Search Results

Search found 3227 results on 130 pages for 'jason smith'.

Page 38/130 | < Previous Page | 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  | Next Page >

  • Is Haskell worth learning?

    - by Jason K
    I am looking at this question primarily from a career point of view, so I hope you answer it accordingly. I am fairly proficient with Python, can write C++ and I am a final year student of computer science engineering I am looking to learn Haskell because I have heard a lot about it. My question is: apart from learning it because of all the good I have heard about it, is it any good for my career? Is it used in the industry? I am curious to learn it but unless it helps me somehow in my career, I am not willing to make that change at this stage. Looking for some personal experiences here. Thanks!

    Read the article

  • Hack a Wireless Doorbell for Customizable Ring Tones

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    When it comes to door bells, why limit yourself to a simple bell toll when you could be alerted to visitors by the Super Mario Bros. theme? This customizable doorbell hack brings ring tones to your front door. Check out the video above to see it assembled and in action, then hit up the link below for the wiring diagrams and step-by-step instructions. How to Add Custom Ringtones to a Wireless Doorbell [via Hacked Gadgets] How To Use USB Drives With the Nexus 7 and Other Android Devices Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder? Why Your Android Phone Isn’t Getting Operating System Updates and What You Can Do About It

    Read the article

  • Xml Serialization and the [Obsolete] Attribute

    - by PSteele
    I learned something new today: Starting with .NET 3.5, the XmlSerializer no longer serializes properties that are marked with the Obsolete attribute.  I can’t say that I really agree with this.  Marking something Obsolete is supposed to be something for a developer to deal with in source code.  Once an object is serialized to XML, it becomes data.  I think using the Obsolete attribute as both a compiler flag as well as controlling XML serialization is a bad idea. In this post, I’ll show you how I ran into this and how I got around it. The Setup Let’s start with some make-believe code to demonstrate the issue.  We have a simple data class for storing some information.  We use XML serialization to read and write the data: public class MyData { public int Age { get; set; } public string FirstName { get; set; } public string LastName { get; set; } public List<String> Hobbies { get; set; }   public MyData() { this.Hobbies = new List<string>(); } } Now a few simple lines of code to serialize it to XML: static void Main(string[] args) { var data = new MyData {    FirstName = "Zachary", LastName = "Smith", Age = 50, Hobbies = {"Mischief", "Sabotage"}, }; var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof (MyData)); serializer.Serialize(Console.Out, data); Console.ReadKey(); } And this is what we see on the console: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="IBM437"?> <MyData xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <Age>50</Age> <FirstName>Zachary</FirstName> <LastName>Smith</LastName> <Hobbies> <string>Mischief</string> <string>Sabotage</string> </Hobbies> </MyData>   The Change So we decided to track the hobbies as a list of strings.  As always, things change and we have more information we need to store per-hobby.  We create a custom “Hobby” object, add a List<Hobby> to our MyData class and we obsolete the old “Hobbies” list to let developers know they shouldn’t use it going forward: public class Hobby { public string Name { get; set; } public int Frequency { get; set; } public int TimesCaught { get; set; }   public override string ToString() { return this.Name; } } public class MyData { public int Age { get; set; } public string FirstName { get; set; } public string LastName { get; set; } [Obsolete("Use HobbyData collection instead.")] public List<String> Hobbies { get; set; } public List<Hobby> HobbyData { get; set; }   public MyData() { this.Hobbies = new List<string>(); this.HobbyData = new List<Hobby>(); } } Here’s the kicker: This serialization is done in another application.  The consumers of the XML will be older clients (clients that expect only a “Hobbies” collection) as well as newer clients (that support the new “HobbyData” collection).  This really shouldn’t be a problem – the obsolete attribute is metadata for .NET compilers.  Unfortunately, the XmlSerializer also looks at the compiler attribute to determine what items to serialize/deserialize.  Here’s an example of our problem: static void Main(string[] args) { var xml = @"<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""IBM437""?> <MyData xmlns:xsi=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"" xmlns:xsd=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema""> <Age>50</Age> <FirstName>Zachary</FirstName> <LastName>Smith</LastName> <Hobbies> <string>Mischief</string> <string>Sabotage</string> </Hobbies> </MyData>"; var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(MyData)); var stream = new StringReader(xml); var data = (MyData) serializer.Deserialize(stream);   if( data.Hobbies.Count != 2) { throw new ApplicationException("Hobbies did not deserialize properly"); } } If you run the code above, you’ll hit the exception.  Even though the XML contains a “<Hobbies>” node, the obsolete attribute prevents the node from being processed.  This will break old clients that use the new library, but don’t yet access the HobbyData collection. The Fix This fix (in this case), isn’t too painful.  The XmlSerializer exposes events for times when it runs into items (Elements, Attributes, Nodes, etc…) it doesn’t know what to do with.  We can hook in to those events and check and see if we’re getting something that we want to support (like our “Hobbies” node). Here’s a way to read in the old XML data with full support of the new data structure (and keeping the Hobbies collection marked as obsolete): static void Main(string[] args) { var xml = @"<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""IBM437""?> <MyData xmlns:xsi=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"" xmlns:xsd=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema""> <Age>50</Age> <FirstName>Zachary</FirstName> <LastName>Smith</LastName> <Hobbies> <string>Mischief</string> <string>Sabotage</string> </Hobbies> </MyData>"; var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(MyData)); serializer.UnknownElement += serializer_UnknownElement; var stream = new StringReader(xml); var data = (MyData)serializer.Deserialize(stream);   if (data.Hobbies.Count != 2) { throw new ApplicationException("Hobbies did not deserialize properly"); } }   static void serializer_UnknownElement(object sender, XmlElementEventArgs e) { if( e.Element.Name != "Hobbies") { return; }   var target = (MyData) e.ObjectBeingDeserialized; foreach(XmlElement hobby in e.Element.ChildNodes) { target.Hobbies.Add(hobby.InnerText); target.HobbyData.Add(new Hobby{Name = hobby.InnerText}); } } As you can see, we hook in to the “UnknownElement” event.  Once we determine it’s our “Hobbies” node, we deserialize it ourselves – as well as populating the new HobbyData collection.  In this case, we have a fairly simple solution to a small change in XML layout.  If you make more extensive changes, it would probably be easier to do some custom serialization to support older data. A sample project with all of this code is available from my repository on bitbucket. Technorati Tags: XmlSerializer,Obsolete,.NET

    Read the article

  • "Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action" windows XP, outlook 2007, connect to exchange using HTTP

    - by bob franklin smith harriet
    Hey, I can't connect to an exchange server using windows XP and outlook 2007, using the "connect anywhere over HTTP" process, it has been working until recently and the user reports no recent changes to his environment. The error is "Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action" It will prompt me for the username and password which I can enter, then it will give the errorm however this only happens when I delete the account and enter all details for the excahnge server again. The client computer that is unable to connect using outlook can connect to the HTTPS mail service and login send/receive fine. Nobody else has reported issues. making a test environment with a clean install of XP and outlook 2007 gives the same error, but using windows 7 and outlook 2007 connects perfectly fine everytime. I also removed all passwords using control keymgr.dll which didnt help. Any assistance or ideas would be appreciated, at this point nothing I've tried from technet or google works <_<

    Read the article

  • Group policy applied to AD OU attributes

    - by Eric Smith
    I'm not well-versed in AD, so would like to resolve a question I have with regards to AD information. I understand that it is possible to apply group policy to OU's, thereby restricting access. What I'd like to know is, is it possible to do the same with OU attributes. Some context would help. There's a requirement to store address information in AD (IMO, a natural fit), but for various reasons, although obviously things like name should be globally accessible, access restrictions are desired on the address. In this case, is it possible to apply security to the address portion of the OU attributes, or does each address have to be broken into a separate OU (a solution that feels smelly given that address doesn't have identity)?

    Read the article

  • data replication from a production web server back to the staging web server

    - by Dennis Smith
    Have two web servers, development/staging and production. Code and some documentation is moved from the staging area to production either through on-demand jobs or nightly via a global replication job. The production server of course sits isolated in a DMZ. There is some content that gets uploaded to the live server that needs to be replicated back to staging. Our security team is locking the network down (and they should) and restricting access to the live server. Best suggestions for replication of "live" data back to "stage" and backing up the live server also.

    Read the article

  • Why Is Vertical Resolution Monitor Resolution so Often a Multiple of 360?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Stare at a list of monitor resolutions long enough and you might notice a pattern: many of the vertical resolutions, especially those of gaming or multimedia displays, are multiples of 360 (720, 1080, 1440, etc.) But why exactly is this the case? Is it arbitrary or is there something more at work? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader Trojandestroy recently noticed something about his display interface and needs answers: YouTube recently added 1440p functionality, and for the first time I realized that all (most?) vertical resolutions are multiples of 360. Is this just because the smallest common resolution is 480×360, and it’s convenient to use multiples? (Not doubting that multiples are convenient.) And/or was that the first viewable/conveniently sized resolution, so hardware (TVs, monitors, etc) grew with 360 in mind? Taking it further, why not have a square resolution? Or something else unusual? (Assuming it’s usual enough that it’s viewable). Is it merely a pleasing-the-eye situation? So why have the display be a multiple of 360? The Answer SuperUser contributor User26129 offers us not just an answer as to why the numerical pattern exists but a history of screen design in the process: Alright, there are a couple of questions and a lot of factors here. Resolutions are a really interesting field of psychooptics meeting marketing. First of all, why are the vertical resolutions on youtube multiples of 360. This is of course just arbitrary, there is no real reason this is the case. The reason is that resolution here is not the limiting factor for Youtube videos – bandwidth is. Youtube has to re-encode every video that is uploaded a couple of times, and tries to use as little re-encoding formats/bitrates/resolutions as possible to cover all the different use cases. For low-res mobile devices they have 360×240, for higher res mobile there’s 480p, and for the computer crowd there is 360p for 2xISDN/multiuser landlines, 720p for DSL and 1080p for higher speed internet. For a while there were some other codecs than h.264, but these are slowly being phased out with h.264 having essentially ‘won’ the format war and all computers being outfitted with hardware codecs for this. Now, there is some interesting psychooptics going on as well. As I said: resolution isn’t everything. 720p with really strong compression can and will look worse than 240p at a very high bitrate. But on the other side of the spectrum: throwing more bits at a certain resolution doesn’t magically make it better beyond some point. There is an optimum here, which of course depends on both resolution and codec. In general: the optimal bitrate is actually proportional to the resolution. So the next question is: what kind of resolution steps make sense? Apparently, people need about a 2x increase in resolution to really see (and prefer) a marked difference. Anything less than that and many people will simply not bother with the higher bitrates, they’d rather use their bandwidth for other stuff. This has been researched quite a long time ago and is the big reason why we went from 720×576 (415kpix) to 1280×720 (922kpix), and then again from 1280×720 to 1920×1080 (2MP). Stuff in between is not a viable optimization target. And again, 1440P is about 3.7MP, another ~2x increase over HD. You will see a difference there. 4K is the next step after that. Next up is that magical number of 360 vertical pixels. Actually, the magic number is 120 or 128. All resolutions are some kind of multiple of 120 pixels nowadays, back in the day they used to be multiples of 128. This is something that just grew out of LCD panel industry. LCD panels use what are called line drivers, little chips that sit on the sides of your LCD screen that control how bright each subpixel is. Because historically, for reasons I don’t really know for sure, probably memory constraints, these multiple-of-128 or multiple-of-120 resolutions already existed, the industry standard line drivers became drivers with 360 line outputs (1 per subpixel). If you would tear down your 1920×1080 screen, I would be putting money on there being 16 line drivers on the top/bottom and 9 on one of the sides. Oh hey, that’s 16:9. Guess how obvious that resolution choice was back when 16:9 was ‘invented’. Then there’s the issue of aspect ratio. This is really a completely different field of psychology, but it boils down to: historically, people have believed and measured that we have a sort of wide-screen view of the world. Naturally, people believed that the most natural representation of data on a screen would be in a wide-screen view, and this is where the great anamorphic revolution of the ’60s came from when films were shot in ever wider aspect ratios. Since then, this kind of knowledge has been refined and mostly debunked. Yes, we do have a wide-angle view, but the area where we can actually see sharply – the center of our vision – is fairly round. Slightly elliptical and squashed, but not really more than about 4:3 or 3:2. So for detailed viewing, for instance for reading text on a screen, you can utilize most of your detail vision by employing an almost-square screen, a bit like the screens up to the mid-2000s. However, again this is not how marketing took it. Computers in ye olden days were used mostly for productivity and detailed work, but as they commoditized and as the computer as media consumption device evolved, people didn’t necessarily use their computer for work most of the time. They used it to watch media content: movies, television series and photos. And for that kind of viewing, you get the most ‘immersion factor’ if the screen fills as much of your vision (including your peripheral vision) as possible. Which means widescreen. But there’s more marketing still. When detail work was still an important factor, people cared about resolution. As many pixels as possible on the screen. SGI was selling almost-4K CRTs! The most optimal way to get the maximum amount of pixels out of a glass substrate is to cut it as square as possible. 1:1 or 4:3 screens have the most pixels per diagonal inch. But with displays becoming more consumery, inch-size became more important, not amount of pixels. And this is a completely different optimization target. To get the most diagonal inches out of a substrate, you want to make the screen as wide as possible. First we got 16:10, then 16:9 and there have been moderately successful panel manufacturers making 22:9 and 2:1 screens (like Philips). Even though pixel density and absolute resolution went down for a couple of years, inch-sizes went up and that’s what sold. Why buy a 19″ 1280×1024 when you can buy a 21″ 1366×768? Eh… I think that about covers all the major aspects here. There’s more of course; bandwidth limits of HDMI, DVI, DP and of course VGA played a role, and if you go back to the pre-2000s, graphics memory, in-computer bandwdith and simply the limits of commercially available RAMDACs played an important role. But for today’s considerations, this is about all you need to know. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.     

    Read the article

  • Does Hard Drive Orientation Affect Its Lifespan?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Many cases allow you to mount drives in vertical or horizontal configurations and external drives can be easily repositioned. Does the orientation of the hard drive affect the performance and longevity of the drive? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-drive grouping of Q&A web sites. 6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7 HTG Explains: Why It’s Good That Your Computer’s RAM Is Full 10 Awesome Improvements For Desktop Users in Windows 8

    Read the article

  • What You Said: How You Monitor Your Computer

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Earlier this week we asked you to share your computer monitoring tips and tricks, now we’re back to share the wealth. Read on to see how your fellow reader monitor their gear. One of the more popular monitoring tools, thanks in part to the amount of things beyond just hardware it can monitor, in the comments was Rainmeter. Lee writes: I don’t really monitor my computer constantly, only when something is hanging up and I need to see what’s causing it. That being said, I do have Rainmeter so I can quickly see how much RAM or CPU is being used. For anything more detailed, I just go into the task manager and sort by RAM or CPU. Shinigamibob uses a wider range of tools to get a more in-depth look at difference aspects of his computer: 7 Ways To Free Up Hard Disk Space On Windows HTG Explains: How System Restore Works in Windows HTG Explains: How Antivirus Software Works

    Read the article

  • Hack a Nintendo Zapper into a Real Life Laser Blaster

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Why settle for zapping ducks on the screen when you could be popping balloons and lighting matches on fire? This awesome (but rather dangerous) hack turns an old Nintendo zapper into a legitimate laser gun. Courtesy of the tinkers over at North Street Labs, we’re treated to a Nintendo zapper overhaul that replaces the guts with a powerful 2W blue laser, a battery pack, and a keyed safety switch. Check out the video below to see the laser blaster in action: For more information on the build and a pile of more-than-merited safety warnings, hit up the link below. Nintendo Zapper 2W+ Laser [via Boing Boing] 8 Deadly Commands You Should Never Run on Linux 14 Special Google Searches That Show Instant Answers How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates

    Read the article

  • Get Hands On with Raspberry Pi via Free OS-Building Course

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Cambridge University is now offering a free 12-segment course that will guide you through building an OS from scratch for the tiny Raspberry Pi development board–learn the ins and outs of basic OS design on the cheap. You’ll need a Raspberry Pi board, a computer running Windows, OS X, or Linux, and an SD card, as well as a small amount of free software. The 12-part tutorial starts you off with basic OS theory and then walks you through basic control of the board, graphics manipulation, and, finally, creating a command line interface for your new operating system. Hit up the link below to read more and check out the lessons. Baking Pi – Operating Systems Development HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows?

    Read the article

  • Entity Component System for HUD and GUI

    - by Jason L.
    This is a very rough sketch of how I currently have things designed. It should, at least, give an idea of how my ECS is currently designed. If you notice in that diagram, I have basically split the HUD out of the ECS. They have their own set of things (HudLayer, HudComponent, etc) and are handled differently. This is where I'm struggling, though. There are many different instances in which the HUD will need to know about entities. Not just data changing (I have an event dispatcher for that), but the actual entity and all it encompasses. There are also situations where entities will need to be able to query the HUD for data. Let's take a couple examples: First, my equipment screen. On here I can change the equipment on a character (Entity). In order for this to happen, I need to know about the entity. At least I think I do? How can I handle this? The second scenario involves my Systems needing to query a HudComponent for data. A specific example would be my battle system. Each "team" is given a 3x3 grid they can move around in. See here: Skills target these cells, and not the player, so I would need a way for my systems to determine which cells are occupied and which are not. Basically I need a way for two way communication between Systems and my HUD. I know it's recommended (by some people, anyways) to take your HUD out of the ECS. Is that appropriate in my case?

    Read the article

  • CircuitLab Offers Easy Circuit Building on the Web and iPad

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you like to sketch out your circuit designs rapidly, cleanly, and on the web or your iPad, CircuitLab makes it dead simple. The free tool includes an easy drag-and-drop interface, circuit analysis, easy printing, and more. Watch the video above to see the creators of CircuitLab whipping up a simple circuit to showcase the app, then hit up the link below to try it out. CircuitLab [via Hacked Gadgets] How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It? HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me?

    Read the article

  • Click and Drag from Clickpad stops working after a while 12.04

    - by Jason O'Neil
    I've got a Samsung Notebook (NP-QX412-S01AU) with a touchpad / clickpad. I'm running 12.04 Precise. When I first log into my computer, the touchpad behaves exactly as expected and desired. The longer I stay logged in, it slowly degrades. I'll try describe it. There are 3 ways of "dragging" on this clickpad: (Physical) click and hold with one finger, and drag around while still holding it down. All with one finger. (Physical) Click and hold with one finger, then with another finger drag around to move cursor. Double tap (not a physical click) and on the second tap, hold and drag. I most naturally use option 1, but here's how it works: When I first turn on, options 1, 2 and 3 all work. After a while, only options 2 and 3 work. Later still, only option 3 works. Restarting X causes all 3 to work again. I've compared the output of "synclient" in each of the states, and there was no difference. Anybody know what to look at? Or at the very least, a command I can run to "restart" the mouse driver without restarting X?

    Read the article

  • Star Wars: An Infographic Flowchart

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you can’t get enough of Star Wars lore, this minimalist set of infographics details major characters, conflicts, and alliances in the Star Wars universe. Courtesy of designer Marc Morera, the series of Star Wars infographics give a quick summary, presents all the major players in the movies, and connects all the players and events via flowchart. Hit up the link below to see all of them in their high-resolution glory. Star Wars Infographic [via Cool Infographics] How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates How to Get Pro Features in Windows Home Versions with Third Party Tools HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using?

    Read the article

  • Download the Original Fallout For Free Today [4/6]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Fallout, the first game in the popular post-apocalyptic RPG series, is available for free today. Grab the game along with a detailed manual, game bible, soundtrack, and more. Courtesty of gaming site GOG, you can score a free Fallout bundle that includes the original game from 1997, a detailed manual, a 200+ page game bible filled with the history of the Fallout games and timeline, wallpaper, artwork, and even the game soundtrack. Not a bad haul for a single free download that weighs in at 506MB. Check out the video of the in-game introduction above and then hit up the link below to grab a copy. Fallout [GOG via Boing Boing] How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 3 How to Sync Your Media Across Your Entire House with XBMC How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 2

    Read the article

  • Loading dependencies for custom puppet functions

    - by Ben Smith
    I have written a custom puppet function, which is working fine, that depends on the cloudservers gem (a Rackspace client library). This is fine if I have pre-installed the gem on a server before running puppet but totally breaks if I have not installed the gem as the function seems to be run during the 'compilation' sweep, well before my package definition is realised. Here's what my .pp looks like, with get_hosts the function that requires the cloudservers gem. package { "rubygems": ensure => installed, provider => "gem"; } package { "cloudservers": ensure => installed, provider => "gem", require => Package["rubygems"]; } class hosts::us { $hosts = get_hosts("us") hostentry { $hosts: } } define hostentry() { $parts = split($name, ',') $address = $parts[0] $ip = $parts[1] $aliases = $parts[2] host{ $address: ip => $ip, host_aliases => $aliases } } Is there a way to stop the function getting run so early, or at least having it's run depend up the library being installed. Alternatively, is there a way that I can add dependencies somewhere in the functions folder that will be available to the function?

    Read the article

  • Company wants to write custom project management tool, rather then use third party product.

    - by Jason Evans
    At the company I work, we are really wanting to get into the agile methodology for developing software. One thing that I'm not excited about is the fact that management wants us to build a custom project management feature inside the company's Intranet. I think this is a total waste of time. There are many great third party tools available (e.g. Axosoft OnTime) that can do everything we need, and more. For how much development time it would cost us to build our own project management module, we could buy numerous licences for a third party product. One concern is that, whilst we are writing code for a client, and using our custom Intranet project management module, we find bugs in the module that need fixing ASAP. That means having to stop work on the client code to fix the Intranet. That just puts shivers down my spine. Another worry I have is lack of functionality. This custom module is going to be so basic, that it will just feel really crap to use. That might sound a bit snooty, but for goodness sake, many third party tools are so feature rich, that the idea of having to write our own tool makes feel very uneasy. In fact, I can't be bothered. What do you guys think? I'm going to raise this issue with my boss, since I feel it's such an important topic to talk about. EDIT: Thanks for the great responses, much appreciated. To summarize some of them: Money Naturally my boss does want to save money, by not forking out a few hundred £'s for licences. However, for us to write a custom tool, it will take x number of days, multiplied by approx £500, which is our costs. I don't see the business value in this. Management have mentioned that they want to sell the Intranet as a product in the future, but it's so custom to our needs (and downright basic), that in order to give it to another client, I can see us having to fork a version of the code and rebuild the majority of it anyway. So it's not like we're gaining anything there in reuse. Features Having our own custom module means not feature bloat - only the functionality we require will be in the product. My issue is that there are plenty of free, open-source project management tools out there with minimal features already. So even if cost is an issue, we could look into open-source. Again it all boils down to the fact that I don't see the point in writing a project management tool in this day and age. It's a bit like writing your own web browser - why?, what's the point? Although management are asking for this tool, just because they are, it does not mean I'm going to please them and do it just because they asked for it. If something does not make sense, then I will raise it as a concern. At the end of the day, it's the developers who write the code, it's the developers who make money for a business. Thus, as far I'm concerned, the devs have a very big role in deciding how a company should manage projects and what tools are used. "I am Spartan, argh!" :) Hmm, I've not been able to make this question a wiki for some reason, thus I'm going to have to pick an answer to accept. Cheers. Jas.

    Read the article

  • Create Virtual Image of Laptop before Formatting

    - by Simon Mark Smith
    I have a 3 year old laptop running Windows XP that I used for business. Although I have not used the laptop in over a year, I now want to re-commission it with Windows 7 and a fresh install. Before I do the fresh install I want to create a Virtual Image of the laptop that I can keep and potentially run on my desktop machine should I ever need to access any of the old files/projects that it contains currently. I know that most people will say just copy the files over to your desktop, but my concern is the configuration of the laptop. I used to use it for development and it has older versions of Visual Studio, SQL Server, Active X controls etc, etc than I currently use so I really want to preserve the environment not just the files. So really I am asking what is the best tool-set/method to achieve this? I understand there are free VM tools available but I have never done this before and would appreciate any help.

    Read the article

  • Ask HTG: How Can I Check the Age of My Windows Installation?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Curious about when you installed Windows and how long you’ve been chugging along without a system refresh? Read on as we show you a simple way to see how long-in-the-tooth your Windows installation is. Dear How-To Geek, It feels like it has been forever since I installed Windows 7 and I’m starting to wonder if some of the performance issues I’m experiencing have something to do with how long ago it was installed. It isn’t crashing or anything horrible, mind you, it just feels slower than it used to and I’m wondering if I should reinstall it to wipe the slate clean. Is there a simple way to determine the original installation date of Windows on its host machine? Sincerely, Worried in Windows Although you only intended to ask one question, you actually asked two. Your direct question is an easy one to answer (how to check the Windows installation date). The indirect question is, however, a little trickier (if you need to reinstall Windows to get a performance boost). Let’s start off with the easy one: how to check your installation date. Windows includes a handy little application just for the purposes of pulling up system information like the installation date, among other things. Open the Start Menu and type cmd in the run box (or, alternatively, press WinKey+R to pull up the run dialog and enter the same command). At the command prompt, type systeminfo.exe Give the application a moment to run; it takes around 15-20 seconds to gather all the data. You’ll most likely need to scroll back up in the console window to find the section at the top that lists operating system stats. What you care about is Original Install Date: We’ve been running the machine we tested the command on since August 23 2009. For the curious, that’s one month and a day after the initial public release of Windows 7 (after we were done playing with early test releases and spent a month mucking around in the guts of Windows 7 to report on features and flaws, we ran a new clean installation and kept on trucking). Now, you might be asking yourself: Why haven’t they reinstalled Windows in all that time? Haven’t things slowed down? Haven’t they upgraded hardware? The truth of the matter is, in most cases there’s no need to completely wipe your computer and start from scratch to resolve issues with Windows and, if you don’t bog your system down with unnecessary and poorly written software, things keep humming along. In fact, we even migrated this machine from a traditional mechanical hard drive to a newer solid-state drive back in 2011. Even though we’ve tested piles of software since then, the machine is still rather clean because 99% of that testing happened in a virtual machine. That’s not just a trick for technology bloggers, either, virtualizing is a handy trick for anyone who wants to run a rock solid base OS and avoid the bog-down-and-then-refresh cycle that can plague a heavily used machine. So while it might be the case that you’ve been running Windows 7 for years and heavy software installation and use has bogged your system down to the point a refresh is in order, we’d strongly suggest reading over the following How-To Geek guides to see if you can’t wrangle the machine into shape without a total wipe (and, if you can’t, at least you’ll be in a better position to keep the refreshed machine light and zippy): HTG Explains: Do You Really Need to Regularly Reinstall Windows? PC Cleaning Apps are a Scam: Here’s Why (and How to Speed Up Your PC) The Best Tips for Speeding Up Your Windows PC Beginner Geek: How to Reinstall Windows on Your Computer Everything You Need to Know About Refreshing and Resetting Your Windows 8 PC Armed with a little knowledge, you too can keep a computer humming along until the next iteration of Windows comes along (and beyond) without the hassle of reinstalling Windows and all your apps.         

    Read the article

  • Custom Silent HTPC Uses Entire Case as a Heatsink

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    This silent media center PC dissipates heat in a rather clever way; the entire back of the case is one giant heatsink. Courtesy of computer enthusiast and tinker DeFex, the build isn’t just silent but quite eye catching too. He used a combination of one massive heatsink, custom brackets, acrylic, and bicycle spokes to create a sleek case that looks as much like a computer-inspired work of art as it does a media center computer. Hit up the link below to check out the build gallery and see how he mated the CPU to the heatsink-body with a custom milled aluminum bridge. Heatsink HTPC [via Hack A Day] Secure Yourself by Using Two-Step Verification on These 16 Web Services How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot

    Read the article

  • The Chemistry of Snowflakes [Video]

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Snowflakes start out as tiny bits of dust high in the atmosphere and end up drifting down to us as intricate water crystals. Check out this video to see the process start to finish. Courtesy of the American Chemical Society and Bytesize Science, we’re treated to a well explained and illustrated journey from the beginning of the snowflake formation process until the end. [via Neatorama] How to Access Your Router If You Forget the Password Secure Yourself by Using Two-Step Verification on These 16 Web Services How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor

    Read the article

  • How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    You meant well, you intended to be a good file custodian, but somewhere along the way things got out of hand and you’ve got duplicate photos galore. Don’t be afraid to delete them and lose important photos, read on as we show you how to clean safely. Deleting duplicate files, especially important ones like personal photos, makes a lot of people quite anxious (and rightfully so). Nobody wants to be the one to realize that they deleted all the photos of their child’s first birthday party during a hard drive purge gone wrong. In this tutorial we’re going to show you how to go beyond the limited reach of  tools which simply compare file names and file sizes. Instead we’ll be using a program that combines that kind of comparison with actual image analysis to help you weed out not just perfect 1:1 file duplicates but also those piles of resized for email images, cropped images, and other modified images that might be cluttering up your hard drive. How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It?

    Read the article

  • Ask the Readers: How Do You Keep Your Email SPAM Free and Tidy?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Email can be a fantastically efficient way to deal with communication, but not if it’s bogged down with SPAM messages and poorly organized. This week we want to hear all about the tips, tricks, and ninja-filters you use to keep your inbox tidy. Whether it’s special filters for your Bacon (spam-like marketing that you actually want to receive and occasional review), services you use to block spammers, or organization tips you use to keep your email inbox streamlined with no message unreplied to, we want to hear all about it. Sound off in the comments with your proclamations of your inbox-fu and how you maintain zen-like mastery over your email workflow. Be sure to check in on Friday for the What You Said roundup. How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It?

    Read the article

  • Sending an Email from 2 Mail Servers

    - by Ted Smith
    We are currently attempting to move away from using a "local" mail(exchange) server to an cloud based offering for all our automated emails. The problem is that we send and receive thousands for emails a day and its uptime is quite critical so the business do not want to put all their eggs in one basket, so if we would like to use a cloud based offering(mailgun) they would like a backup if this goes down. So my question is: Would it be possible to set multpile A, TXT and CNAME records to multiple IP address so if one mail server goes down we can automatically start sending emails from the fallover(without them being blocked doing a reverse DNS lookup)? I know we will still need to adjust the MX record for incoming emails but that is acceptable to not receive emails for a short(1-2 hours) of time. Does this make sense?

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45  | Next Page >