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• Acceptable sound quality: stereo needed for an Android game?

  - by Thomas Calc

  I have various simple short sound effects (damage sound, dying sound, thunderbolt, fanfare, breaking) for a game that is developed for Android currently. I use OGG files: 96kbps VBR, 44.1KHz, 2 channels (that means stereo, right?). I read the other stackexchange topics about "acceptable sound quality", but they're too general, address too many things. My experience is that even with 80kbps, my effects sound OK. But I tested it on a limited number of Android devices (including a Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo and a HTC Desire HD). My questions: For mobile phones and tablets, generally, what parameters are recommended? Won't my 80kbps sounds be bad on a newer device (such as a modern tablet)? I don't hear any difference between stereo and mono (2 channels vs. 1 channel, right?), is there any noticeable difference at all for mobile phones / tablets? (in terms of the player experience) May it worth it at all? I assume that stereo sounds take much more in memory (when they're decoded to PCM), despite of the fact that the compressed OGG size is practically the same. Reacting to Roy T.'s great comment: Actually, I couldn't measure the PCM size (Android decodes OGG internally), but I thought that stereo will take more space than mono when uncompressed After throwing out one of the WAV channels in Audacity, and re-exporting it: The new WAV file size is half than before The OGG file size is practically the same as before The sound effects and game music was recorded by my friend who is an experienced hobby musician/composer, but he knows little about computers & software so he just gave me some high-quality WAV files generated via his hardware.These were stereo, but if I check them in Audacity, both channels appear to be exactly the same.Can I consider them the same (= moving to mono), or might there be some unnoticeable differences to the human eye?

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• Bot strategy in an arena

  - by joulesm

  I am writing the player's behavior for an arena game, and I'm wondering if you could offer some strategies. I'm writing it in Python, but I'm just interested in the high level game play. Here are the game aspects: Arena is a circle of a given size. The arena's size shrinks every round to help break any ties. Players are much smaller circles, and can be on teams of 1 or 2 players. Players attack by colliding with other players, and based on the physics of the collision (speed of both players, angle), one could force another player out of the arena. Once a player is out of the arena, they are out of the game (for that round). The goal is to be on the only team with players left in the arena. All other players have been pushed (through collisions or mistakes) out of the arena. It is possible for there to be no winner if the last two players exit the arena at the same time. Once the player has been programmed, the game just runs. There is no human intervention in the game. I'm thinking it's easiest to implement a few simple programmatic rules for my player to follow. For example, stay close to center of the arena, attack opponents from the inner side of the arena, etc. Are there any good simple game strategies? Would adding a random aspect to the game help? For example, to avoid predictability by the other team or something. Thanks in advance.

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• So are we ever getting the technological singularity

  - by jsoldi

  I´m still waiting for an AI robot that will pass the Turing test. I keep going back to http://www.a-i.com/ and nothing. I don´t know much about AI but, did anyone ever tried to make a genetic algorithm whose evolution algorithm itself evolves? Or how about one whose algorithm that makes the genetic algorithm evolve, evolves? Or one whose genetic algorithm that makes the genetic algorithm that makes the genetic algorithm evolve, evolves? Or how about an algorithm that abstracts all this into a potentially infinitely deep tree of genetic evolution algorithms? Aren´t we just failing as programmers? And I don´t think we can blame the processors speed. If you make and application that simulates consciousness you will get a Nobel prize no matter how many hours it takes to respond to your questions. But nobody did it. It almost reminds me to Randi´s $1000000 paranormal challenge. As I keep going back to AI chat bots, they keep getting better at changing the subject on a way that seems natural. But if I tell them something like "if 'x' is 2 then whats two times 'x'?" then they don't have a clue what I'm talking about. And I don't think they need a whole human brain simulation to be able to answer to something like that. They don't need feelings or perception. This is just language and logics. I don't think my perception of the color red gives me the ability to understand that if 'x' is 2 then two times 'x' is 4. I'm sure we are just missing some elemental principle we cannot grasp because it's probably stuck behind our eyes. What do you think?

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• Someone is using the struct name as a variable name too. What does the code really say? (c++)

  - by EvilTeach

  This morning we found an old chunk of code that was causing a library call to crash. struct fred { int a; int b; int c; }; fred fred[MAX_SIZE+1]; memset( fred, 0, sizeof(fred) * MAX_SIZE+1 ); It appears that the sizeof(fred) may have been the full array size, rather than the structure size, as it was overwriting a great deal of memory. The fact that it compiled without warning on several different systems seemed odd. Is there a correct semantic for this case where the type and variable name are colliding? or is this some sort of undefined behavior? or just a defect? I haven't been been clever enough to find anything on Google or our language help. Thanks Evil

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• Python list comprehension to return edge values of a list

  - by mvid

  If I have a list in python such as: stuff = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] with length n (in this case 9) and I am interested in creating lists of length n/2 (in this case 4). I want all possible sets of n/2 values in the original list, for example: [1, 2, 3, 4], [2, 3, 4, 5], ..., [9, 1, 2, 3] is there some list comprehension code I could use to iterate through the list and retrieve all of those sublists? I don't care about the order of the values within the lists, I am just trying to find a clever method of generating the lists.

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• Discovering path through unknown territory

  - by TravisG

  Let's say all the AI knows about it's surroundings is a pixel-map that it has which clearly shows walkable terrain and obstacles. I want the AI to be able to traverse this terrain until it finds an exit point. There are some restrictions: There is always a way to the exit in the entire map that the AI walks around in, but there may be dead ends. The path to the exit is always pretty random, meaning that if you stand at crossroads, nothing indicates which direction would be the right one to go. It doesn't matter if the AI reaches a dead end, but it has to be able walk back out of it to a previously not inspected location and continue its search there. Initially, the AI starts out knowing only the starting area of the whole map. As it walks around, new points will be added to the pixel-map as the AI corresponding to the AIs range of sight (think of it like the AI is clearing the fog of war) The problem is in 2D space. All I have is the pixel map. There are no paths in the pixel map which are "too narrow". The AI fits through everything. It shouldn't be a brute force solution. E.g. it would be possible to simply find a path to each pixel in the pixel map that is yet undiscovered (with A*, for example), which will lead to the AI discovering new pixels. This could be repeated until the end is reached. The path doesn't have to be the shortest path (this is impossible without knowing the entire map beforehand), but when movements within the visible area are calculated, the shortest and from a human standpoint most logical path should be taken (e.g. if you can see a way out of your room into a hallway, you would obviously go there instead of exploring the corner of your current room). What kind of approaches to solve this problem are there?

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• Podcast Show Notes: Old Habits Die Hard in the New SOA World

  - by OTN ArchBeat

  Like the previous series, the latest OTN ArchBeat Podcast program was also recorded in a hotel room just around the corner from Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco just a few weeks ago. The gathered experts, all members of the OTN architect community, agreed to participate in an informal roundtable discussion of what's happening in Service Oriented Architecture. As you'll hear, the conversation ranged from the maturity of Service Oriented Architecture technology and tools, to the the lingering and typically self-imposed problems that can prevent organizations from realizing the full potential of SOA, to what SOA means in the era of *aaS, mobile computing, and big data. Hajo Normann, Torsten Winterberg, Ronald van Luttikhuizen, and Guido Schmutz (L-R) Hajo Normann, Torsten Winterberg, Danilo Schmeidel, and Lonneke Dikmans (L-R) The Panelists (Listed alphabetically) Lonneke Dikmans, Managing Partner at Vennster, Oracle ACE Director Ronald van Luttikuhuizen, Managing Partner at Vennster, Oracle ACE Director Hajo Normann, SOA & BPM Lead for ASG at Accenture, Oracle ACE Director Danilo Schmiedel, Solution Architect at Opitz Consulting Guido Schmutz, Technology Manager for SOA/BPM and Architecture Board at Trivadis, Oracle ACE Director Torsten Winterberg, Director of Strategy and Innnovation and head of SOA Competence Center at Opitz Consulting, Oracle ACE Director The Conversation Listen to Part 1: SOA technology and tools are mature, says this panel of experts, but why do some organizations still struggle to take full advantage of industrialized SOA? Listen to Part 2 (Nov 6): Human nature and a lack of trust among stakeholders can thwart successful SOA. Can a marketplace approach and social tools improve the situation? Listen to Part 3 (Nov 13): Do SOA stakeholders recognize the problems caused by poor communication among siloed service development teams? Coming Soon SOA and B2B: The authors of Getting Started with Oracle SOA B2B Integration: A Hands-On Tutorial discuss Business to Business capabilities in Oracle SOA Suite 11g. Be a Guest Producer for an ArchBeat Podcast Want to be a guest producer for an OTN ArchBeat podcast, put your topic and panelist suggestions in a comment on this post, or contact me at @OTNArchBeat.

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• LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology

  - by Eric Z Goodnight

  With image technology progressing faster than ever, High-Def has become the standard, giving TV buyers more options at cheaper prices. But what’s different in all these confusing TVs, and what should you know before buying one? If you’re considering buying a television this Holiday season for a loved one (or simply for yourself), it can be a big help to know what to look for. Take a look to find out what sets HD televisions apart, learn some of the confusing jargon associated with them, and see a comparison of four of the types of HDTVs commonly sold today. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Get the Complete Android Guide eBook for Only 99 Cents [Update: Expired] Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography How to Choose What to Back Up on Your Linux Home Server How To Harmonize Your Dual-Boot Setup for Windows and Ubuntu Hang in There Scrat! – Ice Age Wallpaper How Do You Know When You’ve Passed Geek and Headed to Nerd? On The Tip – A Lamborghini Theme for Chrome and Iron What if Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were Human? [Video] Peaceful Winter Cabin Wallpaper Store Tabs for Later Viewing in Opera with Tab Vault

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• Bidirectional one-to-many associations with indexed collections in NHibernate

  - by Jørn Schou-Rode

  Last summer, I asked a question regarding how to add new object to an IList mapped as a one-to-many with NHibernate. One of the answers let me to this paragraph in the documentation: Please note that NHibernate does not support bidirectional one-to-many associations with an indexed collection (list, map or array) as the "many" end, you have to use a set or bag mapping. While I am pretty sure I understand what this paragraph says, I have no idea why or how to work around this limitation. As I am now again working with a model that seems to require a "bidirectional one-to-many association with an index collection", I figured the time was right for follow-up questions: Why does NHibernate have this limitation on associations? It is my impression that the guys behind NHibernate are quite clever, so I assume there is a pretty good reason. What are the common workarounds for this shortcoming? Making the collection a non-indexed bag and adding an explicit Position property to the child class? Any better solutions?

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• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama Top 20 for April 1-9, 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The top 20 most popular items shared via my social networks for the week of April 1 - 8, 2012. Webcast: Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture Best Practices w/Tom Kyte - April 12 Oracle Cloud Conference: dates and locations worldwide Bad Practice Use Case for LOV Performance Implementation in ADF BC | Oracle ACE Director Andresjus Baranovskis How to create a Global Rule that stores a document’s folder path in a custom metadata field | Nicolas Montoya MySQL Cluster 7.2 GA Released How to deal with transport level security policy with OSB | Jian Liang Webcast Series: Data Warehousing Best Practices http://bit.ly/I0yUx1 Interactive Webcast and Live Chat: Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c Launch - April 12 Is This How the Execs React to Your Recommendations? | Rick Ramsey Unsolicited login with OAM 11g | Chris Johnson Event: OTN Developer Day: MySQL - New York - May 2 OTN Member discounts for April: Save up to 40% on titles from Oracle Press, Pearson, O'Reilly, Apress, and more Get Proactive with Fusion Middleware | Daniel Mortimer How to use the Human WorkFlow Web Services | Oracle ACE Edwin Biemond Northeast Ohio Oracle Users Group 2 Day Seminar - May 14-15 - Cleveland, OH IOUG Real World Performance Tour, w/Tom Kyte, Andrew Holdsworth, Graham Wood WebLogic Server Performance and Tuning: Part I - Tuning JVM | Gokhan Gungor Crawling a Content Folio | Kyle Hatlestad The Java EE 6 Example - Galleria - Part 1 | Oracle ACE Director Markus Eisele Reminder: JavaOne Call For Papers Closing April 9th, 11:59pm | Arun Gupta Thought for the Day "A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable." — Leslie Lamport

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• Passing a non-iterable to list.extend ()

  - by JS

  Hello, I am creating a public method to allow callers to write values to a device, call it write_vals() for example. Since these values will by typed live, I would like to simplify the user's life by allowing them type in either a list or a single value, depending on how many values they need to write. For example: write_to_device([1,2,3]) or write_to_device(1) My function would like to work with a flat list, so I tried to be clever and code something like this: input_list = [] input_list.extend( input_val ) This works swimmingly when the user inputs a list, but fails miserably when the user inputs a single integer: TypeError: 'int' object is not iterable Using list.append() would create a nested list when a list was passed in, which would be an additional hassle to flatten. Checking the type of the object passed in seems clumsy and non-pythonic and wishing that list.extend() would accept non-iterables has gotten me nowhere. So has trying a variety of other coding methods. Suggestions (coding-related only, please) would be greatly appreciated.

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• MyPaint is an Open-Source Graphics App for Digital Painters

  - by Asian Angel

  Are you looking for a terrific graphics app to use for original painting and artwork creation on your computer? Whether it is for you or the kids, MyPaint is an app that you should definitely have on hand for when those artistic moods come along. For our example we chose to install MyPaint on Ubuntu 10.10…you can easily find it in the Ubuntu Software Center by doing a quick search. Once you have it installed, all that is left to do is decide if you want to add additional brushes (link provided below) and then start having fun creating your next work of art. Here are some of MyPaint’s wonderful features: Exists for several platforms (Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X) Supports pressure sensitive graphics tablets Extensive brush creation and configuration options Unlimited canvas (you never have to resize) Basic layer support Comes with a large brush collection including charcoal and ink to emulate real media MyPaint is fun to use and can quickly become very addicting as you experiment during the creation process! Links MyPaint Homepage Download Additional Brushes for MyPaint Download the GIMP Plugin for the OpenRaster File Format Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines 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 Peaceful Tropical Cavern Wallpaper

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• MightyMintyBoost Is a 3-in-1 Gadget Charger

  - by ETC

  If you’re looking for a versatile battery booster, this DIY 3-in-1 solar/usb/wall current charger known as the MightyMintyBoost will top of your phone, mp3 player, and other gadgets with ease. Instructables user Honus didn’t just build the MightMintyBoost to geek out and show off his electronics project skills (although it’s certainly a nifty little project to do so), he’s serious about solar power and the impact clean energy has: Apple has sold over 30 million iPodTouch/iPhone units- imagine charging all of them via solar power…. If every iPhone/iPodTouch sold was fully charged every day (averaging the battery capacity) via solar power instead of fossil fuel power we would save approximately 50.644gWh of energy, roughly equivalent to 75,965,625 lbs. of CO2 in the atmosphere per year. Granted that’s a best case scenario (assuming you can get enough sunlight per day and approximately 1.5 lbs. CO2 produced per kWh used.) Of course, that doesn’t even figure in all the other iPods, cell phones, PDAs, microcontrollers (I use it to power my Arduino projects) and other USB devices that can be powered by this charger- one little solar cell charger may not seem like it can make a difference but add all those millions of devices together and that’s a lot of energy! His MightyMintyBoost is a battery booster for devices that can charge via USB and it accepts incoming current from the solar panel on top (or, on cloudy days can be charged via a wall charger or the USB port on your computer). Hit up the link below to see his full build guide and create your own MightyMintyBoost. MightyMintyBoost [Instructables] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines 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 Peaceful Tropical Cavern Wallpaper

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• JAXB, marshalling sub-class that has the same rootNode name as the superclass

  - by SCdF

  Let's say I have this: public class Foo { private String value; // <snip> getters and setters, constructors etc } And I also have this: public class Bar extends Foo { private String anotherValue; // <snip> getters and setters, constructors etc } I want to be able to marshall this to a Bar object: <foo> <value>smang</value> <anotherValue>wratz</anotherValue> </foo> I'm not in a position to check right now, but if I change the @XmlRootNode name of Bar to 'foo' will that work? Do I have to do anything more clever than that?

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• Direct TCP/IP connections in P2P apps

  - by Greg Roberts

  From a Joel's post on Copilot: Direct Connect! We’ve always done everything we can to make sure that Fog Creek Copilot can connect in any networking situation, no matter what firewalls or NATs are in place. To make this happen, both parties make outbound connections to our server, which relays traffic on their behalf. Well, in many cases, this isn’t necessary. So version 2.0 does something rather clever: it sets up the initial connection through our servers, so you get connected right away with 100% reliability. But then once you’re all connected, it quietly, in the background, looks for a way to make a direct connection. If it can’t, no big deal: you just keep relaying through our server. If you can make a direct peer-to-peer connection, it silently shifts your data onto the direct connection. You won’t notice anything except, probably, much faster communication. How do they change the server connection to a P2P connection?

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• A new CAPTCHA using sentences?

  - by Xeoncross

  I was just thinking about how recaptcha is getting harder when I thought about another posible solution. Images won't last forever so we will need something else some day - like human logic or emotion. Google and others are trying grouping images by category (find the image that doesn't belong) but that requires a large amount of images and doesn't work for the blind. Anyway, what if a massive collection of text was gathered (public-domain books from each language) and a sentence was shown to the user with 1 (or 2) words that were a select box of choices? Only computers that knew correct English/Spanish/German grammar would be able to tell which of the words belonged in the sentence. Would there be any problems with this approach? I would assume that it would be easy enough for anyone that knew the language that the sentense was displayed in to figure out the answer easier than trying to read the reCAPTCHA text. Plus, storing an insane number of sentences would only take a couple gigabytes of space and wouldn't take anywhere near the CPU time creating images/audio takes. In other words, anyone could host their own captcha system with minimal impact on system performance. Is there a problem with this approach? More specifically I'm looking for the main problem with this approach. migrated from stackoverflow

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• SOA, Cloud + Service Technology Symposium Call for papers is OPEN

  - by JuergenKress

  The International SOA, Cloud + Service Technology Symposium is a yearly event that features the top experts and authors from around the world, providing a series of keynotes, talks, demonstrations, and panels, as well as training and certification workshops – all with an emphasis on realizing modern service technologies and practices in the real world. Call for papers The 5th International SOA, Cloud + Service Technology Symposium brings together lessons learned and emerging topics from SOA, cloud computing and service technology projects, practitioners and experts. The two-day conference will be organized into the following primary tracks: Cloud Computing Architecture & Patterns New SOA & Service-Orientation Practices & Models Emerging Service Technology Innovation Service Modeling & Analysis Techniques Service Infrastructure & Virtualisation Cloud-based Enterprise Architecture Business Planning for Cloud Computing Projects Real World Case Studies Semantic Web Technologies (with & without the Cloud) Governance Frameworks for SOA and/or Cloud Computing Projects Service Engineering & Service Programming Techniques Interactive Services & the Human Factor New REST & Web Services Tools & Techniques Please submit your paper no later than July 15, 2012. SOA Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: SOA Symposium,SOA Cloud Symposium,Thomas Erl,Call for papers,SOA Suite,Oracle,OTN,SOA Partner Community,Jürgen Kress,SOA,Cloud + Service Technology Symposium

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• What is a generic term for name/identifier? (as opposed to label)

  - by d3vid

  I need to refer to a number of things that have both an identifier value (used in code and configuration), and a human-readable label. These things include: database columns dropdown items subapplications objects stored in a dictionary I want two unambiguous terms. One to refer to the identifier/value/key. One to refer to the label. As you can see, I'm pretty settled on the latter :) For the former, identifier seems best (not everything is strictly a key, and value and name could refer to the label; although, identifier usually refers only to a variable name), but I would prefer to follow an established practice if there is one. Is there an established term for this? (Please provide a source.) If not, are there any examples of a choice from a significant source (Java APIs, MSDN, a big FLOSS project)? (I wasn't sure if this should be posted here or to English Language & Usage. I thought this was the more appropriate expert audience. Happy to migrate if not.)

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• Making large toolbars like the iPod app

  - by andybee

  I am trying to create a toolbar programatically (rather than via IB) very similar to the toolbar featured in the iPhone app. Currently I've been experimenting with the UIToolbar class, but I'm not sure how (and if?) you can make the toolbar buttons centrally aligned and large like that in the iPod app. Additionally, regardless of size, the gradient/reflection artwork never correctly respects the size and is stuck as if the object is the default smaller size. If this cannot be done with a standard UIToolbar, I guess I need to create my own view. In this case, can the reflection/gradient be created programmatically or will it require some clever alpha tranparency Photoshopped artwork?

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• How to Add Any Application to the Windows Desktop Right-Click Menu

  - by The Geek

  If you want really quick access to launch a frequently used application without putting extra icons on your desktop, you can add that application to the context menu for the desktop with a simple registry hack. Here’s how to do it. Naturally, we’ve also covered the opposite scenario—how to clean up your messy Windows context menu, which is an equally useful read if you’ve got a bunch of items you want to remove from the menu. Note: this article was originally published a few years ago, but we’ve updated and polished it for Windows 7 and are republishing it for you today. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Get the Complete Android Guide eBook for Only 99 Cents [Update: Expired] Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography How to Choose What to Back Up on Your Linux Home Server How To Harmonize Your Dual-Boot Setup for Windows and Ubuntu Hang in There Scrat! – Ice Age Wallpaper How Do You Know When You’ve Passed Geek and Headed to Nerd? On The Tip – A Lamborghini Theme for Chrome and Iron What if Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were Human? [Video] Peaceful Winter Cabin Wallpaper Store Tabs for Later Viewing in Opera with Tab Vault

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• Applying WCAG 2.0 to Non-Web ICT: second draft published from WCAG2ICT Task Force - for public review

  - by Peter Korn

  Last Thursday the W3C published an updated Working Draft of Guidance on Applying WCAG 2.0 to Non-Web Information and Communications Technologies. As I noted last July when the first draft was published, the motivation for this guidance comes from the Section 508 refresh draft, and also the European Mandate 376 draft, both of which seek to apply the WCAG 2.0 level A and AA Success Criteria to non-web ICT documents and software. This second Working Draft represents a major step forward in harmonization with the December 5th, 2012 Mandate 376 draft documents, including specifically Draft EN 301549 "European accessibility requirements for public procurement of ICT products and services". This work greatly increases the likelihood of harmonization between the European and American technical standards for accessibility, for web sites and web applications, non-web documents, and non-web software. As I noted last October at the European Policy Centre event: "The Accessibility Act – Ensuring access to goods and services across the EU", and again last month at the follow-up EPC event: "Accessibility - From European challenge to global opportunity", "There isn't a 'German Macular Degernation', a 'French Cerebral Palsy', an 'American Autism Spectrum Disorder'. Disabilities are part of the human condition. They’re not unique to any one country or geography – just like ICT. Even the built environment – phones, trains and cars – is the same worldwide. The definition of ‘accessible’ should be global – and the solutions should be too. Harmonization should be global, and not just EU-wide. It doesn’t make sense for the EU to have a different definition to the US or Japan." With these latest drafts from the W3C and Mandate 376 team, we've moved a major step forward toward that goal of a global "definition of 'accessible' ICT." I strongly encourage all interested parties to read the Call for Review, and to submit comments during the current review period, which runs through 15 February 2013. Comments should be sent to public-wcag2ict-comments-AT-w3.org. I want to thank my colleagues on the WCAG2ICT Task Force for the incredible time and energy and expertise they brought to this work - including particularly my co-authors Judy Brewer, Loïc Martínez Normand, Mike Pluke, Andi Snow-Weaver, and Gregg Vanderheiden; and the document editors Michael Cooper, and Andi Snow-Weaver.

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• DB API for shell scripting (any shell)

  - by foampile

  I am faced with some legacy shell scripts that run batch data processing jobs in Oracle using SQL+. For the most part, the data tier does not have to communicate back to the script with retrieved data to be passed for shell-level processing but in a few cases it does. The problem is, SQL+ is really meant to be an end user app and not an API that can communicate with other clients programmaticaly. That is why people have invented APIs such as DBD::DBI for Perl, JDBC for Java, ODBC etc. The way it is done is they invoke SQL+ and then parse the output, which is clearly designed for human eye consumption, using tools like sed and awk. The whole thing is at best a hack and very prone to bugs. Since this client is rather conservative with their technology, they don't want to scale their scripts up to Perl or Python where there are data access APIs. So I am wondering whether there are similar APIs for shell, e.g. K or bash. What I would like is if an API would return data in a 2-dimensional array or strings (for the lack of type setting) so that I can just read DB data like that. The way they do it now is akin to parsing regular web page HTML to get a single stock quote rather than cleanly calling a web service and be done with it. Anybody know of a product I can use? Thanks

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• Is there any evidence that drugs can actually help programmers produce "better" code? [closed]

  - by sytycs

  I just read this quote from Steve Jobs: "Doing LSD was one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life." Also a quote from that article: He was hardly alone among computer scientists in his appreciation of hallucinogenics and their capacity to liberate human thought from the prison of the mind. Now I'm wondering if there's any evidence to support the theory that drugs can help make a "better" programmer. Has there ever been a study where programmers have been given drugs to see if they could produce "better" code? Is there a well-known programming concept or piece of code which originated from people who were on drugs? EDIT So I did a little more research and it turns out Dennis R. Wier actually documented how he took LSD to wrap his head around a coding project: "At one point in the project I could not get an overall viewpoint for the operation of the entire system. It really was too much for my brain to keep all the subtle aspects and processing nuances clear so I could get a processing and design overview. After struggling with this problem for a few weeks, I decided to use a little acid to see if it would enable a breakthrough, because otherwise, I would not be able to complete the project and be certain of a consistent overall design"[1] There is also an interesting article on wired about Kevin Herbet, who used LSD to solve tough technical problems and chemist Kary Mullis even said "...that LSD had helped him develop the polymerase chain reaction that helps amplify specific DNA sequences." [2]

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• What code should I put on our softball Jerseys?

  - by jsmith

  I work at a small company full of software Nerds. Our wives have decided to put a Co-Ed softball team together called "The Nerds", rightfully so. One of the wives happens to be a Graphical Designer, she has come up with the brilliant idea to put Code on the Jersey (How this wasn't my idea, I have no clue). The only rule is, she wants Nerds to be a part of the code. I've been racking my brain to come up with something clever, but really haven't been able to. So I decided to open it up to my online family. Where better to ask than SO? As a simple reward to whomever gets the best answer, I planned on taking a picture of the team in their Jersey's so the winner can see their result in action.

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• Check if the integer in a list is not duplicated, and sequential

  - by prosseek

  testGroupList is a list of integer. I need to check the numbers in testGroupList is sequential (i.e, 1-2-3-4...) and not duplicate numbers. Ignore the negative integer. I implemented it as follows, and it's pretty ugly. Is there any clever way to do this? buff = filter(lambda x: x 0, testGroupList) maxval = max(buff) for i in range(maxval): id = i+1 val = buff.count(id) if val == 1: print id, elif val = 2: print "(Test Group %d duplicated %d times)" % (id, val), elif val == 0: print "(Test Group %d missing)" % id,

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