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  • Using // in a <script>'s source

    - by Dan Beam
    Hello fellow front-end web h4X0|2s, I was wondering if anyone had any resources, proof, or personal experience in using the age-old http/https JavaScript hack: <script src="//someserver.com/js/script.js"></script> Has anyone encountered issues in any of these browsers (IE 5.5+, FF2+, Chrome, Opera 9+, Safari 3+)? Has anybody had success stories? Thank you for your help.

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  • Get the desktop/viewport of a window in enlightenment?

    - by Zorf
    Okay, so, given a XID of a window I need to get its desktop or viewport as well as the currently active one. Enlightenment does not seem to properly respond to wmctrl which leads to: ***@note:~ > wmctrl -lG 0x01e00002 -1 21 395 310 146 note Conky (note) # it places conkey wndows on -1 for some reason? 0x01c00002 -1 65 655 230 158 note Conky (note) 0x01a00002 -1 25 215 230 182 note Conky (note) 0x01800002 -1 25 550 310 110 note Conky (note) 0x01600002 -1 685 145 230 120 note Conky (note) 0x01400002 -1 1120 245 280 206 note Conky (note) 0x01200002 -1 1095 35 230 186 note Conky (note) 0x01000002 -1 1145 470 250 266 note Conky (note) 0x00c00002 -1 40 34 230 182 note Conky (note) 0x00e00029 0 0 0 1440 900 note ~ : bash – Konsole # desktop 2, fullscreen 0x03a00060 0 505 231 899 642 note Downloads – 'Dolphin' # destkop 0 0x0480001a 0 206 222 958 526 note Lifelover - Kärlek - becksvart melankoli #desk 2 0x034000e6 0 116 32 984 767 note clemctrl – Kate #desk 0 0x02c01b78 0 309 314 549 520 note ************* # desk 1 0x04e00062 0 104 31 990 619 note XChat: *** @ Free / #*** (+Ccnt) #desk 1 0x05c00112 0 22 35 1396 834 note StarCraft on Reddit - Chromium #desk 3 0x02c0f292 0 453 356 549 520 note *** #desk 1 0x02c000c0 0 860 216 557 645 note Buddy List # desk 1 As can be seen, all windows are on desk 0 in wmctrl except conky windows. Furthermore the geometry-viewport trick also doesn't seem to work that works in some wm's, are there any other tricks to get on which viewport/desktop a window is? There has to be some way to get it right?

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  • What are the most frustrating Python hacks to unwind, rewrite, etc.?

    - by Bialecki
    My impression of Python from the short time I've been developing with it is that it's incredible powerful and flexible, but I can't help but feel like "with great power comes great responsibility." So while I've read numerous blog posts about simple and elegant Python snippets that solve a problems, I wonder if there are design patterns or abuses of Python language features that, once built into an application or library, cause the code to be incredibly brittle and near impossible to refactor. So the question is basically what are the most frustrating, but somewhat common, Python "hacks" or language feature abuses that someone can introduce that will cause nightmares for future maintainers of that code?

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  • How to display programs, started by TSWA Remoteapp, inside a browser instead of directly on the desk

    - by richardboon
    For those not familiar with Terminal Services Web Access and Resulting Internet Communication in Windows Server 2008, here’s a brief overview: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754502(WS.10).aspx The problem (I am trying to solve), can be seen in the picture of step 16, where the application is display directly right on the desktop [see link below]: http://blogs.technet.com/askcore/archive/2008/07/22/publishing-the-hyper-v-management-interface-using-terminal-services.aspx I am in the process of setting up Terminal Service Web Access RemoteApp for our company. Users only want remoteapp and needs to see the remote program running within/contain-inside the browser. They don’t want to see or access the whole desktop [as the case with remote desktop, which can be displayed inside a browser].

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  • Mount - Unable to find suitable address

    - by Benny
    I am trying to mount my Windows share through my Ubuntu box (no xwindow), but I continue to get Unable to find suitable address I have tried using the raw IP address, I have checked the credentials, I have disabled the Windows firewall, but I cannot find anything wrong. benny@backup:~$ sudo mount -t cifs //my-desk/j -o username=me,password=s)mePasss /mnt/sync Unable to find suitable address. benny@backup:~$ ping my-desk PING my-desk (10.10.10.43) 56(84) bytes of data. ? --- my-desk ping statistics --- 2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 1008ms benny@backup:~$ sudo mount -t cifs //10.10.10.43/j -o username=me,password=s)mePasss /mnt/sync Unable to find suitable address. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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  • Is there any free live support solution that would ease implementation of a basic online help-desk?

    - by bogdan
    I'm looking for a free or inexpensive solution to give live online support to web visitors. I would like something based on Jabber/XMPP because it's an open protocol. This should work like this: The company would use 2-3 jabber accounts like Google Talk for providing support Online chat form that would connect to one of currently online jabber accounts Optionally give one proxy jabber account to the customers. This proxy would contact any of the currently online company accounts. Using this customers will see only one chat contact but they will speak with different people based on who is online at the moment. Currently I found only some expensive solutions like J-livesupport, Akeni. I would really appreciate if you will recommend something you successfully implemented.

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  • MYSQL inserting records form table A into tables B and C (linked by foreign key) depending on column values in table A

    - by Chez
    Hi All, Have been searching high and low for a simple solution to a mysql insert problem. The problem is as follows: I am putting together an organisational database consisting of departments and desks. A department may or may not have n number of desks. Both departments and desks have their own table linked by a foreign key in desks to the relevant record in departments (i.e. the pk). I have a temporary table which I use to place all new department data (n records long)...In this table n number of desk records for a department follow the department record directly below. In the TEMP table, if a column department_name has a value,it is a department, if it doesn't it will have a value for the column desk and therefore will be a desk which is related to the above department. As I said there maybe several desk records until you get to the next department record. Ok, so what I want to do is the following: Insert the departments into the departments table and its desks into the desks table , generating a foreign key in the desk record to the relevant departments id. In pseudo-ish code: for each record in TEMP table if Department INSERT the record into Departments get the id of the newly created Department record and store it somewhere else if Desk INSERT the desk into the desks table with the relevant departments id as the foreignkey note once again that all departments desks directly follow the department in the TEMP Table Many Thanks

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  • UiModeManager - NightMode (FroYo)

    - by Kaloer
    Hi there, I have been trying to turn off the buttons' light in my application using the UiModeManager's nightmode function. The default Desk Clock application (Nexus One) turns off the buttons' light when it is dimmed, and I want to do this as well. I've tried using the following code: UiModeManager mgr = (UiModeManager) getSystemService(UI_MODE_SERVICE); mgr.setNightMode(UiModeManager.MODE_NIGHT_YES); The UiModeManager.setNightMode(int mode) documentation says this: Sets the night mode. Changes to the night mode are only effective when the car or desk mode is enabled on a device. Does that mean that the device has to be physically in a desk dock? I can set the device to car mode using the UiModeManager.enableCarMode(int flags) method. This works fine, but it doesn't turn off the lights, it only dims the screen's backlight. Is there a way to set the device into desk mode without using a physical desk dock? As the FroYo source code is not yet released, I cannot look at the build-in Desk Clock application. Thanks in advantage.

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  • Files and folders disappeared from my desktop

    - by Rob
    Suddenly all files, folders and icons that were on my desktop have disappeared. tried making "show hidden files", no luck. tried using recovery software, but it did not find any of this files, so I assume they were not deletes. c:/Users/<myname>/Desktop does look empty from the Explorer, as well as from cmd. installed MalwareBytes, it did find and remove some malware, but it didn't seem to help. used RogueKiller and it did find some suspicious registry called "HideDesktopIcons". ¤¤¤ Registry Entries : 4 ¤¤¤ [HJ DESK] HKCU\[...]\ClassicStartMenu : {59031A47-3F72-44A7-89C5-5595FE6B30EE} (1) -> REPLACED (0) [HJ DESK] HKCU\[...]\NewStartPanel : {59031A47-3F72-44A7-89C5-5595FE6B30EE} (1) -> REPLACED (0) [HJ DESK] HKCU\[...]\ClassicStartMenu : {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} (1) -> REPLACED (0) [HJ DESK] HKCU\[...]\NewStartPanel : {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} (1) -> REPLACED (0) I deleted this registry, rebooted, it only unhid My Computer and User icons, but my desktop stuff is still missing — any ideas what should I do next?

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  • Open space sitting optimization algorithm

    - by Georgy Bolyuba
    As a result of changes in the company, we have to rearrange our sitting plan: one room with 10 desks in it. Some desks are more popular than others for number of reasons. One solution would be to draw a desk number from a hat. We think there is a better way to do it. We have 10 desks and 10 people. Lets give every person in this contest 50 hypothetical tokens to bid on the desks. There is no limit of how much you bid on one desk, you can put all 50, which would be saying "I want to sit only here, period". You can also say "I do not care" by giving every desk 5 tokens. Important note: nobody knows what other people are doing. Everyone has to decide based only on his/her best interest (sounds familiar?) Now lets say we obtained these hypothetical results: # | Desk# >| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 1 | Alise | 30 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 | 0 | 0 | = 50 2 | Bob | 20 | 15 | 0 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | = 50 ... 10 | Zed | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | = 50 Now, what we need to find is that one (or more) configuration(s) that gives us maximum satisfaction (i.e. people get desks they wanted taking into account all the bids and maximizing on the total of the group. Naturally the assumption is the more one bade on the desk the more he/she wants it). Since there are only 10 people, I think we can brute force it looking into all possible configurations, but I was wondering it there is a better algorithm for solving this kind of problems?

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  • SQL server 2008 trigger not working correct with multiple inserts

    - by Rob
    I've got the following trigger; CREATE TRIGGER trFLightAndDestination ON checkin_flight AFTER INSERT,UPDATE AS BEGIN IF NOT EXISTS ( SELECT 1 FROM Flight v INNER JOIN Inserted AS i ON i.flightnumber = v.flightnumber INNER JOIN checkin_destination AS ib ON ib.airport = v.airport INNER JOIN checkin_company AS im ON im.company = v.company WHERE i.desk = ib.desk AND i.desk = im.desk ) BEGIN RAISERROR('This combination of of flight and check-in desk is not possible',16,1) ROLLBACK TRAN END END What i want the trigger to do is to check the tables Flight, checkin_destination and checkin_company when a new record for checkin_flight is added. Every record of checkin_flight contains a flightnumber and desknumber where passengers need to check in for this destination. The tables checkin_destination and checkin_company contain information about companies and destinations restricted to certain checkin desks. When adding a record to checkin_flight i need information from the flight table to get the destination and flightcompany with the inserted flightnumber. This information needs to be checked against the available checkin combinations for flights, destinations and companies. I'm using the trigger as stated above, but when i try to insert a wrong combination the trigger allows it. What am i missing here?

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  • Most awesomely bad hack

    - by Zypher
    As I sit watching one of my latest dirty dirty hacks run, I started wondering what kind of dirty hacks you have created that are so bad they are awesome. We all have a few of them in our past - and they are probably still running in production somewhere, chugging along somehow still working. Which reminds me of the hack we had to put into place when we were moving data centers. Our IVRs had to keep running, as the data center we were moving from was the primary DC, and the new Primary wasn't quite ready to take traffic. So what do we do. Well we answer the calls in DC1, then ship the sip stream over the internet to DC2 1900 miles away ... that just felt oh so wrong. So the question is, what is one (or more) of your awesomely bad hacks?

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  • Travelling MVP #1: Visit to SharePoint User Group Finland

    - by DigiMortal
    My first self organized trip this autumn was visit to SharePoint User Group Finland community evening. As active community leaders who make things like these possible they are worth mentioning and on spug.fi side there was Jussi Roine the one who invited me. Here is my short review about my trip to Helsinki. User group meeting As Helsinki is near Tallinn I went there using ship. It was easy to get from sea port to venue and I had also some minutes of time to visit academic book store. Community evening was held on the ground floor of one city center hotel and room was conveniently located near hotel bar and restaurant. Here is the meeting schedule: Welcome (Jussi Roine) OpenText application archiving and governance for SharePoint (Bernd Hennicke, OpenText) Using advanced C# features in SharePoint development (Alexey Sadomov, NED Consulting) Optimizing public-facing internet sites for SharePoint (Gunnar Peipman) After meeting, of course, local dudes doesn’t walk away but continue with some beers and discussion. Sessions After welcome words by Jussi there was session by Bernd Hennicke who spoke about OpenText. His session covered OpenText history and current moment. After this introduction he spoke about OpenText products for SharePoint and gave the audience good overview about where their SharePoint extensions fit in big picture. I usually don’t like those vendors sessions but this one was good. I mean vendor dudes were not aggressively selling something. They were way different – kind people who introduced their stuff and later answered questions. They acted like good guests. Second speaker was Alexey Sadomov who is working on SharePoint development projects. He introduced some ways how to get over some limitations of SharePoint. I don’t go here deeply with his session but it’s worth to mention that this session was strong one. It is not rear case when developers have to make nasty hacks to SharePoint. I mean really nasty hacks. Often these hacks are long blocks of code that uses terrible techniques to achieve the result. Alexey introduced some very much civilized ways about how to apply hacks. Alex Sadomov, SharePoint MVP, speaking about SharePoint coding tips and tricks on C# I spoke about how I optimized caching of Estonian Microsoft community portal that runs on SharePoint Server and that uses publishing infrastructure. I made no actual demos on SharePoint because I wanted to focus on optimizing process and share some experiences about how to get caches optimized and how to measure caches. Networking After official part there was time to talk and discuss with people. Finns are cool – they have beers and they are glad. It was not big community event but people were like one good family. Developers there work often for big companies and it was very interesting to me to hear about their experiences with SharePoint. One thing was a little bit surprising for me – SharePoint guys in Finland are talking actively also about Office 365 and online SharePoint. It doesn’t happen often here in Estonia. I had to leave a little bit 21:00 to get to my ship back to Tallinn. I am sure spug.fi dudes continued nice evening and they had at least same good time as I did. Do I want to go back to Finland and meet these guys again? Yes, sure, let’s do it again! :)

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  • ssh through a bastion machine works on someone else's desktop but not my own

    - by Terrence Brannon
    I have to ssh into a bastion (jump) server in order to get to the final server. On the jump server, my .ssh/config says: Host * ForwardAgent yes My co-worker uses PuTTy and Pageant. When I use a putty shell to connect from his desktop to the final server as root via the jump server, it works fine. At my desk I cannot connect to the final server, only the jump server. However, if I go to his desk, and successfully log into the final server via the jump server, I can then go back to my desk and also do so.... but after a certain amount of time, my shells revert to the original behavior of not connecting to final server via jump server. The entire transcript of ssh -v -v -v final_server is here The relevant part to me is when the public key is offered but then it says 'we did not send a packet': debug1: Offering public key: /home/CORP/t.brannon/.ssh/id_dsa debug3: send_pubkey_test debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,password debug2: we did not send a packet, disable method debug3: authmethod_lookup password

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  • New Oracle Tutor Class: Create Procedures and Support Documents

    - by [email protected]
    Offered by Oracle University Course Code D66797GC10 July 14-16, 2010 in Chicago, IL This three day Instructor Led class is only US$ 2,250 Oracle® Tutor provides organizations with a powerful pair of applications to develop, deploy, and maintain employee business process documentation. Tutor includes a repository of prewritten process, procedure, and support documents that can be readily modified to reflect your company's unique business processes. The result is a set of job-role specific desk manuals that are easy to update and deploy online. Use Tutor to create content to: Implement new business applications Document for any regulatory compliance initiative Turn every desk into a self service reference center Increase employee productivity The primary challenge for companies faced with documenting policies, processes, and procedures is to realize that they can do this documentation in-house, with existing resources, using Oracle Tutor. Process documentation is a critical success component when implementing or upgrading to a new business application and for supporting corporate governance or other regulatory compliance initiatives. There are over 1000 Oracle Tutor customers worldwide that have used Tutor to create, distribute, and maintain their business procedures. This is easily accomplished because of Tutor's: Ease of use by those who have to write procedures (Microsoft Word based authoring) Ease of company-wide implementation (complex document management activities are centralized) Ease of use by workers who have to follow the procedures (play script format) Ease of access by remote workers (web-enabled) This course is an introduction to the Oracle Tutor suite of products. It focuses on the process documentation feature set of the Tutor applications. Participants will learn about writing procedures and maintaining these particular process document types, all using the Tutor method. Audience Business Analysts End Users Functional Implementer Project Manager Sales Consultants Security Compliance Auditors User Adoption Consultants Prerequisites No Prerequisite Courses strong working knowledge of MS Windows strong working knowledge of MS Word (2007) Objectives • Provide your organization with the next steps to implement the Tutor procedure writing method and system in your organization • Use the Tutor Author application to write employee focused process documents (procedures, instructions, references, process maps) • Use the Tutor Publisher application to create impact analysis reports, Employee Desk Manuals, and Owner Manuals Web site on OU Link to a PDF of the class summary Oracle University Training Centre - Chicago Emily Chorba Product Manager for Oracle Tutor

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  • JOB OF THE WEEK

    - by jessica.ebbelaar(at)oracle.com
    Help Desk Support Specialist - Budapest (Hungary) Do you have French and English languages skills, and are living in Hungary? Then this could be the role for you to start your career with at Oracle. We now have an opening as Help Desk Support Specialist in our office Budapest. In this role you will respond to requests for technical assistance by phone, email and/or using our help desk management system We are looking for candidates with a passion for Customer Service. Next to that planning & organizing, problem solving, time management are important competencies to have for this role. If you already had some exposure to Bio Pharmaceutical or Clinical companies that is a big plus. It is a great opportunity not only for graduates, but for all who want to start their career at Oracle and a unique chance to work in multinational team together with colleagues from all over the world! If you are interested in this position, read more here! For all of our other vacancies and internships, please visit https://campus.oracle.com.

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  • Why does Ubuntu keep trying to connect to a WiFi network while plugged into an ethernet

    - by labarna
    My desk is situated at the edge of the range of a wireless signal which I use occasionally (when away from my desk) and is therefore saved in network manager. At my desk, however, I plug into the ethernet cable. While I'm working the computer is constantly trying to join the wireless network and usually failing this results in two annoying behaviors. 1: In gnome shell the network connect and disconnect notices keep popping up at the bottom of the screen and I have to click them to make them disappear (I assume it's been fixed in the next version of gnome). 2: (the worst!) Occasionally the wifi password dialog will pop up and ask for the password to this network (which is already saved). An additionally annoyance is that in gnome shell I'll get two copies of the dialog that I have to cancel, one is gnome shell themed (no window border etc...) and the other is just normal gnome themed. (Sometimes if I've been away from the computer for a while I will have multiple copies of this dialog up as its been trying to connect for a while resulting in at times 20 dialogs to cancel). Note, all the while I've been happily connected to the ethernet and have full network access. This is incredibly annoying and distracting, why doesn't ubuntu stop trying to connect to wifi if I'm on the ethernet (unless I want to broadcast my own network, but that's different)?

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  • How to use my computer to control a lamp?

    - by nona urbiz
    I've been researching computer automation systems, but everything I've found has been overkill for what I'm interested in. Can anyone help me control a lamp that is on my desk, plugged in the wall beneath the desk, with my computer (also on the desk, usually). What got me thinking is that I have the lamp plugged into a Belkin extension cord/surge protector that came with a wireless switch that toggles the power going to 6 of the eight sockets. Can I somehow hook my computer into this? I'm not too afraid to get into some wiring type thing, but do have a somewhat limited budget. It'd also be cool to get a dimmer in the loop too. thanks aha. after more research, i have realized what i'm looking for is instructions for a DIY version of this that won't look so ugly, and that i can build a UI for rather than shortcuts.

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  • 2 year cis degree and in school for computer science what can I do?

    - by chame1eon
    Hi I am 29 and have a recent 2 cis year degree from a community college , an A+ certification , and meager experience with web stuff ( Java , Javascript , php ) while in my 1 year help desk internship. In all the programming classes I was able to blow through the homework easily even while other students were panicking and dropping. I think I have managed to avoid the most atrocious noob/self taught mistakes ( spaghetti code etc) by just doing research before starting something and trying to keep good design in mind. Even so I'd have to make heavy use of references to crawl through even simple projects that would result in fully finished useful applications. I need a job now and I am tired of the slow pace of the classes and would love to get any kind of practical experience I could. The problem is that I am not sure what I should be trying to do. I have a very strong preference for application programming or at least anything light on design and preferably pretty low level. If I can't do that then anything technology related , for example help desk would be better than nothing. I live near Raleigh NC. Am I qualified for anything that could contribute to coding (C++ or Java ) experience or even web development though I don't really like it. Would web development experience help. If not is there anything I could read or do that could help? Is the help desk my only choice? If it is, are there any relatively quick certifications or anything similar that would help while I am waiting? Sorry about the long multi-part question. Thanks for reading.

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  • C# Chain-of-responsibility with delegates

    - by nettguy
    For my understanding purpose i have implemented Chain-Of-Responsibility pattern. //Abstract Base Type public abstract class CustomerServiceDesk { protected CustomerServiceDesk _nextHandler; public abstract void ServeCustomers(Customer _customer); public void SetupHadler(CustomerServiceDesk _nextHandler) { this._nextHandler = _nextHandler; } } public class FrontLineServiceDesk:CustomerServiceDesk { public override void ServeCustomers(Customer _customer) { if (_customer.ComplaintType == ComplaintType.General) { Console.WriteLine(_customer.Name + " Complaints are registered ; will be served soon by FrontLine Help Desk.."); } else { Console.WriteLine(_customer.Name + " is redirected to Critical Help Desk"); _nextHandler.ServeCustomers(_customer); } } } public class CriticalIssueServiceDesk:CustomerServiceDesk { public override void ServeCustomers(Customer _customer) { if (_customer.ComplaintType == ComplaintType.Critical) { Console.WriteLine(_customer.Name + "Complaints are registered ; will be served soon by Critical Help Desk"); } else if (_customer.ComplaintType == ComplaintType.Legal) { Console.WriteLine(_customer.Name + "is redirected to Legal Help Desk"); _nextHandler.ServeCustomers(_customer); } } } public class LegalissueServiceDesk :CustomerServiceDesk { public override void ServeCustomers(Customer _customer) { if (_customer.ComplaintType == ComplaintType.Legal) { Console.WriteLine(_customer.Name + "Complaints are registered ; will be served soon by legal help desk"); } } } public class Customer { public string Name { get; set; } public ComplaintType ComplaintType { get; set; } } public enum ComplaintType { General, Critical, Legal } void Main() { CustomerServiceDesk _frontLineDesk = new FrontLineServiceDesk(); CustomerServiceDesk _criticalSupportDesk = new CriticalIssueServiceDesk(); CustomerServiceDesk _legalSupportDesk = new LegalissueServiceDesk(); _frontLineDesk.SetupHadler(_criticalSupportDesk); _criticalSupportDesk.SetupHadler(_legalSupportDesk); Customer _customer1 = new Customer(); _customer1.Name = "Microsoft"; _customer1.ComplaintType = ComplaintType.General; Customer _customer2 = new Customer(); _customer2.Name = "SunSystems"; _customer2.ComplaintType = ComplaintType.Critical; Customer _customer3 = new Customer(); _customer3.Name = "HP"; _customer3.ComplaintType = ComplaintType.Legal; _frontLineDesk.ServeCustomers(_customer1); _frontLineDesk.ServeCustomers(_customer2); _frontLineDesk.ServeCustomers(_customer3); } Question Without breaking the chain-of-responsibility ,how can i apply delegates and events to rewrite the code?

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  • The Power to Control Power

    - by speakjava
    I'm currently working on a number of projects using embedded Java on the Raspberry Pi and Beagle Board.  These are nice and small, so don't take up much room on my desk as you can see in this picture. As you can also see I have power and network connections emerging from under my desk.  One of the (admittedly very minor) drawbacks of these systems is that they have no on/off switch.  Instead you insert or remove the power connector (USB for the RasPi, a barrel connector for the Beagle).  For the Beagle Board this can potentially be an issue; with the micro-SD card located right next to the connector it has been known for people to eject the card when trying to power off the board, which can be quite serious for the hardware. The alternative is obviously to leave the boards plugged in and then disconnect the power from the outlet.  Simple enough, but a picture of underneath my desk shows that this is not the ideal situation either. This made me think that it would be great if I could have some way of controlling a mains voltage outlet using a remote switch or, even better, from software via a USB connector.  A search revealed not much that fit my requirements, and anything that was close seemed very expensive.  Obviously the only way to solve this was to build my own.Here's my solution.  I decided my system would support both control mechanisms (remote physical switch and USB computer control) and be modular in its design for optimum flexibility.  I did a bit of searching and found a company in Hong Kong that were offering solid state relays for 99p plus shipping (£2.99, but still made the total price very reasonable).  These would handle up to 380V AC on the output side so more than capable of coping with the UK 240V supply.  The other great thing was that being solid state, the input would work with a range of 3-32V and required a very low current of 7.5mA at 12V.  For the USB control an Arduino board seemed the obvious low-cost and simple choice.  Given the current requirments of the relay, the Arduino would not require the additional power supply and could be powered just from the USB.Having secured the relays I popped down to Homebase for a couple of 13A sockets, RS for a box and an Arduino and Maplin for a toggle switch.  The circuit is pretty straightforward, as shown in the diagram (only one output is shown to make it as simple as possible).  Originally I used a 2 pole toggle switch to select the remote switch or USB control by switching the negative connections of the low voltage side.  Unfortunately, the resistance between the digital pins of the Arduino board was not high enough, so when using one of the remote switches it would turn on both of the outlets.  I changed to a 4 pole switch and isolated both positive and negative connections. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to follow my design, please be aware that it requires working with mains voltages.  If you are at all concerned with your ability to do this please consult a qualified electrician to help you.It was a tight fit, especially getting the Arduino in, but in the end it all worked.  The completed box is shown in the photos. The remote switch was pretty simple just requiring the squeezing of two rocker switches and a 9V battery into the small RS supplied box.  I repurposed a standard stereo cable with phono plugs to connect the switch box to the mains outlets.  I chopped off one set of plugs and wired it to the rocker switches.  The photo shows the RasPi and the Beagle board now controllable from the switch box on the desk. I've tested the Arduino side of things and this works fine.  Next I need to write some software to provide an interface for control of the outlets.  I'm thinking a JavaFX GUI would be in keeping with the total overkill style of this project.

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