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• Can't detect hard drive on Macbook Pro

  - by MartinMoizard

  I changed a few month ago the config of my Macbook Pro with the following: I bought a SSD hard drive I removed the hard drive of my Mac book Pro and installed there my brand new SSD Then I removed my DVD drive and installed my hold hard drive instead with a caddy Everything was working great until today when I couldn't access anymore to my old hard drive because it is not detected anymore. Sometimes Mac OSX is mounting it but it takes like 15 min to browse a simple folder. I opened my laptop to have a look at the problem. It seemed like the optical drive connector was not plugged correctly to the motherboard (that connector: http://cl.ly/2T0X2e1j0J1g47061d1t). So I plugged it correctly and reboot. It didn't fix my problem. Then I tried to put my SSD in the caddy and to boot: no hard drive was detected. So I guess there is something wrong either with the caddy, either with the optical drive connector, or either with the plug that is on the motherboard. So my question is, how can I know where the problem comes from?

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• Windows 7 / TCP/IP network share guide - looking for to resolve failure to mount lacie network drive but works on XP,Linux,Mac.

  - by Rob

  Can anyone advise me of a really good, readable, Windows 7 TCP/IP network share guide, book, or reference. I want this because I cannot mount my Lacie 2big ethernet network drive in Windows 7 (32 bit home), but I can mount it in Windows XP Home 32bit, Ubuntu Linux 10.04 and Apple MacOS X. This drive is being mounted via the accompanying Lacie Ethernet Agent in XP (which I believe uses "Bonjour" protocol), on Mac and Linux it works without further need for software. Another Super User user has the same problem, but no answer: Trouble accessing network drives in Windows 7 I hope my take on the question shows a better willingness to investigate and do some digging - and therefore invite some suggestions to help with this. The drive is detected by Windows 7 (i.e. speech bubble "network drive found") but on trying to open an Explorer window, this remains blank with the Windows busy pointer. I'd prefer not to reinstall Windows 7 to see if that cures the problem, I'd rather understand what is happening/not happening, perhaps even compare differences with Windows XP. Suggestions, please for such guides or even the original problem itself. Update Edit Rewrote question more comprehensively here: Mhttp://superuser.com/questions/304209/looking-for-definitive-answer-to-accessing-a-network-share-via-windows-7-home-and

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• Strategy for Incremental Datasource fetchings in Excel

  - by user1352530

  I am in an scenario with a table that is refresh by a third app every week. I need to keep accumulating all data in Excel, using an ODBC connection to the database. I am wondering Approach 1: Is there a way to force Excel to append results for every update (this update would be triggered according to a parameter that indicates week)? I tried to define the table for which the connection loads using a dynamic reference but once is anchored first time, table position is never redefined Approach 2: Use an ETL to accumulate all weekly results into a staging table and then connect Excel to it in real time. But, I would need a mechanism for caching old data, as I cannot grow exponentially the time Excel opens. Imagine after 10 years, Excel would need to update at opening 10 years fo data before showing it. Is there a way to store already fetched data and increment it at real time (when book is opened) by selecting new data (with a query/filter of something) Thanks EDIT: Maybe it's better to ask it that way: What is the optimal strategy for a table that keeps growing and needs to be read in real time by Excel? I just don't want to fetch absolutely all data after some months...

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• Un-do Windows disk convert HFS+

  - by BLAKE

  Last night, a friend asked my to give him a copy of a word document. He handed me an external hard drive and left. I plugged the hard drive into my file server running Windows Server 2003, opened disk management and clicked OK. (I know that in Windows 2003 you need to manually assign a drive letter to external drives.) I then looked at the drive in disk management and it said that it was unallocated space. I called my friend and he said that there was data on the drive, but he used it with his Mac Book. Aperantly when I clicked OK in disk management I converted the from HFS+ file system to something else. Is there any way to undo the disk convert? I immediately removed the drive, so there was no writing to it. Windows did not format the drive, it just converted it. Is the data still there? All the data recovery programs I have are for windows, can they read the Mac file system? I need to get the data back, what can I do?

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• How to make XAMPP virtual hosts accessible to VM's and other computers on LAN?

  - by martin's

  XAMPP running on Vista 64 Ultimate dev machine (don't think it matters). Machine / Browser configuration Safari, Firefox, Chrome and IE9 on dev machine IE7 and IE8 on separate XP Pro VM's (VMWare on dev machine) IE10 and Chrome on Windows 8 VM (VMware on dev machine) Safari, Firefox and Chrome running on a iMac (same network as dev) Safari, Firefox and Chrome running on a couple of Mac Pro's (same network as dev) IE7, IE8, IE9 running on other PC's on the same network as dev machine Development Configuration Multiple virtual hosts for different projects .local fake TLD for development No firewall restrictions on dev machine for Apache Some sites have .htaccess mapping www to non-www Port 80 is open in the dev machine's firewall Problem XAMPP local home page (http://192.168.1.98/xampp/) can be accessed from everywhere, real or virtual, by IP All .local sites can be accessed from the browsers on the dev machine. All .local sites can be accessed form the browsers in the XP VM's. Some .local sites cannot be accessed from IE10 or Chrome on the W8 VM Sites that cannot be accessed from W8 VM have a minimal .htaccess file No .local sites can be accessed from ANY machine (PC or Mac) on the LAN hosts on dev machine (relevant excerpt) 127.0.0.1 site1.local 127.0.0.1 site2.local 127.0.0.1 site3.local 127.0.0.1 site4.local 127.0.0.1 site5.local 127.0.0.1 site6.local 127.0.0.1 site7.local 127.0.0.1 site8.local 127.0.0.1 site9.local 192.168.1.98 site1.local 192.168.1.98 site2.local 192.168.1.98 site3.local 192.168.1.98 site4.local 192.168.1.98 site5.local 192.168.1.98 site6.local 192.168.1.98 site7.local 192.168.1.98 site8.local 192.168.1.98 site9.local httpd-vhosts.conf on dev machine (relevant excerpt) NameVirtualHost *:80 <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName localhost ServerAlias localhost *.localhost.* DocumentRoot D:/xampp/htdocs </VirtualHost> # ======================================== site1.local <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName site1.local ServerAlias site1.local *.site1.local DocumentRoot D:/xampp-sites/site1/public_html ErrorLog D:/xampp-sites/site1/logs/access.log CustomLog D:/xampp-sites/site1/logs/error.log combined <Directory D:/xampp-sites/site1> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Require all granted </Directory> </VirtualHost> NOTE: The above <VirtualHost *:80> block is repeated for each of the nine virtual hosts in the file, no sense in posting it here. hosts on all VM's and physical machines on the network (relevant excerpt) 127.0.0.1 localhost ::1 localhost 192.168.1.98 site1.local 192.168.1.98 site2.local 192.168.1.98 site3.local 192.168.1.98 site4.local 192.168.1.98 site5.local 192.168.1.98 site6.local 192.168.1.98 site7.local 192.168.1.98 site8.local 192.168.1.98 site9.local None of the VM's have any firewall blocks on http traffic. They can reach any site on the real Internet. The same is true of the real machines on the network. The biggest puzzle perhaps is that the W8 VM actually DOES reach some of the virtual hosts. It does NOT reach site2, site6 and site 9, all of which have this minimal .htaccess file. .htaccess file <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L] </IfModule> Adding this file to any of the virtual hosts that do work on the W8 VM will break the site (only for W8 VM, not the XP VM's) and require a cache flush on the W8 VM before it will see the site again after deleting the file. Regardless of whether a .htaccess file exists or not, no machine on the same LAN can access anything other than the XAMPP home page via IP. Even with hosts files on all machines. I can ping any virtual host from any machine on the network and get a response from the correct IP address. I can't see anything in out Netgear router that might prevent one machine from reaching the other. Besides, once the local hosts file resolves to an ip address that's all that goes out onto the local network. I've gone through an extensive number of posts on both SO and as the result of Google searches. I can't say that I have found anything definitive anywhere.

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• How to slave a 3.5" 500gb SATA external hard drive (Western Digital) to my Dell Inspiron laptop

  - by AJ HDD

  I have a 3.5" Western Digital My Book 500gb external hard drive. I gave it to a friend of mine, and he broke the USB port in it. I went to a nearby comp repair shop and had him solder the thing, and it didn't detect when it when I plugged it into my Dell Inspiron laptop. I recently saw about the 3.5" SATA to USB enclosure, so I went to check it. Strangely, when its placed in the enclosure, its not detecting in Windows. Also, when it was put as secondary (I'm guessing slave) to the shop fellow's desktop, it shows up in the BIOS and while starting, but then again doesn't show in Windows 7. The guy told me that I need to use a data recovery tool to get my data back. P.S. Whe WD hard drive doesnt have an OS, just data. So my question is: Can I slave the drive to my Dell laptop and try to recover the data, and if so how? I would really appreciate it any help, thanks in advance.

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• How broken is routing strategy that causes a martian packet (so far only) during tracepath?

  - by lkraav

  I believe I've achieved a table that routes packets from and to eth1/192.168.3.x through 192.168.3.1, and packets from and to eth0/192.168.1.x through 192.168.1.1 (helpful source). Question: when doing tracepath from 192.168.3.20 (from within vserver), I'm getting kernel: [318535.927489] martian source 192.168.3.20 from 212.47.223.33, on dev eth0 at or near the target IP, while intermediary hops go without (log below). I don't understand why this packet is arriving on eth0, instead of eth1, even after reading this: Note that you may see packets from non-routable IP addresses when running the traceroute or tracepath commands. While packets cannot be routed to these routers, packets sent between 2 routers only need to know the address of the next hop within the local networks, which could be a non-routable address. Can someone explain that paragraph in human language? Based on short initial trials so far, everything else seems to work without causing martians. Is this contained to the nature of tracepath operation or do I have some other bigger routing problem that will cause work traffic breakage? Side note: is it possible to inspect martian packet with tcpdump or wireshark or anything of the sort? I'm have not been able to get it to show up on my own. vserver-20 / # tracepath -n 212.47.223.33 1: 192.168.3.2 0.064ms pmtu 1500 1: 192.168.3.1 1.076ms 1: 192.168.3.1 1.259ms 2: 90.191.8.2 1.908ms 3: 90.190.134.194 2.595ms 4: 194.126.123.94 2.136ms asymm 5 5: 195.250.170.22 2.266ms asymm 6 6: 212.47.201.86 2.390ms asymm 7 7: no reply 8: no reply 9: no reply ^C Host routing: $ sudo ip addr 1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00 inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo 2: sit0: <NOARP> mtu 1480 qdisc noop state DOWN link/sit 0.0.0.0 brd 0.0.0.0 3: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,PROMISC,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000 link/ether 00:24:1d:de:b3:5d brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff inet 192.168.1.2/24 scope global eth0 4: eth1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,PROMISC,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000 link/ether 00:0c:46:46:a3:6a brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff inet 192.168.3.2/27 scope global eth1 inet 192.168.3.20/27 brd 192.168.3.31 scope global secondary eth1 # linux-vserver instance $ sudo ip route default via 192.168.1.1 dev eth0 metric 3 unreachable 127.0.0.0/8 scope host 192.168.1.0/24 dev eth0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.2 192.168.3.0/27 dev eth1 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.3.2 $ sudo ip rule 0: from all lookup local 32764: from all to 192.168.3.0/27 lookup dmz 32765: from 192.168.3.0/27 lookup dmz 32766: from all lookup main 32767: from all lookup default $ sudo ip route show table dmz default via 192.168.3.1 dev eth1 metric 4 192.168.3.0/27 dev eth1 scope link metric 4 Gateway routing # ip route 10.24.0.2 dev tun0 proto kernel scope link src 10.24.0.1 10.24.0.0/24 via 10.24.0.2 dev tun0 192.168.3.0/24 dev br-dmz proto kernel scope link src 192.168.3.1 192.168.1.0/24 dev br-lan proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.1 $ISP_NET/23 dev eth0.1 proto kernel scope link src $WAN_IP default via $ISP_GW dev eth0.1 Additional background Options for non-virtualized network interface isolation?

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• how to remove obsolete device and network entries? Device manager "uninstall" option has no effect

  - by Gizmo

  I am trying to remove a few "obsolete" things which annoy me (because I like to have everything cleen, working and not interferring with each other, fresh, etc..). I tried looking for solutions without any help, so here I am to ask. My first part is about removing obsolete networks, let me explain by showing the ipconfig output: C:\windows\system32>ipconfig Windows IP Configuration Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection* 11: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection* 9: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Ethernet adapter LAN: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : home Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::c129:8d57:bbd1:3564%10 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.1 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.254 Tunnel adapter isatap.home: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : home C:\windows\system32> Specificalyy the first two adapter entries annoy me because the adapters are not visible in the network connection menu (invisible folder / file visibility set to "show"): And here is the second problem altogether with the first one: No matter what I click/do, Uninstall option has no effect on the multiplexor driver. (bridging stuff, right?) I really want to remove the Wireless LAN adapter Local Area Connection entries and the adapter multiplexor stuff but it's impossible? Why is this? How can I remove them anyway?

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• GPG - why am I encrypting with subkey instead of primary key?

  - by khedron

  When encrypting a file to send to a collaborator, I see this message: gpg: using subkey XXXX instead of primary key YYYY Why would that be? I've noticed that when they send me an encrypted file, it also appears to be encrypted towards my subkey instead of my primary key. For me, this doesn't appear to be a problem; gpg (1.4.x, macosx) just handles it & moves on. But for them, with their automated tool setup, this seems to be an issue, and they've requested that I be sure to use their primary key. I've tried to do some reading, and I have the Michael Lucas's "GPG & PGP" book on order, but I'm not seeing why there's this distinction. I have read that the key used for signing and the key used for encryption would be different, but I assumed that was about public vs private keys at first. In case it was a trust/validation issue, I went through the process of comparing fingerprints and verifying, yes, I trust this key. While I was doing that, I noticed the primary & subkeys had different "usage" notes: primary: usage: SCA subkey: usage: E "E" seems likely to mean "Encryption". But, I haven't been able to find any documentation on this. Moreover, my collaborator has been using these tools & techniques for some years now, so why would this only be a problem for me?

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• Un-do Windows disk convert HFS+

  - by BLAKE

  Last night, a friend asked my to give him a copy of a word document. He handed me an external hard drive and left. I plugged the hard drive into my file server running Windows Server 2003, opened disk management and clicked OK. (I know that in Windows 2003 you need to manually assign a drive letter to external drives.) I then looked at the drive in disk management and it said that it was unallocated space. I called my friend and he said that there was data on the drive, but he used it with his Mac Book. Aperantly when I clicked OK in disk management I converted the from HFS+ file system to something else. Is there any way to undo the disk convert? I immediately removed the drive, so there was no writing to it. Windows did not format the drive, it just converted it. Is the data still there? All the data recovery programs I have are for windows, can they read the Mac file system? I need to get the data back, what can I do?

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• Subversion: Secure connection truncated

  - by Nick

  Hi, I'm trying to set-up a subversion server with apache2/webdav access. I've created the repository and configure Apache according to the official book, and I can see the repository in a webbrowser. The browser shows: conf/ db/ hooks/ locks/ Although clicking any of those links gives an empty xml document like: <D:error> <C:error/> <m:human-readable errcode="2"> Could not open the requested SVN filesystem </m:human-readable> </D:error> I've never used subversion before so I assume this is correct? Anyway, when I try to connect via a command line client, it asks for my password, I give it, then I get the (useless) error message: svn: OPTIONS of 'https://svn.mysite.com': Could not read status line: Secure connection truncated (https://svn.mysite.com) The command I'm using is: svn checkout https://svn.mysite.com/ svn.mysite.com Subversion was installed using Ubuntu's package manager. It's version 1.6.6 on Ubuntu 10.04. My Virtualhost Cofiguration: <VirtualHost 123.123.12.12:443> ServerAdmin [email protected] ServerName svn.mysite.com <Location /> DAV svn SVNParentPath /var/svn/repos SVNListParentPath On AuthType Basic AuthName "Subversion Repository" AuthUserFile /etc/subversion/passwd Require valid-user </Location> # Setup The SSL Certificate Paths SSLEngine On SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/mysite.com.crt SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/dmysite.com.key </VirtualHost>

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• Compiz & Linux compositing: how does it fit into the X architecture?

  - by Latanius

  Not a really "how to solve stuff" question, but... I was wondering how the modern X architecture works, with compiz & all. What I know about it: in the beginning, there was the X server, clients connected (presumably on TCP), and then sent messages to the server to instruct it to show windows etc. because this didn't work (at all? or just fast enough?) for OpenGL & 3D acceleration, additional APIs were created for direct rendering (DRI? and, in addition to the X server, what things did the X clients talk to to render stuff and through what interfaces?) and, finally, enter Compiz: X clients end up (somehow) rendering to OpenGL textures, which is then put together to form a fancy-looking screen with translucent windows, and rendered to the screen. What I'm especially interested in is what components does the system have and how do they connect to each other? Like... if there is a box labelled "compiz" in the system... is it inside the X server? If it's not, how do the rendered images from the apps end up in it? And where does it render to? Is that another X server? Or DRI? Of course, I'd be equally happy if pointed to some docs capable of clearing up the confusion described above (conditional on they being significantly shorter than book-sized entities).

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• What apps can you only get on Mac and not Windows?

  - by ytk

  What apps do you absolutely have to use a Mac to run, and there are no decent Windows PC equivalent? This is not a religious war. Please be specific and practical It doesn't have to be a direct 1-2-1 comparison, but overall usefulness to the task I'll start off with a few: KeyNote -- the animations are quite cool and not available in PowerPoint iTune's photo sync -- on Windows it makes copy of all the photos you want to sync, effectively double the space taken up by your photos. On a Mac it's easier as long as you use iPhoto Keychain -- a centralized password manager tied to the OS. The benefit of this is you don't have to set a Master Password (like Firefox) which you need to enter when starting the browser. And it doesn't reveal your password (like Chrome, which makes no effort in hiding the password you have stored in Options) Time Machine -- 0-configuration backup in the background. Easy interface for restoring a file, or even just a contact in the address book. Text-to-speech -- works in any program, and sounds better than Windows computer voice Quick View -- press space bar to preview a file. Windows95 had quick view, but was removed.

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• suddenly can't connect to router

  - by Khoi

  I was just downloading some stuff in ubuntu and snap, the connection cut and I can't even connect to my router. And the router, it still works fine, my laptop can connect wirelessly to it as usual. But my main computer (which connects to it directly through cable) can't even ping it. Here is my ipconfig: Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : vento Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8169/8110 Family Gigabit Ethernet NIC Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-19-DB-4E-6C-56 Ethernet adapter {15B1F740-2F35-4FE4-9FEE-4052AFBAD096}: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Anchorfree HSS Adapter - Packet Sche duler Miniport Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-FF-15-B1-F7-40

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• What are the ways to build a failover cluster?

  - by light

  I have a task where I need to build a failover cluster in two cases: first with servers on Red Hat Enterprise 5.1 and second with SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP1. Both cases have SAN. I know there are many ways to build failover cluster, but I can’t find out more, so I need next: The ways to build it? I know only virtualization. Any good book or resource to broad my mind? I’ll be glad to hear any suggestion. Thanks! EDIT #1: failover of servers with bussiness application on it. EDIT #2: will be great to hear summary about solutions with SLES servers? EDIT #3: So if I understand correctly, in my cases the main ways are to use internal solutions or virtualization. So now I have additional questions: Does manufacturer of blades provide some solution? For example HP or IBM. (Without virtualization) Do I need additional server to control "heartbeat" between main and redundant servers? (Virtualization) For example I have several physical servers with VMs. Do I need additional server to control availability of VMs and to move VMs to another physical server in the case their physical server failure? Sorry for my poor English. EDIT #4: Failover of VM or OS on physical server. In both cases will be used SAN , it's not specified, but I think with file system image on it. I started to think that my question is stupid and I need to remake it.

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• How To Start Your Own Professional Blog with WordPress

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to start your own blog or website?  With a free WordPress  account, it’s free and easy to get started creating your own professional quality blog site. This is the first part in a series on how to create your own professional quality blog site. No, we’re not talking about some cheapo looking blog from Blogger or something on Facebook, but creating a quality blog you can be proud of and present to millions of readers online. WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms, powering hundreds of high-profile websites and blogs around the world.  It’s both powerful and easy to use, which makes it great whether you’re just starting out or are a blogging pro.  To start out with your blogging project WordPress is completely free, and you can use the online interface or install the WordPress software on your own server and blog from there. Getting Started You can start a blog in just a few minutes.  Head over to WordPress.com and click Sign up now on the right-hand side of the main page. Enter a username and password, check that you agree with the legal terms, select the “Gimme a blog” bullet, and click Next. WordPress may inform you that your username is already taken, simply choose a new one and try again. Next, choose a domain for your blog.  This will be the address for your site, and cannot be changed, so be sure to choose exactly what you want.  If you’d prefer your address to be yourname.com instead of yourname.wordpress.com, you can add your own domain for a fee after your blog is setup…but we’ll cover that later. Once you click signup, you will be sent a confirmation email.  While you wait for the email to arrive you can go ahead and enter in your name and a short bio about yourself. When you receive your confirmation email, click the link.  Congratulations; you now have your own blog! You can view your new blog immediately, though the default theme isn’t very interesting without your content and pictures. Back on the page you opened from the email, click Login to access your blog’s administration page and to start adding stuff to your blog.  You can also access your blog’s admin page anytime by from yourname.wordpress.com/admin, substituting your own blog name for yourname. Enter your username and password, then click Log in to get started. Adding Content to your WordPress.com Blog When you sign in to your WordPress blog, you’ll first see the WordPress Admin page.  Here you can see recent posts and comments, and you can see stats of how many people have visited your site.  You can also access all of your blog tools and settings right from this page. To add a new post to your blog, click the Posts link on the left, then click “Add New” either on the left menu or on the top of the Edit Posts page.  Or, if you want to edit the default first post, hover over it and select Edit. Or click the New Posts button on the top of the page.  This menu bar is always visible whenever you’re logged in, so it’s an easy way to add a post. The editor lets you easily write anything you want in a Microsoft Word-style editor.  You can format your text, add lists, links, quotes, and more.  When you’re ready to share your content with the world, click Publish on the right side. To add pictures or other files, click the picture icon beside “Upload/Insert”.  Your free blog account can store up to 3Gb of pictures and documents which will definitely give you a good start. Click Select Files, and then choose the pictures or documents you want to add to your post. When the pictures have uploaded, you can add a caption and choose how to position the picture.  When you’re finished, select “Insert into Post”.   Or, if you want to add a video, click the video button.  You have to add a paid upgrade to upload videos directly, but you can add YouTube and other online videos for free. Click the “From URL” tab, and then paste the link to the YouTube video and click Insert into post. If you’re a code geek, click the HTML tab in the editor and edit the HTML of your blog post the geeky way. Once you’ve added all your content and edited it the way you want, click the Publish button on the right of the editor.  Or, you can click Preview to make sure it looks right, and then click Publish. Here’s our blog with the new blog post containing a picture and video.  While you’re getting to know you’re way around the controls in WordPress, the Preview feature will be your best friend while you try to organize the content to your liking.   Conclusion It only takes a couple minutes to get started blogging at WordPress.com. Whether you want to write about your daily life, share pictures of your children, or review the latest books and gadgets, WordPress.com is a great place to get started for free.  But we’ve only covered a small portion of the WordPress features…but this should get you started. Check back for more WordPress and blogging coverage coming up soon! Links Signup for a free WordPress.com account Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) 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• This task is currently locked by a running workflow and cannot be edited. Limitation to both Nintex and SPD workflow

  - by ybbest

  Note, this post is from Nintex Forum here. These limitations apply to both SharePoint designer Workflow and Nintex Workflow as Nintex using the SharePoint workflow engine. The common cause that I experience is that ‘parent’ workflow is generating more than one task at once. This is common as you can have multiple approvers for certain approval process. You could also have workflow running when the task is created, one of the common scenario is you would like to set a custom column value in your approval task. For me this is huge limitation, as Nintex lover I really hope Nintex could solve this problem with Microsoft going forward. Introduction “This task is currently locked by a running workflow and cannot be edited” is a common message that is seen when an error occurs while the SharePoint workflow engine is processing a task item associated with a workflow. When a workflow processes a task normally, the following sequence of events is expected to occur: 1.       The process begins. 2.       The workflow places a ‘lock’ on the task so nothing else can change the values while the workflow is processing. 3.       The workflow processes the task. 4.       The lock is released when the task processing is finished. When the message is encountered, it usually indicates that an error occurred between step 2 and 4. As a result, the lock is never released. Therefore, the ‘task locked’ message is not an error itself, rather a symptom of another error – the ‘task locked’ message does not indicate what went wrong. In most cases, once this message is encountered, the workflow cannot be made to continue and must be terminated and started again. The following is a guide that can help troubleshoot the cause of these messages.  Some initial observations to narrow down the potential causes are: Is the error consistent or intermittent? When the error is consistent, it will happen every time the workflow is run. When it is intermittent, it may happen regularly, but not every time. Does the error occur the first time the user tries to respond to a task, or do they respond and notice the workflow does not continue, and when they respond again the error occurs? If the message is present when the user first responds to the task, the issue would have occurred when the task was created. Otherwise, it would have occurred when the user attempted to respond to the task. Causes Modifying the task list A cause of this error appearing consistently the first time a user tries to respond to a task is a modification to the default task list schema. For example, changing the ‘Assigned to’ field in a task list to be a multiple selection will cause the behaviour. Deleting the workflow task then restoring it from the Recycle bin If you start a workflow, delete the workflow task then restore it from the Recycle Bin in SharePoint, the workflow will fail with the ‘task locked’ error.  This is confirmed behaviour whether using a SharePoint Designer or a Nintex workflow.  You will need to terminate the workflow and start it again. Parallel simultaneous responses A cause of this error appearing inconsistently is multiple users responding to tasks in parallel at the same time. In this scenario, one task will complete correctly and the other will not process. When the user tries again, the ‘task locked’ message will display. Nintex included a workaround for this issue in build 11000. In build 11000 and later, one of the users will receive a message on the task form when they attempt to respond, stating that they need to try again in a few moments. Additional processing on the task A cause of this error appearing consistently and inconsistently is having an additional system running on the items in the task list. Some examples include: a workflow running on the task list, an event receiver running on the task list or another automated process querying and updating workflow tasks. Note: This Microsoft help article (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointdesigner/HA102376561033.aspx#5) explains creating a workflow that runs on the task list to update a field on the task. Our experience shows that this causes the ‘Task Locked’ issues when the ‘parent’ workflow is generating more than one task at once. Isolated system error If the error is a rare event, or a ‘one off’ event, then an isolated system error may have occurred. For example, if there is a database connectivity issue while the workflow is processing the task response, the task will lock. In this case, the user will respond to a task but the workflow will not continue. When they respond again, the ‘task locked’ message will display. In this case, there will be an error in the SharePoint ULS Logs at the time that the user originally responded. Temporary delay while workflow processes If the workflow is taking a long time to process after a user submits a task, they may notice and try to respond to the task again. They will see the task locked error, but after a number of attempts (or after waiting some time) the task response page eventually indicates the task has been responded to. In this case, nothing actually went wrong, and the error message gives an accurate indication of what is happening – the workflow temporarily locked the task while it was processing. This scenario may occur in a very large workflow, or after the SharePoint application pool has just started. Modifying the task via a web service with an invalid url If the Nintex Workflow web service is used to respond to or delegate a task, the site context part of the url must be a valid alternative access mapping url. For example, if you access the web service via the IP address of the SharePoint server, and the IP address is not a valid AAM, the task can become locked. The workflow has become stuck without any apparent errors This behaviour can occur as a result of a bug in the SharePoint 2010 workflow engine.  If you do not have the August 2010 Cumulative Update (or later) for SharePoint, and your workflow uses delays, “Flexi-task”, State machine”, “Task Reminder” actions or variables, you could be affected. Check the SharePoint 2010 Updates site here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/ff800847.  The October CU is recommended http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2553031.   The fix is described as “Consider the following scenario. You add a Delay activity to a workflow. Then, you set the duration for the Delay activity. You deploy the workflow in SharePoint Foundation 2010. In this scenario, the workflow is not resumed after the duration of the Delay activity”. If you find this is occurring in your environment, install the October CU, terminate all the running workflows affected and run them afresh. Investigative steps The first step to isolate the issue is to create a new task list on the site and configure the workflow to use it.  Any customizations that were made to the original task list should not be made to the new task list. If the new task list eliminates the issue, then the cause can be attributed to the original task list or a change that was made to it. To change the task list that the workflow uses: In Workflow Designer select Settings -> Startup Options Then configure the task list as required If any of the scenarios above do not help, check the SharePoint logs for any messages with a category of ‘Workflow Infrastructure’. Conclusion The information in this article has been gathered from observations and investigations by Nintex. The sources of these issues are the underlying SharePoint workflow engine. This article will be updated if further causes are discovered. From <http://connect.nintex.com/forums/thread/6503.aspx>

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• Problem with hadoop start-dfs.sh

  - by user288501

  I installed and configured hadoop on my Ubuntu 14.04 server, virtualized inside of hyper-v, however I am getting an issue when i run start-dfs.sh root@sUbuntu01:/var/log# start-dfs.sh 14/06/04 15:27:08 WARN util.NativeCodeLoader: Unable to load native-hadoop library for your platform... using builtin-java classes where applicable Starting namenodes on [OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM warning: You have loaded library /usr/local/hadoop/lib/native/libhadoop.so.1.0.0 which might have disabled stack guard. The VM will try to fix the stack guard now. It's highly recommended that you fix the library with 'execstack -c <libfile>', or link it with '-z noexecstack'. localhost] sed: -e expression #1, char 6: unknown option to `s' -c: Unknown cipher type 'cd' localhost: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS localhost: starting namenode, logging to /usr/local/hadoop/logs/hadoop-root-namenode-sUbuntu01.out noexecstack'.: ssh: Could not resolve hostname noexecstack'.: Name or service not known '-z: ssh: Could not resolve hostname '-z: Name or service not known 'execstack: ssh: Could not resolve hostname 'execstack: Name or service not known disabled: ssh: Could not resolve hostname disabled: Name or service not known with: ssh: Could not resolve hostname with: Name or service not known have: ssh: Could not resolve hostname have: Name or service not known VM: ssh: Could not resolve hostname vm: Name or service not known stack: ssh: Could not resolve hostname stack: Name or service not known guard: ssh: Could not resolve hostname guard: Name or service not known fix: ssh: Could not resolve hostname fix: Name or service not known VM: ssh: Could not resolve hostname vm: Name or service not known the: ssh: Could not resolve hostname the: Name or service not known to: ssh: Could not resolve hostname to: Name or service not known warning:: ssh: Could not resolve hostname warning:: Name or service not known it: ssh: Could not resolve hostname it: Name or service not known now.: ssh: Could not resolve hostname now.: Name or service not known library: ssh: Could not resolve hostname library: Name or service not known will: ssh: Could not resolve hostname will: Name or service not known link: ssh: Could not resolve hostname link: Name or service not known or: ssh: Could not resolve hostname or: Name or service not known It's: ssh: Could not resolve hostname it's: Name or service not known <libfile>',: ssh: Could not resolve hostname <libfile>',: Name or service not known which: ssh: connect to host which port 22: Connection timed out have: ssh: connect to host have port 22: Connection timed out you: ssh: connect to host you port 22: Connection timed out try: ssh: connect to host try port 22: Connection timed out the: ssh: connect to host the port 22: Connection timed out highly: ssh: connect to host highly port 22: Connection timed out might: ssh: connect to host might port 22: Connection timed out loaded: ssh: connect to host loaded port 22: Connection timed out You: ssh: connect to host you port 22: Connection timed out guard.: ssh: connect to host guard. port 22: Connection timed out library: ssh: connect to host library port 22: Connection timed out Server: ssh: connect to host server port 22: Connection timed out fix: ssh: connect to host fix port 22: Connection timed out The: ssh: connect to host the port 22: Connection timed out recommended: ssh: connect to host recommended port 22: Connection timed out that: ssh: connect to host that port 22: Connection timed out stack: ssh: connect to host stack port 22: Connection timed out OpenJDK: ssh: connect to host openjdk port 22: Connection timed out 64-Bit: ssh: connect to host 64-bit port 22: Connection timed out with: ssh: connect to host with port 22: Connection timed out localhost: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS localhost: starting datanode, logging to /usr/local/hadoop/logs/hadoop-root-datanode-sUbuntu01.out localhost: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM warning: You have loaded library /usr/local/hadoop/lib/native/libhadoop.so.1.0.0 which might have disabled stack guard. The VM will try to fix the stack guard now. localhost: It's highly recommended that you fix the library with 'execstack -c <libfile>', or link it with '-z noexecstack'. Starting secondary namenodes [OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM warning: You have loaded library /usr/local/hadoop/lib/native/libhadoop.so.1.0.0 which might have disabled stack guard. The VM will try to fix the stack guard now. It's highly recommended that you fix the library with 'execstack -c <libfile>', or link it with '-z noexecstack'. 0.0.0.0] sed: -e expression #1, char 6: unknown option to `s' warning:: ssh: Could not resolve hostname warning:: Name or service not known -c: Unknown cipher type 'cd' It's: ssh: Could not resolve hostname it's: Name or service not known 'execstack: ssh: Could not resolve hostname 'execstack: Name or service not known '-z: ssh: Could not resolve hostname '-z: Name or service not known 0.0.0.0: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 0.0.0.0: starting secondarynamenode, logging to /usr/local/hadoop/logs/hadoop-root-secondarynamenode-sUbuntu01.out 0.0.0.0: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM warning: You have loaded library /usr/local/hadoop/lib/native/libhadoop.so.1.0.0 which might have disabled stack guard. The VM will try to fix the stack guard now. 0.0.0.0: It's highly recommended that you fix the library with 'execstack -c <libfile>', or link it with '-z noexecstack'. noexecstack'.: ssh: Could not resolve hostname noexecstack'.: Name or service not known <libfile>',: ssh: Could not resolve hostname <libfile>',: Name or service not known link: ssh: Could not resolve hostname link: No address associated with hostname it: ssh: Could not resolve hostname it: No address associated with hostname to: ssh: connect to host to port 22: Connection timed out or: ssh: connect to host or port 22: Connection timed out you: ssh: connect to host you port 22: Connection timed out guard.: ssh: connect to host guard. port 22: Connection timed out VM: ssh: connect to host vm port 22: Connection timed out stack: ssh: connect to host stack port 22: Connection timed out library: ssh: connect to host library port 22: Connection timed out Server: ssh: connect to host server port 22: Connection timed out might: ssh: connect to host might port 22: Connection timed out stack: ssh: connect to host stack port 22: Connection timed out You: ssh: connect to host you port 22: Connection timed out now.: ssh: connect to host now. port 22: Connection timed out disabled: ssh: connect to host disabled port 22: Connection timed out have: ssh: connect to host have port 22: Connection timed out will: ssh: connect to host will port 22: Connection timed out The: ssh: connect to host the port 22: Connection timed out have: ssh: connect to host have port 22: Connection timed out try: ssh: connect to host try port 22: Connection timed out the: ssh: connect to host the port 22: Connection timed out guard: ssh: connect to host guard port 22: Connection timed out the: ssh: connect to host the port 22: Connection timed out recommended: ssh: connect to host recommended port 22: Connection timed out with: ssh: connect to host with port 22: Connection timed out library: ssh: connect to host library port 22: Connection timed out 64-Bit: ssh: connect to host 64-bit port 22: Connection timed out fix: ssh: connect to host fix port 22: Connection timed out which: ssh: connect to host which port 22: Connection timed out VM: ssh: connect to host vm port 22: Connection timed out OpenJDK: ssh: connect to host openjdk port 22: Connection timed out fix: ssh: connect to host fix port 22: Connection timed out highly: ssh: connect to host highly port 22: Connection timed out that: ssh: connect to host that port 22: Connection timed out with: ssh: connect to host with port 22: Connection timed out loaded: ssh: connect to host loaded port 22: Connection timed out 14/06/04 15:36:02 WARN util.NativeCodeLoader: Unable to load native-hadoop library for your platform... using builtin-java classes where applicable Any advice?

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• SQL SERVER – Developer Training Resources and Summary Roundup

  - by pinaldave

  It is always pleasure for any author when other renowned authors in the industry write about you. Earlier I wrote a five part blog series on Developer Training and I have received a phenomenal response to the series. I have received plenty of comments, questions and feedback. I thought it would be nice to sum up the whole series as well answer a few of the questions received. Quick Recap Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 In this part we discussed the importance of training in the real world. The most important and valuable resource any company is its employee. Employees who have been well-trained will be better at their jobs and produce a better product.  An employee who is well trained obviously knows more about their job and all the technical aspects. I have a very high opinion about training employees and it is the most important task. Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 In this part we discussed the most crucial components of training. Often employees are expecting the company to pay for their training and the company expresses no interest in training the employee. Quite often training expenses are the real issue for both the employee and employer. There are companies that pay for 100% of the expenses and there are employees who opt for training on their own expense during their personal time. Training is often looked at as vacation by employee and employers and we need to change this mind-set. One of the ways is to report back the learning to your manager and implement newly learned knowledge in day-to-day work. Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 This part was the most difficult to write as I tried to address a few difficult questions and answers. Training is such a sensitive issue that many developers when not receiving chance for training think about leaving the organization. The manager often feels pressure to accommodate every single employee for training even though his training budget is limited. It is indeed the responsibility of the developer to get maximum advantage from the training. Training immediately helps organizations but stays as a part of an employee’s knowledge forever. Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 In this part I tried to explore a few methods and options for training. The generic feedback I received on this blog post was short and I should have explored each of the subject of the training in details. I believe there are two big buckets of training 1) Instructor Lead Training and 2) Self Lead Training. The common element between both the methods is “learning material”. Learning material can be of any format – videos, books, paper notes or just a plain black board. Instructor-led training is a very effective mode but not possible every single time. During the course of the developer’s career, one has to learn lots of new technology and it is almost impossible to have a quality trainer available on that subject at that time. Books are most effective and proven methods, however, it always helps if someone explains the concepts of the book with a demonstration. In recent times I have started to believe in online trainings which leads to a hybrid experience. Online trainings take the best part of the books and the best part of the instructor-led training and gives effective training in a matter of hours. Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 In this part, I shared what I was continuously thinking about developer training. There is no better teacher than oneself. There is no better motivation than a personal desire to learn new technology. Honestly there is nothing more personal learning. That “change is the only constant” and “adapt & overcome” are the essential lessons of life. One cannot stop the learning and resist the change. In the IT industry “ego of knowing all” and the “resistance to change” are the most challenging issues. Once someone overcomes them, life is much easier. I believe that proper and appropriate high quality training can help to address the burning issues. Opinion of Friends I invited a few of my friends to express their opinion about developer training and here are their opinions. I am listing them here in the order of the blog post publishing date. Nakul Vachhrajani - Developer Trainings-Importance, Benefits, Tips and follow-up Nakul’s sums of many of the concepts which are complementary to my blog posts. Nakul addresses the burning question of developer training with different angles. I am personally very impressed by his following statement - “Being skilled does not mean having just a stack of certifications, but it also means having an understanding about the internals of the products that you are working on – and using that knowledge to improve the efficiency & productivity at the workplace in turn resulting in better products, better consulting abilities and a happier self.” Nakul also suggests the online training options of Pluralsight. Vinod Kumar - Training–a necessity or bonus Vinod Kumar comes up with excellent follow up on developer training. Vinod is known for his inspirational writing about SQL Server. Vinod starts with a story of a student who is extremely eager to learn the wisdom of life from a monk but the monk does not accept him as a disciple for a long time. The conversation between student and monk is indeed an essence of all learning. We all want to learn quickly and be successful but the most important thing in life is to have the right attitude towards learning and more so towards life. The blog post end with a very important thought about how to avoid the famous excuse – “I don’t have enough time.” Ritesh Shah - Training – useful or useless? Ritesh brings up very important concept related to training. Ritesh in his meticulous style explains why training is an important and lifelong process. Training must not stop at any age but should continue forever. The moment training stops, progress stops along with. Paras Doshi - Professional Development Resource Paras is known for his to–the-point writing, and has summarized the five part series very precisely. He read the five part series and created a digest summary of the blog post. If you are in a rush and have no time to read my five series – I suggest you read his blog post. Training Resources I am often asked what the best resources for learning new technology are. This is the most difficult question EVER. There are plenty of good training resources available. When it is about training our needs are different, our preference of learning is different and we all have an opinion. Additionally, we all are located in different geographic locations worldwide and there is no way one solution will fit all. However, let me list a few of the training resources which I have built so far and you can consume them if you find it relevant to your need. SQL Server Books SQL Server Interview Questions and Answers SQL Wait Stats SQL Programming Joes 2 Pros SQL Server Video Tutorials SQL Server Questions and Answers SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics SQL Server Performance: Introduction to Query Tuning SQL in Sixty Seconds Series of Sixty Seconds Learning Video on YouTube Trust me worldwide web is very big and there are plenty of high quality learning materials available worldwide – trainer-led as well online. I suggest you explore various options and make the best choice for yourself. Remember, training is your personal journey and it should never stop. Are you ready? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• The Windows Browser Ballot Screen Offers Web Browser Choice to European Users

  - by Matthew Guay

  Since March, our friends across the pond in Europe get to decide which browser they want to install with their Windows OS. Today we thought we would take a look at the ballot choices, some are well known, and others you may not have heard of. Windows users in European countries should start seeing the so called “Browser Ballot Screen” after installing the Windows Update KB976002 (link below). The browser ballot offers a dozen different browsers, including some you’ve likely never heard of.  They each have some unique features, and are all free, and here we take a quick look at each of them. Internet Explorer 8 Internet Explorer is the world’s most used web browser, as it’s bundled with Windows. It also includes several unique features, including Accelerators that make it easy to search or find a map of a location, and InPrivate filtering to directly control what sites can get personal information.  Additionally, it offers great integration with Windows Touch and the new taskbar in Windows 7. IE 8 runs on Windows XP and newer, and is bundled with Windows 7. Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Firefox is the most popular browser other than Internet Explorer.  It is the modern descendant of Netscape, and is loved by web developers for its adherence to web standards, openness, and expandability.  It offers thousands of Add-ons and themes to let you customize it to fit your preferences. The most recent version has added Personas, which are quick, lightweight themes to let you personalize the look your browser. It’s open source, and runs on all modern versions of Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Of course thanks to Asian Angel, our resident browser expert, you can check out several articles regarding this popular IE alternative. Google Chrome 4 Google Chrome has gained an impressive amount of market share during its short time in the market. It offers a minimalistic interface and fast speeds with intensive web applications. The address bar is also a search bar, so you can enter a search query or web address and quickly get the information you need. With version 4 you can add a growing number of extensions, personalize it with a variety of stylish themes, and automatically translate foreign websites into your own language. Opera 10.50 Although Opera has been around for over a decade, relatively few users have used it. With the new 10.50 release, Opera has many unique features packed in a sleek UI. It integrates great with Aero and the Windows 7 taskbar, and lets you preview the contents of your websites in the tab bar. It also includes Opera Unite, a small personal web server to make file sharing easy, Opera Turbo to speed up your internet when the connection is slow, and Opera Link to keep all your copies of Opera in sync. It’s a popular browser on many mobile devices, and version 10.50 has a lot of enhancements. Apple Safari 4 Safari is the default browser in Mac OS X, and starting with version 3 it has been available for Windows as well. It’s based on Webkit, the popular new rendering engine that provides great speed and standards compatibility.  Safari 4 lets you browse your browsing history in a unique Coverflow interface, and shows your Top Sites in a fancy, 3D interface.  It’s also great for viewing mobile websites for the iPhone and other mobile devices through Developer Tools. Flock 2.5 Based on the popular Firefox core, Flock brings a multitude of social features to your browsing experience. You can view the latest YouTube videos, Flickr pictures, update your favorite social network, and keep up with your webmail thanks to It’s integration with a wide variety of services. You can even post to your blog through the integrated blog editor. If your time online is mostly spent in social services, this may be a browser you want to check out. Maxthon 2.5 Maxthon is a unique browser that builds on Internet Explorer to bring more features with IE’s rendering. Formerly known as MyIE2, Maxthon was popular for bringing tabbed browsing with IE rendering during the days of IE 6.  Today Maxthon supports a wide range of plugins and skins, so you can customize it however you want. It includes mouse gestures, a web accelerator to speed up pokey internet connections, a content blocker to remove unwanted content from sites, an online account to backup your favorites, and a nice download manager. Avant Browser Another nice browser based on Internet Explorer, Avant brings a wide variety of features in a nice brushed-metal interface. It includes an integrated AutoFill for forms, mouse gestures, customizable skins, and privacy protection features. It also includes a Flash blocker that will only load flash in webpages when you select them. You can also integrate Avant with an online account to store your bookmarks, feeds, settings and passwords online. Sleipnir Sleipnir is a customizable browser meant for advance users that is quite popular in Japan. It’s built on the Trident engine and virtually every aspect of is customizable unlike Internet Explorer.   FlashPeak SlimBrowser SlimBrowser from FlashPeak incorporates a lot of features like Popup Killer, Auto Login, site filtering and more. It’s based on Internet Explorer but offers a lot more customizable options out of the box.   K-meleon This basic browser is light on system resources and based on the Gecko engine. It’s been in development for years on SourceForge, and if you like to tweak virtually any aspect of your browser, this might be a good choice for you.   GreenBrowser GreenBrowser is based on Internet Explorer and is available in several languages. It has a large amount of features out of the box and is light on system resources.   Conclusion The European Union asked for more choices in the web browser they could choose from when installing Windows, and with the Browser Ballot Screen, they certainly get a variety to choose from.  If you’ve tried out some of the lesser known browsers, or think some important ones have been left out, leave a comment and tell us about it. Learn More About the Browser Ballot Screen and Download Alternatives to IE Windows Update KB976002 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Set the Default Browser on Ubuntu From the Command LineQuick Tip: Empty Internet Explorer 7 Cache when Browser is ClosedView Hidden Files and Folders in Ubuntu File BrowserSet the Default Browser and Email Client in UbuntuAccess Multiple Browsers from Firefox with Browser View Plus TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Play Music in Chrome by Simply Dragging a File 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family Amazon Free Kindle for PC Download Stretch popurls.com with a Stylish Script (Firefox) OldTvShows.org – Find episodes of Hitchcock, Soaps, Game Shows and more

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• Twitter traffic might not be what it seems

  - by Piet

  Are you using bit.ly stats to measure interest in the links you post on twitter? I’ve been hearing for a while about people claiming to get the majority of their traffic originating from twitter these days. Now, I’ve been playing with the twitter ruby gem recently, doing various experiments which I’ll not go into detail here because they could be regarded as spamming… if I’d conduct them on a large scale, that is. It’s scary to see people actually engaging with @replies crafted with some regular expressions and eliza-like trickery on status updates found using the twitter api. I’m wondering how Twitter is going to contain the coming spam-flood. When posting links I used bit.ly as url shortener, since this one seems to be the de-facto standard on twitter. A nice thing about bit.ly is that it shows some basic stats about the redirects it performs for your shortened links. To my surprise, most links posted almost immediately resulted in several visitors. Now, seeing that I was posting the links together with some information concerning what the link is about, I concluded that the people who were actually clicking the links should be very targeted visitors. This felt a bit like free adwords, and I suddenly started to understand why everyone was raving about getting traffic from twitter. How wrong I was! (and I think several 1000 online marketers with me) On the destination site I used a traffic logging solution that works by including a little javascript snippet in your pages. It seemed that somehow all visitors disappeared after the bit.ly redirect and before getting to the site, because I was hardly seeing any visitors there. So I started investigating what was happening: by looking at the logfiles of the destination site, and by making my own ’shortened’ urls by doing redirects using a very short domain name I own. This way, I could check the apache access_log before the redirects. Most user agents turned out to be bots without a doubt. Here’s an excerpt of user-agents awk’ed from apache’s access_log for a time period of about one hour, right after posting some links: AideRSS 2.0 (postrank.com) Java/1.6.0_13 Java/1.6.0_14 libwww-perl/5.816 MLBot (www.metadatalabs.com/mlbot) Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;MSIE 5.01; Windows -NT 5.0 - real-url.org) Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Twitturls; +http://twitturls.com) Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Viralheat Bot/1.0; +http://www.viralheat.com/) Mozilla/5.0 (Danger hiptop 4.6; U; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050920 Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-us; rv:1.9.0.2) Gecko/2008092313 Ubuntu/9.04 (jaunty) Firefox/3.5 OpenCalaisSemanticProxy PycURL/7.18.2 PycURL/7.19.3 Python-urllib/1.17 Twingly Recon twitmatic Twitturly / v0.6 Wget/1.10.2 (Red Hat modified) Wget/1.11.1 (Red Hat modified) Of the few user-agents that seem ‘real’ at first, half are originating from an ip-address used by Amazon EC2. And I doubt people are setting op proxies on there. Oh yeah, Googlebot (the real deal, from a legit google owned address) is sucking up posted links like fresh oysters. I guess google is trying to make sure in advance to never be beaten by twitter in the ‘realtime search’ department. Actually, I think it’d be almost stupid NOT to post any new pages/posts/websites on Twitter, it must be one of the fastest ways to get a Googlebot visit. Same experiment with a real, established twitter account Now, because I was posting the url’s either as ’status’ messages or directed @people, on a test-account with hardly any (human) followers, I checked again using the twitter accounts from a commercial site I’m involved with. These accounts all have between 500 and 1000 targeted (I think) followers. I checked the destination access_logs and also added ‘my’ redirect after the bit.ly redirect: same results, although seemingly a bit higher real visitor/bot ratio. Btw: one of these account was ‘punished’ with a 1 week lock recently because the same (1 one!) status update was sent that was sent right before using another account. They got an email explaining the lock because the account didn’t act according to their TOS. I can’t find anything in their TOS about it, can you? I don’t think Twitter is on the right track punishing a legit account, knowing the trickery I had been doing with it’s api went totally unpunished. I might be wrong though, I often am. On the other hand: this commercial site reported targeted traffic and actual signups from visitors coming from Twitter. The ones that are really real visitors are also very targeted. I’m just not sure if the amount of work involved could hold up against an adwords campaign. Reposting the same link over and over again helps On thing I noticed: It helps to keep on reposting the same links with regular intervals. I guess most people only look at their first page when checking out recent posts of the ones they’re following, or don’t look too far back when performing a search. Now, this probably isn’t according to the twitter TOS. Actually, it might be spamming but no-one is obligated to follow anyone else of course. This way, I was getting more real visitors and less bots. To my surprise (when my programmer’s hat is on) there were still repeated visits from the same bots coming from the same ip-addresses. Did they expect to find something else when visiting for a 2nd or 3rd time? (actually,this gave me an idea: you can’t change a link once it’s posted, but you can change where it redirects to) Most bots were smart enough not to follow the same link again though. Are you successful in getting real visitors from Twitter? Are you only relying on bit.ly to provide traffic stats?

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• I have Oracle SQL Developer Installed, Now What?

  - by thatjeffsmith

  If you’re here because you downloaded a copy of Oracle SQL Developer and now you need help connecting to a database, then you’re in the right place. I’ll show you what you need to get up and going so you can finish your homework, teach yourself Oracle database, or get ready for that job interview. You’ll need about 30 minutes to set everything up…and about 5 years to become proficient with Oracle Oracle Database come with SQL Developer but SQL Developer doesn’t include a database If you install Oracle database, it includes a copy of SQL Developer. If you’re running that copy of SQL Developer, please take a second to upgrade now, as it is WAY out of date. But I’m here to talk to the folks that have downloaded SQL Developer and want to know what to do next. You’ve got it running. You see this ‘Connection’ dialog, and… Where am I connecting to, and who as? You NEED a database Installing SQL Developer does not give you a database. So you’re going to need to install Oracle and create a database, or connect to a database that is already up and running somewhere. Basically you need to know the following: where is this database, what’s it called, and what port is the listener running on? The Default Connection properties in SQL Developer These default settings CAN work, but ONLY if you have installed Oracle Database Express Edition (XE). Localhost is a network alias for 127.0.0.1 which is an IP address that maps to the ‘local’ machine, or the machine you are reading this blog post on. The listener is a service that runs on the server and handles connections for the databases on that machine. You can run a database without a listener and you can run a listener without a database, but you can’t connect to a database on a different server unless both that database and listener are up and running. Each listener ‘listens’ on one or more ports, you need to know the port number for each connection. The default port is 1521, but 1522 is often pretty common. I know all of this sounds very complicated Oracle is a very sophisticated piece of software. It’s not analogous to downloading a mobile phone app and and using it 10 seconds later. It’s not like installing Office/Access either – it requires services, environment setup, kernel tweaks, etc. However. Normally an administrator will setup and install Oracle, create the database, and configure the listener for everyone else to use. They’ll often also setup the connection details for everyone via a ‘TNSNAMES.ORA’ file. This file contains a list of database connection details for folks to browse – kind of like an Oracle database phoneboook. If someone has given you a TNSNAMES.ORA file, or setup your machine to have access to a TNSNAMES file, then you can just switch to the ‘TNS’ connection type, and use the dropdown to select the database you want to connect to. Then you don’t have to worry about the server names, database names, and the port numbers. ORCL – that sounds promising! ORCL is the default SID when creating a new database with the Database Creation Assistant (DBCA). It’s just me, and I need help! No administrator, no database, no nothing. What do you do? You have a few options: Buy a copy of Oracle and download, install, and create a database Download and install XE (FREE!) Download, import, and run our Developer Days Hands-on-Lab (FREE!) If you’re a student (or anyone else) with little to no experience with Oracle, then I recommend the third option. Oracle Technology Network Developer Day: Hands-on Database Application Development Lab The OTN lab runs on a A Virtual Box image which contains: 11gR2 Enterprise Edition copy of Oracle a database and listener running for you to connect to lots of demo data for you to play with SQL Developer installed and ready to connect Some browser based labs you can step through to learn Oracle You download the image, you download and install Virtual Box (also FREE!), then you IMPORT the image you previously downloaded. You then ‘Start’ the image. It will boot a copy of Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL), start your database, and all that jazz. You can then start up and run SQL Developer inside the image OR you can connect to the database running on the image using the copy of SQL Developer you installed on your host machine. Setup Port Forwarding to Make It Easy to Connect From Your Host When you start the image, it will be assigned an IP address. Depending on what network adapter you select in the image preferences, you may get something that can get out to the internet from your image, something your host machine can see and connect to, or something that kind of just lives out there in a vacuum. You want to avoid the ‘vacuum’ option – unless you’re OK with running SQL Developer inside the Linux image. Open the Virtual Box image properties and go to the Networking options. We’re going to setup port forwarding. This will tell your machine that anything that happens on port 1521 (the default Oracle Listener port), should just go to the image’s port 1521. So I can connect to ‘localhost’ and it will magically get transferred to the image that is running. Oracle Virtual Box Port Forwarding 1521 listener database Now You Just Need a Username and Password The default passwords on this image are all ‘oracle’ – so you can connect as SYS, HR, or whatever – just use ‘oracle’ as the password. The Linux passowrds are all ‘oracle’ too, so you can login as ‘root’ or as ‘oracle’ in the Linux desktop. Connect! Connect as HR to your Oracle database running on the OTN Developer Days Virtual Box image If you’re connecting to someone else’s database, you need to ask the person that manages that environment to create for you an account. Don’t try to ‘guess’ or ‘figure out’ what the username and password is. Introduce yourself, explain your situation, and ask kindly for access. This is your first test – can you connect? I know it’s hard to get started with Oracle. There are however many things we offer to make this easier. You’ll need to do a bit of RTM first though. Once you know what’s required, you will be much more likely to succeed. Of course, if you need help, you know where to find me

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• Turn A Flash Drive Into a Portable Web Server

  - by Matthew Guay

  Portable applications are very useful for getting work done on the go, but how about portable servers?  Here’s how you can turn your flash drive into a portable web server. Getting Started To put a full web server on our flash drive, we’re going to use XAMPP Lite.  This lightweight, preconfigured server includes recent versions of Apache, MySQL, and PHP so you can run most websites and webapps directly from it.  You could use the full XAMPP, which includes more features such as a FileZilla FTP server and OpenSSL, but for most purposes, the light version is plenty for a portable server. Download the latest version of XAMPP Lite (link below).  In this tutorial, we used the self-extracting EXE version; you could choose the ZIP file and extract the files yourself, but we found it easier to use the executable. Run the installer, and click Browse choose where to install your server. Select your flash drive, or a folder in it, and click Ok.  Make sure your flash drive has at least 250MB of available storage space.  XAMPP will create an xampplite folder and store all the files in it during the installation.   Click Install, and all of the files will be extracted to your flash drive.  This may take a few moments depending on your flash drive’s speed. When the extraction process is finished, a Command Prompt window will open to finish the installation.  The first prompt will ask if you want to add shortcuts to the start menu and desktop; enter “n” since we don’t want to create start menu links to our portable server. Now enter “y” to configure XAMPP’s directories automatically. Finally, enter “y” to make XAMPP fully portable.  It will set up the servers to run without specific drive letters so your server will run from any computer. XAMPP will finalize your changes; press Enter when everything is completed. Setup will automatically launch the command line version of XAMPP.  On first run, confirm that your time zone is correct. And that’s it!  You can now run XAMPP’s control panel by entering 1, or you can exit and run XAMPP from any other computer with your flash drive. To complete your portable webserver kit, you may want to install Portable Firefox or Iron Browser on your flash drive so you always have your favorite browser ready to use. Running your portable server Using your portable server is very simple.  Open the xampplite folder on your flash drive and launch xampp-control.exe. Click Start beside Apache and MySql to get your webserver running. Please note: Do not check the Svc box, as this will run the server as a Windows service.  To keep XAMPP portable, you do not want it running as a service! Windows Firewall may prompt you that it blocked the server; click Allow access to let your server run. Once they’re running, you can click Admin to open the default XAMPP admin page running from your local webserver.  Or, you can view it by browsing to http://localhost/ or http://127.0.0.1/ in your browser. If everything is working correctly, you should see this page in your browser.  Choose your default language… And then you’ll see the default XAMPP admin page.   Click the Status link on the left sidebar to make sure everything is running correctly. If you click the Admin button for MySql in the XAMPP Control Panel, it will open phpMyAdmin in your default browser.  Alternately, you can open the MySql admin page by entering http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ or http://127.0.0.1/phpmyadmin/ in your favorite browser. Now you can add your own webpages to your webserver.  Save all of your web files in the \xampplight\htdocs\ folder on your flash drive. Install WordPress in your portable server Since XAMPP Lite includes MySql and PHP, you can even run webapps such as WordPress, the popular CMS and blogging platform.  Download WordPress (link below), and extract the files to the \xampplite\htdocs folder on your flash drive. Now all of the WordPress files are stored in \xampplite\htdocs\wordpress on your flash drive. We still need to setup WordPress on our portable server.  Open your MySql admin page http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ to create a new database for WordPress.  Enter a name for your database in the “Create new database” box, and click Create. Click the Privileges tab on the top, and the select “Add a new User”.   Enter a username and password for the database, and then click the Go button on the bottom of the page. Using WordPress Now, in your browser, enter http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php.  Click Create a Configuration File to continue. Make sure you have your Database name, username, and password we created previously, and click “Let’s Go!” Enter your WordPress database name, username, and password, leave the other two entries as default, and click Submit. You should now have the database all ready to go.  Click “Run the install” to finish installing WordPress. Enter a title, username, and password for your test blog, as well as your email address, and then click “Install WordPress”. You now have a portable install of WordPress.  Click “Log In” to  access your WordPress admin page. Enter your username and password, and click Log In. Here you can add pages, posts, themes, extensions, and anything else just like you would on a normal WordPress site.  This is a great way to experiment with WordPress without messing up your real website. You can view your portable WordPress site by entering http://localhost/wordpress/ in your address bar. Closing your server When you’re done running your test server, click the Stop button on each of the services and then click the Exit button in the XAMPP control panel.  If you press the exit button on the top of the window, it will just minimize the control panel to the tray.   Alternately, you can shutdown your server by running xampp_stop.exe from your xampplite folder. Conclusion XAMPP Lite gives you a great way to run a full webserver directly from your flash drive.  Now, anywhere you go, you can test and tweak your webpages and webapps from any Windows computer.  Links Download XAMPP Lite Download WordPress Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips BitLocker To Go Encrypts Portable Flash Drives in Windows 7How To Use BitLocker on Drives without TPMSpeed up Your Windows Vista Computer with ReadyBoostView and Manage Flash Cookies the Easy WayInstall and Run Applications from Your iPod, Flash Drive or Mp3 Player TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics How to Add Exceptions to the Windows Firewall Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error

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• Monitor your Hard Drive’s Health with Acronis Drive Monitor

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you worried that your computer’s hard drive could die without any warning?  Here’s how you can keep tabs on it and get the first warning signs of potential problems before you actually lose your critical data. Hard drive failures are one of the most common ways people lose important data from their computers.  As more of our memories and important documents are stored digitally, a hard drive failure can mean the loss of years of work.  Acronis Drive Monitor helps you avert these disasters by warning you at the first signs your hard drive may be having trouble.  It monitors many indicators, including heat, read/write errors, total lifespan, and more. It then notifies you via a taskbar popup or email that problems have been detected.  This early warning lets you know ahead of time that you may need to purchase a new hard drive and migrate your data before it’s too late. Getting Started Head over to the Acronis site to download Drive Monitor (link below).  You’ll need to enter your name and email, and then you can download this free tool. Also, note that the download page may ask if you want to include a trial of their for-pay backup program.  If you wish to simply install the Drive Monitor utility, click Continue without adding. Run the installer when the download is finished.  Follow the prompts and install as normal. Once it’s installed, you can quickly get an overview of your hard drives’ health.  Note that it shows 3 categories: Disk problems, Acronis backup, and Critical Events.  On our computer, we had Seagate DiskWizard, an image backup utility based on Acronis Backup, installed, and Acronis detected it. Drive Monitor stays running in your tray even when the application window is closed.  It will keep monitoring your hard drives, and will alert you if there’s a problem. Find Detailed Information About Your Hard Drives Acronis’ simple interface lets you quickly see an overview of how the drives on your computer are performing.  If you’d like more information, click the link under the description.  Here we see that one of our drives have overheated, so click Show disks to get more information. Now you can select each of your drives and see more information about them.  From the Disk overview tab that opens by default, we see that our drive is being monitored, has been running for a total of 368 days, and that it’s health is good.  However, it is running at 113F, which is over the recommended max of 107F.   The S.M.A.R.T. parameters tab gives us more detailed information about our drive.  Most users wouldn’t know what an accepted value would be, so it also shows the status.  If the value is within the accepted parameters, it will report OK; otherwise, it will show that has a problem in this area. One very interesting piece of information we can see is the total number of Power-On Hours, Start/Stop Count, and Power Cycle Count.  These could be useful indicators to check if you’re considering purchasing a second hand computer.  Simply load this program, and you’ll get a better view of how long it’s been in use. Finally, the Events tab shows each time the program gave a warning.  We can see that our drive, which had been acting flaky already, is routinely overheating even when our other hard drive was running in normal temperature ranges. Monitor Acronis Backups And Critical Errors In addition to monitoring critical stats of your hard drives, Acronis Drive Monitor also keeps up with the status of your backup software and critical events reported by Windows.  You can access these from the front page, or via the links on the left hand sidebar.  If you have any edition of any Acronis Backup product installed, it will show that it was detected.  Note that it can only monitor the backup status of the newest versions of Acronis Backup and True Image. If no Acronis backup software was installed, it will show a warning that the drive may be unprotected and will give you a link to download Acronis backup software.   If you have another backup utility installed that you wish to monitor yourself, click Configure backup monitoring, and then disable monitoring on the drives you’re monitoring yourself. Finally, you can view any detected Critical events from the Critical events tab on the left. Get Emailed When There’s a Problem One of Drive Monitor’s best features is the ability to send you an email whenever there’s a problem.  Since this program can run on any version of Windows, including the Server and Home Server editions, you can use this feature to stay on top of your hard drives’ health even when you’re not nearby.  To set this up, click Options in the top left corner. Select Alerts on the left, and then click the Change settings link to setup your email account. Enter the email address which you wish to receive alerts, and a name for the program.  Then, enter the outgoing mail server settings for your email.  If you have a Gmail account, enter the following information: Outgoing mail server (SMTP): smtp.gmail.com Port: 587 Username and Password: Your gmail address and password Check the Use encryption box, and then select TLS from the encryption options.   It will now send a test message to your email account, so check and make sure it sent ok. Now you can choose to have the program automatically email you when warnings and critical alerts appear, and also to have it send regular disk status reports.   Conclusion Whether you’ve got a brand new hard drive or one that’s seen better days, knowing the real health of your it is one of the best ways to be prepared before disaster strikes.  It’s no substitute for regular backups, but can help you avert problems.  Acronis Drive Monitor is a nice tool for this, and although we wish it wasn’t so centered around their backup offerings, we still found it a nice tool. Link Download Acronis Drive Monitor (registration required) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Tip: Change Monitor Timeout From Command LineAnalyze and Manage Hard Drive Space with WinDirStatMonitor CPU, Memory, and Disk IO In Windows 7 with Taskbar MetersDefrag Multiple Hard Drives At Once In WindowsFind Your Missing USB Drive on Windows XP TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Windows 7’s WordPad is Actually Good Greate Image Viewing and Management with Zoner Photo Studio Free Windows Media Player Plus! – Cool WMP Enhancer Get Your Team’s World Cup Schedule In Google Calendar Backup Drivers With Driver Magician TubeSort: YouTube Playlist Organizer

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• Enhanced REST Support in Oracle Service Bus 11gR1

  - by jeff.x.davies

  In a previous entry on REST and Oracle Service Bus (see http://blogs.oracle.com/jeffdavies/2009/06/restful_services_with_oracle_s_1.html) I encoded the REST query string really as part of the relative URL. For example, consider the following URI: http://localhost:7001/SimpleREST/Products/id=1234 Now, technically there is nothing wrong with this approach. However, it is generally more common to encode the search parameters into the query string. Take a look at the following URI that shows this principle http://localhost:7001/SimpleREST/Products?id=1234 At first blush this appears to be a trivial change. However, this approach is more intuitive, especially if you are passing in multiple parameters. For example: http://localhost:7001/SimpleREST/Products?cat=electronics&subcat=television&mfg=sony The above URI is obviously used to retrieve a list of televisions made by Sony. In prior versions of OSB (before 11gR1PS3), parsing the query string of a URI was more difficult than in the current release. In 11gR1PS3 it is now much easier to parse the query strings, which in turn makes developing REST services in OSB even easier. In this blog entry, we will re-implement the REST-ful Products services using query strings for passing parameter information. Lets begin with the implementation of the Products REST service. This service is implemented in the Products.proxy file of the project. Lets begin with the overall structure of the service, as shown in the following screenshot. This is a common pattern for REST services in the Oracle Service Bus. You implement different flows for each of the HTTP verbs that you want your service to support. Lets take a look at how the GET verb is implemented. This is the path that is taken of you were to point your browser to: http://localhost:7001/SimpleREST/Products/id=1234 There is an Assign action in the request pipeline that shows how to extract a query parameter. Here is the expression that is used to extract the id parameter: $inbound/ctx:transport/ctx:request/http:query-parameters/http:parameter[@name="id"]/@value The Assign action that stores the value into an OSB variable named id. Using this type of XPath statement you can query for any variables by name, without regard to their order in the parameter list. The Log statement is there simply to provided some debugging info in the OSB server console. The response pipeline contains a Replace action that constructs the response document for our rest service. Most of the response data is static, but the ID field that is returned is set based upon the query-parameter that was passed into the REST proxy. Testing the REST service with a browser is very simple. Just point it to the URL I showed you earlier. However, the browser is really only good for testing simple GET services. The OSB Test Console provides a much more robust environment for testing REST services, no matter which HTTP verb is used. Lets see how to use the Test Console to test this GET service. Open the OSB we console (http://localhost:7001/sbconsole) and log in as the administrator. Click on the Test Console icon (the little "bug") next to the Products proxy service in the SimpleREST project. This will bring up the Test Console browser window. Unlike SOAP services, we don't need to do much work in the request document because all of our request information will be encoded into the URI of the service itself. Belore the Request Document section of the Test Console is the Transport section. Expand that section and modify the query-parameters and http-method fields as shown in the next screenshot. By default, the query-parameters field will have the tags already defined. You just need to add a tag for each parameter you want to pass into the service. For out purposes with this particular call, you'd set the quer-parameters field as follows: <tp:parameter name="id" value="1234" /> </tp:query-parameters> Now you are ready to push the Execute button to see the results of the call. That covers the process for parsing query parameters using OSB. However, what if you have an OSB proxy service that needs to consume a REST-ful service? How do you tell OSB to pass the query parameters to the external service? In the sample code you will see a 2nd proxy service called CallREST. It invokes the Products proxy service in exactly the same way it would invoke any REST service. Our CallREST proxy service is defined as a SOAP service. This help to demonstrate OSBs ability to mediate between service consumers and service providers, decreasing the level of coupling between them. If you examine the message flow for the CallREST proxy service, you'll see that it uses an Operational branch to isolate processing logic for each operation that is defined by the SOAP service. We will focus on the getProductDetail branch, that calls the Products REST service using the HTTP GET verb. Expand the getProduct pipeline and the stage node that it contains. There is a single Assign statement that simply extracts the productID from the SOA request and stores it in a local OSB variable. Nothing suprising here. The real work (and the real learning) occurs in the Route node below the pipeline. The first thing to learn is that you need to use a route node when calling REST services, not a Service Callout or a Publish action. That's because only the Routing action has access to the $oubound variable, especially when invoking a business service. The Routing action contains 3 Insert actions. The first Insert action shows how to specify the HTTP verb as a GET. The second insert action simply inserts the XML node into the request. This element does not exist in the request by default, so we need to add it manually. Now that we have the element defined in our outbound request, we can fill it with the parameters that we want to send to the REST service. In the following screenshot you can see how we define the id parameter based on the productID value we extracted earlier from the SOAP request document. That expression will look for the parameter that has the name id and extract its value. That's all there is to it. You now know how to take full advantage of the query parameter parsing capability of the Oracle Service Bus 11gR1PS2. Download the sample source code here: rest2_sbconfig.jar Ubuntu and the OSB Test Console You will get an error when you try to use the Test Console with the Oracle Service Bus, using Ubuntu (or likely a number of other Linux distros also). The error (shown below) will state that the Test Console service is not running. The fix for this problem is quite simple. Open up the WebLogic Server administrator console (usually running at http://localhost:7001/console). In the Domain Structure window on the left side of the console, select the Servers entry under the Environment heading. The select the Admin Server entry in the main window of the console. By default, you should be viewing the Configuration tabe and the General sub tab in the main window. Look for the Listen Address field. By default it is blank, which means it is listening on all interfaces. For some reason Ubuntu doesn't like this. So enter a value like localhost or the specific IP address or DNS name for your server (usually its just localhost in development envirionments). Save your changes and restart the server. Your Test Console will now work correctly.

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