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• Unable to delete all partitions on flash drive using Windows 7 OS??

  - by irrational John

  Recently I purchased an ADATA C802 8GB flash drive. Since the drive was new I decided to run some of the HD Tune Pro (v4.50) performance tests on it, mostly just for the heck of it. To avoid accidently destroying data HD Tune refuses to write to a drive unless there are no partitions on the drive. If you do attempt to write to a drive with partitions, it posts the message "Writing is disabled. To enable writing please remove all partitions." As you would expect, the ADATA came formatted with a single primary FAT32 partition in the Master Boot Record. But a number of unexpected things happened when I attempted to delete that partition. The first thing I tried was to use the Windows 7 (64-bit) Disk Management tool (diskmgmt.msc) to delete the partition. It would not let me. The context menu choice to delete that volume was not available. Next I opened up a command prompt window with Admin authority and ran diskpart. Diskpart deleted the volume for me. However, when I attempted to run an HD Tune write test on the drive I still got the "Writing is disabled" message. Huh??? So I fired up a utility I have which allows viewing drives at the sector level and verified that the partition table in the Master Boot Record was empty. No partitions. Yet HD Tune still thought there were partitions on the drive? So why was I still getting the "Writing is disabled" message from HD Tune Pro? And why wouldn't the Windows 7 Disk Management tool let me change the partitions on this drive. After doing the above, I plugged the ADATA into my MacBook. I was then able to format it as either a GPT or MBR partitioned drive with no problems. I am not looking for suggestions on how to format this drive. I can do that. What I do not understand and was hoping I might get insight into is why this drive behaves so strangely under Windows 7? And BTW, what's up with HD Tune Pro? BTW, if I plug the drive I formatted on my MacBook back into my Windows 7 64-bit system I still run into road blocks with the Disk Management tool. For example, I cannot delete all the GPT partitions on the ADATA so I can convert it into an MBR drive. I following Microsoft's instructions, the instructions just do not work with this ADATA flash drive. Anyone know what's up with this? It makes no sense to me. Has something changed in Windows 7 (Vista)??

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• Active Directory Corrupted In Windows Small Business Server 2011 - Server No Longer Domain Controller

  - by ThinkerIV

  I have a rather bad problem with my Windows SBS 2011. First of all, I'll give the background to what caused the problem. I was setting up a new small business server network. I had my job about finished. The server was working great, all the workstations had joined the domain, and I had all my applications and data moved to the server. I thought I was done. But then it happened. I tried adding one more computer to the domain, and to my dismay the computer name was set to the same name as the server. Apparently when a computer joins a domain with the same name as another machine that is already on the domain, it overrides the first one. For normal workstations, this is not a big deal, you just delete the computer from AD and rejoin the original computer to the domain. However, for a server that is the domain controller it is a whole different story. Since the server got overridden in AD, it is no longer the domain controller. The DNS service is not working and all kinds of other services are failing also. So the question is, what are my options? I am embarrassed to admit it, but since this is a new server one thing I did not have setup yet was backup. So I have no backups to work from. I am worried that things are broken enough that I might need to do a reinstall. However, I already have several days worth of configuration into this server, so I would obviously prefer if there was a fix that would prevent me from needing to do a reinstall. All the server components are there and installed correctly, but they are misconfigured (I think it is basically just Active Directory). So I have the feeling that if I did the right thing I could solve the issue without a reinstall. Is there anyway to rerun the component that installs the initial configuration to "convert" the base windows server 2008 r2 install into a SBS? In other words in the program files folder there is an application called SBSsetup.exe, is there anyway to rerun this and have it reconfigure AD, etc. to work with SBS? Any insight will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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• How do you splice out a part of an xvid encoded avi file, with ffmpeg? (no problems with other files

  - by yegor

  Im using the following command, which works for most files, except what seems to be xvid encoded ones /usr/bin/ffmpeg -sameq -i file.avi -ss 00:01:00 -t 00:00:30 -ac 2 -r 25 -copyts output.avi So this should basically splice out 30 seconds of video + audio, starting from 1 minute mark. It does START encoding at the 00:01:00 mark but it goes all the way to the end of the file for some reason, ignoring that I want just 30 seconds. The output looks like this. FFmpeg version git-ecc4bdd, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers built on May 31 2010 04:52:24 with gcc 4.4.3 20100127 (Red Hat 4.4.3-4) configuration: --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libfaac --enable-libvorbis --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-libxvid --enable-pthreads --enable-libfaad --extra-cflags=-fPIC --enable-postproc --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-shared libavutil 50.15. 2 / 50.15. 2 libavcodec 52.67. 0 / 52.67. 0 libavformat 52.62. 0 / 52.62. 0 libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0 libavfilter 1.20. 0 / 1.20. 0 libswscale 0.10. 0 / 0.10. 0 libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0 [mpeg4 @ 0x17cf770]Invalid and inefficient vfw-avi packed B frames detected Input #0, avi, from 'file.avi': Metadata: ISFT : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release) Duration: 00:02:00.00, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1587 kb/s Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 672x368 [PAR 1:1 DAR 42:23], 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc Stream #0.1: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 448 kb/s File 'lol6.avi' already exists. Overwrite ? [y/N] y Output #0, avi, to 'lol6.avi': Metadata: ISFT : Lavf52.62.0 Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 672x368 [PAR 1:1 DAR 42:23], q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 25 tbn, 25 tbc Stream #0.1: Audio: mp2, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 64 kb/s Stream mapping: Stream #0.0 -> #0.0 Stream #0.1 -> #0.1 Press [q] to stop encoding [mpeg4 @ 0x17cf770]Invalid and inefficient vfw-avi packed B frames detected [buffer @ 0x184b610]Buffering several frames is not supported. Please consume all available frames before adding a new one. frame= 1501 fps=104 q=0.0 Lsize= 15612kB time=30.02 bitrate=4259.7kbits/s ts/s video:15303kB audio:235kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.482620% if I convert this file to mp4 for example, and then perform the same action, it works perfectly.

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• Is there any way to get the combine two xml into one xml in Linux.

  - by user28167

  XML one is something like that: <dict> <key>2</key> <array> <string>A</string> <string>B</string> </array> <key>3</key> <array> <string>C</string> <string>D</string> <string>E</string> </array> </dict> XML Two is something like that: <dict> <key>A</key> <array> <string>A1</string> <false/> <false/> <array> <string>Apple</string> <string>This is an apple</string> </array> <array> <string>Apple Pie</string> <string>I love Apple Pie.</string> </array> </array> <key>B</key> <array> <string>B7</string> <false/> <false/> <array> <string>Boy</string> <string>I am a boy.</string> </array> </array> </dict> I want to convert to this: <dict> <key>2</key> <array> <string>A, Apple, Apple Pie</string> <string>B, Boy</string> </array> ... </dict>

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• How to enjoy DVD on Apple iPad

  - by user44251

  I believe many people spent a sleepless night yesterday waiting for the new Apple Tablet to come, just a few days ago or perhaps longer I noticed fierce debate about it, its name, size, capacity, processor, main features, price etc. And now, they can take a long breath with the new Apple Tablet named iPad officially released on 28, January, 2010 (Beijing Time). But I know a new battle just begins. iPad, sounds somewhat like iPod and it really shares some similarities in terms of shape like smart, light and portable. It has a 9.7-inch, LED-backlit, IPS display with a remarkable precise Multi-Touch screen. And yet, at just 1.5 lbs and 0.5 inches thin, it's easy to carry and use everywhere. It can greatly facilitates your experience with the web, emails, photos and videos. Right now, it can run almost 140.000 of the apps on the Apple store. It can even run the apps you have downloaded for your iPhone or iPod touch. But so far, I haven't seen any possibility that it can work with DVD, probability there is no built-in DVD-ROM or DVD player which can play DVD directly. As Apple iPad states, the video formats supported are MPEG-4 (MP4, M4V), H.264, MOV etc and audio formats accepted are AAC, Proteceted AAC, MP3, AIFF and WAV etc, those are formats that are commonly used with iMac. This could really a hard nut to crack if you want to watch your favourite DVD on this magic Apple iPad. But don't worry, there is still way out, you just need a few steps for ripping and importing DVD movies to Apple iPad with a simple application DVD to iPad converter What's on DVD to iPad Converter for Mac DVD to iPad converter for Mac is a powerful and professional application designed for the newly released Apple iPad which can rip, convert your DVD contents to Apple iPad compatible MPEG-4 (MP4, M4V), H.264, MOV etc, and other popular file formats like AVI, WMV, MPG, MKV, VOB, 3GP, FLV etc can also be converted so that you can put on your portable devices like iPod, iPhone, iRiver, BlackBerry etc. Besides, it can also extract audio from DVD videos and save as MP3, AIFF, AAC, WAV etc. Mac DVD to iPad converter has also been enhanced that can run both on PowerPC and Intel (Snow Leopard included). It can offer versatile editing features which allows you to make your own DVD videos. For example, you can cut your DVD to whatever length you like by Trim, crop off unwanted parts from DVD clips by Crop, add special effect like Gray, Emboss and Old film to make your videos more artistic. Besides, its built-in merging feature and batch mode allows you to join several DVD clips into a single one and do batch conversion. And more features can be expected if you afford a few minutes to try.

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• How do you splice out a part of an xvid encoded avi file, with ffmpeg? (no problems with other files)

  - by user11955

  Im using the following command, which works for most files, except what seems to be xvid encoded ones /usr/bin/ffmpeg -sameq -i file.avi -ss 00:01:00 -t 00:00:30 -ac 2 -r 25 -copyts output.avi So this should basically splice out 30 seconds of video + audio, starting from 1 minute mark. It does START encoding at the 00:01:00 mark but it goes all the way to the end of the file for some reason, ignoring that I want just 30 seconds. The output looks like this. FFmpeg version git-ecc4bdd, Copyright (c) 2000-2010 the FFmpeg developers built on May 31 2010 04:52:24 with gcc 4.4.3 20100127 (Red Hat 4.4.3-4) configuration: --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libfaac --enable-libvorbis --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-libxvid --enable-pthreads --enable-libfaad --extra-cflags=-fPIC --enable-postproc --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-shared libavutil 50.15. 2 / 50.15. 2 libavcodec 52.67. 0 / 52.67. 0 libavformat 52.62. 0 / 52.62. 0 libavdevice 52. 2. 0 / 52. 2. 0 libavfilter 1.20. 0 / 1.20. 0 libswscale 0.10. 0 / 0.10. 0 libpostproc 51. 2. 0 / 51. 2. 0 [mpeg4 @ 0x17cf770]Invalid and inefficient vfw-avi packed B frames detected Input #0, avi, from 'file.avi': Metadata: ISFT : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release) Duration: 00:02:00.00, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1587 kb/s Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 672x368 [PAR 1:1 DAR 42:23], 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc Stream #0.1: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1, s16, 448 kb/s File 'lol6.avi' already exists. Overwrite ? [y/N] y Output #0, avi, to 'lol6.avi': Metadata: ISFT : Lavf52.62.0 Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 672x368 [PAR 1:1 DAR 42:23], q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 25 tbn, 25 tbc Stream #0.1: Audio: mp2, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 64 kb/s Stream mapping: Stream #0.0 -> #0.0 Stream #0.1 -> #0.1 Press [q] to stop encoding [mpeg4 @ 0x17cf770]Invalid and inefficient vfw-avi packed B frames detected [buffer @ 0x184b610]Buffering several frames is not supported. Please consume all available frames before adding a new one. frame= 1501 fps=104 q=0.0 Lsize= 15612kB time=30.02 bitrate=4259.7kbits/s ts/s video:15303kB audio:235kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.482620% if I convert this file to mp4 for example, and then perform the same action, it works perfectly.

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• Which hardware to VM ratio for Build-Server virtualization?

  - by Martin

  Let's start with saying that I'm a total noob wrt. to server virtualization. That is, I use VMs often during development, but they're simple desktop machine things for me. Now to my problem: We have two (physical) build servers, one master, one slave running Jenkins to do daily tasks and build (Visual C++ Builds) our release packages for our software. As such these machines are critical to our company, because we do lot's releases and without a controlled environment to create them, we can't ship fixes. (And currently there's no proper backup of these machines in place, because they do not hold any data as such - it just would be a major pain to setup them again should they go bust. (But setting up backup that I'd know would work in case of HW failure would even be more pain, so we have skipped that until now.)) Therefore (and for scaling purposes) we would like to go virtual with these machines. Outsourcing to the cloud is not an option, not at all, so we'll have to use on-premises hardware and VM hosts. Each Build-Server (master or slave) is a fully configured (installs, licenses, shares in case of the master, ...) Windows Server box. I would now ideally like to just convert the (two) existing physical nodes to VM images and run them. Later add more VM slave instances as clones of the existing ones. And here begin my questions: Should I go for one VM per one hardware-box or should I go for something where a single hardware runs multiple VMs? That would mean a single point of failure hardware wise and doesn't seem like a good idea ... or?? Since we're doing C++ compilation with Visual Studio, I assume that during a build the hardware (processor cores + disk) will be fully utilized, so going with more than one build-node per hardware doesn't seem to make much sense?? Wrt. to hardware options, does it make any difference which VM software we use (VMWare, MS, Virtualbox, ... ?) (We're using Windows exclusively for our builds.) Regarding budget: We have a normal small company (20 developers) budget for this. ;-) That is, if it's going to cost a few k$ it's going to cost. If it's free - the better. I strongly prefer solutions where there's no multi-k$ maintenance costs per year.

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• Issue using a "used" SSD as a Windows 8.1 Boot Drive

  - by EpiGrad

  So, I'm something of a Mac person, but decided to take a stab at this whole "build yourself a PC" thing - right now, the thing is assembled, posts just fine, and can get to the BIOS. The problem is the drive I want to use - I intended to use a 80 GB Corsair SSD I've had sitting around as the boot drive, and a new Samsung SSD for games and the like. So I boot using a Windows 8.1 install USB stick, and if the Samsung drive is plugged in, it happily offers to install Windows on it. The Corsair drive though, it's flipped out - I reformatted it as a blank NTFS drive (it was HFS for Mac purposes) and the BIOS can't see it, nor can the Windows installer. What's wrong, and how do I fix it? The tools at my disposal are: The current ASUS BIOS that came with my motherboard (a Z87I-Deluxe), a Mac running the latest OS X which can also boot to Windows 7 if needed via either Parallels or Bootcamp. Update 1: Update: Based on a friend's suggestion to switch SATA ports, Windows 8.1's installer can now see the drive as Drive 0, Partition 1, a 83.8 GB "Primary" partition. But when I click it and hit "Next", I get the following error: "We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing one. For more information, see the Setup log files" - not that it gives any clue how to access those. Update 2: Following a trail of Google suggestions, I ended up going into advanced tools and just reformatting the drive as follows: Start DISKPART. Type LIST DISK and identify your SSD disk number (from 0 to n disks). Type SELECT DISK <n> where <n> is your SSD disk number. Type CLEAN Type CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY Type ACTIVE Type FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK Type ASSIGN Type EXIT twice (one to get out of DiskPart, the other to exit the command line tool) Per these instructions. This goes well enough, but now I can select the disk for installation, and I get a new error: "Windows 8 cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GP disks." So, Googling that, I do the following: select disk 0 clean convert gpt exit ...and we might have fixed it. Windows is at least trying to install now.

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• Recovering damaged external hard disk by installing internally

  - by nfarshchi

  I had a 1TB Western Digital (My book series) 3.5" USB3. One day, the SATA to USB3 converter board was damaged and has not worked since. I decided to open the cover and use the HDD as an internal HDD. When I attached the HDD to my PC and booted up in Windows, it asked me which type of ????? I want to use "MBR or GBR" (I dont remember the exact question) I chose MBR and Windows gave me a 1TB empty Hard drive. I tried to recover with recover my files and some other recovery programs but no success. Some one told me that you should choosed GBR instead of MBR . How can I do that now? Another guy told me that the SATA to USB3 converter board is coded to save data on HDD and you can not use them internally without losing data, and I should find another SATA to USB3 board (exact same). It is impossible to find because they are not produced any more. Please help me to find a solution to bring back my data. UPDATE I have 1TB WD "Mybook" USB 3. the board that convert sata to usb3 was damaged. so when the HDD was in the box computer did not recognize it. I opened the box and remove HDD to use it internal. after connecting to my PC windows showed me one massage that I had two choice MBR or GPT I choosed MBR one and windows gave me 1TB empty new volume. I tried many recovery software to recover my data but no success. I brought it to one expert recovery company and they told me the converter board (SATA to USB3) make some encryption on data and with out that board you cannot recover any thing. so I bought another empty WD box and put the HDD inside but even after that also there is no file. I tried to recover again in this state but no success. so I have some unanswered question. does this converted boards make any password or encryption? if yes how can I solve it? does using many recovery programs affected my data? any suggestion or solution for bring back my data? I had use recovery programs such as : recover my files , EaseUS data recovery, easy recovery, test disk, Ontrack easy recovery . Note: when I was using test disk it asked me to choose which partition table I want to use. as it was I choose NTFS, does this made any change on data?

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• Lenovo Windows 8 EFI restore from image

  - by anderhil

  First time here. I have bought e530 with windows 8 and the first hour of work with it i have a problem. I have ssd with windows 7 which i want to use with my new e530. I have made a sysprep of win 7 and installed ssd to the e530. The HDD which was inside e530 i want to use as second hdd instead of my DVD Drive. I connected this HDD through usb-to-sata adapter to copy some files from ssd to the hdd. Unfortunately it didn't see the file system on the HDD (but first time i have booted to it and first boot into Windows 8) I've made some mistakes and i corrupt the filesystem on the hdd. I tried bunch of tricks to recover the GPT, but it didn't work. I have managed to recover the Lenovo_Recovery partition to my ssd using recovery tools. And now I'm stuck, with this new things to me - EFI, GPT, etc i don't how this stuff works, and i have been trying to understand this for hours - but nothing seems to work. I want to restore the Windows 8 to the hdd, so it is there alive. What i have done so far: Formated the HDD I took the PBRALL file from the Lenovo_Recovery " convert gpt create partition Primary size=1000 ID=DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001 assign letter=W format quick LABEL=WINRE_DRV create partition efi size=260 assign letter=s format quick fs=fat32 LABEL=SYSTEM_DRV create par msr size=128 create partition primary noerr assign letter=t format quick LABEL=Windows8_OS shrink desired=12197 create partition Primary ID=DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001 assign letter=q format quick LABEL=Lenovo_Recovery " it recreated the partitions copied contents of SDRIVE.zip to SYSTEM_DRV partition copied contents of WDRIVE.zip to WINRE_DRV partition Copied restored Lenovo_Recovery back to Lenovo_Recovery partition So now I have 3 system partitions: SYSTE_DRV BOOT boot.sdi EFI BOOT bootx64.efi LenovoBT.efi Lenovo ... Microsoft ... WINRE_DRV\Recovery\WindowsRE\winre.wim Lenovo_Recovery (whic contains install.wim and bunch of other things) So i put back the HDD inside the laptop and tried to boot - but nothing works. It just doesn't boot to anything - no errors - nothing at all. When I choose this HDD manually for boot - just black screen blinks and that's all - it returns back to the devices boot menu. SYSTEM_DRV is EFI partition, so I don't understand why it doesn't boot, it has files needed inside. Can anybody tell me what should be done to make it boot to recovery console or smth like that? How to restore the Windows 8 from the Lenovo_Recovery install.wim image? As I understand I have all the files where they should be, but why it doesn't work? How to troubleshoot such things? Also, if somebody has good link where EFI booting process is explained in details that would be great. Cause i still don't understand how it knows what partition to boot?

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• is it a good idea to change a recovery partition from primary to logical? [HP laptop]

  - by DiegoDD

  I have a new HP laptop, model dv6-6c85la, with 1TB hard drive, and it has 4 primary partitions, like this: |<- system [199 MB] -|<- c: [899.8 GB] -|<- d:(recovery) [27.5 GB] -|<- e:(hp_tools) [4 GB] -| I wanted to make another partition, splitting "C" which is the main partition, into TWO partitions, and leave the rest as it is. but it doesn't let me because they are already 4 primary partitions (the ones in the diagram). I read somewhere, that i could in fact split C into 2 partitions, but only if the adjacent partition (in this case d:(recovery) is converted into a "logical" partition. That way, the new unallocated part taken from C, and the recovery partition, would each be logical, "inside" an extended partition (right???) As i understand, the resulting partitions would be: primary (system, no letter), primary (c:), extended [ logical (x:) | logical(d:recovery) ], primary (e: hp_tools) "x" being the new one. am i correct? My question is, if i do convert the recovery partition to logical (and thus, it is inside an extended partition adjacent to the new "x:" one), would i have any problems when in case of a disaster i would like to restore the system using the now logical instead of primary RECOVERY partition? Or it is completely safe to change it to logical? My main concern is because i think i may need to be primary so the recovery can proceed in boot time? Or i am completely wrong? how does the recovery process happens? I also understand that i can simply create recovery media, in DVDs, and then even i would be able to delete that recovery partition completely, but as of now, i don't want to do that. I may create the disks, but i don't want to delete the partition, simply because it would be a lot faster and easier to recover from a hard drive than disks. Wrapping up: if i change a recovery partition from primary to logical, will the system still be capable of using it to recover? or it NEEDS to be primary to work? The whole point is that i want to split C:, but as things are, i cant directly, i'd need to change the recovery partition to logical. Or is there another way? thanks.

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• Google Rules for Retail

  - by David Dorf

  In the book What Would Google Do?, Jeff Jarvis outlines ten "Google Rules" that define how Google acts.  These rules help define how Web 2.0 businesses operate today and into the future.  While there's a chapter in the book on applying these rules to the retail industry, it wasn't very in-depth.  So I've decided to more directly apply the rules to retail, along with some notable examples of success.  The table below shows Jeff's Google Rule, some Industry Examples, and New Retailer Rules that I created. 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;} table.MsoTableGrid {mso-style-name:"Table Grid"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-priority:59; mso-style-unhide:no; border:solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-themecolor:text1; mso-border-alt:solid black .5pt; mso-border-themecolor:text1; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-border-insideh:.5pt solid black; mso-border-insideh-themecolor:text1; mso-border-insidev:.5pt solid black; mso-border-insidev-themecolor:text1; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; 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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Google Rule Industry Examples New Retailer Rule New Relationship Your worst customer is your friend; you best customer is your partner Newegg.com lets manufacturers respond to customer comments that are critical of the product, and their EggXpert site lets customers help other customers. Listen to what your customers are saying about you.  Convert the critics to fans and the fans to influencers. New Architecture Join a network; be a platform Tesco and BestBuy released APIs for their product catalogs so third-parties could create new applications. Become a destination for information. New Publicness Life is public, so is business Zappos and WholeFoods founders are prolific tweeters/bloggers, sharing their opinions and connecting to customers.  It's not always pretty, but it's genuine. Be transparent.  Share both your successes and failures with your customers. New Society Elegant organization Wet Seal helps their customers assemble outfits and show them off to each other.  Barnes & Noble has a community site that includes a bookclub. Communities of your customers already exist, so help them organize better. New Economy Mass market is dead; long live the mass of niches lululemon found a niche for yoga inspired athletic wear.  Threadless uses crowd-sourcing to design short-runs of T-shirts. Serve small markets with niche products. New Business Reality Decide what business you're in When Lowes realized catering to women brought the men along, their sales increased. Customers want experiences to go with the products they buy. New Attitude Trust the people and listen In 2008 Starbucks launched MyStartbucksIdea to solicit ideas from their customers. Use social networks as additional data points for making better merchandising decisions. New Ethic Be honest and transparent; don't be evil Target is giving away reusable shopping bags for Earth Day.  Kohl's has outfitted 67 stores with solar arrays. Being green earns customers' respect and lowers costs too. New Speed Life is live H&M and Zara keep up with fashion trends. Be prepared to pounce on you customers' fickle interests. New Imperatives Encourage, enable and protect innovation 1-800-Flowers was the first do sales in Facebook and an early adopter of mobile commerce.  The Sears Personal Shopper mobile app finds products based on a photo. Give your staff permission to fail so innovation won't be stifled. Jeff will be a keynote speaker at Crosstalk, our upcoming annual user conference, so I'm looking forward to hearing more of his perspective on retail and the new economy.

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• How To Switch Back to Outlook 2007 After the 2010 Beta Ends

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you switching back to Outlook 2007 after trying out Office 2010 beta?  Here’s how you can restore your Outlook data and keep everything working fine after the switch. Whenever you install a newer version of Outlook, it will convert your profile and data files to the latest format.  This makes them work the best in the newer version of Outlook, but may cause problems if you decide to revert to an older version.  If you installed Outlook 2010 beta, it automatically imported and converted your profile from Outlook 2007.  When the beta expires, you will either have to reinstall Office 2007 or purchase a copy of Office 2010. If you choose to reinstall Office 2007, you may notice an error message each time you open Outlook. Outlook will still work fine and all of your data will be saved, but this error message can get annoying.  Here’s how you can create a new profile, import all of your old data, and get rid of this error message. Banish the Error Message with a New Profile To get rid of this error message, we need to create a new Outlook profile.  First, make sure your Outlook data files are backed up.  Your messages, contacts, calendar, and more are stored in a .pst file in your appdata folder.  Enter the following in the address bar of an Explorer window to open your Outlook data folder, and replace username with your user name: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook Copy the Outlook Personal Folders (.pst) files that contain your data. Its name is usually your email address, though it may have a different name.  If in doubt, select all of the Outlook Personal Folders files, copy them, and save them in another safe place (such as your Documents folder). Now, let’s remove your old profile.  Open Control Panel, and select Mail.  In Windows Vista or 7, simply enter “Mail” in the search box and select the first entry. Click the “Show Profiles…” button. Now, select your Outlook profile, and click Remove.  This will not delete your data files, but will remove them from Outlook. Press Yes to confirm that you wish to remove this profile. Open Outlook, and you will be asked to create a new profile.  Enter a name for your new profile, and press Ok. Now enter your email account information to setup Outlook as normal. Outlook will attempt to automatically configure your account settings.  This usually works for accounts with popular email systems, but if it fails to find your information you can enter it manually.  Press finish when everything’s done. Outlook will now go ahead and download messages from your email account.  In our test, we used a Gmail account that still had all of our old messages online.  Those files are backed up in our old Outlook data files, so we can save time and not download them.  Click the Send/Receive button on the bottom of the window, and select “Cancel Send/Receive”. Restore Your Old Outlook Data Let’s add our old Outlook file back to Outlook 2007.  Exit Outlook, and then go back to Control Panel, and select Mail as above.  This time, click the Data Files button. Click the Add button on the top left. Select “Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst)”, and click Ok. Now, select your old Outlook data file.  It should be in the folder that opens by default; if not, browse to the backup copy we saved earlier, and select it. Press Ok at the next dialog to accept the default settings. Now, select the data file we just imported, and click “Set as Default”. Now, all of your old messages, appointments, contacts, and everything else will be right in Outlook ready for you.  Click Ok, and then open Outlook to see the change. All of the data that was in Outlook 2010 is now ready to use in Outlook 2007.  You won’t have to wait to re-download all of your emails from the server since everything’s still here ready to be used.  And when you open Outlook, you won’t see any error messages, either! Conclusion Migrating your Outlook profile back to Outlook 2007 is fairly easy, and with these steps, you can avoid seeing an error message every time you open Outlook.  With all your data in tact, you’re ready to get back to work instead of getting frustrated with Outlook.  Many of us use webmail and keep all of our messages in the cloud, but even on broadband connections it can take a long time to download several gigabytes of emails. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Opening Attachments in Outlook 2007 by KeyboardQuickly Create Appointments from Tasks with Outlook 2007’s To-Do BarFix For Outlook 2007 Constantly Asking for Password on VistaPin Microsoft Outlook to the Desktop BackgroundOur Look at the LinkedIn Social Connector for 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 Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job? Find Downloads and Add-ins for Outlook

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• Configuring Novel iPrint client on ubuntu 13.10

  - by Mahdi Sadeghi

  Recently I have struggled a lot to make Novel iPrint client to work on my laptop. I need it to use Follow Me printers in our university(you can take your print form any printer). Using this tutorial from Novel, I tried to convert the rpm package and install it on Ubuntu 13.04 & 13.10. The post install script from installing generated deb package had a typo which I saw in post install messages and I fixed that. Now I have the client running. To see the client UI I installed cinnamon desktop(because unity does not have system tray and old solutions did'nt work to whitelist Novel clinet). I have iPrint plugin installed on firefox as well(I copied the shared object files to plugin directories). I try installing printers from provided ipp URL(which lists available printers on the server) with no success. After clicking the printer name I see this: I have various errors: Formerly firefox used to asked my network username/password for installing SSL printer but now it returns this: iPrint Printer - The printer is currently not available. However I can install non-SSL version but the printer location is either empty or points to: file:///dev/null even if I change it to the exact address which I see on working machines still it prints nothing. I have tried the novel command line tool, iprntcmd to print. It is being installed at: /opt/novell/iprint/bin/ msadeghi@werkstatt:/opt/novell/iprint/bin$ ./iprntcmd --addprinter ipp://iprint.rz.hs-offenburg.de/ipp/Follow-me\ -\ IPP iprntcmd v05.04.00 Adding printer ipp://iprint.rz.hs-offenburg.de/ipp/Follow-me - IPP. Added printer ipp://iprint.rz.hs-offenburg.de/ipp/Follow-me - IPP successfully. It adds the printer with empty location and again no print. What I found interesting is the log file at ~/.iprint/errors.txt with strange errors which I hope somebody here can understand. When I try to install the SSL printer I receive these logs(note that HP is my local printer and has nothing to do with iprint): Thu Oct 31 11:02:03 2013 Trace Info: iprint.c, line 6690 Group Info: IPRINT-lib Error Code: 4096 (0x1000) User ID: 1000 Error Msg: iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:). Debug Msg: IPRINTInterpretURI for file:///dev/null - Unknown Port Type - file Thu Oct 31 11:02:03 2013 Trace Info: iprint.c, line 6800 Group Info: IPRINT-lib Error Code: 4096 (0x1000) User ID: 1000 Error Msg: iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:). Debug Msg: IPRINTInterpretURI for hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1018?serial=KP103A1 - No Port type specified Thu Oct 31 11:02:05 2013 Trace Info: iprint.c, line 6690 Group Info: IPRINT-lib Error Code: 4096 (0x1000) User ID: 1000 Error Msg: iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:). Debug Msg: IPRINTInterpretURI for file:///dev/null - Unknown Port Type - file Thu Oct 31 11:02:05 2013 Trace Info: iprint.c, line 6800 Group Info: IPRINT-lib Error Code: 4096 (0x1000) User ID: 1000 Error Msg: iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:). Debug Msg: IPRINTInterpretURI for hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1018?serial=KP103A1 - No Port type specified Thu Oct 31 11:02:06 2013 Trace Info: mydoreq.c, line 676 Group Info: CLIB Error Code: 0 (0x0) User ID: 1000 Error Msg: Success Debug Msg: MyCupsDoFileRequest - httpReconnect failed (0) Thu Oct 31 11:02:06 2013 Trace Info: mydoreq.c, line 1293 Group Info: CUPS-IPP Error Code: 1282 (0x502) User ID: 1000 Error Msg: iPrint Printer - The printer is currently not available. Debug Msg: MyCupsDoFileRequest - IPP SERVICE UNAVAILABLE Thu Oct 31 11:02:06 2013 Trace Info: iprint.c, line 6690 Group Info: IPRINT-lib Error Code: 4096 (0x1000) User ID: 1000 Error Msg: iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:). Debug Msg: IPRINTInterpretURI for file:///dev/null - Unknown Port Type - file Thu Oct 31 11:02:06 2013 Trace Info: iprint.c, line 6800 Group Info: IPRINT-lib Error Code: 4096 (0x1000) User ID: 1000 Error Msg: iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:). Debug Msg: IPRINTInterpretURI for hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1018?serial=KP103A1 - No Port type specified Thu Oct 31 11:02:08 2013 Trace Info: iprint.c, line 6690 Group Info: IPRINT-lib Error Code: 4096 (0x1000) User ID: 1000 Error Msg: iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:). Debug Msg: IPRINTInterpretURI for file:///dev/null - Unknown Port Type - file Thu Oct 31 11:02:08 2013 Trace Info: iprint.c, line 6800 Group Info: IPRINT-lib Error Code: 4096 (0x1000) User ID: 1000 Error Msg: iPrint Lib - Bad URI type supplied (not IPP:, HTTP:, or HTTPS:). Debug Msg: IPRINTInterpretURI for hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1018?serial=KP103A1 - No Port type specified I should say that my friend can print using the same instructions on CrunchBang easily and another guy on 12.04 LTS but with more struggling. It worked for me on linux mint maya with my old laptop as well. Is there anybody out there who can help me to solve these problems? I am really disappointed with Novell and our university support. PS. I had the same problemwith 13.04. No matter if I am within the network or I connect with VPN, I have the same issues.

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• Our Look at the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview

  - by Asian Angel

  Have you been hearing all about Microsoft’s work on Internet Explorer 9 and are curious about it? If you are wanting a taste of the upcoming release then join us as we take a look at the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview. Note: Windows Vista and Server 2008 users may need to install a Platform Update (see link at bottom for more information). Getting Started If you are curious about the systems that the platform preview will operate on here is an excerpt from the FAQ page (link provided below). There are two important points of interest here: The platform preview does not replace your regular Internet Explorer installation The platform preview (and the final version of Internet Explorer 9) will not work on Windows XP There really is not a lot to the install process…basically all that you will have to deal with is the “EULA Window” and the “Install Finished Window”. Note: The platform preview will install to a “Program Files Folder” named “Internet Explorer Platform Preview”. Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview in Action When you start the platform preview up for the first time you will be presented with the Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive homepage. Do not be surprised that there is not a lot to the UI at this time…but you can get a good idea of how Internet Explorer will act. Note: You will not be able to alter the “Homepage” for the platform preview. Of the four menus available there are two that will be of interest to most people…the “Page & Debug Menus”. If you go to navigate to a new webpage you will need to go through the “Page Menu” unless you have installed the Address Bar Mini-Tool (shown below). Want to see what a webpage will look like in an older version of Internet Explorer? Then choose your version in the “Debug Menu”. We did find it humorous that IE6 was excluded from the choices offered. Here is what the URL entry window looks like if you are using the “Page Menu” to navigate between websites. Here is the main page of the site here displayed in “IE9 Mode”…looking good. Here is the main page viewed in “Forced IE5 Document Mode”. There were some minor differences (colors, sidebar, etc.) in how the main page displayed in comparison to “IE9 Mode”. Being able to switch between modes makes for an interesting experience… As you can see there is not much to the “Context Menu” at the moment. Notice the slightly altered icon for the platform preview… “Add” an Address Bar of Sorts If you would like to use a “make-shift” Address Bar with the platform preview you can set up the portable file (IE9browser.exe) for the Internet Explorer 9 Test Platform Addressbar Mini-Tool. Just place it in an appropriate folder, create a shortcut for it, and it will be ready to go. Here is a close look at the left side of the Address Bar Mini-Tool. You can try to access “IE Favorites” but may have sporadic results like those we experienced during our tests. Note: The Address Bar Mini-Tool will not line up perfectly with the platform preview but still makes a nice addition. And a close look at the right side of the Address Bar Mini-Tool. In order to completely shut down the Address Bar Mini-Tool you will need to click on “Close”. Each time that you enter an address into the Address Bar Mini-Tool it will open a new window/instance of the platform preview. Note: During our tests we noticed that clicking on “Home” in the “Page Menu” opened the previously viewed website but once we closed and restarted the platform preview the test drive website was the starting/home page again. Even if the platform preview is not running the Address Bar Mini-Tool can still run as shown here. Note: You will not be able to move the Address Bar Mini-Tool from its’ locked-in position at the top of the screen. Now for some fun. With just the Address Bar Mini-Tool open you can enter an address and cause the platform preview to open. Here is our example from above now open in the platform preview…good to go. Conclusion During our tests we did experience the occasional crash but overall we were pleased with the platform preview’s performance. The platform preview handled rather well and definitely seemed much quicker than Internet Explorer 8 on our test system (a definite bonus!). If you are an early adopter then this could certainly get you in the mood for the upcoming beta releases! Links Download the Internet Explorer 9 Preview Platform Download the Internet Explorer 9 Test Platform Addressbar Mini-Tool Information about Platform Update for Windows Vista & Server 2008 View the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview FAQ Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Mysticgeek Blog: A Look at Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 on Windows XPMake Ctrl+Tab in Internet Explorer 7 Use Most Recent OrderRemove ISP Text or Corporate Branding from Internet Explorer Title BarWhy Can’t I Turn the Details/Preview Panes On or Off in Windows Vista Explorer?Prevent Firefox or Internet Explorer from Printing the URL on Every Page 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 Awesome Lyrics Finder for Winamp & Windows Media Player 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

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• Map a Network Drive from XP to Windows 7

  - by Mysticgeek

  We’ve received a lot of questions about mapping a drive from XP to Windows 7 to access data easily. Today we look at how to map a drive in Windows 7, and how to map to an XP drive from Windows 7. With the new Homegroup feature in Windows 7, it makes sharing data between computers a lot easier. But you might need to map a network drive so you can go directly into a folder to access its contents. Mapping a network drive may sound like “IT talk”, but the process is fairly easy. Map Network Drive in Windows 7 Note: All of the computers used in this article are part of the same workgroup on a home network. In this first example we’re mapping to another Windows 7 drive on the network. Open Computer and from the toolbar click on Map Network Drive. Alternately in Computer you can hit “Alt+T” to pull up the toolbar and click on Tools \ Map Network Drive. Now give it an available drive letter, type in the path or browse to the folder you want to map to. Check the box next to Reconnect at logon if you want it available after a reboot, and click Finish. If both machines aren’t part of the same Homegroup, you may be prompted to enter in a username and password. Make sure and check the box next to Remember my credentials if you don’t want to log in every time to access it. The drive will map and the contents of the folder will open up. When you look in Computer, you’ll see the drive under network location. This process works if you want to connect to a server drive as well. In this example we map to a Home Server drive. Map an XP Drive to Windows 7 There might be times when you need to map a drive on an XP machine on your network. There are extra steps you’ll need to take to make it work however. Here we take a look at the problem you’ll encounter when trying to map to an XP machine if things aren’t set up correctly. If you try to browse to your XP machine you’ll see a message that you don’t have permission. Or if you try to enter in the path directly, you’ll be prompted for a username and password, and the annoyance is, no matter what credentials you put in, you can’t connect. To solve the problem we need to set up the Windows 7 machine as a user on the XP machine and make them part of the Administrators group. Right-click My Computer and select Manage. Under Computer Management expand Local Users and Groups and click on the Users folder. Right-click an empty area and click New User. Add in the user credentials, uncheck User must change password at next logon, then check Password never expires then click Create. Now you see the new user you created in the list. After the user is added you might want to reboot before proceeding to the next step.   Next we need to make the user part of the Administrators group. So go back into Computer Management \ Local Users and Groups \ Groups then double click on Administrators. Click the Add button in Administrators Properties window. Enter in the new user you created and click OK. An easy way to do this is to enter the name of the user you created then click Check Names and the path will be entered in for you. Now you see the user as a member of the Administrators group. Back on the Windows 7 machine we’ll start the process of mapping a drive. Here we’re browsing to the XP Media Center Edition machine. Now we can enter in the user name and password we just created. If you only want to access specific shared folders on the XP machine you can browse to them. Or if you want to map to the entire drive, enter in the drive path where in this example it’s “\\XPMCE\C$” –Don’t forget the “$” sign after the local drive letter. Then login… Again the contents of the drive will open up for you to access. Here you can see we have two drives mapped. One to another Windows 7 machine on the network, and the other one to the XP computer.   If you ever want to disconnect a drive, just right-click on it and then Disconnect. There are several scenarios where you might want to map a drive in Windows 7 to access specific data. It takes a little bit of work but you can map to an XP drive from Windows 7 as well. This comes in handy where you have a network with different versions of Windows running on it. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Find Your Missing USB Drive on Windows XPMake Vista Index Your Network ConnectionsEasily Backup & Import Your Wireless Network Settings in Windows 7Quickly Open Network Connections List in Windows 7 or VistaHow To Find Drives Easily with Desk Drive 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 Kill Processes Quickly with Process Assassin Need to Come Up with a Good Name? Try Wordoid StockFox puts a Lightweight Stock Ticker in your Statusbar Explore Google Public Data Visually The Ultimate Excel Cheatsheet Convert the Quick Launch Bar into a Super Application Launcher

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• Integrate Nitro PDF Reader with Windows 7

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like a lightweight PDF reader that integrates nicely with Office and Windows 7?  Here we look at the new Nitro PDF Reader, a nice PDF viewer that also lets you create and markup PDF files. Adobe Reader is the de-facto PDF viewer, but it only lets you view PDFs and not much else.  Additionally, it doesn’t fully integrate with 64-bit editions of Vista and Windows 7.  There are many alternate PDF readers, but Nitro PDF Reader is a new entry into this field that offers more features than most PDF readers.  From the creators of the popular free PrimoPDF printer, the new Reader lets you create PDFs from a variety of file formats and markup existing PDFs with notes, highlights, stamps, and more in addition to viewing PDFs.  It also integrates great with Windows 7 using the Office 2010 ribbon interface. Getting Started Download the free Nitro PDF Reader (link below) and install as normal.  Nitro PDF Reader has separate versions for 32 & 64-bit editions of Windows, so download the correct one for your computer. Note:  Nitro PDF Reader is still in Beta testing, so only install if you’re comfortable with using beta software. On first run, Nitro PDF Reader will ask if you want to make it the default PDF viewer.  If you don’t want to, make sure to uncheck the box beside Always perform this check to keep it from opening this prompt every time you use it. It will also open an introductory PDF the first time you run it so you can quickly get acquainted with its features. Windows 7 Integration One of the first things you’ll notice is that Nitro PDF Reader integrates great with Windows 7.  The ribbon interface fits right in with native applications such as WordPad and Paint, as well as Office 2010. If you set Nitro PDF Reader as your default PDF viewer, you’ll see thumbnails of your PDFs in Windows Explorer. If you turn on the Preview Pane, you can read full PDFs in Windows Explorer.  Adobe Reader lets you do this in 32 bit versions, but Nitro PDF works in 64 bit versions too. The PDF preview even works in Outlook.  If you receive an email with a PDF attachment, you can select the PDF and view it directly in the Reading Pane.  Click the Preview file button, and you can uncheck the box at the bottom so PDFs will automatically open for preview if you want.   Now you can read your PDF attachments in Outlook without opening them separately.  This works in both Outlook 2007 and 2010. Edit your PDFs Adobe Reader only lets you view PDF files, and you can’t save data you enter in PDF forms.  Nitro PDF Reader, however, gives you several handy markup tools you can use to edit your PDFs.  When you’re done, you can save the final PDF, including information entered into forms. With the ribbon interface, it’s easy to find the tools you want to edit your PDFs. Here we’ve highlighted text in a PDF and added a note to it.  We can now save these changes, and they’ll look the same in any PDF reader, including Adobe Reader. You can also enter new text in PDFs.  This will open a new tab in the ribbon, where you can select basic font settings.  Select the Click To Finish button in the ribbon when you’re finished editing text.   Or, if you want to use the text or pictures from a PDF in another application, you can choose to extract them directly in Nitro PDF Reader.  Create PDFs One of the best features of Nitro PDF Reader is the ability to create PDFs from almost any file.  Nitro adds a new virtual printer to your computer that creates PDF files from anything you can print.  Print your file as normal, but select the Nitro PDF Creator (Reader) printer. Enter a name for your PDF, select if you want to edit the PDF properties, and click Create. If you choose to edit the PDF properties, you can add your name and information to the file, select the initial view, encrypt it, and restrict permissions. Alternately, you can create a PDF from almost any file by simply drag-and-dropping it into Nitro PDF Reader.  It will automatically convert the file to PDF and open it in a new tab in Nitro PDF. Now from the File menu you can send the PDF as an email attachment so anyone can view it. Make sure to save the PDF before closing Nitro, as it does not automatically save the PDF file.   Conclusion Nitro PDF Reader is a nice alternative to Adobe Reader, and offers some features that are only available in the more expensive Adobe Acrobat.  With great Windows 7 integration, including full support for 64-bit editions, Nitro fits in with the Windows and Office experience very nicely.  If you have tried out Nitro PDF Reader leave a comment and let us know what you think. Link Download Nitro PDF Reader Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install Adobe PDF Reader on Ubuntu EdgySubscribe to RSS Feeds in Chrome with a Single ClickChange Default Feed Reader in FirefoxFix for Windows Explorer Folder Pane in XP Becomes Grayed OutRemove "Please wait while the document is being prepared for reading" Message in Adobe Reader 8 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 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 tinysong gives a shortened URL for you to post on Twitter (or anywhere) 10 Superb Firefox Wallpapers OpenDNS Guide Google TV The iPod Revolution Ultimate Boot CD can help when disaster strikes

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• Ask How-To Geek: Dropbox in the Start Menu, Understanding Symlinks, and Ripping TV Series DVDs

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  This week we take a look at how to incorporate Dropbox into your Windows Start Menu, understanding and using symbolic links, and how to rip your TV series DVDs right to unique and high-quality episode files. Once a week we dip into our reader mailbag and help readers solve their problems, sharing the useful solutions with you in the process. Read on to see our fixes for this week’s reader dilemmas. Add Drobox to Your Start Menu Dear How-To Geek, I use Dropbox all the time and would like to add it right onto my start menu along side the other major shortcuts like Documents, Pictures, etc. It seems like adding Dropbox into the menu should be part of the Dropbox installation package! Sincerely, Dropboxing in Des Moines Dear Dropboxing, We agree, it would be a nice installation option. As it stands you’re going to have to do a little simple hacking to get Dropbox nestled neatly into your start menu. The hack isn’t super elegant but when you’re done you’ll have the link you want and it’ll look like it was there all along. Check out this step-by-step guide here in order to take an existing Library shortcut and rework it to be a Dropbox link. Understanding and Using Symbolic Links Dear How-To Geek, I was talking to a coworker the other day about an issue I’d been having with a media center application I’m running. He suggested using symbolic links to better organize my media and make it easier for the application to access my collection. I had no idea what he was talking about and never got a chance to bug him about it later. Can you clear up this whole symbolic links business for me? I’ve been using computers for years and I’ve never even heard of it! Sincerely, Symbolic Who? Dear Symbolic, Symbolic links aren’t commonly used by many Windows users which is why you likely haven’t run into the concept. Symbolic links are essentially supercharged shortcuts—the newly introduced Windows library system is really just a type of symbolic link system. You can use symbolic links to do all sorts of neat stuff like link folders to your Dropbox folder, organize media, and more. The concept of symbolic links is pretty simple but the execution can be really tricky. We’d suggest reading over our guide to creating symbolic links in Windows 7, Windows XP, and Ubunutu to get a clearer idea what you’re getting into. Rip Your TV DVDs into Handy Episode Files Dear How-To Geek, My wife got me an iPod for Christmas and I still haven’t got around to filling it up. I have tons of entire TV show seasons on DVD and would like to get them on the iPod but I have absolutely no idea where to start. How do I get the shows off the discs? I thought it would be as easy to import the TV shows into iTunes as it is to import tracks off a CD but I was totally wrong. I tried downloading some applications to rip them but those didn’t work at all. Very frustrating! Surely there is an easy and/or automated way to do this, right? Sincerely, Free My DVDs Dear DVDs, Oh man is this a frustration we can relate to. It’s inordinately difficult to get movies and TV shows off physical media and into digital (and portable media player-friendly) formats. There are a multitude of ways to rip DVDs and quite a few applications out there (some good, some mediocre, and some outright malware). We’d recommend a two-part punch to solve your ripping woes. You’ll need a copy of DVDFab to strip away the protections on the discs and rip the disc and Handbrake to load the disc image and convert the files. It’s not quite as smooth as the CD-to-iTunes workflow but it’s still pretty easy. Check out all the steps and settings you’ll want to toggle here. Have a question you want to put before the How-To Geek staff? Shoot us an email at [email protected] and then keep an eye out for a solution in the Ask How-To Geek column. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines Google’s New Personal Blocklist Extension Kills Search Engine Spam KeyCounter Tracks Your Keystrokes and Mouse Clicks Add Custom LED Ambient Lighting to Your PC or Media Center The Trackor Monitors Amazon Prices; Integrates with Chrome, Firefox, and Safari Four Awesome TRON Legacy Themes for Chrome and Iron Anger is Illogical – Old School Style Instructional Video [Star Trek Mashup]

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• Add Background Images and Themes to Windows 7 Media Center

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you tired of the same Windows Media Center look and feel? Today we’ll show you how change the background and apply themes to WMC. Changing the Basic Color Scheme in WMC There are a couple of very basic color scheme options built in to Windows 7 Media Center. From the WMC Start Menu, select Settings on the Tasks strip and then select General. On the General settings screen select Visual and Sound Effects.   Under Color scheme you’ll find options for Windows Media Center standard, High contrast white, and High contrast black. Simply select a color scheme and click Save before exiting.   If you have used Media Center before you are familiar with the standard blue default theme. There is also the high contrast white. And, the high contrast black. Changing the Background Image with Media Center Studio Themes and custom backgrounds need to be added with the third-party software, Media Center Studio. You can find the download link at the end of this article. You can use your own high resolution photo, or download one from the Internet. For best results, you’ll want to find an image that meets or exceeds the resolution of your monitor. Also, using a darker colored background image is ideal as it should contrast better with the lighter colored text of the start menu. Once you’ve downloaded and installed Media Center Studio (link below), open the application select the Home tab on the ribbon and make sure you are on the Themes tab below. Click New. Select Biography from the left pane and type in a name for your new theme.   Next, click on the triangle next to Images to expand the list below. You’ll want to browse to Images > Common > Background. You should see a list of PNG image files located below Background. We will want to swap out the COMMON.ANIMATED.BACKGROUND.PNG and the COMMON.BACKGROUND.PNG images. Select COMMON.ANIMATED.BACKGROUND.PNG and click on the Browse button on the right.   Browse for your photo and click Open. Your selected image will appear on the left pane. Now, do the same for the COMMON.BACKGROUND.PNG. When finished, select the Home tab on the ribbon at the top and click Save.   Now switch to the Themes tab on the ribbon and the Themes tab below. (There are two Themes tabs which can be a bit confusing). Select your theme on the right pane and click Apply. Note: You won’t see the image backgrounds displayed. Your theme will be applied to Media Center. Close out of Media Center Studio and open Windows Media Center to check out your new background.   You can load multiple backgrounds images and switch them periodically as your mood changes. You might like to find a nice background featuring your favorite movie or TV show.   Perhaps you can even find a background of your favorite sports team.   Installing Themes with Media Center Studio Theme7MC has made available a small group of Media Center Studio Theme packs that are simple to download and install. You can find the download link below. Note: Before installing a theme, turn off any extenders and close Windows Media Center. Download any (or all) of the Theme7MC theme packages to your Media Center PC. Open Media Center Studio, select the Themes tab (the one at the top) and click Import Theme.   Browse for the theme you wish to import and click Open. Select your theme from the themes pane and click Apply. Media Center Studio will proceed to apply your theme. You should then see your new theme appear under Current theme on the left theme pane. Close out of Media Center Studio. Open Media Center and enjoy your new theme. Conclusion Media Center Studio runs on Windows 7 or Vista and gives users a solution for personalizing their Media Center backgrounds. It is a Beta application, however, so it still has a few bugs. Currently, there are only a handful of themes available at Themes7MC, but what they have is pretty slick. If you’d like to further customize the look of Media Center, check out our previous article on how to customize the Media Center start menu with Media Center Studio. Downloads Media Center Studio Theme7MC Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)How To Rip a Music CD in Windows 7 Media CenterAutomatically Mount and View ISO files in Windows 7 Media CenterSchedule Updates for Windows Media CenterIntegrate Hulu Desktop and Windows Media Center in Windows 7 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 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup AceStock, a Tiny Desktop Quote Monitor Gmail Button Addon (Firefox) Hyperwords addon (Firefox) Backup Outlook 2010 Daily Motivator (Firefox) FetchMp3 Can Download Videos & Convert Them to Mp3

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• Change the User Interface Language in Ubuntu

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to use your Ubuntu computer in another language?  Here’s how you can easily change your interface language in Ubuntu. Ubuntu’s default install only includes a couple languages, but it makes it easy to find and add a new interface language to your computer.  To get started, open the System menu, select Administration, and then click Language Support. Ubuntu may ask if you want to update or add components to your current default language when you first open the dialog.  Click Install to go ahead and install the additional components, or you can click Remind Me Later to wait as these will be installed automatically when you add a new language. Now we’re ready to find and add an interface language to Ubuntu.  Click Install / Remove Languages to add the language you want. Find the language you want in the list, and click the check box to install it.  Ubuntu will show you all the components it will install for the language; this often includes spellchecking files for OpenOffice as well.  Once you’ve made your selection, click Apply Changes to install your new language.  Make sure you’re connected to the internet, as Ubuntu will have to download the additional components you’ve selected. Enter your system password when prompted, and then Ubuntu will download the needed languages files and install them.   Back in the main Language & Text dialog, we’re now ready to set our new language as default.  Find your new language in the list, and then click and drag it to the top of the list. Notice that Thai is the first language listed, and English is the second.  This will make Thai the default language for menus and windows in this account.  The tooltip reminds us that this setting does not effect system settings like currency or date formats. To change these, select the Text Tab and pick your new language from the drop-down menu.  You can preview the changes in the bottom Example box. The changes we just made will only affect this user account; the login screen and startup will not be affected.  If you wish to change the language in the startup and login screens also, click Apply System-Wide in both dialogs.  Other user accounts will still retain their original language settings; if you wish to change them, you must do it from those accounts. Once you have your new language settings all set, you’ll need to log out of your account and log back in to see your new interface language.  When you re-login, Ubuntu may ask you if you want to update your user folders’ names to your new language.  For example, here Ubuntu is asking if we want to change our folders to their Thai equivalents.  If you wish to do so, click Update or its equivalents in your language. Now your interface will be almost completely translated into your new language.  As you can see here, applications with generic names are translated to Thai but ones with specific names like Shutter keep their original name. Even the help dialogs are translated, which makes it easy for users around to world to get started with Ubuntu.  Once again, you may notice some things that are still in English, but almost everything is translated. Adding a new interface language doesn’t add the new language to your keyboard, so you’ll still need to set that up.  Check out our article on adding languages to your keyboard to get this setup. If you wish to revert to your original language or switch to another new language, simply repeat the above steps, this time dragging your original or new language to the top instead of the one you chose previously. Conclusion Ubuntu has a large number of supported interface languages to make it user-friendly to people around the globe.  And since you can set the language for each user account, it’s easy for multi-lingual individuals to share the same computer. Or, if you’re using Windows, check out our article on how you can Change the User Interface Language in Vista or Windows 7, too! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Restart the Ubuntu Gnome User Interface QuicklyChange the User Interface Language in Vista or Windows 7Create a Samba User on UbuntuInstall Samba Server on UbuntuSee Which Groups Your Linux User Belongs To 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 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro FetchMp3 Can Download Videos & Convert Them to Mp3 Use Flixtime To Create Video Slideshows Creating a Password Reset Disk in Windows Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED

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• Forcing an External Activation with Service Broker

  - by Davide Mauri

  In these last days I’ve been working quite a lot with Service Broker, a technology I’m really happy to work with, since it can give a lot of satisfaction. The scale-out solution one can easily build is simply astonishing. I’m helping a company to build a very scalable and – yet almost inexpensive – invoicing system that has to be able to scale out using commodity hardware. To offload the work from the main server to satellite “compute nodes” (yes, I’ve borrowed this term from PDW) we’re using Service Broker and the External Activator application available in the SQL Server Feature Pack. For those who are not used to work with SSB, the External Activation is a feature that allows you to intercept the arrival of a message in a queue right from your application code. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171617.aspx (Look for “Event-Based Activation”) In order to make life even more easier, Microsoft released the External Activation application that saves you even from writing even this code. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sql_service_broker/archive/tags/external+activator/ The External Activator application can be configured to execute your own application so that each time a message – an invoice in my case – arrives in the target queue, the invoking application is executed and the invoice is calculated. The very nice feature of External Activator is that it can automatically execute as many configured application in order to process as many messages as your system can handle.  This also a lot of create a scale-out solution, leaving to the developer only a fraction of the problems that usually came with asynchronous programming. Developers are also shielded from Service Broker since everything can be encapsulated in Stored Procedures, so that – for them – developing such scale-out asynchronous solution is not much more complex than just executing a bunch of Stored Procedures. Now, if everything works correctly, you don’t have to bother of anything else. You put messages in the queue and your application, invoked by the External Activator, process them. But what happen if for some reason your application fails to process the messages. For examples, it crashes? The message is safe in the queue so you just need to process it again. But your application is invoked by the External Activator application, so now the question is, how do you wake up that app? Service Broker will engage the activation process only if certain conditions are met: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171601.aspx But how we can invoke the activation process manually, without having to wait for another message to arrive (the arrival of a new message is a condition that can fire the activation process)? The “trick” is to do manually with the activation process does: sending a system message to a queue in charge of handling External Activation messages: declare @conversationHandle uniqueidentifier; declare @n xml = N' <EVENT_INSTANCE>   <EventType>QUEUE_ACTIVATION</EventType>   <PostTime>' + CONVERT(CHAR(24),GETDATE(),126) + '</PostTime>   <SPID>' + CAST(@@SPID AS VARCHAR(9)) + '</SPID>   <ServerName>[your_server_name]</ServerName>   <LoginName>[your_login_name]</LoginName>   <UserName>[your_user_name]</UserName>   <DatabaseName>[your_database_name]</DatabaseName>   <SchemaName>[your_queue_schema_name]</SchemaName>   <ObjectName>[your_queue_name]</ObjectName>   <ObjectType>QUEUE</ObjectType> </EVENT_INSTANCE>' begin dialog conversation     @conversationHandle from service        [<your_initiator_service_name>] to service          '<your_event_notification_service>' on contract         [http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQL/Notifications/PostEventNotification] with     encryption = off,     lifetime = 6000 ; send on conversation     @conversationHandle message type     [http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQL/Notifications/EventNotification] (@n) ;     end conversation @conversationHandle; That’s it! Put the code in a Stored Procedure and you can add to your application a button that says “Force Queue Processing” (or something similar) in order to start the activation process whenever you need it (which should not occur too frequently but it may happen). PS I know that the “fire-and-forget” (ending the conversation without waiting for an answer) technique is not a best practice, but in this case I don’t see how it can hurts so I decided to stay very close to the KISS principle []

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• Programmatically reuse Dynamics CRM 4 icons

  - by gperera

  The team that wrote the dynamics crm sdk help rocks! I wanted to display the same crm icons on our time tracking application for consistency, so I opened up the sdk help file, searched for 'icon', ignored all the sitemap/isv config entries since I know I want to get these icons programatically, about half way down the search results I see 'organizationui', sure enough that contains the 16x16 (gridicon), 32x32 (outlookshortcuticon) and 66x48 (largeentityicon) icons!To get all the entities, execute a retrieve multiple request. RetrieveMultipleRequest request = new RetrieveMultipleRequest{    Query = new QueryExpression    {        EntityName = "organizationui",        ColumnSet = new ColumnSet(new[] { "objecttypecode", "formxml", "gridicon" }),    }}; var response = sdk.Execute(request) as RetrieveMultipleResponse;Now you have all the entities and icons, here's the tricky part, all the custom entities in crm store the icons inside gridicon, outlookshortcuticon and largeentityicon attributes, the built-in entity icons are stored inside the /_imgs/ folder with the format of /_imgs/ico_16_xxxx.gif (gridicon), with xxxx being the entity type code. The entity type code is not stored inside an attribute of organizationui, however you can get it by looking at the formxml attribute objecttypecode xml attribute. response.BusinessEntityCollection.BusinessEntities.ToList()    .Cast<organizationui>().ToList()    .ForEach(a =>    {        try        {            // easy way to check if it's a custom entity            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(a.gridicon))            {                byte[] gif = Convert.FromBase64String(a.gridicon);            }            else            {                // built-in entity                if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(a.formxml))                {                    int start = a.formxml.IndexOf("objecttypecode=\"") + 16;                    int end = a.formxml.IndexOf("\"", start);                     // found the entity type code                    string code = a.formxml.Substring(start, end - start);                    string url = string.Format("/_imgs/ico_16_{0}.gif", code);Enjoy!

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• Using LogParser - part 2

  - by fatherjack

  PersonAddress.csv SalesOrderDetail.tsv In part 1 of this series we downloaded and installed LogParser and used it to list data from a csv file. That was a good start and in this article we are going to see the different ways we can stream data and choose whether a whole file is selected. We are also going to take a brief look at what file types we can interrogate. If we take the query from part 1 and add a value for the output parameter as -o:datagrid so that the query becomes LOGPARSER "SELECT top 15 * FROM C:\LP\person_address.csv" -o:datagrid and run that we get a different result. A pop-up dialog that lets us view the results in a resizable grid. Notice that because we didn't specify the columns we wanted returned by LogParser (we used SELECT *) is has added two columns to the recordset - filename and rownumber. This behaviour can be very useful as we will see in future parts of this series. You can click Next 10 rows or All rows or close the datagrid once you are finished reviewing the data. You may have noticed that the files that I am working with are different file types - one is a csv (comma separated values) and the other is a tsv (tab separated values). If you want to convert a file from one to another then LogParser makes it incredibly simple. Rather than using 'datagrid' as the value for the output parameter, use 'csv': logparser "SELECT SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID, CarrierTrackingNumber, OrderQty, ProductID, SpecialOfferID, UnitPrice, UnitPriceDiscount, LineTotal, rowguid, ModifiedDate into C:\Sales_SalesOrderDetail.csv FROM C:\Sales_SalesOrderDetail.tsv" -i:tsv -o:csv Those familiar with SQL will not have to make a very big leap of faith to making adjustments to the above query to filter in/out records from the source file. Lets get all the records from the same file where the Order Quantity (OrderQty) is more than 25: logparser "SELECT SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID, CarrierTrackingNumber, OrderQty, ProductID, SpecialOfferID, UnitPrice, UnitPriceDiscount, LineTotal, rowguid, ModifiedDate into C:\LP\Sales_SalesOrderDetailOver25.csv FROM C:\LP\Sales_SalesOrderDetail.tsv WHERE orderqty > 25" -i:tsv -o:csv Or we could find all those records where the Order Quantity is equal to 25 and output it to an xml file: logparser "SELECT SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID, CarrierTrackingNumber, OrderQty, ProductID, SpecialOfferID, UnitPrice, UnitPriceDiscount, LineTotal, rowguid, ModifiedDate into C:\LP\Sales_SalesOrderDetailEq25.xml FROM C:\LP\Sales_SalesOrderDetail.tsv WHERE orderqty = 25" -i:tsv -o:xml All the standard comparison operators are to be found in LogParser; >, <, =, LIKE, BETWEEN, OR, NOT, AND. Input and Output file formats. LogParser has a pretty impressive list of file formats that it can parse and a good selection of output formats that will let you generate output in a format that is useable for whatever process or application you may be using. From any of these To any of these IISW3C: parses IIS log files in the W3C Extended Log File Format.   NAT: formats output records as readable tabulated columns. IIS: parses IIS log files in the Microsoft IIS Log File Format. CSV: formats output records as comma-separated values text. BIN: parses IIS log files in the Centralized Binary Log File Format. TSV: formats output records as tab-separated or space-separated values text. IISODBC: returns database records from the tables logged to by IIS when configured to log in the ODBC Log Format. XML: formats output records as XML documents. HTTPERR: parses HTTP error log files generated by Http.sys. W3C: formats output records in the W3C Extended Log File Format. URLSCAN: parses log files generated by the URLScan IIS filter. TPL: formats output records following user-defined templates. CSV: parses comma-separated values text files. IIS: formats output records in the Microsoft IIS Log File Format. TSV: parses tab-separated and space-separated values text files. SQL: uploads output records to a table in a SQL database. XML: parses XML text files. SYSLOG: sends output records to a Syslog server. W3C: parses text files in the W3C Extended Log File Format. DATAGRID: displays output records in a graphical user interface. NCSA: parses web server log files in the NCSA Common, Combined, and Extended Log File Formats. CHART: creates image files containing charts. TEXTLINE: returns lines from generic text files. TEXTWORD: returns words from generic text files. EVT: returns events from the Windows Event Log and from Event Log backup files (.evt files). FS: returns information on files and directories. REG: returns information on registry values. ADS: returns information on Active Directory objects. NETMON: parses network capture files created by NetMon. ETW: parses Enterprise Tracing for Windows trace log files and live sessions. COM: provides an interface to Custom Input Format COM Plugins. So, you can query data from any of the types on the left and really easily get it into a format where it is ready for analysis by other tools. To a DBA or network Administrator with an enquiring mind this is a treasure trove. In part 3 we will look at working with multiple sources and specifically outputting to SQL format. See you there!

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• Clean Up the New Ubuntu Grub2 Boot Menu

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  Ubuntu adopted the new version of the Grub boot manager in version 9.10, getting rid of the old problematic menu.lst. Today we look at how to change the boot menu options in Grub2. Grub2 is a step forward in a lot of ways, and most of the annoying menu.lst issues from the past are gone. Still, if you’re not vigilant with removing old versions of the kernel, the boot list can still end up being longer than it needs to be. Note: You may have to hold the SHIFT button on your keyboard while booting up to get this menu to show. If only one operating system is installed on your computer, it may load it automatically without displaying this menu. Remove Old Kernel Entries The most common clean up task for the boot menu is to remove old kernel versions lying around on your machine. In our case we want to remove the 2.6.32-21-generic boot menu entries. In the past, this meant opening up /boot/grub/menu.lst…but with Grub2, if we remove the kernel package from our computer, Grub automatically removes those options. To remove old kernel versions, open up Synaptic Package Manager, found in the System > Administration menu. When it opens up, type the kernel version that you want to remove in the Quick search text field. The first few numbers should suffice. For each of the entries associated with the old kernel (e.g. linux-headers-2.6.32-21 and linux-image-2.6.32-21-generic), right-click and choose Mark for Complete Removal. Click the Apply button in the toolbar and then Apply in the summary window that pops up. Close Synaptic Package Manager. The next time you boot up your computer, the Grub menu will not contain the entries associated with the removed kernel version. Remove Any Option by Editing /etc/grub.d If you need more fine-grained control, or want to remove entries that are not kernel versions, you must change the files located in /etc/grub.d. /etc/grub.d contains files that hold the menu entries that used to be contained in /boot/grub/menu.lst. If you want to add new boot menu entries, you would create a new file in this folder, making sure to mark it as executable. If you want to remove boot menu entries, as we do, you would edit files in this folder. If we wanted to remove all of the memtest86+ entries, we could just make the 20_memtest86+ file non-executable, with the terminal command sudo chmod –x 20_memtest86+ Followed by the terminal command sudo update-grub Note that memtest86+ was not found by update-grub because it will only consider executable files. However, instead, we’re going to remove the Serial console 115200 entry for memtest86+… Open a terminal window Applications > Accessories > Terminal. In the terminal window, type in the command: sudo gedit /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ The menu entries are found at the bottom of this file. Comment out the menu entry for serial console 115200 by adding a “#” to the start of each line. Save and close this file. In the terminal window you opened, enter in the command sudo update-grub Note: If you don’t run update-grub, the boot menu options will not change! Now, the next time you boot up, that strange entry will be gone, and you’re left with a simple and clean boot menu. Conclusion While changing Grub2’s boot menu may seem overly complicated to legacy Grub masters, for normal users, Grub2 means that you won’t have to change the boot menu that often. Fortunately, if you do have to do it, the process is still pretty easy. For more detailed information about how to change entries in Grub2, this Ubuntu forum thread is a great resource. If you’re using an older version of Ubuntu, check out our article on how to clean up Ubuntu grub boot menu after upgrades. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Clean Up Ubuntu Grub Boot Menu After UpgradesReinstall Ubuntu Grub Bootloader After Windows Wipes it OutChange the GRUB Menu Timeout on UbuntuHow To Switch to Console Mode for Ubuntu VMware GuestSet Windows as Default OS when Dual Booting Ubuntu 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 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Daily Motivator (Firefox) FetchMp3 Can Download Videos & Convert Them to Mp3 Use Flixtime To Create Video Slideshows Creating a Password Reset Disk in Windows Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation"

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• Formal Languages, Inductive Proofs &amp; Regular Expressions

  - by MarkPearl

  So I am slogging away at my UNISA stuff. I have just finished doing the initial once non stop read through the first 11 chapters of my COS 201 Textbook - “Introduction to Computer Theory 2nd Edition” by Daniel Cohen. It has been an interesting couple of days, with familiar concepts coming up as well as some new territory. In this posting I am going to cover the first couple of chapters of the book. Let start with Formal Languages… What exactly is a formal language? Pretty much a no duh question for me but still a good one to ask – a formal language is a language that is defined in a precise mathematical way. Does that mean that the English language is a formal language? I would say no – and my main motivation for this is that one can have an English sentence that is correct grammatically that is also ambiguous. For example the ambiguous sentence: "I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas.” For this and possibly many other reasons that I am unaware of, English is termed a “Natural Language”. So why the importance of formal languages in computer science? Again a no duh question in my mind… If we want computers to be effective and useful tools then we need them to be able to evaluate a series of commands in some form of language that when interpreted by the device no confusion will exist as to what we were requesting. Imagine the mayhem that would exist if a computer misinterpreted a command to print a document and instead decided to delete it. So what is a Formal Language made up of… For my study purposes a language is made up of a finite alphabet. For a formal language to exist there needs to be a specification on the language that will describe whether a string of characters has membership in the language or not. There are two basic ways to do this: By a “machine” that will recognize strings of the language (e.g. Finite Automata). By a rule that describes how strings of a language can be formed (e.g. Regular Expressions). When we use the phrase “string of characters”, we can also be referring to a “word”. What is an Inductive Proof? So I am not to far into my textbook and of course it starts referring to proofs and different types. I have had to go through several different approaches of proofs in the past, but I can never remember their formal names , so when I saw “inductive proof” I thought to myself – what the heck is that? Google to the rescue… An inductive proof is like a normal proof but it employs a neat trick which allows you to prove a statement about an arbitrary number n by first proving it is true when n is 1 and then assuming it is true for n=k and showing it is true for n=k+1. The idea is that if you want to show that someone can climb to the nth floor of a fire escape, you need only show that you can climb the ladder up to the fire escape (n=1) and then show that you know how to climb the stairs from any level of the fire escape (n=k) to the next level (n=k+1). Does this sound like a form of recursion? No surprise then that in the same chapter they deal with recursive definitions. An example of a recursive definition for the language EVEN would the 3 rules below: 2 is in EVEN If x is in EVEN then so is x+2 The only elements in the set EVEN are those that be produced by the rules above. Nothing to exciting… So if a definition for a language is done recursively, then it makes sense that the language can be proved using induction. Regular Expressions So I am wondering to myself what use is this all – in fact – I find this the biggest challenge to any university material is that it is quite hard to find the immediate practical applications of some theory in real life stuff. How great was my joy when I suddenly saw the word regular expression being introduced. I had been introduced to regular expressions on Stack Overflow where I was trying to recognize if some text measurement put in by a user was in a valid form or not. For instance, the imperial system of measurement where you have feet and inches can be represented in so many different ways. I had eventually turned to regular expressions as an easy way to check if my parser could correctly parse the text or not and convert it to a normalize measurement. So some rules about languages and regular expressions… Any finite language can be represented by at least one if not more regular expressions A regular expressions is almost a rule syntax for expressing how regular languages can be formed regular expressions are cool For a regular expression to be valid for a language it must be able to generate all the words in the language and no other words. This is important. It doesn’t help me if my regular expression parses 100% of my measurement texts but also lets one or two invalid texts to pass as well. Okay, so this posting jumps around a bit – but introduces some very basic fundamentals for the subject which will be built on in later postings… Time to go and do some practical examples now…

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