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  • What's the best way to make a mobile friendly site?

    - by Frew
    Speaking entirely in technology-free terms, what is the best way to make a mobile friendly site? That is, I want to make a site that will work on a regular computer but also have mobile versions of the pages. Should I rewrite each page? The pages will probably have different functionality, so should I rewrite the backend code? Should it be an effectively different site with the same database?

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  • Java projects without swing

    - by Jeff Home
    I'm quite familiar with Java and I would like to work on a project on my free time but for some reason, I just hate having to work with swing. I'm wondering what kind of Java technologies are available out there that I can use for starting a project. Thank you.

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  • Zen and the Art of File and Folder Organization

    - by Mark Virtue
    Is your desk a paragon of neatness, or does it look like a paper-bomb has gone off? If you’ve been putting off getting organized because the task is too huge or daunting, or you don’t know where to start, we’ve got 40 tips to get you on the path to zen mastery of your filing system. For all those readers who would like to get their files and folders organized, or, if they’re already organized, better organized—we have compiled a complete guide to getting organized and staying organized, a comprehensive article that will hopefully cover every possible tip you could want. Signs that Your Computer is Poorly Organized If your computer is a mess, you’re probably already aware of it.  But just in case you’re not, here are some tell-tale signs: Your Desktop has over 40 icons on it “My Documents” contains over 300 files and 60 folders, including MP3s and digital photos You use the Windows’ built-in search facility whenever you need to find a file You can’t find programs in the out-of-control list of programs in your Start Menu You save all your Word documents in one folder, all your spreadsheets in a second folder, etc Any given file that you’re looking for may be in any one of four different sets of folders But before we start, here are some quick notes: We’re going to assume you know what files and folders are, and how to create, save, rename, copy and delete them The organization principles described in this article apply equally to all computer systems.  However, the screenshots here will reflect how things look on Windows (usually Windows 7).  We will also mention some useful features of Windows that can help you get organized. Everyone has their own favorite methodology of organizing and filing, and it’s all too easy to get into “My Way is Better than Your Way” arguments.  The reality is that there is no perfect way of getting things organized.  When I wrote this article, I tried to keep a generalist and objective viewpoint.  I consider myself to be unusually well organized (to the point of obsession, truth be told), and I’ve had 25 years experience in collecting and organizing files on computers.  So I’ve got a lot to say on the subject.  But the tips I have described here are only one way of doing it.  Hopefully some of these tips will work for you too, but please don’t read this as any sort of “right” way to do it. At the end of the article we’ll be asking you, the reader, for your own organization tips. Why Bother Organizing At All? For some, the answer to this question is self-evident. And yet, in this era of powerful desktop search software (the search capabilities built into the Windows Vista and Windows 7 Start Menus, and third-party programs like Google Desktop Search), the question does need to be asked, and answered. I have a friend who puts every file he ever creates, receives or downloads into his My Documents folder and doesn’t bother filing them into subfolders at all.  He relies on the search functionality built into his Windows operating system to help him find whatever he’s looking for.  And he always finds it.  He’s a Search Samurai.  For him, filing is a waste of valuable time that could be spent enjoying life! It’s tempting to follow suit.  On the face of it, why would anyone bother to take the time to organize their hard disk when such excellent search software is available?  Well, if all you ever want to do with the files you own is to locate and open them individually (for listening, editing, etc), then there’s no reason to ever bother doing one scrap of organization.  But consider these common tasks that are not achievable with desktop search software: Find files manually.  Often it’s not convenient, speedy or even possible to utilize your desktop search software to find what you want.  It doesn’t work 100% of the time, or you may not even have it installed.  Sometimes its just plain faster to go straight to the file you want, if you know it’s in a particular sub-folder, rather than trawling through hundreds of search results. Find groups of similar files (e.g. all your “work” files, all the photos of your Europe holiday in 2008, all your music videos, all the MP3s from Dark Side of the Moon, all your letters you wrote to your wife, all your tax returns).  Clever naming of the files will only get you so far.  Sometimes it’s the date the file was created that’s important, other times it’s the file format, and other times it’s the purpose of the file.  How do you name a collection of files so that they’re easy to isolate based on any of the above criteria?  Short answer, you can’t. Move files to a new computer.  It’s time to upgrade your computer.  How do you quickly grab all the files that are important to you?  Or you decide to have two computers now – one for home and one for work.  How do you quickly isolate only the work-related files to move them to the work computer? Synchronize files to other computers.  If you have more than one computer, and you need to mirror some of your files onto the other computer (e.g. your music collection), then you need a way to quickly determine which files are to be synced and which are not.  Surely you don’t want to synchronize everything? Choose which files to back up.  If your backup regime calls for multiple backups, or requires speedy backups, then you’ll need to be able to specify which files are to be backed up, and which are not.  This is not possible if they’re all in the same folder. Finally, if you’re simply someone who takes pleasure in being organized, tidy and ordered (me! me!), then you don’t even need a reason.  Being disorganized is simply unthinkable. Tips on Getting Organized Here we present our 40 best tips on how to get organized.  Or, if you’re already organized, to get better organized. Tip #1.  Choose Your Organization System Carefully The reason that most people are not organized is that it takes time.  And the first thing that takes time is deciding upon a system of organization.  This is always a matter of personal preference, and is not something that a geek on a website can tell you.  You should always choose your own system, based on how your own brain is organized (which makes the assumption that your brain is, in fact, organized). We can’t instruct you, but we can make suggestions: You may want to start off with a system based on the users of the computer.  i.e. “My Files”, “My Wife’s Files”, My Son’s Files”, etc.  Inside “My Files”, you might then break it down into “Personal” and “Business”.  You may then realize that there are overlaps.  For example, everyone may want to share access to the music library, or the photos from the school play.  So you may create another folder called “Family”, for the “common” files. You may decide that the highest-level breakdown of your files is based on the “source” of each file.  In other words, who created the files.  You could have “Files created by ME (business or personal)”, “Files created by people I know (family, friends, etc)”, and finally “Files created by the rest of the world (MP3 music files, downloaded or ripped movies or TV shows, software installation files, gorgeous desktop wallpaper images you’ve collected, etc).”  This system happens to be the one I use myself.  See below:  Mark is for files created by meVC is for files created by my company (Virtual Creations)Others is for files created by my friends and familyData is the rest of the worldAlso, Settings is where I store the configuration files and other program data files for my installed software (more on this in tip #34, below). Each folder will present its own particular set of requirements for further sub-organization.  For example, you may decide to organize your music collection into sub-folders based on the artist’s name, while your digital photos might get organized based on the date they were taken.  It can be different for every sub-folder! Another strategy would be based on “currentness”.  Files you have yet to open and look at live in one folder.  Ones that have been looked at but not yet filed live in another place.  Current, active projects live in yet another place.  All other files (your “archive”, if you like) would live in a fourth folder. (And of course, within that last folder you’d need to create a further sub-system based on one of the previous bullet points). Put some thought into this – changing it when it proves incomplete can be a big hassle!  Before you go to the trouble of implementing any system you come up with, examine a wide cross-section of the files you own and see if they will all be able to find a nice logical place to sit within your system. Tip #2.  When You Decide on Your System, Stick to It! There’s nothing more pointless than going to all the trouble of creating a system and filing all your files, and then whenever you create, receive or download a new file, you simply dump it onto your Desktop.  You need to be disciplined – forever!  Every new file you get, spend those extra few seconds to file it where it belongs!  Otherwise, in just a month or two, you’ll be worse off than before – half your files will be organized and half will be disorganized – and you won’t know which is which! Tip #3.  Choose the Root Folder of Your Structure Carefully Every data file (document, photo, music file, etc) that you create, own or is important to you, no matter where it came from, should be found within one single folder, and that one single folder should be located at the root of your C: drive (as a sub-folder of C:\).  In other words, do not base your folder structure in standard folders like “My Documents”.  If you do, then you’re leaving it up to the operating system engineers to decide what folder structure is best for you.  And every operating system has a different system!  In Windows 7 your files are found in C:\Users\YourName, whilst on Windows XP it was C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\My Documents.  In UNIX systems it’s often /home/YourName. These standard default folders tend to fill up with junk files and folders that are not at all important to you.  “My Documents” is the worst offender.  Every second piece of software you install, it seems, likes to create its own folder in the “My Documents” folder.  These folders usually don’t fit within your organizational structure, so don’t use them!  In fact, don’t even use the “My Documents” folder at all.  Allow it to fill up with junk, and then simply ignore it.  It sounds heretical, but: Don’t ever visit your “My Documents” folder!  Remove your icons/links to “My Documents” and replace them with links to the folders you created and you care about! Create your own file system from scratch!  Probably the best place to put it would be on your D: drive – if you have one.  This way, all your files live on one drive, while all the operating system and software component files live on the C: drive – simply and elegantly separated.  The benefits of that are profound.  Not only are there obvious organizational benefits (see tip #10, below), but when it comes to migrate your data to a new computer, you can (sometimes) simply unplug your D: drive and plug it in as the D: drive of your new computer (this implies that the D: drive is actually a separate physical disk, and not a partition on the same disk as C:).  You also get a slight speed improvement (again, only if your C: and D: drives are on separate physical disks). Warning:  From tip #12, below, you will see that it’s actually a good idea to have exactly the same file system structure – including the drive it’s filed on – on all of the computers you own.  So if you decide to use the D: drive as the storage system for your own files, make sure you are able to use the D: drive on all the computers you own.  If you can’t ensure that, then you can still use a clever geeky trick to store your files on the D: drive, but still access them all via the C: drive (see tip #17, below). If you only have one hard disk (C:), then create a dedicated folder that will contain all your files – something like C:\Files.  The name of the folder is not important, but make it a single, brief word. There are several reasons for this: When creating a backup regime, it’s easy to decide what files should be backed up – they’re all in the one folder! If you ever decide to trade in your computer for a new one, you know exactly which files to migrate You will always know where to begin a search for any file If you synchronize files with other computers, it makes your synchronization routines very simple.   It also causes all your shortcuts to continue to work on the other machines (more about this in tip #24, below). Once you’ve decided where your files should go, then put all your files in there – Everything!  Completely disregard the standard, default folders that are created for you by the operating system (“My Music”, “My Pictures”, etc).  In fact, you can actually relocate many of those folders into your own structure (more about that below, in tip #6). The more completely you get all your data files (documents, photos, music, etc) and all your configuration settings into that one folder, then the easier it will be to perform all of the above tasks. Once this has been done, and all your files live in one folder, all the other folders in C:\ can be thought of as “operating system” folders, and therefore of little day-to-day interest for us. Here’s a screenshot of a nicely organized C: drive, where all user files are located within the \Files folder:   Tip #4.  Use Sub-Folders This would be our simplest and most obvious tip.  It almost goes without saying.  Any organizational system you decide upon (see tip #1) will require that you create sub-folders for your files.  Get used to creating folders on a regular basis. Tip #5.  Don’t be Shy About Depth Create as many levels of sub-folders as you need.  Don’t be scared to do so.  Every time you notice an opportunity to group a set of related files into a sub-folder, do so.  Examples might include:  All the MP3s from one music CD, all the photos from one holiday, or all the documents from one client. It’s perfectly okay to put files into a folder called C:\Files\Me\From Others\Services\WestCo Bank\Statements\2009.  That’s only seven levels deep.  Ten levels is not uncommon.  Of course, it’s possible to take this too far.  If you notice yourself creating a sub-folder to hold only one file, then you’ve probably become a little over-zealous.  On the other hand, if you simply create a structure with only two levels (for example C:\Files\Work) then you really haven’t achieved any level of organization at all (unless you own only six files!).  Your “Work” folder will have become a dumping ground, just like your Desktop was, with most likely hundreds of files in it. Tip #6.  Move the Standard User Folders into Your Own Folder Structure Most operating systems, including Windows, create a set of standard folders for each of its users.  These folders then become the default location for files such as documents, music files, digital photos and downloaded Internet files.  In Windows 7, the full list is shown below: Some of these folders you may never use nor care about (for example, the Favorites folder, if you’re not using Internet Explorer as your browser).  Those ones you can leave where they are.  But you may be using some of the other folders to store files that are important to you.  Even if you’re not using them, Windows will still often treat them as the default storage location for many types of files.  When you go to save a standard file type, it can become annoying to be automatically prompted to save it in a folder that’s not part of your own file structure. But there’s a simple solution:  Move the folders you care about into your own folder structure!  If you do, then the next time you go to save a file of the corresponding type, Windows will prompt you to save it in the new, moved location. Moving the folders is easy.  Simply drag-and-drop them to the new location.  Here’s a screenshot of the default My Music folder being moved to my custom personal folder (Mark): Tip #7.  Name Files and Folders Intelligently This is another one that almost goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway:  Do not allow files to be created that have meaningless names like Document1.doc, or folders called New Folder (2).  Take that extra 20 seconds and come up with a meaningful name for the file/folder – one that accurately divulges its contents without repeating the entire contents in the name. Tip #8.  Watch Out for Long Filenames Another way to tell if you have not yet created enough depth to your folder hierarchy is that your files often require really long names.  If you need to call a file Johnson Sales Figures March 2009.xls (which might happen to live in the same folder as Abercrombie Budget Report 2008.xls), then you might want to create some sub-folders so that the first file could be simply called March.xls, and living in the Clients\Johnson\Sales Figures\2009 folder. A well-placed file needs only a brief filename! Tip #9.  Use Shortcuts!  Everywhere! This is probably the single most useful and important tip we can offer.  A shortcut allows a file to be in two places at once. Why would you want that?  Well, the file and folder structure of every popular operating system on the market today is hierarchical.  This means that all objects (files and folders) always live within exactly one parent folder.  It’s a bit like a tree.  A tree has branches (folders) and leaves (files).  Each leaf, and each branch, is supported by exactly one parent branch, all the way back to the root of the tree (which, incidentally, is exactly why C:\ is called the “root folder” of the C: drive). That hard disks are structured this way may seem obvious and even necessary, but it’s only one way of organizing data.  There are others:  Relational databases, for example, organize structured data entirely differently.  The main limitation of hierarchical filing structures is that a file can only ever be in one branch of the tree – in only one folder – at a time.  Why is this a problem?  Well, there are two main reasons why this limitation is a problem for computer users: The “correct” place for a file, according to our organizational rationale, is very often a very inconvenient place for that file to be located.  Just because it’s correctly filed doesn’t mean it’s easy to get to.  Your file may be “correctly” buried six levels deep in your sub-folder structure, but you may need regular and speedy access to this file every day.  You could always move it to a more convenient location, but that would mean that you would need to re-file back to its “correct” location it every time you’d finished working on it.  Most unsatisfactory. A file may simply “belong” in two or more different locations within your file structure.  For example, say you’re an accountant and you have just completed the 2009 tax return for John Smith.  It might make sense to you to call this file 2009 Tax Return.doc and file it under Clients\John Smith.  But it may also be important to you to have the 2009 tax returns from all your clients together in the one place.  So you might also want to call the file John Smith.doc and file it under Tax Returns\2009.  The problem is, in a purely hierarchical filing system, you can’t put it in both places.  Grrrrr! Fortunately, Windows (and most other operating systems) offers a way for you to do exactly that:  It’s called a “shortcut” (also known as an “alias” on Macs and a “symbolic link” on UNIX systems).  Shortcuts allow a file to exist in one place, and an icon that represents the file to be created and put anywhere else you please.  In fact, you can create a dozen such icons and scatter them all over your hard disk.  Double-clicking on one of these icons/shortcuts opens up the original file, just as if you had double-clicked on the original file itself. Consider the following two icons: The one on the left is the actual Word document, while the one on the right is a shortcut that represents the Word document.  Double-clicking on either icon will open the same file.  There are two main visual differences between the icons: The shortcut will have a small arrow in the lower-left-hand corner (on Windows, anyway) The shortcut is allowed to have a name that does not include the file extension (the “.docx” part, in this case) You can delete the shortcut at any time without losing any actual data.  The original is still intact.  All you lose is the ability to get to that data from wherever the shortcut was. So why are shortcuts so great?  Because they allow us to easily overcome the main limitation of hierarchical file systems, and put a file in two (or more) places at the same time.  You will always have files that don’t play nice with your organizational rationale, and can’t be filed in only one place.  They demand to exist in two places.  Shortcuts allow this!  Furthermore, they allow you to collect your most often-opened files and folders together in one spot for convenient access.  The cool part is that the original files stay where they are, safe forever in their perfectly organized location. So your collection of most often-opened files can – and should – become a collection of shortcuts! If you’re still not convinced of the utility of shortcuts, consider the following well-known areas of a typical Windows computer: The Start Menu (and all the programs that live within it) The Quick Launch bar (or the Superbar in Windows 7) The “Favorite folders” area in the top-left corner of the Windows Explorer window (in Windows Vista or Windows 7) Your Internet Explorer Favorites or Firefox Bookmarks Each item in each of these areas is a shortcut!  Each of those areas exist for one purpose only:  For convenience – to provide you with a collection of the files and folders you access most often. It should be easy to see by now that shortcuts are designed for one single purpose:  To make accessing your files more convenient.  Each time you double-click on a shortcut, you are saved the hassle of locating the file (or folder, or program, or drive, or control panel icon) that it represents. Shortcuts allow us to invent a golden rule of file and folder organization: “Only ever have one copy of a file – never have two copies of the same file.  Use a shortcut instead” (this rule doesn’t apply to copies created for backup purposes, of course!) There are also lesser rules, like “don’t move a file into your work area – create a shortcut there instead”, and “any time you find yourself frustrated with how long it takes to locate a file, create a shortcut to it and place that shortcut in a convenient location.” So how to we create these massively useful shortcuts?  There are two main ways: “Copy” the original file or folder (click on it and type Ctrl-C, or right-click on it and select Copy):  Then right-click in an empty area of the destination folder (the place where you want the shortcut to go) and select Paste shortcut: Right-drag (drag with the right mouse button) the file from the source folder to the destination folder.  When you let go of the mouse button at the destination folder, a menu pops up: Select Create shortcuts here. Note that when shortcuts are created, they are often named something like Shortcut to Budget Detail.doc (windows XP) or Budget Detail – Shortcut.doc (Windows 7).   If you don’t like those extra words, you can easily rename the shortcuts after they’re created, or you can configure Windows to never insert the extra words in the first place (see our article on how to do this). And of course, you can create shortcuts to folders too, not just to files! Bottom line: Whenever you have a file that you’d like to access from somewhere else (whether it’s convenience you’re after, or because the file simply belongs in two places), create a shortcut to the original file in the new location. Tip #10.  Separate Application Files from Data Files Any digital organization guru will drum this rule into you.  Application files are the components of the software you’ve installed (e.g. Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop or Internet Explorer).  Data files are the files that you’ve created for yourself using that software (e.g. Word Documents, digital photos, emails or playlists). Software gets installed, uninstalled and upgraded all the time.  Hopefully you always have the original installation media (or downloaded set-up file) kept somewhere safe, and can thus reinstall your software at any time.  This means that the software component files are of little importance.  Whereas the files you have created with that software is, by definition, important.  It’s a good rule to always separate unimportant files from important files. So when your software prompts you to save a file you’ve just created, take a moment and check out where it’s suggesting that you save the file.  If it’s suggesting that you save the file into the same folder as the software itself, then definitely don’t follow that suggestion.  File it in your own folder!  In fact, see if you can find the program’s configuration option that determines where files are saved by default (if it has one), and change it. Tip #11.  Organize Files Based on Purpose, Not on File Type If you have, for example a folder called Work\Clients\Johnson, and within that folder you have two sub-folders, Word Documents and Spreadsheets (in other words, you’re separating “.doc” files from “.xls” files), then chances are that you’re not optimally organized.  It makes little sense to organize your files based on the program that created them.  Instead, create your sub-folders based on the purpose of the file.  For example, it would make more sense to create sub-folders called Correspondence and Financials.  It may well be that all the files in a given sub-folder are of the same file-type, but this should be more of a coincidence and less of a design feature of your organization system. Tip #12.  Maintain the Same Folder Structure on All Your Computers In other words, whatever organizational system you create, apply it to every computer that you can.  There are several benefits to this: There’s less to remember.  No matter where you are, you always know where to look for your files If you copy or synchronize files from one computer to another, then setting up the synchronization job becomes very simple Shortcuts can be copied or moved from one computer to another with ease (assuming the original files are also copied/moved).  There’s no need to find the target of the shortcut all over again on the second computer Ditto for linked files (e.g Word documents that link to data in a separate Excel file), playlists, and any files that reference the exact file locations of other files. This applies even to the drive that your files are stored on.  If your files are stored on C: on one computer, make sure they’re stored on C: on all your computers.  Otherwise all your shortcuts, playlists and linked files will stop working! Tip #13.  Create an “Inbox” Folder Create yourself a folder where you store all files that you’re currently working on, or that you haven’t gotten around to filing yet.  You can think of this folder as your “to-do” list.  You can call it “Inbox” (making it the same metaphor as your email system), or “Work”, or “To-Do”, or “Scratch”, or whatever name makes sense to you.  It doesn’t matter what you call it – just make sure you have one! Once you have finished working on a file, you then move it from the “Inbox” to its correct location within your organizational structure. You may want to use your Desktop as this “Inbox” folder.  Rightly or wrongly, most people do.  It’s not a bad place to put such files, but be careful:  If you do decide that your Desktop represents your “to-do” list, then make sure that no other files find their way there.  In other words, make sure that your “Inbox”, wherever it is, Desktop or otherwise, is kept free of junk – stray files that don’t belong there. So where should you put this folder, which, almost by definition, lives outside the structure of the rest of your filing system?  Well, first and foremost, it has to be somewhere handy.  This will be one of your most-visited folders, so convenience is key.  Putting it on the Desktop is a great option – especially if you don’t have any other folders on your Desktop:  the folder then becomes supremely easy to find in Windows Explorer: You would then create shortcuts to this folder in convenient spots all over your computer (“Favorite Links”, “Quick Launch”, etc). Tip #14.  Ensure You have Only One “Inbox” Folder Once you’ve created your “Inbox” folder, don’t use any other folder location as your “to-do list”.  Throw every incoming or created file into the Inbox folder as you create/receive it.  This keeps the rest of your computer pristine and free of randomly created or downloaded junk.  The last thing you want to be doing is checking multiple folders to see all your current tasks and projects.  Gather them all together into one folder. Here are some tips to help ensure you only have one Inbox: Set the default “save” location of all your programs to this folder. Set the default “download” location for your browser to this folder. If this folder is not your desktop (recommended) then also see if you can make a point of not putting “to-do” files on your desktop.  This keeps your desktop uncluttered and Zen-like: (the Inbox folder is in the bottom-right corner) Tip #15.  Be Vigilant about Clearing Your “Inbox” Folder This is one of the keys to staying organized.  If you let your “Inbox” overflow (i.e. allow there to be more than, say, 30 files or folders in there), then you’re probably going to start feeling like you’re overwhelmed:  You’re not keeping up with your to-do list.  Once your Inbox gets beyond a certain point (around 30 files, studies have shown), then you’ll simply start to avoid it.  You may continue to put files in there, but you’ll be scared to look at it, fearing the “out of control” feeling that all overworked, chaotic or just plain disorganized people regularly feel. So, here’s what you can do: Visit your Inbox/to-do folder regularly (at least five times per day). Scan the folder regularly for files that you have completed working on and are ready for filing.  File them immediately. Make it a source of pride to keep the number of files in this folder as small as possible.  If you value peace of mind, then make the emptiness of this folder one of your highest (computer) priorities If you know that a particular file has been in the folder for more than, say, six weeks, then admit that you’re not actually going to get around to processing it, and move it to its final resting place. Tip #16.  File Everything Immediately, and Use Shortcuts for Your Active Projects As soon as you create, receive or download a new file, store it away in its “correct” folder immediately.  Then, whenever you need to work on it (possibly straight away), create a shortcut to it in your “Inbox” (“to-do”) folder or your desktop.  That way, all your files are always in their “correct” locations, yet you still have immediate, convenient access to your current, active files.  When you finish working on a file, simply delete the shortcut. Ideally, your “Inbox” folder – and your Desktop – should contain no actual files or folders.  They should simply contain shortcuts. Tip #17.  Use Directory Symbolic Links (or Junctions) to Maintain One Unified Folder Structure Using this tip, we can get around a potential hiccup that we can run into when creating our organizational structure – the issue of having more than one drive on our computer (C:, D:, etc).  We might have files we need to store on the D: drive for space reasons, and yet want to base our organized folder structure on the C: drive (or vice-versa). Your chosen organizational structure may dictate that all your files must be accessed from the C: drive (for example, the root folder of all your files may be something like C:\Files).  And yet you may still have a D: drive and wish to take advantage of the hundreds of spare Gigabytes that it offers.  Did you know that it’s actually possible to store your files on the D: drive and yet access them as if they were on the C: drive?  And no, we’re not talking about shortcuts here (although the concept is very similar). By using the shell command mklink, you can essentially take a folder that lives on one drive and create an alias for it on a different drive (you can do lots more than that with mklink – for a full rundown on this programs capabilities, see our dedicated article).  These aliases are called directory symbolic links (and used to be known as junctions).  You can think of them as “virtual” folders.  They function exactly like regular folders, except they’re physically located somewhere else. For example, you may decide that your entire D: drive contains your complete organizational file structure, but that you need to reference all those files as if they were on the C: drive, under C:\Files.  If that was the case you could create C:\Files as a directory symbolic link – a link to D:, as follows: mklink /d c:\files d:\ Or it may be that the only files you wish to store on the D: drive are your movie collection.  You could locate all your movie files in the root of your D: drive, and then link it to C:\Files\Media\Movies, as follows: mklink /d c:\files\media\movies d:\ (Needless to say, you must run these commands from a command prompt – click the Start button, type cmd and press Enter) Tip #18. Customize Your Folder Icons This is not strictly speaking an organizational tip, but having unique icons for each folder does allow you to more quickly visually identify which folder is which, and thus saves you time when you’re finding files.  An example is below (from my folder that contains all files downloaded from the Internet): To learn how to change your folder icons, please refer to our dedicated article on the subject. Tip #19.  Tidy Your Start Menu The Windows Start Menu is usually one of the messiest parts of any Windows computer.  Every program you install seems to adopt a completely different approach to placing icons in this menu.  Some simply put a single program icon.  Others create a folder based on the name of the software.  And others create a folder based on the name of the software manufacturer.  It’s chaos, and can make it hard to find the software you want to run. Thankfully we can avoid this chaos with useful operating system features like Quick Launch, the Superbar or pinned start menu items. Even so, it would make a lot of sense to get into the guts of the Start Menu itself and give it a good once-over.  All you really need to decide is how you’re going to organize your applications.  A structure based on the purpose of the application is an obvious candidate.  Below is an example of one such structure: In this structure, Utilities means software whose job it is to keep the computer itself running smoothly (configuration tools, backup software, Zip programs, etc).  Applications refers to any productivity software that doesn’t fit under the headings Multimedia, Graphics, Internet, etc. In case you’re not aware, every icon in your Start Menu is a shortcut and can be manipulated like any other shortcut (copied, moved, deleted, etc). With the Windows Start Menu (all version of Windows), Microsoft has decided that there be two parallel folder structures to store your Start Menu shortcuts.  One for you (the logged-in user of the computer) and one for all users of the computer.  Having two parallel structures can often be redundant:  If you are the only user of the computer, then having two parallel structures is totally redundant.  Even if you have several users that regularly log into the computer, most of your installed software will need to be made available to all users, and should thus be moved out of the “just you” version of the Start Menu and into the “all users” area. To take control of your Start Menu, so you can start organizing it, you’ll need to know how to access the actual folders and shortcut files that make up the Start Menu (both versions of it).  To find these folders and files, click the Start button and then right-click on the All Programs text (Windows XP users should right-click on the Start button itself): The Open option refers to the “just you” version of the Start Menu, while the Open All Users option refers to the “all users” version.  Click on the one you want to organize. A Windows Explorer window then opens with your chosen version of the Start Menu selected.  From there it’s easy.  Double-click on the Programs folder and you’ll see all your folders and shortcuts.  Now you can delete/rename/move until it’s just the way you want it. Note:  When you’re reorganizing your Start Menu, you may want to have two Explorer windows open at the same time – one showing the “just you” version and one showing the “all users” version.  You can drag-and-drop between the windows. Tip #20.  Keep Your Start Menu Tidy Once you have a perfectly organized Start Menu, try to be a little vigilant about keeping it that way.  Every time you install a new piece of software, the icons that get created will almost certainly violate your organizational structure. So to keep your Start Menu pristine and organized, make sure you do the following whenever you install a new piece of software: Check whether the software was installed into the “just you” area of the Start Menu, or the “all users” area, and then move it to the correct area. Remove all the unnecessary icons (like the “Read me” icon, the “Help” icon (you can always open the help from within the software itself when it’s running), the “Uninstall” icon, the link(s)to the manufacturer’s website, etc) Rename the main icon(s) of the software to something brief that makes sense to you.  For example, you might like to rename Microsoft Office Word 2010 to simply Word Move the icon(s) into the correct folder based on your Start Menu organizational structure And don’t forget:  when you uninstall a piece of software, the software’s uninstall routine is no longer going to be able to remove the software’s icon from the Start Menu (because you moved and/or renamed it), so you’ll need to remove that icon manually. Tip #21.  Tidy C:\ The root of your C: drive (C:\) is a common dumping ground for files and folders – both by the users of your computer and by the software that you install on your computer.  It can become a mess. There’s almost no software these days that requires itself to be installed in C:\.  99% of the time it can and should be installed into C:\Program Files.  And as for your own files, well, it’s clear that they can (and almost always should) be stored somewhere else. In an ideal world, your C:\ folder should look like this (on Windows 7): Note that there are some system files and folders in C:\ that are usually and deliberately “hidden” (such as the Windows virtual memory file pagefile.sys, the boot loader file bootmgr, and the System Volume Information folder).  Hiding these files and folders is a good idea, as they need to stay where they are and are almost never needed to be opened or even seen by you, the user.  Hiding them prevents you from accidentally messing with them, and enhances your sense of order and well-being when you look at your C: drive folder. Tip #22.  Tidy Your Desktop The Desktop is probably the most abused part of a Windows computer (from an organization point of view).  It usually serves as a dumping ground for all incoming files, as well as holding icons to oft-used applications, plus some regularly opened files and folders.  It often ends up becoming an uncontrolled mess.  See if you can avoid this.  Here’s why… Application icons (Word, Internet Explorer, etc) are often found on the Desktop, but it’s unlikely that this is the optimum place for them.  The “Quick Launch” bar (or the Superbar in Windows 7) is always visible and so represents a perfect location to put your icons.  You’ll only be able to see the icons on your Desktop when all your programs are minimized.  It might be time to get your application icons off your desktop… You may have decided that the Inbox/To-do folder on your computer (see tip #13, above) should be your Desktop.  If so, then enough said.  Simply be vigilant about clearing it and preventing it from being polluted by junk files (see tip #15, above).  On the other hand, if your Desktop is not acting as your “Inbox” folder, then there’s no reason for it to have any data files or folders on it at all, except perhaps a couple of shortcuts to often-opened files and folders (either ongoing or current projects).  Everything else should be moved to your “Inbox” folder. In an ideal world, it might look like this: Tip #23.  Move Permanent Items on Your Desktop Away from the Top-Left Corner When files/folders are dragged onto your desktop in a Windows Explorer window, or when shortcuts are created on your Desktop from Internet Explorer, those icons are always placed in the top-left corner – or as close as they can get.  If you have other files, folders or shortcuts that you keep on the Desktop permanently, then it’s a good idea to separate these permanent icons from the transient ones, so that you can quickly identify which ones the transients are.  An easy way to do this is to move all your permanent icons to the right-hand side of your Desktop.  That should keep them separated from incoming items. Tip #24.  Synchronize If you have more than one computer, you’ll almost certainly want to share files between them.  If the computers are permanently attached to the same local network, then there’s no need to store multiple copies of any one file or folder – shortcuts will suffice.  However, if the computers are not always on the same network, then you will at some point need to copy files between them.  For files that need to permanently live on both computers, the ideal way to do this is to synchronize the files, as opposed to simply copying them. We only have room here to write a brief summary of synchronization, not a full article.  In short, there are several different types of synchronization: Where the contents of one folder are accessible anywhere, such as with Dropbox Where the contents of any number of folders are accessible anywhere, such as with Windows Live Mesh Where any files or folders from anywhere on your computer are synchronized with exactly one other computer, such as with the Windows “Briefcase”, Microsoft SyncToy, or (much more powerful, yet still free) SyncBack from 2BrightSparks.  This only works when both computers are on the same local network, at least temporarily. A great advantage of synchronization solutions is that once you’ve got it configured the way you want it, then the sync process happens automatically, every time.  Click a button (or schedule it to happen automatically) and all your files are automagically put where they’re supposed to be. If you maintain the same file and folder structure on both computers, then you can also sync files depend upon the correct location of other files, like shortcuts, playlists and office documents that link to other office documents, and the synchronized files still work on the other computer! Tip #25.  Hide Files You Never Need to See If you have your files well organized, you will often be able to tell if a file is out of place just by glancing at the contents of a folder (for example, it should be pretty obvious if you look in a folder that contains all the MP3s from one music CD and see a Word document in there).  This is a good thing – it allows you to determine if there are files out of place with a quick glance.  Yet sometimes there are files in a folder that seem out of place but actually need to be there, such as the “folder art” JPEGs in music folders, and various files in the root of the C: drive.  If such files never need to be opened by you, then a good idea is to simply hide them.  Then, the next time you glance at the folder, you won’t have to remember whether that file was supposed to be there or not, because you won’t see it at all! To hide a file, simply right-click on it and choose Properties: Then simply tick the Hidden tick-box:   Tip #26.  Keep Every Setup File These days most software is downloaded from the Internet.  Whenever you download a piece of software, keep it.  You’ll never know when you need to reinstall the software. Further, keep with it an Internet shortcut that links back to the website where you originally downloaded it, in case you ever need to check for updates. See tip #33 below for a full description of the excellence of organizing your setup files. Tip #27.  Try to Minimize the Number of Folders that Contain Both Files and Sub-folders Some of the folders in your organizational structure will contain only files.  Others will contain only sub-folders.  And you will also have some folders that contain both files and sub-folders.  You will notice slight improvements in how long it takes you to locate a file if you try to avoid this third type of folder.  It’s not always possible, of course – you’ll always have some of these folders, but see if you can avoid it. One way of doing this is to take all the leftover files that didn’t end up getting stored in a sub-folder and create a special “Miscellaneous” or “Other” folder for them. Tip #28.  Starting a Filename with an Underscore Brings it to the Top of a List Further to the previous tip, if you name that “Miscellaneous” or “Other” folder in such a way that its name begins with an underscore “_”, then it will appear at the top of the list of files/folders. The screenshot below is an example of this.  Each folder in the list contains a set of digital photos.  The folder at the top of the list, _Misc, contains random photos that didn’t deserve their own dedicated folder: Tip #29.  Clean Up those CD-ROMs and (shudder!) Floppy Disks Have you got a pile of CD-ROMs stacked on a shelf of your office?  Old photos, or files you archived off onto CD-ROM (or even worse, floppy disks!) because you didn’t have enough disk space at the time?  In the meantime have you upgraded your computer and now have 500 Gigabytes of space you don’t know what to do with?  If so, isn’t it time you tidied up that stack of disks and filed them into your gorgeous new folder structure? So what are you waiting for?  Bite the bullet, copy them all back onto your computer, file them in their appropriate folders, and then back the whole lot up onto a shiny new 1000Gig external hard drive! Useful Folders to Create This next section suggests some useful folders that you might want to create within your folder structure.  I’ve personally found them to be indispensable. The first three are all about convenience – handy folders to create and then put somewhere that you can always access instantly.  For each one, it’s not so important where the actual folder is located, but it’s very important where you put the shortcut(s) to the folder.  You might want to locate the shortcuts: On your Desktop In your “Quick Launch” area (or pinned to your Windows 7 Superbar) In your Windows Explorer “Favorite Links” area Tip #30.  Create an “Inbox” (“To-Do”) Folder This has already been mentioned in depth (see tip #13), but we wanted to reiterate its importance here.  This folder contains all the recently created, received or downloaded files that you have not yet had a chance to file away properly, and it also may contain files that you have yet to process.  In effect, it becomes a sort of “to-do list”.  It doesn’t have to be called “Inbox” – you can call it whatever you want. Tip #31.  Create a Folder where Your Current Projects are Collected Rather than going hunting for them all the time, or dumping them all on your desktop, create a special folder where you put links (or work folders) for each of the projects you’re currently working on. You can locate this folder in your “Inbox” folder, on your desktop, or anywhere at all – just so long as there’s a way of getting to it quickly, such as putting a link to it in Windows Explorer’s “Favorite Links” area: Tip #32.  Create a Folder for Files and Folders that You Regularly Open You will always have a few files that you open regularly, whether it be a spreadsheet of your current accounts, or a favorite playlist.  These are not necessarily “current projects”, rather they’re simply files that you always find yourself opening.  Typically such files would be located on your desktop (or even better, shortcuts to those files).  Why not collect all such shortcuts together and put them in their own special folder? As with the “Current Projects” folder (above), you would want to locate that folder somewhere convenient.  Below is an example of a folder called “Quick links”, with about seven files (shortcuts) in it, that is accessible through the Windows Quick Launch bar: See tip #37 below for a full explanation of the power of the Quick Launch bar. Tip #33.  Create a “Set-ups” Folder A typical computer has dozens of applications installed on it.  For each piece of software, there are often many different pieces of information you need to keep track of, including: The original installation setup file(s).  This can be anything from a simple 100Kb setup.exe file you downloaded from a website, all the way up to a 4Gig ISO file that you copied from a DVD-ROM that you purchased. The home page of the software manufacturer (in case you need to look up something on their support pages, their forum or their online help) The page containing the download link for your actual file (in case you need to re-download it, or download an upgraded version) The serial number Your proof-of-purchase documentation Any other template files, plug-ins, themes, etc that also need to get installed For each piece of software, it’s a great idea to gather all of these files together and put them in a single folder.  The folder can be the name of the software (plus possibly a very brief description of what it’s for – in case you can’t remember what the software does based in its name).  Then you would gather all of these folders together into one place, and call it something like “Software” or “Setups”. If you have enough of these folders (I have several hundred, being a geek, collected over 20 years), then you may want to further categorize them.  My own categorization structure is based on “platform” (operating system): The last seven folders each represents one platform/operating system, while _Operating Systems contains set-up files for installing the operating systems themselves.  _Hardware contains ROMs for hardware I own, such as routers. Within the Windows folder (above), you can see the beginnings of the vast library of software I’ve compiled over the years: An example of a typical application folder looks like this: Tip #34.  Have a “Settings” Folder We all know that our documents are important.  So are our photos and music files.  We save all of these files into folders, and then locate them afterwards and double-click on them to open them.  But there are many files that are important to us that can’t be saved into folders, and then searched for and double-clicked later on.  These files certainly contain important information that we need, but are often created internally by an application, and saved wherever that application feels is appropriate. A good example of this is the “PST” file that Outlook creates for us and uses to store all our emails, contacts, appointments and so forth.  Another example would be the collection of Bookmarks that Firefox stores on your behalf. And yet another example would be the customized settings and configuration files of our all our software.  Granted, most Windows programs store their configuration in the Registry, but there are still many programs that use configuration files to store their settings. Imagine if you lost all of the above files!  And yet, when people are backing up their computers, they typically only back up the files they know about – those that are stored in the “My Documents” folder, etc.  If they had a hard disk failure or their computer was lost or stolen, their backup files would not include some of the most vital files they owned.  Also, when migrating to a new computer, it’s vital to ensure that these files make the journey. It can be a very useful idea to create yourself a folder to store all your “settings” – files that are important to you but which you never actually search for by name and double-click on to open them.  Otherwise, next time you go to set up a new computer just the way you want it, you’ll need to spend hours recreating the configuration of your previous computer! So how to we get our important files into this folder?  Well, we have a few options: Some programs (such as Outlook and its PST files) allow you to place these files wherever you want.  If you delve into the program’s options, you will find a setting somewhere that controls the location of the important settings files (or “personal storage” – PST – when it comes to Outlook) Some programs do not allow you to change such locations in any easy way, but if you get into the Registry, you can sometimes find a registry key that refers to the location of the file(s).  Simply move the file into your Settings folder and adjust the registry key to refer to the new location. Some programs stubbornly refuse to allow their settings files to be placed anywhere other then where they stipulate.  When faced with programs like these, you have three choices:  (1) You can ignore those files, (2) You can copy the files into your Settings folder (let’s face it – settings don’t change very often), or (3) you can use synchronization software, such as the Windows Briefcase, to make synchronized copies of all your files in your Settings folder.  All you then have to do is to remember to run your sync software periodically (perhaps just before you run your backup software!). There are some other things you may decide to locate inside this new “Settings” folder: Exports of registry keys (from the many applications that store their configurations in the Registry).  This is useful for backup purposes or for migrating to a new computer Notes you’ve made about all the specific customizations you have made to a particular piece of software (so that you’ll know how to do it all again on your next computer) Shortcuts to webpages that detail how to tweak certain aspects of your operating system or applications so they are just the way you like them (such as how to remove the words “Shortcut to” from the beginning of newly created shortcuts).  In other words, you’d want to create shortcuts to half the pages on the How-To Geek website! Here’s an example of a “Settings” folder: Windows Features that Help with Organization This section details some of the features of Microsoft Windows that are a boon to anyone hoping to stay optimally organized. Tip #35.  Use the “Favorite Links” Area to Access Oft-Used Folders Once you’ve created your great new filing system, work out which folders you access most regularly, or which serve as great starting points for locating the rest of the files in your folder structure, and then put links to those folders in your “Favorite Links” area of the left-hand side of the Windows Explorer window (simply called “Favorites” in Windows 7):   Some ideas for folders you might want to add there include: Your “Inbox” folder (or whatever you’ve called it) – most important! The base of your filing structure (e.g. C:\Files) A folder containing shortcuts to often-accessed folders on other computers around the network (shown above as Network Folders) A folder containing shortcuts to your current projects (unless that folder is in your “Inbox” folder) Getting folders into this area is very simple – just locate the folder you’re interested in and drag it there! Tip #36.  Customize the Places Bar in the File/Open and File/Save Boxes Consider the screenshot below: The highlighted icons (collectively known as the “Places Bar”) can be customized to refer to any folder location you want, allowing instant access to any part of your organizational structure. Note:  These File/Open and File/Save boxes have been superseded by new versions that use the Windows Vista/Windows 7 “Favorite Links”, but the older versions (shown above) are still used by a surprisingly large number of applications. The easiest way to customize these icons is to use the Group Policy Editor, but not everyone has access to this program.  If you do, open it up and navigate to: User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer > Common Open File Dialog If you don’t have access to the Group Policy Editor, then you’ll need to get into the Registry.  Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft  \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ comdlg32 \ Placesbar It should then be easy to make the desired changes.  Log off and log on again to allow the changes to take effect. Tip #37.  Use the Quick Launch Bar as a Application and File Launcher That Quick Launch bar (to the right of the Start button) is a lot more useful than people give it credit for.  Most people simply have half a dozen icons in it, and use it to start just those programs.  But it can actually be used to instantly access just about anything in your filing system: For complete instructions on how to set this up, visit our dedicated article on this topic. Tip #38.  Put a Shortcut to Windows Explorer into Your Quick Launch Bar This is only necessary in Windows Vista and Windows XP.  The Microsoft boffins finally got wise and added it to the Windows 7 Superbar by default. Windows Explorer – the program used for managing your files and folders – is one of the most useful programs in Windows.  Anyone who considers themselves serious about being organized needs instant access to this program at any time.  A great place to create a shortcut to this program is in the Windows XP and Windows Vista “Quick Launch” bar: To get it there, locate it in your Start Menu (usually under “Accessories”) and then right-drag it down into your Quick Launch bar (and create a copy). Tip #39.  Customize the Starting Folder for Your Windows 7 Explorer Superbar Icon If you’re on Windows 7, your Superbar will include a Windows Explorer icon.  Clicking on the icon will launch Windows Explorer (of course), and will start you off in your “Libraries” folder.  Libraries may be fine as a starting point, but if you have created yourself an “Inbox” folder, then it would probably make more sense to start off in this folder every time you launch Windows Explorer. To change this default/starting folder location, then first right-click the Explorer icon in the Superbar, and then right-click Properties:Then, in Target field of the Windows Explorer Properties box that appears, type %windir%\explorer.exe followed by the path of the folder you wish to start in.  For example: %windir%\explorer.exe C:\Files If that folder happened to be on the Desktop (and called, say, “Inbox”), then you would use the following cleverness: %windir%\explorer.exe shell:desktop\Inbox Then click OK and test it out. Tip #40.  Ummmmm…. No, that’s it.  I can’t think of another one.  That’s all of the tips I can come up with.  I only created this one because 40 is such a nice round number… Case Study – An Organized PC To finish off the article, I have included a few screenshots of my (main) computer (running Vista).  The aim here is twofold: To give you a sense of what it looks like when the above, sometimes abstract, tips are applied to a real-life computer, and To offer some ideas about folders and structure that you may want to steal to use on your own PC. Let’s start with the C: drive itself.  Very minimal.  All my files are contained within C:\Files.  I’ll confine the rest of the case study to this folder: That folder contains the following: Mark: My personal files VC: My business (Virtual Creations, Australia) Others contains files created by friends and family Data contains files from the rest of the world (can be thought of as “public” files, usually downloaded from the Net) Settings is described above in tip #34 The Data folder contains the following sub-folders: Audio:  Radio plays, audio books, podcasts, etc Development:  Programmer and developer resources, sample source code, etc (see below) Humour:  Jokes, funnies (those emails that we all receive) Movies:  Downloaded and ripped movies (all legal, of course!), their scripts, DVD covers, etc. Music:  (see below) Setups:  Installation files for software (explained in full in tip #33) System:  (see below) TV:  Downloaded TV shows Writings:  Books, instruction manuals, etc (see below) The Music folder contains the following sub-folders: Album covers:  JPEG scans Guitar tabs:  Text files of guitar sheet music Lists:  e.g. “Top 1000 songs of all time” Lyrics:  Text files MIDI:  Electronic music files MP3 (representing 99% of the Music folder):  MP3s, either ripped from CDs or downloaded, sorted by artist/album name Music Video:  Video clips Sheet Music:  usually PDFs The Data\Writings folder contains the following sub-folders: (all pretty self-explanatory) The Data\Development folder contains the following sub-folders: Again, all pretty self-explanatory (if you’re a geek) The Data\System folder contains the following sub-folders: These are usually themes, plug-ins and other downloadable program-specific resources. The Mark folder contains the following sub-folders: From Others:  Usually letters that other people (friends, family, etc) have written to me For Others:  Letters and other things I have created for other people Green Book:  None of your business Playlists:  M3U files that I have compiled of my favorite songs (plus one M3U playlist file for every album I own) Writing:  Fiction, philosophy and other musings of mine Mark Docs:  Shortcut to C:\Users\Mark Settings:  Shortcut to C:\Files\Settings\Mark The Others folder contains the following sub-folders: The VC (Virtual Creations, my business – I develop websites) folder contains the following sub-folders: And again, all of those are pretty self-explanatory. Conclusion These tips have saved my sanity and helped keep me a productive geek, but what about you? What tips and tricks do you have to keep your files organized?  Please share them with us in the comments.  Come on, don’t be shy… Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fix For When Windows Explorer in Vista Stops Showing File NamesWhy Did Windows Vista’s Music Folder Icon Turn Yellow?Print or Create a Text File List of the Contents in a Directory the Easy WayCustomize the Windows 7 or Vista Send To MenuAdd Copy To / Move To on Windows 7 or Vista Right-Click Menu 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 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Track Daily Goals With 42Goals Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day Check the Average Speed of YouTube Videos You’ve Watched OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics

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  • SBS 2008 SP2 Backup - Volume Shadow Copy Operation Failed

    - by Robert Ortisi
    Server Setup Exchange 2007 Version: 08.03.0192.001 (Rollup 4) Windows Small Business Server 2008 SP2 (Rollup 5) Exchange set up on D: drive (449 GB / 698 GB Free) 80 GB / 148 GB Free on OS drive. Issue Backup Failure (VSS related) Backup Software Windows Server Backup (ver 1.0) Simplified Error Creation of the shared protection point timed out. Unknown error (0x81000101) The flush and hold writes operation on volume C: timed out while waiting for a release writes command. Volume Shadow Copy Warning: VSS spent 43 seconds trying to flush and hold the volume \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}. This might cause problems when other volumes in the shadow-copy set timeout waiting for the release-writes phase, and it can cause the shadow-copy creation to fail. Trying again when disk activity is lower may solve this problem. What I've tried Server Reboot. Updated Server and Exchange. ReConfigured Sharepoint (Helped resolve last vss error I encountered). registered VSS Dll's (Backups will sometimes work afterwards but VSS writers fail soon after). Tried Implementing Hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956136 Tried Implementing Hotfix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972135 I left it for a few days and a few backups came through but then began to fail again. Detailed Information Log Name: Application Source: VSS Date: 16/11/2011 8:02:11 PM Event ID: 12341 Task Category: None Level: Warning Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: SERVER.DOMAIN.local Description: Volume Shadow Copy Warning: VSS spent 43 seconds trying to flush and hold the volume \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}. This might cause problems when other volumes in the shadow-copy set timeout waiting for the release-writes phase, and it can cause the shadow-copy creation to fail. Trying again when disk activity is lower may solve this problem. Operation: Executing Asynchronous Operation Context: Current State: flush-and-hold writes Volume Name: \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}\ Event Xml: 12341 3 0 0x80000000000000 1651049 Application SERVER.DOMAIN.local 43 \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}\ Operation: Executing Asynchronous Operation Context: Current State: flush-and-hold writes Volume Name: \?\Volume{b562a5dd-8246-11de-a75b-806e6f6e6963}\ ================================================================================= Log Name: System Source: volsnap Date: 16/11/2011 8:02:11 PM Event ID: 8 Task Category: None Level: Error Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: SERVER.DOMAIN.local Description: The flush and hold writes operation on volume C: timed out while waiting for a release writes command. Event Xml: 8 2 0 0x80000000000000 987135 System SERVER.DOMAIN.local ================================================================================== Log Name: Application Source: Microsoft-Windows-Backup Date: 16/11/2011 8:11:18 PM Event ID: 521 Task Category: None Level: Error Keywords: User: SYSTEM Computer: SERVER.DOMAIN.local Description: Backup started at '16/11/2011 9:00:35 AM' failed as Volume Shadow copy operation failed for backup volumes with following error code '2155348001'. Please rerun backup once issue is resolved. Event Xml: 521 0 2 0 0 0x8000000000000000 1651065 Application SERVER.DOMAIN.local 2011-11-16T09:00:35.446Z 2155348001 %%2155348001 ================================================================================== Writer name: 'FRS Writer' Writer Id: {d76f5a28-3092-4589-ba48-2958fb88ce29} Writer Instance Id: {ba047fc6-9ce8-44ba-b59f-f2f8c07708aa} State: [5] Waiting for completion Last error: No error Writer name: 'ASR Writer' Writer Id: {be000cbe-11fe-4426-9c58-531aa6355fc4} Writer Instance Id: {0aace3e2-c840-4572-bf49-7fcc3fbcf56d} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'Shadow Copy Optimization Writer' Writer Id: {4dc3bdd4-ab48-4d07-adb0-3bee2926fd7f} Writer Instance Id: {054593e2-2086-4480-92e5-30386509ed1b} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'Registry Writer' Writer Id: {afbab4a2-367d-4d15-a586-71dbb18f8485} Writer Instance Id: {840e6f5f-f35a-4b65-bb20-060cf2ee892a} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'COM+ REGDB Writer' Writer Id: {542da469-d3e1-473c-9f4f-7847f01fc64f} Writer Instance Id: {9486bedc-f6e8-424b-b563-8b849d51b1e1} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'BITS Writer' Writer Id: {4969d978-be47-48b0-b100-f328f07ac1e0} Writer Instance Id: {29368bb3-e04b-4404-8fc9-e62dae18da91} State: [1] Stable Last error: No error Writer name: 'Dhcp Jet Writer' Writer Id: {be9ac81e-3619-421f-920f-4c6fea9e93ad} Writer Instance Id: {cfb58c78-9609-4133-8fc8-f66b0d25e12d} State: [5] Waiting for completion Last error: No error ==================================================================================

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  • Why can't I build Deluge?

    - by hugemeow
    Deluge is a BitTorrent Client. I am trying to build it from source, since I don't have privilege to install it as root. I am using python setup.py build. But, it failed following message, why? copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/gray/slider/slider-v-thumb.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/gray/slider copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/gray/slider/slider-thumb.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/gray/slider copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/gray/panel/top-bottom.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/gray/panel copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/gray/tabs/tab-strip-bg.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/gray/tabs copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/window/right-corners.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/window copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/window/left-corners.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/window copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/window/left-right.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/window copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/window/top-bottom.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/window creating build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/slider copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/slider/slider-v-thumb.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/slider copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/slider/slider-thumb.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/slider copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/slider/slider-bg.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/slider copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/slider/slider-v-bg.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/slider copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/panel/top-bottom.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/panel copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/grid/hmenu-lock.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/grid copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/grid/hmenu-unlock.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/grid copying deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/tabs/tab-strip-bg.png -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/ui/web/themes/images/yourtheme/tabs running build_ext building 'libtorrent' extension gcc -pthread -shared -L/usr/lib64 -L/opt/local/lib -lboost_filesystem -lboost_date_time -lboost_iostreams -lboost_python -lboost_thread -lpthread -lssl -lz -o build/lib.linux-x86_64-2.4/deluge/libtorrent.so /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lboost_filesystem collect2: ld returned 1 exit status error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1 [mirror@innov deluge-1.3.5]$ echo $? 1 Edit 1: gcc version and os information $(which gcc) --version gcc (GCC) 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-52) Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. cat /etc/issue CentOS release 5.7 (Final) Kernel \r on an \m Edit 2: boost is referenced by setup.py in deluge 114 if OS == "linux": 115 if os.path.exists(os.path.join(sysconfig.get_config_vars()['LIBDIR'], \ 116 'libboost_filesystem-mt.so')): 117 boost_filesystem = "boost_filesystem-mt" 118 elif os.path.exists(os.path.join(sysconfig.get_config_vars()['LIBDIR'], \ 119 'libboost_filesystem.so')): 120 boost_filesystem = "boost_filesystem" 121 if os.path.exists(os.path.join(sysconfig.get_config_vars()['LIBDIR'], \ 122 'libboost_date_time-mt.so')): 123 boost_date_time = "boost_date_time-mt" 124 elif os.path.exists(os.path.join(sysconfig.get_config_vars()['LIBDIR'], \ 125 'libboost_date_time.so')): 126 boost_date_time = "boost_date_time" 127 if os.path.exists(os.path.join(sysconfig.get_config_vars()['LIBDIR'], \ 128 'libboost_thread-mt.so')): 129 boost_thread = "boost_thread-mt" 130 elif os.path.exists(os.path.join(sysconfig.get_config_vars()['LIBDIR'], \ 131 'libboost_thread.so')): 132 boost_thread = "boost_thread" 133 134 if 'boost_filesystem' not in vars(): 135 boost_filesystem = "boost_filesystem-mt" 136 if 'boost_date_time' not in vars(): 137 boost_date_time = "boost_date_time-mt" 138 if 'boost_thread' not in vars(): 139 boost_thread = "boost_thread-mt" 140 141 elif OS == "freebsd": 142 boost_filesystem = "boost_filesystem" 143 boost_date_time = "boost_date_time" 144 boost_thread = "boost_thread" 145 else: 146 boost_filesystem = "boost_filesystem-mt" 147 boost_date_time = "boost_date_time-mt" 148 boost_thread = "boost_thread-mt" 149 150 librariestype = [boost_filesystem, boost_date_time, 151 boost_thread, 'z', 'pthread', 'ssl', 'crypto']

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  • Nginx + PHP-FPM = "Random" 502 Bad Gateway

    - by david
    I am running Nginx and proxying php requests via FastCGI to PHP-FPM for processing. I will randomly receive 502 Bad Gateway error pages - I can reproduce this issue by clicking around my PHP websites very rapidly/refreshing a page for a minute or two. When I get the 502 error page all I have to do is refresh the browser and the page refreshes properly. Here is my setup: nginx/0.7.64 PHP 5.3.2 (fpm-fcgi) (built: Apr 1 2010 06:42:04) Ubuntu 9.10 (Latest 2.6 Paravirt) I compiled PHP-FPM using this ./configure directive ./configure --enable-fpm --sysconfdir=/etc/php5/conf.d --with-config-file-path=/etc/php5/conf.d/php.ini --with-zlib --with-openssl --enable-zip --enable-exif --enable-ftp --enable-mbstring --enable-mbregex --enable-soap --enable-sockets --disable-cgi --with-curl --with-curlwrappers --with-gd --with-mcrypt --enable-memcache --with-mhash --with-jpeg-dir=/usr/local/lib --with-mysql=/usr/bin/mysql --with-mysqli=/usr/bin/mysql_config --enable-pdo --with-pdo-mysql=/usr/bin/mysql --with-pdo-sqlite --with-pspell --with-snmp --with-sqlite --with-tidy --with-xmlrpc --with-xsl My php-fpm.conf looks like this (the relevant parts): ... <value name="pm"> <value name="max_children">3</value> ... <value name="request_terminate_timeout">60s</value> <value name="request_slowlog_timeout">30s</value> <value name="slowlog">/var/log/php-fpm.log.slow</value> <value name="rlimit_files">1024</value> <value name="rlimit_core">0</value> <value name="chroot"></value> <value name="chdir"></value> <value name="catch_workers_output">yes</value> <value name="max_requests">500</value> ... I've tried increasing the max_children to 10 and it makes no difference. I've also tried setting it to 'dynamic' and setting max_children to 50, and start_server to '5' without any difference. I have tried using both 1 and 5 nginx worker processes. My fastcgi_params conf looks like: fastcgi_connect_timeout 60; fastcgi_send_timeout 180; fastcgi_read_timeout 180; fastcgi_buffer_size 128k; fastcgi_buffers 4 256k; fastcgi_busy_buffers_size 256k; fastcgi_temp_file_write_size 256k; fastcgi_intercept_errors on; fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string; fastcgi_param REQUEST_METHOD $request_method; fastcgi_param CONTENT_TYPE $content_type; fastcgi_param CONTENT_LENGTH $content_length; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name; fastcgi_param REQUEST_URI $request_uri; fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_URI $document_uri; fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $document_root; fastcgi_param SERVER_PROTOCOL $server_protocol; fastcgi_param GATEWAY_INTERFACE CGI/1.1; fastcgi_param SERVER_SOFTWARE nginx/$nginx_version; fastcgi_param REMOTE_ADDR $remote_addr; fastcgi_param REMOTE_PORT $remote_port; fastcgi_param SERVER_ADDR $server_addr; fastcgi_param SERVER_PORT $server_port; fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $server_name; fastcgi_param REDIRECT_STATUS 200; Nginx logs the error as: [error] 3947#0: *10530 connect() failed (111: Connection refused) while connecting to upstream, client: 68.40.xxx.xxx, server: www.domain.com, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1", upstream: "fastcgi://127.0.0.1:9000", host: "www.domain.com" PHP-FPM logs the follow at the time of the error: [NOTICE] pid 17161, fpm_unix_init_main(), line 255: getrlimit(nofile): max:1024, cur:1024 [NOTICE] pid 17161, fpm_event_init_main(), line 93: libevent: using epoll [NOTICE] pid 17161, fpm_init(), line 50: fpm is running, pid 17161 [DEBUG] pid 17161, fpm_children_make(), line 403: [pool default] child 17162 started [DEBUG] pid 17161, fpm_children_make(), line 403: [pool default] child 17163 started [DEBUG] pid 17161, fpm_children_make(), line 403: [pool default] child 17164 started [NOTICE] pid 17161, fpm_event_loop(), line 111: ready to handle connections My CPU usage maxes out around 10-15% when I recreate the issue. My Free mem (free -m) is 130MB I had this intermittent 502 Bad Gateway issue when in was using php5-cgi to service my php requests as well. Does anyone know how to fix this?

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  • What is consuming so much memory?

    - by Christopher
    Hi, I am having a few problems with my server. It is throwing up intermittant errors and running quite slow. Here is the output from top: top - 07:33:33 up 18:57, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 Tasks: 90 total, 1 running, 82 sleeping, 7 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 1048576k total, 1048576k used, 0k free, 0k buffers Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 0k cached Ordered by %MEM: PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 9597 root 16 0 276m 91m 15m S 0.0 8.9 0:29.38 java 9564 tomcat 15 0 249m 34m 11m S 0.0 3.4 0:11.79 java 9636 root 18 0 54804 24m 9784 S 0.0 2.4 0:02.58 httpd 26139 apache 15 0 57520 23m 5996 S 0.0 2.3 0:00.15 httpd 16264 apache 18 0 56984 23m 6104 S 0.0 2.2 0:00.21 httpd 24294 apache 15 0 57512 22m 5864 S 0.0 2.2 0:00.17 httpd 30231 apache 15 0 57272 22m 5748 S 0.0 2.2 0:00.97 httpd 32257 apache 15 0 57512 22m 5416 S 0.0 2.2 0:00.46 httpd 19947 apache 15 0 57512 22m 5320 S 0.0 2.2 0:00.19 httpd 26148 apache 15 0 56688 22m 5992 S 0.0 2.2 0:00.40 httpd 14039 apache 18 0 57000 22m 5492 S 0.0 2.2 0:00.33 httpd 6051 apache 15 0 57736 22m 5128 S 0.0 2.2 0:00.07 httpd 19937 apache 15 0 56992 22m 5400 S 0.0 2.2 0:00.14 httpd 5200 apache 15 0 56984 22m 5376 S 0.0 2.2 0:00.23 httpd 10001 apache 15 0 55636 21m 5636 S 0.0 2.1 0:01.05 httpd 11734 apache 15 0 56712 21m 4548 S 0.0 2.1 0:00.46 httpd 18193 apache 15 0 55100 20m 5508 S 0.0 2.0 0:00.24 httpd 14036 apache 15 0 55128 20m 5412 S 0.0 2.0 0:00.10 httpd 3981 apache 15 0 55128 19m 4860 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.16 httpd 7588 apache 18 0 55112 19m 4848 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.04 httpd 19768 apache 16 0 55112 19m 4844 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.02 httpd 5827 apache 15 0 55112 19m 4828 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.05 httpd 29774 apache 15 0 55112 19m 4544 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.11 httpd 6064 apache 15 0 55112 19m 4536 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.02 httpd 16253 apache 17 0 55116 19m 4532 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.01 httpd 19922 apache 15 0 55112 19m 4540 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.02 httpd 10010 apache 15 0 55100 19m 4524 S 0.0 1.9 0:00.01 httpd 18195 apache 18 0 55104 18m 3872 S 0.0 1.8 0:00.02 httpd 7361 mysql 15 0 134m 18m 6400 S 0.0 1.8 0:10.18 mysqld 19921 apache 15 0 55088 18m 3588 S 0.0 1.8 0:00.02 httpd 11967 apache 15 0 55080 18m 3584 S 0.0 1.8 0:00.00 httpd 13813 apache 15 0 55088 18m 3576 S 0.0 1.8 0:00.14 httpd 23898 apache 18 0 54968 17m 3212 S 0.0 1.7 0:00.00 httpd 13792 apache 15 0 54968 17m 3088 S 0.0 1.7 0:00.00 httpd 14083 apache 15 0 54968 17m 3088 S 0.0 1.7 0:00.00 httpd 32547 apache 15 0 54944 17m 2924 S 0.0 1.7 0:00.00 httpd 13787 apache 15 0 54944 17m 2908 S 0.0 1.7 0:00.00 httpd 3623 apache 17 0 54944 17m 2908 S 0.0 1.7 0:00.00 httpd 16024 apache 19 0 54944 17m 2860 S 0.0 1.7 0:00.00 httpd 13791 apache 15 0 54944 17m 2864 S 0.0 1.7 0:00.00 httpd 20090 named 19 0 110m 4244 2056 S 0.0 0.4 0:01.55 named 9369 cyrus 15 0 15904 3048 1720 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.24 cyrus-master 32735 root 15 0 8852 2888 2116 T 0.0 0.3 0:00.00 mysql The intermittant error I get using Firefox is: Server not found Firefox can't find the server at XXXXXXX.co. * Check the address for typing errors such as ww.example.com instead of www.example.com * If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network connection. * If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web. And on other browsers, the page just loads for about 10 minutes but never appears. The only way to resolve it is to close the browser completely as the error appears to be saved in the cache. Has anyone got any ideas? Many Thanks.

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  • Low load average with plenty of cpu-intersive processes

    - by sds
    I see loadavg at about 1 with at least 3 processes running at full tile. How can that be? top - 11:48:32 up 147 days, 5:38, 8 users, load average: 1.08, 1.11, 1.05 Tasks: 416 total, 4 running, 410 sleeping, 2 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu0 : 43.3%us, 13.7%sy, 0.0%ni, 43.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu1 : 48.8%us, 12.4%sy, 0.0%ni, 38.8%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu2 : 0.7%us, 0.7%sy, 0.0%ni, 98.3%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.3%si, 0.0%st Cpu3 : 99.3%us, 0.7%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu4 : 0.0%us, 0.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.7%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu5 : 5.7%us, 0.7%sy, 0.0%ni, 93.6%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu6 : 2.3%us, 0.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 97.4%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu7 : 0.3%us, 0.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.3%si, 0.0%st Cpu8 : 38.4%us, 17.4%sy, 0.0%ni, 44.2%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu9 : 43.4%us, 13.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 43.1%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu10 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu11 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu12 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu13 : 0.3%us, 0.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.3%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu14 : 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Cpu15 : 1.0%us, 0.7%sy, 0.0%ni, 98.3%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st Mem: 132145404k total, 88125080k used, 44020324k free, 516476k buffers Swap: 8388600k total, 620232k used, 7768368k free, 55729064k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 25424 jonathan 20 0 4404m 4.1g 3268 R 99.7 3.3 212:58.17 python2.7 20939 sam 20 0 908m 733m 3376 R 81.2 0.6 603:08.07 python2.7 20987 sam 20 0 908m 732m 3376 R 79.8 0.6 598:49.18 python2.7 25428 jonathan 20 0 774m 164m 15m S 14.2 0.1 24:22.60 java 20996 sam 20 0 98.4m 7780 1880 S 4.3 0.0 17:48.15 vw 20941 sam 20 0 161m 70m 1880 S 3.0 0.1 18:10.03 vw 20940 sam 20 0 98.4m 8068 1880 S 2.6 0.0 18:06.28 vw 20942 sam 20 0 98.4m 8080 1880 S 2.6 0.0 17:39.45 vw 20944 sam 20 0 161m 71m 1880 S 2.6 0.1 17:29.29 vw 20947 sam 20 0 161m 71m 1880 S 2.6 0.1 17:25.58 vw 20959 sam 20 0 161m 70m 1880 S 2.6 0.1 17:28.00 vw 20962 sam 20 0 161m 70m 1880 S 2.6 0.1 17:26.96 vw 20963 sam 20 0 98.4m 8076 1880 S 2.6 0.0 18:07.19 vw 20965 sam 20 0 161m 71m 1880 S 2.6 0.1 18:08.13 vw 20995 sam 20 0 161m 71m 1880 S 2.6 0.1 17:38.67 vw 6399 root 20 0 558m 19m 5028 S 2.3 0.0 4329:56 BESClient 20945 sam 20 0 98.4m 8068 1880 S 2.3 0.0 17:35.38 vw 20948 sam 20 0 98.4m 8068 1880 S 2.3 0.0 17:26.01 vw 20950 sam 20 0 161m 70m 1880 S 2.3 0.1 17:25.79 vw 20952 sam 20 0 98.4m 8076 1880 S 2.3 0.0 17:32.94 vw 20955 sam 20 0 161m 70m 1880 S 2.3 0.1 17:26.61 vw 20956 sam 20 0 98.4m 8072 1880 S 2.3 0.0 17:34.76 vw 20960 sam 20 0 98.4m 8072 1880 S 2.3 0.0 17:34.04 vw Adding up CPU loads gives about 300%. The top process list also adds up to about 300%. Why is load average about 1?

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  • Have I pushed the limits of my current VPS or is there room for optimization?

    - by JRameau
    I am currently on a mediatemple DV server (basic) 512mb dedicated ram, this is a CentOS based VPS with Plesk and Virtuozzo. My experience with it from day 1 has been bad and I only could sooth my server issues with several caching "Band-aids," but my sites are not as small as they were a year ago either so the issues have worsen. I have 3 Drupal installs running on separate (plesk) domains, 1 of those drupal installs is a multisite, that consists of 5-6 sites 2 of those sites are bringing in actual traffic. Those caching "Band-aids" I mentioned are APC, which seemed to help alot initially, and Drupal's Boost, which is considered a poorman's Varnish, it makes all my pages static for anonymous users. Last 30day combined estimate on Google Ananlytics: 90k visitors 260k pageviews. Issue: alot of downtime, I am continually checking if my sites are up, and lately I have been finding it down more than 3 times daily. Restarting Apache will bring it back up, for some time. I have google search every error message and looked up ways to optimize my DV server, and I am beyond stump what is my next move. Is this server bad, have I hit a impossibly low restriction such as the 12mb kernel memory barrier (kmemsize), is it on my end, do I need to optimize some more? *I have provided as much information as I can below, any help or suggestions given will be appreciated Common Error messages I see in the log: [error] (12)Cannot allocate memory: fork: Unable to fork new process [error] make_obcallback: could not import mod_python.apache.\n Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/mod_python/apache.py", line 21, in ? import traceback File "/usr/lib/python2.4/traceback.py", line 3, in ? import linecache ImportError: No module named linecache [error] python_handler: no interpreter callback found. [warn-phpd] mmap cache can't open /var/www/vhosts/***/httpdocs/*** - Too many open files in system (pid ***) [alert] Child 8125 returned a Fatal error... Apache is exiting! [emerg] (43)Identifier removed: couldn't grab the accept mutex [emerg] (22)Invalid argument: couldn't release the accept mutex cat /proc/user_beancounters: Version: 2.5 uid resource held maxheld barrier limit failcnt 41548: kmemsize 4582652 5306699 12288832 13517715 21105036 lockedpages 0 0 600 600 0 privvmpages 38151 42676 229036 249036 0 shmpages 16274 16274 17237 17237 2 dummy 0 0 0 0 0 numproc 43 46 300 300 0 physpages 27260 29528 0 2147483647 0 vmguarpages 0 0 131072 2147483647 0 oomguarpages 27270 29538 131072 2147483647 0 numtcpsock 21 29 300 300 0 numflock 8 8 480 528 0 numpty 1 1 30 30 0 numsiginfo 0 1 1024 1024 0 tcpsndbuf 648440 675272 2867477 4096277 1711499 tcprcvbuf 301620 359716 2867477 4096277 0 othersockbuf 4472 4472 1433738 2662538 0 dgramrcvbuf 0 0 1433738 1433738 0 numothersock 12 12 300 300 0 dcachesize 0 0 2684271 2764800 0 numfile 3447 3496 6300 6300 3872 dummy 0 0 0 0 0 dummy 0 0 0 0 0 dummy 0 0 0 0 0 numiptent 14 14 200 200 0 TOP: (In January the load avg was really high 3-10, I was able to bring it down where it is currently is by giving APC more memory play around with) top - 16:46:07 up 2:13, 1 user, load average: 0.34, 0.20, 0.20 Tasks: 40 total, 2 running, 37 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie Cpu(s): 0.3% us, 0.1% sy, 0.0% ni, 99.7% id, 0.0% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si Mem: 916144k total, 156668k used, 759476k free, 0k buffers Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 0k cached MySQLTuner: (after optimizing every table and repairing any table with overage I got the fragmented count down to 86) [--] Data in MyISAM tables: 285M (Tables: 1105) [!!] Total fragmented tables: 86 [--] Up for: 2h 44m 38s (409K q [41.421 qps], 6K conn, TX: 1B, RX: 174M) [--] Reads / Writes: 79% / 21% [--] Total buffers: 58.0M global + 2.7M per thread (100 max threads) [!!] Query cache prunes per day: 675307 [!!] Temporary tables created on disk: 35% (7K on disk / 20K total)

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  • Tomcat dying silently on regular basis

    - by Hendrik
    My tomcat (6.0.32, Java Sun 1.6.0_22-b04 on Ubuntu 10.04) keeps crashing multiple times daily without any specific output in catalina.out. This usually happens on high load (see top output). Update: The pid-file is properly removed when this happens. Update 2: No CATALINA_OPTS set, _JAVA_OPTS are: export _JAVA_OPTIONS="-Xms128m -Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=512m \ -XX:MinHeapFreeRatio=20 \ -XX:MaxHeapFreeRatio=40 \ -XX:NewSize=10m \ -XX:MaxNewSize=10m \ -XX:SurvivorRatio=6 \ -XX:TargetSurvivorRatio=80 \ -XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled \ -Djava.awt.headless=true \ -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote \ -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=37331 \ -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false \ -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=true \ -Djava.rmi.server.hostname=(myhostname) \ -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.password.file=/etc/java-6-sun/management/jmxremote.password \ -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.access.file=/etc/java-6-sun/management/jmxremote.access" Top: top - 12:40:03 up 9 days, 12:15, 3 users, load average: 30.00, 22.39, 21.91 Tasks: 89 total, 4 running, 85 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 53.2%us, 9.7%sy, 0.0%ni, 34.7%id, 1.5%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.8%si, 0.0%st Mem: 4194304k total, 3311304k used, 883000k free, 0k buffers Swap: 4194304k total, 0k used, 4194304k free, 0k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 25850 tomcat6 20 0 1981m 1.2g 11m S 161 29.6 11:41.56 java 12632 mysql 20 0 393m 97m 4452 S 141 2.4 1690:05 mysqld 14932 nobody 20 0 253m 44m 9152 R 56 1.1 3:26.57 php-cgi 7011 nobody 20 0 241m 31m 9124 S 30 0.8 1:35.96 php-cgi 10093 nobody 20 0 228m 18m 8520 S 25 0.5 2:29.97 php-cgi 27071 nobody 20 0 237m 28m 8640 S 11 0.7 3:13.72 php-cgi 3306 nobody 20 0 227m 16m 6736 R 7 0.4 2:29.83 php-cgi 7756 nobody 20 0 261m 58m 15m R 5 1.4 2:22.33 php-cgi 7129 www-data 20 0 3646m 7228 1896 S 2 0.2 0:36.65 nginx 2657 nobody 20 0 228m 18m 8540 S 1 0.5 1:59.51 php-cgi 7131 www-data 20 0 3645m 6464 1960 S 1 0.2 0:34.13 nginx 7140 www-data 20 0 3652m 12m 1896 S 1 0.3 0:35.80 nginx 619 nobody 20 0 231m 29m 15m S 0 0.7 2:33.46 php-cgi 16552 nobody 20 0 250m 41m 8784 S 0 1.0 2:48.12 php-cgi 17134 nobody 20 0 239m 37m 16m S 0 0.9 2:32.86 php-cgi 21004 nobody 20 0 243m 34m 8700 S 0 0.8 1:19.85 php-cgi 26105 root 20 0 19220 1392 1060 R 0 0.0 0:00.82 top 32430 nobody 20 0 256m 47m 9196 S 0 1.2 2:19.01 php-cgi 314 nobody 20 0 256m 47m 8804 S 0 1.1 1:46.00 php-cgi 2111 nobody 20 0 253m 44m 9196 S 0 1.1 3:01.14 php-cgi 2142 root 20 0 26452 2564 868 S 0 0.1 0:00.56 screen 2144 root 20 0 19484 2012 1368 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 bash 2333 nobody 20 0 249m 41m 9160 S 0 1.0 1:10.33 php-cgi 2552 root 20 0 19484 2260 1620 S 0 0.1 0:00.01 bash 2587 nobody 20 0 258m 49m 9192 S 0 1.2 2:04.50 php-cgi 2684 root 20 0 4092 652 540 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 xvfb-run 2696 root 20 0 60720 13m 2352 S 0 0.3 0:09.12 Xvfb 2759 root 20 0 617m 12m 4676 S 0 0.3 0:00.66 node 3514 nobody 20 0 270m 61m 9216 S 0 1.5 3:13.69 php-cgi 5270 root 20 0 25164 1324 1036 S 0 0.0 0:00.01 screen 5402 nobody 20 0 227m 16m 8032 S 0 0.4 1:33.61 php-cgi 5765 root 20 0 81180 3820 3028 S 0 0.1 0:00.31 sshd 5798 nobody 20 0 242m 32m 9124 S 0 0.8 1:52.08 php-cgi 5856 root 20 0 19496 2292 1636 S 0 0.1 0:00.03 bash 6442 root 20 0 62332 20m 1960 S 0 0.5 0:30.58 mrtg 7082 root 20 0 88992 1916 1636 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 PassengerWatchd I can't find any concrete reason for it, no Exceptions or messages of a shutdown in catalina.out (and no other logs in tomcat's log dir). I can start up the service and it will run for a few days or just minutes before dying again. Is there somewhere else i could look for output? Could the kernel start killing threads due to a lack of ressources and by that bring the VM down?

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