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What can cause two "identical" setups of IE8 and XP to display things differently?

- by ccornet

This has been baffling me for a while. Of the machines I use in visitting Stack Overflow, two of them are machines with the same setup: Dell with Windows XP with IE8. Since they were issued to me by the same company (one to use in the office, one to use at home), they have identical setups as well. But they display certain page elements differently! One is an Optiplex GX620 desktop, the other is an Inspiron 9100 laptop, but somehow the hardware doesn't seem like something that should be overriding how my browser displays things. Nevertheless, the laptop seems to display things differently than what is expected. Differences have included the following: This issue persisted on the laptop after Jeff fixed it, but was repaired for everyone else and on the Desktop. When viewing Vote Counts on a post, the grey line is left immediately beneath the upvotes but a number-sized white space is below that before the downvotes. On the desktop, it displays properly with the two adjacent and divided by a grey line. Code blocks seem to have a blank line at the end on the laptop. The following image illustrates how the last two elements look on the laptop. So, considering that as far as I can tell, these two setups are identical (I have not messed with any settings and they were both initialized identically as well), what else could be causing the display difference?

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Incoming traffic while on public network

- by zvikico

I'm developing a web app and I need to be able to get incoming traffic from 3rd party services I use. This is a classic webhooks situation: I send a request with a return address and receive the response (via HTTP) some time later to the given address. The simple solution would be to provide my external IP address and forward the incoming traffic from the router to my machine. However, I'm working in a large office and I cannot control the router configuration. I'm looking for a different way to achieve that. I do have servers online. I can have a daemon running on one of those servers, which will handle the incoming traffic. I can run a parallel daemon on my machine, which will keep an open connection with the remote daemon (over ssh preferred) and when an inbound traffic is received by the remote, it will send it to the local, which will send it to the correct port on my machine, as if it was received in the natural way. Is there any ready-made solution for that? PS. I'm on OS X and my server is Ubuntu. Thanks, zvikico

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Windows 7 Taskbar Icons Randomly Disappearing

- by Ryker

This is a problem that i'm totally stumped on. Taskbar Icons that are pinned, as well as open program thumbs keep disappearing. This is totally random, no set pattern. I've tried updating drivers for the vid card, rolling back to old drivers, nothing seems to work. I've also tried the usual uncheck hide the taskbar and recheck, changing the start menu, keeping commonly used programs in start menu, etc. This is using an add-in card which is a necessity. Here is the specs on the machine: New Dell Optiplex 390 i3 2100 Proc 3gb Ram, Windows 7 32-bit. The add in card is an Nvidia 8400 GS model. I've tried different versions of the 8400gs, from MSI, or from other manufactureres and regardless it keeps happening. After the Icons disappear, I can log out and log back in and they return, but disappear again. I can reinstall the drivers for the vid card and it fixes it for a few days, and then they disappear again. There isn't any set pattern of days that it happens, software being used, etc. Another user in the office had the same problem with the exact same machine, but updating the vid card drivers fixed the issue. Anyone?

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Mobile app for sysadmins with monitoring and fixing tools(SSH, ping, traceroute) [closed]

- by Roman

I present a start-up company which is working on a new mobile tool for system administrators. Our team has released first several versions of Server Auditor which is now just a SSH terminal with special UI approach for touch devices and got quite good feedbacks, e.g. iOS and Android. Now we are thinking about adding extra features to make Server Auditor a tool number one for all system administrators and would like to know your opinion. Main question would you use a tool like Server Auditor with extra features described below: Fast problem fixing - preloaded recipes/snippets, e.g. clean logs, restart a process, reboot etc. Secure user data synchronisation(IP/DNS name, connection options, keys, snippets) across all your devices iPhone and Android. Built-in tools like ping, traceroute, whois System status integration - you can observe information about the system in a friendly way, e.g CPU load, hard drive and RAM usage etc. Monitoring tool integration. Your servers are watched by our Nagios-like system in the cloud and you get notified by push-notifications/SMS. Similar products are Server Density, CopperEgg. If we start to implement features from 1 to 5 when you will be ready to start use it or even potentially pay for it? Can you see any issues that would prevent you from using this kind of system? Thank you a lot for your time, we kindly appreciate it. Looking forward to hear your opinion

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Growing a small hosting company [closed]

- by user2353007

We currently have a few servers, 1 WHM VPS (2GB), 1 MS SQL VPS (2 GB), and 1 IIS VPS (2GB). The VPS servers are doing fine as far as uptime and response times but we would like to add the following features. 1) monitoring with load statistics 2) failover I have looked a Zabbix, Zenoss, Nagios, and a couple of other cloud solutions like monitor.us and watchdog from Zerigo. Ideally for the monitoring solution. Our current hosting company suggested we get a dedicated server or VPS and install load balancing software (not sure I like that idea). I've looked into Rackspace and Amazon load balancers which seem like the most feasible solutions for load balancers. Does anybody have any input on the monitoring and load balancing products I'm looking into? Monitoring should monitor uptime as well as give reports on memory usage, disk usage, processor usage, and which processes/websites/users are responsible for the load. It would be ideal if the load balancer worked with any IP. Not sure if either Rackspace or Amazon load balancers would allow load balancing with servers outside their datacenter. Thank you.

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Integrating external computer into a domain - some recommendations please

- by TomTom

Given: * A multi loation company. Every office has local routers that connect to a central VPN capable rouer in a data center. All fine so far. We now need to move a computer off site into a hosting center across the globe, to get it closer to some supplier computers we work for. it will run limited logic but latency is important, and our latency so far is too large. This computer will be in a data center and does no require incoming connections except for adminsitrative purposes, although it needs outgoing connetions. I have no real chance to put one of my VPN routers there, sadly - otherwise I would have no problem. Usage of RRAs is not recommended (we had various probblems there over time). I could deal with it. The computer MUSt integrate into the corporate structure via VPN and join the domain and be fully "tracked" (controlled for performance). What is the best suggestion? So far it looks like my best bets woudl be to log in via RRAS and deal with whatever issues arise there plus uise the local firewall the limit incoming connections to this computer to what is needed (which runs down to an emergency RDP connection allowance). Anyone a better idea?

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Deploying and publishing my first asp.net mvc 3 web application

- by john G

I want to deploy and publish my first asp.net mvc 3 web application at my client side (the client is a small office with 2-4 employees that need to access the application) , currently i finished developing my web application using the free Microsoft Visual Web Developer 2010 express and the free SQL Server 2008 R2 Express database . So my concerns are :- 1. The free sql express database that i am currently using have a limitation of 10 GB i think So i want to buy SQL server for small business to remove the database limitations. So my questions that i need help with them are:- **1. If i use the sql server for small business then will my web application have other limitations on production i am unaware of ? 2. Will be using SQL server for small business my right choice? baring in my that the system will be used by 2-4 clients only? 3. How much does “approximate ” the sql server database will cost in US dollars? 4. Are there any other software that i need to buy to be able to deploy and publish the application on intranet and the internet ?** Appreciate any help Best Regards

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Can't connect to FTP server from a specific location

- by wv_pip

Last week while uploading website files to our server via FTP, the transfer failed. Ever since then, I haven't been able to connect to the server from work. I can connect just fine from home, or by using an FTP app on my cell phone as long as I'm on the cell network. I can't access the server from any machine on my work network. It's not a credential issue, either. The error message that I always get says that a connection cannot be established, and I am never prompted for my credentials. I have changed absolutely nothing on our domain controller or our firewall/router. I've contacted our ISP (who hosts the website/FTP server) and they can't find anything wrong on their end. They insist that it must be something here at the office that is blocking access. I've also tested access to other FTP servers (ea.com, nvidia.com, etc.) so I know that port 21 is not being blocked. I'm totally stumped. Any help is much appreciated. EDIT: wireshark info here: http://www.cloudshark.org/captures/85a118ae9296?filter=ip.dst%3D%3D66.118.64.208

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Best practice ACLs to prepare for auditors?

- by Nic

An auditor will be visiting our office soon, and they will require read-only access to our data. I have already created a domain user account and placed them into a group called "Auditors". We have a single fileserver (Windows Server 2008) with about ten shared folders. All of the shares are set up to allow full access to authenticated users, and access restrictions are implemented with NTFS ACL's. Most folders allow full access to the "Domain Users" group, but the auditor won't need to make any changes. It takes several hours to update NTFS ACL's since we have about one million files. Here are the options that I am currently considering. Create a "staff" group to assign read/write instead of "Domain Users" at the share level Create a "staff" group to assign read/write instead of "Domain Users" at the NTFS level Deny access to the "Auditors" group at the share level Deny access to the "Auditors" group at the NTFS level Accept the status quo and trust the auditor. I will probably need to configure similar users in the future, as some of our contractors require a domain account but shouldn't be able to modify our client data. Is there a best practice for this?

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How to ensure local file is up-to-date or ahead (dropbox sync) before truecrypt auto-mount it?

- by user620965

There are a lot tutorials out there that states that dropbox build-in encryption is not secure enought. That tutorials recommands to sync a truecrypt container file to have all files in it securely encrypted. This setup is know to be limited. You can NOT have that truecrypt container file mounted on the same time on more than one location - if you have inserted changes to the contents of the container in more then one location at a time then this setup produces a conflict on the container file in the dropbox system - resulting in one container file for each location. In my case that issue is not relevant - i do not use my data on more than one location at a time. I want to use the auto-mount feature of truecrypt on startup of windows 7 to have a zero configuration environment - and start working right away. But i want to ensure that the local truecrypt container file is up-to-date before truecrypt mounts it automatically - imagine you updated the contents of the container on your primary location and your secondary location was off for a long time. In that case it can take "a long time" till dropbox sync is complete (e.g. depending on your internet connection and the size of the container file). There is a option in truecrypt that ensures that truecrypt do not update the timestamp of the container file - which speeds up the sync, because dropbox client is doing a differential sync then instead of a time consuming full-sync. That is an improvement to that setup, but this do not fix my issue. The question is how to make the auto-mount function wait for the container file to be up-to-date (updated by dropbox)? In contrast: if the file was changed local, but remote file (in the dropbox cloud system) is still old (not jet updated by the sync process / or process is progress), should not make truecrypt to wait for the sync. Suggestions?

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Why are my SharePoint downloads not completing for outside users?

- by CT

I am using WSS 3.0 with Microsoft Server 2003. I am running into the following problem. On a pretty frequent basis, outside users are having trouble downloading documents. Some downloads are completing while the download is still incomplete. So for instance, a PDF is a 17MB file. If I download it from within the office, all 17MBs are downloaded and it opens. If I download it from an outside connection, it may download anywhere from 5-10 MB of the file and then say it is complete. When these partial downloads are opened, it gives the user the error, this file is corrupt and cannot be repaired. I have solved this problem on some of the occasions by simply deleting the document and uploading a new copy of the document. This does not always work. Are there known bugs? Are the Internet settings that need to be modified on the outside user's machine? Does anyone else run into this?

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BYOD (accessing files) on a domain without joining?

- by Philip White

I run a Samba 4 instance at a small private school. This makes a regular Linux server appear as a directory controller. There are two relevant benefits to this: I have a Samba share for people's documents, and I use the Redirected Folders feature to allow any employee to sit down at any PC, log in with their domain credentials, and their My Documents points to network storage. Everyone has a mapped drive (using Group Policy Preferences) to a share specific to their account type. Students can access one share (one share for all students), teachers have another, and office staff have another. However, I would like to allow BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). Some employees are already asking for it with their personal laptops, and I know eventually most everyone will want to. Is there any way to replicate the two features above without having to join PCs to the domain? Joining personal PCs is impractical if only because only professional editions of Windows support this. Ideally, any operating system (including mobile) could access the relevant shares, but of course Windows is key. Offline caching is optional. (I could set up OpenVPN for teachers who want to access their files from home.) The problem with simply giving SSH access to the relevant shares is primarily that Samba 4 relies on ext4 ACLs and ext4 extended attributes to maintain NTFS permissions. Writing files directly to the Linux server would bypass this and would (probably) not be interoperable with Samba4. Right now I am completely flexible. I am even fine with scrapping the whole domain and using some other software for the two features above. How can I allow school employees and students freedom to securely share files without requiring everyone to have specific editions of Windows?

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Network using only switches

- by mschultz

So I'm not a network guy - but here's what I want to do - I have an existing network using wifi, which I like, and which is used to connect several computers to the internet. It is headed up by a router, which is in another part of the building. Three of those computers are in my office. All three have gigabit wired ethernet. I have a gigabit switch. Here's what I want to do: Build a 2nd network, out of just that switch, which allows all 3 computers to connect to each other (just to each other is fine, for this purpose, they need no internet). I have a distributed computing task (rendering high-quality fractal artwork, as it were), that requires the best connection speed to all 3 computers. I want them to be able to "talk to each other" as quickly as possible, with the fewest dropped packets (the dataflow over this network will be quite high). So how do I do this. I'm not a networking guy at all - I tried connecting them all, and nobody got an IP address (which I assume is because nobody is running a DNS server?). What all do I need to do to make this work? PS - two are running windows, one is running ubuntu.

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Questions about TinyMCE. Or suggestions on a compariable product.

- by chobo2

Hi I am using jquery 1.3.2 and asp.net mvc 1.0. Originally I was using some other rich html editor but I ran into one major problem when a user pasted in text from open office or MS office it would bring along tons of styling junk. If a user like wrote one sentence what was like 25 characters and pasted that into my current html editor the count would 25,000 characters and I don't want to store all that junk( I can't afford to). So tinyMCE seems to not have this problem. However I got some questions. It seems if you want to use for commercial use(what my site is but currently is not making very much at this time) you need to get a commercial license. However it does not say if it is free or if it will cost money. I am assuming it means that you will have to pay but I would like to confirm this. So do you have to pay for a license to use tinyMCe if your using it for commercial use? (Yes/ No) ------------------ Answer the following questions if you said "no" to the first question ----------- So would I use the jQuery package then or is it better to use the other versions? What is this .net compressor zip for? Do I need it? I only want a few of the buttons(like bold,font size) can I remove the other buttons? It seems to display a word count. Can it be changed to character count? ----------------- Answer the following question if you said "yes" to the first question -------- Is there a rich html editor that is free for commercial use and preferably for jquery that can remove the junk that office programs seem to bring along? This is a test to show how much formatting gets made. • One • Two • Three The above text when copied into my current rich html editor will have all this code with it. <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cchobo2%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cchobo2%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5Cchobo2%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><style>  </style> <p class="MsoNormal">This is a test to show <b style="">how</b> much formatting gets made.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">         </span></span></span>One</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">         </span></span></span>Two</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">         </span></span></span>Three</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><o:p> </o:p></p>

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Set Height of Div Equal to Parent Tag

- by Phong Dang

Hello, I have a snip code HTML as below : <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" lang="en-us" dir="ltr"> <head> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" /> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft SharePoint" /> <meta name="progid" content="SharePoint.WebPartPage.Document" /> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <meta http-equiv="Expires" content="0" /> <title>Demo </title> <style type="text/css"> A { font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none; } </style> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_layouts/1033/styles/Themable/wiki.css?rev=AWRyZDbGxZSekWBubaxPXw%3D%3D" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_layouts/1033/styles/Themable/corev4.css?rev=w9FW7ASZnUjiWWCtJEcnTw%3D%3D" /> </head> <body topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" style="height:100%;"> <form method="" name="frm"> <table style="border-bottom: black 1px solid; border-left: black 1px solid; border-collapse: collapse; border-top: black 1px solid; border-right: black 1px solid" id="ctl00_m_g_510fd150_a968_41ee_a28d_d47ff4a7198e_BambooCalendarControl" height="100%"> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border-top: black 1px solid; border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" rowspan="1" width="1%" align="right"> <span> <nobr>8:00 AM</nobr> </span> </td> <td style="border-bottom: #d4d0c8 1px dotted; background-color: #ccffcc; border-left: 0px; border-top: black 1px solid; border-right: black 1px solid" height="100%" valign="top" rowspan="8" width="50%"> <div style="border-bottom: gray 1px solid; border-left: gray 1px solid; background-color: #ffa500; height: 100%; overflow: hidden; border-top: gray 1px solid; border-right: gray 1px solid" nowrap width="100%" valign="top"> <a style="height: 100%; color: black" href="#"><font color="white">Item </font></a> </div> </td> <td style="border-bottom: #d4d0c8 1px dotted; border-left: 0px; border-top: black 1px solid; border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" width="100%" colspan="1"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border-bottom: black 1px solid; border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" rowspan="1" width="1%" align="right"> </td> <td style="border-bottom: black 1px solid; border-left: 0px; border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" width="100%" colspan="1"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" rowspan="1" width="1%" align="right"> <span> <nobr>9:00 AM</nobr> </span> </td> <td style="border-bottom: #d4d0c8 1px dotted; background-color: #ccffcc; border-left: 0px; border-right: black 1px solid" height="100%" valign="top" rowspan="4" width="50%"> <div style="border-bottom: gray 1px solid; border-left: gray 1px solid; background-color: #bdb76b; height: 100%; overflow: hidden; border-top: gray 1px solid; border-right: gray 1px solid" nowrap width="100%" valign="top"> <a style="height: 100%; color: black" title="" href="#"><font color="white">Item 2 </font> </a> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border-bottom: black 1px solid; border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" rowspan="1" width="1%" align="right"> </td> </tr> <tr style="border-left: medium none; border-right: #696969 1px solid"> <td style="border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" rowspan="1" width="1%" align="right"> <span> <nobr>10:00 AM</nobr> </span> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border-bottom: black 1px solid; border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" rowspan="1" width="1%" align="right"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" rowspan="1" width="1%" align="right"> <span> <nobr>11:00 AM</nobr> </span> </td> <td style="border-bottom: #d4d0c8 1px dotted; border-left: 0px; border-top: black 1px solid; border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" width="100%" colspan="1"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border-bottom: black 1px solid; border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" rowspan="1" width="1%" align="right"> </td> <td style="border-bottom: black 1px solid; border-left: 0px; border-right: black 1px solid" height="25" valign="top" width="100%" colspan="2"> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </form> </body> </html> I set the height of the div 100% so that it full of TD but it did not effect. Please help me ! Thanks / PD

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How to remove a node based on contents of a subnode and then convert to CSV with headers intact

- by Morris Cox

I'm downloading a 10MB zipped XML file with wget, unzipping it to 40MB, trying to weed out test and expired entries (if the text of a certain node is "This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!" or if is in the past), and then convert to CSV. However, I get this error: PHP Notice: Array to string conversion in /home/morris/projects/grantsgov/xml2csv.php on line 46 I get Array errors because some entries in the XML file have more than one occurrence of a node (different text contents). The test entries are still present. Contents of grantsgov.sh: #!/bin/bash wget --clobber "http://www.grants.gov/search/downloadXML.do;jsessionid=1n7GNpNF2tKZnRGLyQqf7Tl32hFJ1zndhfQpLrJJD11TTNzWMwDy!368676377?fname=GrantsDBExtract$(date +'%Y%m%d').zip" -O GrantsDBExtract$(date +"%Y%m%d").zip unzip GrantsDBExtract$(date +"%Y%m%d").zip php xml2csv.php zip GrantsDBExtracted$(date +"%Y%m%d").zip GrantsDBExtracted$(date +"%Y%m%d").csv Contents of xml2csv.php: <? $current_date = date("Ymd"); //$getfile=fopen("http://www.grants.gov/search/downloadXML.do;jsessionid=GqJNNmdLyJyMlsQqTzS2KdzgT5NMdhPp0QhG946JTmHzRltNTpMQ!368676377?fname=GrantsDBExtract$current_date.zip", "r"); $zip = zip_open("GrantsDBExtract$current_date.zip"); if(is_resource($zip)) { while ($zip_entry = zip_read($zip)) { $fp = fopen("./".zip_entry_name($zip_entry), "w"); if (zip_entry_open($zip, $zip_entry, "r")) { $buf = zip_entry_read($zip_entry, zip_entry_filesize($zip_entry)); fwrite($fp,"$buf"); zip_entry_close($zip_entry); fclose($fp); } } zip_close($zip); } // For future potential use $xml = new DOMDocument('1.0', 'ascii'); $xpath = new DOMXpath($xml); $xslFile = "feddata.xsl"; $filexml="GrantsDBExtract$current_date.xml"; if (file_exists($filexml)) { $xml = simplexml_load_file($filexml); echo "Loaded $filexml\n"; $xslt = new XSLTProcessor(); $xsl = new DOMDocument(); //$XSL->load('feddata.xsl', LIBXML_NOCDATA); $xsl->load($xslFile, LIBXML_NOCDATA); $xslt->importStylesheet($xsl); $xslt->transformToXML($xml); $f = fopen("GrantsDBExtracted$current_date.csv", 'w'); // create the CSV header row on the first time here $first = FALSE; $fields = array(); foreach($record as $key => $value) { $fields[] = $key; } fwrite($f,implode(";",$fields)."\n"); foreach ($xml->FundingOppSynopsis as $fos) { fputcsv($f, get_object_vars($fos),',','"'); } } fclose($f); } else { exit('Failed to open file.'); } ?> Contents of feddata.xsl: <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output method="xml"/> <xsl:template match="node()|@*"> <xsl:copy> <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/> </xsl:copy> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="FundingOppSynopsis[AgencyMailingAddress = 'This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!']"> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet><xsl:strip-space elements="*"/> Part of the XML file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE Grants SYSTEM "http://www.grants.gov/search/dtd/XMLExtract.dtd"> <Grants> <FundingOppSynopsis> <PostDate>08312007</PostDate> <UserID>None</UserID> <Password>None</Password> <FundingInstrumentType>CA</FundingInstrumentType> <FundingActivityCategory>DPR</FundingActivityCategory> <OtherCategoryExplanation>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</OtherCategoryExplanation> <NumberOfAwards>5</NumberOfAwards> <EstimatedFunding>4</EstimatedFunding> <AwardCeiling>2</AwardCeiling> <AwardFloor>1</AwardFloor> <AgencyMailingAddress>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</AgencyMailingAddress> <FundingOppTitle>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</FundingOppTitle> <FundingOppNumber>IVV-08312007-RG-OPP5</FundingOppNumber> <ApplicationsDueDate>09102007</ApplicationsDueDate> <ApplicationsDueDateExplanation>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</ApplicationsDueDateExplanation> <ArchiveDate>10102007</ArchiveDate> <Location>None</Location> <Office>None</Office> <Agency>None</Agency> <FundingOppDescription>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</FundingOppDescription> <CFDANumber>000000</CFDANumber> <EligibilityCategory>21</EligibilityCategory> <AdditionalEligibilityInfo>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</AdditionalEligibilityInfo> <CostSharing>N</CostSharing> <ObtainFundingOppText FundingOppURL="">Not Available</ObtainFundingOppText> <AgencyContact AgencyEmailDescriptor="This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!" AgencyEmailAddress="This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!">This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</AgencyContact> </FundingOppSynopsis> How can I fix the error and remove expired entries (based on ArchiveDate)? I suspect the second to last line in feddata.xsl needs to be fixed.

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Boot From a USB Drive Even if your BIOS Won’t Let You

- by Trevor Bekolay

You’ve always got a trusty bootable USB flash drive with you to solve computer problems, but what if a PC’s BIOS won’t let you boot from USB? We’ll show you how to make a CD or floppy disk that will let you boot from your USB drive. This boot menu, like many created before USB drives became cheap and commonplace, does not include an option to boot from a USB drive. A piece of freeware called PLoP Boot Manager solves this problem, offering an image that can burned to a CD or put on a floppy disk, and enables you to boot to a variety of devices, including USB drives. Put PLoP on a CD PLoP comes as a zip file, which includes a variety of files. To put PLoP on a CD, you will need either plpbt.iso or plpbtnoemul.iso from that zip file. Either disc image should work on most computers, though if in doubt plpbtnoemul.iso should work “everywhere,” according to the readme included with PLoP Boot Manager. Burn plpbtnoemul.iso or plpbt.iso to a CD and then skip to the “booting PLoP Boot Manager” section. Put PLoP on a Floppy Disk If your computer is old enough to still have a floppy drive, then you will need to put the contents of the plpbt.img image file found in PLoP’s zip file on a floppy disk. To do this, we’ll use a freeware utility called RawWrite for Windows. We aren’t fortunate enough to have a floppy drive installed, but if you do it should be listed in the Floppy drive drop-down box. Select your floppy drive, then click on the “…” button and browse to plpbt.img. Press the Write button to write PLoP boot manager to your floppy disk. Booting PLoP Boot Manager To boot PLoP, you will need to have your CD or floppy drive boot with higher precedence than your hard drive. In many cases, especially with floppy disks, this is done by default. If the CD or floppy drive is not set to boot first, then you will need to access your BIOS’s boot menu, or the setup menu. The exact steps to do this vary depending on your BIOS – to get a detailed description of the process, search for your motherboard’s manual (or your laptop’s manual if you’re working with a laptop). In general, however, as the computer boots up, some important keyboard strokes are noted somewhere prominent on the screen. In our case, they are at the bottom of the screen. Press Escape to bring up the Boot Menu. Previously, we burned a CD with PLoP Boot Manager on it, so we will select the CD-ROM Drive option and hit Enter. If your BIOS does not have a Boot Menu, then you will need to access the Setup menu and change the boot order to give the floppy disk or CD-ROM Drive higher precedence than the hard drive. Usually this setting is found in the “Boot” or “Advanced” section of the Setup menu. If done correctly, PLoP Boot Manager will load up, giving a number of boot options. Highlight USB and press Enter. PLoP begins loading from the USB drive. Despite our BIOS not having the option, we’re now booting using the USB drive, which in our case holds an Ubuntu Live CD! This is a pretty geeky way to get your PC to boot from a USB…provided your computer still has a floppy drive. Of course if your BIOS won’t boot from a USB it probably has one…or you really need to update it. Download PLoP Boot Manager Download RawWrite for Windows Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create a Bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash DriveReinstall Ubuntu Grub Bootloader After Windows Wipes it OutCreate a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy WayBuilding a New Computer – Part 3: Setting it UpInstall Windows XP on Your Pre-Installed Windows Vista Computer 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 Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7

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Pigs in Socks?

- by MightyZot

My wonderful wife Annie surprised me with a cruise to Cozumel for my fortieth birthday. I love to travel. Every trip is ripe with adventure, crazy things to see and experience. For example, on the way to Mobile Alabama to catch our boat, some dude hauling a mobile home lost a window and we drove through a cloud of busting glass going 80 miles per hour! The night before the cruise, we stayed in the Malaga Inn and I crawled UNDER the hotel to look at an old civil war bunker. WOAH! Then, on the way to and from Cozumel, the boat plowed through two beautiful and slightly violent storms. But, the adventures you have while travelling often pale in comparison to the cult of personalities you meet along the way. :) We met many cool people during our travels and we made some new friends. Todd and Andrea are in the publishing business (www.myneworleans.com) and teaching, respectively. Erika is a teacher too and Matt has a pig on his foot. This story is about the pig. Without that pig on Matt’s foot, we probably would have hit a buoy and drowned. Alright, so…this pig on Matt’s foot…this is no henna tatt, this is a man’s tattoo. Apparently, getting tattoos on your feet is very painful because there is very little muscle and fat and lots of nifty nerves to tell you that you might be doing something stupid. Pig and rooster tattoos carry special meaning for sailors of old. According to some sources, having a tattoo of a pig or rooster on one foot or the other will keep you from drowning. There are many great musings as to why a pig and a rooster might save your life. The most plausible in my opinion is that pigs and roosters were common livestock tagging along with the crew. Since they were shipped in wooden crates, pigs and roosters were often counted amongst the survivors when ships succumbed to Davy Jones’ Locker. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time researching the pig and the rooster, so consider these musings as you would a grain of salt. And, I was not able to find a lot of what you might consider credible history regarding the tradition. What I did find was a comfort, or solace, in the maritime tradition. Seems like raw traditions like the pig and the rooster are in danger of getting lost in a sea of non-permanence. I mean, what traditions are us old programmers and techies leaving behind for future generations? Makes me wonder what Ward Christensen has tattooed on his left foot. I guess my choice would have to be a Commodore 64. (I met Ward, by the way, in an elevator after he received his Dvorak awards in 1992. He was a very non-assuming individual sporting business casual and was very much a “sailor” of an old-school programmer. I can’t remember his exact words, but I think they were essentially that he felt it odd that he was getting an award for just doing his work. I’m sure that Ward doesn’t know this…he couldn’t have set a more positive example for a young 22 year old programmer. Thanks Ward!)

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Surface Review from Canadian Guy Who Didn’t Go To Build

- by D'Arcy Lussier

I didn’t go to Build last week, opted to stay home and go trick-or-treating with my daughters instead. I had many friends that did go however, and I was able to catch up with James Chambers last night to hear about the conference and play with his Surface RT and Nokia 920 WP8 devices. I’ve been using Windows 8 for a while now, so I’m not going to comment on OS features – lots of posts out there on that already. Let me instead comment on the hardware itself. Size and Weight The size of the tablet was awesome. The Windows 8 tablet I’m using to reference this against is the one from Build 2011 (Samsung model) we received as well as my iPad. The Surface RT was taller and slightly heavier than the iPad, but smaller and lighter than the Samsung Win 8 tablet. I still don’t prefer the default wide-screen format, but the Surface RT is much more usable even when holding it by the long edge than the Samsung. Build Quality No issues with the build quality, it seemed very solid. But…y’know, people have been going on about how the Surface RT materials are so much better than the plastic feeling models Samsung and others put out. I didn’t really notice *that* much difference in that regard with the Surface RT. Interesting feature I didn’t expect – the Windows button on the device is touch-sensitive, not a mechanical one. I didn’t try video or anything, so I can’t comment on the media experience. The kickstand is a great feature, and the way the Surface RT connects to the combo case/keyboard touchcover is very slick while being incredibly simple. What About That Touch Cover Keyboard? So first, kudos to Microsoft on the touch cover! This thing was insanely responsive (including the trackpad) and really delivered on the thinness I was expecting. With that said, and remember this is with very limited use, I would probably go with the Type Cover instead of the Touch Cover. The difference is buttons. The Touch Cover doesn’t actually have “buttons” on the keyboard – hence why its a “touch” cover. You tap on a key to type it. James tells me after a while you get used to it and you can type very fast. For me, I just prefer the tactile feeling of a button being pressed/depressed. But still – typing on the touch case worked very well. Would I Buy One? So after playing with it, did I cry out in envy and rage that I wasn’t able to get one of these machines? Did I curse my decision to collect Halloween candy with my kids instead of being at Build getting hardware? Well – no. Even with the keyboard, the Surface RT is not a business laptop replacement device. While Office does come included, you can’t install any other applications outside of Windows Store Apps. This might be limiting depending on what other applications you need to have available on your computer. Surface RT is a great personal computing device, as long as you’re not already invested in a competing ecosystem. I’ve heard people make statements that they’re going to replace all the iPads in their homes with Surface tablets. In my home, that’s not feasible – my wife and daughters have amassed quite a collection of games via iTunes. We also buy all our music via iTunes as well, so even with the XBox streaming music service now available we’re still tied quite tightly to iTunes. So who is the Surface RT for? In my mind, if you’re looking for a solid, compact device that provides basic business functionality (read: email) or if you have someone that needs a very simple to use computer for email, web browsing, etc., then Surface RT is a great option. For me, I’m waiting on the Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro and am curious to see what changes the Surface Pro will come with.

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The Beginner’s Guide to Greasemonkey User Scripts in Firefox

- by Asian Angel

Everybody knows that Firefox has add-ons for virtually everything, but if you don’t want to bloat your installation you’ve always got the option of Greasemonkey scripts instead. Here’s a quick primer on how to use them. Getting Started with User Scripts Once you have Greasemonkey installed, managing the extension is really easy. Left click on the status bar icon to turn the extension on/off and right click to access the context menu shown here. Whether you use the Options button in the Add-ons Manager Window or the context menu shown above, both will bring up the Manage User Scripts dialog. At the moment you have a nice clean slate to work with… time to get some scripts added in. The majority of user scripts can be found at two different sites, the first being appropriately named userscripts.org, and you can either browse by tag or search for a script. As you can see here your search for a particular type of script can be quickly narrowed down based on category. There is definitely a lot to choose from. For our example we focused on the “textarea” tag. There were 62 scripts available but we quickly found what we were looking for on the first page. Installing, Managing, & Using Your Scripts When you find a script that you want to install visit the script’s homepage and click on the “Install” button. Note: Link for this script provided below. Once you have clicked on the Install button, Greasemonkey will open up the following installation window. You will be able to view: A summary of what the script does A list of websites that the script is supposed to function on (our example is set for all) View the script source if desired Make a final decision on whether to install the script or cancel the process Right-clicking on our status bar icon shows our new script listed and active. Reopening the Manage User Scripts window shows: Our new script listed in the column on the left The websites/pages included An option to disable the script (can also be done in the context menu) The ability to edit the script The ability to uninstall the script If you choose to edit the script you will be asked to browse for and select a default text editor of your choice (first time only). Once you have selected a text editor you can make any changes desired to the script. We decided to test our new user script on the site. Going to the comment box at the bottom we could easily resize the window as desired. The Comment box definitely got a lot bigger. Conclusion If you prefer to keep the number of extensions to a minimum in your Firefox installation then Greasemonkey and the Userscripts website can easily provide that extra functionality without the bloat. For added auto website script detection goodness see our article on Greasefire. Note: See our article here for specialized How-To Geek User Style Scripts that can be added to Greasemonkey. Links Download the Greasemonkey Extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Install the Textarea & Input Resize User Script Visit the Userscripts.org Website Visit the Userstyles.org Website Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Enjoy How-To Geek User Style Script GoodnessEnable Multi-Column Google Searches with a User ScriptSearch Alternative Search Engines from within Bing’s Search PageFind User Scripts for Your Favorite Websites the Easy WaySet Up User Scripts in Opera Browser 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 Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7

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Travelling MVP #1: Visit to SharePoint User Group Finland

- by DigiMortal

My first self organized trip this autumn was visit to SharePoint User Group Finland community evening. As active community leaders who make things like these possible they are worth mentioning and on spug.fi side there was Jussi Roine the one who invited me. Here is my short review about my trip to Helsinki. User group meeting As Helsinki is near Tallinn I went there using ship. It was easy to get from sea port to venue and I had also some minutes of time to visit academic book store. Community evening was held on the ground floor of one city center hotel and room was conveniently located near hotel bar and restaurant. Here is the meeting schedule: Welcome (Jussi Roine) OpenText application archiving and governance for SharePoint (Bernd Hennicke, OpenText) Using advanced C# features in SharePoint development (Alexey Sadomov, NED Consulting) Optimizing public-facing internet sites for SharePoint (Gunnar Peipman) After meeting, of course, local dudes doesn’t walk away but continue with some beers and discussion. Sessions After welcome words by Jussi there was session by Bernd Hennicke who spoke about OpenText. His session covered OpenText history and current moment. After this introduction he spoke about OpenText products for SharePoint and gave the audience good overview about where their SharePoint extensions fit in big picture. I usually don’t like those vendors sessions but this one was good. I mean vendor dudes were not aggressively selling something. They were way different – kind people who introduced their stuff and later answered questions. They acted like good guests. Second speaker was Alexey Sadomov who is working on SharePoint development projects. He introduced some ways how to get over some limitations of SharePoint. I don’t go here deeply with his session but it’s worth to mention that this session was strong one. It is not rear case when developers have to make nasty hacks to SharePoint. I mean really nasty hacks. Often these hacks are long blocks of code that uses terrible techniques to achieve the result. Alexey introduced some very much civilized ways about how to apply hacks. Alex Sadomov, SharePoint MVP, speaking about SharePoint coding tips and tricks on C# I spoke about how I optimized caching of Estonian Microsoft community portal that runs on SharePoint Server and that uses publishing infrastructure. I made no actual demos on SharePoint because I wanted to focus on optimizing process and share some experiences about how to get caches optimized and how to measure caches. Networking After official part there was time to talk and discuss with people. Finns are cool – they have beers and they are glad. It was not big community event but people were like one good family. Developers there work often for big companies and it was very interesting to me to hear about their experiences with SharePoint. One thing was a little bit surprising for me – SharePoint guys in Finland are talking actively also about Office 365 and online SharePoint. It doesn’t happen often here in Estonia. I had to leave a little bit 21:00 to get to my ship back to Tallinn. I am sure spug.fi dudes continued nice evening and they had at least same good time as I did. Do I want to go back to Finland and meet these guys again? Yes, sure, let’s do it again! :)

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SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles–building WCM sites

- by svdoever

One of the use cases where we use the SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles tooling is in building SharePoint Publishing (WCM) solutions for SharePoint 2007, SharePoint 2010 and Office365. Publishing solutions are often solutions that have one instance, the publishing site (possibly with subsites), that in most cases need to go through DTAP. If you dissect a publishing site, in most case you have the following findings: The publishing site spans a site collection The branding of the site is specified in the root site, because: Master pages live in the root site (/_catalogs/masterpage) Page layouts live in the root site (/_catalogs/masterpage) The style library lives in the root site ( /Style Library) and contains images, css, javascript, xslt transformations for your CQWP’s, … Preconfigured web parts live in the root site (/_catalogs/wp) The root site and subsites contains a document library called Pages (or your language-specific version of it) containing publishing pages using the page layouts and master pages The site collection contains content types, fields and lists When using the SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles tooling it is very easy to create, test, package and deploy the artifacts that can be uploaded to the SharePoint content database. This can be done in a fast and simple way without the need to create and deploy WSP packages. If we look at the above list of artifacts we can use SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles for master pages, page layouts, the style library, web part configurations, and initial publishing pages (these are normally made through the SharePoint web UI). Some artifacts like content types, fields and lists in the above list can NOT be handled by SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles, because they can’t be uploaded to the SharePoint content database. The good thing is that these artifacts are the artifacts that don’t change that much in the development of a SharePoint Publishing solution. There are however multiple ways to create these artifacts: Use paper script: create them manually in each of the environments based on documentation Automate the creation of the artifacts using (PowerShell) script Develop a WSP package to create these artifacts I’m not a big fan of the third option (see my blog post Thoughts on building deployable and updatable SharePoint solutions). It is a lot of work to create content types, fields and list definitions using all kind of XML files, and it is not allowed to modify these artifacts when in use. I know… SharePoint 2010 has some content type upgrade possibilities, but I think it is just too cumbersome. The first option has the problem that content types and fields get ID’s, and that these ID’s must be used by the metadata on for example page layouts. No problem for SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles, because it supports deploy-time resolving of these ID’s using PowerShell. For example consider the following metadata definition for the page layout contactpage-wcm.aspx.properties.ps1: Metadata page layout # This script must return a hashtable @{ name=value; ... } of field name-value pairs # for the content file that this script applies to. # On deployment to SharePoint, these values are written as fields in the corresponding list item (if any) # Note that fields must exist; they can be updated but not created or deleted. # This script is called right after the file is deployed to SharePoint. # You can use the script parameters and arbitrary PowerShell code to interact with SharePoint. # e.g. to calculate properties and values at deployment time. param([string]$SourcePath, [string]$RelativeUrl, $Context) @{ "ContentTypeId" = $Context.GetContentTypeID('GeneralPage'); "MasterPageDescription" = "Cloud Aviator Contact pagelayout (wcm - don't use)"; "PublishingHidden" = "1"; "PublishingAssociatedContentType" = $Context.GetAssociatedContentTypeInfo('GeneralPage') } The PowerShell functions GetContentTypeID and GetAssociatedContentTypeInfo can at deploy-time resolve the required information from the server we are deploying to. I personally prefer the second option: automate creation through PowerShell, because there are PowerShell scripts available to export content types and fields. An example project structure for a typical SharePoint WCM site looks like: Note that this project uses DualLayout. So if you build Publishing sites using SharePoint, checkout out the completely free SharePoint.DesignFactory.ContentFiles tooling and start flying!

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SQL SERVER – 2012 – All Download Links in Single Page – SQL Server 2012

- by pinaldave

SQL Server 2012 RTM is just announced and recently I wrote about all the SQL Server 2012 Certification on single page. As a feedback, I received suggestions to have a single page where everything about SQL Server 2012 is listed. I will keep this page updated as new updates are announced. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Evaluation Microsoft SQL Server 2012 enables a cloud-ready information platform that will help organizations unlock breakthrough insights across the organization. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Express Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Express is a powerful and reliable free data management system that delivers a rich and reliable data store for lightweight Web Sites and desktop applications. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Feature Pack The Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Feature Pack is a collection of stand-alone packages which provide additional value for Microsoft SQL Server 2012. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Report Builder Report Builder provides a productive report-authoring environment for IT professionals and power users. It supports the full capabilities of SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Master Data Services Add-in For Microsoft Excel The Master Data Services Add-in for Excel gives multiple users the ability to update master data in a familiar tool without compromising the data’s integrity in Master Data Services. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Performance Dashboard Reports The SQL Server 2012 Performance Dashboard Reports are Reporting Services report files designed to be used with the Custom Reports feature of SQL Server Management Studio. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel® 2010 Microsoft PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel 2010 provides ground-breaking technology; fast manipulation of large data sets, streamlined integration of data, and the ability to effortlessly share your analysis through Microsoft SharePoint. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies 2010 The SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 technologies allows you to integrate your reporting environment with the collaborative SharePoint 2010 experience. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Semantic Language Statistics The Semantic Language Statistics Database is a required component for the Statistical Semantic Search feature in Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Semantic Language Statistics. Microsoft ®SQL Server 2012 FileStream Driver – Windows Logo Certification Catalog file for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 FileStream Driver that is certified for WindowsServer 2008 R2. It meets Microsoft standards for compatibility and recommended practices with the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems. Microsoft SQL Server StreamInsight 2.0 Microsoft StreamInsight is Microsoft’s Complex Event Processing technology to help businesses create event-driven applications and derive better insights by correlating event streams from multiple sources with near-zero latency. Microsoft JDBC Driver 4.0 for SQL Server Download the Microsoft JDBC Driver 4.0 for SQL Server, a Type 4 JDBC driver that provides database connectivity through the standard JDBC application program interfaces (APIs) available in Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 5 and 6. Data Quality Services Performance Best Practices Guide This guide focuses on a set of best practices for optimizing performance of Data Quality Services (DQS). Microsoft Drivers 3.0 for SQL Server for PHP The Microsoft Drivers 3.0 for SQL Server for PHP provide connectivity to Microsoft SQLServer from PHP applications. Product Documentation for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 for firewall and proxy restricted environments The Microsoft SQL Server 2012 setup installs only the Help Viewer…install any documentation. All of the SQL Server documentation is available online. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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If You Could Cut Your Meeting Times in ½ Would You?

- by [email protected]

By Brian Dayton on April 22, 2010 2:02 PM I know it sounds like a big promise. And what I'm thinking about may not cut a :60 minute meeting into :30 minutes, but it could make meetings and interactions up to 2X more productive. How? Social Media for the Enterprise, Not Social Media In the Enterprise Bear with me. I'm not talking about whether or not workers should or shouldn't have access to Facebook on corporate networks. That topic has been discussed @ length. I'm also not talking about the direct benefits of Social Networking tools like Presence (the ability to see someone online and ask a question in real-time), blogs, RSS feeds or external tools like Twitter. The Un-Measurable Benefits Would you do something that you believe will have a positive effect--but can't be measured? It's impossible to quantify the effectiveness of a meeting. However, what I am talking about would be more of a byproduct of all of the social networking tools above. Here's the hypothesis: As I've gotten more and more busy with work, family, travel and kids--and the same has happened to my friends and family--I'm less and less connected. But by introducing Facebook to my life I've not only made connections with longtime friends whom I haven't spoken to in years--but I've increased the pace and quality of interactions, on and offline, with close friends who I see and speak to every week. In some cases it even enhances the connections and interactions with those I see or speak to every day. The same holds true in an organization. Especially a larger one with highly matrixed organizational structures. You work with people on a project, new people come in with each different project and a disproportionate amount of time is spent getting oriented and staying current. Going back to the initial value proposition--making meetings shorter/more effective--a large amount of time is spent: - At Project Kick-off: Meeting and understanding team member's histories, goals & roles - Ongoing: Summarizing events since the last meeting or update email In my personal, Facebook life today I know that: - My best friend from college - has been stranded in India for 5 days because of the volcano in Iceland and is now only 250 miles from home - One of my co-workers started conference calls at 6:30 this morning - My wife wasn't terribly pleased with my painting skills in our new bathroom (disclosure: she told me this face to face too) Strengthening Weak Links A recent article in CIO Magazine, Three Dangerous Social Media Misconceptions (Kristen Burnham, March 12, 2010) calls out the #1 misconception as follows: 1. "Face-to-face relationships are far more valuable than virtual ones." While some level of physical interaction will always add value to relationships, Gartner says that come 2020, most relationships and teams will be based on "weak links"--that is, you may not have personally met a contact, but you'll know of or may have interacted with him via social sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. The sooner your enterprise adopts these tools, the sooner your employees will learn them, and the sooner you'll begin to cultivate these relationships-of-the-future. I personally believe that it's not an either/or choice between face-to-face and virtual interactions. In fact, I'll be as bold as saying it doesn't matter. I can point to two extremely valuable work relationships that I've had over the past 5 years: - I shared an office with one of them - I met the other person, face-to-face, only once Both relationships were very productive. The dynamics were similar. The communication tactics differed immensely. What does matter is the quality, frequency and relevance of interactions. Still sound like too much? An over-promise? Stay tuned for my next post The Gap Between Facebook and LinkedIn. I'll also connect some of the dots with where Oracle Applications and technologies are headed.

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Google Chrome OS

- by Piet

It’s about time someone took this initiative: Google Chrome OS I especially like the following: Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work. I recently had the ‘pleasure’ witnessing several 60+ yr old friends and family (all respect for everyone in their 2nd or 3rd youth) buying their first pc, taking their first steps using a pc and the net. Have you ever seen the gazillions of little ‘useful’ tools that are installed on a new standard Vista pc or laptop ? This is like learning to drive a new car and being placed in an airplane cockpit. And all the messages one gets about virus/security checks, fingerprint nog being enrolled, trial period expiring (because half those really useful tools come with a trial period), … If I was in their shoes, being confronted with this as a total newbie, I guess I’d just give up pretty soon. As a matter of fact, I actually gave up on Vista on my work-laptop, it was driving me crazy. Thank god I was allowed to install XP. I’m a Linux user at home, and Vista was such a frustrating experience that Windows XP actually felt like breath of fresh air. And what are those people using? Email, browsing…. and maybe writing a little letter now and then or storing their photo’s if they have a digital camera. Actually (side note), I get the impression that hearing about facebook is a major motivator for the digital newbies to finally take the plunge, buy a pc and get on-line. And OK, we’ve seen initiatives like this before, but Google is a brand everyone knows… unlike Ubuntu, Debain or Mandriva. Google = God. If I was Microsoft I’d be wetting my pants knowing Google was about to release their own OS, without a doubt fully optimized to use their own on-line office suit. On the other hand, the old adage ‘no one ever got fired for choosing Microsoft’ still holds a lot of truth. I hope I’ll be able to give it a big thumbs up if a would-be pc-user asks me what kind of pc/OS they should go for in the near future. On the other hand, if I’d do that, I’m pretty sure a couple of weeks later I’d get a call asking how to install this game or photo editing tool they got from one of their Windows using friends… or that nifty photo-printer they just bought. But then, I also get those questions now from newbie Windows users. It takes a couple of years before Newbie pc users understand that some things just don’t work and aren’t worth the time trying to fix them. I’d just wish they’d go back to the shop when something doesn’t work. You also don’t let you mechanic friend try to fix a problem with your brand new car. But that’s another story… Wait and see…

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