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• View Weather Underground Forecasts in Google Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  If you like a simple straightforward interface for keeping up with weather forecasts then join us as we look at the Weather Underground extension for Google Chrome. Weather Underground in Action As soon as you click on the “Toolbar Icon” you will need to enter a location. Keep in mind that you will need to enter the “city and country” if using that option. Going with less information will yield an “error”. Note: The extension did not work for some Asian locations during our tests. In honor of the Olympics we chose Vancouver, Canada. You can hover over the “Toolbar Button” to see the current conditions or click to view the current day’s conditions, the current day’s forecast, and the forecast for the following three days. It is a simple straightforward interface. Note: There are no options to worry with. Clicking on the “Detailed Forecast Link” in the drop-down window will take you to the Weather Underground webpage for your location. Clicking on the “Weather Underground Link” in the drop-down window will take you to the Weather Underground U.S. Homepage. Additional Weather Underground Fun Since we were focusing on Weather Underground we have an extra bit of fun for you. If you love being able to view a “large scale” map of your location with current conditions and forecast combined then you might want to have a look at Weather Underground’s “wxmap webpage”. Using the link below you can access the basic starting page where you will be asked to enter your location. Once you have entered the information you will see the default “Terrain View” for your location and a “Current Conditions & Forecast Window” in the lower left corner. You can modify how your map looks by choosing from “Temperature, Precipitation, Clouds, Satellite, Hybrid, & Terrain” views. Going full screen in your browser with this gives your monitor a wonderful and unique look that will have your family & friends asking you how you did it. Note: Terrain View shown here. Clicking on the “Settings Link” in the upper left corner will let you tweak your map view very nicely. Conclusion If you love using Weather Underground for your weather forecasts then you can add a “double dose” of goodness to your browser. Links Download the Weather Underground extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Access the Full Screen Weather Underground Map & Forecast for your area Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add Weather Forecasts to Google ChromeMonitor the Weather for Your Location in ChromeView the Time & Date in Chrome When Hiding Your TaskbarView Maps and Get Directions in Google ChromeGoogle Image Search Quick Fix TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7? Change DNS servers on the fly with DNS Jumper

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• Google Chrome OS

  - by Piet

  It’s about time someone took this initiative: Google Chrome OS I especially like the following: Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work. I recently had the ‘pleasure’ witnessing several 60+ yr old friends and family (all respect for everyone in their 2nd or 3rd youth) buying their first pc, taking their first steps using a pc and the net. Have you ever seen the gazillions of little ‘useful’ tools that are installed on a new standard Vista pc or laptop ? This is like learning to drive a new car and being placed in an airplane cockpit. And all the messages one gets about virus/security checks, fingerprint nog being enrolled, trial period expiring (because half those really useful tools come with a trial period), … If I was in their shoes, being confronted with this as a total newbie, I guess I’d just give up pretty soon. As a matter of fact, I actually gave up on Vista on my work-laptop, it was driving me crazy. Thank god I was allowed to install XP. I’m a Linux user at home, and Vista was such a frustrating experience that Windows XP actually felt like breath of fresh air. And what are those people using? Email, browsing…. and maybe writing a little letter now and then or storing their photo’s if they have a digital camera. Actually (side note), I get the impression that hearing about facebook is a major motivator for the digital newbies to finally take the plunge, buy a pc and get on-line. And OK, we’ve seen initiatives like this before, but Google is a brand everyone knows… unlike Ubuntu, Debain or Mandriva. Google = God. If I was Microsoft I’d be wetting my pants knowing Google was about to release their own OS, without a doubt fully optimized to use their own on-line office suit. On the other hand, the old adage ‘no one ever got fired for choosing Microsoft’ still holds a lot of truth. I hope I’ll be able to give it a big thumbs up if a would-be pc-user asks me what kind of pc/OS they should go for in the near future. On the other hand, if I’d do that, I’m pretty sure a couple of weeks later I’d get a call asking how to install this game or photo editing tool they got from one of their Windows using friends… or that nifty photo-printer they just bought. But then, I also get those questions now from newbie Windows users. It takes a couple of years before Newbie pc users understand that some things just don’t work and aren’t worth the time trying to fix them. I’d just wish they’d go back to the shop when something doesn’t work. You also don’t let you mechanic friend try to fix a problem with your brand new car. But that’s another story… Wait and see…

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• Change a File Type’s Icon in Windows 7

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  In Windows XP, you could change the icon associated with a file type in Windows Explorer. In Windows 7, you have to do some registry hacking to change a file type’s icon. We’ll show you a much easier and faster method for Windows 7. File Types Manager File Types Manager is a great little utility from NirSoft that includes the functionality of Windows XP’s folder options and adds a whole lot more. It works great in Windows 7, and its interface makes it easy to change a bunch of related file types at once. A common problem we run into are icons that look too similar. You have to look for a few seconds to see the difference between the movies and the text files. Let’s change the icon for the movie files to make visually scanning through directories much easier. Open up File Types Manager. Find the “Default Icon” column and click on it to sort the list by the Default Icon. (We’ve hidden a bunch of columns we don’t need, so you may find it to be farther to the right.) This groups together all file extensions that already have the same icon. This is convenient because we want to change the icon of all video files, which at the moment all have the same default icon. Click the “Find” button on the toolbar, of press Ctrl+F. Type in a file type that you want to change. Note that all of the extensions with the same default icon are grouped together. Right click on the first extension whose icon you want to change and click on Edit Selected File Type, or select the first extension and press F2. Click the “…” button next to the Default Icon text field. Click on the Browse… button. File Types Manager allows you to select .exe, .dll, or .ico files. In our case, we have a .ico file that we took from the wonderful public domain Tango icon library. Select the appropriate icon (if you’re using a .exe or .dll there could be many possible icons) then click OK. Repeat this process for each extension whose icon you would like to change. Now it’s much easier to see at a glance which files are movies and which are text files! Of course, this process will work for any file type, so customize your files’ icons as you see fit. Download File Types Manager from NirSoft for Windows Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change the Default Editor for Batch Files in VistaCustomizing Your Icons in Windows XPChange Your Windows 7 Library Icons the Easy WayRestore Missing Desktop Icons in Windows 7 or VistaCustomize Your Folder Icons in Windows XP TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Scan your PC for nasties with Panda ActiveScan CleanMem – Memory Cleaner AceStock – The Personal Stock Monitor Add Multiple Tabs to Office Programs The Wearing of the Green – St. Patrick’s Day Theme (Firefox) Perform a Background Check on Yourself

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• Add a Hovering Image Toolbar to Firefox

  - by Asian Angel

  When you work with webpage images in Firefox you normally have to use the Context Menu to do anything with them. The Image Toolbar extension provides an extra toolbar to use when you hover your mouse over webpage images. Note: This extension will not function if you have the NoScript extension installed/enabled unless JavaScript has permission to be active on that page. Before You can see the available “Context Menu” options for working with images here. Not bad but it would be nice if some other convenient options were available as well. Image Toolbar in Action Once you have installed the extension you will be able to view the toolbar whenever you hover your mouse over an image. All of the commands are active by default but you can choose what is available in the options. The toolbar will also appear in the upper left region of the image but can be set to appear relative to the cursor. Note: The default minimum image size for the toolbar to appear over is “260 x 260 pixels” so you will probably want to change it to a much smaller size (see options below). Here is what is available in the Image Toolbar: Save – Choose between being prompted when saving or automatically saving to a specified location Copy – Copies image and image URL so that you can paste the image or URL depending on the app pasted into Print – Provides print preview and printing capabilities Info – Opens a window with “properties information” about the image Folder – Opens browser’s download folder in Windows Explorer The “Save, Copy, Print, & Folder Commands” are all pretty clear in what you can expect from them but what about the “Info Command”? This is what you will see if you use the “Info Command” and expand the window out all the way. Very nice… Options There are quite a few options available for what appears to be such a small toolbar. The first “Tab Area” lets you set up the “Save Scheme” that best suits your personal needs. You can choose which commands are available in the toolbar, decide if you would like text labels visible, and enable small icons if desired. As mentioned above the default image size for the toolbar to appear is “260 x 260 pixels”…we set ours for “10 x 10 pixels”. If you would like the toolbar to appear relative to your mouse cursor as opposed to the upper left corner of the image then you can select for that here. Conclusion If you have been wanting more options for working with webpage images in Firefox then this will make a very useful and convenient addition to your browser. Links Download the Image Toolbar extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Conserve Space in Firefox by Combining ToolbarsShow Alexa Ranking in FirefoxLightweight Extension to Show PageRank in FirefoxSwitch Windows by Hovering the Mouse Over a Window in Windows 7 or VistaQuick Tip: Show PageRank in Firefox while Google Toolbar is Hidden TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Roadkill’s Scan Port scans for open ports Out of 100 Tweeters Out of band Security Update for Internet Explorer 7 Cool Looking Screensavers for Windows SyncToy syncs Files and Folders across Computers on a Network (or partitions on the same drive) If it were only this easy

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• Windows Phone–A beautiful phone which I admire but I don’t recommend to friends and family

  - by Gopinath

  Microsoft’s Windows Phones are the most beautiful phones I’ve seen. Look at the photo which Microsoft shared on their Facebook page today. It’s gorgeous. Windows Phones come in vibrant colors and the user interface is very lively. When you keep an iPhone, Android Phone & a Windows Phone on a table, Windows Phone definitely stands out. Android and iOS interfaces are routine – a bunch of apps icons arranged in rows and multiple screens. Windows Phone is very different, the live tiles concept mesmerizes us. I love Windows Phone, but neither I buy one nor I recommend to family/friends! Why? Because it does not have all the Apps I need. Microsoft advertises that Windows Phone has 100K apps on its Windows Market Place. It’s true, there are 100K+ apps available for Windows Phone but not many of them are really useful and most of the popular Apps I use on Android are not available. When I say this to my friends at Microsoft, they don’t agree and one of them asked me list the apps that are not available. For him today I spent an hour quickly scanning through the apps installed on my Google Nexus and searched for same apps on Windows Market Place. As expected many of them are not available. Here is the list of my favorite Android apps that are not available for Windows Phone Mint – I use this app more than any of the Banking Apps I’ve installed on my mobile. It’s one app to keep a tab on all the expenses and income, the best money management and tracking app. Google Chrome – Web without Google Chrome is too boring, either on Desktop or on mobile. IE is too heavy and Firefox is loosing its grip. Chrome is the new darling of web. Pulse, Flipboard – Flipboard and Pulse are one of the best apps for reading news and following content of favorite blogs. Dropbox – Sync content across devices and provides access to your content on any device.It really does not matter what is your gadget – mobile, tablet or computer; Dropbox lets you access your content. GMail, Google Maps – Should I say how important are these two apps in our day to day life!! Vonage Extension – For around 30 bucks a month, Vonage provide landline service in USA + unlimited calls to India and many other countries + Vonage Extension App that lets Android/iOS mobile to make unlimited international calls for free. Without Vonage Extension app, I’m almost cutoff from my family and friends back home in India. Instagram – The most popular camera app used from a common man to celebrities. Raaga, Dhingana  – Music is part and parcel of life and these two apps are the most like popular apps to listen to Indian music. Quora – Quora is the place where most of the sensible discussions happen on web. Google Analytics, Google Adsense – I’m a blogger and these two apps mean a lot to me The list goes on and on! There are many useful apps that are not available on Windows Phone – TuneIn, MyTWC, Chrome To Phone, Google Voice, etc. Without all these apps, Windows Phone is just another old Nokia phone. Even though Windows Phone is the most beautiful phone, it needs Apps to attract customers. Without apps a smartphone is more or less a dumb feature phone which we loved to use before release of iPhone. Wish in an year or two the beautiful Windows Phone may have all the missing Apps. When it happens I’ll buy a phone for myself and recommend it to my family & friends. But till then I prefer to stay away.

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• ASP.NET Server-side comments

  - by nmarun

  I believe a good number of you know about Server-side commenting. This blog is just like a revival to refresh your memories. When you write comments in your .aspx/.ascx files, people usually write them as: 1: <!-- This is a comment. --> To show that it actually makes a difference for using the server-side commenting technique, I’ve started a web application project and my default.aspx page looks like this: 1: <%@ Page Title="Home Page" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Site.master" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="ServerSideComment._Default" %> 2: <asp:Content ID="HeaderContent" runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="HeadContent"> 3: </asp:Content> 4: <asp:Content ID="BodyContent" runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="MainContent"> 5: <h2> 6: <!-- This is a comment --> 7: Welcome to ASP.NET! 8: </h2> 9: <p> 10: To learn more about ASP.NET visit <a href="http://www.asp.net" title="ASP.NET Website">www.asp.net</a>. 11: </p> 12: <p> 13: You can also find <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=152368&amp;clcid=0x409" 14: title="MSDN ASP.NET Docs">documentation on ASP.NET at MSDN</a>. 15: </p> 16: </asp:Content> See the comment in line 6 and when I run the app, I can do a view source on the browser which shows up as: 1: <h2> 2: <!-- This is a comment --> 3: Welcome to ASP.NET! 4: </h2> Using Fiddler shows the page size as: Let’s change the comment style and use server-side commenting technique. 1: <h2> 2: <%-- This is a comment --%> 3: Welcome to ASP.NET! 4: </h2> Upon rendering, the view source looks like: 1: <h2> 2: 3: Welcome to ASP.NET! 4: </h2> Fiddler now shows the page size as: The difference is that client-side comments are ignored by the browser, but they are still sent down the pipe. With server-side comments, the compiler ignores everything inside this block. Visual Studio’s Text Editor toolbar also puts comments as server-side ones. If you want to give it a shot, go to your design page and press Ctrl+K, Ctrl+C on some selected text and you’ll see it commented in the server-side commenting style.

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• Keep a Window on top with a handy AutoHotkey script

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you tired of shuffling back and forth between windows to get your work done?  Here’s a handy tool that lets you keep any window always on top when you need it. There are many ways to use multiple windows efficiently, but sometimes it seems you need to keep a smaller one in front of a larger window and they never quite fit right.  Whether you’re trying to use Calculator and a web form at the same time, or see what music is playing while you’re catching up on your news, there’s many scenarios where it can be useful to keep one window always on top.  There are many utilities to do this, but they are often needlessly complicated and bloated.  Here we look at a better solution from Amit, our friend at Digital Inspiration. Always on Top Thanks to AutoHotkey, you can easily always keep any window on top of all the others on your screen.  You can download this as a small exe and run it directly, or can create it with a simple script in AutoHotkey.  For simplicity, we simply downloaded the application and ran it directly. To do this, download Always on Top (link below), and unzip the file. Once you’ve launched it, simply select the window you want to keep on top and press Ctrl+Space.  This program will now stay in front, even when it is not the active window.  Here’s a screenshot of a Hotmail signup dialog in Chrome with Notepad kept on top.  Notice Notepad isn’t the active application, but it is still on top. If you wish to un-pin the window from being on top, simply select the window and press Ctrl+space again.  You can keep multiple windows pinned at once, too, though you may clutter your desktop quickly! Always on Top will keep running in your system tray, and you can exit or suspend it by right-clicking on its tray icon and selecting exit or suspend, respectively. Create Your Own Always on Top Utility with AutoHotkey If you’re a fan of AutoHotkey, you can create your own AutoHotkey script to keep windows on top simply and easily with only one line of code: ^SPACE:: Winset, Alwaysontop, , A Simply create a new file, insert the code, and save it as plaintext with the .ahk file extension.  If you have AutoHotkey installed, simply double-click this file for the exact same functionality as the premade version. Conclusion This is a great way to keep a window handy, and it can be beneficial in many scenarios.  For instance you can use it to copy data from a PDF or image into a form or spreadsheet, and it saves a lot of clicks and time.  Links: Download Always on Top from Digital Inspiration Download AutoHotkey if you want to make it yourself Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Get the Linux Alt+Window Drag Functionality in WindowsGet Mac’s Hide Others (cmd+opt+H) Keyboard Shortcut for WindowsAdd "Run as Administrator" for AutoHotkey Scripts in Windows 7 or VistaKeyboard Ninja: Pop Up the Vista Calendar with a Single HotkeyKeyboard Ninja: Assign a Hotkey to any Window TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7?

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• Easily Add Facebook Chat to Pidgin

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to keep in touch with your Facebook friends throughout the day?  Here we’ll show you how to easily add Facebook chat to the popular multi-protocol chat client Pidgin. Facebook has recently added support for XMPP chat, which means you can easily add it to popular chat clients such as Pidgin.  Previously you could only add Facebook chat to Pidgin through a plug-in that didn’t always work correctly.  Here we’ll walk you through setting up your Facebook account in Pidgin. Getting Started First, make sure you have a username for your Facebook account (link below).  This is a relatively new feature for Facebook, so if you’ve had your account for a while you may need to choose one.    If you already have one, you should see it listed instead. Now, open Pidgin, and click Manage Accounts. Click Add… Then select XMPP from the Protocol list. Now, enter your Facebook username without the facebook.com part (e.g your.facebook.username, not http://www.facebook.com/your.user.name).  Then, enter chat.facebook.com for the Domain, and enter your standard Facebook password.  You can check the “Remember password” box if you’d like Pidgin to automatically sign in to Facebook chat. Now, click on the Advanced tab, and uncheck the “Require SSL/TLS” box.  Also, make sure the Connect port is 5222.  Click Add, and your Facebook account is added to Pidgin. Now Facebook will show up in your list of accounts, with the username [email protected]. Your Facebook friends will show up directly in your Buddy list, complete with their full name and Facebook profile picture.  Any users that are not in a group will show under your standard list, while ones in a Facebook group will be shown in a separate group.  You can move which groups your Facebook friends show up in, just like you can with other chat contacts.   And no matter if your friend is logged in on the standard Facebook website or through another chat application, it will work the same as always.   This is a great way to keep in touch with your Facebook friends throughout the day.  If you like Facebook chat and already use Pidgin, now you can keep from switching between programs and just chat with all your friends from a central location. Links: Download Pidgin Set your Facebook username Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips The How-To Geek is No Longer on FacebookWin a Free iPod Touch in the How-To Geek Facebook Giveaway!Block Those Irritating Facebook Quiz & Application MessagesPut Your Pidgin Buddy List into the Windows Vista SidebarHow to Lock Down Your Facebook Account TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

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• POP Forums v9 Beta 1 for ASP.NET MVC 3 posted to CodePlex!

  - by Jeff

  As promised, I posted a beta build of my forum app for ASP.NET MVC 3. Get the new goodies here: http://popforums.codeplex.com/releases/view/58228 This is the first beta for the ASP.NET MVC 3 version of POP Forums. It is nearly feature complete, and ready for testing and feedback. For previous release notes, look here, here and here.Check out the live preview: http://preview.popforums.com/ForumsSetup instructions are on the home page of this project. The new hotness in the beta, or what has been done since the last preview: All views converted to use Razor E-mail subscription/notification of new posts New post indicators/mark read buttons Permalinks to posts Jump to newest post (from new post indicators) Recent topics Favorite topics Moderator functions for topics (pin/close/delete, plus move and rename) Search, ported from v8. Not a ton of optimization here, or new unit testing, but the old version worked pretty well User posts (topics the user posted in) Forgot password Vanity items (signatures and avatars) Hide vanity items per user preference Some minor data caching where appropriate A little bit of UI refinement Lots-o-bug fixes Lots-o-unit tests What's next? The plan between now and the next beta is as follows: Continue working through features/tasks, and fix bugs as they're reported Integrate the forum into a real, production site Refine the UI Refactor as much as possible... the code organization is not entirely logical in some places After the second beta, a release candidate will follow, with a real "final" release after that. Subsequent releases should come relatively frequently and without a lot of risk. The trick in building this thing has been that it mostly tossed the previous WebForms version, which was all full of crusties. The time table for this is a little harder to pin down, as day jobs and families will have their effect. Other notes Refactoring will be a priority. As the features of MVC have evolved, so have my desires to use it in a fashion that makes things clear and easy to follow. I don't even know if anyone will ever start mucking around in the code, but on the off chance they do, I'd like what they find to not suck. Other nice-to-haves are builds to target Windows Azure and SQL CE. A nice setup UI would be super too. I think the ASP.NET MVC world has gone long enough without a decent forum.The biggest challenge that I've found is making the forum something that can be dropped in any app. While it does rope its views into an area, areas are mostly just routing details. I haven't thought of a clever way yet to limit dependency injection, for example, to just the forum bits. I mean, everyone should be using Ninject, but how realistic is that? ;)How much time and effort should you spend on POP Forums in its current state? Change is inevitable, but at this point I'm reasonably committed to not changing the database schema. I really think it will stay as-is. All bets are off for the various interfaces throughout the app, but the data should generally resist change. It's not even that different from v8, which was one of the original goals because I didn't want to rewrite SQL or introduce a new ORM or whatever. My point is that if you wanted to build a site around this today, even though it's not entirely functional, I think it's low risk in terms of data loss. I can't vouch for whether or not you know what you're doing.I've been having some chats with people lately about quoting posts, and honestly there has to be something better and straight forward. That continues to be a holy grail of mine, and some day, I hope to find it.Enjoy... it's starting to feel more real every day!

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• Silverlight Cream for March 25, 2010 -- #820

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: René Schulte, Jeremy Likness, Hassan, Victor Gaudioso, SilverLaw, Mike Taulty, Phani Raj, Tim Heuer, Christian Schormann, Brad Abrams, David Anson, Diptimaya Patra, and Daniel Vaughan. Shoutouts: Last week, Koen Zwikstra announced Silverlight Spy at MIX10 Anand Iyer announced this for students on the Windows Team Blog: Be a Windows Phone 7 “Rockstar” Justin Angel blogged that Silverlight Isn't Fully Cross-Platform ... let him know if you think it's a yawn or important. On behalf of SilverlightShow, Cigdem Patlak posted MIX10: Laurent Bugnion on Silverlight adoption, WP7 and the EcoContest From SilverlightCream.com: Coding4Fun - Silverlight Real Time Face Detection René Schulte has a Coding 4 Fun article posted on facial recognition. Who better to be manipulating graphics like this than René? Sequential Asynchronous Workflows Part 2: Simplified Jeremy Likness follows up his previous post with another one that is 'simplified'. Remember his previous post began with a post on the Silverlight.net forum and Rob Eisenburg's MVVM presentation from MIX10 Windows Phone 7 Video Tutorial Hassan has a new video up on his AfricanGeek site, and that's a continuation of his previous WP7 video tutorial, adding a listbox and databinding it to the selected index of another listbox. The Los Angeles Silverlight Usergorup will be Streaming its March Meeting LIVE in Silverlight – Tonight! Victor Gaudioso used his Live Streaming knowledge to stream his User Group meeting last night from LA where Michael Washington presented on MVVM followed by Victor himself. That was last night. Today he has a couple of the videos up to view. Shining 3D Font Design - Silverlight 3 SilverLaw has a "Shining 3D Font" tutorial up, and a video on it here: New Video: How to create a 3D effect on a Silverlight 3 Textblock ... this is also available in the Expression Gallery. Silverlight 4 RC – Signing trusted apps with home made certificates Mike Taulty has a post up about building a hand-rolled cert to test out the XAP signing features, and then gives a nod to John Papa with a link to the Silverlight White Paper I've posted about before, because this info is in there as well. Developing a Windows Phone 7 Application that consumes OData Phani Raj has a tutorial up on consuming the NetFlix OData catalog on the WP7 emulator ... now *that* is cool! Make your Silverlight applications Speak to you with Microsoft Translator Tim Heuer used Silverlight to demonstrate Microsoft Translator as a speech synthesis tool using the Speak API included ... pretty cool, Tim ... lots of external links and code. Blend 4: About Path Layout, Sidebar – More About ListBox Than You Ever Wanted To Know Christian Schormann has another outstanding tutorial up on the ListBox and PathLayout in Expression Blend ... just check out the screen shots and you'll wanna read it! Silverlight 4 + RIA Services: Ready for Business: Updating Data in the Client This is the continuation of Brad Abrams' series on WCF RIA Services and is a tutorial on setting up to deal with updating the data. Tip: The CLR wrapper for a DependencyProperty should do its job and nothing more David Anson is posting some "Development Tips", and this is the first ... discussing making sure your DependencyProperty CLR wrapper stays on point... Create and Apply Theme Silverlight Application Diptimaya Patra has a tutorial up on creating and using themes. He states that "Themes are nothing but some predefined styles" ... check it out and see if it's really that easy :) Building a Windows Phone 7 Puzzle Game Daniel Vaughan has a great post up starting with installing all the tools and ending with a maze game for WP7 using XNA for sound... this is the first I've seen that integrates XNA (I think). Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone    MIX10

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• Pet Store Loyalty Programs: I'm Not Loyal Yet!

  - by ruth.donohue

  After two years of constantly being asked (aka "pestered) by my now eight-year-old daughter for a dog (or any pet that is more interactive than a goldfish), I've finally compromised with a hamster purely by chance. Friends of ours had recently brought home a female hamster, and (surprise, surprise) two weeks later, they were looking for homes for 11 baby hamster pups. Since the pups were not yet ready to be weaned from their mother, my daughter and I had several weeks to get ready -- and we spent that extra time visiting a number of local pet stores and purchasing an assortment of hamster books, toys, exercise equipment, food, bedding, and cage -- not cheap! Now, I'm usually an online shopper (i.e. I love reading user reviews and comparing prices), but for kids, there is absolutely no online substitute for actually walking into a store and physically picking out something you want. We have two competing pet shops within close proximity to where we live, and I signed up for their rewards programs to get discounts on select items. I'm sure it takes a while to get my data into the system (after all, I did fill out a form the old-fashioned way), but as it has been more than two weeks for one store and over a week for the other, the window of opportunity is getting smaller as we by now pretty much have most of what we think we need. Everything I've purchased has been purely hamster or small animal related, so in an ideal world, the stores would have me easily figured out as a hamster owner. Here is what I would be expecting of a loyalty rewards program: Point me to some useful links, either information provied by the company or external websites where I can learn more. Any value-add a business can provide to make my life easier makes me a much more loyal customer. What things can I expect as a new pet owner? Any hamster communities? Any hamster-related events? Any vets that specialize in small animals in the vicinity? Send me an email with other related products I may be interested in. Upsell and cross-sell to me. We've go the basics and a couple of luxuries, but at this point, I'm pretty excited (surprisingly) about the hamster, and my daughter is footing the bill with her birthday and Christmas money. She and I would be more than happy to spend her money! Get this information to me faster. As I mentioned, my window of opportunity is getting smaller, as eithe rmy daughter's money will run out on other things or we'll start losing the thrill of buying new hamster toys and treats. I realize this is easier said than done, and undoubtedly, the stores are getting value knowing my basic customer information and purchase history. Buth, they could really benefit by delivering a loyalty program that really earned my loyalty. "Goldeen" needs a new water bottle, yogurt chips, and chew toys as he doesn't seem to like the ones we bought. So for now, I'll just go to whichever store is the most convenient. Oh, and just for fun (not related to this post), here are a couple of videos my daughter really got a kick out of watching: Hamster on a Piano Tic in a Spin-Dryer

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• Manage Your WordPress Blog Comments from Your Windows Desktop

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you never more than a few steps away from your PC and want to keep up with comments on your blog?  Then here’s how you can stay on top of your WordPress comments right from your desktop. Wp-comment-notifier is a small free app for Windows that lets you easily view, approve, reply to, and delete comments from your WordPress blog.  Whether you have a free WordPress.com blog or are running WordPress on your own server, this tool can keep you connected to your comments.  Unfortunately it only lets you manage comments at one blog, so if manage multiple WordPress-powered sites you may find this a downside.  Otherwise, it works great and helps you stay on top of the conversation at your blog. Get notified with wp-comment-notifier Download the wp-comment-notifier (link below) and install as usual. Run it once it’s installed.  Enter your blog address, username, and password when prompted. Wp-comment-notifier will automatically setup your account and download recent comments. Finally, enter your blog’s name, and click Finish. Review Comments with wp-comment-notifier You can now review your comments directly by double-clicking the new WordPress icon in your system tray.  The window has 3 tabs…comments, pending, and spam.  Select a comment to reply, edit, spam, or delete it directly from your desktop. If you select Edit, then you can edit the HTML of the comment (including links) directly from within the notifier. You can approve or permanently delete any spam messages that are caught by your blog’s spam filter. Whenever new comments come in, you’ll see a tray popup letting you know how many comments are waiting to be approved or are in the spam folder.  Click the popup to open the editor. Now, you can directly approve that pending comment without going to your WordPress admin page.  When you’re done, just press Enter on your Keyboard to post the reply. Or, if you want to reply to the comment, click the reply link and enter your comment in the entry box at the bottom. If you ever want to double-check if there’s any new comments, just right-click on the tray icon and select refresh. Finally, you can change the settings from the Configuration link in the tray button or by clicking the gear button on the bottom of the review window.  You can change how often it checks for new comments, not to start the notifier at system startup, and edit your account information. Conclusion Whether you’re managing your personal blog or administer a site with millions of hits per day, staying on top of the conversation is one of the best ways to build and maintain your audience.  With wp-comment-notifier, you can be sure that you’re always in control of your blogs comments.  This app is especially useful if you review all comments before allowing them to be published. Download wp-comment-notifier Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How-To Geek SoftwareHow-To Geek Software: WordPress Comment Moderation NotifierSave Time Commenting with Pre-Fill Comments Greasemonkey ScriptAdd Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress BlogTools to Help Post Content On Your WordPress Blog 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 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12 Move the Mouse Pointer With Your Face Movement Using eViacam Boot Windows Faster With Boot Performance Diagnostics Create Ringtones For Your Android Phone With RingDroid

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• Change Desktop Resolution With a Keyboard Shortcut

  - by Matthew Guay

  Do you find yourself changing your monitor resolution several times a day?  If so, you might like this handy way to set a keyboard shortcut for your most-used resolutions. Most users rarely have to change their screen resolution often, as LCD monitors usually only look best at their native resolution.  But netbooks present a unique situation, as their native resolution is usually only 1024×600.  Some newer netbooks offer higher resolutions which may not looks as crisp as the native resolution but can be handy for using a program that expects a higher resolution.  This is the perfect situation for a keyboard shortcut to help you change the resolution without having to hassle with dialogs and menus each time, and HRC – HotKey Resolution Changer makes it easy to do. Create Keyboard Shortcuts Download the HRC – HotKey Resolution Changer (link below), unzip, and then run HRC.exe in the folder. This will start a tray icon, and will not automatically open the HRC window.  You don’t have to install HRC.  Double-click the tray icon to open it.  Note: Windows 7 automatically hides new tray icons, so if you can’t see it, click the arrow to see the hidden tray icons. By default, HRC will show two entries with your default resolutions, color depth, and refresh rate. Add a keyboard shortcut by clicking the Change button over the resolution.  Press the keyboard shortcut you want to press to switch to that resolution; we entered Ctrl+Alt+1 for our default resolution.  Make sure not to use a keyboard shortcut you use in another application, as this will override it.  Click Set when you’ve entered the hotkey(s) you want. Now, on the second entry, select the resolution you want for your alternate resolution.  The drop-down list will only show your monitor’s supported resolutions, so you don’t have to worry about choosing an incorrect resolution.  You can also set a different color depth or refresh rate for this resolution.  Now add a keyboard shortcut for this resolution as well. You can set keyboard shortcuts for up to 9 different resolutions with HRC.  Click the Select number of HotKeys button on the left, and choose the number of resolutions you want to set.  Here we have unique keyboard shortcuts for our three most-used resolutions on our netbook. HRC must be kept running to use the keyboard shortcuts, so click the Minimize to tray icon which is the second icon to the right.  This will keep it running in the tray. If you want to be able to change your resolution anytime, you’ll want HRC to automatically start with Windows.  Create a shortcut to HRC, and paste it into your Windows startup folder.  You can easily open this folder by entering the following in the Run command or in the address bar in Explorer: %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup   Conclusion HRC- HotKey Resolution Changer gives you a great way to quickly change your screen resolution with a keyboard shortcut.  Whether or not you love keyboard shortcuts, this is still a much easier way to switch between your most commonly used resolutions. Download HRC – HotKey Resolution Changer Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create a Keyboard Shortcut to Access Hidden Desktop Icons and FilesGet Mac’s Hide Others (cmd+opt+H) Keyboard Shortcut for WindowsHide Desktop Icon Text on Windows 7 or VistaShow Keyboard Shortcut Access Keys in Windows VistaKeyboard Ninja: 21 Keyboard Shortcut Articles 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 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Use Flixtime To Create Video Slideshows Creating a Password Reset Disk in Windows Bypass Waiting Time On Customer Service Calls With Lucyphone MELTUP – "The Beginning Of US Currency Crisis And Hyperinflation" Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative

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• MongoDB usage best practices

  - by andresv

  The project I'm working on uses MongoDB for some stuff so I'm creating some documents to help developers speedup the learning curve and also avoid mistakes and help them write clean & reliable code. This is my first version of it, so I'm pretty sure I will be adding more stuff to it, so stay tuned! C# Official driver notes The 10gen official MongoDB driver should always be referenced in projects by using NUGET. Do not manually download and reference assemblies in any project. C# driver quickstart guide: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+Driver+Quickstart Reference links C# Language Center: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+Language+Center MongoDB Server Documentation: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Home MongoDB Server Downloads: http://www.mongodb.org/downloads MongoDB client drivers download: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Drivers MongoDB Community content: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+Community+Projects Tutorials Tutorial MongoDB con ASP.NET MVC - Ejemplo Práctico (Spanish):http://geeks.ms/blogs/gperez/archive/2011/12/02/tutorial-mongodb-con-asp-net-mvc-ejemplo-pr-225-ctico.aspx MongoDB and C#:http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/87757/MongoDB-and-C C# driver LINQ tutorial:http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+Driver+LINQ+Tutorial C# driver reference: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+Driver+Tutorial Safe Mode Connection The C# driver supports two connection modes: safe and unsafe. Safe connection mode (only applies to methods that modify data in a database like Inserts, Deletes and Updates. While the current driver defaults to unsafe mode (safeMode == false) it's recommended to always enable safe mode, and force unsafe mode on specific things we know aren't critical. When safe mode is enabled, the driver internal code calls the MongoDB "getLastError" function to ensure the last operation is completed before returning control the the caller. For more information on using safe mode and their implicancies on performance and data reliability see: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/getLastError+Command If safe mode is not enabled, all data modification calls to the database are executed asynchronously (fire & forget) without waiting for the result of the operation. This mode could be useful for creating / updating non-critical data like performance counters, usage logging and so on. It's important to know that not using safe mode implies that data loss can occur without any notification to the caller. As with any wait operation, enabling safe mode also implies dealing with timeouts. For more information about C# driver safe mode configuration see: http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/CSharp+getLastError+and+SafeMode The safe mode configuration can be specified at different levels: Connection string: mongodb://hostname/?safe=true Database: when obtaining a database instance using the server.GetDatabase(name, safeMode) method Collection: when obtaining a collection instance using the database.GetCollection(name, safeMode) method Operation: for example, when executing the collection.Insert(document, safeMode) method Some useful SafeMode article: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4604868/mongodb-c-sharp-safemode-official-driver Exception Handling The driver ensures that an exception will be thrown in case of something going wrong, in case of using safe mode (as said above, when not using safe mode no exception will be thrown no matter what the outcome of the operation is). As explained here https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mongodb-user/mS6jIq5FUiM there is no need to check for any returned value from a driver method inserting data. With updates the situation is similar to any other relational database: if an update command doesn't affect any records, the call will suceed anyway (no exception thrown) and you manually have to check for something like "records affected". For MongoDB, an Update operation will return an instance of the "SafeModeResult" class, and you can verify the "DocumentsAffected" property to ensure the intended document was indeed updated. Note: Please remember that an Update method might return a null instance instead of an "SafeModeResult" instance when safe mode is not enabled. Useful Community Articles Comments about how MongoDB works and how that might affect your application: http://ethangunderson.com/blog/two-reasons-to-not-use-mongodb/ FourSquare using MongoDB had serious scalability problems: http://mashable.com/2010/10/07/mongodb-foursquare/ Is MongoDB a replacement for Memcached? http://www.quora.com/Is-MongoDB-a-good-replacement-for-Memcached/answer/Rick-Branson MongoDB Introduction, shell, when not to use, maintenance, upgrade, backups, memory, sharding, etc: http://www.markus-gattol.name/ws/mongodb.html MongoDB Collection level locking support: https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-1240 MongoDB performance tips: http://www.quora.com/MongoDB/What-are-some-best-practices-for-optimal-performance-of-MongoDB-particularly-for-queries-that-involve-multiple-documents Lessons learned migrating from SQL Server to MongoDB: http://www.wireclub.com/development/TqnkQwQ8CxUYTVT90/read MongoDB replication performance: http://benshepheard.blogspot.com.ar/2011/01/mongodb-replication-performance.html

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• SQLAuthority News – Windows Efficiency Tricks and Tips – Personal Technology Tip

  - by pinaldave

  This is the second post in my series about my favorite Technology Tips, and I wanted to focus on my favorite Microsoft product.  Choosing just one topic to cover was too hard, though.  There are so many interesting things I have to share that I am forced to turn this second installment into a five-part post.  My five favorite Windows tips and tricks. 1) You can open multiple applications using the task bar. With the new Windows 7 taskbar, you can start navigating with just one click.  For example, you can launch Word by clicking on the icon on your taskbar, and if you are using multiple different programs at the same time, you can simply click on the icon to return to Word.  However, what if you need to open another Word document, or begin a new one?  Clicking on the Word icon is just going to bring you back to your original program.  Just click on the Word icon again while holding down the shift key, and you’ll open up a new document. 2) Navigate the screen with the touch of a button – and not your mouse button. Yes, we live in a pampered age.  We have access to amazing technology, and it just gets better every year.  But have you ever found yourself wishing that right when you were in the middle of something, you didn’t have to interrupt your work flow be reaching for your mouse to navigate through the screen?  Yes, we have all been guilty of this pampered wish.  But Windows has delivered!  Now you can move your application window using your arrow keys. Lock the window to the left, right hand screen: Win+left Arrow and Win+right Arrow Maximize & minimize: Win+up arrow and Win+down arrow Minimize all items on screen: Win+M Return to your original folder, or browse through all open windows: Alt+up arrow, Alt+Left Arrow, or Alt+right arrow Close down or reopen all windows: win+home 3) Are you one of the few people who still uses Command Prompt? You know who you are, and you aren’t ashamed to still use this option that so many people have forgotten about it.  You can easily access it by holding down the shift key while RIGHT clicking on any folder. 4) Quickly select multiple files without using your mouse. We all know how to select multiple files or folders by Ctrl-clicking or Shift-clicking multiple items.  But all of us have tried this, and then accidentally released Ctrl, only to lose all our precious work.  Now there is a way to select only the files you want through a check box system.  First, go to Windows Explorer, click Organize, and then “Folder and Search Options.”  Go to the View tab, and under advanced settings, you can find a box that says “Use check boxes to select items.”  Once this has been selected, you will be able to hover your mouse over any file and a check box will appear.  This makes selecting multiple, random files quick and easy. 5) Make more out of remote access. If you work anywhere in the tech field, you are probably the go-to for computer help with friends and family, and you know the usefulness of remote access (ok, some of us use this extensively at work, as well, but we all have friends and family who rely on our skills!).  Often it is necessary to restart a computer, which is impossible in remote access as the computer will not show the shutdown menu.  To force the computer to do your wishes, we return to Command Prompt.  Open Command Prompt and type “shutdown /s” for shutdown, or “shutdown /r” for restart. I hope you will find above five tricks which I use in my daily use very important. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Personal Technology

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• Integrate Google Docs with Outlook the Easy Way

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to use Google Docs and Microsoft office together?  Here’s how you can use Harmony for Google Docs to integrates them seamlessly with Outlook. Harmony for Google Docs is an exciting new plugin for Outlook 2007 (a version for Outlook 2010 is in the works).  It lets you integrate your Google Docs account with Outlook via a sidebar.  From this, you can find any of your Google docs or upload a new document, and then you can open the document to view or edit it in Outlook. Getting Started Download Harmony for Google Docs (link below), and install as normal.  Make sure Outlook is closed before you run the install. Next time you open Outlook, the new Harmony sidebar will automatically open.  Enter your Google Account info, and click Sign In. Now, all of your Google Docs will show up in the sidebar. Double-click any file to open it in Outlook.  You may have to sign-in to Google Docs the first time you open a document. Here’s a Google Doc open in Outlook.  Notice that everything works, including full editing. All Google Docs features worked great in our tests except for the new drawings tool.  When we tried to insert a drawing, Outlook had a script error.  This was the only problem we had with Harmony, and could be due to an interaction between Google Drawings and Outlook’s rendering engine. Harmony makes it easy to find any file in your Google Docs account.  You can search for a file, or sort your files by type, recentness, and more. You can also easily add any document to Google Docs directly from Harmony.  You can drag and drop any document, including one attached to an email, to the Harmony sidebar, and it will directly upload to your Google Docs account. And, when you’re writing a new email or reply, click the Show Documents button to open the Harmony sidebar.  From here, you can add documents as usual and share it with email recipient. Conclusion We previously covered a similar app OffiSync which combines Google doc features with MS Office. However, Harmony makes it much easier to use Google Apps along with Outlook.  This gives you an easy and efficient way to collaborate on documents with coworkers, all without leaving Outlook.  And, if your company uses SharePoint instead of Google Docs, Harmony offers a SharePoint edition that integrates with Outlook just as easily! Link Download Harmony for Google Docs Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Export Documents from Google Docs to Your ComputerView Your Google Calendar in Outlook 2007Sync Your Outlook and Google Calendar with Google Calendar SyncIntegrate Twitter With Microsoft OutlookSlacker Geek: Update Your Facebook Profile from Outlook TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Find That Elusive Icon with FindIcons Looking for Good Windows Media Player 12 Plug-ins? Find Out the Celebrity You Resemble With FaceDouble Whoa ! Use Printflush to Solve Printing Problems Icelandic Volcano Webcams

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• Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

  - by Michelle Kimihira

  By Maria Forney Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

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• Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

  - by Maria Forney

  Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

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• HTML Presence Controls for Communications Server 14 CodePlex Project

  Showing Presence on the Web If youre running Office Communicator Server 2007 R2, you know that your only out-of-the-box option for showing presence on the web is to use the NameControl ActiveX control that ships as part of Office.  Being an ActiveX control, this obviously means that youre limited to Internet Explorer.  Also, nobody likes ActiveX controls What if you want to show the presence of users in a pure ASP.NET or HTML application and cant assume that the user has Communicator installed you need anASP.NET or HTML presence control.  HTML Presence Controls for Microsoft Communications Server 14 We recently worked with the UC team at Microsoft on a keynote demo for TechEd 2010 in New Orleans.  The demo was for a fictitious airline Fabrikam Airlines that wanted to show the presence of customer service and reservations agents on its website.  Customers could also start an instant message conversation with the agents using a Silverlight web chat window that used WCF to communicate with the backend UCMA application. We built HTML Presence Controls that use AJAX to poll a REST-based WCF service running in IIS and hosting a UCMA 3.0 presence subscription application.   Microsoft has graciously allowed us to publish these on CodePlex so that the development community can benefit from them:  http://htmlpresencecontrols.codeplex.com/ We will be maintaining the CodePlex project as new builds of UCMA 3.0 become available.  Check out the project home page on CodePlex for some more in-depth details on how the controls are implemented. ASP.NET Server Control Implementation Were providing an ASP.NET Server Control implementation that you can use stand-alone or in a GridView or Repeater (or other layout control).  The control has properties that allow you to control its appearance, e.g. you can choose whether or not to show the contacts name or availability text. You can also use the server control in a layout control such as a GridView by putting it in a TemplateColumn and binding to the Sip Uri in the data source. Disclaimer Once we started working on these, we realized why Microsoft hasnt shipped such controls as part of the product.  There are some tradeoffs you have to be aware of when using these controls, heres the high level. Privacy The backend UCMA 3.0 application that subscribes to presence of contacts runs as a trusted application and can thus retrieve the presence of any user in the organization.  Theres currently no good way in UCMA to apply any privacy rules to ensure that the consumer of the presence controls has permission to see the presence of the contacts that the controls are bound to.  Just to be absolutely crystal clear These controls provide a way to query the presence of any user in the organization, regardless of the privacy relationship between the person consuming the controls and the contacts whose presence is being displayed. Were exploring options for a design pattern that would allow you to inject some privacy controls.  Keep in mind though that you would most likely be responsible for implementing this logic, as there is currently no functionality in UCMA that allows you to do that. Polling the WCF REST Service The controls poll the backend WCF service to retrieve the presence of contacts - you can control the refresh interval so that they poll less often. We implemented a caching layer so that the WCF service is always communicating with a presence cache it never communicates directly with Communications Server.  For example, if your web page is showing the presence of sip:[email protected] and 500 people have the page open, the presence cache only contains one instance of the subscription Communications Server is not being polled 500 times for the presence of that contact. Once the presence of a contact changes, it is updated in the cache.  There are some server-based push mechanisms that would work nicely here, such as the one that Outlook Web Access 2010 uses.  Unfortunately we didnt have time to explore these options. Community Contribution Take a look at the project Issue Tracker, there are a couple of things we can use some help with.  Shoot me a note if youre interested in contributing to the project. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Install GIMP 2.7.1 on Lucid Lynx using PPA

  - by Vivek

  GIMP lovers are going to be disappointed to hear that GIMP is going away in the next release of much awaited Ubuntu 10.04. Today we take a look at installing in on Lucid Lynx using PPA. The reason for getting rid of it as cited by the GIMP developers, is that GIMP is too professional a software to be included in regular desktop version of Ubuntu. And it takes up too much of space on the disk. Also, the fact that it’s too complicated for regular users. If you can’t live without it…let’s see how to install GIMP 2.7.1 on Lucid Lynx (Currently in Alpha). The new version of GIMP supports single window mode and we will also see how to enable this feature as well. First we need to add the official GIMP 2.7.1 PPA in the software sources of Ubuntu 10.04, by opening the terminal window and typing the following command: sudo sh -c “echo ‘deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/matthaeus123/mrw-gimp-svn/ubuntu lucid main’ >> /etc/apt/sources.list” Now that we have added the PPA we need to add the GPG key, so type the following in your Terminal window. sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 405A15CB Next up we have to update the software repository… sudo apt-get update All that is left is to install GIMP 2.7.1 by typing in the following… sudo apt-get install gimp Click ‘Y’ (for yes) to install GIMP Once GIMP is installed you can start it by going to Applications > Graphics > GNU Image Manipulation Program. You now have your favorite GIMP on your favorite Ubuntu 10.04. As you can see in the image below, GIMP still comes with default 3 windows, which could clog up your lower panel In Ubuntu 10.04. However, now you can run GIMP in single window mode by going to Windows > Single-Window mode. That’s all! Now you have your GIMP running in single window mode with less of hassle to manage 3 windows. It’s unfortunate that GIMP will not be included, but by following these instructions, you’ll be able to enjoy using it in Ubuntu 10.04. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Show the List of Installed Packages on Ubuntu or DebianHow to Install Windows Applications on Linux Using CrossoverInstall VMware Tools on Ubuntu Edgy EftInstall Adobe PDF Reader on Ubuntu EdgyInstall MySQL Server 4.1 on Ubuntu TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Stretch popurls.com with a Stylish Script (Firefox) OldTvShows.org – Find episodes of Hitchcock, Soaps, Game Shows and more Download Microsoft Office Help tab The Growth of Citibank Quickly Switch between Tabs in IE Windows Media Player 12: Tweak Video & Sound with Playback Enhancements

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• Upgrade Office 2003 to 2010 on XP or Run them Side by Side

  - by Mysticgeek

  If you’re still running XP, currently have Office 2003 installed on your machine, and skipped Office 2007, you might want to upgrade to Office 2010. In this guide we will show you the upgrade process or how to run them side by side. In this example we are upgrading from Office 2003 Standard to Office Professional Plus 2010 RTM (Final) on XP Professional. System Requirements To run Office 2010 on your XP machine you have to make sure you have Service Pack 3 and Microsoft Silverlight installed (links below). Or you can just install them through Windows Update. Recommended Hardware 1GHZ CPU or higher 512 MB of RAM or higher 1024×768 Resolution or higher DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card with 64 MB of memory or higher Installing Office 2010 Simply kick off the Office Professional Plus 2010 installation. Enter in your product key… Agree to the EULA…   Select the Customize button… Setup will detect Office 2003 and allow you to remove all applications, keep them, or select only the ones you want to keep. In this example we’re going to remove Excel and PowerPoint, and keep Outlook and Word 2003. Next, click the Installation Options tab and select Office programs you want to install. Since we’re keeping Outlook 2003 and don’t want to use Outlook 2010, we’re making sure not to install Outlook 2010. However, we want to run Word 2003 and 2010 on the same machine. After you’ve made your selections click the Upgrade button. The installation begins and you’re shown the progress. The amount of time it takes to install will vary between systems. Installation is complete and you can close out of the installer. Now when you go into the Start menu under Microsoft Office, you’ll see both versions of the Office apps available. Here is a shot of Word 2003 and 2010 running together on our XP machine.   Conclusion If you’re moving from Office 2003 to 2010, this allows you to install both versions side by side. It gives you a chance to learn 2010 features, and still work in the familiar 2003 environment when you need to get things done quickly. If you’re having problems installing Office 2010 make sure to check out our article on how to fix problems upgrading Office 2010 beta to RTM (Final) release. Also, if you were using Office 2007 and are currently using the 2010 beta, we have a guide on how to switch back to Office 2007 after the 2010 beta ends. Links XP Service Pack 3 Microsoft Silverlight Details on Office 2010 System Requirements Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add Word/Excel 97-2003 Documents Back to the "New" Context Menu After Installing Office 2007Make Word 2007 Always Save in Word 2003 FormatMake Excel 2007 Always Save in Excel 2003 FormatRemove Office 2010 Beta and Reinstall Office 2007How to Find Office 2003 Commands in Office 2010 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 VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Enable or Disable the Task Manager Using TaskMgrED Explorer++ is a Worthy Windows Explorer Alternative Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12 Move the Mouse Pointer With Your Face Movement Using eViacam

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• OBIEE 11.1.1 - User Interface (UI) Performance Is Slow With Internet Explorer 8

  - by Ahmed A

  The OBIEE 11g UI is performance is slow in IE 8 and faster in Firefox.  For VPN or WAN users, it takes long time to display links on Dashboards via IE 8. Cause is IE 8 generates many HTTP 304 return calls and this caused the 11g UI slower when compared to the Mozilla FireFox browser. To resolve this issue, you can implement HTTP compression and caching. This is a best practice.Why use Web Server Compression / Caching for OBIEE? Bandwidth Savings: Enabling HTTP compression can have a dramatic improvement on the latency of responses. By compressing static files and dynamic application responses, it will significantly reduce the remote (high latency) user response time. Improves request/response latency: Caching makes it possible to suppress the payload of the HTTP reply using the 304 status code.  Minimizing round trips over the Web to re-validate cached items can make a huge difference in browser page load times. This screen shot depicts the flow and where the compression and decompression occurs: Solution: a. How to Enable HTTP Caching / Compression in Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) 11.1.1.x 1. To implement HTTP compression / caching, install and configure Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) 11.1.1.x for the bi_serverN Managed Servers (refer to "OBIEE Enterprise Deployment Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence" document for details). 2. On the OHS machine, open the file HTTP Server configuration file (httpd.conf) for editing. This file is located in the OHS installation directory.For example: ORACLE_HOME/Oracle_WT1/instances/instance1/config/OHS/ohs13. In httpd.conf file, verify that the following directives are included and not commented out: LoadModule expires_module "${ORACLE_HOME}/ohs/modules/mod_expires.soLoadModule deflate_module "${ORACLE_HOME}/ohs/modules/mod_deflate.so 4. Add the following lines in httpd.conf file below the directive LoadModule section and restart the OHS: Note: For the Windows platform, you will need to enclose any paths in double quotes ("), for example:Alias "/analytics ORACLE_HOME/bifoundation/web/app"<Directory "ORACLE_HOME/bifoundation/web/app"> Alias /analytics ORACLE_HOME/bifoundation/web/app#Pls replace the ORACLE_HOME with your actual BI ORACLE_HOME path<Directory ORACLE_HOME/bifoundation/web/app>#We don't generate proper cross server ETags so disable themFileETag noneSetOutputFilter DEFLATE# Don't compress imagesSetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary<FilesMatch "\.(gif|jpeg|png|js|x-javascript|javascript|css)$">#Enable future expiry of static filesExpiresActive onExpiresDefault "access plus 1 week"     #1 week, this will stops the HTTP304 calls i.e. generated by IE 8Header set Cache-Control "max-age=604800"</FilesMatch>DirectoryIndex default.jsp</Directory>#Restrict access to WEB-INF<Location /analytics/WEB-INF>Order Allow,DenyDeny from all</Location> Note: Make sure you replace above placeholder "ORACLE_HOME" to your correct path for BI ORACLE_HOME.For example: my BI Oracle Home path is /Oracle/BIEE11g/Oracle_BI1/bifoundation/web/app Important Notes: Above caching rules restricted to static files found inside the /analytics directory(/web/app). This approach is safer instead of setting static file caching globally. In some customer environments you may not get 100% performance gains in IE 8.0 browser. So in that case you need to extend caching rules to other directories with static files content. If OHS is installed on separate dedicated machine, make sure static files in your BI ORACLE_HOME (../Oracle_BI1/bifoundation/web/app) is accessible to the OHS instance. The following screen shot summarizes the before and after results and improvements after enabling compression and caching:

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• SharePoint OCR image files indexing

  Introduction This article describes how to setup indexing of the image files (including TIFF, PDF, JPEG, BMP...) using OCR technology. The indexing described below utilizes Microsoft IFilter technology and as such is not specific to SharePoint, but can be used with any product that uses Microsoft indexing: Microsoft Search, Desktop search, SQL Server search, and through the plug-ins with Google desktop search. I however use it with Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 2003. For those other products, the registration may need to be slightly different. Background  One of the projects I was working on required a storage of old documents scanned into PDF files. Then there was a separate team of people responsible for providing a tags for a search engine so those image documents could be found. The whole process was clumsy, labor intensive, and error prone. That was what started me on my exploration path. OCR The first search I fired was for the Open Source OCR products. Pretty quickly, I narrowed it down to TESSERACT (http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/). Tesseract is an orphaned brain child of HP that worked on it from 1985 to 1995. Then it was moved to the Open Source, and now if I understand it correctly, Google is working on it. With credentials like that, it's no wonder that Tesseract scores one of the highest marks on OCR recognition and accuracy. After downloading and struggling just a bit, I got Tesseract to work. The struggling part was that the home page claims that its base input format is a TIFF file. May be my TIFFs were bad, but I was able to get it to work only for BMP files. Image files conversion So now that I have an OCR that can convert BMP files into text, how do I get text out of the image PDF files? One more search, and I settled down on ImageMagic (http://www.imagemagick.org/). This is another wonderful Open Source utility that can convert any file into image. It did work out of the box, converting any TIFF files into bitmaps, but to get PDF files converted, it requires a GhostScript (http://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/ghost/GPL/gs864/gs864w32.exe). Dealing with text PDFs With that utility installed, I was cooking - I can convert any file (in particular PDF and TIFF) into bitmap, and then I can extract the text out of the bitmap. The only consideration was to somehow treat PDF files containing text differently - after all, OCR is very computation intensive and somewhat error prone even with perfect image quality and resolution. So another quick search, and I have a PDFTOTEXT (ftp://ftp.foolabs.com/pub/xpdf/xpdf-3.02pl4-win32.zip) - thank God for Open Source! With these guys, I can pull text out of PDF in an eye blink. However, I would get nothing for pure image PDFs, but I already have a solution for that! Batch process It took another 15 minutes to setup a batch script to automate the process: Check the file extension If file is a PDF file try to extract text out of it if there is more than certain amount of text in the file - done! if there is no text, convert first page into bitmap run OCR on the bitmap For any other file type, convert file into bitmap Run OCR on the bitmap Once you unzip the attached project, check out the bin\OCR.BAT file. It will create a temporary file in the directory where your source file is with the same name + the '.txt' extension.Continue span.fullpost {display:none;}

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• Google TV Gets Bad Reception. Can Media Center Pull in the Signal?

  - by andrewbrust

  The news hit Monday morning that Google has decided to delay the release of its Google TV platform, and has asked its OEMs to delay any products that embed the software.  Coming just about two weeks prior to the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Google’s timing is about the worst imaginable.  CES is where the platform should have had its coming out party, especially given all the anticipation that has built up since its initial announcement came 7 months ago. At last year’s CES, it seemed every consumer electronics company had fashioned its own software stack for Internet-based video programming and applications/widgets on its TVs, optical disc players and set top boxes.  In one case, I even saw two platforms on a single TV set (one provided by Yahoo and the other one native to the TV set). The whole point of Google TV was to solve this problem and offer a standard, embeddable platform.  But that won’t be happening, at least not for a while.  Google seems unable to get it together, and more proprietary approaches, like Apple TV, don’t seem to be setting the world of TV-Internet convergence on fire, either. It seems to me, that when it comes to building a “TV operating system,” Windows Media Center is still the best of a bad bunch.  But it won’t stay so for much longer without some changes.  Will Redmond pick up the ball that Google has fumbled?  I’m skeptical, but hopeful.  Regardless, here are some steps that could help Microsoft make the most of Google’s faux pas: Introduce a new Media Center version that uses XBox 360, rather than Windows 7 (or 8), as the platform.  TV platforms should be appliance-like, not PC-like.  Combine that notion with the runaway sales numbers for Xbox 360 Kinect, and the mass appeal it has delivered for Xbox, and the switch form Windows makes even more sense. As I have pointed out before, Microsoft’s Xbox implementation of its Mediaroom platform (announced and demoed at last year’s CES) gets Redmond 80% of the way toward this goal.  Nothing stops Microsoft from going the other 20%, other than its own apathy, which I hope has dissipated. Reverse the decision to remove Drive Extender technology from Windows Home Server (WHS), and create deep integration between WHS and Media Center.  I have suggested this previously as well, but the recent announcement that Drive Extender would be dropped from WHS 2.0 creates the need for me to a) join the chorus of people urging Microsoft to reconsider and b) reiterate the importance of Media Center-WHS integration in the context of a Google compete scenario. Enable Windows Phone 7 (WP7) as a Media Center client.  This would tighten the integration loop already established between WP7, Xbox and Zune.  But it would also counter Echostar/DISH Network/Sling Media, strike a blow against Google/Android (and even Apple/iOS) and could be the final strike against TiVO. Bring the WP7 user interface to Media Center and Kinect-enable it.  This would further the integration discussed above and would be appropriate recognition of WP7’s Metro UI having been built on the heritage of the original Media Center itself.  And being able to run your DVR even if you can’t find the remote (or can’t see its buttons in the dark) could be a nifty gimmick. Microsoft can do this but its consumer-oriented organization, responsible for Xbox, Zune and WP7, has to take the reins here, or none of this will likely work.  There’s a significant chance that won’t happen, but I won’t let that stop me from hoping that it does and insisting that it must.  Honestly, this fight is Microsoft’s to lose.

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• Redirect all access requests to a domain and subdomain(s) except from specific IP address? [closed]

  - by Christopher

  This is a self-answered question... After much wrangling I found the magic combination of mod_rewrite rules so I'm posting here. My scenario is that I have two domains - domain1.com and domain2.com - both of which are currently serving identical content (by way of a global 301 redirect from domain1 to domain2). Domain1 was then chosen to be repurposed to be a 'portal' domain - with a corporate CMS-based site leading off from the front page, and the existing 'retail' domain (domain2) left to serve the main web site. In addition, a staging subdomain was created on domain1 in order to prepare the new corporate site without impinging on the root domain's existing operation. I contemplated just rewriting all requests to domain2 and setting up the new corporate site 'behind the scenes' without using a staging domain, but I usually use subdomains when setting up new sites. Finally, I required access to the 'actual' contents of the domains and subdomains - i.e., to not be redirected like all other visitors - in order that I can develop the new site and test it in the staging environment on the live server, as I'm not using a separate development webserver in this case. I also have another test subdomain on domain1 which needed to be preserved. The way I eventually set it up was as follows: (10.2.2.1 would be my home WAN IP) .htaccess in root of domain1 RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^10\.2\.2\.1 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^staging.domain1.com$ [NC] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^staging2.domain1.com$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain2.com/$1 [R=301] .htaccess in staging subdomain on domain1: RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^10\.2\.2\.1 RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^staging.revolver.coop$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain2.com/$1 [R=301,L] The multiple .htaccess files and multiple rulesets require more processing overhead and longer iteration as the visitor is potentially redirected twice, however I find it to be a more granular method of control as I can selectively allow more than one IP address access to individual staging subdomain(s) without automatically granting them access to everything else. It also keeps the rulesets fairly simple and easy to read. (or re-interpret, because I'm always forgetting how I put rules together!) If anybody can suggest a more efficient way of merging all these rules and conditions into just one main ruleset in the root of domain1, please post! I'm always keen to learn, this post is more my attempt to preserve this information for those who are looking to redirect entire domains for all visitors except themselves (for design/testing purposes) and not just denying specific file access for maintenance mode (there are many good examples of simple mod_rewrite rules for 'maintenance mode' style operation easily findable via Google). You can also extend the IP address detection - firstly by using wildcards ^10\.2\.2\..*: the last octet's \..* denotes the usual "." and then "zero or more arbitrary characters", signified by the .* - so you can specify specific ranges of IPs in a subnet or entire subnets if you wish. You can also use square brackets: ^10\.2\.[1-255]\.[120-140]; ^10\.2\.[1-9]?[0-9]\.; ^10\.2\.1[0-1][0-9]\. etc. The third way, if you wish to specify multiple discrete IP addresses, is to bracket them in the style of ^(1.1.1.1|2.2.2.2|3.3.3.3)$, and you can of course use square brackets to substitute octets or single digits again. NB: if you're using individual RewriteCond lines to specify multiple IPs / ranges, make sure to put [OR] at the end of each one otherwise mod_rewrite will interpret as "if IP address matches 1.1.1.1 AND if IP address matches 2.2.2.2... which is of course impossible! However as far as I'm aware this isn't necessary if you're using the ! negator to specify "and is not...". Kudos also to SE: this older question also came in useful when I was verifying my own knowledge prior to my futzing around with code. This page was helpful, as were the various other links posted below (can't hyperlink them all due to spam protection... other regex checkers are available). The AddedBytes cheat sheet's useful to pin up on your wall. Other referenced URLs: internetofficer.com/seo-tool/regex-tester/ fantomaster.com/faarticles/rewritingurls.txt internetofficer.com/seo-tool/regex-tester/ addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/mod_rewrite-cheat-sheet/

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