Search Results

Search found 1184 results on 48 pages for 'acer aspire timeline'.

Page 46/48 | < Previous Page | 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 | Next Page >

HID USB Very Strange Problem...

- by Lasanha

I realy hope some one can help me here cause i search all over the web and nothing comes up.. I allways used PS/2 KB and Mouse and a USB KeyPad (Genius ErgoMedia 500 Gaming Explorer) to play some games, mmorpg, fps, you named, very good whit 11 keys whit possible macros etc etc... Now it comes the problem, i have a USB mouse that have 4 extra buttons, and i need more button, i love buttons.. Well, i plug in the USB mouse and disconectes de PS/2. Everything is ok until i toutch the mouse. If i do so, the ErgoMedia goes off, then on, then i mouse the mouse or press a button and all over again. Yesterday i went buying a new mouse that i liked, a USB mouse too (NPlay whit macros and all that stuff 3600dpi...) Hoping the problem was only whit the other mouse, but no.. It does the exact same thing, ErgoMedia keeps disconecting and conecting everytime i toutch the mouse. What i allready did: Update drivers of both mouses Update drivers of ErgoMedia (no specific drivers(Windows based)) Update drivers of MB Chipset (Actualy no, cause it was up to date allready) Trying other USB Ports (4 Ports back, 4 Ports Front and even 1 Port in 16 card slot device) Disable the "Allows Windows to shut down the energy bla bla" thing in Device Setings. Look up in the Device Setings only apear a problem on the ergomedia (Human interface Device) when i move the damm mouse.. Using Everest to read behavier, everything normal, exepts the disconecting thing, but no errors. Not a power suply, only the ErgoMedia and the mouse are in the USBs, and i allready disable the 16 card reader whit one usb slot to see.. Clean the IRQ registry. Look the entire internet for a fix solution. Help others problems wile looking for a fix for me (Im not a pro but not a completly stupid) Talking to you beggin you to help me as a last resorce... Machine: Acer M3641 Core2Quad 64x Based OS Vista 64b 4GbRAM HD Audio and Graphics I realy hope some one out there knows a fix for this, maybe it´s a simple thing, so simple that i´m to stupid to see that.. Sorry for my bad inglish but i write lot of erros even in my language. Any help will be very welcome. Tanks for ur concern and atention ^^

Read the article
Windows 7 The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible 0xc000000f

- by piratejackus

I have a problem with my Windows 7, hardware : Acer 3820TG Operating Systems : Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 dual Case: When I try to boot my windows 7 I see an error: "Window failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem: 1.Insert.... 2. .... ... status : 0xc000000f info : The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible .... " I can't exactly remember what were my last actions on Windows. I already searched this error and applied the proposed solutions, I created a repair USB (because I don't have a CD-ROM nor a Windows 7 CD) such as; -repair operating system :it says it cannot repair it -checking disk (chkdsk D: /f /r) : it checks the disk without a problem or error and it takes pretty long (more than a hour). But when I restart, still the same error. -I didn't create a restore point so I pass this option -I don't have a system image -I tried to run windows recovery (I have a recovery partition) but there are just two options: 1- Format the operating system but retain user data (copies the files under users to c\backup folder, but when I searched deeper I found that there are some people who already tried this option and couldn't find their user files under backup directory). Plus, I have unfortunately just one partition D (it is a fault I know) because I use always Ubuntu. So this is not applicable in my situation 2- Format entire system (Windows). I keep my valuable data in windows but not in user folder. I was reaching them from Windows. -I tried to repair windows boot by: bootrec /fixMBR bootrec /fixBoot bootrec /rebuildBCD I lost all grub menu, and reinstalled it. - ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1014708&page=29 nothing changed, same error. I created a thread in microsoft forums - http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7install/thread/69517faf-850a-45fd- 8195-6d4ed831f805 but I couldn't find a solution. Before I run chkdsk from usb repair disk I couldn't able to mount Windows (NTFS) partition from Ubuntu, I was getting "couldn't mount file system, error code 2". I tried to fix ntfs partition from ubuntu and got "segmentation fault". I also created a thread on ubuntuforums for this mount problem: - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1606427 So, after chkdsk, I could enable to mount windows partition but all I see in this partition is chkdsk logs, no any other data. Now, I don't think I lost my data because I don't get any filesystem errors, just the boot section, but this log files under windows partition makes me afraid. I see that Microsoft developers don't have a solution yet for this error. If you need any information to get more idea I can give, maybe I miss some points or it could be complicated. Thanks in advance.

Read the article
Can't save screen resolution setting.

- by Searock

Hi, My screen resolution in windows and previous version of Ubuntu (9.04) was 1152 x 864. But in Ubuntu 10.04 it gives me an option of 1024 x 786 and 1360 x 786. I have some how managed to add 1152x684 resolution by using xrandr command. searock@searock-desktop:~$ cvt 1152 864 1152x864 59.96 Hz (CVT 1.00M3) hsync: 53.78 kHz; pclk: 81.75 MHz Modeline "1152x864_60.00" 81.75 1152 1216 1336 1520 864 867 871 897 -hsync +vsync searock@searock-desktop:~$ xrandr --newmode "1152x864_60.00" 81.75 1152 1216 1336 1520 864 867 871 897 -hsync +vsync searock@searock-desktop:~$ xrandr --addmode S-video 1152x864 xrandr: cannot find output "S-video" searock@searock-desktop:~$ xrandr Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1024 x 768, maximum 4096 x 4096 VGA1 connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm 1360x768 59.8 1024x768 60.0* 800x600 60.3 56.2 848x480 60.0 640x480 59.9 59.9 1152x864_60.00 (0x124) 81.0MHz h: width 1152 start 1216 end 1336 total 1520 skew 0 clock 53.3KHz v: height 864 start 867 end 871 total 897 clock 59.4Hz searock@searock-desktop:~$ xrandr --addmode VGA1 1152x864_60.00 But the problem is when ever I restart my computer I get this message. Could not apply the stored configuration for the monitors. Could not find a suitable configuration of screens. And then it comes back to 1024 x 786 My graphic card details : Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family. Is there any way I can fix this once for all ? Thanks. Edit 1 : rumtscho has suggested me to modify xorg.conf file. But I am not sure what HorizSync means? is it Horizontal frequency ? My monitor model is Acer v173. Here's my specification. So what should be HorizSync and VertRefresh ? Edit 2 : I have edited my Xorg.conf file as follows : Section "Monitor" Identifier "Configured Monitor" HorizSync 30-80 VertRefresh 55-75 EndSection then I added the resolution and restarted my computer and still I am facing the same problem. Is there something that I am missing? Edit 3 : For now I have edited /etc/gdm/Init/Default(gdm startup scripts) to include following xrandr commands, just below line initctl -q emit login-session-start DISPLAY_MANAGER=gdm xrandr --newmode "1152x864_60.00" 81.75 1152 1216 1336 1520 864 867 871 897 -hsync +vsync xrandr --addmode VGA1 1152x864_60.00<br/> xrandr -s 1152x864_60.00 This has solved my problem, but this commands have increased my computer's boot time. I think I will have to edit xorg file properly. Edit 4 : Instead of adding this files to gdm startup scripts I have created a shell script and added it to startup (System - Preference - Startup Applications) #!/bin/bash xrandr --newmode "1152x864_60.00" 81.75 1152 1216 1336 1520 864 867 871 897 -hsync +vsync xrandr --addmode VGA1 1152x864_60.00 xrandr -s 1152x864_60.00 And don't forget to add execution rights. (Right Click - Properties - Permission - Allow executing file as program)

Read the article
Use an audio/video file from a Linux laptop via USB to be played by Magic Sing ET-23H

- by AisIceEyes

I am one of the technical directors of a regular karaoke contest event. For the karaoke contest itself, due to tight budget, we are using what one of the sponsors are providing - Magic Sing ET-23H . The video output of the Magic Sing ET-23H are broadcasted at two big screens that are being shown to the audience and event attendees. When a karaoke contestant provides his / her karaoke video, the video itself is in a readable USB flashdrive and is attached to the USB input of Magic Sing ET-23H. What really bugs me is that the interface of Magic Sing ET-23H are also being broadcasted at the big screen video feeds. The interface of choosing the video file is being seen in the Magic Sing ET-23H - also to the big video screens that are seen by the audience and event goers. I will post in the comments ( if my less than 10 reputation would allow me) the picture of Magic Sing ET-23KH USB input of the device. I always bring my laptop, Acer AS5742-7653, during the regular karaoke event. I'm using my laptop also for tallying of scores from the judges, and also playing audio files from contestants that did not provide a karaoke video. I personally am using different Linux distros, but I next to all the time use my Ubuntu Studio 12.04.3 64bit partition during the regular karaoke contest event. My question is this: Is there a way I can share a temporary video/audio file directly from the laptop I'm using, going to the Magic Sing ET-23H that can broadcast both the video/audio file? Just like how in Window's Avisynth AVS files, or VirtualDub's temporary avi file, or like using ffplay (of ffmpeg), etc. I have researched somewhat the matter and found links in SuperUser.com. Though I can only provide the links at the comments section of this post if my reputation of less than 10 would allow me. I have a hunch it is possible, but I have not fully understood the device being used at the event, Magic Sing ET-23H, if there are other ways for it to broadcast video and audio files besides its USB input. Any help to my current predicament is highly appreciated. Thank you. PS: Since I need at least 10 reputation to post more than 2 links and also post images, I will try to post the image & links at the comments (if my below 10 reputation would allow me).

Read the article
Detection of battery status totally messed up

- by Faabiioo

I already posted this question in the Ubuntu forum and stackOverflow. I forward it here with the hope to find some different opinions about the problem. I have an Acer TravelMate 5730, which is 3 y.o., running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. One year ago I changed the battery because the old one died. Since then, everything worked like a charm. A week ago I was using my laptop running on battery; it was charged up to 60%. Suddenly it shut down and for about 24h it was like the battery was totally broken: it didn't charge anymore and the 'upower --dump' said state: critical. I was kind of resigned to buy a new battery, when suddenly the orange light became green: battery was charged and actually working; strangely the battery indicator was stuck to 100%, even after 2 hours running. I tried again with 'upower --dump' or 'acpi -b' commands and it kept saying battery is discharging, though maintaining the percentage to 100%. Thus, battery working fine up to 3 hours, without any warning when it was almost empty, likely to result in a brute shut down. Today something different. the 'upower --dump' command says: ... present: yes rechargeable: yes state: fully-charged energy: 0 Wh energy-empty: 0 Wh energy-full: 65.12 Wh energy-full-design: 65.12 Wh energy-rate: 0 W voltage: 14.481 V percentage: 0% capacity: 100% technology: lithium-ion I tried to boot WinXP and the problem is pretty much the same, with the battery fully-charged, percentage equal to 0% and no way to fix it. While writing, the situation has changed again: present: yes rechargeable: yes state: charging energy: 0 Wh energy-empty: 0 Wh energy-full: 65.12 Wh energy-full-design: 65.12 Wh energy-rate: 0 W voltage: 14.474 V percentage: 0% capacity: 100% technology: lithium-ion ...charging, but it does not charge up. (Recall, the battery lasted 3 hours until yesterday!). So, the big question is: is it an hardware issue, like a dedicated internal circuit is broken? or maybe it is just the battery that must be changed. Or, rather, some BIOS problem that could be fixed in some way. I'd appreciate every help that can shed some light on this annoying problem thanks

Read the article
WPF Choppy Animation

- by Chris Dunaway

WPF Windows-XP SP3 I'm having a problem with a simple WPF animation. I use the following Xaml code (in XamlPad and also in a WPF project): <Page xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:sys="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" > <Border Name="MyBorder" BorderThickness="10" BorderBrush="Blue" CornerRadius="10" Background="DarkRed" > <Rectangle Name="MyRectangle" Margin="10" StrokeDashArray="2.0,1.0" StrokeThickness="10" RadiusX="10" RadiusY="10" Stroke="Black" StrokeDashOffset="0"> <Rectangle.Triggers> <EventTrigger RoutedEvent="Rectangle.Loaded"> <BeginStoryboard> <Storyboard> <DoubleAnimation Storyboard.TargetName="MyRectangle" Storyboard.TargetProperty="StrokeDashOffset" From="0.0" To="3.0" Duration="0:0:1" RepeatBehavior="Forever" Timeline.DesiredFrameRate="30" /> </Storyboard> </BeginStoryboard> </EventTrigger> </Rectangle.Triggers> </Rectangle> </Border> </Page> It has the effect of causing the border to animate around the rectangle. After a fresh reboot of the machine, this animation is nice and smooth. However, I tend to leave my machine on all the time and after a period time elapses (I don't know how long), the animation starts stuttering and becomes choppy. I thought that it may be memory or resource issues, but after shutting down all other apps and any services that seem unnecessary, the stuttering still continues. However, after a system reboot, the animation is smooth again! I get the same symptoms in a WPF app or in XamlPad. In the case of the app, it doesn't seem to make any difference whether I run in the debugger or if I run the executable directly. I applied the patch at this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981741 and I thought that it had taken care of the issue, but it seems not to have. I have seen some posts that might indicate that using transparency might affect animation, but as you can see, my xaml does not use transparency. Can anyone give me some suggestions on how to determine what the problem is? Are there any WPF diagnostic tools that might help? UPDATE: I have checked my video drivers and they are the latest version. (nVidia GeForce 8400 GS)

Read the article
Extracting the source code of a facebook page with JavaScript

- by Hafizi Vilie

If I write code in the JavaScript console of Chrome, I can retrieve the whole HTML source code by entering: var a = document.body.InnerHTML; alert(a); For fb_dtsg on Facebook, I can easily extract it by writing: var fb_dtsg = document.getElementsByName('fb_dtsg')[0].value; Now, I am trying to extract the code "h=AfJSxEzzdTSrz-pS" from the Facebook Page. The h value is especially useful for Facebook reporting. How can I get the h value for reporting? I don't know what the h value is; the h value is totally different when you communicate with different users. Without that h correct value, you can not report. Actually, the h value is AfXXXXXXXXXXX (11 character values after 'Af'), that is what I know. Do you have any ideas for getting the value or any function to generate on Facebook page. The Facebook Source snippet is below, you can view source on facebook profile, and search h=Af, you will get the value: <code class="hidden_elem" id="ukftg4w44">  </code> Please guide me. How can extract the value exactly? I tried with following code, but the comment block prevent me to extract the code. How can extract the value which is inside comment block? var a = document.getElementsByClassName('hidden_elem')[3].innerHTML;alert(a);

Read the article
How to check for palindrome using Python logic

- by DrOnline

My background is only a 6 month college class in basic C/C++, and I'm trying to convert to Python. I may be talking nonsense, but it seems to me C, at least at my level, is very for-loop intensive. I solve most problems with these loops. And it seems to me the biggest mistake people do when going from C to Python is trying to implement C logic using Python, which makes things run slowly, and it's just not making the most of the language. I see on this website: http://hyperpolyglot.org/scripting (serach for "c-style for", that Python doesn't have C-style for loops. Might be outdated, but I interpret it to mean Python has its own methods for this. I've tried looking around, I can't find much up to date (Python 3) advice for this. How can I solve a palindrome challenge in Python, without using the for loop? I've done this in C in class, but I want to do it in Python, on a personal basis. The problem is from the Euler Project, great site btw. def isPalindrome(n): lst = [int(n) for n in str(n)] l=len(lst) if l==0 || l==1: return True elif len(lst)%2==0: for k in range (l) ##### else: while (k<=((l-1)/2)): if (list[]): ##### for i in range (999, 100, -1): for j in range (999,100, -1): if isPalindrome(i*j): print(i*j) break I'm missing a lot of code here. The five hashes are just reminders for myself. Concrete questions: 1) In C, I would make a for loop comparing index 0 to index max, and then index 0+1 with max-1, until something something. How to best do this in Python? 2) My for loop (in in range (999, 100, -1), is this a bad way to do it in Python? 3) Does anybody have any good advice, or good websites or resources for people in my position? I'm not a programmer, I don't aspire to be one, I just want to learn enough so that when I write my bachelor's degree thesis (electrical engineering), I don't have to simultaneously LEARN an applicable programming language while trying to obtain good results in the project. "How to go from basic C to great application of Python", that sort of thing. 4) Any specific bits of code to make a great solution to this problem would also be appreciated, I need to learn good algorithms.. I am envisioning 3 situations. If the value is zero or single digit, if it is of odd length, and if it is of even length. I was planning to write for loops... PS: The problem is: Find the highest value product of two 3 digit integers that is also a palindrome.

Read the article
Zend Framework-where should this root.php file go for MVC?

- by Joel

Hi guys, I'm converting over a web-app to use the MVC structure of Zend Framework. I have a root.php include file that contains most of the database info, and some static variables that are used in the program. I'm not sure if some of this should be in the application.ini of in a model that is called by the init() function in a controller, or in the bootstrap or what? Any help would be much appreciated! root.php (include file at the top of every php page): <?php /*** //Configuration file */ ## Site Configuration starts ## define("SITE_ROOT" , dirname(__FILE__)); define("SITE_URL" , "http://localhost/monkeycalendarapp/monkeycalendarapp/public"); define('DB_HOST', "localhost"); define('DB_USER', "root"); define('DB_PASS', "xxx"); define('DB_NAME', "xxxxx"); define("PROJECT_NAME" , "Monkey Mind Manager (beta 2.2)"); //site title define("CALENDAR_WIDTH" , "300"); //left mini calendar width define("CALENDAR_HEIGHT" , "150"); //left mini calendar height $page_title = 'Event List'; $stylesheet_name = 'style.css'; //default stylesheet define("SITE_URL_AJAX" , SITE_URL . "/ajax-tooltip"); define("JQUERY" , SITE_URL . "/jquery-ui-1.7.2"); $a_times = array("12:00","12:30","01:00","01:30","02:00","02:30","03:00","03:30","04:00","04:30","05:00","05:30","06:00","06:30","07:00","07:30","08:00","08:30","09:00","09:30","10:00","10:30","11:00","11:30"); //PTLType Promotional timeline type $a_ptlType= array(1=>"Gigs","To-Do","Completed"); $a_days = array("Su","Mo","Tu","We","Th","Fr","Sa"); $a_timesMerd = array("12:00am","12:30am","01:00am","01:30am","02:00am","02:30am","03:00am","03:30am","04:00am","04:30am","05:00am","05:30am","06:00am","06:30am","07:00am","07:30am","08:00am","08:30am","09:00am","09:30am","10:00am","10:30am","11:00am","11:30am","12:00pm","12:30pm","01:00pm","01:30pm","02:00pm","02:30pm","03:00pm","03:30pm","04:00pm","04:30pm","05:00pm","05:30pm","06:00pm","06:30pm","07:00pm","07:30pm","08:00pm","08:30pm","09:00pm","09:30pm","10:00pm","10:30pm","11:00pm","11:30pm"); //Setting stylesheet for this user. $AMPM=array("am"=>"am","pm"=>"pm"); include(SITE_ROOT . "/includes/functions/general.php"); include(SITE_ROOT . "/includes/db.php"); session_start(); if(isset($_SESSION['userData']['UserID'])) { $s_userID = $_SESSION['userData']['UserID']; } $stylesheet_name = stylesheet(); ini_set('date.timezone', 'GMT'); date_default_timezone_set('GMT'); if($s_userID) { ini_set('date.timezone', $_SESSION['userData']['timezone']); date_default_timezone_set($_SESSION['userData']['timezone']); } ?>

Read the article
Twitter RSS feed, [domdocument.load]: failed to open stream:

- by dave1019

hi i'm using the following: <?php $doc = new DOMDocument(); $doc->load('http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/XXXXXX.rss'); $arrFeeds = array(); foreach ($doc->getElementsByTagName('item') as $node) { $itemRSS = array ( 'title' => $node->getElementsByTagName('title')->item(0)->nodeValue, 'desc' => $node->getElementsByTagName('description')->item(0)->nodeValue, 'link' => $node->getElementsByTagName('link')->item(0)->nodeValue, 'date' => $node->getElementsByTagName('pubDate')->item(0)->nodeValue ); array_push($arrFeeds, $itemRSS); } for($i=0;$i<=3;$i++) { $tweet=substr($arrFeeds[$i]['title'],17); $tweetDate=strtotime($arrFeeds[$i]['date']); $newDate=date('G:ia l F Y ',$tweetDate); if($i==0) { $b='style="border:none;"'; } $tweetsBox.='<div class="tweetbox" ' . $b . '> <div class="tweet"><p>' . $tweet . '</p> <div class="tweetdate"><a href="http://twitter.com/XXXXXX">@' . $newDate .'</a></div> </div> </div>'; } return $tweetsBox; ?> to return the 4 most recent tweets from a given timeline (XXXXX is the relevant feed) It seems to work fine but i've recently been getting the following error sporadically: PHP error debug Error: DOMDocument::load(http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/XXXXXX.rss) [domdocument.load]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 502 Bad Gateway I've read that the above code is dependant on Twitter beign available and I know it gets rather busy sometimes. Is there either a better way of receiving twits, or is there any kind of error trapping i could do to just to display "tweets are currently unavailable..." ind of message rather than causing an error. I'm usnig ModX CMS so any parse error kills the site rather than just ouputs a warning. thanks.

Read the article
PHP getting Twitter API JSON file contents without OAuth (Almost have it)

- by DexCurl

Hey guys, I have this script working fine with OAuth, but I accidentally nuked my 350 API hits with a stupid while statement :( I'm trying to get data from the Twitter API without OAuth, I can't figure it out (still pretty new), heres what I have <html> <body> <center> <hr /> <br /> <table border="1"> <tr><td>ScreenName</td><td>Followed back?</td></tr> <?php //twitter oauth deets $consumerKey = 'x'; $consumerSecret = 'x'; $oAuthToken = 'x'; $oAuthSecret = 'x'; // Create Twitter API objsect require_once("twitteroauth.php"); $oauth = new TwitterOAuth($consumerKey, $consumerSecret, $oAuthToken, $oAuthSecret); //get home timeline tweets and it is stored as an array $youfollow = $oauth->get('http://api.twitter.com/1/friends/ids.json?screen_name=lccountdown'); $i = 0; //start loop to print our results cutely in a table while ($i <= 20){ $youfollowid = $youfollow[$i]; $resolve = "http://api.twitter.com/1/friendships/exists.json?user_a=".$youfollow[$i]."&user_b=jwhelton"; $followbacktest = $oauth->get($resolve); //$homedate= $hometimeline[$i]->created_at; //$homescreenname = $hometimeline[$i]->user->screen_name; echo "<tr><td>".$youfollowid."</td><td>".$followbacktest."</td></tr>"; $i++; } ?> </table> </center> </body> </html> Neither of the two Twitter functions require authentication, so how can I get the same results? Thanks guys, Dex

Read the article
ActionScript 2: Event doesn't fire?

- by Pascal Schuster

So I have a soundHandler class that's supposed to play sounds and then point back to a function on the timeline when the sound has completed playing. But somehow, only one of the sounds plays when I try it out. EDIT: After that sound plays, nothing happens, even though I have EventHandlers set up that are supposed to do something. Here's the code: import mx.events.EventDispatcher; class soundHandler { private var dispatchEvent:Function; public var addEventListener:Function; public var removeEventListener:Function; var soundToPlay; var soundpath:String; var soundtype:String; var prefix:String; var mcname:String; public function soundHandler(soundpath:String, prefix:String, soundtype:String, mcname:String) { EventDispatcher.initialize(this); _root.createEmptyMovieClip(mcname, 1); this.soundpath = soundpath; this.soundtype = soundtype; this.prefix = prefix; this.mcname = mcname; } function playSound(file, callbackfunc) { _root.soundToPlay = new Sound(_root.mcname); _global.soundCallbackfunc = callbackfunc; _root.soundToPlay.onLoad = function(success:Boolean) { if (success) { _root.soundToPlay.start(); } }; _root.soundToPlay.onSoundComplete = function():Void { trace("Sound Complete: "+this.soundtype+this.prefix+this.file+".mp3"); trace(arguments.caller); dispatchEvent({type:_global.soundCallbackfunc}); trace(this.toString()); trace(this.callbackfunction); }; _root.soundToPlay.loadSound("../sound/"+soundpath+"/"+soundtype+prefix+file+".mp3", true); _root.soundToPlay.stop(); } } Here's the code from the .fla file: var playSounds:soundHandler = new soundHandler("signup", "su", "s", "mcs1"); var file = "000"; playSounds.addEventListener("sixtyseconds", this); playSounds.addEventListener("transition", this); function sixtyseconds() { trace("I am being called! Sixtyseconds"); var phase = 1; var file = random(6); if (file == 0) { file = 1; } if (file<10) { file = "0"+file; } file = phase+file; playSounds.playSound(file, "transition"); } function transition() { trace("this works"); } playSounds.playSound(file, "sixtyseconds"); I'm at a total loss for this one. Have been wasting hours to figure it out already. Any help will be deeply appreciated.

Read the article
Build 2012, some thoughts..

- by Dennis Vroegop

I think you probably read my rant about the logistics at Build 2012, as posted here, so I am not going into that anymore. Instead, let’s look at the content. (BTW If you did read that post and want some more info then read Nia Angelina’s post about Build. I have nothing to add to that.) As usual, there were good speakers and some speakers who could benefit from some speaker training. I find it hard to understand why Microsoft allows certain people on stage, people who speak English with such strong accents it’s hard for people, especially from abroad, to understand. Some basic training might be useful for some of them. However, it is nice to see that most speakers are project managers, program managers or even devs on the teams that build the stuff they talk about: there was a lot of knowledge on stage! And that means when you ask questions you get very relevant information. I realize I am not the average audience member here, I am regular speaker myself so I tend to look for other things when I am in a room than most audience members so my opinion might differ from others. All in all the knowledge of the speakers was above average but the presentation skills were most of the times below what I would describe as adequate. But let us look at the contents. Since the official name of the conference is Build Windows 2012 it is not surprising most of the talks were focused on building Windows 8 apps. Next to that, there was a lot of focus on Azure and of course Windows Phone 8 that launched the day before Build started. Most sessions dealt with C# and JavaScript although I did see a tendency to use C++ more. Touch. Well, that was the focus on a lot of sessions, that goes without saying. Microsoft is really betting on Touch these days and being a Touch oriented developer I can only applaud this. The term NUI is getting a bit outdated but the principles behind it certainly aren’t. The sessions did cover quite a lot on how to make your applications easy to use and easy to understand. However, not all is touch nowadays; still the majority of people use keyboard and mouse to interact with their machines (or, as I do, use keyboard, mouse AND touch at the same time). Microsoft understands this and has spend some serious thoughts on this as well. It was all about making your apps run everywhere on all sorts of devices and in all sorts of scenarios. I have seen a couple of sessions focusing on the portable class library and on sharing code between Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. You get the feeling Microsoft is enabling us devs to write software that will be ubiquitous. They want your stuff to be all over the place and they do anything they can to help. To achieve that goal they provide us with brilliant SDK’s, great tooling, a very, very good backend in the form of Windows Azure (I was particularly impressed by the Mobility part of Azure) and some fantastic hardware. And speaking of hardware: the partners such as Acer, Lenovo and Dell are making hardware that puts Apple to a shame nowadays. To illustrate: in Bellevue (very close to Redmond where Microsoft HQ is) they have the Microsoft Store located very close to the Apple Store, so it’s easy to compare devices. And I have to say: the Microsoft offerings are much, much more appealing that what the Cupertino guys have to offer. That was very visible by the number of people visiting the stores: even on the day that Apple launched the iPad Mini there were more people in the Microsoft store than in the Apple store. So, the future looks like it’s going to be fun. Great hardware (did I mention the Nokia Lumia 920? No? It’s brilliant), great software (Windows 8 is in a league of its own), the best dev tools (Visual Studio 2012 is still the champion here) and a fantastic backend (Azure.. need I say more?). It’s up to us devs to fill up the stores with applications that matches this. To summarize: it is great to be a Windows developer. PS. Did I mention Surface RT? Man….. People were drooling all over it wherever I went. It is fantastic :-) Technorati Tags: Build,Windows 8,Windows Phone,Lumia,Surface,Microsoft

Read the article
What's going on with my wireless?

- by Mark Scott

The WiFi on my Acer laptop (it's a 3810TZ, with Intel Corporation Centrino Wireless-N 1000) works flawlessly on Ubuntu 11.04. On 11.10, it's continually up and down, and it fills the system log with messages such as those below. What is going on? It seems to be unable to decide which regulatory domain it's in. Despite the system configuration being quite clearly set to UK it persists in configuring itself as though it was opeating in Taiwan! Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 wpa_supplicant[1053]: WPA: 4-Way Handshake failed - pre-shared key may be incorrect Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 wpa_supplicant[1053]: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=00:50:7f:72:bf:b0 reason=15 Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 wpa_supplicant[1053]: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=00:00:00:00:00:00 reason=3 Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.240355] cfg80211: All devices are disconnected, going to restore regulatory settings Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.240362] cfg80211: Restoring regulatory settings Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.240368] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.240408] wlan0: deauthenticating from 00:50:7f:72:bf:b0 by local choice (reason=3) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 NetworkManager[875]: (wlan0): supplicant interface state: 4-way handshake - disconnected Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.246556] cfg80211: Ignoring regulatory request Set by core since the driver uses its own custom regulatory domain Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.246563] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.246567] cfg80211: (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.246572] cfg80211: (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.246577] cfg80211: (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.246582] cfg80211: (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.246587] cfg80211: (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.246592] cfg80211: (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 NetworkManager[875]: (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected - scanning Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 wpa_supplicant[1053]: Trying to authenticate with 00:50:7f:72:bf:b0 (SSID='PoplarHouse' freq=2412 MHz) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 NetworkManager[875]: (wlan0): supplicant interface state: scanning - authenticating Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.509877] wlan0: authenticate with 00:50:7f:72:bf:b0 (try 1) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 wpa_supplicant[1053]: Trying to associate with 00:50:7f:72:bf:b0 (SSID='PoplarHouse' freq=2412 MHz) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.512276] wlan0: authenticated Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.512615] wlan0: associate with 00:50:7f:72:bf:b0 (try 1) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 NetworkManager[875]: (wlan0): supplicant interface state: authenticating - associating Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.516508] wlan0: RX ReassocResp from 00:50:7f:72:bf:b0 (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=1) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.516514] wlan0: associated Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 wpa_supplicant[1053]: Associated with 00:50:7f:72:bf:b0 Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.529097] cfg80211: Calling CRDA for country: TW Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 NetworkManager[875]: (wlan0): supplicant interface state: associating - associated Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535680] cfg80211: Updating information on frequency 2412 MHz for a 20 MHz width channel with regulatory rule: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535688] cfg80211: 2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535692] cfg80211: Updating information on frequency 2417 MHz for a 20 MHz width channel with regulatory rule: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535697] cfg80211: 2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535702] cfg80211: Updating information on frequency 2422 MHz for a 20 MHz width channel with regulatory rule: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535707] cfg80211: 2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535711] cfg80211: Updating information on frequency 2427 MHz for a 20 MHz width channel with regulatory rule: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535716] cfg80211: 2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535720] cfg80211: Updating information on frequency 2432 MHz for a 20 MHz width channel with regulatory rule: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535725] cfg80211: 2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535730] cfg80211: Updating information on frequency 2437 MHz for a 20 MHz width channel with regulatory rule: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535735] cfg80211: 2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535739] cfg80211: Updating information on frequency 2442 MHz for a 20 MHz width channel with regulatory rule: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535744] cfg80211: 2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535748] cfg80211: Updating information on frequency 2447 MHz for a 20 MHz width channel with regulatory rule: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535753] cfg80211: 2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535757] cfg80211: Updating information on frequency 2452 MHz for a 20 MHz width channel with regulatory rule: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535763] cfg80211: 2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535767] cfg80211: Updating information on frequency 2457 MHz for a 20 MHz width channel with regulatory rule: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535772] cfg80211: 2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535777] cfg80211: Updating information on frequency 2462 MHz for a 20 MHz width channel with regulatory rule: Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535782] cfg80211: 2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535786] cfg80211: Disabling freq 2467 MHz Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535789] cfg80211: Disabling freq 2472 MHz Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535794] cfg80211: Regulatory domain changed to country: TW Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535797] cfg80211: (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535802] cfg80211: (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535807] cfg80211: (5270000 KHz - 5330000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 1700 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:37 MES3810 kernel: [18239.535812] cfg80211: (5735000 KHz - 5815000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 3000 mBm) Nov 22 15:34:38 MES3810 NetworkManager[875]: (wlan0): supplicant interface state: associated - 4-way handshake Any ideas?

Read the article
Microsoft BUILD 2013 Day 1–Keynote

- by Tim Murphy

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/06/27/microsoft-build-2013-day-1ndashkeynote.aspx This one is going to be a little long because the keynote was jam-packed so bare with me. The keynote for the first day of BUILD 2013 was kicked off by Steve Balmer. He made it very clear that Microsoft’s focus is on accelerating its time to market with products and product updates. His quote was that “Rapid release” is the new norm. He continued by showing off several new Lumias that have been buzzing around the internet for a while and announce that Sprint will now be carrying the HTC 8XT and Samsung ATIV. Balmer is known for repeating words or phrase for affect. This time it was “Rapid release, rapid release” and “Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, …”. This was fun, but even more fun was when he announce that all attendees would receive an Acer Iconia 8” tablet. SCORE! The next subject Balmer focused on is new apps. The three new ones were Flipboard, Facebook and NFL Fantasy Football. I liked the first two because these are ones that people coming from other platforms are missing. The NFL app is great just because it targets a demographic that can be fanatical. If these types of apps keep coming than the missing app argument goes away. While many Negative Nancy’s are describing Windows 8.1 as Windows 180 Steve Balmer chose to call it a “refined blend” as in a coffee that has been improved with a new mix. This includes more multi-tasking options and leveraging Bing straight throughout the entire ecosystem. He ended this first section by explaining that this will also bring more Bing development opportunities to the community. Steve Balmer was followed by Julie Larson-Green who spent her time on stage selling us on Windows 8 all over again from my point of view. Something that I would not have thought was needed until I had listened to some other attendees who had a number of concerns and complaints. She showed a number of new gestures that will come with Windows 8.1, and while they were cool I was left wondering if they really improved the experience. I guess only time will tell. I did like the fact that it the UI implementation to bring up “All Apps” now mirrors that of Windows Phone. The consistency is a big step forward that I hope to see continue. The cool factor went up from there as she swiped content from a desktop (mega-tablet) to the XBox One. This seamless experience I believe is what is really needed for any future platform to be relevant. I was much more enthused by the presentation of Antoine Leblond who humbled us by letting us know that there are 5k new API. How that can be or how anyone would ever use all of them is another question. His announcement was that the Visual Studio 2013 preview would be available today along with the Windows 8.1 bits. One of the features of VS2013 that he demonstrated is the power consumption profiler. With battery life being a key factor with consumer consumption devices this is a welcome addition. He didn’t limit his presentation to VS2013 features though. He showed how the Store has been redesigned to enable better search and discoverability of apps and how Win 8.1 can perform multiple screen scales depending on the resolution of the device automatically. The last feature he demoed was the real time video streaming API which he made sure we understood by attaching a Surface to a little robot. Oh, but there was one more thing. Antoine and Julie announce that all attendees would also be getting Surface Pros. BONUS! How much more could there be? Gurdeep Singh Pall was about to pile on. He introduced us to Bing as a platform (BaaP?). He said if they (Microsoft) could do something with and API that is good 3rd party developers can do something that is dynamite and showed us some of the tools they had produced. These included natural user interface improvements such as voice commands that looked to put Siri to shame. Add to that 3D, OCR and translation capabilities and the future looks to be full of opportunities. Balmer then came out to show us one last thing. Project Spark is a game design environment that will be available for Windows 8.1, XBox 360 and XBox One. All I can say is that if my kids get their hands on this they are going to be able to learn some of what dad does in a much more enjoyable way. At the end of it all I was both exhausted and energized by what I saw. What could they have possibly left for the day 2 keynote? I hear it will feature Scott Hanselman. If that is right we are in for a treat. See you there. del.icio.us Tags: BUILD 2013,Windows 8.1,Winodws Phone,XAML,Keynote,Bing,Visual Studio 2013,Project Spark

Read the article
Battery life starts at 2:30 hrs (99%), but less than 1 minute later is only 1:30 hrs (99%)

- by zondu

After searching this and other forums, I haven't seen this same issue listed anywhere for Ubuntu 12. Prior to installing Ubuntu 12.10, my Netbook (Acer AspireOne D250, SATA HDD) was consistently getting 2:30-3 hrs battery life under Windows XP Home, SP3. However, immediately after installing Ubuntu 12.10, the battery life starts out at 2:30 hrs (99%), but less than 1 minute later suddenly drops to 1:30 hrs (99%), which seems very odd. It could be a complete coincidence that the battery is suddenly flaky at the exact same moment that Ubuntu 12.10 was installed, but that doesn't seem likely. I'm a newbie to Ubuntu, so I don't have much experience tweaking/trouble-shooting yet. Here's what I've tried so far: enabled laptop mode (sudo su, then echo 5 /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode) and checked that it is running when the A/C adapter is unplugged, but it doesn't seem to have made any noticeable difference in battery life, installed Jupiter, but it didn't work and messed up the system, so I had to uninstall it, disabled bluetooth (wifi is still on b/c it is necessary), set the screen to lowest brightness, etc., run through at least 1 full power cycle (running until the netbook shut itself off due to critical battery) and have been using it normally (sometimes plugged in, often unplugged until the battery gets very low) for a week since installing Ubuntu 12.10. installed powertop, but have no idea how to interpret its results. Here are the results of acpi -b: w/ A/C adapter: Battery 0: Full, 100% immediately after unplugging: Battery 0: Discharging, 99%, 02:30:20 remaining 1 minute after unplugging: Battery 0: Discharging, 99%, 01:37:49 remaining 2-3 minutes after unplugging: Battery 0: Discharging, 95%, 01:33:01 remaining 10 minutes after unplugging: Battery 0: Discharging, 85%, 01:13:38 remaining Results of cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/uevent: w/ A/C adapter: POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0 POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Full POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1 POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-ion POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=0 POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=10800000 POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=12136000 POWER_SUPPLY_CURRENT_NOW=773000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=4500000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL=1956000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_NOW=1956000 POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME=UM08B32 POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=SANYO POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER= immediately after unplugging: POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0 POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Discharging POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1 POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-ion POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=0 POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=10800000 POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=11886000 POWER_SUPPLY_CURRENT_NOW=773000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=4500000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL=1956000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_NOW=1937000 POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME=UM08B32 POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=SANYO POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER= 1 minute later: POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0 POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Discharging POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1 POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-ion POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=0 POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=10800000 POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=11728000 POWER_SUPPLY_CURRENT_NOW=1174000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=4500000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL=1956000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_NOW=1937000 POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME=UM08B32 POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=SANYO POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER= 2-3 minutes later: POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0 POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Discharging POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1 POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-ion POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=0 POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=10800000 POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=11583000 POWER_SUPPLY_CURRENT_NOW=1209000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=4500000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL=1956000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_NOW=1878000 POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME=UM08B32 POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=SANYO POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER= 10 minutes later: POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0 POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Discharging POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1 POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-ion POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=0 POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=10800000 POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=11230000 POWER_SUPPLY_CURRENT_NOW=1239000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL_DESIGN=4500000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_FULL=1956000 POWER_SUPPLY_CHARGE_NOW=1644000 POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME=UM08B32 POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=SANYO POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER= Results of upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0: w/ A/C adapter: native-path: /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A08:00/device:02/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0 vendor: SANYO model: UM08B32 power supply: yes updated: Tue Nov 27 15:24:58 2012 (823 seconds ago) has history: yes has statistics: yes battery present: yes rechargeable: yes state: fully-charged energy: 21.1248 Wh energy-empty: 0 Wh energy-full: 21.1248 Wh energy-full-design: 48.6 Wh energy-rate: 8.3484 W voltage: 12.173 V percentage: 100% capacity: 43.4667% technology: lithium-ion immediately after unplugging: native-path: /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A08:00/device:02/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0 vendor: SANYO model: UM08B32 power supply: yes updated: Tue Nov 27 15:41:25 2012 (1 seconds ago) has history: yes has statistics: yes battery present: yes rechargeable: yes state: discharging energy: 20.9196 Wh energy-empty: 0 Wh energy-full: 21.1248 Wh energy-full-design: 48.6 Wh energy-rate: 8.3484 W voltage: 11.86 V time to empty: 2.5 hours percentage: 99.0286% capacity: 43.4667% technology: lithium-ion History (charge): 1354023683 99.029 discharging 1 minute later: native-path: /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A08:00/device:02/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0 vendor: SANYO model: UM08B32 power supply: yes updated: Tue Nov 27 15:42:31 2012 (17 seconds ago) has history: yes has statistics: yes battery present: yes rechargeable: yes state: discharging energy: 20.9196 Wh energy-empty: 0 Wh energy-full: 21.1248 Wh energy-full-design: 48.6 Wh energy-rate: 13.5432 W voltage: 11.753 V time to empty: 1.5 hours percentage: 99.0286% capacity: 43.4667% technology: lithium-ion History (charge): 1354023683 99.029 discharging History (rate): 1354023751 13.543 discharging 2-3 minutes later: native-path: /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A08:00/device:02/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0 vendor: SANYO model: UM08B32 power supply: yes updated: Tue Nov 27 15:45:06 2012 (20 seconds ago) has history: yes has statistics: yes battery present: yes rechargeable: yes state: discharging energy: 20.2824 Wh energy-empty: 0 Wh energy-full: 21.1248 Wh energy-full-design: 48.6 Wh energy-rate: 13.7484 W voltage: 11.545 V time to empty: 1.5 hours percentage: 96.0123% capacity: 43.4667% technology: lithium-ion History (charge): 1354023906 96.012 discharging 1354023844 97.035 discharging History (rate): 1354023906 13.748 discharging 1354023875 12.992 discharging 1354023844 13.284 discharging 10 minutes later: native-path: /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/device:00/PNP0A08:00/device:02/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0 vendor: SANYO model: UM08B32 power supply: yes updated: Tue Nov 27 15:54:24 2012 (28 seconds ago) has history: yes has statistics: yes battery present: yes rechargeable: yes state: discharging energy: 18.1764 Wh energy-empty: 0 Wh energy-full: 21.1248 Wh energy-full-design: 48.6 Wh energy-rate: 13.2948 W voltage: 11.268 V time to empty: 1.4 hours percentage: 86.0429% capacity: 43.4667% technology: lithium-ion History (charge): 1354024433 86.043 discharging History (rate): 1354024464 13.295 discharging 1354024433 13.662 discharging 1354024402 13.781 discharging I noticed that between #2 and #3 (0 and 1 minutes after unplugging), while the battery still reports 99% charge and drops from 2:30 hr to 1:30 hr, the energy usage goes from 8.34 W to 13.54 W and the current_now increases, but shouldn't it be using less energy in battery mode since the screen is much dimmer and it's in power saving mode? (or is that normal behavior?) It also seems to drain more quickly than what it predicts, especially with the 1-1.25 hour drop in the first minute of being unplugged, which seems odd. What really concerns me is that Ubuntu 12.10 may not be properly managing the battery (with the sudden change in charge/life from 2:30 to 1:30 or 1:15 within a minute of unplugging), and that a new battery may quickly die under Ubuntu 12.10. I'd greatly appreciate any advice/suggestions on what to do, and especially whether there's a way to get back the 1-1.5 hrs of battery life that were suddenly lost when changing from WinXp to Ubuntu 12.10. Thanks :)

Read the article
Soapi.CS : A fully relational fluent .NET Stack Exchange API client library

- by Sky Sanders

Soapi.CS for .Net / Silverlight / Windows Phone 7 / Mono as easy as breathing...: var context = new ApiContext(apiKey).Initialize(false); Question thisPost = context.Official .StackApps .Questions.ById(386) .WithComments(true) .First(); Console.WriteLine(thisPost.Title); thisPost .Owner .Questions .PageSize(5) .Sort(PostSort.Votes) .ToList() .ForEach(q=> { Console.WriteLine("\t" + q.Score + "\t" + q.Title); q.Timeline.ToList().ForEach(t=> Console.WriteLine("\t\t" + t.TimelineType + "\t" + t.Owner.DisplayName)); Console.WriteLine(); }); // if you can think it, you can get it. Output Soapi.CS : A fully relational fluent .NET Stack Exchange API client library 21 Soapi.CS : A fully relational fluent .NET Stack Exchange API client library Revision code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Answer code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet 14 SOAPI-WATCH: A realtime service that notifies subscribers via twitter when the API changes in any way. Votes code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Votes lfoust Votes code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Comment lfoust Votes code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Votes lfoust Votes code poet Revision code poet Comment Dave DeLong Revision code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Comment lfoust Comment Dave DeLong Comment lfoust Comment lfoust Comment Dave DeLong Revision code poet 11 SOAPI-EXPLORE: Self-updating single page JavaSript API test harness Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Comment code poet Question code poet Votes code poet 11 Soapi.JS V1.0: fluent JavaScript wrapper for the StackOverflow API Comment George Edison Comment George Edison Comment George Edison Comment George Edison Comment George Edison Comment George Edison Answer George Edison Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Answer code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Revision code poet Revision code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Votes code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet Comment code poet 9 SOAPI-DIFF: Your app broke? Check SOAPI-DIFF to find out what changed in the API Votes code poet Revision code poet Comment Dennis Williamson Answer Dennis Williamson Votes code poet Votes Dennis Williamson Comment code poet Question code poet Votes code poet About A robust, fully relational, easy to use, strongly typed, end-to-end StackOverflow API Client Library. Out of the box, Soapi provides you with a robust client library that abstracts away most all of the messy details of consuming the API and lets you concentrate on implementing your ideas. A few features include: A fully relational model of the API data set exposed via a fully 'dot navigable' IEnumerable (LINQ) implementation. Simply tell Soapi what you want and it will get it for you. e.g. "On my first question, from the author of the first comment, get the first page of comments by that person on any post" my.Questions.First().Comments.First().Owner.Comments.ToList(); (yes this is a real expression that returns the data as expressed!) Full coverage of the API, all routes and all parameters with an intuitive syntax. Strongly typed Domain Data Objects for all API data structures. Eager and Lazy Loading of 'stub' objects. Eager\Lazy loading may be disabled. When finer grained control of requests is desired, the core RouteMap objects may be leveraged to request data from any of the API paths using all available parameters as documented on the help pages. A rich Asynchronous implementation. A configurable request cache to reduce unnecessary network traffic and to simplify your usage logic. There is no need to go out of your way to be frugal. You may set a distinct cache duration for any particular route. A configurable request throttle to ensure compliance with the api terms of usage and to simplify your code in that you do not have to worry about and respond to 50X errors. The RequestCache and Throttled Queue are thread-safe, so can make as many requests as you like from as many threads as you like as fast as you like and not worry about abusing the api or having to write reams of management/compensation code. Configurable retry threshold that will, by default, make up to 3 attempts to retrieve a request before failing. Every request made by Soapi is properly formed and directed so most any http error will be the result of a timeout or other network infrastructure. A retry buffer provides a level of fault tolerance that you can rely on. An almost identical javascript library, Soapi.JS, and it's full figured big brother, Soapi.JS2, that will enable you to leverage your server cycles and bandwidth for only those tasks that require it and offload things like status updates to the client's browser. License Licensed GPL Version 2 license. Why is Soapi.CS GPL? Can I get an LGPL license for Soapi.CS? (hint: probably) Platforms .NET 3.5 .NET 4.0 Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 Windows Phone 7 Mono Download Source code lives @ http://soapics.codeplex.com. Binary releases are forthcoming. codeplex is acting up again. get the source and binaries @ http://bitbucket.org/bitpusher/soapi.cs/downloads The source is C# 3.5. and includes projects and solutions for the following IDEs Visual Studio 2008 Visual Studio 2010 ModoDevelop 2.4 Documentation Full documentation is available at http://soapi.info/help/cs/index.aspx Sample Code / Usage Examples Sample code and usage examples will be added as answers to this question. Full API Coverage all API routes are covered Full Parameter Parity If the API exposes it, Soapi giftwraps it for you. Building a simple app with Soapi.CS - a simple app that gathers all traces of a user in the whole stackiverse. Fluent Configuration - Setting up a Soapi.ApiContext could not be easier Bulk Data Import - A tiny app that quickly loads a SQLite data file with all users in the stackiverse. Paged Results - Soapi.CS transparently handles multi-page operations. Asynchronous Requests - Soapi.CS provides a rich asynchronous model that is especially useful when writing api apps in Silverlight or Windows Phone 7. Caching and Throttling - how and why Apps that use Soapi.CS Soapi.FindUser - .net utility for locating a user anywhere in the stackiverse Soapi.Explore - The entire API at your command Soapi.LastSeen - List users by last access time Add your app/site here - I know you are out there ;-) if you are not comfortable editing this post, simply add a comment and I will add it. The CS/SL/WP7/MONO libraries all compile the same code and with the exception of environmental considerations of Silverlight, the code samples are valid for all libraries. You may also find guidance in the test suites. More information on the SOAPI eco-system. Contact This library is currently the effort of me, Sky Sanders (code poet) and can be reached at gmail - sky.sanders Any who are interested in improving this library are welcome. Support Soapi You can help support this project by voting for Soapi's Open Source Ad post For more information about the origins of Soapi.CS and the rest of the Soapi eco-system see What is Soapi and why should I care?

Read the article
Blend for Visual Studio 2013 Prototyping Applications with SketchFlow

- by T

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tburger/archive/2014/08/10/blend-for-visual-studio-2013-prototyping-applications-with-sketchflow.aspxSketchFlow enables rapid creating of dynamic interface mockups very quickly. The SketchFlow workspace is the same as the standard Blend workspace with the inclusion of three panels: the SketchFlow Feedback panel, the SketchFlow Animation panel and the SketchFlow Map panel. By using SketchFlow to prototype, you can get feedback early in the process. It helps to surface possible issues, lower development iterations, and increase stakeholder buy in. SketchFlow prototypes not only provide an initial look but also provide a way to add additional ideas and input and make sure the team is on track prior to investing in complete development. When you have completed the prototyping, you can discard the prototype and just use the lessons learned to design the application from or extract individual elements from your prototype and include them in the application. I don’t recommend trying to transition the entire project into a development project. Objects that you add with the SketchFlow style have a hand-sketched look. The sketch style is used to remind stakeholders that this is a prototype. This encourages them to focus on the flow and functionality without getting distracted by design details. The sketchflow assets are under sketchflow in the asset panel and are identifiable by the postfix “–Sketch”. For example “Button-Sketch”. You can mix sketch and standard controls in your interface, if required. Be creative, if there is a missing control or your interface has a different look and feel than the out of the box one, reuse other sketch controls to mimic the functionality or look and feel. Only use standard controls if it doesn’t distract from the idea that this is a prototype and not a standard application. The SketchFlow Map panel provides information about the structure of your application. To create a new screen in your prototype: Right-click the map surface and choose “Create a Connected Screen”. Name the screens with names that are meaningful to the stakeholders. The start screen is the one that has the green arrow. To change the start screen, right click on any other screen and set to start screen. Only one screen can be the start screen at a time. Rounded screen are component screens to mimic reusable custom controls that will be built into the final application. You can change the colors of all of the boxes and should use colors to create functional groupings. The groupings can be identified in the SketchFlow Project Settings. To add connections between screens in the SketchFlow Map panel. Move the mouse over a screen in the SketchFlow and a menu will appear at the bottom of the screen node. In the menu, click Connect to an existing screen. Drag the arrow to another screen on the Map. You add navigation to your prototype by adding connections on the SketchFlow map or by adding navigation directly to items on your interface. To add navigation from objects on the artboard, right click the item then from the menu, choose “Navigate to”. This will expose a sub-menu with available screens, backward, or forward. When the map has connected screens, the SketchFlow Player displays the connected screens on the Navigate sidebar. All screens show in the SketchFlow Player Map. To see the SketchFlow Player, run your SketchFlow prototype. The Navigation sidebar is meant to show the desired user work flow. The map can be used to view the different screens regardless of suggested navigation in the navigation bar. The map is able to be hidden and shown. As mentioned, a component screen is a shared screen that is used in more than one screen and generally represents what will be a custom object in the application. To create a component screen, you can create a screen, right click on it in the SketchFlow Map and choose “Make into component screen”. You can mouse over a screen and from the menu that appears underneath, choose create and insert component screen. To use an existing screen, select if from the Asset panel under SketchFlow, Components. You can use Storyboards and Visual State animations in your SketchFlow project. However, SketchFlow also offers its own animation technique that is simpler and better suited for prototyping. The SketchFlow Animation panel is above your artboard by default. In SketchFlow animation, you create frames and then position the elements on your interface for each frame. You then specify elapsed time and any effects you want to apply to the transition. The + at the top is what creates new frames. Once you have a new Frame, select it and change the property you want to animate. In the example above, I changed the Text of the result box. You can adjust the time between frames in the lower area between the frames. The easing and effects functions are changed in the center between each frame. You edit the hold time for frames by clicking the clock icon in the lower left and the hold time will appear on each frame and can be edited. The FluidLayout icon (also located in the lower left) will create smooth transitions. Next to the FluidLayout icon is the name of that Animation. You can rename the animation by clicking on it and editing the name. The down arrow chevrons next to the name allow you to view the list of all animations in this prototype and select them for editing. To add the animation to the interface object (such as a button to start the animation), select the PlaySketchFlowAnimationAction from the SketchFlow behaviors in the Assets menu and drag it to an object on your interface. With the PlaySketchFlowAnimationAction that you just added selected in the Objects and Timeline, edit the properties to change the EventName to the event you want and choose the SketchFlowAnimation you want from the drop down list. You may want to add additional information to your screens that isn’t really part of the prototype but is relevant information or a request for clarification or feedback from the reviewer. You do this with annotations or notes. Both appear on the user interface, however, annotations can be switched on or off at design and review time. Notes cannot be switched off. To add an Annotation, chose the Create Annotation from the Tools menu. The annotation appears on the UI where you will add the notes. To display or Hide annotations, click the annotation toggle at the bottom right on the artboard . After to toggle annotations on, the identifier of the person who created them appears on the artboard and you must click that to expand the notes. To add a note to the artboard, simply select the Note-Sketch from Assets ->SketchFlow ->Styles ->Sketch Styles. Drag and drop it to the artboard and place where you want it. When you are ready for users to review the prototype, you have a few options available. Click File -> Export and choose one of the options from the list: Publish to Sharepoint, Package SketchFlowProject, Export to Microsoft Word, or Export as Images. I suggest you play with as many of the options as you can to see what they do. Both the Sharepoint and Packaged SketchFlowProject allow you to collect feedback from one or more users that you can import into the project. The user can make notes on the UI and in the Feedback area in the bottom left corner of the player. When the user is done adding feedback, it is exported from the right most folder icon in the My Feedback panel. Feeback is imported on a panel named SketchFlow Feedback. To get that panel to show up, select Window -> SketchFlow Feedback. Once you have the panel showing, click the + in the upper right of the panel and find the notes you exported. When imported, they will show up in a list and on the artboard. To document your prototype, use the Export to Microsoft Word option from the File menu. That should get you started with prototyping.

Read the article
Fraud Detection with the SQL Server Suite Part 2

- by Dejan Sarka

This is the second part of the fraud detection whitepaper. You can find the first part in my previous blog post about this topic. My Approach to Data Mining Projects It is impossible to evaluate the time and money needed for a complete fraud detection infrastructure in advance. Personally, I do not know the customer’s data in advance. I don’t know whether there is already an existing infrastructure, like a data warehouse, in place, or whether we would need to build one from scratch. Therefore, I always suggest to start with a proof-of-concept (POC) project. A POC takes something between 5 and 10 working days, and involves personnel from the customer’s site – either employees or outsourced consultants. The team should include a subject matter expert (SME) and at least one information technology (IT) expert. The SME must be familiar with both the domain in question as well as the meaning of data at hand, while the IT expert should be familiar with the structure of data, how to access it, and have some programming (preferably Transact-SQL) knowledge. With more than one IT expert the most time consuming work, namely data preparation and overview, can be completed sooner. I assume that the relevant data is already extracted and available at the very beginning of the POC project. If a customer wants to have their people involved in the project directly and requests the transfer of knowledge, the project begins with training. I strongly advise this approach as it offers the establishment of a common background for all people involved, the understanding of how the algorithms work and the understanding of how the results should be interpreted, a way of becoming familiar with the SQL Server suite, and more. Once the data has been extracted, the customer’s SME (i.e. the analyst), and the IT expert assigned to the project will learn how to prepare the data in an efficient manner. Together with me, knowledge and expertise allow us to focus immediately on the most interesting attributes and identify any additional, calculated, ones soon after. By employing our programming knowledge, we can, for example, prepare tens of derived variables, detect outliers, identify the relationships between pairs of input variables, and more, in only two or three days, depending on the quantity and the quality of input data. I favor the customer’s decision of assigning additional personnel to the project. For example, I actually prefer to work with two teams simultaneously. I demonstrate and explain the subject matter by applying techniques directly on the data managed by each team, and then both teams continue to work on the data overview and data preparation under our supervision. I explain to the teams what kind of results we expect, the reasons why they are needed, and how to achieve them. Afterwards we review and explain the results, and continue with new instructions, until we resolve all known problems. Simultaneously with the data preparation the data overview is performed. The logic behind this task is the same – again I show to the teams involved the expected results, how to achieve them and what they mean. This is also done in multiple cycles as is the case with data preparation, because, quite frankly, both tasks are completely interleaved. A specific objective of the data overview is of principal importance – it is represented by a simple star schema and a simple OLAP cube that will first of all simplify data discovery and interpretation of the results, and will also prove useful in the following tasks. The presence of the customer’s SME is the key to resolving possible issues with the actual meaning of the data. We can always replace the IT part of the team with another database developer; however, we cannot conduct this kind of a project without the customer’s SME. After the data preparation and when the data overview is available, we begin the scientific part of the project. I assist the team in developing a variety of models, and in interpreting the results. The results are presented graphically, in an intuitive way. While it is possible to interpret the results on the fly, a much more appropriate alternative is possible if the initial training was also performed, because it allows the customer’s personnel to interpret the results by themselves, with only some guidance from me. The models are evaluated immediately by using several different techniques. One of the techniques includes evaluation over time, where we use an OLAP cube. After evaluating the models, we select the most appropriate model to be deployed for a production test; this allows the team to understand the deployment process. There are many possibilities of deploying data mining models into production; at the POC stage, we select the one that can be completed quickly. Typically, this means that we add the mining model as an additional dimension to an existing DW or OLAP cube, or to the OLAP cube developed during the data overview phase. Finally, we spend some time presenting the results of the POC project to the stakeholders and managers. Even from a POC, the customer will receive lots of benefits, all at the sole risk of spending money and time for a single 5 to 10 day project: The customer learns the basic patterns of frauds and fraud detection The customer learns how to do the entire cycle with their own people, only relying on me for the most complex problems The customer’s analysts learn how to perform much more in-depth analyses than they ever thought possible The customer’s IT experts learn how to perform data extraction and preparation much more efficiently than they did before All of the attendees of this training learn how to use their own creativity to implement further improvements of the process and procedures, even after the solution has been deployed to production The POC output for a smaller company or for a subsidiary of a larger company can actually be considered a finished, production-ready solution It is possible to utilize the results of the POC project at subsidiary level, as a finished POC project for the entire enterprise Typically, the project results in several important “side effects” Improved data quality Improved employee job satisfaction, as they are able to proactively contribute to the central knowledge about fraud patterns in the organization Because eventually more minds get to be involved in the enterprise, the company should expect more and better fraud detection patterns After the POC project is completed as described above, the actual project would not need months of engagement from my side. This is possible due to our preference to transfer the knowledge onto the customer’s employees: typically, the customer will use the results of the POC project for some time, and only engage me again to complete the project, or to ask for additional expertise if the complexity of the problem increases significantly. I usually expect to perform the following tasks: Establish the final infrastructure to measure the efficiency of the deployed models Deploy the models in additional scenarios Through reports By including Data Mining Extensions (DMX) queries in OLTP applications to support real-time early warnings Include data mining models as dimensions in OLAP cubes, if this was not done already during the POC project Create smart ETL applications that divert suspicious data for immediate or later inspection I would also offer to investigate how the outcome could be transferred automatically to the central system; for instance, if the POC project was performed in a subsidiary whereas a central system is available as well Of course, for the actual project, I would repeat the data and model preparation as needed It is virtually impossible to tell in advance how much time the deployment would take, before we decide together with customer what exactly the deployment process should cover. Without considering the deployment part, and with the POC project conducted as suggested above (including the transfer of knowledge), the actual project should still only take additional 5 to 10 days. The approximate timeline for the POC project is, as follows: 1-2 days of training 2-3 days for data preparation and data overview 2 days for creating and evaluating the models 1 day for initial preparation of the continuous learning infrastructure 1 day for presentation of the results and discussion of further actions Quite frequently I receive the following question: are we going to find the best possible model during the POC project, or during the actual project? My answer is always quite simple: I do not know. Maybe, if we would spend just one hour more for data preparation, or create just one more model, we could get better patterns and predictions. However, we simply must stop somewhere, and the best possible way to do this, according to my experience, is to restrict the time spent on the project in advance, after an agreement with the customer. You must also never forget that, because we build the complete learning infrastructure and transfer the knowledge, the customer will be capable of doing further investigations independently and improve the models and predictions over time without the need for a constant engagement with me.

Read the article
DBCC CHECKDB on VVLDB and latches (Or: My Pain is Your Gain)

- by Argenis

Does your CHECKDB hurt, Argenis? There is a classic blog series by Paul Randal [blog|twitter] called “CHECKDB From Every Angle” which is pretty much mandatory reading for anybody who’s even remotely considering going for the MCM certification, or its replacement (the Microsoft Certified Solutions Master: Data Platform – makes my fingers hurt just from typing it). Of particular interest is the post “Consistency Options for a VLDB” – on it, Paul provides solid, timeless advice (I use the word “timeless” because it was written in 2007, and it all applies today!) on how to perform checks on very large databases. Well, here I was trying to figure out how to make CHECKDB run faster on a restored copy of one of our databases, which happens to exceed 7TB in size. The whole thing was taking several days on multiple systems, regardless of the storage used – SAS, SATA or even SSD…and I actually didn’t pay much attention to how long it was taking, or even bothered to look at the reasons why - as long as it was finishing okay and found no consistency errors. Yes – I know. That was a huge mistake, as corruption found in a database several days after taking place could only allow for further spread of the corruption – and potentially large data loss. In the last two weeks I increased my attention towards this problem, as we noticed that CHECKDB was taking EVEN LONGER on brand new all-flash storage in the SAN! I couldn’t really explain it, and were almost ready to blame the storage vendor. The vendor told us that they could initially see the server driving decent I/O – around 450Mb/sec, and then it would settle at a very slow rate of 10Mb/sec or so. “Hum”, I thought – “CHECKDB is just not pushing the I/O subsystem hard enough”. Perfmon confirmed the vendor’s observations. Dreaded @BlobEater What was CHECKDB doing all the time while doing so little I/O? Eating Blobs. It turns out that CHECKDB was taking an extremely long time on one of our frankentables, which happens to be have 35 billion rows (yup, with a b) and sucks up several terabytes of space in the database. We do have a project ongoing to purge/split/partition this table, so it’s just a matter of time before we deal with it. But the reality today is that CHECKDB is coming to a screeching halt in performance when dealing with this particular table. Checking sys.dm_os_waiting_tasks and sys.dm_os_latch_stats showed that LATCH_EX (DBCC_OBJECT_METADATA) was by far the top wait type. I remembered hearing recently about that wait from another post that Paul Randal made, but that was related to computed-column indexes, and in fact, Paul himself reminded me of his article via twitter. But alas, our pathologic table had no non-clustered indexes on computed columns. I knew that latches are used by the database engine to do internal synchronization – but how could I help speed this up? After all, this is stuff that doesn’t have a lot of knobs to tweak. (There’s a fantastic level 500 talk by Bob Ward from Microsoft CSS [blog|twitter] called “Inside SQL Server Latches” given at PASS 2010 – and you can check it out here. DISCLAIMER: I assume no responsibility for any brain melting that might ensue from watching Bob’s talk!) Failed Hypotheses Earlier on this week I flew down to Palo Alto, CA, to visit our Headquarters – and after having a great time with my Monkey peers, I was relaxing on the plane back to Seattle watching a great talk by SQL Server MVP and fellow MCM Maciej Pilecki [twitter] called “Masterclass: A Day in the Life of a Database Transaction” where he discusses many different topics related to transaction management inside SQL Server. Very good stuff, and when I got home it was a little late – that slow DBCC CHECKDB that I had been dealing with was way in the back of my head. As I was looking at the problem at hand earlier on this week, I thought “How about I set the database to read-only?” I remembered one of the things Maciej had (jokingly) said in his talk: “if you don’t want locking and blocking, set the database to read-only” (or something to that effect, pardon my loose memory). I immediately killed the CHECKDB which had been running painfully for days, and set the database to read-only mode. Then I ran DBCC CHECKDB against it. It started going really fast (even a bit faster than before), and then throttled down again to around 10Mb/sec. All sorts of expletives went through my head at the time. Sure enough, the same latching scenario was present. Oh well. I even spent some time trying to figure out if NUMA was hurting performance. Folks on Twitter made suggestions in this regard (thanks, Lonny! [twitter]) …Eureka? This past Friday I was still scratching my head about the whole thing; I was ready to start profiling with XPERF to see if I could figure out which part of the engine was to blame and then get Microsoft to look at the evidence. After getting a bunch of good news I’ll blog about separately, I sat down for a figurative smack down with CHECKDB before the weekend. And then the light bulb went on. A sparse column. I thought that I couldn’t possibly be experiencing the same scenario that Paul blogged about back in March showing extreme latching with non-clustered indexes on computed columns. Did I even have a non-clustered index on my sparse column? As it turns out, I did. I had one filtered non-clustered index – with the sparse column as the index key (and only column). To prove that this was the problem, I went and setup a test. Yup, that'll do it The repro is very simple for this issue: I tested it on the latest public builds of SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 (CU6) and SQL Server 2012 SP1 (CU4). First, create a test database and a test table, which only needs to contain a sparse column: CREATE DATABASE SparseColTest; GO USE SparseColTest; GO CREATE TABLE testTable (testCol smalldatetime SPARSE NULL); GO INSERT INTO testTable (testCol) VALUES (NULL); GO 1000000 That’s 1 million rows, and even though you’re inserting NULLs, that’s going to take a while. In my laptop, it took 3 minutes and 31 seconds. Next, we run DBCC CHECKDB against the database: DBCC CHECKDB('SparseColTest') WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS; This runs extremely fast, as least on my test rig – 198 milliseconds. Now let’s create a filtered non-clustered index on the sparse column: CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [badBadIndex] ON testTable (testCol) WHERE testCol IS NOT NULL; With the index in place now, let’s run DBCC CHECKDB one more time: DBCC CHECKDB('SparseColTest') WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS; In my test system this statement completed in 11433 milliseconds. 11.43 full seconds. Quite the jump from 198 milliseconds. I went ahead and dropped the filtered non-clustered indexes on the restored copy of our production database, and ran CHECKDB against that. We went down from 7+ days to 19 hours and 20 minutes. Cue the “Argenis is not impressed” meme, please, Mr. LaRock. My pain is your gain, folks. Go check to see if you have any of such indexes – they’re likely causing your consistency checks to run very, very slow. Happy CHECKDBing, -Argenis ps: I plan to file a Connect item for this issue – I consider it a pretty serious bug in the engine. After all, filtered indexes were invented BECAUSE of the sparse column feature – and it makes a lot of sense to use them together. Watch this space and my twitter timeline for a link.

Read the article
Profiling Startup Of VS2012 – SpeedTrace Profiler

- by Alois Kraus

SpeedTrace is a relatively unknown profiler made a company called Ipcas. A single professional license does cost 449€+VAT. For the test I did use SpeedTrace 4.5 which is currently Beta. Although it is cheaper than dotTrace it has by far the most options to influence how profiling does work. First you need to create a tracing project which does configure tracing for one process type. You can start the application directly from the profiler or (much more interesting) it does attach to a specific process when it is started. For this you need to check “Trace the specified …” radio button and enter the process name in the “Process Name of the Trace” edit box. You can even selectively enable tracing for processes with a specific command line. Then you need to activate the trace project by pressing the Activate Project button and you are ready to start VS as usual. If you want to profile the next 10 VS instances that you start you can set the Number of Processes counter to e.g. 10. This is immensely helpful if you are trying to profile only the next 5 started processes. As you can see there are many more tabs which do allow to influence tracing in a much more sophisticated way. SpeedTrace is the only profiler which does not rely entirely on the profiling Api of .NET. Instead it does modify the IL code (instrumentation on the fly) to write tracing information to disc which can later be analyzed. This approach is not only very fast but it does give you unprecedented analysis capabilities. Once the traces are collected they do show up in your workspace where you can open the trace viewer. I do skip the other windows because this view is by far the most useful one. You can sort the methods not only by Wall Clock time but also by CPU consumption and wait time which none of the other products support in their views at the same time. If you want to optimize for CPU consumption sort by CPU time. If you want to find out where most time is spent you need Clock Total time and Clock Waiting. There you can directly see if the method did take long because it did wait on something or it did really execute stuff that did take so long. Once you have found a method you want to drill deeper you can double click on a method to get to the Caller/Callee view which is similar to the JetBrains Method Grid view. But this time you do see much more. In the middle is the clicked method. Above are the methods that call you and below are the methods that you do directly call. Normally you would then start digging deeper to find the end of the chain where the slow method worth optimizing is located. But there is a shortcut. You can press the magic button to calculate the aggregation of all called methods. This is displayed in the lower left window where you can see each method call and how long it did take. There you can also sort to see if this call stack does only contain methods (e.g. WCF connect calls which you cannot make faster) not worth optimizing. YourKit has a similar feature where it is called Callees List. In the Functions tab you have in the context menu also many other useful analysis options One really outstanding feature is the View Call History Drilldown. When you select this one you get not a sum of all method invocations but a list with the duration of each method call. This is not surprising since SpeedTrace does use tracing to get its timings. There you can get many useful graphs how this method did behave over time. Did it become slower at some point in time or was only the first call slow? The diagrams and the list will tell you that. That is all fine but what should I do when one method call was slow? I want to see from where it was coming from. No problem select the method in the list hit F10 and you get the call stack. This is a life saver if you e.g. search for serialization problems. Today Serializers are used everywhere. You want to find out from where the 5s XmlSerializer.Deserialize call did come from? Hit F10 and you get the call stack which did invoke the 5s Deserialize call. The CPU timeline tab is also useful to find out where long pauses or excessive CPU consumption did happen. Click in the graph to get the Thread Stacks window where you can get a quick overview what all threads were doing at this time. This does look like the Stack Traces feature in YourKit. Only this time you get the last called method first which helps to quickly see what all threads were executing at this moment. YourKit does generate a rather long list which can be hard to go through when you have many threads. The thread list in the middle does not give you call stacks or anything like that but you see which methods were found most often executing code by the profiler which is a good indication for methods consuming most CPU time. This does sound too good to be true? I have not told you the best part yet. The best thing about this profiler is the staff behind it. When I do see a crash or some other odd behavior I send a mail to Ipcas and I do get usually the next day a mail that the problem has been fixed and a download link to the new version. The guys at Ipcas are even so helpful to log in to your machine via a Citrix Client to help you to get started profiling your actual application you want to profile. After a 2h telco I was converted from a hater to a believer of this tool. The fast response time might also have something to do with the fact that they are actively working on 4.5 to get out of the door. But still the support is by far the best I have encountered so far. The only downside is that you should instrument your assemblies including the .NET Framework to get most accurate numbers. You can profile without doing it but then you will see very high JIT times in your process which can severely affect the correctness of the measured timings. If you do not care about exact numbers you can also enable in the main UI in the Data Trace tab logging of method arguments of primitive types. If you need to know what files at which times were opened by your application you can find it out without a debugger. Since SpeedTrace does read huge trace files in its reader you should perhaps use a 64 bit machine to be able to analyze bigger traces as well. The memory consumption of the trace reader is too high for my taste. But they did promise for the next version to come up with something much improved.

Read the article
H1 Visa interview tips–What you must know before attending the interview?

- by Gopinath

USA’s H1 visa allows highly qualified professionals from other countries to work in America. Many IT professionals in India aspire to go to USA on H1 and work for their clients. Recently I had a chance to study H1 visa process to help one of my friends and I would like to share what I learned. With the assumption that your H1 petition is approved and you got an interview scheduled at US Embassy for your visa stamping, here are tips you must know before attending the interview Dress Code – Formals Say no to casuals or any fancy dress when you attend the interview. It’s not a party or friends home you are visiting. Consider H1 Visa interview as your job interview and dress up in formals. There is no option B for your, you must be in formals. A plain formal shirt with a matching pant is suggested for men. Tie and Suit would not be required, but if you are a professional at management level you can consider wearing suit. Women can wear either formal Salwar or formal pant-shirt. Avoid heavy jewellery, wear what is must as per your tradition or culture. Body Language - Smile on your face Your body language reflects what you are and what’s going on in your mind. Don’t be nervous or restless, be relaxed and wear a beautiful smile on your face. A smile is a curve that sets everything straight. When you are called for the interview, greet the interviewer with a beautiful smile. Say Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening depending on time you are visiting them. Whenever appropriate say Thank You. Generally American professionals are very friendly people and they reciprocate for your greetings. Make sure that you make them comfortable to start the interview. Carry original documents in a separate folder I don’t want to talk much about the documents that are required for your H1B interview as it’s big subject on it’s own and it requires a separate post. I assume that your consultant or employer helped you in gathering all the required documents like – petition, DS 160 forms, education & job related documents, resume, interview call letters, client letters, etc. For all the documents you are going to submit at the interview make sure that you have originals in a separate folder. If required interviewer may ask you show the originals of any of the document you submitted for visa processing. Don’t mix the original documents with the documents you need to submit for interview. Have a separate folder for them. For those who are going to stamping along with their spouse and children, they need to carry few extra original documents like – marriage certificate, marriage photos(30 numbers)/album, birth certificates, passports, education and profession related certificates of the spouse and children. Know your role & responsibilities The interviewer will ask you questions on your roles and responsibilities at client location. Be clear what is your day to day tasks at client place and prepared to face detailed questions on the same. When asked explain clearly and also make sure what you say is inline with what is mentioned in your petition and client invitation letter. At times they may ask you questions specific to the project/technology you are going to work. So doing some homework in this area will help you easily answer the questions. Failing to answer basic questions on your role & responsibilities may result in rejection. You work for your Employer at Client location but NOT FOR CLIENT One of the important things to keep in mind that you work for your employer and you are being deputed to client location on a work visa. Your employer is going to be solely responsible for your salary, work, promotion, pay hikes or what so ever during your stay at USA. Your client will not be responsible for anything. Lets say you are employed with Company X in India and they are applying for H1B to work at your client(ex: Microsoft) in USA, you must keep in my mind that Microsoft is not your employer. Microsoft will not pay your salaries or responsible for any employment related activities. Company X will be solely responsible for all your employer related activities. If you don’t get this correctly and say to Visa interviewer that your client is responsible, then you may get into troubles. Know your client It’s always good to know the clients with whom you are going to work in USA and their business. If your client is a well know organisation then you may not get many questions from interviewer else you need to be well prepared to provide details like – nature of business, location, size of the organisation, etc. Get to know the basic details about your client and be confident while providing those details to the interviewer. Also make sure that you never talk about any confidential details of your client projects and business. Revealing confidential details of your client may land your job itself in soup. Make sure that your spouse is also in sync with you If you’ve applied a H4 visa for your spouse along with your H1, make sure that spouse is in sync with you. Your spouse also should know the basic details of your job, your employer, client and location where you will be travelling. Your spouse should also be prepared to answers questions related to marriage, their profession(if working), kids, education, etc. Interviewers will try to asses your spouse communication skills, whereabouts while staying in USA and would they prefer to work USA or not. On H4, which is a dependent visa, your spouse is not allowed to work in USA and at any point your spouse should not show the intentions to search for work in USA. Less luggage more comfort You would have definitely heard that there are lot of restrictions on what you can carry along with you to an US Embassy while attending the interview. To be frank it’s not good to say there are many restrictions, but there are a hell a lot of restrictions. There are unbelievable restrictions and it’s for the safety of everyone. You are not allowed to carry mobile phones, CD/DVDs, USBs, bank cards, cameras, cosmetics, food(except baby food), water, wallets, backpacks, sealed covers, etc. Trust me most of the things we carry with us regularly every day are not allowed inside. As there are 100s of restrictions, it would be easier if you understand what you can carry along with you and just carry them alone. Ask your employer/consultant to provide you a checklist of items that you can carry. Most what you would require are H1B related documents provided by the employer/consultant Photographs All original documents supporting your H1B Passports Some cash for your travel expenses (avoid coins) Any important phone number / details written in a paper(like your cab driver number, etc.) If you carry restricted stuff then you will be stopped at security checks, you have to find people who can safely keep all the restricted items. Due to heavy restrictions in and around the US Embassy you will not find any place to keep your luggage. So just carry the bare minimum things required so that you feel more comfortable. Useful Links THE U.S. NON IMMIGRANT VISA APPLICATION PROCESS U.S VISA SECURITY REGULATIONS GENERAL FAQS Hope this information is helpful to you and best of luck for your interview. Creative commons Image credit: Flickr/ alexfrance, vinothchandar. hughelectronic, architratan, striatic

Read the article
7 Good Reasons to Upgrade E-Business Suite to the cloud

- by Lisa Schwartz

v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} As promised here is blog Part 2: Why Upgrade to Oracle E-Business Suite 12 in the cloud? 7 Good Reasons to Upgrade to E-Business Suite 12 in the Cloud: 1) Take advantage of new and improved features: from global sub-ledger accounting to mobile access for supply chain management to built-in extensions for information search and discovery. If you haven’t checked out the latest features yet, there are over 1000 EBS 12 enhancements. 2) Plan now to address any ongoing Oracle Support considerations and regulatory compliance requirements. EBS Release 11 support is ending soon. Based upon that information alone, you should have an EBS upgrade strategy and planning well underway. 3) Customizations got you worried? Expedite your next Oracle E-Business Suite upgrade – have Oracle identify all customizations, reduce un-needed customizations (EBS 12 has built-in many of your customizations) and during the upgrade keep all necessary customizations to run your business. 4) Migrating EBS to the cloud allows parallel migration and testing. Therefore no extra hardware purchases for the testing and upgrade. Business disruption is minimized. And, by moving to the cloud, this provides for smoother future upgrades that are based on your own timeline. 5) Oracle Experts will upgrade and run your EBS applications for you in the cloud. Free your IT resources to develop new services and work on projects that are critical to business innovation and competitiveness. Your IT resources will not be inundated with upgrade tasks! 6) Reallocate precious IT dollars to other projects, eliminate CapEx costs. 7) Oracle minimizes business risk by having enterprise class cloud services under stringent SLAs designed to run your business applications for you such as: a. Enterprise grade infrastructure b. World-class security and identity management c. Best practices in regulatory compliance: from classified federal gov’t standards, to healthcare HIPPA standards to meeting Financial Services requirements (PCI DSS) Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} 7 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Next Step: To help you upgrade and get to the cloud in the shortest period of time, Oracle has a program called Oracle Upgrade Factory for Oracle E-Business Suite 12. It offers a unique approach, seamlessly bundling Managed Cloud Services and Oracle Consulting Services together for an entire Oracle E-Business Suite upgrade and migration to a managed private cloud. Read the Oracle Upgrade Factory Solution Brief here. Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

Read the article
Solaris 11 SRU / Update relationship explained, and blackout period on delivery of new bug fixes eliminated

- by user12244672

Relationship between SRUs and Update releases As you may know, Support Repository Updates (SRUs) for Oracle Solaris 11 are released monthly and are available to customers with an appropriate support contract. SRUs primarily deliver bug fixes. They may also deliver low risk feature enhancements. Solaris Update are typically released once or twice a year, containing support for new hardware, new software feature enhancements, and all bug fixes available at the time the Update content was finalized. They also contain a significant number of new bug fixes, for issues found internally in Oracle and complex customer bug fixes which require significant "soak" time to ensure their efficacy prior to release. Changes to SRU and Update Naming Conventions We're changing the naming convention of Update releases from a date based format such as Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 to a simpler "dot" version numbering, e.g. Oracle Solaris 11.1. Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 (i.e. the initial Oracle Solaris 11 release) may be referred to as 11.0. SRUs will simply be named as "dot.dot" releases, e.g. Oracle Solaris 11.1.1, for SRU1 after Oracle Solaris 11.1. Many Oracle products and infrastructure tools such as BugDB and MOS are tailored towards this "dot.dot" style of release naming, so these name changes align Oracle Solaris with these conventions. No Blackout Periods on Bug Fix Releases The Oracle Solaris 11 release process has been enhanced to eliminate blackout periods on the delivery of new bug fixes to customers. Previously, Oracle Solaris Updates were a superset of all preceding bug fix deliveries. This made for a very simple update message - that which releases later is always a superset of that which was delivered previously. However, it had a downside. Once the contents of an Update release were frozen prior to release, the release of new bug fixes for customer issues was also frozen to maintain the Update's superset relationship. Since the amount of change allowed into the final internal builds of an Update release is reduced to mitigate risk, this throttling back also impacted the release of new bug fixes to customers. This meant that there was effectively a 6 to 9 week hiatus on the release of new bug fixes prior to the release of each Update. That wasn't good for customers awaiting critical bug fixes. We've eliminated this hiatus on the delivery of new bug fixes in Oracle Solaris 11 by allowing new bug fixes to continue to be released in SRUs even after the contents of the next Update release have been frozen. The release of SRUs will remain contiguous, with the first SRU released after the Update release effectively being a superset of both the the Update release and all preceding SRUs*. That is, later SRUs are supersets of the content of previous SRUs. Therefore, the progression path from the final SRUs prior to the Update release is to the first SRU after the Update release, rather than to the Update release itself. The timeline / logical sequence of releases can be shown as follows: Updates: 11.0 11.1 11.2 etc. \ \ \ SRUs: 11.0.1, 11.0.2,...,11.0.12, 11.0.13, 11.1.1, 11.1.2,...,11.1.x, 11.2.1, etc. For example, for systems with Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 SRU12.4 or later installed, the recommended update path is to Oracle Solaris 11.1.1 (i.e. SRU1 after Solaris 11.1) or later rather than to the Solaris 11.1 release itself. This will ensure no bug fixes are "lost" during the update. If for any reason you do wish to update from SRU12.4 or later to the 11.1 release itself - for example to update a test system - the instructions to do so are in the SRU12.4 README, https://updates.oracle.com/Orion/Services/download?type=readme&aru=15564533 For systems with Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 SRU11.4 or earlier installed, customers can update to either the 11.1 release or any 11.1 SRU as both will be supersets of their current version. Please do read the README of the SRU you are updating to, as it will contain important installation instructions which will save you time and effort. *Nerdy details: SRUs only contain the latest change delta relative to the Update on which they are based. Their dependencies will, however, effectively pull in the Update content. Customers maintaining a local Repo (e.g. behind their firewall), need to add both the 11.1 content and the relevant SRU content to their Repo, to enable the SRU's dependencies to be resolved. Both will be available from the standard Support Repo and from MOS. This is no different to existing SRUs for Oracle Solaris 11.0, whereby you may often get away with using just the SRU content to update, but the original 11.0 content may be needed in the Repo to resolve dependencies.

Read the article
ANTS CLR and Memory Profiler In Depth Review (Part 2 of 2 – Memory Profiler)

- by ToStringTheory

One of the things that people might not know about me, is my obsession to make my code as efficient as possible. Many people might not realize how much of a task or undertaking that this might be, but it is surely a task as monumental as climbing Mount Everest, except this time it is a challenge for the mind… In trying to make code efficient, there are many different factors that play a part – size of project or solution, tiers, language used, experience and training of the programmer, technologies used, maintainability of the code – the list can go on for quite some time. I spend quite a bit of time when developing trying to determine what is the best way to implement a feature to accomplish the efficiency that I look to achieve. One program that I have recently come to learn about – Red Gate ANTS Performance (CLR) and Memory profiler gives me tools to accomplish that job more efficiently as well. In this review, I am going to cover some of the features of the ANTS memory profiler set by compiling some hideous example code to test against. Notice As a member of the Geeks With Blogs Influencers program, one of the perks is the ability to review products, in exchange for a free license to the program. I have not let this affect my opinions of the product in any way, and Red Gate nor Geeks With Blogs has tried to influence my opinion regarding this product in any way. Introduction – Part 2 In my last post, I reviewed the feature packed Red Gate ANTS Performance Profiler. Separate from the Red Gate Performance Profiler is the Red Gate ANTS Memory Profiler – a simple, easy to use utility for checking how your application is handling memory management… A tool that I wish I had had many times in the past. This post will be focusing on the ANTS Memory Profiler and its tool set. The memory profiler has a large assortment of features just like the Performance Profiler, with the new session looking nearly exactly alike: ANTS Memory Profiler Memory profiling is not something that I have to do very often… In the past, the few cases I’ve had to find a memory leak in an application I have usually just had to trace the code of the operations being performed to look for oddities… Sadly, I have come across more undisposed/non-using’ed IDisposable objects, usually from ADO.Net than I would like to ever see. Support is not fun, however using ANTS Memory Profiler makes this task easier. For this round of testing, I am going to use the same code from my previous example, using the WPF application. This time, I will choose the ‘Profile Memory’ option from the ANTS menu in Visual Studio, which launches the solution in its currently configured state/start-up project, and then launches the ANTS Memory Profiler to help. It prepopulates all of the fields with the current project information, and all I have to do is select the ‘Start Profiling’ option. When the window comes up, it is actually quite barren, just giving ideas on how to work the profiler. You start by getting to the point in your application that you want to profile, and then taking a ‘Memory Snapshot’. This performs a full garbage collection, and snapshots the managed heap. Using the same WPF app as before, I will go ahead and take a snapshot now. As you can see, ANTS is already giving me lots of information regarding the snapshot, however this is just a snapshot. The whole point of the profiler is to perform an action, usually one where a memory problem is being noticed, and then take another snapshot and perform a diff between them to see what has changed. I am going to go ahead and generate 5000 primes, and then take another snapshot: As you can see, ANTS is already giving me a lot of new information about this snapshot compared to the last. Information such as difference in memory usage, fragmentation, class usage, etc… If you take more snapshots, you can use the dropdown at the top to set your actual comparison snapshots. If you beneath the timeline, you will see a breadcrumb trail showing how best to approach profiling memory using ANTS. When you first do the comparison, you start on the Summary screen. You can either use the charts at the bottom, or switch to the class list screen to get to the next step. Here is the class list screen: As you can see, it lists information about all of the instances between the snapshots, as well as at the bottom giving you a way to filter by telling ANTS what your problem is. I am going to go ahead and select the Int16[] to look at the Instance Categorizer Using the instance categorizer, you can travel backwards to see where all of the instances are coming from. It may be hard to see in this image, but hopefully the lightbox (click on it) will help: I can see that all of these instances are rooted to the application through the UI TextBlock control. This image will probably be even harder to see, however using the ‘Instance Retention Graph’, you can trace an objects memory inheritance up the chain to see its roots as well. This is a simple example, as this is simply a known element. Usually you would be profiling an actual problem, and comparing those differences. I know in the past, I have spotted a problem where a new context was created per page load, and it was rooted into the application through an event. As the application began to grow, performance and reliability problems started to emerge. A tool like this would have been a great way to identify the problem quickly. Overview Overall, I think that the Red Gate ANTS Memory Profiler is a great utility for debugging those pesky leaks. 3 Biggest Pros: Easy to use interface with lots of options for configuring profiling session Intuitive and helpful interface for drilling down from summary, to instance, to root graphs ANTS provides an API for controlling the profiler. Not many options, but still helpful. 2 Biggest Cons: Inability to automatically snapshot the memory by interval Lack of complete integration with Visual Studio via an extension panel Ratings Ease of Use (9/10) – I really do believe that they have brought simplicity to the once difficult task of memory profiling. I especially liked how it stepped you further into the drilldown by directing you towards the best options. Effectiveness (10/10) – I believe that the profiler does EXACTLY what it purports to do. Features (7/10) – A really great set of features all around in the application, however, I would like to see some ability for automatically triggering snapshots based on intervals or framework level items such as events. Customer Service (10/10) – My entire experience with Red Gate personnel has been nothing but good. their people are friendly, helpful, and happy! UI / UX (9/10) – The interface is very easy to get around, and all of the options are easy to find. With a little bit of poking around, you’ll be optimizing Hello World in no time flat! Overall (9/10) – Overall, I am happy with the Memory Profiler and its features, as well as with the service I received when working with the Red Gate personnel. Thank you for reading up to here, or skipping ahead – I told you it would be shorter! Please, if you do try the product, drop me a message and let me know what you think! I would love to hear any opinions you may have on the product. Code Feel free to download the code I used above – download via DropBox

Read the article

Search Results

Search found 1184 results on 48 pages for 'acer aspire timeline'.

Page 46/48 | < Previous Page | 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 | Next Page >

- by Lasanha

- by piratejackus

- by Searock

- by AisIceEyes

- by Faabiioo

- by Chris Dunaway

- by Hafizi Vilie

- by DrOnline

- by Joel

- by dave1019

- by DexCurl

- by Pascal Schuster

- by Dennis Vroegop

- by Mark Scott

- by Tim Murphy

- by zondu

- by Sky Sanders

- by T

- by Dejan Sarka

- by Argenis

- by Alois Kraus

- by Gopinath

- by Lisa Schwartz

- by user12244672

- by ToStringTheory

< Previous Page | 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 | Next Page >