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• Convert a DVD Movie Directly to AVI with FairUse Wizard 2.9

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you looking for a way to backup your DVD movie collection to AVI?  Today we’ll show you how to rip a DVD movie directly to AVI with FairUse Wizard. About FairUse Wizard FairUse Wizard 2.9 uses the DivX, Xvid, or h.264 codec to convert DVD to an AVI file. It comes in both a free version and commercial version. The free, or “Light” version, can create files up 700MB while the commercial version can output a 1400MB file. This will allow you to back up your movies to CD, or even multiple movies on a single DVD. FairUse Wizard states that it does not work on copy protected discs, but we’ve seen it work on all but some of the most recent copy protection. For this tutorial we’re using the free Light Edition to convert a DVD to AVI. They also offer a commercial version that you can get for $29.99 and it offers even more encoding possibilities for converting video to you portable digital devices. Installation and Configuration Download and install FairUse Wizard. (Download link below). Once the install is complete, open FairUse Wizard by going to Start > All Programs >  FairUse Wizard 2 >  FairUse Wizard 2.   FairUse Wizard will open on the new project screen. Select “Create a new project” and type a project name into the text box. This will be used as the file output name.  Ex: A project name of Simpsons Movie will give you an output file of Simpsons Movie.avi.   Next, browse for a destination folder for the output file and temp files. Note that you will need a minimum of 6 GB of free disk space for the conversion process. Note: Much of that 6 GB will be used for temporary files that we will delete after the conversion process.   Click on the Options button at the bottom.   Under Preferences, choose your preferred video codec and file output size. XviD and x264 are installed by default. If you prefer to use DivX, you will have to install it separately. Also note the “Two pass” option. Checking the “Two pass” box will encode your video twice for higher quality, but will take more time. Un-checking the box will speed up the conversion process.   Under Audio track, note that English subtitles are enabled by default, so to remove the subtitles, you will need to change the dropdown list so it shows only a dash (-). You can also select “Use TV Mode” if your primary playback will be on a 4:3 TV screen. Click “Next.” Full Auto Mode vs. Manual Mode You should now be back to the initial screen. Next, we’ll need to determine whether or not we can use “Full Auto Mode” to convert the movie. The difference is that “Full Auto Mode” will automatically perform a few steps that you will otherwise have to do manually. If you choose the “Full Auto Mode” option, FairUse Wizard will look for the video on the DVD with the longest duration and assume it is the chain that it should convert to AVI. It’s possible, however, your disc may contain a few chains of similar size, such as a theatrical cut and director’s cut, and the longest chain may not be the one you wish to convert. Make sure that “Full auto mode” is not checked yet, and click “Next.”   FairUse Wizard will parse the IFO files and display all video chains longer than 60  seconds. In most cases, you will only find that the largest chain is the one closely matching the duration of the movie. In these instances, you can use “Full Auto Mode.” If you find more than one chain that are close in duration to the length of the movie, consult the literature on the DVD case, or search online, to find the actual running time of the movie. If the proper file chain is not the longest chain, you won’t be able to use “Full Auto Mode.”   Full Auto Mode To use “Full Auto Mode,” simply click the “Back” button to return to the initial screen Now, place a check in the “Full auto mode” check box. Click “Next.” You will then be prompted to chose your DVD drive, then click “OK.” FairUse Wizard will parse the IFO files… … and then prompt you to Select your drive that contains the DVD one more time before beginning the conversion process. Click “OK.”   Manual Mode If you cannot (or don’t wish to) use Full Auto Mode, choose the appropriate video chain and click “Next.” FairUse Wizard will first go through the process of indexing the video. Note: If you get a runtime error during this portion of the process, it likely means that FairUse Wizard cannot handle the copy protection, and thus cannot convert the DVD. FairUse Wizard will automatically detect a cropping region. If necessary, you can edit the cropping region by adjusting the cropping region settings to the left. Click “Next.” Next, click “Auto Detect” to choose the proper field combination. Click “OK” on the pop up window that displays your Field Mode. Then click “Next.” This next screen is mainly comprised of settings from the Options screen. You can make changes at this point such as codec or output size. Click “Next” when ready.   Video Conversion Now the video conversion process will begin. This may take a few hours depending on your system’s hardware. Note: There is a check box to “Shutdown computer when done” if you choose to run the conversion overnight or before leaving for work. The first phase will be video encoding… Then the audio… If you chose the “Two Pass” option, your video video will be encoded again on 2nd pass. Then you’re finished. Unfortunately, FairUse Wizard doesn’t clean up after itself very well. After the process is complete, you’ll want to browse to your output directory and delete all the temporary files as they take up a considerable amount of hard drive space. Now you’re ready to enjoy your movie. Conclusion FairUse Wizard is a nice way to backup your DVD movies to good quality .avi files. You can store them on your hard drive, watch them on a media PC, or burn them to disc. Many DVD players even allow for playback of DivX or XviD encoded video from a CD or DVD. For those of you with children, you can burn that AVI file to CD for your kids, and keep your original DVDs stored safely out of harms way. Download Download FairUse Wizard 2.9 LE Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Kantaris is a Unique Media Player Based on VLCHow to Make/Edit a movie with Windows Movie Maker in Windows VistaAutomatically Mount and View ISO files in Windows 7 Media CenterTune Your ClearType Font Settings in Windows VistaAdd Images and Metadata to Windows 7 Media Center Movie Library 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 Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

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• Customize your icons in Windows 7 and Vista

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to change out the icons on your desktop and more?  Personalizing your icons is a great way to make your PC uniquely yours,, and today we show you how to grab unique icons, and default Winnows. to be your own. Change the icon for Computer, Recycle Bin, Network, and your User folder Right-click on the desktop, and select Personalize. Now, click the “Change desktop icons” link on the left sidebar in the Personalization window. The window looks slightly different in Windows Vista, but the link is the same. Select the icon you wish to change, and click the Change Icon button.  In Windows 7, you will also notice a box to choose whether or not to allow themes to change icons, and you can uncheck it if you don’t want themes to change your icon settings. You can select one of the other included icons, or click browse to find the icon you want.  Click Ok when you are finished. Change Folder icons You can easily change the icon on most folders in Windows Vista and 7.  Simply right-click on the folder and select properties. Click the Customize tab, and then click the Change Icon button.  This will open the standard dialog to change your icon, so proceed as normal. This basically just creates a hidden desktop.ini file in the folder containing the following or similar data: [.ShellClassInfo]IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dllIconIndex=20 You could manually create or edit the file if you choose, instead of using the dialogs. Simply create a new text file named desktop.ini with this same information, or edit the existing one.  Change the IconFile line to the location of your icon. If you are pointing to a .ico file you should change the IconIndex line to 0 instead. Note that this isn’t available for all folders, for instance you can’t use this to change the icon for the Windows folder.   In Windows 7, please note that you cannot change the icon of folder inside a library.  So if you are browsing your Documents library and would like to change an icon in that folder, right-click on it and select Open folder location.  Now you can change the icon as above. And if you would like to change a Library’s icon itself, then check out this tutorial: Change Your Windows 7 Library Icons the Easy Way Change the icon of any file type Want to make you files easier to tell apart?  Check out our tutorial on how to simply do this: Change a File Type’s Icon in Windows 7 Change the icon of any Application Shortcut To change the icon of a shortcut on your desktop, start menu, or in Explorer, simply right-click on the icon and select Properties. In the Shortcut tab, click the Change Icon button. Now choose one of the other available icons or click browse to find the icon you want. Change Icons of Running Programs in the Windows 7 taskbar If your computer is running Windows 7, you can customize the icon of any program running in the taskbar!  This only works on applications that are running but not pinned to the taskbar, so if you want to customize a pinned icon you may want to unpin it before customizing it.  But the interesting thing about this trick is that it can customize any icon anything running in the taskbar, including things like Control Panel! Right-click or click and push up to open the jumplist on the icon, and then right-click on the program’s name and select Properties.  Here we are customizing Control Panel, but you can do this on any application icon. Now, click Change Icon as usual. Select an icon you want (We switched the Control Panel icon to the Security Shield), or click Browse to find another icon.  Click Ok when finished, and then close the application window. The next time you open the program (or Control Panel in our example), you will notice your new icon on its taskbar icon. Please note that this only works on applications that are currently running and are not pinned to the taskbar.  Strangely, if the application is pinned to the taskbar, you can still click Properties and change the icon, but the change will not show up. Change the icon on any Drive on your Computer You can easily change the icon on your internal hard drives and portable drives with the free Drive Icon Changer application.  Simply download and unzip the file (link below), and then run the application as administrator by right-clicking on the icon and selecting “Run as administrator”. Now, select the drive that you want to change the icon of, and select your desired icon file. Click Save, and Drive Icon Changer will let you know that the icon has been changed successfully. You will then need to reboot your computer to complete the changes.  Simply click Yes to reboot. Now, our Drive icon is changed from this default image: to a Laptop icon we chose! You can do this to any drive in your computer, or to removable drives such as USB flash drives.  When you change these drives icons, the new icon will appear on any computer you insert the drive into.  Also, if you wish to remove the icon change, simply run the Drive Icon Changer again and remove the icon path. Download Drive Icon Changer This application actually simply creates or edits a hidden Autorun.inf file on the top of your drive.  You can edit or create the file yourself by hand if you’d like; simply include the following information in the file, and save it in the top directory of your drive: [autorun]ICON=[path of your icon] Remove Arrow from shortcut icons Many people don’t like the arrow on the shortcut icon, and there are two easy ways to do this. If you’re running the 32 bit version of Windows Vista or 7, simply use the Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover. If your computer is running the 64 bit version of Windows Vista or 7, use the Ultimate Windows Tweaker instead.  Simply select the Additional Tweaks section, and check the “Remove arrows from Shortcut Icons.” For more info and download links check out this article: Disable Shortcut Icon Arrow Overlay in Windows 7 or Vista Closing: This gives you a lot of ways to customize almost any icon on your computer, so you can make it look just like you want it to.  Stay tuned for more great desktop customization articles from How-to Geek! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change Start Menu to Use Small Icons in Windows 7 or VistaResize Icons Quickly in Windows 7 or Vista ExplorerRoundup: 16 Tweaks to Windows Vista Look & FeelRestore Missing Desktop Icons in Windows 7 or VistaClean Up Past Notification Icons 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 Change DNS servers on the fly with DNS Jumper Live PDF Searches PDF Files and Ebooks Converting Mp4 to Mp3 Easily Use Quick Translator to Translate Text in 50 Languages (Firefox) Get Better Windows Search With UltraSearch Scan News With NY Times Article Skimmer

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• Building services with the .NET framework Cont’d

  - by Allan Rwakatungu

  In my previous blog I wrote an introductory post on services and how you can build services using the .NET frameworks Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) In this post I will show how to develop a real world application using WCF The problem During the last meeting we realized developers in Uganda are not so cool – they don’t use twitter so may not get the latest news and updates from the technology world. We also noticed they mostly use kabiriti phones (jokes). With their kabiriti phones they are unable to access the twitter web client or alternative twitter mobile clients like tweetdeck , twirl or tweetie. However, the kabiriti phones support SMS (Yeeeeeeei). So what we going to do to make these developers cool and keep them updated is by enabling them to receive tweets via SMS. We shall also enable them to develop their own applications that can extend this functionality Analysis Thanks to services and open API’s solving our problem is going to be easy.  1. To get tweets we can use the twitter service for FREE 2. To send SMS we shall use www.clickatell.com/ as they can send SMS to any country in the world. Besides we could not find any local service that offers API's for sending SMS :(. 3. To enable developers to integrate with our application so that they can extend it and build even cooler applications we use WCF. In addittion , because connectivity might be an issue we decided to use WCF because if has a inbuilt queing features. We also choose WCF because this is a post about .NET and WCF :). The Code Accessing the tweets To consume twitters REST API we shall use the WCF REST starter kit. Like it name indicates , the REST starter kit is a set of .NET framework classes that enable developers to create and access REST style services ( like the twitter service). Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Http; using System.Net; using System.Xml.Linq;   namespace UG.Demo {     public class TwitterService     {         public IList<TwitterStatus> SomeMethodName()         {             //Connect to the twitter service (HttpClient is part of the REST startkit classes)             HttpClient cl = new HttpClient("http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/friends_timeline.xml");             //Supply your basic authentication credentials             cl.TransportSettings.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("ourusername", "ourpassword");             //issue an http             HttpResponseMessage resp = cl.Get();             //ensure we got reponse 200             resp.EnsureStatusIsSuccessful();             //use XLinq to parse the REST XML             var statuses = from r in resp.Content.ReadAsXElement().Descendants("status")                            select new TwitterStatus                            {                                User = r.Element("user").Element("screen_name").Value,                                Status = r.Element("text").Value                            };             return statuses.ToList();         }     }     public class TwitterStatus     {         public string User { get; set; }         public string Status { get; set; }     } }  Sending SMS Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} public class SMSService     {         public void Send(string phone, string message)         {                         HttpClient cl1 = new HttpClient();              //the clickatell XML format for sending SMS             string xml = String.Format("<clickAPI><sendMsg><api_id>3239621</api_id><user>ourusername</user><password>ourpassword</password><to>{0}</to><text>{1}</text></sendMsg></clickAPI>",phone,message);             //Post form data             HttpUrlEncodedForm form = new HttpUrlEncodedForm();             form.Add("data", xml);             System.Net.ServicePointManager.Expect100Continue = false;             string uri = @"http://api.clickatell.com/xml/xml";             HttpResponseMessage resp = cl1.Post(uri, form.CreateHttpContent());             resp.EnsureStatusIsSuccessful();         }     }

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• Xobni Free Powers Up Outlook’s Search and Contacts

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to find out more about your contacts, discover email trends, and even sync Yahoo! email accounts in Outlook?  Here’s how you can do this and more with Xobni Free. Email is one of the most important communications mediums today, but even with all of the advances in Outlook over the years it can still be difficult to keep track of conversations, files, and contacts.  Xobni makes it easy by indexing your emails and organizing them by sender.  You can use its powerful search to quickly find any email, find related messages, and then view more information about that contact with information from social networks.  And, to top it off, it even lets you view your Yahoo! emails directly in Outlook without upgrading to a Yahoo! Plus account.  Xobni runs in Outlook 2003, 2007, and 2010, including the 64 bit version of Outlook 2010, and users of older versions will especially enjoy the new features Xobni brings for free. Getting started Download the Xobni Free installer (link below), and run to start the installation.  Make sure to exit Outlook before installing.  Xobni may need to download additional files which may take a few moments. When the download is finished, proceed with the install as normal.  You can opt out of the Product Improvement Program at the end of the installation by unchecking the box.  Additionally, you are asked to share Xobni with your friends on social networks, but this is not required.   Next time you open Outlook, you’ll notice the new Xobni sidebar in Outlook.  You can choose to watch an introduction video that will help you quickly get up to speed on how Xobni works. While this is playing, Xobni is working at indexing your email in the background.  Once the first indexing is finished, click Let’s Go! to start using Xobni. Here’s how Xobni looks in Outlook 2010: Advanced Email Information Select an email, and now you can see lots of info about it in your new Xobni sidebar.   On the top of the sidebar, select the graph icon to see when and how often you email with a contact.  Each contact is given an Xobni rank so you can quickly see who you email the most.   You can see all related emails sorted into conversations, and also all attachments in the conversation, not just this email. Xobni can also show you all scheduled appointments and links exchanged with a contact, but this is only available in the Plus version.  If you’d rather not see the tab for a feature you can’t use, click Don’t show this tab to banish it from Xobni for good.   Searching emails from the Xobni toolbar is very fast, and you can preview a message by simply hovering over it from the search pane. Get More Information About Your Contacts Xobni’s coolest feature is its social integration.  Whenever you select an email, you may see a brief bio, picture, and more, all pulled from social networks.   Select one of the tabs to find more information.  You may need to login to view information on your contacts from certain networks. The Twitter tab lets you see recent tweets.  Xobni will search for related Twitter accounts, and will ask you to confirm if the choice is correct.   Now you can see this contact’s recent Tweets directly from Outlook.   The Hoovers tab can give you interesting information about the businesses you’re in contact with. If the information isn’t correct, you can edit it and add your own information.  Click the Edit button, and the add any information you want.   You can also remove a network you don’t wish to see.  Right-click on the network tabs, select Manage Extensions, and uncheck any you don’t want to see. But sometimes online contact just doesn’t cut it.  For these times, click on the orange folder button to request a contact’s phone number or schedule a time with them. This will open a new email message ready to send with the information you want.  Edit as you please, and send. Add Yahoo! Email to Outlook for Free One of Xobni’s neatest features is that it let’s you add your Yahoo! email account to Outlook for free.  Click the gear icon in the bottom of the Xobni sidebar and select Options to set it up. Select the Integration tab, and click Enable to add Yahoo! mail to Xobni. Sign in with your Yahoo! account, and make sure to check the Keep me signed in box. Note that you may have to re-signin every two weeks to keep your Yahoo! account connected.  Select I agree to finish setting it up. Xobni will now download and index your recent Yahoo! mail. Your Yahoo! messages will only show up in the Xobni sidebar.  Whenever you select a contact, you will see related messages from your Yahoo! account as well.  Or, you can search from the sidebar to find individual messages from your Yahoo! account.  Note the Y! logo beside Yahoo! messages.   Select a message to read it in the Sidebar.  You can open the email in Yahoo! in your browser, or can reply to it using your default Outlook email account. If you have many older messages in your Yahoo! account, make sure to go back to the Integration tab and select Index Yahoo! Mail to index all of your emails. Conclusion Xobni is a great tool to help you get more out of your daily Outlook experience.  Whether you struggle to find attachments a coworker sent you or want to access Yahoo! email from Outlook, Xobni might be the perfect tool for you.  And with the extra things you learn about your contacts with the social network integration, you might boost your own PR skills without even trying! Link Download Xobni Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Speed up Windows Vista Start Menu Search By Limiting ResultsFix for New Contact Group Button Not Displaying in VistaGet Maps and Directions to Your Contacts in Outlook 2007Backup Windows Mail Messages and Contacts in VistaHow to Import Gmail Contacts Into Outlook 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 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows iFixit Offers Gadget Repair Manuals Online Vista style sidebar for Windows 7 Create Nice Charts With These Web Based Tools Track Daily Goals With 42Goals Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor Fun with 47 charts and graphs

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• Easily use google maps, openstreet maps etc offline.

  - by samkea

  I did it and i am going to explain step by step. The explanatination may appear long but its simple if you follow. Note: All the softwares i have used are the latest and i have packaged them and provided them in the link below. I use Nokia N96 1) RootSign smartComGPS and install it on your phone(i havent provided the signer so that u wuld do some little work. i used Secman' rootsign). 2) Install Universal Maps Downloader, SmartCom OGF2 converter and OziExplorer 3.95.4s on my PC. a) UMD is used to download map tiles from any map source like googlemaps,opensourcemaps etc... and also combine the tiles into an image file like png,jpg,bmp etc... b) SmartCom OGF2 converter is used to convert the image file into a format usable on your mobile phone. c) OziExplorer will help you to calibrate the usable map file so that it can be used with GPS on your mobile phone without the use of internet. 3) Go to google maps or where u pick your maps and pan to the area of your interest. Zoom the map to at least 15 or 16 zoom level where you can see your area clearly and the streets. 4) copy this script in a notepad file and save it on your desktop: javascript:void(prompt('',gApplication.getMap().ge tCenter())); 5) Open the universal maps downloader. You will notice that you are required to add the: left longitude, right longitude,top latitude, bottom latitude. 6) On your map in google maps, doubleclick on the your prefered to most middle point. you will notice that the map will center in that area. 7) copy the script and paste it in the address bar then press enter. You will notice that a dialog with your (top latitude) and longitude respectively pops up. 8) copy the top latitude ONLY and paste it in the corresponding textbox in the UMD. 9) repeat steps 6-7 for the botton latitude. 10)repeat steps 6-7 for left longitude and right longitude too, but u have to copy the longitudes here. (***BTW record these points in the text file as they may be needed later in calibration) 11) Give the zoom level to the same zoom level that you prefered in google maps. 12) Dont forget to choose a path to save your files and under options set the proxy connection settings in UMD if you are using so. 13) Click on start and bingo! there you have your image tiles and a file with an extension .umd will be saved in the same folder. 14) On the UMD, go to tools, click on MapViewer and choose the .umd file. you will now see your map in one piece....and you will smile! 15) Still go to tools and click on map combiner. A dialog will popup for you to choose the .umd file and to enter the IMAGE file name. u can use another extension for the image file like png, jpg etc...i usually use png. 16) Combine.....bingo! there u go! u have an IMAGE file for your map. *I SUGGEST THAT CREATE A .BMP FILE and A .PNG file* 17) Close UMD and open SmartCom OGF2 converter. 18) Choose your .png image and create an ogf2 file. 19) Connect your phone to your PC in Mass Memory mode and transfer the file to the smartComGPS\Maps folder. 20) Now disconnect your phone and load smartComGPS. it will load the map and propt you to add a calibration point. Go ahead and add one calibration point with dummy coordinates. You will notice that it will add another file with extension .map in the smartComGPS\Maps folder. 21) Connect yiur ohone and copy that file and paste it in your working folder on your PC. Delete that .map file from the phone too because you are going to edit it from your PC and put it back. 22) Now Open the OziExplorer, go to file-->Load and Calibrate Map Image. 23) Choose the .bmp image and bingo! it will load with your map in the same zoom level. 24) Now you are going to calibrate. Use the MapView window and take the small box locater to all the 4 cornners of the map. You will notice that the map in the back ground moves to that area too. 25)On the right side, select the Point1 tab. Now you are in calibration mode. Now move the red box in mapview in the left upper corner to calibrate point1. 26) out of mapview go to the the left upper corner of the background map and choose poit (0,0) and your 1st calibration point. You will notice that these X,Y cordinated will be reflected in the Point1 image cordinates. 27) now go back to the text file where you saved your coordibates and enter the top latitude and the left longitude in the corresponding places. 28) Repeat steps 25-27 for point2,point3,point4 and click on save. Thats it, you have calibrated your image and you are about to finish. 29) Go to save and a dilaog which prompts you to save a .map file will poop up. Do save the map file in your working folder. 30) Right click that .map file and edit the filename in the .map file to remove the pc's directory structure. Eg. Change C\OziExplorer\data\Kampala.bmp to Kampala.ogf2. 31) Save the .map file in the smartComGPS\Maps folder on your phone. 32) now open smartComGPS on your phone and bingo! there is your map with GPS capability and in the same zoom level. 33) In smartComGPS options, choose connect and simulate. By now you should be smiling. Whoa! Hope i was of help. i case you get a problem, please inform me Below is the link to the software. regards. http://rapidshare.com/files/230296037/Utilities_Used.rar.html Ok, the Rapidshare files i posted are gone, so you will have to download as described in the solution. If you need more help, go here: http://www.dotsis.com/mobile_phone/sitemap/t-160491.html Some months later, someone else gave almost the same kind of solution here. http://www.dotsis.com/mobile_phone/sitemap/t-180123.html Note: the solutions were mean't to help view maps on Symbian phones, but i think now they ca even do for Windows Phones, iphones and others so read, extract what you want and use it. Hope it helps. Sam Kea

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• TFS, G.I. Joe and Under-doing

  If I were to rank the most consistently irritating parts of my work day, using TFS would come in first by a wide margin. Even repeated network outages this week seem like a pleasant reprieve from this monolithic beast. This is not a reflexive anti-Microsoft feeling, that attitude just wouldnt work for a consultant who does .NET development. It is also not an utter dismissal of TFS as worthless; Ive seen people use it effectively on several projects. So why? Ill start with a laundry list of shortcomings. An out of the box UI for work items that is insultingly bad, a source control system that is confoundingly fragile when handling merges, folder renames and long file names, the arcane XML wizardry necessary to customize a template and a build system that adds an extra layer of oddness on top of msbuild. Im sure my legion of readers will soon point out to me how I can work around all these issues, how this is fixed in TFS 2010 or with this add-in, and how once you have everything set up, youre fine. And theyd be right, any one of these problems could be worked around. If not dirty laundry, what else? I thought about it for a while, and came to the conclusion that TFS is so irritating to me because it represents a vision of software development that I find unappealing. To expand upon this, lets start with some wisdom from those great PSAs at the end of the G.I. Joe cartoons of the 80s: Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. In software development, Id go further and say knowing is more than half the battle. Understanding the dimensions of the problem you are trying to solve, the needs of the users, the value that your software can provide are more than half the battle. Implementation of this understanding is not easy, but it is not even possible without this knowledge. Assuming we have a fixed amount of time and mental energy for any project, why does this spell trouble for TFS? If you think about what TFS is doing, its offering you a huge array of options to track the day to day implementation of your project. From tasks, to code churn, to test coverage. All valuable metrics, but only in exchange for valuable time to get it all working. In addition, when you have a shiny toy like TFS, the temptation is to feel obligated to use it. So the push from TFS is to encourage a project manager and team to focus on process and metrics around process. You can get great visibility, and graphs to show your project stakeholders, but none of that is important if you are not implementing the right product. Not just unimportant, these activities can be harmful as they drain your time and sap your creativity away from the rest of the project. To be more concrete, lets suppose your organization has invested the time to create a template for your projects and trained people in how to use it, so there is no longer a big investment of time for each project to get up and running. First, Id challenge if that template could be specific enough to be full featured and still applicable for any project. Second, the very existence of this template would be a indication to a project manager that the success of their project was somehow directly related to fitting management of that project into this format. Again, while the capabilities are wonderful, the mirage is there; just get everything into TFS and your project will run smoothly. Ill close the loop on this first topic by proposing a thought experiment. Think of the projects youve worked on. How many times have you been chagrined to discover youve implemented the wrong feature, misunderstood how a feature should work or just plain spent too much time on a screen that nobody uses? That sounds like a really worthwhile area to invest time in improving. How about going back to these projects and thinking about how many times you wished you had optimized the state change flow of your tasks or been embarrassed to not have a code churn report linked back to the latest changeset? With thanks to the Real American Heroes, Ill move on to a more current influence, that of the developers at 37signals, and their philosophy towards software development. This philosophy, fully detailed in the books Getting Real and Rework, is a vision of software that under does the competition. This is software that is deliberately limited in functionality in order to concentrate fully on making sure ever feature that is there is awesome and needed. Why is this relevant? Well, in one of those fun seeming paradoxes in life, constraints can be a spark for creativity. Think Twitter, the small screen of an iPhone, the limitations of HTML for applications, the low memory limits of older or embedded system. As long as there is some freedom within those constraints, amazing things emerge. For project management, some of the most respected people in the industry recommend using just index cards, pens and tape. They argue that with change the constant in software development, your process should be as limited (yet rigorous) as possible. Looking at TFS, this is not a system designed to under do anybody. It is a big jumble of components and options, with every feature you could think of. Predictably this means many basic functions are hard to use. For task management, many people just use an Excel spreadsheet linked up to TFS. Not a stirring endorsement of the tooling there. TFS as a whole would be far more appealing to me if there was less of it, but better. Id cut 50% of the features to make the other half really amaze and inspire me. And thats really the heart of the matter. TFS has great promise and I want to believe it can work better. But ultimately it focuses your attention on a lot of stuff that doesnt really matter and then clamps down your creativity in a mess of forms and dialogs obscuring what does.   --- Relevant Links --- All those great G.I. Joe PSAs are on YouTube, including lots of mashed up versions. A simple Google search will get you on the right track.Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Package Dependencies Error in almost every install

  - by Betaxpression

  New to Ubuntu. In the other sofware sources i have "Debian 4.0 eth" officially supported "non-us.debian.org/"; etc ... "ppa.launcpad.net" and installing applications has stopped working. I think i first came across this problem after installing Blender 2.58 When using update manager it is prompting for a partial upgrade. Almost every software when trying to install showing the same error Package Dependencies Error or GPG PUB KEY missing, tried to fixing to them but no luck. Output to: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade (links disabled http:// -- http:/ as new user can't put more no. of hyperlinks) Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US InRelease Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US Release.gpg Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US Release Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/contrib TranslationIndex Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/main TranslationIndex Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/non-free TranslationIndex Err http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/main Sources 503 Service Unavailable Err http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/contrib Sources 503 Service Unavailable Err http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/non-free Sources 503 Service Unavailable Err http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/main amd64 Packages 503 Service Unavailable Err http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/contrib amd64 Packages 503 Service Unavailable Err http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/non-free amd64 Packages 503 Service Unavailable Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/contrib Translation-en_IN Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/contrib Translation-en Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/main Translation-en_IN Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/main Translation-en Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/non-free Translation-en_IN Ign http:/non-us.debian.org stable/non-US/non-free Translation-en Ign http:/archive.ubuntu.com natty InRelease Ign http:/archive.canonical.com natty InRelease Ign http:/extras.ubuntu.com natty InRelease Ign http:/http.us.debian.org stable InRelease Ign http:/ftp.us.debian.org etch InRelease Ign http:/archive.ubuntu.com natty-updates InRelease Hit http:/archive.canonical.com natty Release.gpg Get:1 http:/extras.ubuntu.com natty Release.gpg [72 B] Ign http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease Get:2 http:/http.us.debian.org stable Release.gpg [1,672 B] Ign http:/linux.dropbox.com natty InRelease Ign http:/ftp.us.debian.org etch Release.gpg Ign http:/archive.ubuntu.com natty-security InRelease Hit http:/archive.canonical.com natty Release Hit http:/extras.ubuntu.com natty Release Ign http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease Get:3 http:/linux.dropbox.com natty Release.gpg [489 B] Ign http:/ftp.us.debian.org etch Release Ign http:/dl.google.com stable InRelease Get:4 http:/archive.ubuntu.com natty Release.gpg [198 B] Ign http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease Hit http:/archive.canonical.com natty/partner Sources Hit http:/extras.ubuntu.com natty/main Sources Get:5 http:/linux.dropbox.com natty Release [2,599 B] Get:6 http:/archive.ubuntu.com natty-updates Release.gpg [198 B] Ign http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease Hit http:/archive.canonical.com natty/partner amd64 Packages Hit http:/extras.ubuntu.com natty/main amd64 Packages Get:7 http:/linux.dropbox.com natty/main amd64 Packages [784 B] Get:8 http:/archive.ubuntu.com natty-security Release.gpg [198 B] Ign http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease Ign http:/archive.canonical.com natty/partner TranslationIndex Ign http:/extras.ubuntu.com natty/main TranslationIndex Get:9 http:/http.us.debian.org stable Release [104 kB] Ign http:/linux.dropbox.com natty/main TranslationIndex Hit http:/archive.ubuntu.com natty Release Ign http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease Ign http:/http.us.debian.org stable Release Hit http:/archive.ubuntu.com natty-updates Release Get:10 http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease [316 B] Ign http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease Hit http:/archive.ubuntu.com natty-security Release Get:11 http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease [316 B] Ign http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease Hit http:/archive.ubuntu.com natty/restricted Sources Get:12 http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty Release.gpg [316 B] Ign http:/http.us.debian.org stable/main Sources/DiffIndex Get:13 http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty Release.gpg [316 B] Hit http:/archive.ubuntu.com natty/main Sources Ign http:/ftp.us.debian.org etch/contrib TranslationIndex Ign http:/http.us.debian.org stable/contrib Sources/DiffIndex Get:14 http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty Release.gpg [1,502 B] Ign http:/http.us.debian.org stable/non-free Sources/DiffIndex Ign http:/ftp.us.debian.org etch/main TranslationIndex Get:15 http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty Release.gpg [1,928 B] Ign http:/http.us.debian.org stable/main amd64 Packages/DiffIndex Ign http:/ftp.us.debian.org etch/non-free TranslationIndex Ign http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty Release.gpg Hit http:/http.us.debian.org stable/contrib amd64 Packages/DiffIndex W: GPG error: http:/http.us.debian.org stable Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY AED4B06F473041FA NO_PUBKEY 64481591B98321F9 W: GPG error: http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease: File /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/ppa.launchpad.net_sunab_kdenlive-release_ubuntu_dists_natty_InRelease doesn't start with a clearsigned message W: GPG error: http:/ppa.launchpad.net natty InRelease: File /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/ppa.launchpad.net_ubuntu-wine_ppa_ubuntu_dists_natty_InRelease doesn't start with a clearsigned message E: Could not open file /var/lib/apt/lists/http.us.debian.org_debian_dists_stable_contrib_binary-amd64_Packages.IndexDiff - open (2: No such file or directory) output to: sudo cat /etc/apt/sources.list # deb cdrom:[Ubuntu 11.04 _Natty Narwhal_ - Release amd64 (20110427.1)]/ natty main restricted # See http:/help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to # newer versions of the distribution. deb http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty main restricted deb-src http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty restricted main multiverse universe #Added by software-properties ## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the ## distribution. deb http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty-updates main restricted deb-src http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty-updates restricted main multiverse universe #Added by software-properties ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any ## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team. deb http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty universe deb http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty-updates universe ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to ## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in ## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu ## security team. deb http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty multiverse deb http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty-updates multiverse ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports' ## repository. ## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as ## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes ## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features. ## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review ## or updates from the Ubuntu security team. # deb http:/us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty-backports main restricted universe multiverse # deb-src http:/us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty-backports main restricted universe multiverse deb http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty-security main restricted deb-src http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty-security restricted main multiverse universe #Added by software-properties deb http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty-security universe deb http:/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty-security multiverse ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's ## 'partner' repository. ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the ## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users. deb http:/archive.canonical.com/ubuntu natty partner deb-src http:/archive.canonical.com/ubuntu natty partner ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party ## developers who want to ship their latest software. deb http:/extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty main deb-src http:/extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty main deb http:/ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free deb-src http:/ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free deb http:/http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free deb-src http:/http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free deb http:/non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free deb-src http:/non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free Thanks But after removing Debian repositories still getting this error: W:GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net natty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 9BDB3D89CE49EC21, W:GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net natty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 80E7349A06ED541C, W:GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net natty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 8C851674F96FD737, W:GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net natty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 94E58C34A8670E8C, E:Unable to parse package file /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_natty-updates_multiverse_i18n_Index (1) I actually tried this before, but i am always getting this error --Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg --trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 8C851674F96FD737 gpg: requesting key F96FD737 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com ?: keyserver.ubuntu.com: Connection refused gpgkeys: HTTP fetch error 7: couldn't connect: Connection refused gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found. gpg: Total number processed: 0

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• Sync Your Pidgin Profile Across Multiple PCs with Dropbox

  - by Matthew Guay

  Pidgin is definitely our favorite universal chat client, but adding all of your chat accounts to multiple computers can be frustrating.  Here’s how you can easily transfer your Pidgin settings to other computers and keep them in sync using Dropbox. Getting Started Make sure you have both Pidgin and Dropbox installed on any computers you want to sync.  To sync Pidgin, you need to: Move your Pidgin profile folder on your first computer to Dropbox Create a symbolic link from the new folder in Dropbox to your old profile location Delete the default pidgin profile on your other computer, and create a symbolic link from your Dropbox Pidgin profile to the default Pidgin profile location This sounds difficult, but it’s actually easy if you follow these steps.  Here we already had all of our accounts setup in Pidgin in Windows 7, and then synced this profile with an Ubuntu and a XP computer with fresh Pidgin installs.  Our instructions for each OS are based on this, but just swap the sync order if your main Pidgin install is in XP or Ubuntu. Please Note:  Please make sure Pidgin isn’t running on your computer while you are making the changes! Sync Your Pidgin Profile from Windows 7 Here is Pidgin with our accounts already setup.  Our Pidgin profile has a Gtalk, MSN Messenger, and Facebook Chat account, and lots of log files. Let’s move this profile to Dropbox to keep it synced.  Exit Pidgin, and then enter %appdata% in the address bar in Explorer or press Win+R and enter %appdata%.  Select the .purple folder, which is your Pidgin profiles and settings folder, and press Ctrl+X to cut it. Browse to your Dropbox folder, and press Ctrl+V to paste the .purple folder there. Now we need to create the symbolic link.  Enter  “command” in your Start menu search, right-click on the Command Prompt shortcut, and select “Run as administrator”. We can now use the mklink command to create a symbolic link to the .purple folder.  In Command Prompt, enter the following and substitute username for your own username. mklink /D “C:\Users\username\Documents\My Dropbox\.purple” “C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\.purple” And that’s it!  You can open Pidgin now to make sure it still works as before, with your files being synced with Dropbox. Please Note:  These instructions work the same for Windows Vista.  Also, if you are syncing settings from another computer to Windows 7, then delete the .purple folder instead of cutting and pasting it, and reverse the order of the file paths when creating the symbolic link. Add your Pidgin Profile to Ubuntu Our Ubuntu computer had a clean install of Pidgin, so we didn’t need any of the information in its settings.  If you’ve run Pidgin, even without creating an account, you will need to first remove its settings folder.  Open your home folder, and click View, and then “Show Hidden Files” to see your settings folders. Select the .purple folder, and delete it. Now, to create the symbolic link, open Terminal and enter the following, substituting username for your username: ln –s /home/username/Dropbox/.purple /home/username/ Open Pidgin, and you will see all of your accounts that were on your other computer.  No usernames or passwords needed; everything is setup and ready to go.  Even your status is synced; we had our status set to Away in Windows 7, and it automatically came up the same in Ubuntu. Please Note: If your primary Pidgin account is in Ubuntu, then cut your .purple folder and paste it into your Dropbox folder instead.  Then, when creating the symbolic link, reverse the order of the folder paths. Add your Pidgin Profile to Windows XP In XP we also had a clean install of Pidgin.  If you’ve run Pidgin, even without creating an account, you will need to first remove its settings folder.  Click Start, the Run, and enter %appdata%. Delete your .purple folder. XP does not include a way to create a symbolic link, so we will use the free Junction tool from Sysinternals.  Download Junction (link below) and unzip the folder. Open Command Prompt (click Start, select All Programs, then Accessories, and select Command Prompt), and enter cd followed by the path of the folder where you saved Junction.   Now, to create the symbolic link, enter the following in Command Prompt, substituting username with your username. junction –d “C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\.purple” “C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Dropbox\.purple” Open Pidgin, and you will see all of your settings just as they were on your other computer.  Everything’s ready to go.   Please Note: If your primary Pidgin account is in Windows XP, then cut your .purple folder and paste it into your Dropbox folder instead.  Then, when creating the symbolic link, reverse the order of the folder paths. Conclusion This is a great way to keep all of your chat and IM accounts available from all of your computers.  You can easily access logs from chats you had on your desktop from your laptop, or if you add a chat account on your work computer you can use it seamlessly from your home computer that evening.  Now Pidgin is the universal chat client that is always ready whenever and wherever you need it! Links Downlaod Pidgin Download and signup for Dropbox Download Junction for XP Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add "My Dropbox" to Your Windows 7 Start MenuUse Multiple Firefox Profiles at the Same TimeEasily Add Facebook Chat to PidginPut Your Pidgin Buddy List into the Windows Vista SidebarBackup and Restore Firefox Profiles Easily 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 Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar Manage Photos Across Different Social Sites With Dropico Test Drive Windows 7 Online Download Wallpapers From National Geographic Site Spyware Blaster v4.3

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• Oracle at Gartner IAM Summit Next Week

  - by Tanu Sood

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Heading to Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit next week? As you know, one of the premier conferences for identity management specialists and security experts, the Gartner IAM Conference this year is in Las Vegas, Nevada from December 3 – 5. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} As you pack your bags and plan your itinerary, do note that Oracle executives including Amit Jasuja, Senior Vice President, Security and Identity Management and Dave Profozich, Group Vice President along with product management and implementation experts would be in attendance. You are invited to meet with the Oracle team and mingle with our customers. We recommend you bookmark the following times and activities: Breakfast Keynote: Trends in Identity Management Tuesday, December 4, 2012 7:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m., Octavius 16 Amit Jasuja, SVP, Security and Identity Management, Oracle Ranjan Jain, Enterprise Architect, Cisco Don’t miss the opportunity to hear from Amit Jasuja, SVP, Security and Identity Management as he discusses how mobile and social behavior are changing how organizations function, manage their workforce, and interact with their customers. Learn how these new trends are shaping the innovations in Oracle Identity Management solutions. And get a customer’s take on the new trends and their impact on the organization. Visit the Oracle Booth Mingle with peers, customers, product and implementation experts at the Oracle booth. While there, catch live demonstrations of the very latest best-in-class technologies and learn how Oracle Identity Management solutions are enabling the Social, Mobile and Cloud (SoMoClo) environments. And arm yourself with industry resources from our Virtual Collateral Rack. And don’t forget to enter for a chance to win a JAWBONE JAMBOX Wireless Speaker System while at our booth. So, see you there? Gartner Identity and Access Management Summit December 3 -5, 2012 Caesars Palace 3570 Las Vegas Blvd South Las Vegas, NV 89109

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• Monitor your Hard Drive’s Health with Acronis Drive Monitor

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you worried that your computer’s hard drive could die without any warning?  Here’s how you can keep tabs on it and get the first warning signs of potential problems before you actually lose your critical data. Hard drive failures are one of the most common ways people lose important data from their computers.  As more of our memories and important documents are stored digitally, a hard drive failure can mean the loss of years of work.  Acronis Drive Monitor helps you avert these disasters by warning you at the first signs your hard drive may be having trouble.  It monitors many indicators, including heat, read/write errors, total lifespan, and more. It then notifies you via a taskbar popup or email that problems have been detected.  This early warning lets you know ahead of time that you may need to purchase a new hard drive and migrate your data before it’s too late. Getting Started Head over to the Acronis site to download Drive Monitor (link below).  You’ll need to enter your name and email, and then you can download this free tool. Also, note that the download page may ask if you want to include a trial of their for-pay backup program.  If you wish to simply install the Drive Monitor utility, click Continue without adding. Run the installer when the download is finished.  Follow the prompts and install as normal. Once it’s installed, you can quickly get an overview of your hard drives’ health.  Note that it shows 3 categories: Disk problems, Acronis backup, and Critical Events.  On our computer, we had Seagate DiskWizard, an image backup utility based on Acronis Backup, installed, and Acronis detected it. Drive Monitor stays running in your tray even when the application window is closed.  It will keep monitoring your hard drives, and will alert you if there’s a problem. Find Detailed Information About Your Hard Drives Acronis’ simple interface lets you quickly see an overview of how the drives on your computer are performing.  If you’d like more information, click the link under the description.  Here we see that one of our drives have overheated, so click Show disks to get more information. Now you can select each of your drives and see more information about them.  From the Disk overview tab that opens by default, we see that our drive is being monitored, has been running for a total of 368 days, and that it’s health is good.  However, it is running at 113F, which is over the recommended max of 107F.   The S.M.A.R.T. parameters tab gives us more detailed information about our drive.  Most users wouldn’t know what an accepted value would be, so it also shows the status.  If the value is within the accepted parameters, it will report OK; otherwise, it will show that has a problem in this area. One very interesting piece of information we can see is the total number of Power-On Hours, Start/Stop Count, and Power Cycle Count.  These could be useful indicators to check if you’re considering purchasing a second hand computer.  Simply load this program, and you’ll get a better view of how long it’s been in use. Finally, the Events tab shows each time the program gave a warning.  We can see that our drive, which had been acting flaky already, is routinely overheating even when our other hard drive was running in normal temperature ranges. Monitor Acronis Backups And Critical Errors In addition to monitoring critical stats of your hard drives, Acronis Drive Monitor also keeps up with the status of your backup software and critical events reported by Windows.  You can access these from the front page, or via the links on the left hand sidebar.  If you have any edition of any Acronis Backup product installed, it will show that it was detected.  Note that it can only monitor the backup status of the newest versions of Acronis Backup and True Image. If no Acronis backup software was installed, it will show a warning that the drive may be unprotected and will give you a link to download Acronis backup software.   If you have another backup utility installed that you wish to monitor yourself, click Configure backup monitoring, and then disable monitoring on the drives you’re monitoring yourself. Finally, you can view any detected Critical events from the Critical events tab on the left. Get Emailed When There’s a Problem One of Drive Monitor’s best features is the ability to send you an email whenever there’s a problem.  Since this program can run on any version of Windows, including the Server and Home Server editions, you can use this feature to stay on top of your hard drives’ health even when you’re not nearby.  To set this up, click Options in the top left corner. Select Alerts on the left, and then click the Change settings link to setup your email account. Enter the email address which you wish to receive alerts, and a name for the program.  Then, enter the outgoing mail server settings for your email.  If you have a Gmail account, enter the following information: Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.gmail.com Port: 587 Username and Password: Your gmail address and password Check the Use encryption box, and then select TLS from the encryption options.   It will now send a test message to your email account, so check and make sure it sent ok. Now you can choose to have the program automatically email you when warnings and critical alerts appear, and also to have it send regular disk status reports.   Conclusion Whether you’ve got a brand new hard drive or one that’s seen better days, knowing the real health of your it is one of the best ways to be prepared before disaster strikes.  It’s no substitute for regular backups, but can help you avert problems.  Acronis Drive Monitor is a nice tool for this, and although we wish it wasn’t so centered around their backup offerings, we still found it a nice tool. Link Download Acronis Drive Monitor (registration required) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Tip: Change Monitor Timeout From Command LineAnalyze and Manage Hard Drive Space with WinDirStatMonitor CPU, Memory, and Disk IO In Windows 7 with Taskbar MetersDefrag Multiple Hard Drives At Once In WindowsFind Your Missing USB Drive on Windows XP 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 Windows 7’s WordPad is Actually Good Greate Image Viewing and Management with Zoner Photo Studio Free Windows Media Player Plus! – Cool WMP Enhancer Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician TubeSort: YouTube Playlist Organizer

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• Overwriting TFS Web Services

  - by javarg

  In this blog I will share a technique I used to intercept TFS Web Services calls. This technique is a very invasive one and requires you to overwrite default TFS Web Services behavior. I only recommend taking such an approach when other means of TFS extensibility fail to provide the same functionality (this is not a supported TFS extensibility point). For instance, intercepting and aborting a Work Item change operation could be implemented using this approach (consider TFS Subscribers functionality before taking this approach, check Martin’s post about subscribers). So let’s get started. The technique consists in versioning TFS Web Services .asmx service classes. If you look into TFS’s ASMX services you will notice that versioning is supported by creating a class hierarchy between different product versions. For instance, let’s take the Work Item management service .asmx. Check the following .asmx file located at: %Program Files%\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Application Tier\Web Services\_tfs_resources\WorkItemTracking\v3.0\ClientService.asmx The .asmx references the class Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Server.ClientService3: <%-- Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. --%> <%@ webservice language="C#" Class="Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Server.ClientService3" %> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } The inheritance hierarchy for this service class follows: Note the naming convention used for service versioning (ClientService3, ClientService2, ClientService). We will need to overwrite the latest service version provided by the product (in this case ClientService3 for TFS 2010). The following example intercepts and analyzes WorkItem fields. Suppose we need to validate state changes with more advanced logic other than the provided validations/constraints of the process template. Important: Backup the original .asmx file and create one of your own. Create a Visual Studio Web App Project and include a new ASMX Web Service in the project Add the following references to the project (check the folder %Program Files%\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Application Tier\Web Services\bin\): Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Server.dll Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Server.dll Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Server.dll Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client.QueryLanguage.dll Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Server.DataAccessLayer.dll Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Server.DataServices.dll Replace the default service implementation with the something similar to the following code: Code Snippet /// <summary> /// Inherit from ClientService3 to overwrite default Implementation /// </summary> [WebService(Namespace = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/TeamFoundation/2005/06/WorkItemTracking/ClientServices/03", Description = "Custom Team Foundation WorkItemTracking ClientService Web Service")] public class CustomTfsClientService : ClientService3 {     [WebMethod, SoapHeader("requestHeader", Direction = SoapHeaderDirection.In)]     public override bool BulkUpdate(         XmlElement package,         out XmlElement result,         MetadataTableHaveEntry[] metadataHave,         out string dbStamp,         out Payload metadata)     {         var xe = XElement.Parse(package.OuterXml);         // We only intercept WorkItems Updates (we can easily extend this sample to capture any operation).         var wit = xe.Element("UpdateWorkItem");         if (wit != null)         {             if (wit.Attribute("WorkItemID") != null)             {                 int witId = (int)wit.Attribute("WorkItemID");                 // With this Id. I can query TFS for more detailed information, using TFS Client API (assuming the WIT already exists).                 var stateChanged =                     wit.Element("Columns").Elements("Column").FirstOrDefault(c => (string)c.Attribute("Column") == "System.State");                 if (stateChanged != null)                 {                     var newStateName = stateChanged.Element("Value").Value;                     if (newStateName == "Resolved")                     {                         throw new Exception("Cannot change state to Resolved!");                     }                 }             }         }         // Finally, we call base method implementation         return base.BulkUpdate(package, out result, metadataHave, out dbStamp, out metadata);     } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } 4. Build your solution and overwrite the original .asmx with the new implementation referencing our new service version (don’t forget to backup it up first). 5. Copy your project’s .dll into the following path: %Program Files%\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Application Tier\Web Services\bin 6. Try saving a WorkItem into the Resolved state. Enjoy!

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• OFM 11g: OAM SSO for Forms and ADF Faces

  - by olaf.heimburger

  In my blog entry OFM 11g: Implementing OAM SSO with Forms we set the foundation for providing a complete Single Sign-On solution based on Oracle Access Manager (OAM). This foundation should now be used to combine Forms 11g and ADF Faces 11g applications with a transparent login. The Beginning Before we start, lets re-consider the requirements to achieve the ultimate goal. These are:- Access to the Forms 11g Application must be authenticated by OAM (protected). Access to the ADF Faces 11g Application must be authenticated by OAM (protected). Switching from one application to the other should not result in a re-authentication (aka single sign-on). User identity should be availble to the application without any extra work in the application code. All these are the common requirements for a single sign-on solution. The challenge here is that Forms relies on Oracle AS SSO (OSSO or "the old SSO") while ADF Faces is quite open and can be protected by Oracle AS SSO and Oracle Access Manager SSO (OAM SSO or "the modern SSO"). Both application types can use their own login mechanism. The Forms 11g Application To demonstrate the SSO functionality, we use the standard Forms test (/forms/frmservlet?form=test.fmx). Although this shows nothing specific in the Forms application, it is good enough to demonstrate that it is protected. The ADF Faces 11g Application With ADF 11g you can develop quite a number of useful Faces based applications. Among many features, it comes with the ADF Security feature that provides you with functionality to protect your pages, regions, and even TaskFlows from un-authenticated usage in a declarative way.To demonstrate that functionality a sample application with different access levels plus a login dialog is used. This application comes with a publc page that has protected content (a button). Once you are authenticated for the application, the protected content and some personalisation (the users name) is shown. Protecting Forms 11g As already explained in the OFM 11g: Implementing OAM SSO with Forms, the easiest way to protect a Forms application is to configure it as a OSSO partner application, setup mod_osso, test it, migrate OSSO to OAM SSO with the Upgrade Agent, reconfigure mod_osso, and you are done.Sort of. By default the OAM is configured to run in co-exist mode. This means that a user has to re-authenticate to the Forms application when logged into an OAM SSO application before. To avoid this, you must disable the co-exist mode, for example by using WLST and issue the disableCoexistMode on the OAM server. Protecting ADF Faces 11g To protect an ADF Faces 11g application we have to consider two scenarios: Use a HTTPD server in front of WLS Use WLS without a HTTPD server Both scenarios have their pro's and cons' and we won't get into details and just describe how to configure both. Scenario 1: HTTPD Server with WLS In this scenario we have to setup the environment in some steps:- Configure a WebGate at OAMThis configuration can be done through the OAM console or by a script. No matter which way you choose, the WebGate configuration files will be created for you. Install the OAM WebGate into an HTTPD serverThe type of webgate you need to install depends on you HTTPD server. With Oracle HTTP Server 11g you can use the latest OAM 11g WebGate. With other HTTPD servers you must resort to OAM 10g WebGates. A OAM 11g WebGate can use the pre-created configuration files supplied during the WebGate configuration at OAM. An OAM 10g WebGate asks for the specific configuration and verifies it during installation. Configure the WLS plugin to forward the requests to WLSAgain, depending on your HTTPD Server you have different plugins to forward requests to WLS. With OHS 11g you can use the pre-installed mod_wl_ohs plugin. Its configuration is quite simple and straightforward. Configure an OAM SSPI Provider as a IdentityAsserter in WLS to retrieve the user identifierThis configuration is quite important as it retrieves the user identifier for the next step. If you have a SOA Suite installation within your OFM_HOME, the necessary software is already installed and you only need to setup your Security Realm within WLS.You can do this by pointing your browser to the WLS Console, log in as administrator, select the Security Realm (usually myrealm), and select Providers. We add the OAMIdentityAsserter as the first SSPI Provider. It is important that the Control Flag is set to SUFFICIENT. Every other configuration can be left as is, no changes are necessary here. Configure an OAM Identity Provider to get the real user identityIn OFM 11g: Implementing OAM SSO with Forms we have configured an OID as Identity Store. To get the user identity we need to configure the same OID as an SSPI Provider for WLS. This will retrieve the real user information from OID and creates the JAAS Subject and Principals to be used by any application within WLS.Again, you can do this by pointing your browser to the WLS Console, log in as administrator, select the Security Realm (usually myrealm), and select Providers. Now add the OIDAuthenticator as the second SSPI Provider. It is important that the Control Flag is set to OPTIONAL. After we saved this setup, we need to configure this provider by setting the Provider Specific details to access OID. Scenario 2: WLS only This scenario is a bit easier but requires more work in the WLS setup:- Configure a WebGate at OAMThis configuration can be done through the OAM console or by a script. No matter which way you choose, the WebGate configuration files will be created for you. Configure the OAM SSPI Provider as IdentityAuthenticator to authenticate and set the user identifierWhen using the OAM SSPI Provider as OAMAuthenticator we create it with the Control Flag as SUFFICIENT. Afte saving it, the Provider Specific settings must be configured to allow the OAM SSPI Provider to connect to the OAM Server. Configure an OAM Identity Provider to get the real user identity providerAgain, you can do this by pointing your browser to the WLS Console, log in as administrator, select the Security Realm (usually myrealm), and select Providers. Now add the OIDAuthenticator as the second SSPI Provider. It is important that the Control Flag is set to OPTIONAL. After we saved this setup, we need to configure this provider by setting the Provider Specific details to access OID. Configure ADF 11g Application for OAM Actually, there are no changes to be made within the ADF application. We only need to add the value CLIENT_CERT to the <auth-mode> tag in the <login-config> tag in the web.xml file. Testing To test the configuration, simply point your browser to one of both appliction URLs. OAM should kick in and redirect you to the OAM Login page. After you have entered the correct credentials, access to the URLs is granted and you will see the application. Enjoy!

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 04, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, April 04, 2010New ProjectsAcervo 2 - Gerenciador de coleções: Acervo 2 is a web application developed in ASP.NET 3.5 with Entity Framework, Coolite UI web controls and MySQL database that helps to catalog and ...AssemblyInfo Editor: AssemblyInfo Editor is a small Visual Studio 2010 extension I developed for my personal use mainly for automatically incrementing AssemblyVersion a...CommLine: It's a Command Line Interpreter. At the moment, it's a beta version, so I wait for developers that wanna help meFlowgraph Viewer: The flowgraph viewer enables users to view, build and share flowgraphs for the Crysis-franchise. It's built on Silverlight4, using MEF and Mvvmlight.Hash Calculator: WPF Windows 7 program to compute SHA1 & MD5 hash functions.MediaRSS library for .NET: This is a small set of libraries that allow you to create, read, and write MediaRSS files. By leveraging the syndication model object in .NET this...MEF Visualizer Tool: Helps to see what is going on inside the CompositionContainerone framework for developing asp.net project more elegent、flexible、and testable: if you are familiar with jsf、cdi、scoped javabean and work under asp.net, you may want to support aop and max flexibility and testability , all of ...Picasa Manager: A Silverlight Out Of Browser Application that Helps you manage your PicasaWeb albums in the easyest way possible.SharePhone: Windows Phone 7 library for connecting to SharePoint 2007/2010. Lets you work with SPWeb, SPList, reading/writing strong typed list items, user ...Silverlight Resource Extension: Silverlight Resource Extension. Extension silverlight project for use ResX resources and localize satellite dll.Silverlight Streamgraph: Streamgraph component for SilverlightTFTP Server: Managed TFTP server implementation, written in C#. Supports: - IPv4 and IPv6 - correct retry behavior. - TFTP options: block size, transfer size, a...Virtual UserGroup Video Helpers: This is a project that holds all the tools used by the C4MVC Virtual Usergroup. Tools written in C# and Powershell to automate, Live Meeting, Expr...xBlog: xBlog is a project to build a simple and extensible Blog Engine based on xml and linqXmlCodeEditor: XmlCodeEditor is a Silverlight 4 control based on RichTextControl that creates coloring and intellisense similar to the one in Visual Studio for ed...Zinc Launcher: Zinc Launcher is a simple Windows Media Center plugin that launches Zinc and attempts to manage the windows as seamlessly as possible. In addition ...New ReleasesAcervo 2 - Gerenciador de coleções: Acervo 2 - v1.0: Arquivos para implantação do sistema Acervo2 Aplicação web Web service Smart ClientAssemblyInfo Editor: Beta 1: Initial release of Assembly Info Editor. At this point, it is feature-complete and is relatively stable. There are undoubtedly some bugs to work o...Box2D.XNA: Box2D.XNA r70 Source Code and Solution: This version is synced to changeset 44697. This represents our official port of the C Box2D up to r70 on the Google Code project. With this versi...Boxee Launcher: Boxee Launcher Release 1.0.1.2: Will now stop Media Center playback before launching BoxeeBoxee Launcher: Boxee Launcher Release 1.0.1.3: Added a background window that attempts to display over the desktop and taskbar, and below Boxee and Media Center so that the desktop and taskbar a...CommLine: Beta Version 0.1: First Beta Of the AppCommLine: Source v0.1 Beta: Source Code C of 0.1 beta versionEncrypted Notes: Encrypted Notes 1.6.2: This is the latest version of Encrypted Notes (1.6.2), with general changes and improved randomness for the key generator. It has an installer that...Hash Calculator: HashCalculator: HashCalculator 1.0Hash Calculator: HashCalculator Source code: HashCalculator 1.0Hulu Launcher: Hulu Launcher 1.0.1.3: Added a background window that attempts to display over the desktop and taskbar, and below Hulu and Media Center so that the desktop and taskbar ar...Hulu Launcher: Hulu Launcher Release 1.0.1.2: Hulu Launcher will now stop playback in Media Center before launching Hulu Desktop.Innovative Games: 4.3 - Sprite Effects: Source code download for chapter 4.3 - "Sprite Effects"MediaRSS library for .NET: 0.1: Alpha release. Majority of MediaRSS spec is supported. A small set of unit test / sample code are included. A lightly tested CustomFormatter object...MEF Visualizer Tool: MEF Visualizer Tool 0.1: Help to see what going on in side CompositionContainer Container = new CompositionContainer( new AggregateCatalog( ...Ncqrs Framework - A CQRS framework for .NET: Ncqrs with sample application: This is the first release of the Ncqrs Framework. It contains the Ncqrs source code and a runnable sample application. All the code in this release...Rubik Cube's 3D Silverlight 3.0 Animated Solution: Rubik Cube 3D with Animated Solution: This project is a realization of Silverlight 3.0 Rubik Cube 3D with Animated Solution. The Solution is available for 3x3x3 cube, other features are...Scrabler: scrabler release 0.6.2.5: fixed a bug that werent executed some scriptsSharePhone: SharePhone: Initial release with basic functionality: Open SharePoint webs and subwebs Retrieve lists on SPWeb objects Read metadata/properties on lists ...SharePhone: SharePhone v.1.0.1: Fixed a bug that prevented saving list items to SharePointSharePoint Labs: SPLab4001A-FRA-Level100: SPLab4001A-FRA-Level100 This SharePoint Lab will teach you the first best practice you should apply when writing code with the SharePoint API. Lab ...Silverlight Resource Extension: ResourceExtension (alpha): Alpha version is not stable. Only for review.Silverlight Streamgraph: Port from processing.org: A port from the processing.org streamgraph. Code-heavy with very little XAML involved at this point.Theocratic Ministry School System: TMSS - Ver 1.1.1: What’s New! Added Menu Options 2010 Schedule Access 2007 Runtime There are still many uncompleted items so this is still a conceptual release....Theocratic Ministry School System: TMSS - Ver 1.1.2: Fixed the Schedule Import. Need needs to be tested. Click import button and make sure you can get the 2010 Schedule from the internet.thinktecture Starter STS (Community Edition): StarterSTS v1.0 RTW: Version 1.0 RTWTribe.Cache: Tribe.Cache Alpha - 0.2.0.0: Tribe.Cache Alpha - 0.2.0.0 - Now has sliding and absolute expiration on cache entries. Functional Alpha Release - But do not use in productionTwitterVB - A .NET Twitter Library: TwitterVB-2.3.1: This is mostly a minor release that adds br.st URL shortening to the menu (API key from http://br.st required)Virtu: Virtu 0.8.1: Source Requirements.NET Framework 3.5 with Service Pack 1 Visual Studio 2008 with Service Pack 1, or Visual C# 2008 Express Edition with Service Pa...Visual Studio DSite: Advanced C++ Calculator: An advanced visual c 2008 calculator that can do all your basic operations, plus some advanced mathematical functions. Source Code Only.xnaWebcam: xnaWebcam 0.3: xnaWebcam 0.3 Version 0.3: -ResolutionSet: 400x300 (Default), 800x600, 1024x720 -Settings Window got Icon -Settings Window Changes -DevConsole.cs ...Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseASP.NET Ajax LibrarySilverlight ToolkitAJAX Control ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesDotNetNuke® Community EditionMost Active ProjectsGraffiti CMSnopCommerce. Open Source online shop e-commerce solution.RawrFacebook Developer ToolkitjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesLINQ to TwitterBlogEngine.NETN2 CMSBase Class LibrariesFarseer Physics Engine

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• Building Great-Looking, Usable Apps: A two-day workshop applying Oracle’s best UX practices in ADF

  - by mvaughan

  By Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User ExperienceI have been with Oracle for more than 12 years. It is a company that has granted me extraordinary creative freedom to help deliver compelling experiences for customers.I am beyond proud to talk about one of the experiences we just took for a test drive. Recently, we delivered a first-of-its-kind, three-team collaboration, train-the-trainer event in Reading, U.K., on building great-looking, usable apps based on Oracle Fusion Applications -- using the ADF tool kit. A new kind of workshopKevin Li, Platform Product Director, asked the Oracle Applications User Experience VP, Jeremy Ashley, if the team had anything to help partners and customers build applications that looked like Fusion. He was receiving this request from European partners and customers.Some quick conversations ensued, and the idea for the workshop was born: We would conduct an experiment.  We would work with feedback from the key Platform Technology Solutions (PTS) trainers under Andre Pavanello, Director, Platform Technology Solutions, in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. We would partner with the ADF team lead by Grant Ronald, Director of Product Management, title> and leverage the Applications UX expertise in Ashley’s team.The goal: Create a pilot workshop that in two days would explain to an ADF developer how to leverage the next-generation user experience best-practices developed for Fusion Apps. Why? Customers who need integrations with Oracle Fusion Applications, who are looking for custom applications that need to co-exist with Fusion, or who quite simply want a next-generation design for a custom app, need their solutions to reflect the next-generation research and design.Building an event for an ADF developerThe biggest hurdle was figuring out where to start.  How far into user experience country do you take an ADF developer? How far into ADF do you need to go if you are a UX professional?After some time in the UX kitchen, the workshop recipe looked like this: Mix equal parts: Fusion user experience design principles and functional design patterns The art and science behind UX How to wireframe designs that you can build in Fusion How to translate those designs into an ADF application Ultan O’Broin, Director of Global User Experience, explaining the trouble ticket wireframe design exerciseLynn Munsinger, Senior Group Product Manager, explaining the follow-on trouble ticket ADF coding exercise For spice, add:•    Debra Lilley, Fujitsu and ACE director, showcasing some of the latest ADF design work in the new face of Fusion Applications •    Partner show-and-tell of example apps they have built with FMW and ADF that are dynamic, beautiful, and interactive.Debra Lilley, Oracle ACE Director and Fujitsu Fusion Champion on the new face of Fusion built with ADF and Fusion extensibility with composers as a window into “the possible”?The taste testThis first go-round of the workshop was aimed squarely at ADF developers and partners.  We were privileged to have participation and feedback from:•    Sten Vesterli, Scott/Tiger S. A., Denmark•    John Sim, Fishbowl Solutions, UK•    Josef Huber, Primus Delphi Group, Munich•    Thaddaus Weindl, Primus Delphi, Group , Munich•    Praveen Pillalamarri, EiS Technologies, Bangalore•    Balaji Kamepalli, EiS Technologies, Bangalore•    Plinio Arbizu, Services & Processes Solutions S. A., Mexico•    Yannick Ongena, infoMENTUM, UK•    Jakub Ciszek, infoMENTUM, UK•    Mauro Flores, infoMENTUM, UK•    Matteo Formica, infoMENTUM, UKRichard Bingham, Oracle, Mauro Flores and Matteo Formica, infoMENTUMWhy is this so exciting?  Oracle has invested heavily in the research and development of the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience. This investment has been and continues to be applied across the product lines. Now, we finally get to teach customers and partners how to take advantage of this investment for custom solutions.This event was a pilot to test-drive the content, as well as a train-the-trainer event that our EMEA colleagues will be using with partners who want to build with Fusion Apps design patterns.What did attendees think?"I liked most the science stuff, like eye-tracking, design patterns and best-practice (color, contrast),” Josef Huber said. “It was a very good introduction to UI design, and most developers and project managers are very bad in that.  So this course would be good for all developers and even project managers." Team Anonymous: John Sim, Fishbowl Solutions, Flavius Sana, Oracle, Josef Huber, infoMENTUM, Mireille Duroussaud, Oracle. Winners of the wireframing design exercise.  Sten Vesterli, of Scott/Tiger, said he attended to learn techniques he could use in his own projects. He wants to ensure that his applications better meet the needs of his users, and he said sessions during the workshop on user interface design and wireframing were most useful to him.  “Go to this event to learn the art and science of good user interfaces from people who really know how to do it,” he said.Sten Vesterli, Scott/Tiger, Angelo Santagata, Oracle Plinio Arbizu said the workshop fulfilled his goals, thanks to the recommendations given in how to design user interfaces to facilitate the adoption of applications among the final users. “The workshop combined these recommendations with an exercise that improved the technical comprehension, permitting the usage of JDeveloper to set forth our solutions,” he said. He added: “The first session that I really enjoyed was the five Fusion design principles. It was incredible to discover how these simple principles were included in an inherit manner in Fusion Applications, and I had been using many of them applying only ADF components.  Another topic that I enjoyed a lot was the eight recommendations about the visual design of UIs. The issues that were raised in that lesson are unknown to the developers and of great value to achieve an attractive presentation layer to the end users.  Participate in this workshop, and include these usability features in your projects and in this manner not only to facilitate and improve the user productivity, but also to distinguish you as a professional who takes advantage fully of the functionalities offered by Oracle technology. Praveen Pillalamarri came to the workshop to learn about the difficulties faced in UI and UX development, and how this can be resolved with the help of ADF.  He also appreciated the opportunity to talk with other individuals who came to the workshop. Pillalmarri said, “The way we looked at things in terms of work and projects were sharpened.  UI and UX design knowledge shared by you was quite interesting, especially the minute things which we ignored in the UI or UX design.” Plinio Arbizu, Services & Processes Solutions S. A., Richard Bingham, Oracle, Balaji Kamepalli, & Praveen Pillalamarri, EiS TechnologiesReady to spread the wordIn EMEA, Oracle customers and partners have access to three world-class trainers via Platform Technology Solutions: Mireille Duroussaud, Flavius Sana, and Angelo Santagata. Contact Andre Pavanello if you like to experience this workshop firsthand, or you have customers or partners who would benefit from the training.We are looking to bring the event to the U.S. in spring 2013. If you have interest in this kind of a workshop, leave a comment below. For those who want to follow the action, join the ADF Enterprise Methodology Group run by Oracle’s Chris Muir. Ask questions and continue with the conversation in this forum, or check blogs.oracle.com/usableapps for topics emerging from the workshop.

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• SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Introduction – Day 1 of 31

  - by pinaldave

  List of all the Interview Questions and Answers Series blogs Posts covering interview questions and answers always make for interesting reading.  Some people like the subject for their helpful hints and thought provoking subject, and others dislike these posts because they feel it is nothing more than cheating.  I’d like to discuss the pros and cons of a Question and Answer format here. Interview Questions and Answers are Helpful Just like blog posts, books, and articles, interview Question and Answer discussions are learning material.  The popular Dummy’s books or Idiots Guides are not only for “dummies,” but can help everyone relearn the fundamentals.  Question and Answer discussions can serve the same purpose.  You could call this SQL Server Fundamentals or SQL Server 101. I have administrated hundreds of interviews during my career and I have noticed that sometimes an interviewee with several years of experience lacks an understanding of the fundamentals.  These individuals have been in the industry for so long, usually working on a very specific project, that the ABCs of the business have slipped their mind. Or, when a college graduate is looking to get into the industry, he is not expected to have experience since he is just graduated. However, the new grad is expected to have an understanding of fundamentals and theory.  Sometimes after the stress of final exams and graduation, it can be difficult to remember the correct answers to interview questions, though. An interview Question and Answer discussion can be very helpful to both these individuals.  It is simply a way to go back over the building blocks of a topic.  Many times a simple review like this will help “jog” your memory, and all those previously-memorized facts will come flooding back to you.  It is not a way to re-learn a topic, but a way to remind yourself of what you already know. A Question and Answer discussion can also be a way to go over old topics in a more interesting manner.  Especially if you have been working in the industry, or taking lots of classes on the topic, everything you read can sound like a repeat of what you already know.  Going over a topic in a new format can make the material seem fresh and interesting.  And an interested mind will be more engaged and remember more in the end. Interview Questions and Answers are Harmful A common argument against a Question and Answer discussion is that it will give someone a “cheat sheet.” A new guy with relatively little experience can read the interview questions and answers, and then memorize them. When an interviewer asks him the same questions, he will repeat the answers and get the job. Honestly, is he good hire because he memorized the interview questions? Wouldn’t it be better for the interviewer to hire someone with actual experience?  The answer is not as easy as it seems – there are many different factors to be considered. If the interviewer is asking fundamentals-related questions only, he gets the answers he wants to hear, and then hires this first candidate – there is a good chance that he is hiring based on personality rather than experience.  If the interviewer is smart he will ask deeper questions, have more than one person on the interview team, and interview a variety of candidates.  If one interviewee happens to memorize some answers, it usually doesn’t mean he will automatically get the job at the expense of more qualified candidates. Another argument against interview Question and Answers is that it will give candidates a false sense of confidence, and that they will appear more qualified than they are. Well, if that is true, it will not last after the first interview when the candidate is asked difficult questions and he cannot find the answers in the list of interview Questions and Answers.  Besides, confidence is one of the best things to walk into an interview with! In today’s competitive job market, there are often hundreds of candidates applying for the same position.  With so many applicants to choose from, interviewers must make decisions about who to call back and who to hire based on their gut feeling.  One drawback to reading an interview Question and Answer article is that you might sound very boring in your interview – saying the same thing as every single candidate, and parroting answers that sound like someone else wrote them for you – because they did.  However, it is definitely better to go to an interview prepared, just make sure that you give a lot of thought to your answers to make them sound like your own voice.  Remember that you will be hired based on your skills as well as your personality, so don’t think that having all the right answers will make get you hired.  A good interviewee will be prepared, confident, and know how to stand out. My Opinion A list of interview Questions and Answers is really helpful as a refresher or for beginners. To really ace an interview, one needs to have real-world, hands-on experience with SQL Server as well. Interview questions just serve as a starter or easy read for experienced professionals. When I have to learn new technology, I often search online for interview questions and get an idea about the breadth and depth of the technology. Next Action I am going to write about interview Questions and Answers for next 30 days. I have previously written a series of interview questions and answers; now I have re-written them keeping the latest version of SQL Server and current industry progress in mind. If you have faced interesting interview questions or situations, please write to me and I will publish them as a guest post. If you want me to add few more details, leave a comment and I will make sure that I do my best to accommodate. Tomorrow we will start the interview Questions and Answers series, with a few interesting stories, best practices and guest posts. We will have a prize give-away and other awards when the series ends. List of all the Interview Questions and Answers Series blogs Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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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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• XNA Notes 010

  - by George Clingerman

  With GDC 2011 wrapping up there were a LOT of great interviews and posts with and about XNA and XBLIG and some of our more notorious developers. Definitely worth spending many, many hours watching, listening and reading all those. Very inspiring! Also, don’t forget to get signed up for Dream Build Play! And just as an early warning reminder do NOT, I repeat do NOT wait to submit your game the last day. There are major issues submitting the last day every year and you do not want all your hard work to be hanging on whether your entry actually went through in that last day. Plan on submitting a few days if not a week before. I’m serious, you’ll thank yourself later! Now on to what’s happening in the XNA community! Time Critical XNA News: PAX East Meet Up (really wish I was going!) http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/71921/439262.aspx Want to stay panicked about the countdown to Dream Build Play? Mike McLaughlin shares his DBP countdown clock http://twitter.com/#!/mikebmcl/status/44454458960252928 XNA Team: Nick Gravelyn Only needs less than 600 new users in his unique marketing plan for Pixel Man 2 http://nickgravelyn.com/pixelman2/ And hares his ad revenue numbers with his XNA WP7 games http://theoneswiththelight.com/2011/my-results-with-ad-revenue-for-wp7-games/ XNA MVPs: Andy “The ZMan” Dunn posts his 15,000th App Hub forum post and shares a few thoughts on the MVP summit http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/77625.aspx Chris Williams shares his thoughts on the MVP summit http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/03/07/144229.aspx XNA Developers: Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best games Wraps up GDC http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/gdc-2011-wrapped.html And shares the wonderful screenshots from Serious Sam. (I’m so jealous people at PAX East willl be playing a demo of this game!) http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/serious-sam-double-d.html James Silva of Ska Studios announces http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/09/vampire-smile-at-hotel-sierra/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/08/vengeance-begins-april-6th/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/04/good-morning-gato-52/ Michael McLaughlin writes an extremely useful set of tips for XNA WP7 developers http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/03/10/tips-for-xna-wp7-developers.aspx Robert Boyd “the one man XBLIG improving machine” posts his 9 tips for marketing an Xbox LIVE Indie Gam http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110309/7183/9_Tips_for_XBLIG_Marketing.php http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/77534/470586.aspx#470586 And shares his day by day experience at GDC this year http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7118/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_1.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7123/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_2.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110303/7129/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_3.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7133/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_4.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7160/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_5.php Phillipe Da Silva releases new IGF Pong Sample preview http://www.vimeo.com/20904070 Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): Gamergeddon posts XBox Indie Game Roundup for March 6th http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/03/06/xbox-indie-game-round-up-march-6th/ Dealspwn interviews FortressCraft developer Projector Games http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-minecraft-clones-venting-haters-part-1/ http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-part-2-trials-tribulations-indie-development/ Writings of Mass Destruction continues the Xbox LIVE Indie Game a day campaign, here’s his take on FishCraft (be sure to check out his other posts!) http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/03/05/day-116-fishcraft/ Tom Ogburn shares his GDC notes on the XBLIG panel jotted quickly while attending the panel http://twitter.com/#!/TOgburn/status/44454191028125696 http://www.starlitskygames.com/blogs/site_news/archive/2011/03/06/802.aspx Dave Voyles of Armless Octopus has crazy good coverage on XNA and Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers at GDC 2011. Interviews and articles all extremely well done! http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/06/gdc-2011-successful-indie-developers-share-insight-on-microsofts-self-publishing-service/ There’s honestly so many posts and interviews you should just hit his front page and scroll down through all of the latest ones. http://www.armlessoctopus.com/ GameMarx Episode 12 http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/27/ep-12-march-4-2011.aspx B.U.T.T.O.N now on Steam! http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/03/button_party_game_now_on_steam.php German Xbox Dashboard gets review program from GamePro http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/07/gamepo-indie-review-show-debuts-on-german-xbox-dashboard/ XboxIndies.com (one of the best XNA sites out there at this point!) continues to add review sites to it’s main review feed. (And don’t forget to play with that awesome XBLIG pivot control!) http://xboxindies.com/ Kris Steele of FunInfused Games shares early footage of his game World of Chalk http://twitter.com/#!/kriswd40/status/45007114371989504 Raymond Matthews of Darkstarmatryx reviews FunInfused Games Abduction Action http://www.darkstarmatryx.com/?p=264 TheVideoGamerRob reviews Zombie Football Carnage http://videogamerrob.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/xblig-review-zombie-football-carnage/ XBLIG Square Off Making the Jump to WP7 http://www.wp7connect.com/2011/03/08/xblig-square-off-will-make-the-jump-to-windows-phone/ Mommy’s Best Games making the news round with their Serious Sam announcement http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/09/serious-sam-gets-serious-indie-cred-with-new-indie-series/ Most quoted and linked XBLIG article of the week with the least amount of actual facts and reporting. Shared only because it makes me sad that this is the best coverage we get. (Hey reporters, there’s LOT and LOTS of XBLIG and XNA experts you can contact if you need to check up on facts or wonder why on questions like, Why can’t XBLIGs have Nazis? There’s actually a real answer for that..) http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/06/xblig-facts-nazi-killing-a-no-no-revenue-a-yes-yes/ XNA Development: Mort8088 has been in an XNA tutorial writing frenzy releasing 4 XNA 4.0 entry level tutorials this week! http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-0-intro/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-1-fonts/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-2-sprites/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-3-input-from-keyboard/ Interesting discussion on what it means to be a community (you do have to sign up to be a member of the XNA UK forums to read it...) http://twitter.com/#!/XNAUK/status/44705269254594560 Slyprid continues his incredible pace on Transmute and shares screens of his new Animation Builder http://twitter.com/#!/slyprid/status/45169271847911424 http://forgottenstarstudios.com/blog/ Philippe Da Silva wants to know who is using IGF for their games. If it’s you, drop him a note letting him know! http://twitter.com/#!/philippedasilva/status/44325893719588864 New Sunburn Video Tutorials released http://www.synapsegaming.com/blogs/fivesidedbarrel/archive/2011/03/07/new-documentation-video-tutorials.aspx Loading and rendering animated collada models using XNA 4.0 http://bunkernetz.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/loading-and-rendering-animated-collada-models-using-xna-4-0/ XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 6 Accelerometer Input http://buzzgamesnews.blogspot.com/2011/03/xna-for-silverlight-developers-part-6.html

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• Creating a multi-column rollover image gallery with HTML 5

  - by nikolaosk

  I know it has been a while since I blogged about HTML 5. I have two posts in this blog about HTML 5. You can find them here and here.I am creating a small content website (only text,images and a contact form) for a friend of mine.He wanted to create a rollover gallery.The whole concept is that we have some small thumbnails on a page, the user hovers over them and they appear enlarged on a designated container/placeholder on a page. I am trying not to use Javascript scripts when I am using effects on a web page and this is what I will be doing in this post.  Well some people will say that HTML 5 is not supported in all browsers. That is true but most of the modern browsers support most of its recommendations. For people who still use IE6 some hacks must be devised.Well to be totally honest I cannot understand why anyone at this day and time is using IE 6.0.That really is beyond me.Well, the point of having a web browser is to be able to ENJOY the great experience that the WE? offers today.  Two very nice sites that show you what features and specifications are implemented by various browsers and their versions are http://caniuse.com/ and http://html5test.com/. At this times Chrome seems to support most of HTML 5 specifications.Another excellent way to find out if the browser supports HTML 5 and CSS 3 features is to use the Javascript lightweight library Modernizr.In this hands-on example I will be using Expression Web 4.0.This application is not a free application. You can use any HTML editor you like.You can use Visual Studio 2012 Express edition. You can download it here. In order to be absolutely clear this is not (and could not be ) a detailed tutorial on HTML 5. There are other great resources for that.Navigate to the excellent interactive tutorials of W3School.Another excellent resource is HTML 5 Doctor.For the people who are not convinced yet that they should invest time and resources on becoming experts on HTML 5 I should point out that HTML 5 websites will be ranked higher than others. Search engines will be able to locate better the content of our site and its relevance/importance since it is using semantic tags. Let's move now to the actual hands-on example. In this case (since I am mad Liverpool supporter) I will create a rollover image gallery of Liverpool F.C legends. I create a folder in my desktop. I name it Liverpool Gallery.Then I create two subfolders in it, large-images (I place the large images in there) and thumbs (I place the small images in there).Then I create an empty .html file called LiverpoolLegends.html and an empty .css file called style.css.Please have a look at the HTML Markup that I typed in my fancy editor package below<!doctype html><html lang="en"><head><title>Liverpool Legends Gallery</title><meta charset="utf-8"><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css"></head><body><header><h1>A page dedicated to Liverpool Legends</h1><h2>Do hover over the images with the mouse to see the full picture</h2></header><ul id="column1"><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/john-barnes.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/john-barnes-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/ian-rush.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/ian-rush-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/graeme-souness.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/graeme-souness-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li></ul><ul id="column2"><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/steven-gerrard.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/steven-gerrard-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/kenny-dalglish.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/kenny-dalglish-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/robbie-fowler.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/robbie-fowler-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li></ul><ul id="column3"><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/alan-hansen.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/alan-hansen-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li><li><a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=1153&postid=8927200#"><img src="thumbs/michael-owen.jpg" alt=""><img class="large" src="large-images/michael-owen-large.jpg" alt=""></a></li></ul></body></html> It is very easy to follow the markup. Please have a look at the new doctype and the new semantic tag <header>. I have 3 columns and I place my images in there.There is a class called "large".I will use this class in my CSS code to hide the large image when the mouse is not on (hover) an image Make sure you validate your HTML 5 page in the validator found hereHave a look at the CSS code below that makes it all happen.img { border:none;}#column1 { position: absolute; top: 30; left: 100; }li { margin: 15px; list-style-type:none;}#column1 a img.large {  position: absolute; top: 0; left:700px; visibility: hidden;}#column1 a:hover { background: white;}#column1 a:hover img.large { visibility:visible;}#column2 { position: absolute; top: 30; left: 195px; }li { margin: 5px; list-style-type:none;}#column2 a img.large { position: absolute; top: 0; left:510px; margin-left:0; visibility: hidden;}#column2 a:hover { background: white;}#column2 a:hover img.large { visibility:visible;}#column3 { position: absolute; top: 30; left: 400px; width:108px;}li { margin: 5px; list-style-type:none;}#column3 a img.large { width: 260px; height:260px; position: absolute; top: 0; left:315px; margin-left:0; visibility: hidden;}#column3 a:hover { background: white;}#column3 a:hover img.large { visibility:visible;}?n the first line of the CSS code I set the images to have no border.Then I place the first column in the page and then remove the bullets from the list elements.Then I use the large CSS class to create a position for the large image and hide it.Finally when the hover event takes place I make the image visible.I repeat the process for the next two columns. I have tested the page with IE 10 and the latest versions of Opera,Chrome and Firefox.Feel free to style your HTML 5 gallery any way you want through the magic of CSS.I did not bother adding background colors and borders because that was beyond the scope of this post. Hope it helps!!!!

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• So, how is the Oracle HCM Cloud User Experience? In a word, smokin’!

  - by Edith Mireles-Oracle

  By Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle unveiled its game-changing cloud user experience strategy at Oracle OpenWorld 2013 (remember that?) with a new simplified user interface (UI) paradigm.  The Oracle HCM cloud user experience is about light-weight interaction, tailored to the task you are trying to accomplish, on the device you are comfortable working with. A key theme for the Oracle user experience is being able to move from smartphone to tablet to desktop, with all of your data in the cloud. The Oracle HCM Cloud user experience provides designs for better productivity, no matter when and how your employees need to work. Release 8  Oracle recently demonstrated how fast it is moving development forward for our cloud applications, with the availability of release 8.  In release 8, users will see expanded simplicity in the HCM cloud user experience, such as filling out a time card and succession planning. Oracle has also expanded its mobile capabilities with task flows for payslips, managing absences, and advanced analytics. In addition, users will see expanded extensibility with the new structures editor for simplified pages, and the with the user interface text editor, which allows you to update language throughout the UI from one place. If you don’t like calling people who work for you “employees,” you can use this tool to create a term that is suited to your business.  Take a look yourself at what’s available now. What are people saying?Debra Lilley (@debralilley), an Oracle ACE Director who has a long history with Oracle Applications, recently gave her perspective on release 8: “Having had the privilege of seeing a preview of release 8, I am again impressed with the enhancements around simplified UI. Even more so, at a user group event in London this week, an existing Cloud HCM customer speaking publically about his implementation said he was very excited about release 8 as the absence functionality was so superior and simple to use.”  In an interview with Lilley for a blog post by Dennis Howlett  (@dahowlett), we probably couldn’t have asked for a more even-handed look at the Oracle Applications Cloud and the impact of user experience. Take the time to watch all three videos and get the full picture.  In closing, Howlett’s said: “There is always the caveat that getting from the past to Fusion [from the editor: Fusion is now called the Oracle Applications Cloud] is not quite as simple as may be painted, but the outcomes are much better than anticipated in large measure because the user experience is so much better than what went before.” Herman Slange, Technical Manager with Oracle Applications partner Profource, agrees with that comment. “We use on-premise Financials & HCM for internal use. Having a simple user interface that works on a desktop as well as a tablet for (very) non-technical users is a big relief. Coming from E-Business Suite, there is less training (none) required to access HCM content.  From a technical point of view, having the abilities to tailor the simplified UI very easy makes it very efficient for us to adjust to specific customer needs.  When we have a conversation about simplified UI, we just hand over a tablet and ask the customer to just use it. No training and no explanation required.” Finally, in a story by Computer Weekly  about Oracle customer BG Group, a natural gas exploration and production company based in the UK and with a presence in 20 countries, the author states: “The new HR platform has proved to be easier and more intuitive for HR staff to use than the previous SAP-based technology.” What’s Next for Oracle’s Applications Cloud User Experiences? This is the question that Steve Miranda, Oracle Executive Vice President, Applications Development, asks the Applications User Experience team, and we’ve been hard at work for some time now on “what’s next.”  I can’t say too much about it, but I can tell you that we’ve started talking to customers and partners, under non-disclosure agreements, about user experience concepts that we are working on in order to get their feedback. We recently had a chance to talk about possibilities for the Oracle HCM Cloud user experience at an Oracle HCM Southern California Customer Success Summit. This was a fantastic event, hosted by Shane Bliss and Vance Morossi of the Oracle Client Success Team. We got to use the uber-slick facilities of Allergan, our hosts (of Botox fame), headquartered in Irvine, Calif., with a presence in more than 100 countries. Photo by Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User Experience Vance Morossi, left, and Shane Bliss, of the Oracle Client Success Team, at an Oracle HCM Southern California Customer Success Summit.  We were treated to a few really excellent talks around human resources (HR). Alice White, VP Human Resources, discussed Allergan's process for global talent acquisition -- how Allergan has designed and deployed a global process, and global tools, along with Oracle and Cognizant, and are now at the end of a global implementation. She shared a couple of insights about the journey for Allergan: “One of the major areas for improvement was on role clarification within the company.” She said the company is “empowering managers and deputizing them as recruiters. Now it is a global process that is nimble and efficient."  Deepak Rammohan, VP Product Management, HCM Cloud, Oracle, also took the stage to talk about pioneering modern HR. He reflected modern HR problems of getting the right data about the workforce, the importance of getting the right talent as a key strategic initiative, and other workforce insights. "How do we design systems to deal with all of this?” he asked. “Make sure the systems are talent-centric. The next piece is collaborative, engaging, and mobile. A lot of this is influenced by what users see today. The last thing is around insight; insight at the point of decision-making." Rammohan showed off some killer HCM Cloud talent demos focused on simplicity and mobility that his team has been cooking up, and closed with a great line about the nature of modern recruiting: "Recruiting is a team sport." Deepak Rammohan, left, and Jake Kuramoto, both of Oracle, debate the merits of a Google Glass concept demo for recruiters on-the-go. Later, in an expo-style format, the Apps UX team showed several concepts for next-generation HCM Cloud user experiences, including demos shown by Jake Kuramoto (@jkuramoto) of The AppsLab, and Aylin Uysal (@aylinuysal), Director, HCM Cloud user experience. We even hauled out our eye-tracker, a research tool used to show where the eye is looking at a particular screen, thanks to teammate Michael LaDuke. Dionne Healy, HCM Client Executive, and Aylin Uysal, Director, HCM Cloud user experiences, Oracle, take a look at new HCM Cloud UX concepts. We closed the day with Jeremy Ashley (@jrwashley), VP, Applications User Experience, who brought it all back together by talking about the big picture for applications cloud user experiences. He covered the trends we are paying attention to now, what users will be expecting of their modern enterprise apps, and what Oracle’s design strategy is around these ideas.   We closed with an excellent reception hosted by ADP Payroll services at Bistango. Want to read more?Want to see where our cloud user experience is going next? Read more on the UsableApps web site about our latest design initiative: “Glance, Scan, Commit.” Or catch up on the back story by looking over our Applications Cloud user experience content on the UsableApps web site.  You can also find out where we’ll be next at the Events page on UsableApps.

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• HDMI video connection cuts top and bottom borders of screen

  - by Luis Alvarado

  Ok this is an extension of another problem I had with a VGA connection and an Nvidia Geforce GT 440 card. Here is goes the explanation of this particular problem: I have a Soneview 32' TV. This TV has many connections including VGA (First reason I bought it), HDMI (Second reason but did not have a HDMI cable at that time) and DVI. I have had this TV for little over a month now, actually I had it to celebrate the release of Ubuntu 11.10 and started using it exactly on that date (I know too much fan there but hey, I like geek stuff). I started using it with the VGA cable. After 2 weeks I bought an Nvidia GT440 card. The previous 9500GT was working correctly with no problems whatsoever. I installed the GT440 and the first problem that I encountered using this latest card is mentioned here: Nvidia GT 440 black screen problem when loading lightdm greeter. The solution to this problem was to actually disconnect then connect again the VGA cable. This would result in the screen showing me the lightdm screen for my login. If I did not disconnect then connect the cable I could be there forever thinking that there is no video signal. I got tired of looking for answers that did not work and for solutions that made me literally have to install Ubuntu again. I just went and bought a HDMI cable and changed the VGA one for that one. It worked and I did not have to disconnect/connect the cable but now I have this problem when using any resolution. My normal resolution is 1920x1080 (This TV is 1080HD) so in VGA I could use this resolution with no problem, but on HDMI am getting the borders cut out. Here is a pic: As you can see from the PIC, the Launcher icons only show less than 50% of their witdh. Forget about the top and bottom parts, I can access them with the mouse but I can not visualize them in the screen. It is like it's outside of the TVs view. Basically there is like 20 to 30 pixels gone from all sides. I searched around and came to running xrand --verbose to see what it could detect from the TV. I got this: cyrex@cyrex:~$ xrandr --verbose xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default Screen 0: minimum 320 x 175, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 1920 x 1080 default connected 1920x1080+0+0 (0x164) normal (normal) 0mm x 0mm Identifier: 0x163 Timestamp: 465485 Subpixel: unknown Clones: CRTC: 0 CRTCs: 0 Transform: 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000 filter: 1920x1080 (0x164) 103.7MHz *current h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 54.0KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 50.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x165) 105.8MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 55.1KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 51.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x166) 107.8MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 56.2KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 52.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x167) 109.9MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 57.2KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 53.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x168) 112.0MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 58.3KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 54.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x169) 114.0MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 59.4KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 55.0Hz 1680x1050 (0x16a) 98.8MHz h: width 1680 start 0 end 0 total 1680 skew 0 clock 58.8KHz v: height 1050 start 0 end 0 total 1050 clock 56.0Hz 1680x1050 (0x16b) 100.5MHz h: width 1680 start 0 end 0 total 1680 skew 0 clock 59.9KHz v: height 1050 start 0 end 0 total 1050 clock 57.0Hz 1600x1024 (0x16c) 95.0MHz h: width 1600 start 0 end 0 total 1600 skew 0 clock 59.4KHz v: height 1024 start 0 end 0 total 1024 clock 58.0Hz 1440x900 (0x16d) 76.5MHz h: width 1440 start 0 end 0 total 1440 skew 0 clock 53.1KHz v: height 900 start 0 end 0 total 900 clock 59.0Hz 1360x768 (0x171) 65.8MHz h: width 1360 start 0 end 0 total 1360 skew 0 clock 48.4KHz v: height 768 start 0 end 0 total 768 clock 63.0Hz 1360x768 (0x172) 66.8MHz h: width 1360 start 0 end 0 total 1360 skew 0 clock 49.2KHz v: height 768 start 0 end 0 total 768 clock 64.0Hz 1280x1024 (0x173) 85.2MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 66.6KHz v: height 1024 start 0 end 0 total 1024 clock 65.0Hz 1280x960 (0x176) 83.6MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 65.3KHz v: height 960 start 0 end 0 total 960 clock 68.0Hz 1280x960 (0x177) 84.8MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 66.2KHz v: height 960 start 0 end 0 total 960 clock 69.0Hz 1280x720 (0x178) 64.5MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 50.4KHz v: height 720 start 0 end 0 total 720 clock 70.0Hz 1280x720 (0x179) 65.4MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 51.1KHz v: height 720 start 0 end 0 total 720 clock 71.0Hz 1280x720 (0x17a) 66.4MHz h: width 1280 start 0 end 0 total 1280 skew 0 clock 51.8KHz v: height 720 start 0 end 0 total 720 clock 72.0Hz 1152x864 (0x17b) 72.7MHz h: width 1152 start 0 end 0 total 1152 skew 0 clock 63.1KHz v: height 864 start 0 end 0 total 864 clock 73.0Hz 1152x864 (0x17c) 73.7MHz h: width 1152 start 0 end 0 total 1152 skew 0 clock 63.9KHz v: height 864 start 0 end 0 total 864 clock 74.0Hz ....Many Resolutions later... 320x200 (0x1d1) 10.2MHz h: width 320 start 0 end 0 total 320 skew 0 clock 31.8KHz v: height 200 start 0 end 0 total 200 clock 159.0Hz 320x175 (0x1d2) 9.0MHz h: width 320 start 0 end 0 total 320 skew 0 clock 28.0KHz v: height 175 start 0 end 0 total 175 clock 160.0Hz 1920x1080 (0x1dd) 333.8MHz h: width 1920 start 0 end 0 total 1920 skew 0 clock 173.9KHz v: height 1080 start 0 end 0 total 1080 clock 161.0Hz If it helps, the Refresh Rate at 1920x1080 is 60. There is a flickering effect at this resolution using HDMI but not VGA which I imagine is related to the borders cut off issue am asking here. I have also done the following but this will only solve the problem on lower resolutions than 1920x1080 or on others TV (My father has a Sony TV where this problem is also solved): NVIDIA WAY Go to Nvidia-Settings and there will be an option that will have more features if a HDMI cable is connected. In the next pic the option is DFP-1 (CNDLCD) but this name changes depending on what device the PC is connected to: Uncheck Force Full GPU Scaling What this will do for resolutions LOWER than 1920x1080 (At least in my case) is solve the flickering problem and fix the borders cut by the monitor. Save to Xorg.conf file the changes made after changing to a resolution acceptable to your eyes. TV WAY If you TV has OSD Menu and this menu has options for scanning the screen resolution or auto adjusting to it, disable them. Specifically the option about SCAN. If you have an option for AV Mode disable it. Basically disable any option that needs to scan and scale the resolution. Test one by one. In the case of my father's TV this did it. In my case, the Nvidia solved it for lower resolutions. NOTE: In the case this is not solved in the next couple of weeks I will add this as the answer but take into consideration that the issue is still active with 1920x1080 resolutions.

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• Create PDF document using iTextSharp in ASP.Net 4.0 and MemoryMappedFile

  - by sreejukg

  In this article I am going to demonstrate how ASP.Net developers can programmatically create PDF documents using iTextSharp. iTextSharp is a software component, that allows developers to programmatically create or manipulate PDF documents. Also this article discusses the process of creating in-memory file, read/write data from/to the in-memory file utilizing the new feature MemoryMappedFile. I have a database of users, where I need to send a notice to all my users as a PDF document. The sending mail part of it is not covered in this article. The PDF document will contain the company letter head, to make it more official. I have a list of users stored in a database table named “tblusers”. For each user I need to send customized message addressed to them personally. The database structure for the users is give below. id Title Full Name 1 Mr. Sreeju Nair K. G. 2 Dr. Alberto Mathews 3 Prof. Venketachalam Now I am going to generate the pdf document that contains some message to the user, in the following format. Dear <Title> <FullName>, The message for the user. Regards, Administrator Also I have an image, bg.jpg that contains the background for the document generated. I have created .Net 4.0 empty web application project named “iTextSharpSample”. First thing I need to do is to download the iTextSharp dll from the source forge. You can find the url for the download here. http://sourceforge.net/projects/itextsharp/files/ I have extracted the Zip file and added the itextsharp.dll as a reference to my project. Also I have added a web form named default.aspx to my project. After doing all this, the solution explorer have the following view. In the default.aspx page, I inserted one grid view and associated it with a SQL Data source control that bind data from tblusers. I have added a button column in the grid view with text “generate pdf”. The output of the page in the browser is as follows. Now I am going to create a pdf document when the user clicking on the Generate PDF button. As I mentioned before, I am going to work with the file in memory, I am not going to create a file in the disk. I added an event handler for button by specifying onrowcommand event handler. My gridview source looks like <asp:GridView ID="GridView1" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False" DataSourceID="SqlDataSource1" Width="481px" CellPadding="4" ForeColor="#333333" GridLines="None" onrowcommand="Generate_PDF" > ………………………………………………………………………….. ………………………………………………………………………….. </asp:GridView> In the code behind, I wrote the corresponding event handler. protected void Generate_PDF(object sender, GridViewCommandEventArgs e) { // The button click event handler code. // I am going to explain the code for this section in the remaining part of the article } The Generate_PDF method is straight forward, It get the title, fullname and message to some variables, then create the pdf using these variables. The code for getting data from the grid view is as follows // get the row index stored in the CommandArgument property int index = Convert.ToInt32(e.CommandArgument); // get the GridViewRow where the command is raised GridViewRow selectedRow = ((GridView)e.CommandSource).Rows[index]; string title = selectedRow.Cells[1].Text; string fullname = selectedRow.Cells[2].Text; string msg = @"There are some changes in the company policy, due to this matter you need to submit your latest address to us. Please update your contact details / personnal details by visiting the member area of the website. ................................... "; since I don’t want to save the file in the disk, I am going the new feature introduced in .Net framework 4, called Memory-Mapped Files. Using Memory-Mapped mapped file, you can created non-persisted memory mapped files, that are not associated with a file in a disk. So I am going to create a temporary file in memory, add the pdf content to it, then write it to the output stream. To read more about MemoryMappedFile, read this msdn article http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd997372.aspx The below portion of the code using MemoryMappedFile object to create a test pdf document in memory and perform read/write operation on file. The CreateViewStream() object will give you a stream that can be used to read or write data to/from file. The code is very straight forward and I included comment so that you can understand the code. using (MemoryMappedFile mmf = MemoryMappedFile.CreateNew("test1.pdf", 1000000)) { // Create a new pdf document object using the constructor. The parameters passed are document size, left margin, right margin, top margin and bottom margin. iTextSharp.text.Document d = new iTextSharp.text.Document(PageSize.A4, 72,72,172,72); //get an instance of the memory mapped file to stream object so that user can write to this using (MemoryMappedViewStream stream = mmf.CreateViewStream()) { // associate the document to the stream. PdfWriter.GetInstance(d, stream); /* add an image as bg*/ iTextSharp.text.Image jpg = iTextSharp.text.Image.GetInstance(Server.MapPath("Image/bg.png")); jpg.Alignment = iTextSharp.text.Image.UNDERLYING; jpg.SetAbsolutePosition(0, 0); //this is the size of my background letter head image. the size is in points. this will fit to A4 size document. jpg.ScaleToFit(595, 842); d.Open(); d.Add(jpg); d.Add(new Paragraph(String.Format("Dear {0} {1},", title, fullname))); d.Add(new Paragraph("\n")); d.Add(new Paragraph(msg)); d.Add(new Paragraph("\n")); d.Add(new Paragraph(String.Format("Administrator"))); d.Close(); } //read the file data byte[] b; using (MemoryMappedViewStream stream = mmf.CreateViewStream()) { BinaryReader rdr = new BinaryReader(stream); b = new byte[mmf.CreateViewStream().Length]; rdr.Read(b, 0, (int)mmf.CreateViewStream().Length); } Response.Clear(); Response.ContentType = "Application/pdf"; Response.BinaryWrite(b); Response.End(); } Press ctrl + f5 to run the application. First I got the user list. Click on the generate pdf icon. The created looks as follows. Summary: Creating pdf document using iTextSharp is easy. You will get lot of information while surfing the www. Some useful resources and references are mentioned below http://itextsharp.com/ http://www.mikesdotnetting.com/Article/82/iTextSharp-Adding-Text-with-Chunks-Phrases-and-Paragraphs http://somewebguy.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/itextsharp-simplify-your-html-to-pdf-creation/ Hope you enjoyed the article.

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• Use Those Extra Mouse Buttons to Increase Efficiency

  - by Mark Virtue

  Did you know that the most commonly used mouse actions are clicking a window’s “Close” button (the X in the top-right corner), and clicking the “Back” button (in a browser and various other programs)?  How much time do you spend every day locating the Close button or the Back button with your mouse so that you can click on them?  And what about that mouse you’re using – how many buttons does it have, besides the two main ones?  Most mouses these days have at least four (including the scroll-wheel, which a lot of people don’t realize is also a button as well).  Why not assign those extra buttons to your most common mouse actions, and save yourself a bundle of mousing-around time every day? If your mouse was manufactured by one of the “premium” mouse manufacturers (Microsoft, Logitech, etc), it almost certain came with driver software to allow you to customize your mouse’s controls and take advantage of your mouse’s special features.  Microsoft, for example, provides driver software called IntelliPoint (link below), while Logitech provides SetPoint.  It’s possible that your mouse has some extra buttons but doesn’t come with its own driver software (the author is using a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000, which amazingly is not supported by the Microsoft IntelliPoint software!).  If your mouse falls into this category, you can use a marvelous free product called X-Mouse Button Control, from Highresolution Enterprises (link below).  It provides a truly amazing array of mouse configuration options, including assigning actions to buttons on a per-application basis. Once X-Mouse Button Control is downloaded, its setup process is quite straightforward. Once downloaded, you can start the program via Start / Highresolution Enterprises / X-Mouse Button Control.  You will find the program’s icon in the system tray: Right-click on the icon and select Setup from the pop-up menu.  The program’s configuration window appears: It’s extremely unlikely that we will want to change the functionality of our mouse’s two main buttons (left and right), so instead we’ll look at the rest of the options on the right side of the window.  The Middle Button refers to either the third, middle button (found on some old mouses), or the pressing of the wheel itself, as a button (if you didn’t know you could press your wheel like a button, try it out now).  Mouse Button 4 and Mouse Button 5 usually refer to the extra buttons found on the side of the mouse, often near your thumb. So what can we use these extra mouse buttons for?  Well, clearly Close and Back are two obvious candidates.  Each of these can be found by selecting them from the drop-down menu next to each button field: Once the two options are chosen, the window will look something like this: If you’re not interested in choosing Back or Close, you may like to try some of the other options in the list, including: Cut, Copy and Paste Undo Show the Desktop Next/Previous track (for media playback) Open any program Simulate any keystroke or combination of keystrokes ….and many other options.  Explore the drop-down list to see them all. You may decide, for example, that closing the current document (as opposed to the current program) would be a good use for Mouse Button 5.  In other words, we need to simulate the keypress of Ctrl-F4.  Let’s see how we achieve this. First we select Simulated Keystrokes from the drop-down list: The Simulated Keystrokes window opens: The instructions on the page are pretty comprehensive.  If you want to simulate the Ctrl-F4 keystroke, you need to type {CTRL}{F4} into the box: …and then click OK. Assigning Actions to Buttons on a Per-Application Basis One of the most powerful features of X-Mouse Button Control is the ability to assign actions to buttons on a per-application basis.  This means that if we have a particular program open, then our mouse will behave differently – our buttons will do different things. For example, when we have Windows Media Player open, for example, we may wish to have buttons assigned to Play/Pause, Next track and Previous track, as well as changing the volume with the mouse!  This is easy with X-Mouse Button Control.  We start by opening Windows Media Player.  This makes the next step easier.  Then we return to X-Mouse Button Control and add a new “configuration”.  This is done by clicking the Add button: A window opens containing a list of all running programs, including our recently opened Windows Media Player: We select Windows Media Player and click OK.  A new, blank “configuration” is created: We repeat the earlier steps to assign buttons to Play/Pause, Next track and Previous track, and assign scrolling the wheel to alter the volume:   To save all our changes and close the window, we click Apply. Now spend a few minutes thinking of all the applications you use the most, and what are the most common simple tasks you perform in each of those applications.  Those tasks are then perfect candidates for per-application button assignments. There are many more configuration options and capabilities of X-Mouse Button Control – too many to list here.  We encourage you to spend a bit of time exploring the Setup window.  Then, most important of all, don’t forget to use your new mouse buttons!  Get into the habit of using them, and then after a while you’ll start to wonder how you ever tolerated the laborious, tedious, time-consuming process of actually locating each window’s Close button… Download X-Mouse Button Control Highresolution Enterprise Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add Specialized Toolbar Buttons to Firefox the Easy WayBoost Your Mouse Pointing Accuracy in WindowsMake Mouse Navigation Faster in WindowsVista Style Popup Previews for Firefox TabsStupid Geek Tricks: Using the Quick Zoom Feature in Outlook 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 Download Videos from Hulu Pixels invade Manhattan Convert PDF files to ePub to read on your iPad Hide Your Confidential Files Inside Images Get Wildlife Photography Tips at BBC’s PhotoMasterClasses Mashpedia is a Real-time Encyclopedia

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• Thinktecture.IdentityModel: WIF Support for WCF REST Services and OData

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  The latest drop of Thinktecture.IdentityModel includes plumbing and support for WIF, claims and tokens for WCF REST services and Data Services (aka OData). Cibrax has an alternative implementation that uses the WCF Rest Starter Kit. His recent post reminded me that I should finally “document” that part of our library. Features include: generic plumbing for all WebServiceHost derived WCF services support for SAML and SWT tokens support for ClaimsAuthenticationManager and ClaimsAuthorizationManager based solely on native WCF extensibility points (and WIF) This post walks you through the setup of an OData / WCF DataServices endpoint with token authentication and claims support. This sample is also included in the codeplex download along a similar sample for plain WCF REST services. Setting up the Data Service To prove the point I have created a simple WCF Data Service that renders the claims of the current client as an OData set. public class ClaimsData {     public IQueryable<ViewClaim> Claims     {         get { return GetClaims().AsQueryable(); }     }       private List<ViewClaim> GetClaims()     {         var claims = new List<ViewClaim>();         var identity = Thread.CurrentPrincipal.Identity as IClaimsIdentity;           int id = 0;         identity.Claims.ToList().ForEach(claim =>             {                 claims.Add(new ViewClaim                 {                    Id = ++id,                    ClaimType = claim.ClaimType,                    Value = claim.Value,                    Issuer = claim.Issuer                 });             });           return claims;     } } …and hooked that up with a read only data service: public class ClaimsDataService : DataService<ClaimsData> {     public static void InitializeService(IDataServiceConfiguration config)     {         config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("*", EntitySetRights.AllRead);     } } Enabling WIF Before you enable WIF, you should generate your client proxies. Afterwards the service will only accept requests with an access token – and svcutil does not support that. All the WIF magic is done in a special service authorization manager called the FederatedWebServiceAuthorizationManager. This code checks incoming calls to see if the Authorization HTTP header (or X-Authorization for environments where you are not allowed to set the authorization header) contains a token. This header must either start with SAML access_token= or WRAP access_token= (for SAML or SWT tokens respectively). For SAML validation, the plumbing uses the normal WIF configuration. For SWT you can either pass in a SimpleWebTokenRequirement or the SwtIssuer, SwtAudience and SwtSigningKey app settings are checked.If the token can be successfully validated, ClaimsAuthenticationManager and ClaimsAuthorizationManager are invoked and the IClaimsPrincipal gets established. The service authorization manager gets wired up by the FederatedWebServiceHostFactory: public class FederatedWebServiceHostFactory : WebServiceHostFactory {     protected override ServiceHost CreateServiceHost(       Type serviceType, Uri[] baseAddresses)     {         var host = base.CreateServiceHost(serviceType, baseAddresses);           host.Authorization.ServiceAuthorizationManager =           new FederatedWebServiceAuthorizationManager();         host.Authorization.PrincipalPermissionMode = PrincipalPermissionMode.Custom;           return host;     } } The last step is to set up the .svc file to use the service host factory (see the sample download). Calling the Service To call the service you need to somehow get a token. This is up to you. You can either use WSTrustChannelFactory (for the full CLR), WSTrustClient (Silverlight) or some other way to obtain a token. The sample also includes code to generate SWT tokens for testing – but the whole WRAP/SWT support will be subject of a separate post. I created some extensions methods for the most common web clients (WebClient, HttpWebRequest, DataServiceContext) that allow easy setting of the token, e.g.: public static void SetAccessToken(this DataServiceContext context,   string token, string type, string headerName) {     context.SendingRequest += (s, e) =>     {         e.RequestHeaders[headerName] = GetHeader(token, type);     }; } Making a query against the Data Service could look like this: static void CallService(string token, string type) {     var data = new ClaimsData(new Uri("https://server/odata.svc/"));     data.SetAccessToken(token, type);       data.Claims.ToList().ForEach(c =>         Console.WriteLine("{0}\n {1}\n ({2})\n", c.ClaimType, c.Value, c.Issuer)); } HTH

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, September 07, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, September 07, 2012Popular ReleasesUmbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.9.0: Whats newThe media section has been overhauled to support HTML5 uploads, just drag and drop files in, even multiple files are supported on any HTML5 capable browser. The folder content overview is also much improved allowing you to filter it and perform common actions on your media items. The Rich Text Editor’s “Media” button now uses an embedder based on the open oEmbed standard (if you’re upgrading, enable the media button in the Rich Text Editor datatype settings and set TidyEditorConten...menu4web: menu4web 0.4.1 - javascript menu for web sites: This release is for those who believe that global variables are evil. menu4web has been wrapped into m4w singleton object. Added "Vertical Tabs" example which illustrates object notation.WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.2.1: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features AsyncUI extensions Controls and control extensions Converters Debugging helpers Imaging IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE: Namespace changes DebugConsol...iPDC - Free Phasor Data Concentrator: iPDC-v1.3.1: iPDC suite version-1.3.1, Modifications and Bug Fixed (from v 1.3.0) New User Manual for iPDC-v1.3.1 available on websites. Bug resolved : PMU Simulator TCP connection error and hang connection for client (PDC). Now PMU Simulator (server) can communicate more than one PDCs (clients) over TCP and UDP parallely. PMU Simulator is now sending the exact data frames as mentioned in data rate by user. PMU Simulator data rate has been verified by iPDC database entries and PMU Connection Tes...Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: AdventureWorks OData Feed: The AdventureWorks OData service exposes resources based on specific SQL views. The SQL views are a limited subset of the AdventureWorks database that results in several consuming scenarios: CompanySales Documents ManufacturingInstructions ProductCatalog TerritorySalesDrilldown WorkOrderRouting How to install the sample You can consume the AdventureWorks OData feed from http://services.odata.org/AdventureWorksV3/AdventureWorks.svc. You can also consume the AdventureWorks OData fe...Desktop Google Reader: 1.4.6: Sorting feeds alphabetical is now optional (see preferences window)DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.02.03: Major Highlights Fixed issue where mailto: links were not working when sending bulk email Fixed issue where uses did not see friendship relationships Problem is in 6.2, which does not show in the Versions Affected list above. Fixed the issue with cascade deletes in comments in CoreMessaging_Notification Fixed UI issue when using a date fields as a required profile property during user registration Fixed error when running the product in debug mode Fixed visibility issue when...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.65: Fixed null-reference error in the build task constructor.B INI Sharp Library: B INI Sharp Library v1.0.0.0 Final Realsed: The frist realsedActive Social Migrator: ActiveSocialMigrator 1.0.0 Beta: Beta release for the Active Social Migration tool.EntLib.com????????: ??????demo??-For SQL 2005-2008: EntLibShopping ???v3.0 - ??????demo??，?????SQL SERVER 2005/2008/2008 R2/2012 ??????。 ??（??）??????。 THANKS.Sistem LPK Pemkot Semarang: Panduan Penggunaan Sistem LPK: Panduan cara menggunakan Aplikasi Sistem LPK Bagian Pembangunan Kota SemarangActive Forums for DotNetNuke CMS: Active Forums 5.0.0 RC: RC release of Active Forums 5.0.Droid Explorer: Droid Explorer 0.8.8.7 Beta: Bug in the display icon for apk's, will fix with next release Added fallback icon if unable to get the image/icon from the Cloud Service Removed some stale plugins that were either out dated or incomplete. Added handler for *.ab files for restoring backups Added plugin to create device backups Backups stored in %USERPROFILE%\Android Backups\%DEVICE_ID%\ Added custom folder icon for the android backups directory better error handling for installing an apk bug fixes for the Runn...The Visual Guide for Building Team Foundation Server 2012 Environments: Version 1: --Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v8.5: Version 8.5 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine. New features include: Built-in search engine using Lucene.NET Flood control improvements Notifications improvements: sync option and mail body View Roadmap for more details webdeploy package sha1 checksum: 961aff884a9187b6e8a86d68913cdd31f8deaf83WiX Toolset: WiX Toolset v3.6: WiX Toolset v3.6 introduces the Burn bootstrapper/chaining engine and support for Visual Studio 2012 and .NET Framework 4.5. Other minor functionality includes: WixDependencyExtension supports dependency checking among MSI packages. WixFirewallExtension supports more features of Windows Firewall. WixTagExtension supports Software Id Tagging. WixUtilExtension now supports recursive directory deletion. Melt simplifies pure-WiX patching by extracting .msi package content and updating .w...Iveely Search Engine: Iveely Search Engine （0.2.0）: ????ISE?0.1.0??，?????，ISE?0.2.0?????????，???????，????????20???follow?ISE，????，??ISE??????????，??????????，?????????，?????????0.2.0??????，??????????。 Iveely Search Engine ?0.2.0?????????“??????????”，??????，?????????，???????，???????????????????，????、????????????。???0.1.0????????????： 1. ??“????” ??。??????????，?????????，???????????????????。??：????????，????????????，??????????????????。??????。 2. ??“????”??。?0.1.0??????，???????，???????????????，?????????????，????????，?0.2.0?，???????...GmailDefaultMaker: GmailDefaultMaker 3.0.0.2: Add QQ Mail BugfixSmart Data Access layer: Smart Data access Layer Ver 3: In this version support executing inline query is added. Check Documentation section for detail.New ProjectsAdding 2013 Jewish Holidays for Outlook2003: Instruction: Copy the outlook.hol file to your compuer where Outlook2003 is installed. Double click the file, choose "Israel" and continue. That's it Agilcont System: Sistema de contabilidad para empresas privadas de preferencia para cajas que trabajan con efectivo en soles, dolares y con el material oroARB (A Request Broker): The idea is something like a Request Broker, but with some additional functionality.BATTLE.NET - SDK: This SDK provides the ability to use the Battle.net (Blizzard) Services for all supported Games such Diablo 3, World of Warcraft. Container Terminal System: SummaryDeclarative UX Streaming Data Language for the Cloud: Bringing a better communication paradigm for media and data..Get User Profile Information from SharePoint UserProfile Service: Used SharePoint object model to get the user profile information from the User Profile Service.Guess The City & State Windows 8 Source Code: Source code for Guess The City & State in Malaysia Windows 8 AppJquery Tree: This project is to demonstrate tree basic functionality.MCEBuddy 2.x: Convert and Remove Commercials for your Windows Media CenterMvcDesign: MvcDesign engine implementation projectMy Task Manager: This is a task manager module for DotNetNuke. I am using it to get started developing modules.MyAppwithbranches: MyAppwithbranchesProjecte prova: rpyGEO: pyGEO is a python package capable of parsing microarray data files. It also has a primitive plotting function.Scarlet Road: Scarlet Road is a top-down shooter. It's you against an unending horde of monsters.simplecounter: A simple counter, cick and counter.SiteEmpires: ????????Soundcloud Loader: Simple Tool for downloading Tracks from Soundcloud.Windows Phone Samples: Windows Phone code samples.

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• Customize the Default Screensavers in Windows 7 and Vista

  - by Matthew Guay

  Windows 7 and Vista include a nice set of backgrounds, but unfortunately most of them aren’t configurable by default.  Thanks to a free app and some registry changes, however, you can make the default screensavers uniquely yours! Customize the default screensavers If you’ve ever pressed the Customize button on most of the default screensavers in Windows 7 and Vista, you were probably greeted with this message: A little digging in the registry shows that this isn’t fully correct.  The default screensavers in Vista and 7 do have options you can set, but they’re not obvious.  With the help of an app or some registry tips, you can easily customize the screensavers to be uniquely yours.  Here’s how you can do it with an app or in the registry. Customize Windows Screensavers with System Screensavers Tweaker Download the System Screensavers Tweaker (link below), and unzip the folder.  Run nt6srccfg.exe in the folder to tweak your screensavers.  This application lets you tweak the screensavers’ registry settings graphically, and it works great in all editions of Windows Vista and 7, including x64 versions. Change any of the settings you want in the screensaver tweaker, and click Apply. To preview the changes to your screensaver, open the Screen Saver settings window as normal by right-clicking on the desktop, and selecting Personalize. Click on the Screensaver button on the bottom right. Now, select your modified screensaver, and click Preview to see your changes. You can change a wide variety of settings for the Bubbles, Ribbons, and Mystify screensavers in Windows 7 and Vista, as well as the Aurora screensaver in Windows Vista.  The tweaks to the Bubbles screensaver are especially nice.  Here’s how the Bubbles look without transparency. And, by tweaking a little more, you get a screensaver that looks more like a screen full of marbles. Ribbons and Mystify each have less settings, but still can produce some unique effects.   How’s that for a brilliant screensaver? And, if you want to return your screensavers to their default settings, simply run the System Screensavers Tweaker and select Reset to defaults on any screensaver you wish to reset. Customize Windows Screensavers in the Registry If you prefer to roll up your sleeves and tweak Windows under-the-hood, then here’s how you can customize the screensavers yourself in the Registry.  Type regedit into the search box in the Start menu, browse to the key for each screensaver, and add or modify the DWORD values listed for that screensaver using the Decimal base. Please Note: Tweaking the Registry can be difficult, so if you’re unsure, just use the tweaking application above. Also, you’ll probably want to create a System Restore Point.   Bubbles To edit the Bubbles screensaver, browse to the following in regedit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Screensavers\Bubbles Now, add or modify the following DWORD values to tweak the screensaver: MaterialGlass – enter 0 for solid or 1 for transparent bubbles Radius – enter a number between 1090000000 and 1130000000; the larger the number, the larger the bubbles’ radius ShowBubbles – enter 0 to show a black background or 1 to show the current desktop behind the bubbles ShowShadows – enter 0 for no shadow or 1 for shadows behind the bubbles SphereDensity – enter a number from 1000000000 to 2100000000; the higher the number, the more bubbles on the screen. TurbulenceNumOctaves – enter a number from 1 to 255; the higher the number, the faster the bubble colors will change. Ribbons To edit the Ribbons screensaver, browse to the following in regedit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Screensavers\Ribbons Now, add or modify the following DWORD values to tweak the screensaver: Blur – enter 0 to prevent ribbons from fading, or 1 to have them fade away after a few moments. Numribbons – enter a number from 1 to 100; the higher the number, the more ribbons on the screen. RibbonWidth – enter a number from 1000000000 to 1080000000; the higher the number, the thicker the ribbons. Mystify To edit the Mystify screensaver, browse to the following in regedit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Screensavers\Mystify Now, add or modify the following DWORD values to tweak the screensaver: Blur – enter 0 to prevent lines from fading, or 1 to have them fade away after a few moments. LineWidth – enter a number from 1000000000 to 1080000000; the higher the number, the wider the lines. NumLines – enter a number from 1 to 100; the higher the value, the more lines on the screen. Aurora – Windows Vista only To edit the Aurora screensaver in Windows Vista, browse to the following in regedit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Screensavers\Aurora Now, add or modify the following DWORD values to tweak the screensaver: Amplitude – enter a value from 500000000 to 2000000000; the higher the value, the slower the motion. Brightness – enter a value from 1000000000 to 1050000000; the higher the value, the brighter the affect. NumLayers – enter a value from 1 to 15; the higher the value, the more aurora layers displayed. Speed – enter a value from 1000000000 to 2100000000; the higher the value, the faster the cycling. Conclusion Although the default screensavers are nice, they can be boring after awhile with their default settings.  But with these tweaks, you can create a variety of vibrant screensavers that should keep your desktop fresh and interesting. Link Download the System Screensavers Tweaker Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create Icons to Start the Screensaver on Windows 7 or VistaMake Your Windows XP Logon Screen Look Like Windows VistaSpeed up Windows Vista Start Menu Search By Limiting ResultsRoundup: 16 Tweaks to Windows Vista Look & FeelSet XP as the Default OS in a Windows Vista Dual-Boot Setup 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 NachoFoto Searches Images in Real-time Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi LocPDF is a Visual PDF Search Tool Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor

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