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• Using XSLT, how do I separate nodes based on their value?

  - by Will Goring

  I have a pretty flat XML structure that I need to reorder into categorised sections and, for the life of me, I can't figure out how to do it in XSLT (not that I'm by any means an expert.) Basically, the original XML looks kinda like: <things> <thing> <value>one</value> <type>a</type> </thing> <thing> <value>two</value> <type>b</type> </thing> <thing> <value>thee</value> <type>b</type> </thing> <thing> <value>four</value> <type>a</type> </thing> <thing> <value>five</value> <type>d</type> </thing> </things> And I need to output something like: <data> <a-things> <a>one</a> <a>four</a> </a-things> <b-things> <b>two</b> <b>three</b> </b-things> <d-things> <d>five</d> </d-things> </data> Note that I can't output <c-things> if there aren't any <c> elements, but I do know ahead of time what the complete list of types is, and it's fairly short so handcoding templates for each type is definitely possible. It feels like I could probably hack something together using <xsl:if> and <xsl:for-each> but it also feels like there must be a more ... 'templatey' way to do it. Can anyone help? Cheers.

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• Can anyone explain me the source code of python "import this"?

  - by byterussian

  If you open a Python interpreter, and type "import this", as you know, it prints: The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters Beautiful is better than ugly. Explicit is better than implicit. Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. Flat is better than nested. Sparse is better than dense. Readability counts. Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules. Although practicality beats purity. Errors should never pass silently. Unless explicitly silenced. In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess. There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it. Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch. Now is better than never. Although never is often better than *right* now. If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea. If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea. Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those! In the python source(Lib/this.py) this text is generated by a curios piece of code: s = """Gur Mra bs Clguba, ol Gvz Crgref Ornhgvshy vf orggre guna htyl. Rkcyvpvg vf orggre guna vzcyvpvg. Fvzcyr vf orggre guna pbzcyrk. Pbzcyrk vf orggre guna pbzcyvpngrq. Syng vf orggre guna arfgrq. Fcnefr vf orggre guna qrafr. Ernqnovyvgl pbhagf. Fcrpvny pnfrf nera'g fcrpvny rabhtu gb oernx gur ehyrf. Nygubhtu cenpgvpnyvgl orngf chevgl. Reebef fubhyq arire cnff fvyragyl. Hayrff rkcyvpvgyl fvyraprq. Va gur snpr bs nzovthvgl, ershfr gur grzcgngvba gb thrff. Gurer fubhyq or bar-- naq cersrenoyl bayl bar --boivbhf jnl gb qb vg. Nygubhtu gung jnl znl abg or boivbhf ng svefg hayrff lbh'er Qhgpu. Abj vf orggre guna arire. Nygubhtu arire vf bsgra orggre guna *evtug* abj. Vs gur vzcyrzragngvba vf uneq gb rkcynva, vg'f n onq vqrn. Vs gur vzcyrzragngvba vf rnfl gb rkcynva, vg znl or n tbbq vqrn. Anzrfcnprf ner bar ubaxvat terng vqrn -- yrg'f qb zber bs gubfr!""" d = {} for c in (65, 97): for i in range(26): d[chr(i+c)] = chr((i+13) % 26 + c) print "".join([d.get(c, c) for c in s])

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• ASP.NET MVC & EF4 Entity Framework - Are there any performance concerns in using the entities vs retrieving only the fields i need?

  - by Ant

  Lets say we have 3 tables, Users, Products, Purchases. There is a view that needs to display the purchases made by a user. I could lookup the data required by doing: from p in DBSet<Purchases>.Include("User").Include("Product") select p; However, I am concern that this may have a performance impact because it will retrieve the full objects. Alternatively, I could select only the fields i need: from p in DBSet<Purchases>.Include("User").Include("Product") select new SimplePurchaseInfo() { UserName = p.User.name, Userid = p.User.Id, ProductName = p.Product.Name ... etc }; So my question is: Whats the best practice in doing this? == EDIT Thanks for all the replies. [QUESTION 1]: I want to know whether all views should work with flat ViewModels with very specific data for that view, or should the ViewModels contain the entity objects. Real example: User reviews Products var query = from dr in productRepository.FindAllReviews() where dr.User.UserId = 'userid' select dr; string sql = ((ObjectQuery)query).ToTraceString(); SELECT [Extent1].[ProductId] AS [ProductId], [Extent1].[Comment] AS [Comment], [Extent1].[CreatedTime] AS [CreatedTime], [Extent1].[Id] AS [Id], [Extent1].[Rating] AS [Rating], [Extent1].[UserId] AS [UserId], [Extent3].[CreatedTime] AS [CreatedTime1], [Extent3].[CreatorId] AS [CreatorId], [Extent3].[Description] AS [Description], [Extent3].[Id] AS [Id1], [Extent3].[Name] AS [Name], [Extent3].[Price] AS [Price], [Extent3].[Rating] AS [Rating1], [Extent3].[ShopId] AS [ShopId], [Extent3].[Thumbnail] AS [Thumbnail], [Extent3].[Creator_UserId] AS [Creator_UserId], [Extent4].[Comment] AS [Comment1], [Extent4].[DateCreated] AS [DateCreated], [Extent4].[DateLastActivity] AS [DateLastActivity], [Extent4].[DateLastLogin] AS [DateLastLogin], [Extent4].[DateLastPasswordChange] AS [DateLastPasswordChange], [Extent4].[Email] AS [Email], [Extent4].[Enabled] AS [Enabled], [Extent4].[PasswordHash] AS [PasswordHash], [Extent4].[PasswordSalt] AS [PasswordSalt], [Extent4].[ScreenName] AS [ScreenName], [Extent4].[Thumbnail] AS [Thumbnail1], [Extent4].[UserId] AS [UserId1], [Extent4].[UserName] AS [UserName] FROM [ProductReviews] AS [Extent1] INNER JOIN [Users] AS [Extent2] ON [Extent1].[UserId] = [Extent2].[UserId] LEFT OUTER JOIN [Products] AS [Extent3] ON [Extent1].[ProductId] = [Extent3].[Id] LEFT OUTER JOIN [Users] AS [Extent4] ON [Extent1].[UserId] = [Extent4].[UserId] WHERE N'615005822' = [Extent2].[UserId] or from d in productRepository.FindAllProducts() from dr in d.ProductReviews where dr.User.UserId == 'userid' orderby dr.CreatedTime select new ProductReviewInfo() { product = new SimpleProductInfo() { Id = d.Id, Name = d.Name, Thumbnail = d.Thumbnail, Rating = d.Rating }, Rating = dr.Rating, Comment = dr.Comment, UserId = dr.UserId, UserScreenName = dr.User.ScreenName, UserThumbnail = dr.User.Thumbnail, CreateTime = dr.CreatedTime }; SELECT [Extent1].[Id] AS [Id], [Extent1].[Name] AS [Name], [Extent1].[Thumbnail] AS [Thumbnail], [Extent1].[Rating] AS [Rating], [Extent2].[Rating] AS [Rating1], [Extent2].[Comment] AS [Comment], [Extent2].[UserId] AS [UserId], [Extent4].[ScreenName] AS [ScreenName], [Extent4].[Thumbnail] AS [Thumbnail1], [Extent2].[CreatedTime] AS [CreatedTime] FROM [Products] AS [Extent1] INNER JOIN [ProductReviews] AS [Extent2] ON [Extent1].[Id] = [Extent2].[ProductId] INNER JOIN [Users] AS [Extent3] ON [Extent2].[UserId] = [Extent3].[UserId] LEFT OUTER JOIN [Users] AS [Extent4] ON [Extent2].[UserId] = [Extent4].[UserId] WHERE N'userid' = [Extent3].[UserId] ORDER BY [Extent2].[CreatedTime] ASC [QUESTION 2]: Whats with the ugly outer joins?

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• Wrong sessionID being used in callback, but only on one particular computer

  - by user210119

  I am writing a Python/Django web application that uses OAuth (for the TwitterAPI, not that it should matter). I am storing a session ID in my login function, and then after using OAuth to get the user's token, I try to retrieve the sessionID in my callback function. The callback function then always fails(throws an exception) because it can't find the OAuth token in the session. Through the debugger, I am able to determine that the session ID that the server is using is incorrect - it does not match the session ID that was stored in the login function. It's therefore unsurprising that the Oauth tokens were not there. The session that appears in the callback was the same one each time (until I tried deleting it - see "things I've tried below"), and it started out as an old session, with some data in it that is from a different django app running on the same server that I hadn't touched in a couple weeks. Here's the kicker: everything I described is an issue only on our production server, and only when connecting to it from my computer. Let me clarify: this only happens with my particular laptop. I can connect to the app just fine from someone else's computer. Other people cannot connect with their accounts on my computer. Furthmore, I can connect just fine to the app when it is running on my localhost using the built-in django webserver, just not to the production server. My setup: my server and local box are running= Django 1.2.0 and Python 2.6.5. My local box is running Snow Leopard and the Django webserver, the server is running Ubuntu, Apache2, and mod-wsgi. For sessions, I am using Django's default session backend (DB). Things I have tried, all to no avail: logging in with a different account, including new accounts that have never OAuthed to this app before Clearing cookies, using incognito mode, using a different web browser on my same computer. Each time, upon inspecting my cookies, the sessionID matched the sessionID in the login function and was different from the sessionID in the callback. deleting the session in the database that appears in the callback function, (the one that appeared to be old data). The callback function still fails, and the sessionID it appears to be using is now a new one using a different session backend (DB-cache, flat file, etc...) restarting the server, my computer, etc. My first question on StackOverflow, so bear with me if I didn't quite follow local conventions. I am just at a loss as to what to even look for - what are the things that could possibly be causing sessions to not work on my particular computer, and (so far!) only my particular computer?

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• Symfony2 Entity to array

  - by Adriano Pedro

  I'm trying to migrate my flat php project to Symfony2, but its coming to be very hard. For instance, I have a table of Products specification that have several specifications and are distinguishables by its "cat" attribute in that Extraspecs DB table. Therefore I've created a Entity for that table and want to make an array of just the specifications with "cat" = 0... I supose the code is this one.. right? $typeavailable = $this->getDoctrine() ->getRepository('LabsCatalogBundle:ProductExtraspecsSpecs') ->findBy(array('cat' => '0')); Now how can i put this in an array to work with a form like this?: form = $this ->createFormBuilder($product) ->add('specs', 'choice', array('choices' => $typeavailableArray), 'multiple' => true) Thank you in advance :) # Thank you all.. But now I've came across with another problem.. In fact i'm building a form from an existing object: $form = $this ->createFormBuilder($product) ->add('name', 'text') ->add('genspec', 'choice', array('choices' => array('0' => 'None', '1' => 'General', '2' => 'Specific'))) ->add('isReg', 'choice', array('choices' => array('0' => 'Material', '1' => 'Reagent', '2' => 'Antibody', '3' => 'Growth Factors', '4' => 'Rodents', '5' => 'Lagomorphs'))) So.. in that case my current value is named "extraspecs", so i've added this like: ->add('extraspecs', 'entity', array( 'label' => 'desc', 'empty_value' => ' --- ', 'class' => 'LabsCatalogBundle:ProductExtraspecsSpecs', 'property' => 'specsid', 'query_builder' => function(EntityRepository $er) { return $er ->createQueryBuilder('e'); But "extraspecs" come from a relationship of oneToMany where every product has several extraspecs... Here is the ORM: Labs\CatalogBundle\Entity\Product: type: entity table: orders__regmat id: id: type: integer generator: { strategy: AUTO } fields: name: type: string length: 100 catnumber: type: string scale: 100 brand: type: integer scale: 10 company: type: integer scale: 10 size: type: decimal scale: 10 units: type: integer scale: 10 price: type: decimal scale: 10 reqcert: type: integer scale: 1 isReg: type: integer scale: 1 genspec: type: integer scale: 1 oneToMany: extraspecs: targetEntity: ProductExtraspecs mappedBy: product Labs\CatalogBundle\Entity\ProductExtraspecs: type: entity table: orders__regmat__extraspecs fields: extraspecid: id: true type: integer unsigned: false nullable: false generator: strategy: IDENTITY regmatid: type: integer scale: 11 spec: type: integer scale: 11 attrib: type: string length: 20 value: type: string length: 200 lifecycleCallbacks: { } manyToOne: product: targetEntity: Product inversedBy: extraspecs joinColumn: name: regmatid referencedColumnName: id HOw should I do this? Thank you!!!

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• protobuf-net NOT faster than binary serialization?

  - by Ashish Gupta

  I wrote a program to serialize a 'Person' class using XMLSerializer, BinaryFormatter and ProtoBuf. I thought protobuf-net should be faster than the other two. Protobuf serialization was faster than XMLSerialization but much slower than the binary serialization. Is my understanding incorrect? Please make me understand this. Thank you for the help. Following is the output:- Person got created using protocol buffer in 347 milliseconds Person got created using XML in 1462 milliseconds Person got created using binary in 2 milliseconds Code below using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using ProtoBuf; using System.IO; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary; namespace ProtocolBuffers { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { string XMLSerializedFileName = "PersonXMLSerialized.xml"; string ProtocolBufferFileName = "PersonProtocalBuffer.bin"; string BinarySerializedFileName = "PersonBinary.bin"; var person = new Person { Id = 12345, Name = "Fred", Address = new Address { Line1 = "Flat 1", Line2 = "The Meadows" } }; Stopwatch watch = Stopwatch.StartNew(); watch.Start(); using (var file = File.Create(ProtocolBufferFileName)) { Serializer.Serialize(file, person); } watch.Stop(); Console.WriteLine(watch.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString()); Console.WriteLine("Person got created using protocol buffer in " + watch.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString() + " milliseconds " ); watch.Reset(); watch.Start(); System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer x = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(person.GetType()); using (TextWriter w = new StreamWriter(XMLSerializedFileName)) { x.Serialize(w, person); } watch.Stop(); Console.WriteLine(watch.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString()); Console.WriteLine("Person got created using XML in " + watch.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString() + " milliseconds"); watch.Reset(); watch.Start(); using (Stream stream = File.Open(BinarySerializedFileName, FileMode.Create)) { BinaryFormatter bformatter = new BinaryFormatter(); //Console.WriteLine("Writing Employee Information"); bformatter.Serialize(stream, person); } watch.Stop(); Console.WriteLine(watch.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString()); Console.WriteLine("Person got created using binary in " + watch.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString() + " milliseconds"); Console.ReadLine(); } } [ProtoContract] [Serializable] public class Person { [ProtoMember(1)] public int Id {get;set;} [ProtoMember(2)] public string Name { get; set; } [ProtoMember(3)] public Address Address {get;set;} } [ProtoContract] [Serializable] public class Address { [ProtoMember(1)] public string Line1 {get;set;} [ProtoMember(2)] public string Line2 {get;set;} } }

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• What are the Options for Storing Hierarchical Data in a Relational Database?

  - by orangepips

  Good Overviews One more Nested Intervals vs. Adjacency List comparison: the best comparison of Adjacency List, Materialized Path, Nested Set and Nested Interval I've found. Models for hierarchical data: slides with good explanations of tradeoffs and example usage Representing hierarchies in MySQL: very good overview of Nested Set in particular Hierarchical data in RDBMSs: most comprehensive and well organized set of links I've seen, but not much in the way on explanation Options Ones I am aware of and general features: Adjacency List: Columns: ID, ParentID Easy to implement. Cheap node moves, inserts, and deletes. Expensive to find level (can store as a computed column), ancestry & descendants (Bridge Hierarchy combined with level column can solve), path (Lineage Column can solve). Use Common Table Expressions in those databases that support them to traverse. Nested Set (a.k.a Modified Preorder Tree Traversal) First described by Joe Celko - covered in depth in his book Trees and Hierarchies in SQL for Smarties Columns: Left, Right Cheap level, ancestry, descendants Compared to Adjacency List, moves, inserts, deletes more expensive. Requires a specific sort order (e.g. created). So sorting all descendants in a different order requires additional work. Nested Intervals Combination of Nested Sets and Materialized Path where left/right columns are floating point decimals instead of integers and encode the path information. Bridge Table (a.k.a. Closure Table: some good ideas about how to use triggers for maintaining this approach) Columns: ancestor, descendant Stands apart from table it describes. Can include some nodes in more than one hierarchy. Cheap ancestry and descendants (albeit not in what order) For complete knowledge of a hierarchy needs to be combined with another option. Flat Table A modification of the Adjacency List that adds a Level and Rank (e.g. ordering) column to each record. Expensive move and delete Cheap ancestry and descendants Good Use: threaded discussion - forums / blog comments Lineage Column (a.k.a. Materialized Path, Path Enumeration) Column: lineage (e.g. /parent/child/grandchild/etc...) Limit to how deep the hierarchy can be. Descendants cheap (e.g. LEFT(lineage, #) = '/enumerated/path') Ancestry tricky (database specific queries) Database Specific Notes MySQL Use session variables for Adjacency List Oracle Use CONNECT BY to traverse Adjacency Lists PostgreSQL ltree datatype for Materialized Path SQL Server General summary 2008 offers HierarchyId data type appears to help with Lineage Column approach and expand the depth that can be represented.

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• How to handle environment-specific application configuration organization-wide?

  - by Stuart Lange

  Problem Your organization has many separate applications, some of which interact with each other (to form "systems"). You need to deploy these applications to separate environments to facilitate staged testing (for example, DEV, QA, UAT, PROD). A given application needs to be configured slightly differently in each environment (each environment has a separate database, for example). You want this re-configuration to be handled by some sort of automated mechanism so that your release managers don't have to manually configure each application every time it is deployed to a different environment. Desired Features I would like to design an organization-wide configuration solution with the following properties (ideally): Supports "one click" deployments (only the environment needs to be specified, and no manual re-configuration during/after deployment should be necessary). There should be a single "system of record" where a shared environment-dependent property is specified (such as a database connection string that is shared by many applications). Supports re-configuration of deployed applications (in the event that an environment-specific property needs to change), ideally without requiring a re-deployment of the application. Allows an application to be run on the same machine, but in different environments (run a PROD instance and a DEV instance simultaneously). Possible Solutions I see two basic directions in which a solution could go: Make all applications "environment aware". You would pass the environment name (DEV, QA, etc) at the command line to the app, and then the app is "smart" enough to figure out the environment-specific configuration values at run-time. The app could fetch the values from flat files deployed along with the app, or from a central configuration service. Applications are not "smart" as they are in #1, and simply fetch configuration by property name from config files deployed with the app. The values of these properties are injected into the config files at deploy-time by the install program/script. That install script takes the environment name and fetches all relevant configuration values from a central configuration service. Question How would/have you achieved a configuration solution that solves these problems and supports these desired features? Am I on target with the two possible solutions? Do you have a preference between those solutions? Also, please feel free to tell me that I'm thinking about the problem all wrong. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

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• Debugging a basic OpenGL texture fail? (iphone)

  - by Ben

  Hey all, I have a very basic texture map problem in GL on iPhone, and I'm wondering what strategies there are for debugging this kind of thing. (Frankly, just staring at state machine calls and wondering if any of them is wrong or misordered is no way to live-- are there tools for this?) I have a 512x512 PNG file that I'm loading up from disk (not specially packed), creating a CGBitmapContext, then calling CGContextDrawImage to get bytes out of it. (This code is essentially stolen from an Apple sample.) I'm trying to map the texture to a "quad", with code that looks essentially like this-- all flat 2D stuff, nothing fancy: glEnable(GL_TEXTURE_2D); glTexEnvf(GL_TEXTURE_ENV, GL_TEXTURE_ENV_MODE, GL_MODULATE); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_REPEAT); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_REPEAT); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR); glEnableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); GLfloat vertices[8] = { viewRect.origin.x, viewRect.size.height, viewRect.origin.x, viewRect.origin.y, viewRect.size.width, viewRect.origin.y, viewRect.size.width, viewRect.size.height }; GLfloat texCoords[8] = { 0, 1.0, 0, 0, 1.0, 0, 1.0, 1.0 }; glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, myTextureRef); // This was previously bound to glVertexPointer(2, GL_FLOAT , 0, vertices); glTexCoordPointer(2, GL_FLOAT, 0, texCoords); glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLE_FAN, 0, 4); glDisableClientState(GL_TEXTURE_COORD_ARRAY); glDisable(GL_TEXTURE_2D); My supposedly textured area comes out just black. I see no debug output from the CG calls to set up the texture. glGetError reports nothing. If I simplify this code block to just draw the verts, but set up a pure color, the quad area lights up exactly as expected. If I clear the whole context immediately beforehand to red, I don't see the red-- which means something is being rendered there, but not the contents of my PNG. What could I be doing wrong? And more importantly, what are the right tools and techniques for debugging this sort of thing, because running into this kind of problem and not being able to "step through it" in a debugger in any meaningful way is a bummer. Thanks!

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• MODX parse error function implode (is it me or modx?)

  - by Ian

  Hi, I cannot for the life of me figure this out, maybe someone can help. Using MODX a form takes user criteria to create a filter and return a list of documents. The form is one text field and a few checkboxes. If both text field and checkbox data is posted, the function works fine; if just the checkbox data is posted the function works fine; but if just the text field data is posted, modx gives me the following error: Error: implode() [function.implode]: Invalid arguments passed. I've tested this outside of modx with flat files and it all works fine leading me to assume a bug exists within modx. But I'm not convinced. Here's my code: <?php $order = array('price ASC'); //default sort order if(!empty($_POST['tour_finder_duration'])){ //duration submitted $days = htmlentities($_POST['tour_finder_duration']); //clean up post array_unshift($order,"duration DESC"); //add duration sort before default $filter[] = 'duration,'.$days.',4'; //add duration to filter[] (field,criterion,mode) $criteria[] = 'Number of days: <strong>'.$days.'</strong>'; //displayed on results page } if(!empty($_POST['tour_finder_dests'])){ //destination/s submitted $dests = $_POST['tour_finder_dests']; foreach($dests as $value){ //iterate through dests array $filter[] = 'searchDests,'.htmlentities($value).',7'; //add dests to filter[] $params['docid'] = $value; $params['field'] = 'pagetitle'; $pagetitle = $modx->runSnippet('GetField',$params); $dests_array[] = '<a href="[~'.$value.'~]" title="Read more about '.$pagetitle.'" class="tourdestlink">'.$pagetitle.'</a>'; } $dests_array = implode(', ',$dests_array); $criteria[] = 'Destinations: '.$dests_array; //displayed on results page } if(is_array($filter)){ $filter = implode('|',$filter);//pipe-separated string } if(is_array($order)){ $order = implode(',',$order);//comma-separated string } if(is_array($criteria)){ $criteria = implode('<br />',$criteria); } echo '<br />Order: '.$order.'<br /> Filter: '.$filter.'<br /> Criteria: '.$criteria; //next: extract docs using $filter and $order, display user's criteria using $criteria... ?> The echo statement is displayed above the MODX error message and the $filter array is correctly imploded. Any help will save my computer from flying out the window. Thanks

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• Good design of mapping Java Domain objects to Tables (using Hibernate)

  - by M. McKenzie

  Hey guys, I have a question that is more in the realm of design, than implementation. I'm also happy for anyone to point out resources for the answer and I'll gladly, research for myself. Highly simplified Java and SQL: Say I have a business domain POJO called 'Picture' with three attributes. class Picture int idPicture String fileName long size Say I have another business domain POJO called "Item" with 3 attributes Class Item int idItem String itemName ArrayList itemPictures These would be a normal simple relationship. You could say that 'Picture' object, will never exist outside an 'Item' object. Assume a picture belongs only to a specific item, but that an item can have multiple pictures Now - using good database design (3rd Normal Form), we know that we should put items and pictures in their own tables. Here is what I assume would be correct. table Item int idItem (primary key) String itemName table Picture int idPicture (primary key) varchar(45) fileName long size int idItem (foreign key) Here is my question: If you are making Hibernate mapping files for these objects. In the data design, your Picture table needs a column to refer to the Item, so that a foreign key relation can be maintained. However,in your business domain objects - your Picture does not hold a reference/attribute to the idItem - and does not need to know it. A java Picture instance is always instantiated inside an Item instance. If you want to know the Item that the Picture belongs to you are already in the correct scope. Call myItem.getIdItem() and myItem.getItemPictures(),and you have the two pieces of information you need. I know that Hibernate tools have a generator that can auto make your POJO's from looking at your database. My problem stems from the fact that I planned out the data design for this experiment/project first. Then when I went to make the domain java objects, I realized that good design dictated that the objects hold other objects in a nested way. This is obviously different from the way that a database schema is - where all objects(tables) are flat and hold no other complex types within them. What is a good way to reconcile this? Would you: (A) Make the hibernate mapping files so that Picture.hbm.xml has a mapping to the POJO parent's idItem Field (if it's even possible) (B) Add an int attribute in the Picture class to refer to the idItem and set it at instantiation, thus simplifying the hbm.xml mapping file by having all table fields as local attributes in the class (C) Fix the database design because it is wrong, dork. I'd truly appreciate any feedback

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• Pure sine wave inverter

  - by Nick

  Not exactly programming (sorry) but I think it's pretty close and can be of interest to other programmers. I'm trying to setup a battery power station so that I can work from anywhere. I go surfing a lot and my idea is to be able to work from wherever I can park my car (given there's coverage). So, I'm getting a deep cycle battery, a 240V charger (I'm in Australia), and an inverter. At the back of my laptop it says 19V and 4.62A. From the people I've spoken to that means it consumes about 90W at most. So my inverter needs to be able to output about 100W. Most of them seem to be 200W and up so this shouldn't be a problem. I want to be able run my laptop for 10 hours (plus the 2 hours I get from the laptop battery) straight. According to the people I've spoken to and from what I gather online I need a battery that has the amp hours for my "amp draw". I have no idea how to calculate this but I've been guesstimating. Most deep cycle batteries seem to be classified using amp hours (Ah)... 35Ah, 50Ah, 75Ah, 100Ah, and so on. However the amp hours on those batteries is for a 240V and I seem to be using 19V. According to an expert I spoke to you'd need a 100Ah battery to power a 5A appliance at 240V for 10 hours (you only get about 50% useful power). That to me is 5A * 240V = 100Ah battery. So, naive as I might be I take 240V and divide that by my 19V and reach the conclusion that I can get away with a battery that's about 12 times smaller than that 100Ah. The expert told me I needed a 50Ah battery so that's probably what I'll be getting, but it would be interesting to know what I theoretically would need to power my laptop for 10 hours. As for charging the battery the expert I spoke to said I needed a 3-5A charger to be able to charge that 50Ah battery from flat to full in about 10 hours (I will just leave it plugged in over night). Now to my question. The expert said it's not a matter of "if" more like a guaranteed "when" my computer will stuff up if I don't use a "pure sine wave inverter". From what I gather the power that comes out of that battery is not as clean as the power we get in the socket at home. Apparently it's "square" and the one in the socket is nice and smooth. I've already got an inverter, but it's not "pure". Do I really need to buy the $200-300 pure sine wave inverter or can I get away with something else? Perhaps the laptop adapter that sits in the middle of my laptop power cable already fixes that wave to be nice and smooth? Thanks!

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• Can I use the [] operator in C++ to create virtual arrays

  - by Shane MacLaughlin

  I have a large code base, originally C ported to C++ many years ago, that is operating on a number of large arrays of spatial data. These arrays contain structs representing point and triangle entities that represent surface models. I need to refactor the code such that the specific way these entities are stored internally varies for specific scenarios. For example if the points lie on a regular flat grid, I don't need to store the X and Y coordinates, as they can be calculated on the fly, as can the triangles. Similarly, I want to take advantage of out of core tools such as STXXL for storage. The simplest way of doing this is replacing array access with put and get type functions, e.g. point[i].x = XV; becomes Point p = GetPoint(i); p.x = XV; PutPoint(i,p); As you can imagine, this is a very tedious refactor on a large code base, prone to all sorts of errors en route. What I'd like to do is write a class that mimics the array by overloading the [] operator. As the arrays already live on the heap, and move around with reallocs, the code already assumes that references into the array such as point *p = point + i; may not be used. Is this class feasible to write? For example writing the methods below in terms of the [] operator; void MyClass::PutPoint(int Index, Point p) { if (m_StorageStrategy == RegularGrid) { int xoffs,yoffs; ComputeGridFromIndex(Index,xoffs,yoffs); StoreGridPoint(xoffs,yoffs,p.z); } else m_PointArray[Index] = p; } } Point MyClass::GetPoint(int Index) { if (m_StorageStrategy == RegularGrid) { int xoffs,yoffs; ComputeGridFromIndex(Index,xoffs,yoffs); return GetGridPoint(xoffs,yoffs); // GetGridPoint returns Point } else return m_PointArray[Index]; } } My concern is that all the array classes I've seen tend to pass by reference, whereas I think I'll have to pass structs by value. I think it should work put other than performance, can anyone see any major pitfalls with this approach. n.b. the reason I have to pass by value is to get point[a].z = point[b].z + point[c].z to work correctly where the underlying storage type varies.

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• Add color to selected <li> item / override <ul> style

  - by Alana

  I have navigation for which I need to set a color for the selected item. It's flat HTML and CSS. Here's the menu code: <ul id="top_navigation"> <li class="border_red"><a href="index.html">Home</a></li> <li class="border_red"><a href="about.html">About</a></li> <li class="border_red"><a href="services.html"><font color="#cf3533">Services</font></a></li> <li class="border_red"><a href="careers.html">Careers</a></li> <li class="border_red"><a href="news.html">News</a></li> <li class="border_red"><a href="sitemap.html">Sitemap</a></li> <li><a href="contact.html">Contact</a></li> </ul> And here's the CSS - there's the basic set up and then a class to put the pipe between the items: #top_navigation { width: 696px; margin: 0px; padding: 0 0 0 4px; list-style-type: none; overflow: hidden; } #top_navigation li { width: auto; height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 1px 10px 0 10px; float: left; } #top_navigation li a { margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: block; font-size: 12px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; } #top_navigation li a:hover { color: #cf3533; } This sets the pipe on the right. .border_red { border-right: 1px solid #d7d7d7; } I tried combining the two and creating a _selected style, and the pipe shows up, but I can't get the color to change for the selected. I have to be WCAG Priorities 1,2,3-compliant, so I can't just set it manually with .

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• Big Data&rsquo;s Killer App&hellip;

  - by jean-pierre.dijcks

  Recently Keith spent  some time talking about the cloud on this blog and I will spare you my thoughts on the whole thing. What I do want to write down is something about the Big Data movement and what I think is the killer app for Big Data... Where is this coming from, ok, I confess... I spent 3 days in cloud land at the Cloud Connect conference in Santa Clara and it was quite a lot of fun. One of the nice things at Cloud Connect was that there was a track dedicated to Big Data, which prompted me to some extend to write this post. What is Big Data anyways? The most valuable point made in the Big Data track was that Big Data in itself is not very cool. Doing something with Big Data is what makes all of this cool and interesting to a business user! The other good insight I got was that a lot of people think Big Data means a single gigantic monolithic system holding gazillions of bytes or documents or log files. Well turns out that most people in the Big Data track are talking about a lot of collections of smaller data sets. So rather than thinking "big = monolithic" you should be thinking "big = many data sets". This is more than just theoretical, it is actually relevant when thinking about big data and how to process it. It is important because it means that the platform that stores data will most likely consist out of multiple solutions. You may be storing logs on something like HDFS, you may store your customer information in Oracle and you may store distilled clickstream information in some distilled form in MySQL. The big question you will need to solve is not what lives where, but how to get it all together and get some value out of all that data. NoSQL and MapReduce Nope, sorry, this is not the killer app... and no I'm not saying this because my business card says Oracle and I'm therefore biased. I think language is important, but as with storage I think pragmatic is better. In other words, some questions can be answered with SQL very efficiently, others can be answered with PERL or TCL others with MR. History should teach us that anyone trying to solve a problem will use any and all tools around. For example, most data warehouses (Big Data 1.0?) get a lot of data in flat files. Everyone then runs a bunch of shell scripts to massage or verify those files and then shoves those files into the database. We've even built shell script support into external tables to allow for this. I think the Big Data projects will do the same. Some people will use MapReduce, although I would argue that things like Cascading are more interesting, some people will use Java. Some data is stored on HDFS making Cascading the way to go, some data is stored in Oracle and SQL does do a good job there. As with storage and with history, be pragmatic and use what fits and neither NoSQL nor MR will be the one and only. Also, a language, while important, does in itself not deliver business value. So while cool it is not a killer app... Vertical Behavioral Analytics This is the killer app! And you are now thinking: "what does that mean?" Let's decompose that heading. First of all, analytics. I would think you had guessed by now that this is really what I'm after, and of course you are right. But not just analytics, which has a very large scope and means many things to many people. I'm not just after Business Intelligence (analytics 1.0?) or data mining (analytics 2.0?) but I'm after something more interesting that you can only do after collecting large volumes of specific data. That all important data is about behavior. What do my customers do? More importantly why do they behave like that? If you can figure that out, you can tailor web sites, stores, products etc. to that behavior and figure out how to be successful. Today's behavior that is somewhat easily tracked is web site clicks, search patterns and all of those things that a web site or web server tracks. that is where the Big Data lives and where these patters are now emerging. Other examples however are emerging, and one of the examples used at the conference was about prediction churn for a telco based on the social network its members are a part of. That social network is not about LinkedIn or Facebook, but about who calls whom. I call you a lot, you switch provider, and I might/will switch too. And that just naturally brings me to the next word, vertical. Vertical in this context means per industry, e.g. communications or retail or government or any other vertical. The reason for being more specific than just behavioral analytics is that each industry has its own data sources, has its own quirky logic and has its own demands and priorities. Of course, the methods and some of the software will be common and some will have both retail and service industry analytics in place (your corner coffee store for example). But the gist of it all is that analytics that can predict customer behavior for a specific focused group of people in a specific industry is what makes Big Data interesting. Building a Vertical Behavioral Analysis System Well, that is going to be interesting. I have not seen much going on in that space and if I had to have some criticism on the cloud connect conference it would be the lack of concrete user cases on big data. The telco example, while a step into the vertical behavioral part is not really on big data. It used a sample of data from the customers' data warehouse. One thing I do think, and this is where I think parts of the NoSQL stuff come from, is that we will be doing this analysis where the data is. Over the past 10 years we at Oracle have called this in-database analytics. I guess we were (too) early? Now the entire market is going there including companies like SAS. In-place btw does not mean "no data movement at all", what it means that you will do this on data's permanent home. For SAS that is kind of the current problem. Most of the inputs live in a data warehouse. So why move it into SAS and back? That all worked with 1 TB data warehouses, but when we are looking at 100TB to 500 TB of distilled data... Comments? As it is still early days with these systems, I'm very interested in seeing reactions and thoughts to some of these thoughts...

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• Bypass BIOS password set by faulty Toshiba firmware on Satellite A55 laptop?

  - by Brian

  How can the CMOS be cleared on the Toshiba Satellite A55-S1065? I have this 7 year old laptop that has been crippled by a glitch in its BIOS: 'A "Password =" prompt may be displayed when the computer is turned on, even though no power-on password has been set. If this happens, there is no password that will satisfy the password request. The computer will be unusable until this problem is resolved. [..] The occurrence of this problem on any particular computer is unpredictable -- it may never happen, but it could happen any time that the computer is turned on. [..] Toshiba will cover the cost of this repair under warranty until Dec 31, 2010.' -Toshiba As they stated, this machine is "unusable." The escape key does not bypass the prompt (nor does any other key), thus no operating system can be booted and no firmware updates can be installed. After doing some research, I found solutions that have been suggested for various Toshiba Satellite models afflicted by this glitch: "Make arrangements with a Toshiba Authorized Service Provider to have this problem resolved." -Toshiba (same link). Even prior to the expiration of Toshiba's support ("repair under warranty until Dec 31, 2010"), there have been reports that this solution is prohibitively expensive, labor charges accruing even when the laptop is still under warranty, and other reports that are generally discouraging: "They were unable to fix it and the guy who worked on it said he couldn’t find the jumpers on the motherboard to clear the BIOS. I paid $39 for my troubles and still have the password problem." - Steve. Since the costs of the repairs can now exceed the value of the hardware, it would seem this is a DIY solution, or a non-solution (i.e. the hardware is trash). Build a Toshiba parallel loopback by stripping and soldering the wires on a DB25 plug to connect connect these pins: 1-5-10, 2-11, 3-17, 4-12, 6-16, 7-13, 8-14, 9-15, 18-25. -CGSecurity. According to a list of supported models on pwcrack, this will likely not work for my Satellite A55-1065 (as well as many other models of similar age). -pwcrack Disconnect the laptop battery for an extended period of time. Doesn't work, laptop sat in a closet for several years without the battery connected and I forgot about the whole thing for awhile. The poor thing. Clear CMOS by setting the proper jumper setting or by removing the CMOS (RTC) battery, or by short circuiting a (hidden?) jumper that looks like a pair of solder marks -various sources for various Satellite models: Satellite A105: "you will see C88 clearly labeled right next the jack that the wireless card plugs into. There are two little solder squares (approx 1/16") at this location" -kerneltrap Satellite 1800: "Underneath the RAM there is black sticker, peel off the black sticker and you will reveal two little solder marks which are actually 'jumpers'. Very carefully hold a flat-head screwdriver touching both points and power on the unit briefly, effectively 'shorting' this circuit." -shadowfax2020 Satellite L300: "Short the B500 solder pads on the system board." -Lester Escobar Satellite A215: "Short the B500 solder pads on the system board." -fixya Clearing the CMOS could resolve the issue, but I cannot locate a jumper or a battery on this board. Nothing that looks remotely like a battery can be removed (everything is soldered). I have looked closely at the area around the memory and do not see any obvious solder pads that could be a secret jumper. Here are pictures (click for full resolution) : Where is the jumper (or solder pads) to short circuit and wipe the CMOS on this board? Possibly related questions: Remove Toshiba laptop BIOS password? Password Problem Toshiba Satellite..

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• Dual head setup for Ubuntu 10.04.1 and Windows XP Pro with same hardware configuration

  - by mejpark

  Hello. I have a Dell OptiPlex 360 workstation at work, with 2 x ATI RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] graphics cards installed, which are attached to two identical 19" HII flat panel monitors. I'm using the open source Radeon driver with Ubuntu, and the proprietary drivers with Windows. The good news is that dual head configuration works for both OSes. The bad news is, I have to use a different hardware configuration for each OS to achieve this. Hardware config #1: Dual monitors work for Windows XP Pro like this: First display -> external VGA port Second display -> DVI input on gfx card Hardware config #2: Dual monitors work for Ubuntu 10.04.1 like this: First display -> VGA port on gfx card Second display -> DVI input on gfx card I connected up the displays according to Config #2 and booted up Windows, which resulted in a mirror image on both screens. I was unable to login, as the login box was not visible. I unplugged the VGA lead from gfx card and plugged it into the external VGA port (Config #1) - Windows dual head works again, but the VGA-connected screen is not recognised by Ubuntu and remains in standby mode. Is it possible to configure a dual head setup for Ubuntu using Config #1, or am I missing something? I tried setting up dual monitors using Config #1, this morning which didn't work. By default, there is no xorg.conf file in Ubuntu 10.04.1, so I generated one using: $ sudo X :2 -configure X.Org X Server 1.7.6 Release Date: 2010-03-17 X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0 Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.24-27-server i686 Ubuntu Current Operating System: Linux harrier 2.6.32-24-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 20 14:24:04 UTC 2010 i686 Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic root=UUID=a34c1931-98d4-4a34-880c-c227a2936c4a ro quiet splash Build Date: 21 July 2010 12:47:34PM xorg-server 2:1.7.6-2ubuntu7.3 (For technical support please see http://www.ubuntu.com/support) Current version of pixman: 0.16.4 Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org to make sure that you have the latest version. Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting, (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational, (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown. (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.2.log", Time: Mon Sep 13 10:02:02 2010 List of video drivers: apm ark intel mach64 s3virge trident mga tseng ati nouveau neomagic i740 openchrome voodoo s3 i128 radeon siliconmotion nv ztv vmware v4l chips rendition savage sisusb tdfx geode sis r128 cirrus fbdev vesa (++) Using config file: "/home/michael/xorg.conf.new" (==) Using config directory: "/usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d" (II) [KMS] No DRICreatePCIBusID symbol, no kernel modesetting. Xorg detected your mouse at device /dev/input/mice. Please check your config if the mouse is still not operational, as by default Xorg tries to autodetect the protocol. Xorg has configured a multihead system, please check your config. Your xorg.conf file is /home/michael/xorg.conf.new To test the server, run 'X -config /home/michael/xorg.conf.new' ddxSigGiveUp: Closing log $ sudo X -config /home/michael/xorg.conf.new Fatal server error: Server is already active for display 0 If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock and start again. Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support at http://wiki.x.org for help. ddxSigGiveUp: Closing log I then booted Ubuntu in failsafe mode, dropped into root shell, and executed $ X -config /home/michael/xorg.conf.new again. The screen went blank and turned off, so I reset the machine. There must be a way round this. Any help to set up a dual head config for Ubuntu using Config #1 would be hugely appreciated. TIA, Mike

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• How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop

  - by Eric Z Goodnight

  You might think that it’s a complicated process to remove objects from photographs. But really Photoshop makes it quite simple, even when removing all traces of a person from digital photographs. Read on to see just how easy it is. Photoshop was originally created to be an image editing program, and it excels at it. With hardly any Photoshop experience, any beginner can begin removing objects or people from their photos. Have some friends that photobombed an otherwise great pic? Tell them to say their farewells, because here’s how to get rid of them with Photoshop! Tools for Removing Objects Removing an object is not really “magical” work. Your goal is basically to cover up the information you don’t want in an image with information you do want. In this sample image, we want to remove the cigar smoking man, and leave the geisha. Here’s a couple of the tools that can be useful to work with when attempting this kind of task. Clone Stamp and Pattern Stamp Tool: Samples parts of your image from your background, and allows you to paint into your image with your mouse or stylus. Eraser and Brush Tools: Paint flat colors and shapes, and erase cloned layers of image information. Basic, down and dirty photo editing tools. Pen, Quick Selection, Lasso, and Crop tools: Select, isolate, and remove parts of your image with these selection tools. All useful in their own way. Some, like the pen tool, are nightmarishly tough on beginners. Remove a Person with the Clone Stamp Tool (Video) The video above uses the Clone Stamp tool to sample and paint with the background texture. It’s a simple tool to use, although it can be confusing, possibly counter-intuitive. Here’s some pointers, in addition to the video above. Select shortcut key to choose the Clone tool stamp from the Tools Panel. Always create a copy of your background layer before doing heavy edits by right clicking on the background in your Layers Panel and selecting “Duplicate.” Hold with the Clone Tool selected, and click anywhere in your image to sample that area. When you’re sampling an area, your cursor is “Aligned” with your sample area. When you paint, your sample area moves. You can turn the “Aligned” setting off by clicking the in the Options Panel at the top of your screen if you want. Change your brush size and hardness as shown in the video by right-clicking in your image. Use your lasso to copy and paste pieces of your image in order to cover up any parts that seem appropriate. Photoshop Magic with the “Content-Aware Fill” One of the hallmark features of CS5 is the “Content-Aware Fill.” Content aware fill can be an excellent shortcut to removing objects and even people in Photoshop, but it is somewhat limited, and can get confused. Here’s a basic rundown on how it works. Select an object using your Lasso tool, shortcut key . The Lasso works fine as this selection can be rough. Navigate to Edit > Fill, and select “Content-Aware,” as illustrated above, from the pull-down menu. It’s surprisingly simple. After some processing, Photoshop has done the work of removing the object for you. It takes a few moments, and it is not perfect, so be prepared to touch it up with some Copy-Paste, or some Clone stamp action. Content Aware Fill Has Its Limits Keep in mind that the Content Aware Fill is meant to be used with other techniques in mind. It doesn’t always perform perfectly, but can give you a great starting point. Take this image for instance. It is actually plausible to hide this figure and make this image look like he was never there at all. With a selection made with the Lasso tool, navigate to Edit > Fill and select “Content Aware” again. The result is surprisingly good, but as you can see, worthy of some touch up. With a result like this one, you’ll have to get your hands dirty with copy-paste to create believable lines in the background. With many photographs, Content Aware Fill will simply get confused and give you results you won’t be happy with. Additional Touch Up for Bad Background Textures with the Pattern Stamp Tool For the perfectionist, cleaning up the lumpy looking textures that the Clone Stamp can leave is fairly simple using the Pattern Stamp Tool. Sample an piece of your image with your Marquee Tool, shortcut key . Navigate to Edit > Define Pattern to create a new Pattern from your selection. Click OK to continue. Click and hold down on the Clone Stamp tool in your Tools Panel until you can select the Pattern Stamp Tool. Pick your new pattern from the Options at the top of your screen, in the Options Panel. Then simply right click in your image in order to pick as soft a brush as possible to paint with. Paint into your image until your background is as smooth as you want it to be, making your painted out object more and more invisible. If you get lines from your repeated texture, experiment turning the on and off and paint over them. In addition to this, simple use of the Crop Tool, shortcut , can recompose an image, making it look as if it never had another object in it at all. Combine these techniques to find a method that works best for your images. Have questions or comments concerning Graphics, Photos, Filetypes, or Photoshop? Send your questions to [email protected], and they may be featured in a future How-To Geek Graphics article. Image Credits: Geisha Kyoto Gion by Todd Laracuenta via Wikipedia, used under Creative Commons. Moai Rano raraku by Aurbina, in Public Domain. Chris Young visits Wrigley by TonyTheTiger, via Wikipedia, used under Creative Commons. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? 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 CyanogenMod Updates; Rolls out Android 2.3 to the Less Fortunate MyPaint is an Open-Source Graphics App for Digital Painters Can the Birds and Pigs Really Be Friends in the End? [Angry Birds Video] Add the 2D Version of the New Unity Interface to Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04 MightyMintyBoost Is a 3-in-1 Gadget Charger Watson Ties Against Human Jeopardy Opponents

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• techniques for an AI for a highly cramped turn-based tactics game

  - by Adam M.

  I'm trying to write an AI for a tactics game in the vein of Final Fantasy Tactics or Vandal Hearts. I can't change the game rules in any way, only upgrade the AI. I have experience programming AI for classic board games (basically minimax and its variants), but I think the branching factor is too great for the approach to be reasonable here. I'll describe the game and some current AI flaws that I'd like to fix. I'd like to hear ideas for applicable techniques. I'm a decent enough programmer, so I only need the ideas, not an implementation (though that's always appreciated). I'd rather not expend effort chasing (too many) dead ends, so although speculation and brainstorming are good and probably helpful, I'd prefer to hear from somebody with actual experience solving this kind of problem. For those who know it, the game is the land battle mini-game in Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004) and you can skim/skip the next two paragraphs. For those who don't, here's briefly how it works. The battle is turn-based and takes place on a 16x16 grid. There are three terrain types: clear (no hindrance), forest (hinders movement, ranged attacks, and sight), and rock (impassible, but does not hinder attacks or sight). The map is randomly generated with roughly equal amounts of each type of terrain. Because there are many rock and forest tiles, movement is typically very cramped. This is tactically important. The terrain is not flat; higher terrain gives minor bonuses. The terrain is known to both sides. The player is always the attacker and the AI is always the defender, so it's perfectly valid for the AI to set up a defensive position and just wait. The player wins by killing all defenders or by getting a unit to the city gates (a tile on the other side of the map). There are very few units on each side, usually 4-8. Because of this, it's crucial not to take damage without gaining some advantage from it. Units can take multiple actions per turn. All units on one side move before any units on the other side. Order of execution is important, and interleaving of actions between units is often useful. Units have melee and ranged attacks. Melee attacks vary widely in strength; ranged attacks have the same strength but vary in range. The main challenges I face are these: Lots of useful move combinations start with a "useless" move that gains no immediate advantage, or even loses advantage, in order to set up a powerful flank attack in the future. And, since the player units are stronger and have longer range, the AI pretty much always has to take some losses before they can start to gain kills. The AI must be able to look ahead to distinguish between sacrificial actions that provide a future benefit and those that don't. Because the terrain is so cramped, most of the tactics come down to achieving good positioning with multiple units that work together to defend an area. For instance, two defenders can often dominate a narrow pass by positioning themselves so an enemy unit attempting to pass must expose itself to a flank attack. But one defender in the same pass would be useless, and three units can defend a slightly larger pass. Etc. The AI should be able to figure out where the player must go to reach the city gates and how to best position its few units to cover the approaches, shifting, splitting, or combining them appropriately as the player moves. Because flank attacks are extremely deadly (and engineering flank attacks is key to the player strategy), the AI should be competent at moving its units so that they cover each other's flanks unless the sacrifice of a unit would give a substantial benefit. They should also be able to force flank attacks on players, for instance by threatening a unit from two different directions such that responding to one threat exposes the flank to the other. The AI should attack if possible, but sometimes there are no good ways to approach the player's position. In that case, the AI should be able to recognize this and set up a defensive position of its own. But the AI shouldn't be vulnerable to a trivial exploit where the player repeatedly opens and closes a hole in his defense and shoots at the AI as it approaches and retreats. That is, the AI should ideally be able to recognize that the player is capable of establishing a solid defense of an area, even if the defense is not currently in place. (I suppose if a good unit allocation algorithm existed, as needed for the second bullet point, the AI could run it on the player units to see where they could defend.) Because it's important to choose a good order of action and interleave actions between units, it's not as simple as just finding the best move for each unit in turn. All of these can be accomplished with a minimax search in theory, but the search space is too large, so specialized techniques are needed. I thought about techniques such as influence mapping, but I don't see how to use the technique to great effect. I thought about assigning goals to the units. This can help them work together in some limited way, and the problem of "how do I accomplish this goal?" is easier to solve than "how do I win this battle?", but assigning good goals is a hard problem in itself, because it requires knowing whether the goal is achievable and whether it's a good use of resources. So, does anyone have specific ideas for techniques that can help cleverize this AI? Update: I found a related question on Stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3133273/ai-for-a-final-fantasy-tactics-like-game The selected answer gives a decent approach to choosing between alternative actions, but it doesn't seem to have much ability to look into the future and discern beneficial sacrifices from wasteful ones. It also focuses on a single unit at a time and it's not clear how it could be extended to support cooperation between units in defending or attacking.

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• What Makes a Good Design Critic? CHI 2010 Panel Review

  - by jatin.thaker

  Author: Daniel Schwartz, Senior Interaction Designer, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle Applications UX Chief Evangelist Patanjali Venkatacharya organized and moderated an innovative and stimulating panel discussion titled "What Makes a Good Design Critic? Food Design vs. Product Design Criticism" at CHI 2010, the annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The panelists included Janice Rohn, VP of User Experience at Experian; Tami Hardeman, a food stylist; Ed Seiber, a restaurant architect and designer; John Kessler, a food critic and writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Larry Powers, Chef de Cuisine at Shaun's restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. Building off the momentum of his highly acclaimed panel at CHI 2009 on what interaction design can learn from food design (for which I was on the other side as a panelist), Venkatacharya brought together new people with different roles in the restaurant and software interaction design fields. The session was also quite delicious -- but more on that later. Criticism, as it applies to food and product or interaction design, was the tasty topic for this forum and showed that strong parallels exist between food and interaction design criticism. Figure 1. The panelists in discussion: (left to right) Janice Rohn, Ed Seiber, Tami Hardeman, and John Kessler. The panelists had great insights to share from their respective fields, and they enthusiastically discussed as if they were at a casual collegial dinner. John Kessler stated that he prefers to have one professional critic's opinion in general than a large sampling of customers, however, "Web sites like Yelp get users excited by the collective approach. People are attracted to things desired by so many." Janice Rohn added that this collective desire was especially true for users of consumer products. Ed Seiber remarked that while people looked to the popular view for their target tastes and product choices, "professional critics like John [Kessler] still hold a big weight on public opinion." Chef Powers indicated that chefs take in feedback from all sources, adding, "word of mouth is very powerful. We also look heavily at the sales of the dishes to see what's moving; what's selling and thus successful." Hearing this discussion validates our design work at Oracle in that we listen to our users (our diners) and industry feedback (our critics) to ensure an optimal user experience of our products. Rohn considers that restaurateur Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, which is about creating successful restaurant experiences, has many applicable parallels to user experience design. Meyer actually argues that the customer is not always right, but that "they must always feel heard." Seiber agreed, but noted "customers are not designers," and while designers need to listen to customer feedback, it is the designer's job to synthesize it. Seiber feels it's the critic's job to point out when something is missing or not well-prioritized. In interaction design, our challenges are quite similar, if not parallel. Software tasks are like puzzles that are in search of a solution on how to be best completed. As a food stylist, Tami Hardeman has the demanding and challenging task of presenting food to be as delectable as can be. To present food in its best light requires a lot of creativity and insight into consumer tastes. It's no doubt then that this former fashion stylist came up with the ultimate catch phrase to capture the emotion that clients want to draw from their users: "craveability." The phrase was a hit with the audience and panelists alike. Sometime later in the discussion, Seiber remarked, "designers strive to apply craveability to products, and I do so for restaurants in my case." Craveabilty is also very applicable to interaction design. Creating straightforward and smooth workflows for users of Oracle Applications is a primary goal for my colleagues. We want our users to really enjoy working with our products where it makes them more efficient and better at their jobs. That's our "craveability." Patanjali Venkatacharya asked the panel, "if a design's "craveability" appeals to some cultures but not to others, then what is the impact to the food or product design process?" Rohn stated that "taste is part nature and part nurture" and that the design must take the full context of a product's usage into consideration. Kessler added, "good design is about understanding the context" that the experience necessitates. Seiber remarked how important seat comfort is for diners and how the quality of seating will add so much to the complete dining experience. Sometimes if these non-food factors are not well executed, they can also take away from an otherwise pleasant dining experience. Kessler recounted a time when he was dining at a restaurant that actually had very good food, but the photographs hanging on all the walls did not fit in with the overall décor and created a negative overall dining experience. While the tastiness of the food is critical to a restaurant's success, it is a captivating complete user experience, as in interaction design, which will keep customers coming back and ultimately making the restaurant a hit. Figure 2. Patanjali Venkatacharya enjoyed the Sardinian flatbread salad. As a surprise Chef Powers brought out a signature dish from Shaun's restaurant for all the panelists to sample and critique. The Sardinian flatbread dish showcased Atlanta's taste for fresh and local produce and cheese at its finest as a salad served on a crispy flavorful flat bread. Hardeman said it could be photographed from any angle, a high compliment coming from a food stylist. Seiber really enjoyed the colors that the dish brought together and thought it would be served very well in a casual restaurant on a summer's day. The panel really appreciated the taste and quality of the different components and how the rosemary brought all the flavors together. Seiber remarked that "a lot of effort goes into the appearance of simplicity." Rohn indicated that the same notion holds true with software user interface design. A tremendous amount of work goes into crafting straightforward interfaces, including user research, prototyping, design iterations, and usability studies. Design criticism for food and software interfaces clearly share many similarities. Both areas value expert opinions and user feedback. Both areas understand the importance of great design needing to work well in its context. Last but not least, both food and interaction design criticism value "craveability" and how having users excited about experiencing and enjoying the designs is an important goal. Now if we can just improve the taste of software user interfaces, people may choose to dine on their enterprise applications over a fresh organic salad.

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• AndEngine; Box2D - high speed body overlapping, prismatic joints

  - by Visher

  I'm trying to make good suspension for my car game, but I'm getting nervous of some problems with it. At the beginning, I've tried to make it out of one prismatic joint/revolute joint per one wheel only, but surprisingly prismatic joint that should only move in Y asix moves also in X axis, if car travels very fast, or even on low speeds if there's setContinuousPhysics = true. This causes wheels to "shift back", moving them away from axle. Now I've tried to add some bodies that will keep it in place: Suspension helper collides with spring only, wheel doesn't collide with spring&helper&vehicle body This is how I create those elements: rect = new Rectangle(1100, 1350, 200, 50, getVertexBufferObjectManager()); rect.setColor(Color.RED); scene.attachChild(rect); //rect.setRotation(90); Rectangle miniRect1 = new Rectangle(1102, 1355, 30, 50, getVertexBufferObjectManager()); miniRect1.setColor(0, 0, 1, 0.5f); miniRect1.setVisible(true); scene.attachChild(miniRect1); Rectangle miniRect2 = new Rectangle(1268, 1355, 30, 50, getVertexBufferObjectManager()); miniRect2.setColor(0, 0, 1, 0.5f); miniRect1.setVisible(true); scene.attachChild(miniRect2); rectBody = PhysicsFactory.createBoxBody( physicsWorld, rect, BodyDef.BodyType.DynamicBody, PhysicsFactory.createFixtureDef(10.0f, 0.01f, 10.0f)); rectBody.setUserData("car"); Body miniRect1Body = PhysicsFactory.createBoxBody( physicsWorld, miniRect1, BodyDef.BodyType.DynamicBody, PhysicsFactory.createFixtureDef(10.0f, 0.01f, 10.0f)); miniRect1Body.setUserData("suspension"); Body miniRect2Body = PhysicsFactory.createBoxBody( physicsWorld, miniRect2, BodyDef.BodyType.DynamicBody, PhysicsFactory.createFixtureDef(10.0f, 0.01f, 10.0f)); miniRect2Body.setUserData("suspension"); physicsWorld.registerPhysicsConnector(new PhysicsConnector(rect, rectBody, true, true)); physicsWorld.registerPhysicsConnector(new PhysicsConnector(miniRect1, miniRect1Body, true, true)); physicsWorld.registerPhysicsConnector(new PhysicsConnector(miniRect2, miniRect2Body, true, true)); PrismaticJointDef miniRect1JointDef = new PrismaticJointDef(); miniRect1JointDef.initialize(rectBody, miniRect1Body, miniRect1Body.getWorldCenter(), new Vector2(0.0f, 0.3f)); miniRect1JointDef.collideConnected = false; miniRect1JointDef.enableMotor= true; miniRect1JointDef.maxMotorForce = 15; miniRect1JointDef.motorSpeed = 5; miniRect1JointDef.enableLimit = true; physicsWorld.createJoint(miniRect1JointDef); PrismaticJointDef miniRect2JointDef = new PrismaticJointDef(); miniRect2JointDef.initialize(rectBody, miniRect2Body, miniRect2Body.getWorldCenter(), new Vector2(0.0f, 0.3f)); miniRect2JointDef.collideConnected = false; miniRect2JointDef.enableMotor= true; miniRect2JointDef.maxMotorForce = 15; miniRect2JointDef.motorSpeed = 5; miniRect2JointDef.enableLimit = true; physicsWorld.createJoint(miniRect2JointDef); scene.attachChild(karoseriaSprite); Rectangle r1 = new Rectangle(1050, 1300, 52, 150, getVertexBufferObjectManager()); r1.setColor(0, 1, 0, 0.5f); r1.setVisible(true); scene.attachChild(r1); Body r1body = PhysicsFactory.createBoxBody(physicsWorld, r1, BodyDef.BodyType.DynamicBody, PhysicsFactory.createFixtureDef(10.0f, 0.001f, 0.01f)); r1body.setUserData("suspensionHelper"); physicsWorld.registerPhysicsConnector(new PhysicsConnector(r1, r1body, true, true)); WeldJointDef r1jointDef = new WeldJointDef(); r1jointDef.initialize(r1body, rectBody, r1body.getWorldCenter()); physicsWorld.createJoint(r1jointDef); Rectangle r2 = new Rectangle(1132, 1300, 136, 150, getVertexBufferObjectManager()); r2.setColor(0, 1, 0, 0.5f); r2.setVisible(true); scene.attachChild(r2); Body r2body = PhysicsFactory.createBoxBody(physicsWorld, r2, BodyDef.BodyType.DynamicBody, PhysicsFactory.createFixtureDef(10.0f, 0.001f, 0.01f)); r2body.setUserData("suspensionHelper"); physicsWorld.registerPhysicsConnector(new PhysicsConnector(r2, r2body, true, true)); WeldJointDef r2jointDef = new WeldJointDef(); r2jointDef.initialize(r2body, rectBody, r2body.getWorldCenter()); physicsWorld.createJoint(r2jointDef); Rectangle r3 = new Rectangle(1298, 1300, 50, 150, getVertexBufferObjectManager()); r3.setColor(0, 1, 0, 0.5f); r3.setVisible(true); scene.attachChild(r3); Body r3body = PhysicsFactory.createBoxBody(physicsWorld, r3, BodyDef.BodyType.DynamicBody, PhysicsFactory.createFixtureDef(1f, 0.01f, 0.01f)); r3body.setUserData("suspensionHelper"); physicsWorld.registerPhysicsConnector(new PhysicsConnector(r3, r3body, true, true)); WeldJointDef r3jointDef = new WeldJointDef(); r3jointDef.initialize(r3body, rectBody, r3body.getWorldCenter()); physicsWorld.createJoint(r3jointDef); MouseJointDef md = new MouseJointDef(); Sprite wheel1 = new Sprite( miniRect1.getX()+miniRect1.getWidth()/2-wheelTexture.getWidth()/2, miniRect1.getY()+miniRect1.getHeight()-wheelTexture.getHeight()/2, wheelTexture, engine.getVertexBufferObjectManager()); scene.attachChild(wheel1); Body wheel1body = PhysicsFactory.createCircleBody( physicsWorld, wheel1, BodyDef.BodyType.DynamicBody, PhysicsFactory.createFixtureDef(10.0f, 0.01f, 5.0f)); wheel1body.setUserData("wheel"); Shape wheel1shape = wheel1body.getFixtureList().get(0).getShape(); wheel1shape.setRadius(wheel1shape.getRadius()*(3.0f/4.0f)); physicsWorld.registerPhysicsConnector(new PhysicsConnector(wheel1, wheel1body, true, true)); Sprite wheel2 = new Sprite( miniRect2.getX()+miniRect2.getWidth()/2-wheelTexture.getWidth()/2, miniRect2.getY()+miniRect2.getHeight()-wheelTexture.getHeight()/2, wheelTexture, engine.getVertexBufferObjectManager()); scene.attachChild(wheel2); Body wheel2body = PhysicsFactory.createCircleBody( physicsWorld, wheel2, BodyDef.BodyType.DynamicBody, PhysicsFactory.createFixtureDef(10.0f, 0.01f, 5.0f)); wheel2body.setUserData("wheel"); Shape wheel2shape = wheel2body.getFixtureList().get(0).getShape(); wheel2shape.setRadius(wheel2shape.getRadius()*(3.0f/4.0f)); physicsWorld.registerPhysicsConnector(new PhysicsConnector(wheel2, wheel2body, true, true)); RevoluteJointDef frontWheelRevoluteJointDef = new RevoluteJointDef(); frontWheelRevoluteJointDef.initialize(wheel1body, miniRect1Body, wheel1body.getWorldCenter()); frontWheelRevoluteJointDef.collideConnected = false; RevoluteJointDef rearWheelRevoluteJointDef = new RevoluteJointDef(); rearWheelRevoluteJointDef.initialize(wheel2body, miniRect2Body, wheel2body.getWorldCenter()); rearWheelRevoluteJointDef.collideConnected = false; rearWheelRevoluteJointDef.motorSpeed = 2050; rearWheelRevoluteJointDef.maxMotorTorque= 3580; physicsWorld.createJoint(frontWheelRevoluteJointDef); Joint j = physicsWorld.createJoint(rearWheelRevoluteJointDef); rearWheelRevoluteJoint = (RevoluteJoint)j; r1body.setBullet(true); r2body.setBullet(true); r3body.setBullet(true); miniRect1Body.setBullet(true); miniRect2Body.setBullet(true); rectBody.setBullet(true); at low speeds, it's OK, but on high speed vehicle can even flip around on flat ground.. Is there a way to make this work better?

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• What Makes a Good Design Critic? CHI 2010 Panel Review

  - by Applications User Experience

  Author: Daniel Schwartz, Senior Interaction Designer, Oracle Applications User Experience Oracle Applications UX Chief Evangelist Patanjali Venkatacharya organized and moderated an innovative and stimulating panel discussion titled "What Makes a Good Design Critic? Food Design vs. Product Design Criticism" at CHI 2010, the annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. The panelists included Janice Rohn, VP of User Experience at Experian; Tami Hardeman, a food stylist; Ed Seiber, a restaurant architect and designer; Jonathan Kessler, a food critic and writer at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution; and Larry Powers, Chef de Cuisine at Shaun's restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. Building off the momentum of his highly acclaimed panel at CHI 2009 on what interaction design can learn from food design (for which I was on the other side as a panelist), Venkatacharya brought together new people with different roles in the restaurant and software interaction design fields. The session was also quite delicious -- but more on that later. Criticism, as it applies to food and product or interaction design, was the tasty topic for this forum and showed that strong parallels exist between food and interaction design criticism. Figure 1. The panelists in discussion: (left to right) Janice Rohn, Ed Seiber, Tami Hardeman, and Jonathan Kessler. The panelists had great insights to share from their respective fields, and they enthusiastically discussed as if they were at a casual collegial dinner. Jonathan Kessler stated that he prefers to have one professional critic's opinion in general than a large sampling of customers, however, "Web sites like Yelp get users excited by the collective approach. People are attracted to things desired by so many." Janice Rohn added that this collective desire was especially true for users of consumer products. Ed Seiber remarked that while people looked to the popular view for their target tastes and product choices, "professional critics like John [Kessler] still hold a big weight on public opinion." Chef Powers indicated that chefs take in feedback from all sources, adding, "word of mouth is very powerful. We also look heavily at the sales of the dishes to see what's moving; what's selling and thus successful." Hearing this discussion validates our design work at Oracle in that we listen to our users (our diners) and industry feedback (our critics) to ensure an optimal user experience of our products. Rohn considers that restaurateur Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, which is about creating successful restaurant experiences, has many applicable parallels to user experience design. Meyer actually argues that the customer is not always right, but that "they must always feel heard." Seiber agreed, but noted "customers are not designers," and while designers need to listen to customer feedback, it is the designer's job to synthesize it. Seiber feels it's the critic's job to point out when something is missing or not well-prioritized. In interaction design, our challenges are quite similar, if not parallel. Software tasks are like puzzles that are in search of a solution on how to be best completed. As a food stylist, Tami Hardeman has the demanding and challenging task of presenting food to be as delectable as can be. To present food in its best light requires a lot of creativity and insight into consumer tastes. It's no doubt then that this former fashion stylist came up with the ultimate catch phrase to capture the emotion that clients want to draw from their users: "craveability." The phrase was a hit with the audience and panelists alike. Sometime later in the discussion, Seiber remarked, "designers strive to apply craveability to products, and I do so for restaurants in my case." Craveabilty is also very applicable to interaction design. Creating straightforward and smooth workflows for users of Oracle Applications is a primary goal for my colleagues. We want our users to really enjoy working with our products where it makes them more efficient and better at their jobs. That's our "craveability." Patanjali Venkatacharya asked the panel, "if a design's "craveability" appeals to some cultures but not to others, then what is the impact to the food or product design process?" Rohn stated that "taste is part nature and part nurture" and that the design must take the full context of a product's usage into consideration. Kessler added, "good design is about understanding the context" that the experience necessitates. Seiber remarked how important seat comfort is for diners and how the quality of seating will add so much to the complete dining experience. Sometimes if these non-food factors are not well executed, they can also take away from an otherwise pleasant dining experience. Kessler recounted a time when he was dining at a restaurant that actually had very good food, but the photographs hanging on all the walls did not fit in with the overall décor and created a negative overall dining experience. While the tastiness of the food is critical to a restaurant's success, it is a captivating complete user experience, as in interaction design, which will keep customers coming back and ultimately making the restaurant a hit. Figure 2. Patnajali Venkatacharya enjoyed the Sardian flatbread salad. As a surprise Chef Powers brought out a signature dish from Shaun's restaurant for all the panelists to sample and critique. The Sardinian flatbread dish showcased Atlanta's taste for fresh and local produce and cheese at its finest as a salad served on a crispy flavorful flat bread. Hardeman said it could be photographed from any angle, a high compliment coming from a food stylist. Seiber really enjoyed the colors that the dish brought together and thought it would be served very well in a casual restaurant on a summer's day. The panel really appreciated the taste and quality of the different components and how the rosemary brought all the flavors together. Seiber remarked that "a lot of effort goes into the appearance of simplicity." Rohn indicated that the same notion holds true with software user interface design. A tremendous amount of work goes into crafting straightforward interfaces, including user research, prototyping, design iterations, and usability studies. Design criticism for food and software interfaces clearly share many similarities. Both areas value expert opinions and user feedback. Both areas understand the importance of great design needing to work well in its context. Last but not least, both food and interaction design criticism value "craveability" and how having users excited about experiencing and enjoying the designs is an important goal. Now if we can just improve the taste of software user interfaces, people may choose to dine on their enterprise applications over a fresh organic salad.

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• What would make a noise in a PC on graphics operations on a passively-cooled system?

  - by T.J. Crowder

  I have this system based on the Intel D510MO motherboard, which is basically an Atom D510 (dual-core HT Atom w/built-in GPU), an Intel NM10 chipset, and a Realtek Gigabit LAN controller. It's entirely passively cooled. I noticed almost immediately that there was a kind of very, very soft noise that corresponded with graphics operations, sort of the noise you'd get if you had a sheet of flat paper and slid something really light across it — but more electronic than that. I wrote it off as observation error and/or disk activity triggered by the graphics operation (although the latter seemed like a lot of unnecessary disk activity). It isn't. I got curious enough that I finally did a few controlled experiments, and here's what I've determined: It isn't the HDD. For one thing, the sounds the HDD makes (when seeking, when reading or writing, when just sitting there spinning) is different. For another, I used sudo hdparm -y /dev/sda (I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS) to temporarily put the disk on standby while making sure that non-disk graphics op was happening in a loop. The disk spun down, but the other sound continued, corresponding perfectly with the timing of the graphics op. (Then the disk spun up again, but it takes long enough that I could rule out the HDD.) It isn't the monitor; I ensured the two were well physically-separated and the sound was definitely coming from the main box. It isn't something else in the room; the sound is coming from the box. It isn't cross-talk to an audio circuit coming out the speakers. (It doesn't have any speakers.) It isn't my mouse (e.g., when I'm trying to make graphics ops happen); the sound happens if I set up a recurring operation and don't use the mouse at all, or if I lift the mouse off the table slightly (but enough that the laser still registers movement). It isn't the voices in my head; they never whisper like that. Other observations: It doesn't seem to matter what the graphics operation is; anything that changes what's on the screen seems to do it. I get the sound when moving the mouse over the Chromium tab bar (which makes the tab backgrounds change); I get it when a web page has a counter on it that changes the text on the page: I get it when dragging window contents around. The sound is very, very slightly louder if the graphics op is larger, like scrolling a text area when writing a question on superuser.com, than for smaller operations like the tick counter on the web page. But it's very slight. It's fairly loud (and of good duration) when the op involves color changes to substantial surface areas. For instance, when asking a question here on superuser and you move the cursor between the question box and the tag box, and the help to the right fades out, changes, and fades back in. (Yet another example related to the web browser, so let me say: I hear it when operations completely unrelated to the web browser as well.) It doesn't sound like arcing or anything like that (I'd've shut off the machine Right Quick Like if it did). Moving windows does it. Scrolling windows (by and large) doesn't. I have the feeling I've heard this sort of thing before, when all system fans were on low and such, with other systems — but (again) written it off as observational error. For all the world it's like I'm hearing the CPU working (as opposed to the GPU; note the window scroll thing above) or data being transferred somewhere, but that just seems...unlikely. So what am I hearing? This may seem like a very localized question, but perhaps other silent PC enthusiasts may be interested as well...

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• How to redirect http requests to https (nginx)

  - by spuder

  There appear to be many questions and guides out there that instruct how to setup nginx to redirect http requests to https. Many are outdated, or just flat out wrong. # MANAGED BY PUPPET upstream gitlab { server unix:/home/git/gitlab/tmp/sockets/gitlab.socket; } # setup server with or without https depending on gitlab::gitlab_ssl variable server { listen *:80; server_name gitlab.localdomain; server_tokens off; root /nowhere; rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri permanent; } server { listen *:443 ssl default_server; server_name gitlab.localdomain; server_tokens off; root /home/git/gitlab/public; ssl on; ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem; ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key; ssl_protocols SSLv3 TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2; ssl_ciphers AES:HIGH:!ADH:!MDF; ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on; # individual nginx logs for this gitlab vhost access_log /var/log/nginx/gitlab_access.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/gitlab_error.log; location / { # serve static files from defined root folder;. # @gitlab is a named location for the upstream fallback, see below try_files $uri $uri/index.html $uri.html @gitlab; } # if a file, which is not found in the root folder is requested, # then the proxy pass the request to the upsteam (gitlab puma) location @gitlab { proxy_read_timeout 300; # https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/694 proxy_connect_timeout 300; # https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/issues/694 proxy_redirect off; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl on; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_pass http://gitlab; } } I've restarted after every configuration change, and yet I still only get the 'Welcome to nginx' page when visiting http://192.168.33.10. whereas https://192.168.33.10 works perfectly. Why will nginx still not redirect http requests to https? I've also tried the following configurations listen *:80; server_name <%= @fqdn %>; #root /nowhere; #rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri? permanent; #rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri permanent; #return 301 https://$server_name$request_uri; #return 301 http://$server_name$request_uri; #return 301 http://192.168.33.10$request_uri; return 301 http://$host$request_uri; The logs tailf /var/log/nginx/access.log 192.168.33.1 - - [22/Oct/2013:03:41:39 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 304 0 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/24.0" 192.168.33.1 - - [22/Oct/2013:03:44:43 +0000] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 133 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/24.0" tailf /var/log/nginx/gitlab_error.lob 2013/10/22 02:29:14 [crit] 27226#0: *1 connect() to unix:/home/git/gitlab/tmp/sockets/gitlab.socket failed (2: No such file or directory) while connecting to upstream, client: 192.168.33.1, server: gitlab.localdomain, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://unix:/home/git/gitlab/tmp/sockets/gitlab.socket:/", host: "192.168.33.10" Resources http://wiki.nginx.org/Pitfalls How to make nginx redirect How to force or redirect to SSL in nginx? nginx ssl redirect Nginx & Https Redirection https://www.tinywp.in/301-redirect-wordpress/ How to force or redirect to SSL in nginx?

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• Dual head setup for Ubuntu 10.04.1 and Windows XP Pro with same hardware configuration

  - by mejpark

  I have a Dell OptiPlex 360 workstation at work, with 2 x ATI RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] graphics cards installed, which are attached to two identical 19" HII flat panel monitors. I'm using the open source Radeon driver with Ubuntu, and the proprietary drivers with Windows. The good news is that dual head configuration works for both OSes. The bad news is, I have to use a different hardware configuration for each OS to achieve this. Hardware config #1: Dual monitors work for Windows XP Pro like this: First display -> external VGA port Second display -> DVI input on gfx card Hardware config #2: Dual monitors work for Ubuntu 10.04.1 like this: First display -> VGA port on gfx card Second display -> DVI input on gfx card I connected up the displays according to Config #2 and booted up Windows, which resulted in a mirror image on both screens. I was unable to login, as the login box was not visible. I unplugged the VGA lead from gfx card and plugged it into the external VGA port (Config #1) - Windows dual head works again, but the VGA-connected screen is not recognised by Ubuntu and remains in standby mode. Is it possible to configure a dual head setup for Ubuntu using Config #1, or am I missing something? I tried setting up dual monitors using Config #1, this morning which didn't work. By default, there is no xorg.conf file in Ubuntu 10.04.1, so I generated one using: $ sudo X :2 -configure X.Org X Server 1.7.6 Release Date: 2010-03-17 X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0 Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.24-27-server i686 Ubuntu Current Operating System: Linux harrier 2.6.32-24-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 20 14:24:04 UTC 2010 i686 Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic root=UUID=a34c1931-98d4-4a34-880c-c227a2936c4a ro quiet splash Build Date: 21 July 2010 12:47:34PM xorg-server 2:1.7.6-2ubuntu7.3 (For technical support please see http://www.ubuntu.com/support) Current version of pixman: 0.16.4 Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org to make sure that you have the latest version. Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting, (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational, (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown. (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.2.log", Time: Mon Sep 13 10:02:02 2010 List of video drivers: apm ark intel mach64 s3virge trident mga tseng ati nouveau neomagic i740 openchrome voodoo s3 i128 radeon siliconmotion nv ztv vmware v4l chips rendition savage sisusb tdfx geode sis r128 cirrus fbdev vesa (++) Using config file: "/home/michael/xorg.conf.new" (==) Using config directory: "/usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d" (II) [KMS] No DRICreatePCIBusID symbol, no kernel modesetting. Xorg detected your mouse at device /dev/input/mice. Please check your config if the mouse is still not operational, as by default Xorg tries to autodetect the protocol. Xorg has configured a multihead system, please check your config. Your xorg.conf file is /home/michael/xorg.conf.new To test the server, run 'X -config /home/michael/xorg.conf.new' ddxSigGiveUp: Closing log $ sudo X -config /home/michael/xorg.conf.new Fatal server error: Server is already active for display 0 If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock and start again. Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support at http://wiki.x.org for help. ddxSigGiveUp: Closing log I then booted Ubuntu in failsafe mode, dropped into root shell, and executed $ X -config /home/michael/xorg.conf.new again. The screen went blank and turned off, so

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