: all 26.21 1.15 42.62 0.48 0.00 29.54 Here are the top handful of processes listed at the particular time I happened to run top -c: PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 8180 mysql 16 0 57448 19m 2948 S 26.6 0.7 4702:26 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/ --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/bristno.pid --skip-external-locking 26956 brristno 17 0 0 0 0 Z 8.0 0.0 0:00.24 [php] <defunct> 26958 brristno 17 0 94408 43m 37m R 5.0 1.4 0:00.15 /usr/bin/php /home/brristno/public_html/dbv.php 22852 nobody 16 0 9628 2900 1524 S 0.7 0.1 0:00.17 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL 8591 brristno 34 19 96896 13m 6652 S 0.3 0.4 0:29.82 /usr/local/bin/php /home/brristno/bin/mailer.php 1qwqyb6 i0gbor 24469 nobody 16 0 9628 2880 1508 S 0.3 0.1 0:00.08 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL 25495 nobody 15 0 9628 2876 1500 S 0.3 0.1 0:00.06 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL 26149 nobody 15 0 9628 2864 1504 S 0.3 0.1 0:00.04 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd -k start -DSSL

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• Pushing DNSSEC updates with offline keys

  - by eggyal

  In a non-professional capacity, I look after the DNS of some 18 domains: mostly personal/vanity domains for immediate family. I outsource the whole shebang to an inexpensive managed hosting provider with a web interface through which I manage the zones; since the provider also offers DNSSEC, I have successfully deployed that too. These domains are so unimportant that an attack targetted against them seems much less likely than a general compromise of my provider's systems, at which point the records of all their customers might be changed to misdirect traffic (perhaps with extremely long TTLs). DNSSEC could protect against such an attack, but only if the zone's private keys are not held by the hosting provider. So, I wonder: how can one keep DNSSEC private keys offline yet still transfer signed zones to an outsourced DNS host? The most obvious answer (to me, at least) is to run one's own shadow/hidden master (from which the provider can slave) and then copy offline-signed zonefiles to the master as required. The problem is that the only machine I (want to*) control is my personal laptop, which usually connects from a typical home ADSL (behind NAT over a dynamically-assigned IP address). Having them slave from that (e.g. with a very long Expiry time on the zone for periods when my laptop is offline/unavailable) would not only require a Dynamic DNS record from which they can slave (if indeed they can slave from a named host rather than a static IP address), but would also involve me running a DNS server on my laptop and opening both it and my home network up to the incoming zone transfer requests: not ideal. I would prefer a much more push-oriented design, whereby my laptop initiates transfer of offline-signed zonefiles/updates to the provider's servers. I looked into whether nsupdate could fit the bill: documentation is a little sketchy, but my testing (with BIND 9.7) suggests it can indeed update DNSSEC zones, but only where the server holds the keys to perform the zone signing; I have not found a way to have it take an update including the relevant RRSIG/NSEC/etc. records and have the server accept them. Is this a supported use-case? If not, I suspect the only solutions which could fit the bill will involve non-DNS-based transfer of the zone updates and would welcome recommendations that are supported by (hopefully inexpensive) hosting providers: SFTP/SCP? rsync? RDBMS replication? Proprietary API? Finally, what would be the practical implications of such a setup? Key rotation is jumping out at me as being an obvious difficulty, especially if my laptop is offline for extended periods. But the zones are extremely stable, so perhaps I could get away with long-lived ZSKs**...? * Whilst I could run a shadow/hidden master on e.g. an outsourced VPS, I dislike the overhead of having to secure / manage / monitor / maintain yet another system; not to mention the additional financial costs of so doing. ** Okay, this would enable a concerted attacker to replay outdated records—but the risk and impact of such are both tolerable in the case of these domains.

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• Windows Media Player won't launch on Vista - how to repair or reinstall it?

  - by rpm1200

  My friend asked me to look at her Acer Aspire laptop with Vista Home Premium as it is no longer playing DVDs. I found that Windows Media Player would not launch. I found this thread, which contained a number of suggestions, none of which solved the problem. Here is what I tried: Tried running WMP via desktop shortcut, QuickLaunch bar or going to Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe. In all cases, wmplayer would launch then terminate immediately (verified through the Processes tab in Task Manager). Tried running wmplayer.exe as Administrator. The UAC dialog would come up, I'd approve, then wmplayer would launch and terminate immediately. Uninstalled all non-Microsoft media programs except RealPlayer, iTunes, QuickTime, Acer Arcade (the laptop owner uses all those apps). Tried running Program Files\Windows Media Player\setup_wm.exe as Administrator, it launched but said that a newer version of WMP was already installed. Deleted the "Windows Media" folder located under %userprofile%\appdata\local\Microsoft then tried starting WMP - wmplayer would launch and terminate immediately. Register wmp.dll by typing "regsvr32 wmp.dll" in an Administrator cmd window then tried starting WMP - wmplayer would launch and terminate immediately. Run "SFC /SCANFILE" in an Administrator cmd window - get an error message that it found invalid system files and could not fix them, so look at the log file cbs.log. The log file shows that there are broken files associated with Windows Sidebar (which the user does not use) but none relating to WMP. Log off to safe mode and run "SFC /SCANFILE" in an Administrator cmd window again - same results. Try to download and install XP WMP - the microsoft.com site recognizes the OS as Genuine and allows the download, but when I launch the installer it says the system is not Genuine. Clicking the link directs me back to IE where I can authenticate the system as Genuine. The installer still fails to recognize the system as Genuine. It is a Genuine Vista installation. Try to run this update (KB931621). The installer said it did not apply to the system. Set Windows Media Player as default in Program Access and Defaults. Same results. Tried running "for %a in (%systemroot%\system32\wm*.dll) do regsvr32 /s %a" in an Administrator cmd window - same results. Went to this Knowledge Base article (947541) and ran the Microsoft Fix It. The Fix It ran successfully, but WMP would still launch and terminate immediately. Multiple reboots in the process of doing all of these steps. After all this, looked in the Application and Security logs. No events pertaining to WMP were logged. The computer was preinstalled with Vista Home Premium and I have the Acer backup DVDs which will reimage the drive. I do not have Vista install DVDs. Reimaging the system is not an option. I'd also rather not restore the system to an earlier point unless it's absolutely necessary. What else can I do to repair or reinstall WMP?

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• Specifying a Postfix Instance to send outbound email

  - by Catherine Jefferson

  I have a CentOS 6.5 server running Postfix 2.6x (the default distribution) with five public IPv4 IPs bound to it. Each IP has DNS and rDNS set separately. Each uses a different hostname at a different domain. I have five Postfix instances, one bound to each IP, like this example: 192.168.34.104 red.example.com /etc/postfix 192.168.36.48 green.example.net /etc/postfix-green 192.168.36.49 pink.example.org /etc/postfix-pink 192.168.36.50 orange.example.info /etc/postfix-orange 192.168.36.51 blue.example.us /etc/postfix-blue I've tested each IP by telneting to port 25. Postfix answers and banners properly with the correct hostname. Email is received on all of these instances with no problems and is routed to the correct place. This setup, minus the final instance, has existed for a couple of years and works. I never bothered to set up outbound email to go through any but the main instance, however; there was no need. Now I need to send email from blue.example.us that actually leaves from that interface and IP, such that the Received headers show blue.example.us as the sending mailhost, so that SPF and DKIM validate, etc etc. The email that will be sent from blue.example.com is a feedback loop sent by a single shell account on the server (account5), an account that is dedicated to sending this email. The account receives the feedback loop emails from servers on other networks, saves the bodies of those emails, and then generates a new outbound email header, appends the saved body, and sends the email. It's sending by piping each email to sendmail -oi -t. We're doing it this way to mask the identities of the initial servers. The procmail script that processes these emails works correctly. However, I cannot configure this account to send email through the proper Postfix instance/IP/interface. The exact same account and script sends email through the main Postfix instance /etc/postfix without any issues. When I change MAIL_CONFIG to point to /etc/postfix-blue in either .bash_profile or the Procmail script that handles this email, though, I get this error: sendmail: fatal: User account5(###) is not allowed to submit mail I've read the manuals on Postfix.org, searched Google, and tried the suggestions in three previous answers here on ServerFault.com: Postfix - specify interface to deliver outbound mail on Postfix user is not allowed to submit mail Postfix rejects php mails I have been careful to stop and restart Postfix after each configuration change, and tested the results. Nothing has worked. The main postfix instance happily accepts outbound email from account5. The postfix-blue instance continues to reject email from account5 with the sendmail error above. As tempting as it is to blame machine hostility, I know that I must be missing something or doing something wrong. Does anybody have any suggestions as to what it might be? Please feel free to ask for further information about my setup if you need it. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= At the request of the responder, here are main.cf and master.cf for a) the main postfix instance ("red.example.com") and b) the FBL instance ("blue.example.us") [NOTE: All parameters not specified below were left at the default Postfix 2.6 settings] MAIN: master.cf smtp inet n - n - - smtpd main.cf myhostname = red.example.com mydomain = example.com inet_interfaces = $myhostname, localhost inet_protocols = all lmtp_host_lookup = native smtp_host_lookup = native ignore_mx_lookup_error = yes mydestination = $myhostname, localhost.$mydomain, localhost local_recipient_maps = mynetworks = 192.168.34.104/32 relay_domains = example.com, example.info, example.net, example.org, example.us relayhost = [192.168.34.102] # Separate physical server, main mailserver. relay_recipient_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/relay_recipients alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name multi_instance_wrapper = ${command_directory}/postmulti -p -- multi_instance_enable = yes multi_instance_directories = /etc/postfix-green /etc/postfix-pink /etc/postfix-orange /etc/postfix-blue FBL: master.cf 184.173.119.103:25 inet n - n - - smtpd main.cf myhostname = blue.example.us mydomain = blue.example.us <= Deliberately set to subdomain only. myorigin = $mydomain inet_interfaces = $myhostname lmtp_host_lookup = native smtp_host_lookup = native ignore_mx_lookup_error = yes mydestination = $myhostname local_recipient_maps = unix:passwd.byname $alias_maps $virtual_alias_maps mynetworks = 192.168.36.51/32, 192.168.35.20/31 <= Second IP is backup MX servers relay_domains = $mydestination recipient_canonical_maps = hash:/etc/postfix-blue/canonical virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix-fbl/virtual alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases, hash:/etc/postfix-blue/canonical alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases, hash:/etc/postfix-blue/canonical mailbox_command = /usr/bin/procmail -a "$EXTENSION" DEFAULT=$HOME/Mail/ MAILDIR=$HOME/Mail smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name authorized_submit_users = multi_instance_name = postfix-blue multi_instance_enable = yes

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• I am starting to think that Prevx.com isnt a legit site...but heres my long-winded question

  - by cop1152

  I apologize in advance for the long-winded post. I posted it all because I believe its informative and may be useful. Also, I posted my question at the end. Moments ago I was RDC to a file server in my home (from inside my home). I had opened Firefox and Googled for a manufacturers website. Immediately after clicking the link, Firefox abruptly closed. This seemed odd to me to so I checked the running processes and discovered d.exe, e.exe, and f.exe running. I Googled these processes on a different machine and found them belonging to a key-logger/screen-capturer/trojan called defender.exe, which according to the Prevx lives in c:\documents and settings\user\local settings\temp. (Prevx link http://www.prevx.com/filenames/147352809685142526-X1/DEFENDER32.EXE.html) Simultaneously, an obviously-spoofed Windows Firewall popup appeared on the server asking me to click ‘yes’ to update Windows Firewall. At this time I ended all rogue processes, emptied the temp folder, removed defender.exe from startup, and checked my registry and a few other locations. Before deleting Defender.exe I noted that it was created moments ago, just before Firefox crashed. I believe that I was ‘almost’ infected with this malware. I believe that it needed me to click the phony popup in order to complete infection because it wasn’t allowed to execute processes from the temp folder. After cleaning the machine, I restarted it and have been monitoring it for over an hour. I am debating on whether or not to restore the Windows partition (a separate physical drive from the data) or to just watch it for awhle. I should mention that, because of the specs on this machine, I do not run antivirus software, but I know it well and inspect it regularly. It is a very old Compaq with a 400mhz processer and 512mb of ram. I have a static IP and the server is in the DMZ running an FTP client and some HTTP server software. All files transferred to and stored on this machine are scanned for malware before transferring. Usually the machine only runs 19 processes and performs pretty well for its intended purpose. I posted the story so that you could be aware of a possible new piece of malware and how it acts, but I also have a question or two. First, over the last few months I have noticed that PREVX is listed at the top of most of my Google searches when researching malware, especially for new or obscure malware…and they always want you to purchase something. I don’t think they are one of the top AV companies, so it seems odd that they are always the top Google result. Does anyone have any experience with any of their products? Also, what sites do you rely on for malware researching? Recently, I have found it difficult to find good info because of HijackThis-logs and other deadend info cluttering up my searches. And lastly, besides antivirus, third-party firewall, etc, what settings would you use to lock down a machine to make it more secure in instances where a stubborn admin like myself refuses to run AV? Thanks.

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• x11vnc working in Ubuntu 10.10

  - by pablorc

  I'm trying to start x11vnc in a Ubuntu 10.10 (my server is in Amazon EC2), but I have the next error $ sudo x11vnc -forever -usepw -httpdir /usr/share/vnc-java/ -httpport 5900 -auth /usr/sbin/gdm 25/11/2010 13:29:51 passing arg to libvncserver: -httpport 25/11/2010 13:29:51 passing arg to libvncserver: 5900 25/11/2010 13:29:51 -usepw: found /home/ubuntu/.vnc/passwd 25/11/2010 13:29:51 x11vnc version: 0.9.10 lastmod: 2010-04-28 pid: 3504 25/11/2010 13:29:51 XOpenDisplay(":0.0") failed. 25/11/2010 13:29:51 Trying again with XAUTHLOCALHOSTNAME=localhost ... 25/11/2010 13:29:51 *************************************** 25/11/2010 13:29:51 *** XOpenDisplay failed (:0.0) *** x11vnc was unable to open the X DISPLAY: ":0.0", it cannot continue. *** There may be "Xlib:" error messages above with details about the failure. Some tips and guidelines: ** An X server (the one you wish to view) must be running before x11vnc is started: x11vnc does not start the X server. (however, see the -create option if that is what you really want). ** You must use -display <disp>, -OR- set and export your $DISPLAY environment variable to refer to the display of the desired X server. - Usually the display is simply ":0" (in fact x11vnc uses this if you forget to specify it), but in some multi-user situations it could be ":1", ":2", or even ":137". Ask your administrator or a guru if you are having difficulty determining what your X DISPLAY is. ** Next, you need to have sufficient permissions (Xauthority) to connect to the X DISPLAY. Here are some Tips: - Often, you just need to run x11vnc as the user logged into the X session. So make sure to be that user when you type x11vnc. - Being root is usually not enough because the incorrect MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE file may be accessed. The cookie file contains the secret key that allows x11vnc to connect to the desired X DISPLAY. - You can explicitly indicate which MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE file should be used by the -auth option, e.g.: x11vnc -auth /home/someuser/.Xauthority -display :0 x11vnc -auth /tmp/.gdmzndVlR -display :0 you must have read permission for the auth file. See also '-auth guess' and '-findauth' discussed below. ** If NO ONE is logged into an X session yet, but there is a greeter login program like "gdm", "kdm", "xdm", or "dtlogin" running, you will need to find and use the raw display manager MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE file. Some examples for various display managers: gdm: -auth /var/gdm/:0.Xauth -auth /var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth kdm: -auth /var/lib/kdm/A:0-crWk72 -auth /var/run/xauth/A:0-crWk72 xdm: -auth /var/lib/xdm/authdir/authfiles/A:0-XQvaJk dtlogin: -auth /var/dt/A:0-UgaaXa Sometimes the command "ps wwwwaux | grep auth" can reveal the file location. Starting with x11vnc 0.9.9 you can have it try to guess by using: -auth guess (see also the x11vnc -findauth option.) Only root will have read permission for the file, and so x11vnc must be run as root (or copy it). The random characters in the filenames will of course change and the directory the cookie file resides in is system dependent. See also: http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/faq.html I've already tried with some -auth options but the error persist. I have gdm running. Thank you in advance

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• Windows Media Player won't launch on Vista - how to repair or reinstall it?

  - by rpm1200

  My friend asked me to look at her Acer Aspire laptop with Vista Home Premium as it is no longer playing DVDs. I found that Windows Media Player would not launch. I found this thread, which contained a number of suggestions, none of which solved the problem. Here is what I tried: Tried running WMP via desktop shortcut, QuickLaunch bar or going to Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe. In all cases, wmplayer would launch then terminate immediately (verified through the Processes tab in Task Manager). Tried running wmplayer.exe as Administrator. The UAC dialog would come up, I'd approve, then wmplayer would launch and terminate immediately. Uninstalled all non-Microsoft media programs except RealPlayer, iTunes, QuickTime, Acer Arcade (the laptop owner uses all those apps). Tried running Program Files\Windows Media Player\setup_wm.exe as Administrator, it launched but said that a newer version of WMP was already installed. Deleted the "Windows Media" folder located under %userprofile%\appdata\local\Microsoft then tried starting WMP - wmplayer would launch and terminate immediately. Register wmp.dll by typing "regsvr32 wmp.dll" in an Administrator cmd window then tried starting WMP - wmplayer would launch and terminate immediately. Run "SFC /SCANFILE" in an Administrator cmd window - get an error message that it found invalid system files and could not fix them, so look at the log file cbs.log. The log file shows that there are broken files associated with Windows Sidebar (which the user does not use) but none relating to WMP. Log off to safe mode and run "SFC /SCANFILE" in an Administrator cmd window again - same results. Try to download and install XP WMP - the microsoft.com site recognizes the OS as Genuine and allows the download, but when I launch the installer it says the system is not Genuine. Clicking the link directs me back to IE where I can authenticate the system as Genuine. The installer still fails to recognize the system as Genuine. It is a Genuine Vista installation. Try to run this update (KB931621). The installer said it did not apply to the system. Set Windows Media Player as default in Program Access and Defaults. Same results. Tried running "for %a in (%systemroot%\system32\wm*.dll) do regsvr32 /s %a" in an Administrator cmd window - same results. Went to this Knowledge Base article (947541) and ran the Microsoft Fix It. The Fix It ran successfully, but WMP would still launch and terminate immediately. Multiple reboots in the process of doing all of these steps. After all this, looked in the Application and Security logs. No events pertaining to WMP were logged. The computer was preinstalled with Vista Home Premium and I have the Acer backup DVDs which will reimage the drive. I do not have Vista install DVDs. Reimaging the system is not an option. I'd also rather not restore the system to an earlier point unless it's absolutely necessary. What else can I do to repair or reinstall WMP?

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• What networking hardware do I need in this situation (Fairpoint [ISP] "E-DIA" connection)?

  - by Tegeril

  Right away you'd probably want to say, "Well just ask Fairpoint." I've done that, a number of times in as many different ways I can phrase it and just keep hitting a brick wall where they will not commit to giving any useful information and instead recommend contracting an outside firm and spending a pile of money. Anyway... I'm trying to help a family member out with an office connection that is being setup. I've managed to scrape tiny details here and there from our discussions with the ISP (Fairpoint in Maine) about what is going to be done and what is going to be needed. This is the connection that is being setup: http://www.fairpoint.com/enterprise/vantagepoint/e-dia/index.jsp Information I have been given: Via this connection I can get IPs across different C blocks if that were necessary (it is not) Fairpoint is bringing hardware with them that they claim simply does the conversion from whatever line is coming in the building to ethernet, they have referred to this as the "Fairpoint Netvanta" which I know suggests a line of products that I have looked up, but some (most? all?) of those seems to handle all the routing that I saw. Fairpoint says that I need to bring my own router to sit behind their device. They have literally declined to even suggest products that have worked for other clients in the past and fall back on "any business router works, not a home router." That alone makes my head spin. Detail and clarity hit a brick wall from there. At one moment I got them to cough up that the router I provide needs to be able to do VPN tunneling but they typically fall back to "not a home router" and I was even given "just a business router, Cisco or something, it'll be $500-$1000". Now I know that VPN tunneling routers exist well below that price point and since this connection is going to one machine, possibly two only via ethernet, my desire to purchase networking hardware that over-delivers what I need is not very high. They are literally setting all this up, have provided no configuration details for after they finish, and expect me to just plunk a $500+ router behind it and cross my fingers or contract out to a third party company. If there were other options available for the location, I would have dropped them in a second, but there aren't. The device that is connected requires a static IP and I'm honestly a bit hazy on the necessity of an additional router behind their device and generally a bit over my head. I presume that the router needs to be able to serve external static IPs to its clients, but I really don't know what is going to show up when they come to do the install. This was originally going to be run via an ADSL bridge modem with a range of static IPs (which is easy and is currently setup properly) but the location is too far from the telco to get speeds that we really want for upload and this is also a connection that needs high availability. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated (I see a number of options in the Cisco Small Business line and other competitors that aren't going to break the bank…), especially if you've worked with Fairpoint before! Thanks for reading my wall of text.

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• How to make XAMPP virtual hosts accessible to VM's and other computers on LAN?

  - by martin's

  XAMPP running on Vista 64 Ultimate dev machine (don't think it matters). Machine / Browser configuration Safari, Firefox, Chrome and IE9 on dev machine IE7 and IE8 on separate XP Pro VM's (VMWare on dev machine) IE10 and Chrome on Windows 8 VM (VMware on dev machine) Safari, Firefox and Chrome running on a iMac (same network as dev) Safari, Firefox and Chrome running on a couple of Mac Pro's (same network as dev) IE7, IE8, IE9 running on other PC's on the same network as dev machine Development Configuration Multiple virtual hosts for different projects .local fake TLD for development No firewall restrictions on dev machine for Apache Some sites have .htaccess mapping www to non-www Port 80 is open in the dev machine's firewall Problem XAMPP local home page (http://192.168.1.98/xampp/) can be accessed from everywhere, real or virtual, by IP All .local sites can be accessed from the browsers on the dev machine. All .local sites can be accessed form the browsers in the XP VM's. Some .local sites cannot be accessed from IE10 or Chrome on the W8 VM Sites that cannot be accessed from W8 VM have a minimal .htaccess file No .local sites can be accessed from ANY machine (PC or Mac) on the LAN hosts on dev machine (relevant excerpt) 127.0.0.1 site1.local 127.0.0.1 site2.local 127.0.0.1 site3.local 127.0.0.1 site4.local 127.0.0.1 site5.local 127.0.0.1 site6.local 127.0.0.1 site7.local 127.0.0.1 site8.local 127.0.0.1 site9.local 192.168.1.98 site1.local 192.168.1.98 site2.local 192.168.1.98 site3.local 192.168.1.98 site4.local 192.168.1.98 site5.local 192.168.1.98 site6.local 192.168.1.98 site7.local 192.168.1.98 site8.local 192.168.1.98 site9.local httpd-vhosts.conf on dev machine (relevant excerpt) NameVirtualHost *:80 <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName localhost ServerAlias localhost *.localhost.* DocumentRoot D:/xampp/htdocs </VirtualHost> # ======================================== site1.local <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName site1.local ServerAlias site1.local *.site1.local DocumentRoot D:/xampp-sites/site1/public_html ErrorLog D:/xampp-sites/site1/logs/access.log CustomLog D:/xampp-sites/site1/logs/error.log combined <Directory D:/xampp-sites/site1> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Require all granted </Directory> </VirtualHost> NOTE: The above <VirtualHost *:80> block is repeated for each of the nine virtual hosts in the file, no sense in posting it here. hosts on all VM's and physical machines on the network (relevant excerpt) 127.0.0.1 localhost ::1 localhost 192.168.1.98 site1.local 192.168.1.98 site2.local 192.168.1.98 site3.local 192.168.1.98 site4.local 192.168.1.98 site5.local 192.168.1.98 site6.local 192.168.1.98 site7.local 192.168.1.98 site8.local 192.168.1.98 site9.local None of the VM's have any firewall blocks on http traffic. They can reach any site on the real Internet. The same is true of the real machines on the network. The biggest puzzle perhaps is that the W8 VM actually DOES reach some of the virtual hosts. It does NOT reach site2, site6 and site 9, all of which have this minimal .htaccess file. .htaccess file <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L] </IfModule> Adding this file to any of the virtual hosts that do work on the W8 VM will break the site (only for W8 VM, not the XP VM's) and require a cache flush on the W8 VM before it will see the site again after deleting the file. Regardless of whether a .htaccess file exists or not, no machine on the same LAN can access anything other than the XAMPP home page via IP. Even with hosts files on all machines. I can ping any virtual host from any machine on the network and get a response from the correct IP address. I can't see anything in out Netgear router that might prevent one machine from reaching the other. Besides, once the local hosts file resolves to an ip address that's all that goes out onto the local network. I've gone through an extensive number of posts on both SO and as the result of Google searches. I can't say that I have found anything definitive anywhere.

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• OCR anything with OneNote 2007 and 2010

  - by Matthew Guay

  Quality OCR software can often be very expensive, but you may have one already installed on your computer that you didn’t know about.  Here’s how you can use OneNote to OCR anything on your computer. OneNote is one of the overlooked gems in recent versions of Microsoft Office.  OneNote makes it simple to take notes and keep track of everything with integrated search, and offers more features than its popular competitor Evernote.  One way it is better is its high quality optical character recognition (OCR) engine.  One of Evernote’s most popular features is that you can search for anything, including text in an image, and you can easily find it.  OneNote takes this further, and instantly OCRs any text in images you add.  Then, you can use this text easily and copy it from the image.  Let’s see how this works and how you can use OneNote as the ultimate OCR. Please Note: This feature is available in OneNote 2007 and 2010.  OneNote 2007 is included with Office 2007 Home and Student, Enterprise, and Ultimate, while OneNote 2010 is included with all edition of Office 2010 except for Starter edition. OCR anything First, let’s add something to OCR into OneNote.  There are many different ways you can add items to OCR into OneNote.  Open a blank page or one you want to insert something into, and then follow these steps to add what you want into OneNote. Picture Simply drag-and-drop a picture with text into a notebook… You can insert a picture directly from OneNote as well.  In OneNote 2010, select the Insert tab, and then choose Picture. In OneNote 2007, select the Insert menu, select Picture, and then choose From File.   Screen Clipping There are many times we’d like to copy text from something we see onscreen, but there is no direct way to copy text from that thing.  For instance, you cannot copy text from the title-bar of a window, or from a flash-based online presentation.  For these cases, the Screen Clipping option is very useful.  To add a clip of anything onscreen in OneNote 2010, select the Insert tab in the ribbon and click Screen Clipping. In OneNote 2007, either click the Clip button on the toolbar or select the Insert menu and choose Screen Clipping.   Alternately, you can take a screen clipping by pressing the windows key + S. When you click Screen Clipping, OneNote will minimize, your desktop will fade lighter, and your mouse pointer will change to a plus sign.  Now, click and drag over anything you want to add to OneNote.  Here we’re selecting the title of this article. The section you selected will now show up in your OneNote notebook, complete with the date and time the clip was made. Insert a file You’re not limited to pictures; OneNote can even OCR anything in most files on your computer.  You can add files directly in OneNote 2010 by selecting File Printout in the Insert tab. In OneNote 2007, select the Insert menu and choose Files as Printout. Choose the file you want to add to OneNote in the dialog. Select Insert, and OneNote will pause momentarily as it processes the file. Now your file will show up in OneNote as a printout with a link to the original file above it. You can also send any file directly to OneNote via the OneNote virtual printer.  If you have a file open, such as a PDF, that you’d like to OCR, simply open the print dialog in that program and select the “Send to OneNote” printer. Or, if you have a scanner, you can scan documents directly into OneNote by clicking Scanner Printout in the Insert tab in OneNote 2010. In OneNote 2003, to add a scanned document select the Insert menu, select Picture, and then choose From Scanner or Camera. OCR the image, file, or screenshot you put in OneNote Now that you’ve got your stuff into OneNote, let’s put it to work.  OneNote automatically did an OCR scan on anything you inserted into OneNote.  You can check to make sure by right-clicking on any picture, screenshot, or file you inserted.  Select “Make Text in Image Searchable” and then make sure the correct language is selected. Now, you can copy text from the Picture.  Simply right-click on the picture, and select “Copy Text from Picture”. And here’s the text that OneNote found in this picture: OCR anything with OneNote 2007 and 2010 - Windows Live Writer Not bad, huh?  Now you can paste the text from the picture into a document or anywhere you need to use the text. If you are instead copying text from a printout, it may give you the option to copy text from this page or all pages of the printout.   This works the exact same in OneNote 2007. In OneNote 2010, you can also edit the text OneNote has saved in the image from the OCR.  This way, if OneNote read something incorrectly you can change it so you can still find it when you use search in OneNote.  Additionally, you can copy only a specific portion of the text from the edit box, so it can be useful just for general copying as well.  To do this, right-click on the item and select “Edit Alt Text”. Here is the window to edit alternate text.  If you want to copy only a portion of the text, simply select it and press Ctrl+C to copy that portion. Searching OneNote’s OCR engine is very useful for finding specific pictures you have saved in OneNote.  Simply enter your search query in the search box on top right, and OneNote will automatically find all instances of that term in all of your notebooks.  Notice how it highlights the search term even in the image! This works the same in OneNote 2007.  Notice how it highlighted “How-to” in a shot of the header image in our favorite website. In Windows Vista and 7, you can even search for things OneNote OCRed from the Start Menu search.  Here the start menu search found the words “Windows Live Writer” in our OCR Test notebook in OneNote where we inserted the screen clip above. Conclusion OneNote is a very useful OCR tool, and can help you capture text from just about anything.  Plus, since you can easily search everything you have stored in OneNote, you can quickly find anything you insert anytime.  OneNote is one of the least-used Office tools, but we have found it very useful and hope you do too. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add or Remove Apps from the Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 SuiteRemove Office 2010 Beta and Reinstall Office 2007How To Create and Publish Blog Posts in Word 2010 & 2007How To Copy Worksheets in Excel 2007 & 2010Add Page Numbers to Documents in Word 2007 & 2010 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Using TrueCrypt to Secure Your Data Quickly Schedule Meetings With NeedtoMeet Share Flickr Photos On Facebook Automatically Are You Blocked On Gtalk? Find out Discover Latest Android Apps On AppBrain The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers

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• Scan a Windows PC for Viruses from a Ubuntu Live CD

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  Getting a virus is bad. Getting a virus that causes your computer to crash when you reboot is even worse. We’ll show you how to clean viruses from your computer even if you can’t boot into Windows by using a virus scanner in a Ubuntu Live CD. There are a number of virus scanners available for Ubuntu, but we’ve found that avast! is the best choice, with great detection rates and usability. Unfortunately, avast! does not have a proper 64-bit version, and forcing the install does not work properly. If you want to use avast! to scan for viruses, then ensure that you have a 32-bit Ubuntu Live CD. If you currently have a 64-bit Ubuntu Live CD on a bootable flash drive, it does not take long to wipe your flash drive and go through our guide again and select normal (32-bit) Ubuntu 9.10 instead of the x64 edition. For the purposes of fixing your Windows installation, the 64-bit Live CD will not provide any benefits. Once Ubuntu 9.10 boots up, open up Firefox by clicking on its icon in the top panel. Navigate to http://www.avast.com/linux-home-edition. Click on the Download tab, and then click on the link to download the DEB package. Save it to the default location. While avast! is downloading, click on the link to the registration form on the download page. Fill in the registration form if you do not already have a trial license for avast!. By the time you’ve filled out the registration form, avast! will hopefully be finished downloading. Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications in the top-left corner of the screen, then expanding the Accessories menu and clicking on Terminal. In the terminal window, type in the following commands, pressing enter after each line. cd Downloadssudo dpkg –i avast* This will install avast! on the live Ubuntu environment. To ensure that you can use the latest virus database, while still in the terminal window, type in the following command: sudo sysctl –w kernel.shmmax=128000000 Now we’re ready to open avast!. Click on Applications on the top-left corner of the screen, expand the Accessories folder, and click on the new avast! Antivirus item. You will first be greeted with a window that asks for your license key. Hopefully you’ve received it in your email by now; open the email that avast! sends you, copy the license key, and paste it in the Registration window. avast! Antivirus will open. You’ll notice that the virus database is outdated. Click on the Update database button and avast! will start downloading the latest virus database. To scan your Windows hard drive, you will need to “mount” it. While the virus database is downloading, click on Places on the top-left of your screen, and click on your Windows hard drive, if you can tell which one it is by its size. If you can’t tell which is the correct hard drive, then click on Computer and check out each hard drive until you find the right one. When you find it, make a note of the drive’s label, which appears in the menu bar of the file browser. Also note that your hard drive will now appear on your desktop. By now, your virus database should be updated. At the time this article was written, the most recent version was 100404-0. In the main avast! window, click on the radio button next to Selected folders and then click on the “+” button to the right of the list box. It will open up a dialog box to browse to a location. To find your Windows hard drive, click on the “>” next to the computer icon. In the expanded list, find the folder labelled “media” and click on the “>” next to it to expand it. In this list, you should be able to find the label that corresponds to your Windows hard drive. If you want to scan a certain folder, then you can go further into this hierarchy and select that folder. However, we will scan the entire hard drive, so we’ll just press OK. Click on Start scan and avast! will start scanning your hard drive. If a virus is found, you’ll be prompted to select an action. If you know that the file is a virus, then you can Delete it, but there is the possibility of false positives, so you can also choose Move to chest to quarantine it. When avast! is done scanning, it will summarize what it found on your hard drive. You can take different actions on those files at this time by right-clicking on them and selecting the appropriate action. When you’re done, click Close. Your Windows PC is now free of viruses, in the eyes of avast!. Reboot your computer and with any luck it will now boot up! Alternatives to avast! If avast! and a liberal amount of Googling doesn’t fix your problem, it’s possible that a different virus scanner will fix your obscure issue. Here are a list of other virus scanners available for Ubuntu that are either free or offer free trials. See their support forums for help on installing these virus scanners. Avira AntiVir Personal for Linux / Solaris Panda Antivirus for Linux Installation and usage guide from Ubuntu F-PROT Antivirus for Linux ClamAV installation and usage guide from Ubuntu NOD32 Antivirus for Linux Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 Bitdefender Antivirus for Unices Conclusion Running avast! from a Ubuntu Live CD can clean the vast majority of viruses from your Windows PC. This is another reason to always have a Ubuntu Live CD ready just in case something happens to your Windows installation! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Secure Computing: Windows Live OneCareHow To Remove Antivirus Live and Other Rogue/Fake Antivirus MalwareUse the Windows Key for the "Start" Menu in Ubuntu LinuxScan Files for Viruses Before You Download With Dr.WebAsk the Readers: Share Your Tips for Defeating Viruses and Malware TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos Add a Custom Title in IE using Spybot or Spyware Blaster When You Need to Hail a Taxi in NYC

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• Embedding ADF UI Components into OAF regions

  - by Juan Camilo Ruiz

  Having finished the 2 Webcast on ADF integration with Oracle E-Business Suite, Sara Woodhull, Principal Product Manager on the Oracle E-Business Suite Applications Technology team and I are going to continue adding entries to the series on this topic, trying to cover as many use cases as possible. In this entry, Sara created an overview on how Oracle ADF pages can be embedded into an Oracle Application Framework region. This is a very interesting approach that will enable those of you who are exploring ADF as a technology stack to enhanced some of the Oracle E-Business Suite flows and leverage your skill on Oracle Applications Framework (OAF). In upcoming entries we will start unveiling the internals needed to achieve session sharing between the regions. Stay tuned for more entries and enjoy this new post.   Document Scope This document only covers information that is specific to embedding an Oracle ADF page in an Oracle Application Framework–based page. It assumes knowledge of Oracle ADF and Oracle Application Framework development. It also assumes knowledge of the material in My Oracle Support Note 974949.1, “Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java” and My Oracle Support Note 1296491.1, "FAQ for Integration of Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Applications". Prerequisite Patch Download Patch 12726556:R12.FND.B from My Oracle Support and install it. The implementation described below requires Patch 12726556:R12.FND.B to provide the accessors for the ADF page. This patch is required in addition to the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java patch described in My Oracle Support Note 974949.1. Development Environments You need two different JDeveloper environments: Oracle ADF and OA Framework. Oracle ADF Development Environment You build your Oracle ADF page using JDeveloper 11g. You should use JDeveloper 11g R1 (the latest is 11.1.1.6.0) if you need to use other products in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Stack, such as Oracle WebCenter, Oracle SOA Suite, or BI. You should use JDeveloper 11g R2 (the latest is 11.1.2.3.0) if you do not need other Oracle Fusion Middleware products. JDeveloper 11g R2 is an Oracle ADF-specific release that supports the latest Java EE standards and has various core improvements. Oracle Application Framework Development Environment Build your OA Framework page using a development environment corresponding to your Oracle E-Business Suite version. You must use Release 12.1.2 or later because the rich content container was introduced in Release 12.1.2. See “OA Framework - How to find the correct version of JDeveloper to use with eBusiness Suite 11i or Release 12.x” (My Oracle Support Doc ID 416708.1). Building your Oracle ADF Page Typically you build your ADF page using the session management feature of the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java as described in My Oracle Support Note 974949.1. Also see My Oracle Support Note 1296491.1, "FAQ for Integration of Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Applications". Building an ADF Page with the Hierarchy Viewer If you are using the ADF hierarchy viewer, you should set up the structure and settings of the ADF page as follows or the hierarchy viewer may not fill the entire area it is supposed to fill (especially a problem in Firefox). Create a stretchable component as the parent component for the hierarchy viewer, such as af:panelStretchLayout (underneath the af:form component in the structure). Use af:panelStretchLayout for Oracle ADF 11.1.1.6 and earlier. For later versions of Oracle ADF, use af:panelGridLayout. Create your hierarchy viewer component inside the stretchable component. Create Function in Oracle E-Business Suite Instance In your Oracle E-Business Suite instance, create a function for your ADF page with the following parameters. You can use either the Functions window in the System Administrator responsibility or the Functions page in the Functional Administrator responsibility. Function Function Name Type=External ADF Function (ADFX) HTML Call=GWY.jsp?targetPage=faces/<your ADF page> ">You must also add your function to an Oracle E-Business Suite menu or permission set and set up function security or role-based access control (RBAC) so that the user has authorization to access the function. If you do not want the function to appear on the navigation menu, add the function without a menu prompt. See the Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide Documentation Set for more information. Testing the Function from the Oracle E-Business Suite Home Page It’s a good idea to test launching your ADF page from the Oracle E-Business Suite Home Page. Add your function to the navigation menu for your responsibility with a prompt and try launching it. If your ADF page expects parameters from the surrounding page, those might not be available, however. Setting up the Oracle Application Framework Rich Container Once you have built your Oracle ADF 11g page, you need to embed it in your Oracle Application Framework page. Create Rich Content Container in your OA Framework JDeveloper environment In the OA Extension Structure pane for your OAF page, select the region where you want to add the rich content, and add a richContainer item to the region. Set the following properties on the richContainer item: id Content Type=Others (for Release 12.1.3. This property value may change in a future release.) Destination Function=[function code] Width (in pixels or percent, such as 100%) Height (in pixels) Parameters=[any parameters your Oracle ADF page is expecting to receive from the Oracle Application Framework page] Parameters In the Parameters property, specify parameters that will be passed to the embedded content as a list of comma-separated, name-value pairs. Dynamic parameters may be specified as paramName={@viewAttr}. Dynamic Rich Content Container Properties If you want your rich content container to display a different Oracle ADF page depending on other information, you would set up a different function for each different Oracle ADF page. You would then set the Destination Function and Parameters properties programmatically, instead of setting them in the Property Inspector. In the processRequest() method of your Oracle Application Framework page controller, where OAFRichContentPage is the ID of your richContainer item and the parameters are whatever parameters your ADF page expects, your code might look similar to this code fragment: OARichContainerBean richBean = (OARichContainerBean) webBean.findChildRecursive("OAFRichContentPage"); if(richBean != null){ if(isFirstCondition){ richBean.setFunctionName("ADF_EXAMPLE_EMBEDDED"); richBean.setParameters("ParamLoginPersonId="+loginPersonId +"&ParamPersonId="+personId+"&ParamUserId="+userId +"&ParamRespId="+respId+"&ParamRespApplId="+respApplId +"&ParamFromOA=Y"+"&ParamSecurityGroupId="+securityGroupId); } else if(isSecondCondition){ richBean.setFunctionName("ADF_EXAMPLE_OTHER_FUNCTION"); richBean.setParameters("ParamLoginPersonId=" +loginPersonId+"&ParamPersonId="+personId +"&ParamUserId="+userId+"&ParamRespId="+respId +"&ParamRespApplId="+respApplId +"&ParamFromOA=Y" +"&ParamSecurityGroupId="+securityGroupId); } }

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• I have finally traded my Blackberry in for a Droid!

  - by Bob Porter

  Over the years I have used a number of different types of phones. Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Nokia, and now Android. Until the Blackberry, which was my last phone (and I still have one issued from my office) I had never found a phone that “just worked” especially with email and messaging. The Blackberry did, and does, excel at those functions. My last personal phone was a Storm 1 which was Blackberry’s first touch screen phone. The Storm 2 was an improved version that fixed some screen press detection issues from the first model and it added Wifi. Over the last few years I have watched others acquire and fall in love with their ‘Droid’s including a number of iPhone users which surprised me. Our office has until recently only supported Blackberry phones, adding iPhones within the last year or so. When I spoke with our internal telecom folks they confirmed they were evaluating Android phones, but felt they still were not secure enough out of the box for corporate use and SOX compliance. That being said, as a personal phone, the Droid Rocks! I am impressed with its speed, the number of apps available, and the overall design. It is not as “flashy” as an iPhone but it does everything that I care about and more. The model I bought is the Motorola Droid 2 Global from Verizon. It is currently running Android 2.2 for it’s OS, 2.3 is just around the corner. It has 8 gigs of internal flash memory and can handle up to a 32 gig SDCard. (I currently have 2 8 gig cards, one for backups, and have ordered a 16 gig card!) Being a geek at heart, I “rooted” the phone which means gained superuser access to the OS on the phone. And opens a number of doors for further modifications down the road. Also being a geek meant I have already setup a development environment and built and deployed the obligatory “Hello Droid” application. I will be writing of my development experiences with this new platform here often, to start off I thought I would share my current application list to give you an idea what I am using. Zedge: http://market.android.com/details?id=net.zedge.android XDA: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.quoord.tapatalkxda.activity WRAL.com: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.mylocaltv.wral Wireless Tether: http://market.android.com/details?id=android.tether Winamp: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.nullsoft.winamp Win7 Clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.toggles.win7 Wifi Analyzer: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer WeatherBug: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.aws.android Weather Widget Forecast Addon: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.weather.forecastaddon Weather & Toggle Widgets: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather2 Vlingo: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.vlingo.client VirtualTENHO-G: http://market.android.com/details?id=jp.bustercurry.virtualtenho_g Twitter: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.twitter.android TweetDeck: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.thedeck.android.app Tricorder: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.hermit.tricorder Titanium Backup PRO: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackupPro Titanium Backup: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup Terminal Emulator: http://market.android.com/details?id=jackpal.androidterm Talking Tom Free: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.outfit7.talkingtom Stock Blue: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.adw.theme.stockblue ST: Red Alert Free: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.oldplanets.redalertwallpaper ST: Red Alert: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.oldplanets.redalertwallpaperplus Solitaire: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.kmagic.solitaire Skype: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.skype.raider Silent Time Lite: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.QuiteHypnotic.SilentTime ShopSavvy: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.biggu.shopsavvy Shopper: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.shopper Shiny clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.clock.shiny ShareMyApps: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.mattlary.shareMyApps Sense Glass ADW Theme: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dtanquary.senseglassadwtheme ROM Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.koushikdutta.rommanager Roboform Bookmarklet Installer: http://market.android.com/details?id=roboformBookmarkletInstaller.android.com RealCalc: http://market.android.com/details?id=uk.co.nickfines.RealCalc Package Buddy: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.psyrus.packagebuddy Overstock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.overstock OMGPOP Toggle: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.toggle.omgpop OI File Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.openintents.filemanager nook: http://market.android.com/details?id=bn.ereader MyAtlas-Google Maps Navigation ext: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adaptdroid.navbookfree3 MSN Droid: http://market.android.com/details?id=msn.droid.im Matrix Live Wallpaper: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.jarodyv.livewallpaper.matrix LogMeIn: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.logmein.ignitionpro.android Liveshare: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.cooliris.app.liveshare Kobo: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.kobobooks.android Instant Heart Rate: http://market.android.com/details?id=si.modula.android.instantheartrate IMDb: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.imdb.mobile Home Plus Weather: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.skin.weather.homeplus Handcent SMS: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.handcent.nextsms H7C Clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.clock.skin.h7c GTasks: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.dayup.gtask GPS Status: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.eclipsim.gpsstatus2 Google Voice: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.googlevoice Google Sky Map: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.stardroid Google Reader: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.reader GoMarks: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androappsdev.gomarks Goggles: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.unveil Glossy Black Weather: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather.skin.glossyblack Fox News: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.foxnews.android Foursquare: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.joelapenna.foursquared FBReader: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.geometerplus.zlibrary.ui.android Fandango: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.fandango Facebook: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.facebook.katana Extensive Notes Pro: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.flufflydelusions.app.extensive_notes_donate Expense Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.expensemanager Espresso UI (LightShow w/ Slide): http://market.android.com/details?id=com.jaguirre.slide.lightshow Engadget: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.aol.mobile.engadget Earth: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.earth Drudge: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.iavian.dreport Dropbox: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dropbox.android DroidForums: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.quoord.tapatalkdrodiforums.activity DroidArmor ADW: http://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.addesigns.droidarmorADW Droid Weather Icons: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather.skins.white Droid 2 Bootstrapper: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.koushikdutta.droid2.bootstrap doubleTwist: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.doubleTwist.androidPlayer Documents To Go: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dataviz.docstogo Digital Clock Widget: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.maize.digitalClock Desk Home: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.cowbellsoftware.deskdock Default Clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.clock.skins.defaultclock Daily Expense Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.techahead.ExpenseManager ConnectBot: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.connectbot Colorized Weather Icons: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather.colorized Chrome to Phone: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.chrometophone CardStar: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.cardstar.android Books: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.books Black Ipad Toggle: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.toggle.widget.skin.blackipad Black Glass ADW Theme: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dtanquary.blackglassadwtheme Bing: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.microsoft.mobileexperiences.bing BeyondPod Unlock Key: http://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.beyondpod.unlockkey BeyondPod: http://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.beyondpod BeejiveIM: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.beejive.im Beautiful Widgets Animations Addon: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.bw.forecast Beautiful Widgets: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.beautifulwidgets Beautiful Live Weather: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.beautifullive BBC News: http://market.android.com/details?id=net.jimblackler.newswidget Barnacle Wifi Tether: http://market.android.com/details?id=net.szym.barnacle Barcode Scanner: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.zxing.client.android ASTRO SMB Module: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro.smb ASTRO Pro: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro.pro ASTRO Bluetooth Module: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro.network.bluetooth ASTRO: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro AppBrain App Market: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.appspot.swisscodemonkeys.apps App Drawer Icon Pack: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adwtheme.appdrawericonpack androidVNC: http://market.android.com/details?id=android.androidVNC AndroidGuys: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.handmark.mpp.AndroidGuys Android System Info: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.electricsheep.asi AndFTP: http://market.android.com/details?id=lysesoft.andftp ADWTheme Red: http://market.android.com/details?id=adw.theme.red ADWLauncher EX: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.adwfreak.launcher ADW.Theme.One: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.adw.theme.one ADW.Faded theme: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.xrcore.adwtheme.faded ADW Gingerbread: http://market.android.com/details?id=me.robertburns.android.adwtheme.gingerbread Advanced Task Killer Free: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.rechild.advancedtaskkiller Adobe Reader: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.reader Adobe Flash Player 10.1: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.flashplayer Adobe AIR: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.air 3G Auto OnOff: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.yuantuo --- Generated by ShareMyApps http://market.android.com/details?id=com.mattlary.shareMyApps Sent from my Droid

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• MvcExtensions – Bootstrapping

  - by kazimanzurrashid

  When you create a new ASP.NET MVC application you will find that the global.asax contains the following lines: namespace MvcApplication1 { // Note: For instructions on enabling IIS6 or IIS7 classic mode, // visit http://go.microsoft.com/?LinkId=9394801 public class MvcApplication : System.Web.HttpApplication { public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) { routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}"); routes.MapRoute( "Default", // Route name "{controller}/{action}/{id}", // URL with parameters new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional } // Parameter defaults ); } protected void Application_Start() { AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas(); RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes); } } } As the application grows, there are quite a lot of plumbing code gets into the global.asax which quickly becomes a design smell. Lets take a quick look at the code of one of the open source project that I recently visited: public static void RegisterRoutes(RouteCollection routes) { routes.IgnoreRoute("{resource}.axd/{*pathInfo}"); routes.MapRoute("Default","{controller}/{action}/{id}", new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = "" }); } protected override void OnApplicationStarted() { Error += OnError; EndRequest += OnEndRequest; var settings = new SparkSettings() .AddNamespace("System") .AddNamespace("System.Collections.Generic") .AddNamespace("System.Web.Mvc") .AddNamespace("System.Web.Mvc.Html") .AddNamespace("MvcContrib.FluentHtml") .AddNamespace("********") .AddNamespace("********.Web") .SetPageBaseType("ApplicationViewPage") .SetAutomaticEncoding(true); #if DEBUG settings.SetDebug(true); #endif var viewFactory = new SparkViewFactory(settings); ViewEngines.Engines.Add(viewFactory); #if !DEBUG PrecompileViews(viewFactory); #endif RegisterAllControllersIn("********.Web"); log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure(); RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes); Factory.Load(new Components.WebDependencies()); ModelBinders.Binders.DefaultBinder = new Binders.GenericBinderResolver(Factory.TryGet<IModelBinder>); ValidatorConfiguration.Initialize("********"); HtmlValidationExtensions.Initialize(ValidatorConfiguration.Rules); } private void OnEndRequest(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { if (((HttpApplication)sender).Context.Handler is MvcHandler) { CreateKernel().Get<ISessionSource>().Close(); } } private void OnError(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { CreateKernel().Get<ISessionSource>().Close(); } protected override IKernel CreateKernel() { return Factory.Kernel; } private static void PrecompileViews(SparkViewFactory viewFactory) { var batch = new SparkBatchDescriptor(); batch.For<HomeController>().For<ManageController>(); viewFactory.Precompile(batch); } As you can see there are quite a few of things going on in the above code, Registering the ViewEngine, Compiling the Views, Registering the Routes/Controllers/Model Binders, Settings up Logger, Validations and as you can imagine the more it becomes complex the more things will get added in the application start. One of the goal of the MVCExtensions is to reduce the above design smell. Instead of writing all the plumbing code in the application start, it contains BootstrapperTask to register individual services. Out of the box, it contains BootstrapperTask to register Controllers, Controller Factory, Action Invoker, Action Filters, Model Binders, Model Metadata/Validation Providers, ValueProvideraFactory, ViewEngines etc and it is intelligent enough to automatically detect the above types and register into the ASP.NET MVC Framework. Other than the built-in tasks you can create your own custom task which will be automatically executed when the application starts. When the BootstrapperTasks are in action you will find the global.asax pretty much clean like the following: public class MvcApplication : UnityMvcApplication { public void ErrorLog_Filtering(object sender, ExceptionFilterEventArgs e) { Check.Argument.IsNotNull(e, "e"); HttpException exception = e.Exception.GetBaseException() as HttpException; if ((exception != null) && (exception.GetHttpCode() == (int)HttpStatusCode.NotFound)) { e.Dismiss(); } } } The above code is taken from my another open source project Shrinkr, as you can see the global.asax is longer cluttered with any plumbing code. One special thing you have noticed that it is inherited from the UnityMvcApplication rather than regular HttpApplication. There are separate version of this class for each IoC Container like NinjectMvcApplication, StructureMapMvcApplication etc. Other than executing the built-in tasks, the Shrinkr also has few custom tasks which gets executed when the application starts. For example, when the application starts, we want to ensure that the default users (which is specified in the web.config) are created. The following is the custom task that is used to create those default users: public class CreateDefaultUsers : BootstrapperTask { protected override TaskContinuation ExecuteCore(IServiceLocator serviceLocator) { IUserRepository userRepository = serviceLocator.GetInstance<IUserRepository>(); IUnitOfWork unitOfWork = serviceLocator.GetInstance<IUnitOfWork>(); IEnumerable<User> users = serviceLocator.GetInstance<Settings>().DefaultUsers; bool shouldCommit = false; foreach (User user in users) { if (userRepository.GetByName(user.Name) == null) { user.AllowApiAccess(ApiSetting.InfiniteLimit); userRepository.Add(user); shouldCommit = true; } } if (shouldCommit) { unitOfWork.Commit(); } return TaskContinuation.Continue; } } There are several other Tasks in the Shrinkr that we are also using which you will find in that project. To create a custom bootstrapping task you have create a new class which either implements the IBootstrapperTask interface or inherits from the abstract BootstrapperTask class, I would recommend to start with the BootstrapperTask as it already has the required code that you have to write in case if you choose the IBootstrapperTask interface. As you can see in the above code we are overriding the ExecuteCore to create the default users, the MVCExtensions is responsible for populating the  ServiceLocator prior calling this method and in this method we are using the service locator to get the dependencies that are required to create the users (I will cover the custom dependencies registration in the next post). Once the users are created, we are returning a special enum, TaskContinuation as the return value, the TaskContinuation can have three values Continue (default), Skip and Break. The reason behind of having this enum is, in some  special cases you might want to skip the next task in the chain or break the complete chain depending upon the currently running task, in those cases you will use the other two values instead of the Continue. The last thing I want to cover in the bootstrapping task is the Order. By default all the built-in tasks as well as newly created task order is set to the DefaultOrder(a static property), in some special cases you might want to execute it before/after all the other tasks, in those cases you will assign the Order in the Task constructor. For Example, in Shrinkr, we want to run few background services when the all the tasks are executed, so we assigned the order as DefaultOrder + 1. Here is the code of that Task: public class ConfigureBackgroundServices : BootstrapperTask { private IEnumerable<IBackgroundService> backgroundServices; public ConfigureBackgroundServices() { Order = DefaultOrder + 1; } protected override TaskContinuation ExecuteCore(IServiceLocator serviceLocator) { backgroundServices = serviceLocator.GetAllInstances<IBackgroundService>().ToList(); backgroundServices.Each(service => service.Start()); return TaskContinuation.Continue; } protected override void DisposeCore() { backgroundServices.Each(service => service.Stop()); } } That’s it for today, in the next post I will cover the custom service registration, so stay tuned.

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• A Taxonomy of Numerical Methods v1

  - by JoshReuben

  Numerical Analysis – When, What, (but not how) Once you understand the Math & know C++, Numerical Methods are basically blocks of iterative & conditional math code. I found the real trick was seeing the forest for the trees – knowing which method to use for which situation. Its pretty easy to get lost in the details – so I’ve tried to organize these methods in a way that I can quickly look this up. I’ve included links to detailed explanations and to C++ code examples. I’ve tried to classify Numerical methods in the following broad categories: Solving Systems of Linear Equations Solving Non-Linear Equations Iteratively Interpolation Curve Fitting Optimization Numerical Differentiation & Integration Solving ODEs Boundary Problems Solving EigenValue problems Enjoy – I did ! Solving Systems of Linear Equations Overview Solve sets of algebraic equations with x unknowns The set is commonly in matrix form Gauss-Jordan Elimination http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauss%E2%80%93Jordan_elimination C++: http://www.codekeep.net/snippets/623f1923-e03c-4636-8c92-c9dc7aa0d3c0.aspx Produces solution of the equations & the coefficient matrix Efficient, stable 2 steps: · Forward Elimination – matrix decomposition: reduce set to triangular form (0s below the diagonal) or row echelon form. If degenerate, then there is no solution · Backward Elimination –write the original matrix as the product of ints inverse matrix & its reduced row-echelon matrix à reduce set to row canonical form & use back-substitution to find the solution to the set Elementary ops for matrix decomposition: · Row multiplication · Row switching · Add multiples of rows to other rows Use pivoting to ensure rows are ordered for achieving triangular form LU Decomposition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LU_decomposition C++: http://ganeshtiwaridotcomdotnp.blogspot.co.il/2009/12/c-c-code-lu-decomposition-for-solving.html Represent the matrix as a product of lower & upper triangular matrices A modified version of GJ Elimination Advantage – can easily apply forward & backward elimination to solve triangular matrices Techniques: · Doolittle Method – sets the L matrix diagonal to unity · Crout Method - sets the U matrix diagonal to unity Note: both the L & U matrices share the same unity diagonal & can be stored compactly in the same matrix Gauss-Seidel Iteration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauss%E2%80%93Seidel_method C++: http://www.nr.com/forum/showthread.php?t=722 Transform the linear set of equations into a single equation & then use numerical integration (as integration formulas have Sums, it is implemented iteratively). an optimization of Gauss-Jacobi: 1.5 times faster, requires 0.25 iterations to achieve the same tolerance Solving Non-Linear Equations Iteratively find roots of polynomials – there may be 0, 1 or n solutions for an n order polynomial use iterative techniques Iterative methods · used when there are no known analytical techniques · Requires set functions to be continuous & differentiable · Requires an initial seed value – choice is critical to convergence à conduct multiple runs with different starting points & then select best result · Systematic - iterate until diminishing returns, tolerance or max iteration conditions are met · bracketing techniques will always yield convergent solutions, non-bracketing methods may fail to converge Incremental method if a nonlinear function has opposite signs at 2 ends of a small interval x1 & x2, then there is likely to be a solution in their interval – solutions are detected by evaluating a function over interval steps, for a change in sign, adjusting the step size dynamically. Limitations – can miss closely spaced solutions in large intervals, cannot detect degenerate (coinciding) solutions, limited to functions that cross the x-axis, gives false positives for singularities Fixed point method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-point_iteration C++: http://books.google.co.il/books?id=weYj75E_t6MC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=fixed+point+method++c%2B%2B&source=bl&ots=LQ-5P_taoC&sig=lENUUIYBK53tZtTwNfHLy5PEWDk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wezDUPW1J5DptQaMsIHQCw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=fixed%20point%20method%20%20c%2B%2B&f=false Algebraically rearrange a solution to isolate a variable then apply incremental method Bisection method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisection_method C++: http://numericalcomputing.wordpress.com/category/algorithms/ Bracketed - Select an initial interval, keep bisecting it ad midpoint into sub-intervals and then apply incremental method on smaller & smaller intervals – zoom in Adv: unaffected by function gradient à reliable Disadv: slow convergence False Position Method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_position_method C++: http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/126100-bisection-and-false-position-methods/ Bracketed - Select an initial interval , & use the relative value of function at interval end points to select next sub-intervals (estimate how far between the end points the solution might be & subdivide based on this) Newton-Raphson method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_method C++: http://www-users.cselabs.umn.edu/classes/Summer-2012/csci1113/index.php?page=./newt3 Also known as Newton's method Convenient, efficient Not bracketed – only a single initial guess is required to start iteration – requires an analytical expression for the first derivative of the function as input. Evaluates the function & its derivative at each step. Can be extended to the Newton MutiRoot method for solving multiple roots Can be easily applied to an of n-coupled set of non-linear equations – conduct a Taylor Series expansion of a function, dropping terms of order n, rewrite as a Jacobian matrix of PDs & convert to simultaneous linear equations !!! Secant Method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secant_method C++: http://forum.vcoderz.com/showthread.php?p=205230 Unlike N-R, can estimate first derivative from an initial interval (does not require root to be bracketed) instead of inputting it Since derivative is approximated, may converge slower. Is fast in practice as it does not have to evaluate the derivative at each step. Similar implementation to False Positive method Birge-Vieta Method http://mat.iitm.ac.in/home/sryedida/public_html/caimna/transcendental/polynomial%20methods/bv%20method.html C++: http://books.google.co.il/books?id=cL1boM2uyQwC&pg=SA3-PA51&lpg=SA3-PA51&dq=Birge-Vieta+Method+c%2B%2B&source=bl&ots=QZmnDTK3rC&sig=BPNcHHbpR_DKVoZXrLi4nVXD-gg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=R-_DUK2iNIjzsgbE5ID4Dg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Birge-Vieta%20Method%20c%2B%2B&f=false combines Horner's method of polynomial evaluation (transforming into lesser degree polynomials that are more computationally efficient to process) with Newton-Raphson to provide a computational speed-up Interpolation Overview Construct new data points for as close as possible fit within range of a discrete set of known points (that were obtained via sampling, experimentation) Use Taylor Series Expansion of a function f(x) around a specific value for x Linear Interpolation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_interpolation C++: http://www.hamaluik.com/?p=289 Straight line between 2 points à concatenate interpolants between each pair of data points Bilinear Interpolation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilinear_interpolation C++: http://supercomputingblog.com/graphics/coding-bilinear-interpolation/2/ Extension of the linear function for interpolating functions of 2 variables – perform linear interpolation first in 1 direction, then in another. Used in image processing – e.g. texture mapping filter. Uses 4 vertices to interpolate a value within a unit cell. Lagrange Interpolation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_polynomial C++: http://www.codecogs.com/code/maths/approximation/interpolation/lagrange.php For polynomials Requires recomputation for all terms for each distinct x value – can only be applied for small number of nodes Numerically unstable Barycentric Interpolation http://epubs.siam.org/doi/pdf/10.1137/S0036144502417715 C++: http://www.gamedev.net/topic/621445-barycentric-coordinates-c-code-check/ Rearrange the terms in the equation of the Legrange interpolation by defining weight functions that are independent of the interpolated value of x Newton Divided Difference Interpolation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_polynomial C++: http://jee-appy.blogspot.co.il/2011/12/newton-divided-difference-interpolation.html Hermite Divided Differences: Interpolation polynomial approximation for a given set of data points in the NR form - divided differences are used to approximately calculate the various differences. For a given set of 3 data points , fit a quadratic interpolant through the data Bracketed functions allow Newton divided differences to be calculated recursively Difference table Cubic Spline Interpolation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spline_interpolation C++: https://www.marcusbannerman.co.uk/index.php/home/latestarticles/42-articles/96-cubic-spline-class.html Spline is a piecewise polynomial Provides smoothness – for interpolations with significantly varying data Use weighted coefficients to bend the function to be smooth & its 1st & 2nd derivatives are continuous through the edge points in the interval Curve Fitting A generalization of interpolating whereby given data points may contain noise à the curve does not necessarily pass through all the points Least Squares Fit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_squares C++: http://www.ccas.ru/mmes/educat/lab04k/02/least-squares.c Residual – difference between observed value & expected value Model function is often chosen as a linear combination of the specified functions Determines: A) The model instance in which the sum of squared residuals has the least value B) param values for which model best fits data Straight Line Fit Linear correlation between independent variable and dependent variable Linear Regression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_regression C++: http://www.oocities.org/david_swaim/cpp/linregc.htm Special case of statistically exact extrapolation Leverage least squares Given a basis function, the sum of the residuals is determined and the corresponding gradient equation is expressed as a set of normal linear equations in matrix form that can be solved (e.g. using LU Decomposition) Can be weighted - Drop the assumption that all errors have the same significance –-> confidence of accuracy is different for each data point. Fit the function closer to points with higher weights Polynomial Fit - use a polynomial basis function Moving Average http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_average C++: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/17860/A-Simple-Moving-Average-Algorithm Used for smoothing (cancel fluctuations to highlight longer-term trends & cycles), time series data analysis, signal processing filters Replace each data point with average of neighbors. Can be simple (SMA), weighted (WMA), exponential (EMA). Lags behind latest data points – extra weight can be given to more recent data points. Weights can decrease arithmetically or exponentially according to distance from point. Parameters: smoothing factor, period, weight basis Optimization Overview Given function with multiple variables, find Min (or max by minimizing –f(x)) Iterative approach Efficient, but not necessarily reliable Conditions: noisy data, constraints, non-linear models Detection via sign of first derivative - Derivative of saddle points will be 0 Local minima Bisection method Similar method for finding a root for a non-linear equation Start with an interval that contains a minimum Golden Search method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_section_search C++: http://www.codecogs.com/code/maths/optimization/golden.php Bisect intervals according to golden ratio 0.618.. Achieves reduction by evaluating a single function instead of 2 Newton-Raphson Method Brent method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent's_method C++: http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/cpp_src/brent/brent.cpp Based on quadratic or parabolic interpolation – if the function is smooth & parabolic near to the minimum, then a parabola fitted through any 3 points should approximate the minima – fails when the 3 points are collinear , in which case the denominator is 0 Simplex Method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplex_algorithm C++: http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/article.php/c17505/Simplex-Optimization-Algorithm-and-Implemetation-in-C-Programming.htm Find the global minima of any multi-variable function Direct search – no derivatives required At each step it maintains a non-degenerative simplex – a convex hull of n+1 vertices. Obtains the minimum for a function with n variables by evaluating the function at n-1 points, iteratively replacing the point of worst result with the point of best result, shrinking the multidimensional simplex around the best point. Point replacement involves expanding & contracting the simplex near the worst value point to determine a better replacement point Oscillation can be avoided by choosing the 2nd worst result Restart if it gets stuck Parameters: contraction & expansion factors Simulated Annealing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing C++: http://code.google.com/p/cppsimulatedannealing/ Analogy to heating & cooling metal to strengthen its structure Stochastic method – apply random permutation search for global minima - Avoid entrapment in local minima via hill climbing Heating schedule - Annealing schedule params: temperature, iterations at each temp, temperature delta Cooling schedule – can be linear, step-wise or exponential Differential Evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_evolution C++: http://www.amichel.com/de/doc/html/ More advanced stochastic methods analogous to biological processes: Genetic algorithms, evolution strategies Parallel direct search method against multiple discrete or continuous variables Initial population of variable vectors chosen randomly – if weighted difference vector of 2 vectors yields a lower objective function value then it replaces the comparison vector Many params: #parents, #variables, step size, crossover constant etc Convergence is slow – many more function evaluations than simulated annealing Numerical Differentiation Overview 2 approaches to finite difference methods: · A) approximate function via polynomial interpolation then differentiate · B) Taylor series approximation – additionally provides error estimate Finite Difference methods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_difference_method C++: http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/ETD/Available/etd-051807-164436/unrestricted/EAMPADU.pdf Find differences between high order derivative values - Approximate differential equations by finite differences at evenly spaced data points Based on forward & backward Taylor series expansion of f(x) about x plus or minus multiples of delta h. Forward / backward difference - the sums of the series contains even derivatives and the difference of the series contains odd derivatives – coupled equations that can be solved. Provide an approximation of the derivative within a O(h^2) accuracy There is also central difference & extended central difference which has a O(h^4) accuracy Richardson Extrapolation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_extrapolation C++: http://mathscoding.blogspot.co.il/2012/02/introduction-richardson-extrapolation.html A sequence acceleration method applied to finite differences Fast convergence, high accuracy O(h^4) Derivatives via Interpolation Cannot apply Finite Difference method to discrete data points at uneven intervals – so need to approximate the derivative of f(x) using the derivative of the interpolant via 3 point Lagrange Interpolation Note: the higher the order of the derivative, the lower the approximation precision Numerical Integration Estimate finite & infinite integrals of functions More accurate procedure than numerical differentiation Use when it is not possible to obtain an integral of a function analytically or when the function is not given, only the data points are Newton Cotes Methods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%E2%80%93Cotes_formulas C++: http://www.siafoo.net/snippet/324 For equally spaced data points Computationally easy – based on local interpolation of n rectangular strip areas that is piecewise fitted to a polynomial to get the sum total area Evaluate the integrand at n+1 evenly spaced points – approximate definite integral by Sum Weights are derived from Lagrange Basis polynomials Leverage Trapezoidal Rule for default 2nd formulas, Simpson 1/3 Rule for substituting 3 point formulas, Simpson 3/8 Rule for 4 point formulas. For 4 point formulas use Bodes Rule. Higher orders obtain more accurate results Trapezoidal Rule uses simple area, Simpsons Rule replaces the integrand f(x) with a quadratic polynomial p(x) that uses the same values as f(x) for its end points, but adds a midpoint Romberg Integration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romberg's_method C++: http://code.google.com/p/romberg-integration/downloads/detail?name=romberg.cpp&can=2&q= Combines trapezoidal rule with Richardson Extrapolation Evaluates the integrand at equally spaced points The integrand must have continuous derivatives Each R(n,m) extrapolation uses a higher order integrand polynomial replacement rule (zeroth starts with trapezoidal) à a lower triangular matrix set of equation coefficients where the bottom right term has the most accurate approximation. The process continues until the difference between 2 successive diagonal terms becomes sufficiently small. Gaussian Quadrature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_quadrature C++: http://www.alglib.net/integration/gaussianquadratures.php Data points are chosen to yield best possible accuracy – requires fewer evaluations Ability to handle singularities, functions that are difficult to evaluate The integrand can include a weighting function determined by a set of orthogonal polynomials. Points & weights are selected so that the integrand yields the exact integral if f(x) is a polynomial of degree <= 2n+1 Techniques (basically different weighting functions): · Gauss-Legendre Integration w(x)=1 · Gauss-Laguerre Integration w(x)=e^-x · Gauss-Hermite Integration w(x)=e^-x^2 · Gauss-Chebyshev Integration w(x)= 1 / Sqrt(1-x^2) Solving ODEs Use when high order differential equations cannot be solved analytically Evaluated under boundary conditions RK for systems – a high order differential equation can always be transformed into a coupled first order system of equations Euler method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_method C++: http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Euler_method First order Runge–Kutta method. Simple recursive method – given an initial value, calculate derivative deltas. Unstable & not very accurate (O(h) error) – not used in practice A first-order method - the local error (truncation error per step) is proportional to the square of the step size, and the global error (error at a given time) is proportional to the step size In evolving solution between data points xn & xn+1, only evaluates derivatives at beginning of interval xn à asymmetric at boundaries Higher order Runge Kutta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runge%E2%80%93Kutta_methods C++: http://www.dreamincode.net/code/snippet1441.htm 2nd & 4th order RK - Introduces parameterized midpoints for more symmetric solutions à accuracy at higher computational cost Adaptive RK – RK-Fehlberg – estimate the truncation at each integration step & automatically adjust the step size to keep error within prescribed limits. At each step 2 approximations are compared – if in disagreement to a specific accuracy, the step size is reduced Boundary Value Problems Where solution of differential equations are located at 2 different values of the independent variable x à more difficult, because cannot just start at point of initial value – there may not be enough starting conditions available at the end points to produce a unique solution An n-order equation will require n boundary conditions – need to determine the missing n-1 conditions which cause the given conditions at the other boundary to be satisfied Shooting Method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_method C++: http://ganeshtiwaridotcomdotnp.blogspot.co.il/2009/12/c-c-code-shooting-method-for-solving.html Iteratively guess the missing values for one end & integrate, then inspect the discrepancy with the boundary values of the other end to adjust the estimate Given the starting boundary values u1 & u2 which contain the root u, solve u given the false position method (solving the differential equation as an initial value problem via 4th order RK), then use u to solve the differential equations. Finite Difference Method For linear & non-linear systems Higher order derivatives require more computational steps – some combinations for boundary conditions may not work though Improve the accuracy by increasing the number of mesh points Solving EigenValue Problems An eigenvalue can substitute a matrix when doing matrix multiplication à convert matrix multiplication into a polynomial EigenValue For a given set of equations in matrix form, determine what are the solution eigenvalue & eigenvectors Similar Matrices - have same eigenvalues. Use orthogonal similarity transforms to reduce a matrix to diagonal form from which eigenvalue(s) & eigenvectors can be computed iteratively Jacobi method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobi_method C++: http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/classes/acs2_2008/openmp/jacobi/jacobi.html Robust but Computationally intense – use for small matrices < 10x10 Power Iteration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_iteration For any given real symmetric matrix, generate the largest single eigenvalue & its eigenvectors Simplest method – does not compute matrix decomposition à suitable for large, sparse matrices Inverse Iteration Variation of power iteration method – generates the smallest eigenvalue from the inverse matrix Rayleigh Method http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh's_method_of_dimensional_analysis Variation of power iteration method Rayleigh Quotient Method Variation of inverse iteration method Matrix Tri-diagonalization Method Use householder algorithm to reduce an NxN symmetric matrix to a tridiagonal real symmetric matrix vua N-2 orthogonal transforms     Whats Next Outside of Numerical Methods there are lots of different types of algorithms that I’ve learned over the decades: Data Mining – (I covered this briefly in a previous post: http://geekswithblogs.net/JoshReuben/archive/2007/12/31/ssas-dm-algorithms.aspx ) Search & Sort Routing Problem Solving Logical Theorem Proving Planning Probabilistic Reasoning Machine Learning Solvers (eg MIP) Bioinformatics (Sequence Alignment, Protein Folding) Quant Finance (I read Wilmott’s books – interesting) Sooner or later, I’ll cover the above topics as well.

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• Recover Deleted Files on an NTFS Hard Drive from a Ubuntu Live CD

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  Accidentally deleting a file is a terrible feeling. Not being able to boot into Windows and undelete that file makes that even worse. Fortunately, you can recover deleted files on NTFS hard drives from an Ubuntu Live CD. To show this process, we created four files on the desktop of a Windows XP machine, and then deleted them. We then booted up the same machine with the bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash Drive that we created last week. Once Ubuntu 9.10 boots up, open a terminal by clicking Applications in the top left of the screen, and then selecting Accessories > Terminal. To undelete our files, we first need to identify the hard drive that we want to undelete from. In the terminal window, type in: sudo fdisk –l and press enter. What you’re looking for is a line that ends with HPSF/NTFS (under the heading System). In our case, the device is “/dev/sda1”. This may be slightly different for you, but it will still begin with /dev/. Note this device name. If you have more than one hard drive partition formatted as NTFS, then you may be able to identify the correct partition by the size. If you look at the second line of text in the screenshot above, it reads “Disk /dev/sda: 136.4 GB, …” This means that the hard drive that Ubuntu has named /dev/sda is 136.4 GB large. If your hard drives are of different size, then this information can help you track down the right device name to use. Alternatively, you can just try them all, though this can be time consuming for large hard drives. Now that you know the name Ubuntu has assigned to your hard drive, we’ll scan it to see what files we can uncover. In the terminal window, type: sudo ntfsundelete <HD name> and hit enter. In our case, the command is: sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 The names of files that can recovered show up in the far right column. The percentage in the third column tells us how much of that file can be recovered. Three of the four files that we originally deleted are showing up in this list, even though we shut down the computer right after deleting the four files – so even in ideal cases, your files may not be recoverable. Nevertheless, we have three files that we can recover – two JPGs and an MPG. Note: ntfsundelete is immediately available in the Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD. If you are in a different version of Ubuntu, or for some other reason get an error when trying to use ntfsundelete, you can install it by entering “sudo apt-get install ntfsprogs” in a terminal window. To quickly recover the two JPGs, we will use the * wildcard to recover all of the files that end with .jpg. In the terminal window, enter sudo ntfsundelete <HD name> –u –m *.jpg which is, in our case, sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 –u –m *.jpg The two files are recovered from the NTFS hard drive and saved in the current working directory of the terminal. By default, this is the home directory of the current user, though we are working in the Desktop folder. Note that the ntfsundelete program does not make any changes to the original NTFS hard drive. If you want to take those files and put them back in the NTFS hard drive, you will have to move them there after they are undeleted with ntfsundelete. Of course, you can also put them on your flash drive or open Firefox and email them to yourself – the sky’s the limit! We have one more file to undelete – our MPG. Note the first column on the far left. It contains a number, its Inode. Think of this as the file’s unique identifier. Note this number. To undelete a file by its Inode, enter the following in the terminal: sudo ntfsundelete <HD name> –u –i <Inode> In our case, this is: sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 –u –i 14159 This recovers the file, along with an identifier that we don’t really care about. All three of our recoverable files are now recovered. However, Ubuntu lets us know visually that we can’t use these files yet. That’s because the ntfsundelete program saves the files as the “root” user, not the “ubuntu” user. We can verify this by typing the following in our terminal window: ls –l We want these three files to be owned by ubuntu, not root. To do this, enter the following in the terminal window: sudo chown ubuntu <Files> If the current folder has other files in it, you may not want to change their owner to ubuntu. However, in our case, we only have these three files in this folder, so we will use the * wildcard to change the owner of all three files. sudo chown ubuntu * The files now look normal, and we can do whatever we want with them. Hopefully you won’t need to use this tip, but if you do, ntfsundelete is a nice command-line utility. It doesn’t have a fancy GUI like many of the similar Windows programs, but it is a powerful tool that can recover your files quickly. See ntfsundelete’s manual page for more detailed usage information Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Reset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CDUse Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows ComputerCreate a Bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash DriveCreate a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy WayGuide to Using Check Disk in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7? Change DNS servers on the fly with DNS Jumper

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• Randomly displayed flashing lines, no response to all shortcuts, just power off. [syslog included]

  - by B. Roland

  Hello! I have an old machine, and I want to use for that to learn employees how to use Ubuntu, and to be easyer to switch from Windows. I've been installed 10.04, and updated, but this strange stuff is happend. Graphical installion failed, same strange thing. With alternate workd. Sometimes, when I boot up, a boot message displayed: Keyboard failure..., often diplayed after reboot, and after shutdown, when I haven't plugged off from AC. I replaced the keyboard yet, same failure... If I powered off, and plugged off from AC, no keyboard problems displayed in boot time. Details Configuration: Dell OptiPlex GX60 - in original cover, no changes. 256 MB DDR 166 MHz Intel® Celeron® Processor 2.40 GHz Dell 0C3207 Base Board I know, that is not enough, but I have three other Nec compuers, with nearly similar config, and they works well with 9.10, 10.04, 10.10. Live CDs I've been tried with 10.04 and 10.10, but the problem is displayed too. With 9.10 no strange things displayed, but it froze, during a simple apt-get install. Syslog An error loop is logged here, but I paste the whole startup and error lines. The flashing lines are displayed sometimes immediately after login, but sometimes after 10 minutes, but once occured, that nothing happend. Strange thing is displayed immediately after login: here. An other boot, after some minutes, strange lines, and loop in log appeard: here. The loop should be that: Jan 23 00:20:08 machine_name kernel: [ 46.782212] [drm:i915_gem_entervt_ioctl] *ERROR* Reenabling wedged hardware, good luck Jan 23 00:20:08 machine_name kernel: [ 47.100033] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed... GPU hung Jan 23 00:20:08 machine_name kernel: [ 47.100045] render error detected, EIR: 0x00000000 Jan 23 00:20:08 machine_name kernel: [ 47.101487] [drm:i915_do_wait_request] *ERROR* i915_do_wait_request returns -5 (awaiting 16 at 9) Jan 23 00:20:11 machine_name kernel: [ 49.152020] [drm:i915_gem_idle] *ERROR* hardware wedged Jan 23 00:20:11 machine_name gdm-simple-slave[1245]: WARNING: Unable to load file '/etc/gdm/custom.conf': No such file or directory Jan 23 00:20:11 machine_name acpid: client 1239[0:0] has disconnected Jan 23 00:20:11 machine_name acpid: client connected from 1247[0:0] Jan 23 00:20:11 machine_name acpid: 1 client rule loaded UPDATE Added syslog things: before errors, error loop, the complete shutdown(after the big updates): Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully called chroot. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully dropped privileges. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully limited resources. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Running. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Watchdog thread running. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Canary thread running. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully made thread 1337 of process 1337 (n/a) owned by '1001' high priority at nice level -11. Jan 28 20:40:30 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Supervising 1 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jan 28 20:40:32 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully made thread 1345 of process 1337 (n/a) owned by '1001' RT at priority 5. Jan 28 20:40:32 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Supervising 2 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jan 28 20:40:32 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Sucessfully made thread 1349 of process 1337 (n/a) owned by '1001' RT at priority 5. Jan 28 20:40:32 machine_name rtkit-daemon[1339]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users. Jan 28 20:40:37 machine_name pulseaudio[1337]: ratelimit.c: 2 events suppressed Jan 28 20:41:33 machine_name AptDaemon: INFO: Initializing daemon Jan 28 20:41:44 machine_name kernel: [ 167.691563] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions Jan 28 20:47:33 machine_name AptDaemon: INFO: Quiting due to inactivity Jan 28 20:47:33 machine_name AptDaemon: INFO: Shutdown was requested Jan 28 20:59:50 machine_name kernel: [ 1253.840513] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions Jan 28 21:17:02 machine_name CRON[1874]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) Jan 28 21:17:38 machine_name kernel: [ 2321.553239] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions Jan 28 22:07:44 machine_name kernel: [ 5327.840254] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions Jan 28 22:17:02 machine_name CRON[2665]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly) Jan 28 22:32:38 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: Called Jan 28 22:32:38 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: username = [some_user] Jan 28 22:32:38 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: /home/some_user is already mounted Jan 28 22:57:03 machine_name kernel: [ 8286.641472] lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions Jan 28 22:57:24 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: Called Jan 28 22:57:24 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: username = [some_user] Jan 28 22:57:24 machine_name sudo: pam_sm_authenticate: /home/some_user is already mounted Jan 28 23:07:42 machine_name kernel: [ 8925.272030] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed... GPU hung Jan 28 23:07:42 machine_name kernel: [ 8925.272048] render error detected, EIR: 0x00000000 Jan 28 23:07:42 machine_name kernel: [ 8925.272093] [drm:i915_do_wait_request] *ERROR* i915_do_wait_request returns -5 (awaiting 171453 at 171452) Jan 28 23:07:45 machine_name kernel: [ 8928.868041] [drm:i915_gem_idle] *ERROR* hardware wedged Jan 28 23:08:10 machine_name acpid: client 925[0:0] has disconnected Jan 28 23:08:10 machine_name acpid: client connected from 8127[0:0] Jan 28 23:08:10 machine_name acpid: 1 client rule loaded Jan 28 23:08:11 machine_name kernel: [ 8955.046248] [drm:i915_gem_entervt_ioctl] *ERROR* Reenabling wedged hardware, good luck Jan 28 23:08:12 machine_name kernel: [ 8955.364016] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed... GPU hung Jan 28 23:08:12 machine_name kernel: [ 8955.364027] render error detected, EIR: 0x00000000 Jan 28 23:08:12 machine_name kernel: [ 8955.364407] [drm:i915_do_wait_request] *ERROR* i915_do_wait_request returns -5 (awaiting 171457 at 171452) Jan 28 23:08:14 machine_name kernel: [ 8957.472025] [drm:i915_gem_idle] *ERROR* hardware wedged Jan 28 23:08:14 machine_name acpid: client 8127[0:0] has disconnected Jan 28 23:08:14 machine_name acpid: client connected from 8141[0:0] Jan 28 23:08:14 machine_name acpid: 1 client rule loaded Jan 28 23:08:15 machine_name kernel: [ 8958.671722] [drm:i915_gem_entervt_ioctl] *ERROR* Reenabling wedged hardware, good luck Jan 28 23:08:15 machine_name kernel: [ 8958.988015] [drm:i915_hangcheck_elapsed] *ERROR* Hangcheck timer elapsed... GPU hung Jan 28 23:08:15 machine_name kernel: [ 8958.988026] render error detected, EIR: 0x00000000 Jan 28 23:08:15 machine_name kernel: [ 8958.989400] [drm:i915_do_wait_request] *ERROR* i915_do_wait_request returns -5 (awaiting 171459 at 171452) Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty4 main process (848) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty5 main process (856) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name NetworkManager: nm_signal_handler(): Caught signal 15, shutting down normally. Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty2 main process (874) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty3 main process (875) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty6 main process (877) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: cron main process (890) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: tty1 main process (1146) killed by TERM signal Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name avahi-daemon[644]: Got SIGTERM, quitting. Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name avahi-daemon[644]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface eth0.IPv4 with address 10.238.11.134. Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name acpid: exiting Jan 28 23:08:16 machine_name init: avahi-daemon main process (644) terminated with status 255 Jan 28 23:08:17 machine_name kernel: Kernel logging (proc) stopped. Jan 28 23:09:00 machine_name kernel: imklog 4.2.0, log source = /proc/kmsg started. Jan 28 23:09:00 machine_name rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="4.2.0" x-pid="516" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] (re)start Jan 28 23:09:00 machine_name rsyslogd: rsyslogd's groupid changed to 103 Jan 28 23:09:00 machine_name rsyslogd: rsyslogd's userid changed to 101 Jan 28 23:09:00 machine_name rsyslogd-2039: Could no open output file '/dev/xconsole' [try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2039 ] When I hit the On/Off button, the system shuts down normally. May be it a hardware problem, but I don't know... Can you say something useful to solve my problem?

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• Command line mode only -- successful login only brings me back to login screen

  - by seth

  whenever I log in the screen goes black, I see a glimpse of terminal-esque text, and then it brings me back to the log in screen (Ubuntu 12.04). I can enter and log in via the command line. The guest account works find. I think this happened because I edited some Xorg related file trying to make an external monitor work with my laptop. I copy pasted from a forum post so I dont recall the file or what i put in the file. Can't find the forum post again and my bash history wasn't recorded from that session. I tried reinstalling Xorg and ubuntu-desktop, nvidia, resetting any configs I could find... I'm really at a loss of what to do. Here's my /.xsession-errors: /usr/sbin/lightdm-session: 11: /home/seth/.profile: -s: not found Backend : gconf Integration : true Profile : unity Adding plugins Initializing core options...done Initializing composite options...done Initializing opengl options...done Initializing decor options...done Initializing vpswitch options...done Initializing snap options...done Initializing mousepoll options...done Initializing resize options...done Initializing place options...done Initializing move options...done Initializing wall options...done Initializing grid options...done I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/seth/.compiz/session/108fa6ea48f8a973b9133850948930576700000017740033" Initializing session options...done Initializing gnomecompat options...done ** Message: applet now removed from the notification area Initializing animation options...done Initializing fade options...done Initializing unitymtgrabhandles options...done Initializing workarounds options...done Initializing scale options...done compiz (expo) - Warn: failed to bind image to texture Initializing expo options...done Initializing ezoom options...done ** Message: using fallback from indicator to GtkStatusIcon (compiz:1846): GConf-CRITICAL **: gconf_client_add_dir: assertion `gconf_valid_key (dirname, NULL)' failed Initializing unityshell options...done Nautilus-Share-Message: Called "net usershare info" but it failed: 'net usershare' returned error 255: net usershare: cannot open usershare directory /var/lib/samba/usershares. Error No such file or directory Please ask your system administrator to enable user sharing. Setting Update "main_menu_key" Setting Update "run_key" Setting Update "launcher_hide_mode" Setting Update "edge_responsiveness" Setting Update "launcher_capture_mouse" ** Message: moving back from GtkStatusIcon to indicator compiz (decor) - Warn: failed to bind pixmap to texture ** (zeitgeist-datahub:2128): WARNING **: zeitgeist-datahub.vala:227: Unable to get name "org.gnome.zeitgeist.datahub" on the bus! failed to create drawable compiz (core) - Warn: glXCreatePixmap failed compiz (core) - Warn: Couldn't bind background pixmap 0x1e00001 to texture compiz (decor) - Warn: failed to bind pixmap to texture ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. compiz (decor) - Warn: failed to bind pixmap to texture compiz (decor) - Warn: failed to bind pixmap to texture ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. ** Message: No keyring secrets found for Sonic.net_356/802-11-wireless-security; asking user. [2348:2352:12678840568:ERROR:gpu_watchdog_thread.cc(231)] The GPU process hung. Terminating after 10000 ms. [2256:2283:14450711755:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14450726175:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14450746028:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14464521342:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14464541249:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14690775186:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14690795231:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14704543843:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14704566717:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14766138587:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14857232694:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14930901403:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14930965542:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14944566814:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:14944592215:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15170929788:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15170947382:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15184585015:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15184605475:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15366189036:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15410983381:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15411569689:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15431632431:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15431674438:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15457304356:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15656020938:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15656042383:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15674651268:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:15674671786:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:16052544301:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:16057387653:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:16157122849:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:16157123851:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:16157125473:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:16157126544:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 [2256:2283:16157129682:ERROR:ssl_client_socket_nss.cc(1542)] handshake with server mail.google.com:443 failed; NSS error code -5938, net_error -107 If anyone can help me out, I'd be forever grateful

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, March 20, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, March 20, 2010New ProjectsaMaze Mapa Generator: Parte do Projeto aMazeASP.Net RIA Controls: Simple ASP.Net server controls to integrate Flash and Silverlight controls into your web applications. Included controls don't use any JavaScript,...BMap.NET: BMaps.NET is a .NET application written in C#, for access Bing Maps from your computer without web browsers. With it you can access to Bing Maps an...DaliNet: A .NET API for the Tridonic.Atco DALI USB device.Fabrica7: This is the main project of Fabrica 7 Corp.Image Ripper: A Winform application parse & fetch various HD pictures in specific photo galleries.IoCWrap: Provides interfaces which wrap various IoC container implementations so that it is possible to switch to a different provider without changing any ...NetSockets: NetSockets is a .NET class library that provides easy-to-use, multi-threaded, event-based, client and server network communication.Network Backup: Network Backup is a home and small company backup solution for workstations and a backup server. It incorporates a backup service, scheduler, data ...NUnit.Specs: Specification extensions for NUnit.Nutrivida: Sistema para avaliação de especialização.OHTB Snake: OHTB Snake is a multiplayer game. In this incarnation, snakes may eat 3 types of powerups: standard berries, causing them to grow; sawberries, caus...Playground TDrouen: Tjerk's PlaygroundPower Plan Chooser: This is my first endeavor into a C# Windows application with XAML. The program sits in the notification area (task bar) and lets you quickly activa...Search IMDB in C#: In lack of an IMDB API most of us resort to screen scraping utilities to query the Internet Movie Database. This one is written in C# (.NET 2.0 sta...SIGPRO Desktop: FUNCERNSql2008 PerfMonCounter Fix: Small console application to Fix the SQL 2008 Express Edition installation error: Pequena aplicação para Corrigir o seguinte erro de Instalação do...TwiztedTracker: TwiztedTracker designed to make your bug tracking easy.UmbracoXsltLogHelper: I needed a way to easily add log rows from my xslt macros, and added a single-line-extension for that reason. Then I played around with the umbraco...VisualStock: VisualStock is stock data visualization, analysis application build on the Micorsoft Composite Application Library.WHS File Mover: A Windows Home Server Plugin to move files from a local directory ("drop" or "staging" directory to a folder share)XML based Content Deployment in SharePoint: XML based Content Deployment in Sharepoint helps you to easy deploy content into SharePoint, including webs, lists, items, files and folder. You wi...New ReleasesASP.Net RIA Controls: Version 1.0 Beta: The first functionnal version.BMap.NET: BMap.NET 1: This is the 1st version of BMap.NETDigital Media Processing Project 1: Image Processor: Image Processor 1.0: All features implemented. Added: clipping imageFamily Tree Analyzer: Version 1.3.1.0: Version 1.3.1.0 Added a cancel button to marriage and children IGI Searches Opening Results window now automatically shows first record Updated IGI...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire SL and WPF Charts 3.0.5 Released: Hi, This release contains fix for the following bug: * Chart threw exception if ZoomingEnabled property was set to True at real-time. You ca...Homework Helper: Homework Helper v.1.1: Sorry but the latest release didn't seem to be the latest. This should be the right one!Image Ripper: Image Ripper: Image Ripper based on HtmlAgilityPack and GData library.ManPowerEngine: 0.1: UpdatesSound System added. Bitmap Collider in Physics System works now. Improved the performance of HTTP download in images Physics Framework...NIPO Data Processing Component Framework: NIPO 1.0: The first release of NIPO. Includes the NIPO binary dll and documentation. This release does not include a starter application since it is still in...patterns & practices SharePoint Guidance: SPG2010 Drop7: SharePoint Guidance Drop Notes Microsoft patterns and practices ****************************************** ***************************************...Photosynth Point Cloud Exporter: Photosynth Point Cloud Exporter 1.0.2: Photosynth webservice reference updated to work with the new site OBJ file format support added (Note: this format doesn't support vertex colors)Power Plan Chooser: Power Plan Chooser 1.0.0: Power Plan Chooser is a small utility that sits in the notification area (task bar) in Windows 7 and allows the user to quickly activate one of the...Restart Explorer: RestartExplorer Release 1.00.0001: Initial release: Start, stop and restart Windows Explorer with this utility.Search IMDB in C#: Search IMDB 1.0: Source code included with compiled example.SIMD Detector: 3rd Release: Added Intel AES instruction check Added a CSharp Winform NetSIMDDetector application. Changes the red ball and green ball images to red cross a...Sql2008 PerfMonCounter Fix: Sql2008FIx_PerfMonCounter.zip: Small console application to Fix the SQL 2008 Express Edition installation error: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300956 Rule Name PerfMonCounter...UmbracoXsltLogHelper: 0.9 Working Beta: First version. XsltLogHelper09 is the installable package.VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30319.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWCF RIA Services Contrib: RIA Services Contrib RC Release: This version is recompiled against the RC release of WCF RIA Services.XML based Content Deployment in SharePoint: SPContentDeployment 1.0.0.0: The first link contains the resources and a sample project. The second link contains everything included in the first package and an additional fo...Yet Another GPS: YAGPS Alfa.2: Yet another GPS tracker is a very powerful GPS track application for Windows Mobile Speed Guage, Sat Count number, KML for google map file formatZGuideTV.NET: ZGuideTV.NET 0.92: Vendredi 19 mars 2010 (ZGuideTV.NET bêta 9 build 0.92) - English below Corrections : - Gestion de certains contrôles dans l'écran principal. - Div...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMost Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterRawrOData SDK for PHPjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDirectQPHPExcelpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryBlogEngine.NETFarseer Physics EngineNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• Build an Organization Chart In Visio 2010

  - by Mysticgeek

  With trying to manage a business these days, it’s very important to have an Organization Chart to keep everything manageable. Here we’ll show you how to build one in Visio 2010. This Guest Article was written by our friends over at Office 2010 Club. Need for Organization Charts The need of creating Organization Charts are becoming indispensable these days, as companies start focusing on extensive hiring for far reach availability, increase in productivity and targeting diverse markets. Considering this rigorous change, creating an organization chart can help stakeholders in comprehending the ever growing organization structure & hierarchy with an ease. It shows the basic structure of organization along with defining the relationships between employees working in different departments. Opportunely, Microsoft Visio 2010 offers an easy way to create Organization chart. As before now, orthodox ways of listing organization hierarchy have been used for defining the structure of departments along with communication possible including; horizontal and vertical communications. To transform these lists which defines organizational structure, into a detailed chart, Visio 2010 includes an add-in for importing Excel spreadsheet, which comes in handy for pulling out data from spreadsheet to create an organization chart. Importantly, you don’t need to indulge yourself in maze of defining organizational hierarchies and chalking-out structure, as you just need to specify the column & row headers, along with data you need to import and it will automatically create out chart defining; organizational hierarchies with specified credentials of each employee, categorized in their corresponding departments. Creating Organization Charts in Visio 2010 To start off with, we have created an Excel spreadsheet having fields, Name, Supervisor, Designation, Department and Phone. The Name field contains name of all the employees working in different departments, whereas Supervisor field contains name of supervisors or team leads. This field is vital for creating Organization Chart, as it defines the basic structure & hierarchy in chart. Now launch Visio 2010, head over to View tab, under Add-Ons menu, from Business options, click Organization Chart Wizard. This will start Organization Chart Wizard, in the first step, enable Information that’s already stored in a file or database option, and click Next. As we are importing Excel sheet, select the second option for importing Excel spreadsheet. Specify the Excel file path and click Next to continue. In this step, you need to specify the fields which actually defines the structure of an organization. In our case, these are Name & Supervisor fields. After specifying fields, click Next to Proceed further. As organization chart is primarily for showing the hierarchy of departments/employees working in organization along with how they are linked together, and who supervises whom. Considering this, in this step we will leave out Supervisor field, because it’s inclusion wouldn’t be necessary as Visio automatically chalks-out the basic structure defined in Excel sheet. Add the rest of the fields under Displayed fields category, and click Next. Now choose the fields which you want to include in Organization Chart’s shapes and click Next. This step is about breaking the chart into multiple pages, if you are dealing with 100+ employees, you may want to specify numbers of pages on which Organization Chart will be displayed. But in our case, we are dealing with much less amount of data, so we will enable I want the wizard to automatically break my organization chart across pages option. Specify the name you need to show on the top of the page. If you are having less than 20 hierarchies, enter the name of the highest ranked employee in organization and click Finish to end the wizard. It will instantly create an Organization chart out of specified Excel spreadsheet. Highest ranked employee will be shown on top of the organization chart, supervising various employees from different departments. As shown below, his immediate subordinates further manages other employees and so on. For advance customizations, head over to Org Chart tab, here you will find different groups for setting up the Org Chart’s hierarchy and manage other employees’ positions. Under Arrange group, shapes’ arrangements can be changed and it provides easy navigation through the chart. You can also change the type of the position and hide subordinates of selected employee. From Picture group, you can insert a picture of the employees, departments, etc. From synchronization group, you have the option of creating a synced copy and expanding subordinates of selected employee. Under Organization Data group, you can change whole layout of Organization chart from Display Options including; shape display, show divider, enable/disable imported fields, change block position, and fill colors, etc. If at any point of time, you need to insert new position or announce vacancy, Organization Chart stencil is always available on the left sidebar. Drag the desired Organization Chart shape into main diagram page, to maintain the structure integrity, i.e, for inserting subordinates for a specific employee, drag the position shape over the existing employee shape box. For instance, We have added a consultant in organization, who is directly under CEO, for maintaining this, we have dragged the Consultant box and just dropped it over the CEO box to make the immediate subordinate position. Adding details to new position is a cinch, just right-click new position box and click Properties. This will open up Shape Data dialog, start filling in all the relevant information and click OK. Here you can see the newly created position is easily populated with all the specified information. Now expanding an Organization Chart doesn’t require maintenance of long lists any more. Under Design tab, you can also try out different designs & layouts over organization chart to make it look more flamboyant and professional.  Conclusion An Organization Chart is a great way of showing detailed organizational hierarchies; with defined credentials of employees, departments structure, new vacancies, newly hired employees, recently added departments, and importantly shows most convenient way of interaction between different departments & employees, etc. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Reviews: Using Dia as a Free Replacement for Microsoft VisioMysticgeek Blog: Create Appealing Charts In Excel 2007Create Charts in Excel 2007 the Easy Way with Chart AdvisorCreate a Hyperlink in a Word 2007 Flow Chart and Hide Annoying ScreenTipsCreate A Flow Chart In Word 2007 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Know if Someone Accessed Your Facebook Account Shop for Music with Windows Media Player 12 Access Free Documentaries at BBC Documentaries Rent Cameras In Bulk At CameraRenter Download Songs From MySpace Steve Jobs’ iPhone 4 Keynote Video

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• Running TeamCity from Amazon EC2 - Cloud based scalable build and continuous Integration

  - by RoyOsherove

  I’ve been having fun playing with the amazon EC2 cloud service. I set up a server running TeamCity, and an image of a server that just runs a TeamCity agent. I also setup TeamCity  to automatically instantiate agents on EC2 and shut them down based upon availability of free agents. Here’s how I did it: The first step was setting up the teamcity server. Create an account on amazon EC2 (BTW, amazon’s sites works better in IE than it does in chrome.. who knew!?) Open the EC2 dashboard, and click “Launch Instance” . From the “Quick Start” tab I selected from the list: “Getting Started on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (AMI Id: ami-c5e40dac)” .  it’s good enough to just run teamcity. In the instance details, I used the default (Small instance, 1.7 GB mem). You might want to choose a close availability zone based on where you are. We want to “Launch instances” so click continue. Select the default kernel, RAM disk and all. No need to enable monitoring for now (you can do that later). click continue. If you don’t have a key pair, you will be prompted to create one. Once you do, select it in the list. Now you’ll be prompted to create a security group. I named mine “TC” as in “TeamCity”. each group is a bunch of settings on which ports can be let through into and out of a hosted machine.  keep it as the default settings. We will change them later. Click continue,  review and then click “Launch”. Now you’ll be able to see the new instance in the running instances list on your site. Now, you need to install stuff on that instance (TeamCity!) . To do that, you’ll need to Remote desktop into that instance. To do that, we’ll get the admin password for that instance: Check it on the list, and click “Instance Actions” - “Get Windows Admin Password”. You might have to wait about 10 minutes or so for the password to be generated for you. Once you have the password, you will remote desktop (start-run-‘mstsc’) into the instance. It’s address is a dns address shown below the list under “Public DNS”. it looks something like: ec2-256-226-194-91.compute-1.amazonaws.com Once you’re inside the instance – you’ll need to open IE (it is in hardened mode so you’ll have to relax its security settings to download stuff). I first downloaded chrome and using chrome I downloaded TeamCity. Note that the download speed is FAST. several MBs per second. To be able to see TeamCity from the outside, you will need to open the advanced firewall settings inside the remote machine, and add incoming and outgoing rules for port 80 (HTTP). Once you do that, you should be able to see the machine from the outside. If you still can’t, see the next step. I also enabled ports 9090 since I will use this machine to create an agent image later as well. Now configure the security group (TC) to enable talking to agents: IN the EC2 dashboard click on “Security Groups” and select your group. To add a rule, click on the empty list under the ‘protocol’ header. select TCP. from and ‘to’ ports are 9090. source ip is 0.0.0.0/0 (every ip is allowed). click “Save.  Also make sure you can see “HTTP” tcp 80 in that list. if you can’t see it, add it or you won’t be able to browse to the machine’s teamcity server home page. I also set an elastic IP for the machine: so I always have the same IP for the machine instance. Allocate and set one through the”Elastic IP” link on the EC2 dashboard.   you should now have a working instance of teamcity.   Now let’s create an agent image. Repeat steps 1-9, but this time, make sure you select a machine that fits what an agent might do. I selected Instance type – Hihg-CPU medium machine,  that is much faster. On that machine, I installed what I needed (VS 2010, PostSharp etc..). downloading VS 2010 from MSDN (2 GB took less than 10 min!) Now, instead of installing teamcity, browse using the browser to the teamcity homepage (from within the remote machine). go to the Administration page, and click the upper right link “Install agents”. Install the agent on he local machine – set it to the IP or DNS of the running TeamCity server. That way you’ll be able to check their connectivity live before making this machine your official agent image to reuse. Once the agent is installed, see that the TC server can see it and use it. see steps 13-14 above if they can’t. Once it works, you can take steps to make this image your agent image to be reused. next, here is a copy-paste of several steps to take from http://confluence.jetbrains.net/display/TCD5/Setting+Up+TeamCity+for+Amazon+EC2 Configure system so that agent it is started on machine boot (and make sure TeamCity server is accessible on machine boot). Test the setup by rebooting machine and checking that the agent connects normally to the server. Prepare the Image for bundling: Remove any temporary/history information in the system. Stop the agent (under Windows stop the service but leave it in Automatic startup type) Delete content agent logs and temp directories (not necessary) Delete "<Agent Home>/conf/amazon-*" file (not necessary) Change config/buildAgent.properties to remove properties: name, serverAddress, authToken (not necessary)   Now, we need to: Make AMI from the running instance. Configure TeamCity EC2 support on TeamCity server. Making an AMI: Check the instance of the agent in the EC2 dashboard instance list, and select instance actions->Create Image (EBS AMI) you’ll see the image pending in the APIs list in the EC2 dashboard. this could take 30 minutes or more. meanwhile we can configure the could support in the teamcity server. COPY THE AMI ID to the clipboard (looks like ami-a88aa4ce) Configuring TeamCity for Cloud: In TeamCity, click on “Agents” and then on “Cloud” tab. this is where you will control your cloud agents. to configure new cloud agents based on APIs, click on the right link to the “configuration page” Create a new profile and select AMazon EC2 as cloud type. Use your AMI ID that you copied to the clipboard into the “Images” field. Select an availability zone that is the same as the one your instance is running on for best communication perf between them make sure you select the ‘TC’ security group hopefully, that should be it, and teamcity will try to instantiate new instances on demand. Note that it may take around 10 minutes for an agent to become available to teamcity from the time it’s started.

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• Windows Azure Myths

  - by BuckWoody

  Windows Azure is part of the Microsoft "stack" - the suite of software and services we offer. Because we have so many products in almost every part of technology, it's hard to know everything about all parts of what we do - even for those of us who work here. So it's no surprise that some folks are not as familiar with Windows and SQL Azure as they are, say Windows Server or XBox. As I chat with folks about a solution for a business or organization need, I put Windows Azure into the mix. I always start off with "What do you already know about Windows Azure?" so that I don't bore folks with information they already have. I some cases they've checked out the product ahead of time and have specific questions, in others they aren't as familiar, and in still others there is a fair amount of mis-information. Sometimes that's because of a marketing failure, sometimes it's hearsay, and somtetimes it's active misinformation. I thought I might lay out a few of these misconceptions. As always - do your fact-checking! Never take anyone's word alone (including mine) as gospel. Make sure you educate yourself on your options. Your company or your clients depend on you to have the right information on IT, so make sure you live up to that. Myth 1: Nobody uses Windows Azure It's true that we don't give out numbers on the amount of clients on Windows and SQL Azure. But lots of folks are here - companies you may have heard of like Boeing, NASA, Fujitsu, The City of London, Nuedesic, and many others. I deal with firms small and large that use Windows Azure for mission-critical applications, sometimes totally on Windows and/or SQL Azure, sometimes in conjunction with an on-premises system, sometimes for only a specific component in Windows Azure like storage. The interesting thing is that many sites you visit have a Windows Azure component, or are running on Windows Azure. They just don't announce it. Just like the other cloud providers, the companies have asked to be completely branded themselves - they don't want you to be aware or care that they are on Windows Azure. Sometimes that's for security, other times it's for different reasons. It's just like the web sites you visit. For the most part, they don't advertise which OS or Web Server they use. It really just shouldn't matter. The point is that they just use what works to solve a given problem. Check out a few public case studies here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/case-studies/ Myth 2: It's only for Microsoft stuff - can't use Open Source This is the one I face the most, and am the most dismayed by. We work just fine with many open source products, including Java, NodeJS, PHP, Ruby, Python, Hadoop, and many other languages and applications. You can quickly deploy a Wordpress, Umbraco and other "kits". We have software development kits (SDK's) for iPhones, iPads, Android, Windows phones and more. We have an SDK to work with FaceBook and other social networks. In short, we play well with others. More on the languages and runtimes we support here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/overview/ More on the SDK's here: http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/05/windows-azure-toolkit-for-ios/, http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/08/windows-azure-toolkits-for-devices-now-with-android/, http://azuretoolkit.codeplex.com/ Myth 3: Microsoft expects me to switch everything to "the cloud" No, we don't. That would be disasterous, unless the only things you run in your company uses works perfectly in Azure. Use Windows Azure  - or any cloud for that matter - where it works. Whenever I talk to companies, I focus on two things: Something that is broken and needs to be re-architected Something you want to do that is new If something is broken, and you need new tools to scale, extend, add capacity dynamically and so on, then you can consider using Windows or SQL Azure. It can help solve problems that you have, or it may include a component you don't want to write or architect yourself. Sometimes you want to do something new, like extend your company's offerings to mobile phones, to the web, or to a social network. More info on where it works here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx Myth 4: I have to write code to use Windows and SQL Azure If Windows Azure is a PaaS - a Platform as a Service - then don't you have to write code to use it? Nope. Windows and SQL Azure are made up of various components. Some of those components allow you to write and deploy code (like Compute) and others don't. We have lots of customers using Windows Azure storage as a backup, to securely share files instead of using DropBox, to distribute videos or code or firmware, and more. Others use our High Performance Computing (HPC) offering to rent a supercomputer when they need one. You can even throw workloads at that using Excel! In addition there are lots of other components in Windows Azure you can use, from the Windows Azure Media Services to others. More here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/scenarios/saas/ Myth 5: Windows Azure is just another form of "vendor lock-in" Windows Azure uses .NET, OSS languages and standard interfaces for the code. Sure, you're not going to take the code line-for-line and run it on a mainframe, but it's standard code that you write, and can port to something else. And the data is yours - you can bring it back whever you want. It's either in text or binary form, that you have complete control over. There are no licenses - you can "pay as you go", and when you're done, you can leave the service and take all your code, data and IP with you.   So go out there, read up, try it. Use it where it works. And don't believe everything you hear - sometimes the Internet doesn't get it all correct. :)

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• Underwriting in a New Frontier: Spurring Innovation

  - by [email protected]

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} Susan Keuer, product strategy manager for Oracle Insurance, shares her experiences and insight from the 2010 Association of Home Office Underwriters (AHOU) Annual Conference, April 11-14, in San Antonio, Texas    How can I be more innovative in underwriting?  It's a common question I hear from insurance carriers, producers and others, so it was no surprise that it was the key theme at the recent 2010 AHOU Annual Conference.  This year's event drew more than 900 insurance professionals involved in the underwriting process across life and annuities, property and casualty and reinsurance from around the globe, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, Bahamas, and more, to San Antonio - a Texas city where innovation transformed a series of downtown drainage canals into its premiere River Walk tourist destination.   CNN's Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta kicked off the conference with a phenomenal opening session that drove home the theme of the conference, "Underwriting in a New Frontier:  Spurring Innovation."   Drawing from his own experience as a neurosurgeon treating critically injured medical patients in the field in Iraq, Gupta inspired audience members to think outside the box during the underwriting process. He shared a compelling story of operating on a soldier who had suffered a head-related trauma in a field hospital.  With minimal supplies available Gupta used a Black and Decker saw to operate on the soldier's head and reduce pressure on his swelling brain. Drawing from this example, Gupta encouraged underwriters to think creatively, be innovative, and consider new tools and sources of information, such as social networking sites, during the underwriting process. So as you are looking at risk take into consideration all resources you have available.    Gupta also stressed the concept of IKIGAI - noting that individuals who believe that their life is worth living are less likely to die than are their counterparts without this belief.  How does one quantify this approach to life or thought process when evaluating risk?  Could this be something to consider as a "category" in the near future? How can this same belief in your own work spur innovation?   The role of technology was a hot topic of discussion throughout the conference.  Sessions delved into the latest in underwriting software to the rise of social media and how it is being increasingly integrated into underwriting process and solutions.  In one session a trio of panelists representing the carrier, producer and vendor communities stressed the importance to underwriters of leveraging new technology and the plethora of online information sources, which all could be used to accurately, honestly and consistently evaluate the risk throughout the underwriting process.   Another focused on the explosion of social media noting:  1.    Social media is growing exponentially - About eight percent of Americans used social media five years ago. Today about 46 percent of Americans do so, with 85 percent of financial services professionals using social media in their work.  2.    It will impact your business - Underwriters reconfirmed over and over that they are increasingly using "free" tools that are available in cyberspace in lieu of more costly solutions, such as inspection reports conducted by individuals in the field.  3.    Information is instantly available on the Web, anytime, anywhere - LinkedIn was mentioned as a way to connect to peers in the underwriting community and producers alike.  Many carriers and agents also are using Facebook to promote their company to customers - and as a point-of-entry to allow them to perform some functionality - such as accessing product marketing information versus directing users to go to the carrier's own proprietary website.  Other carriers have released their tight brand marketing to allow their producers to drive more business to their personal Facebook site where they offer innovative tools such as Application Capture or asking medical information in a more relaxed fashion.     Other key topics at the conference included the economy, ongoing industry consolidation, real-estate valuations as an asset and input into the underwriting process, and producer trends.  All stressed a "back to basics" approach for low cost, term products.   Finally, Connie Merritt, RN, PHN, entertained the large group of atttendees with audience-engaging insight on how to "Tame the Lions in Your Life - Dealing with Complainers, Bullies, Grump and Curmudgeon." Merritt noted "we are too busy for our own good." She shared how her overachieving personality had impacted her life.  Audience members then were asked to pick red, yellow, blue, or green shapes, without knowing that each one represented a specific personality trait.  For example, those who picked blue were the peacemakers. Those who choose yellow were social - the hint was to "Be Quiet Longer."  She then offered these "lion taming" steps:   1.    Admit It 2.    Accept It 3.    Let Go 4.    Be Present (which paralleled Gupta's IKIGAI concept)   When thinking about underwriting I encourage you to be present in the moment and think creatively, but don't be afraid to look ahead to the future and be an innovator.  I hope to see you at next year's AHOU Annual Conference, May 1-4, 2011 at The Mirage in Las Vegas, Nev.     Susan Keuer is the product strategy manager for new business underwriting.  She brings more than 20 years of insurance industry experience working with leading insurance carriers and technology companies to her role on the product strategy team for life/annuities solutions within the Oracle Insurance Global Business Unit  

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