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  • App Crashing Inspite of Being ARC Enabled

    - by proctr
    I have been working on an iOS App for sometime now and its almost ready to submit. However, when I gave it to few people for testing purposes (running iOS 5)..they reported cases where the app crashes and the home screen is displayed on the phone OR a frozen app screen appears with no response whatsoever The app is ARC enabled and Xcode shows no warnings. So, I'm relli tensed about what's going wrong. I have declared properties in the following fashion: @property (nonatomic) IBOutlet UILabel *devCountLabel; @property (nonatomic) IBOutlet UIView *splashView; Likewise other properties are declared. Could anyone provide a solution ASAP. It is mainly a network based app and thus, CoreData usage is minimum.. Anyway, I'm running out of time..So Please provide a fix asap..oh and thanks a ton for it. PS: The App doesn't crash in the simulator, so I'm guessing it has something related to memory. And the crashes are random. So, repeating a set of steps to reproduce the crash doesn't help either. For Eg. When I click a button, modalViewControllerAnimation results in normal case. Now this occurs as expected most of the time and freezes the app other times.

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  • CSS 100% height with padding/margin

    - by Toji
    This has been driving me crazy for a couple of days now, but in reality it's a problem that I've hit off and on for the last few years: With HTML/CSS how can I make an element that has a width and/or height that is 100% of it's parent element and still has proper padding or margins? By "proper" I mean that if my parent element is 200px tall and I specify 100% height with 5px padding I would expect that I should get a 190px high element with 5px "border" on all sides, nicely centered in the parent element. Now, I know that that's not how the standard box model specifies it should work (although I'd like to know why, exactly...), so the obvious answer doesn't work: #myDiv { width: 100% height: 100%; padding: 5px; } But it would seem to me that there must be SOME way of reliably producing this effect for a parent of arbitrary size. Does anyone know of a way of accomplishing this (seemingly simple) task? Oh, and for the record I'm not terribly interested in IE compatibility so that should (hopefully) make things a bit easier. EDIT: Since an example was asked for, here's the simplest one I can think of: <html style="height: 100%"> <body style="height: 100%"> <div style="background-color: black; height: 100%; padding: 25px"></div> </body> </html> The challenge is then to get the black box to show up with a 25 pixel padding on all edges without the page growing big enough to require scrollbars.

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  • Getting macro keys from a razer blackwidow to work on linux

    - by Journeyman Geek
    I picked up a razer blackwidow ultimate that has additional keys meant for macros that are set using a tool that's installed on windows. I'm assuming that these arn't some fancypants joojoo keys and should emit scancodes like any other keys. Firstly is there a standard way to check these scancodes in linux? Secondly how do i set these keys to do things in command line and x based linux setups? My current linux install is xubuntu 10.10, but i'll be switching to kubuntu once i have a few things fixed up. Ideally the answer should be generic and system-wide Things i have tried so far: showkeys from the built in kbd package (in a seperate vt) - macro keys not detected xev - macro keys not detected lsusb and evdev output this ahk script's output suggests the M keys are not outputting standard scancodes Things i need to try snoopy pro + reverse engineering (oh dear) Wireshark - preliminary futzing around seems to indicate no scancodes emitted when what i seem to think is the keyboard is monitored and keys pressed. Might indicate additional keys are a seperate device or need to be initialised somehow. Need to cross reference that with lsusb output from linux, in 3 scenarios - standalone, passed through to a windows VM without the drivers installed, and the same with. LSUSB only detects one device on a standalone linux install It might be useful to check if the mice use the same razer synapse driver , since that means some variation of razercfg might work (not detected. only seems to work for mice) Things i have Have worked out: In a windows system with the driver, the keyboard is seen as a keyboard and a pointing device. And said pointing device uses, in addition to your bog standard mouse drivers.. a driver for something called a razer synapse. Mouse driver seen in linux under evdev and lsusb as well Single Device under OS X apparently, though i have yet to try lsusb equivilent on that Keyboard goes into pulsing backlight mode in OS X upon initialisation with the driver. This should probably indicate that there's some initialisation sequence sent to the keyboard on activation. They are, in fact, fancypants joojoo keys. Extending this question a little I have access to a windows system so if i need to use any tools on that to help answer the question, its fine. I can also try it on systems with and without the config utility. The expected end result is still to make those keys usable on linux however. I also realise this is a very specific family of hardware. I would be willing to test anything that makes sense on a linux system if i have detailed instructions - this should open up the question to people who have linux skills, but no access to this keyboard The minimum end result i require I need these keys detected, and usable in any fashion on any of the current graphical mainstream ubuntu varients

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  • Problem virtualizing Ubuntu 10.04 32 bit on VirtualBox 3.1 on Windows Vista 64 bit

    - by Adam Siddhi
    Software & Hardware Setup Host System : Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64 bit Guest : Ubuntu 10.04 (ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso) 32 bit VM : VirtualBox 3.1.8 Hardware : Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 4GB SDRAM What Happened I followed the tutorial called Installing Ubuntu inside Windows using VirtualBox located here: www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/virtualbox At first I downloaded ubuntu-10.04-desktop-amd64.iso because I figured that it would be a perfect fit with my Vista 64 OS. I was wrong because it turns out the my Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 CPU does not have Intel® Virtualization Technology. So I had to go with the ubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso which is 32 bit. This got me to the point where I could actually create the Ubuntu VM. So I set up the VM in VirtualBox (according to the tutorial I was following) to prepare for the Ubuntu 10.04 virtualization. Please go to my Picassa web album to see the screen shots of my VM settings and Ubuntu boot process so you can see what I experienced (they appear in the order that I experienced them in). www.picasaweb.google.com/rubysiddhi/ProblemVirtualizingUbuntu100432BitOnVirtualBox31OnWindowsVista64# The first 17 images show the VM settings. The last 8 show my attempt at virtualizing Ubuntu 10.04. You can see booting up but ultimately failing. The Specifics The one error message I got was: (process:210): GLib-WARNING **: getpwuid_r(): failed due to unknown user id (0) It appeared on a black screen that sort of looked like a Windows console screen but with out the c:\ or the ability to type. Then this error message got more complex when tons of text appeared in the screen. Pictures 23 - 25 in the album show this text. I should also mention that I found this post in the Ubuntu forums by zonination who seemed to have similar problems to mine even though they had a different set up. The main issue I think zonination and me may be having is the fact that we can not change the color mode to 32 bit while it is booting. I think the 16 bit color mode maybe making Ubuntu fail. Not certain though. Well I hope I explained my problem thoroughly and clearly. Thanks for the tutorial. It got me started but, now I hope to finish this process so I can start developing in Ubuntu. OH by the way if you want to actually see what happened play by play (with some classical in the background) check out the video I made over here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMbbm5E_0Xw Thanks! Regards, Adam

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  • Ping "replies" from same computer with 'Destination host unreachable' (no route to other computer)

    - by Srekel
    I've got two computers in a LAN behind a wireless router. One has XP with ip 192.168.1.2 This one has W7 with ip 192.168.1.7 If I try to ping the other one from this computer, I get this: C:\Users\Srekel>ping 192.168.1.2 Pinging 192.168.1.2 with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 192.168.1.7: Destination host unreachable. Reply from 192.168.1.7: Destination host unreachable. Reply from 192.168.1.7: Destination host unreachable. Reply from 192.168.1.7: Destination host unreachable. Ping statistics for 192.168.1.2: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Tracert gives the same result: C:\Users\Srekel>tracert 192.168.1.2 Tracing route to 192.168.1.2 over a maximum of 30 hops 1 Kakburken4 [192.168.1.7] reports: Destination host unreachable. Trace complete. Although I can ping and tracert the router without any problems. I have disabled the firewalls on both computers. The router is set to use DHCP (if that matters). Here is the output from "route". C:\Users\Srekel>route print =========================================================================== Interface List 13...00 25 86 df c6 89 ......TP-LINK Wireless N Adapter 12...e0 cb 4e 26 b9 84 ......Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller #2 11...e0 cb 4e 26 be 94 ......Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller 1...........................Software Loopback Interface 1 16...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2 14...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface =========================================================================== IPv4 Route Table =========================================================================== Active Routes: Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.7 20 127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 On-link 127.0.0.1 306 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 306 127.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 306 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 On-link 192.168.1.7 276 192.168.1.7 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.1.7 276 192.168.1.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.1.7 276 224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 On-link 127.0.0.1 306 224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 On-link 192.168.1.7 276 255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 306 255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.1.7 276 =========================================================================== Persistent Routes: None IPv6 Route Table =========================================================================== Active Routes: If Metric Network Destination Gateway 14 58 ::/0 On-link 1 306 ::1/128 On-link 14 58 2001::/32 On-link 14 306 2001:0:5ef5:73ba:881:20c1:3f57:fef8/128 On-link 14 306 fe80::/64 On-link 14 306 fe80::881:20c1:3f57:fef8/128 On-link 1 306 ff00::/8 On-link 14 306 ff00::/8 On-link =========================================================================== Persistent Routes: None I've set up and debugged a few networks in my life but I'm not really an advanced network user, so I'm not sure what might be wrong. Any ideas? Oh, and pinging this computer from the other computer doesn't work either.

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  • Windows 7 + Deep Freeze - I'm stuck in an endless reboot loop

    - by myermian
    I have the following setup: Windows 7 Ultimate Deep Freeze I "thawed" my machine last night and performed a Windows Update. The update is having issues (it gets stuck at 32%, fails, and restarts my machine). When it reboots it attempts it again, and again, and again, etc. (Endless loop). I looked online and found some solutions, but none of them seem to be working: When I run Safe Mode, Safe Mode w/ Network, or Safe Mode w/ Command Prompt it attempts to revert the Windows Update changes. However, the problem is with Deep Freeze on (and now in "Frozen" mode) the reverted changes don't stay, and I'm back into the loop of death. Oh, and side note: "Safe Mode w/ Command Prompt" does not actually take me to a command prompt window? Perhaps because it is attempting to complete the Windows Update changes first? I have tried to select the option to NOT restart when an windows error occurs, but it still does. I tried the remainder of all the other options in the F8 screen. The only other option left is to find my Windows 7 Media Disc (I can't find it right now) and use it to repair windows (because for some reason the repair option does not show up in the F8 screen). Is there a way to disable Deep Freeze from loading? When I selected "Safe Mode w/ Command Prompt" I noticed that it loads the DpFrz.sys file. I know that when I'm in the Windows Boot Manager if I press F10 instead of F8 (while highlighting Windows 7) it takes me to an "Edit Boot Options" screen: Edit Windows boot options for: Windows 7 Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe Partition: 2 Hard Disk: 8e90e329 [ /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN (I CAN EDIT THIS LINE) ] Update: I found my Windows 7 Media Disk and it did not help out. The laptop had the "System Restore" as a partition on the HDD. I later received (in the mail) a Windows 7 Upgrade Disc from Sony to upgrade my system from Windows Vista to Windows 7 Ultimate. I placed the disc into the DVD drive and it does not come up as a "bootable" disc. I'm going to try to find an alternative disc to see if I can get into Command Prompt. Update 2: I got a Windows Repair disc and got into a command prompt window. I got into the registry and disabled Deep Freeze. Also: I renamed the Pending.xml file to Pending.old I cleared out the Windows Temp directory I still am stuck in the loop (though, it isn't an issue with DeepFreeze anymore because I can make changes to the hard drive and they persist). Not sure what to do at this point? Update 3: I ran the repair option and it couldn't repair, but it did point me to something. It says the error was due to a driver that was failing. I have a feeling it is my UPEK Fingerprint scanner.

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  • OpenVPN, Great on Windows, VERY slow on Mac...

    - by Phsion
    Hello, I'm not really an IT Pro, but this seemed like the best place to ask this question... I have setup VPN networks in the past, for fun, and everything was great, but now I've set one up for my boss, and while my computers all work great, his Mac machines are almost too slow to work with. Its pretty much vanilla configs all around, anyone have any ideas? Its a TUN routing setup over UDP. Back Story: My boss travels a lot, and wants to be able to access all his files from the road, and is also pretty paranoid about security (even though knows almost nothing about computers). SO i figured a VPN would be the answer. I went with OpenVPN, but there are some other issues. The only ISP we can get in our area besides Dial-UP is a crappy Satellite provider, that doesn't offer public IPs unless your willing to pay, so while the computers and VPN setup are pretty vanilla, the routing and structure is strange to get around this limitation. Specs: Its OpenVPN2, and there are six machines using it (only three actually use it, the rest are my test machines), one Windows 7 laptop, two XP Desktops, one OS X 10.5 Desktop, one 10.6 Desktop, and one 10.6 Laptop. One XP Desktop sits at my house and acts as the server (6Mbs/2Mbs FIOS connection). One XP desktop sits at the office and hosts a webpage that will wake up the Main Mac Desktop from sleep, and also ping all the machines on the VPN and show their status. The main office mac (10.6) stays in sleep mode until it gets the Wake-On-Lan packet from the Office XP, and then it auto connects to the VPN and opens itself up. The reason for all this is the Satellite private IP crap means i cant directly access the office machines outside of the LAN, so everyone connects to my house first, then they talk to each other from there. The Wake On Lan weirdness is because my boss doesn't want to leave the main Mac on all the time, and making a quick and dirty webpage was the easiest way to send a Magic Packet from inside the LAN without confusing my boss. The VPN uses Client Config files to make static IPs for the client. The only thing i found in google was some changes to the VPN MTU settings (down to 1400) but no real help. Oh, and i forgot...all the windows machines just have OpenVPN start as a service. The Mac laptop uses tunnelblick (an OpenVPN GUI) and the Mac Desktops use OpenVPN in normal command line mode. Server Config: tun-mtu 1500 fragment 1450 mssfix 1450 management localhost #### port #### proto udp dev tun ca ####### cert ####### key ###### dh ###### server 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0 ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt client-config-dir ccd route 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.252 client-to-client keepalive 10 120 comp-lzo persist-key persist-tun status openvpn-status log Client Configs (all are simple variations on this) tun-mtu 1500 fragment 1450 mssfix 1450 client dev tun proto udp remote ######## #### resolv-retry infinite nobind persist-key presist-tun ca ##### cert ##### key ##### ns-cert-type server comp-lzo verb 3

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  • Transferring a Windows 8 license and proper un- and reinstallation

    - by Kiwi
    Long story short I have two computers: a laptop and a desktop computer. Both have Windows 7 on them. I buy the Windows 8 Pro upgrade. To see if it screws up anything, I install it on my laptop as a guinea pig. I intend to use Windows 8 for my main computer, my desktop, but I want to test it on the laptop, so I know I don’t risk losing access to my desktop and the data on it. I never use my laptop, and only used it, because it already has a Windows 7 installation on it. The problem At some point, I must have entered the license key on my laptop, because when I go to the activation screen on my desktop, I get this: Uh-oh. I can’t use the key on my desktop. Now how the hell do I transfer the key from my laptop to my desktop computer? Answers and suggestions so far Let’s just say that I tried everything possible to get some answers on this matter. The best response I got from Microsoft is this: To install Windows 8 on your desktop, do the following: Uninstall Windows 8 on your laptop Afterwards, install Windows 8 on your desktop If it won’t activate, call product activation at (...) I am not a fan of that last point. The error message does allude to such a solution, however: If you’ve reinstalled Windows or made changes to your hardware recently, you may be able to use your current key. The question My main question is this: has anyone been in a similar situation, and if so, what did you do to resolve this? Failing that, what is the proper way to uninstall the Windows 8 installation on my laptop, and reinstall the Windows 8 installation on my desktop? Ad 1 I have already tried using the “reset” feature on my laptop, but that only resulted in a new Windows 8 installation that was already activated. But which is the right way to uninstall the installation in a way that allows me to use the license key on the desktop computer? Ad 2 Which is the proper way to reinstall the Windows 8 installation on my desktop computer? Why do I even have to reinstall it in the first place? I won’t get around to do this, until my USB key with 3.0 support arrives in the mail, but it is going to be a while, until I find a assuaging response to the best way to go about this anyway.

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  • TomCat starts, but does not load properly

    - by user37136
    Hey guys, I've been working on this for a day now and still don't know what's wrong. I am essentially building a second environment for our web and app server. I got apache to load up just fine, but tomcat is proving to be difficult. It appears to start and load just fine, but when it comes to loading our application, its just got stuck for 2-5 minutes and then shut down. Here is the log on the original machine where it works fine: 2010-02-12 11:52:40,506 INFO Web application servlet context is initializing... 2010-02-12 11:52:40,540 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: select_jobType=[{1,Undefined}, {100,Completion}, {200,Plugging}, {300,R+M}, {400,Workover}, {500,Swab - tubing}, {600,Swab - fluid}] 2010-02-12 11:52:40,540 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: select_jobTaskType=[{1,Undefined}, {100,Rod part}, {200,Tubing leak}, {300,Pump change}, {400,Stripping job}, {500,Long stroke}, {600,A/L optimization}] 2010-02-12 11:52:40,541 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: select_wellType=[{1,Undefined}, {100,Rod pump}, {200,ESP}, {300,Injector}, {400,PC pump}, {500,Co-Rod}, {600,Flowing}, {700,Storage}] 2010-02-12 11:52:40,541 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: select_assetType=[{1,Rig}, {100,Disabled rig}] 2010-02-12 11:52:40,542 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: select_state=[{AL,Alabama}, {AK,Alaska}, {AZ,Arizona}, {AR,Arkansas}, {CA,California}, {CO,Colorado}, {CT,Connecticut}, {DE,Delaware}, {FL,Florida}, {GA,Georgia}, {HI,Hawaii}, {ID,Idaho}, {IL,Illinois}, {IN,Indiana}, {IA,Iowa}, {KS,Kansas}, {KY,Kentucky}, {LA,Louisiana}, {ME,Maine}, {MD,Maryland}, {MA,Massachusetts}, {MI,Michigan}, {MN,Minnesota}, {MS,Mississippi}, {MO,Missouri}, {MT,Montana}, {NE,Nebraska}, {NV,Nevada}, {NH,New Hampshire}, {NJ,New Jersey}, {NM,New Mexico}, {NY,New York}, {NC,North Carolina}, {ND,North Dakota}, {OH,Ohio}, {OK,Oklahoma}, {OR,Oregon}, {PA,Pennsylvania}, {RI,Rhode Island}, {SC,South Carolina}, {SD,South Dakota}, {TN,Tennessee}, {TX,Texas}, {UT,Utah}, {VT,Vermont}, {VA,Virginia}, {WA,Washington}, {WV,West Virginia}, {WI,Wisconsin}, {WY,Wyoming}, {ACO,Atlantic Coast Offshore}, {FOAK,Federal Offshore Alaska}, {NGOM,Northern Gulf of Mexico}, {PCO,Pacific Coastal Offshore}] 2010-02-12 11:52:40,542 INFO KeyviewContextMonitor.contextInitialized: Loaded drop-down lists:com/key/portal/web/common/lists.properties 2010-02-12 11:52:40,937 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: org.apache.struts.action.SERVLET_MAPPING=*.do 2010-02-12 11:52:40,937 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: org.apache.struts.action.ACTION_SERVLET=org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet@155d578 2010-02-12 11:52:41,939 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: org.apache.struts.action.MODULE=org.apache.struts.config.impl.ModuleConfigImpl@e08e9d 2010-02-12 11:52:41,962 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: org.apache.struts.action.FORM_BEANS=org.apache.struts.action.ActionFormBeans@b31c3c 2010-02-12 11:52:41,967 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: org.apache.struts.action.FORWARDS=org.apache.struts.action.ActionForwards@102c646 2010-02-12 11:52:41,973 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: org.apache.struts.action.MAPPINGS=org.apache.struts.action.ActionMappings@127276a 2010-02-12 11:52:41,974 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: org.apache.struts.action.MESSAGE=org.apache.struts.util.PropertyMessageResources@18cae13 2010-02-12 11:52:41,984 DEBUG Servlet context attribute added: org.apache.struts.action.PLUG_INS=[Lorg.apache.struts.action.PlugIn;@f875ae 2010-02-12 11:52:46,816 INFO Sucessfully loaded application properties com/key/core/properties/application On my second environment, it didn't execute the last line. I start tomcat with the exact same command line !/bin/ksh export JAVA_HOME=/app/java export CATALINA_HOME=/app/tomcat export CATALINA_BASE=/app/keyview/appserver CATALINA_OPTS=" -Xms128m -Xmx800m -Dapplication.props=com/key/core/properties/application -Dlog4j.configuration=com/key/core/log/log4j.xml -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dlog4j.debug" export CATALINA_OPTS ${CATALINA_HOME}/bin/startup.sh I bolded the line that I think are in error. Thanks

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  • Cannot exit X server, restart, shutdown or drop to tty when VGA monitor active

    - by terdon
    I have a strange problem. If I connect an external VGA monitor to my laptop, exiting the X environment in any way crashes the computer. For example, say I am working with my two monitors (the laptop's and one connected to my VGA port) active. Hitting Ctrl+Alt+F Key should take me down to a tty. What actually happens is that the VGA screen goes blank, as you would expect, but the laptop screen, although still on, shows nothing. I know the screen is on because it is slightly more illuminated than when it is off. When in this state, I can do nothing to regain access to the machine. I have tried: Ctrl+F Key (and even Ctrl+Alt+F Key, just in case) combinations and none seem to have any effect. Ctrl+Alt+Del : Nothing Magic SysRq key: Nothing Blindly typing my username and password and trying to reboot/shutdown or restart GDM or MDM: Nothing The only thing that works is a hard reset. The exact same behavior occurs when kiling the X server through Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, rebooting or shutdown. There is no difference if I reboot/shutdown/log out using the WM's graphical menu or if I use the shutdown or rebootcommands. It is also not WM-dependent. I have the same problem using Cinnamon, Gnome 3, MATE and xfce4. It is, however, VGA dependent. I have tried connecting another VGA monitor and have the same problem. I do not, however, have this problem if a screen is connected to the DisplayPort. It is, therefore, a VGA specific issue. To make things even stranger, this only occurs when both screens are active. If either the laptop screen or the VGA monitor is inactive the problem goes away. Finally, this problem arose when I installed the latest Linux Mint Debian (LMDE). It did not occur with the previous release of LMDE. I am not sure what has changed since I used the same kernel version in both releases (I had upgraded the kernel while on the previous release) and, I think, the same nvidia drivers. Oh, and yes, I have updated the nvidia driver. Hardware: Dell M4500 laptop CPU: Intel Core i7 RAM: 8GB Graphics: nVidia GT216 [Quadro FX 880M] Software: LMDE, kernel 3.2.0-2-amd64 Xorg: 1.11.4 nVidia kernel: 295.20-1+3.2.9-1 Possibly relevant files: /var/log/Xorg.0.log ~/.xsession-errors Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this? Thanks in advance for any help.

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  • Win 8: Adding a boot volume to an MBR dynamic disk [NOT about changing to basic disks]

    - by Stilez
    (This is NOT aiming to convert to basic disk. In this question, the disk stays dynamic but becomes bootable) There doesn't seem to be a clear, well stated answer I can find, for the question "What are the criteria for Windows 8 to successfully boot from an MBR dynamic disk", or "how do I fix a dynamic MBR partition that's failing boot"? I've tried to educate myself but can't find crucial information to clear it all up. My existing HDD/SSD setup: DISK 0 ~ 60GB SSD/MBR/basic: (350MB recovery)(60GB windows 8 bootable) DISK 1 ~ 512GB SSD/MBR/dynamic: (350MB recovery)(60GB unallocated)(410GB mirrored data) DISK 2 ~ 512GB SSD/MBR/dynamic: (350MB recovery)(60GB unallocated)(410GB mirrored data) DISKS 3, 4, 5: (ignored for simplicity: 2xHDD RAID1 + caching SSD) I'm heavy duty on data crunching and virtualisation, just maxxed out 32GB RAM @ 2133 and moved to 4960X + 64GB. Disk 0 is a pure system disk of little value, and virtualisations runs off mirrored SSDs (Samsung 840 Pro 512 x 2) for double speed reading and so they snapshot in reasonable time. I'm using 4 SATA3 ports and the board only has two decent Intel ports (onboard Marvell are poorer quality). I'm wary of choosing between LSI, HighPoint and other 3rd party controllers as I'm unfamiliar with the maze of decent RAID cards (that's a whole other issue!). I want to cut down my SSD needs by moving the boot volume and caching volume to the 840 pros, giving a setup with 2 fewer SSDs: DISK 0 ~ 512GB SSD/MBR/dynamic: (350MB recovery)(60GB boot)(410GB mirrored data) DISK 1 ~ 512GB SSD/MBR/dynamic: (350MB recovery)(30GB cache for the ICH10R mirror)(30GB temp)(410GB mirrored data) DISKS 2, 3: (2xHDD RAID1) Intel's RST allows this, Win 8 allows booting off a MBR/dynamic disk, and the two 60GB SSDs are hardly the fastest SSDs anyway, they'll get repurposed. Moving the caching volume is easy. Moving the boot volume has me stumped. The difficulty is, I'm hitting a wall of knowledge here. I have a UEFI Asus motherboard with an previous traditional MBR/basic boot disk, and I want it to boot from a disk and volume that's MBR/dynamic. The disk copy is physically ok (Partition Wizard Server will copy to dynamic volumes) but then hits a light blue 0xc000000e boot error. No real surprise, I expected to have some boot fixing, but had expected Windows to boot-fix it (all drivers exist), or the usual manual fixes to work. Specifically, I don't know enough, to know what's got to be manually checked and perhaps corrected for the disk to boot (legacy/uefi/bios, odd partitions, boot tables, disk IDs, hidden boot files, oh my!), or if I need to change any of this secure boot/UEFI/legacy stuff in the bios, convert a 512 SSD to basic and then back to dynamic when working, or if the issue is pure OS config using "diskpart", "bootsect" and "bootrec" from the Win8 DVD. The old system disk still boots but I don't know enough to figure what to fix, to make the system boot as I want. The answers probably aren't hard but the real issue is my confusion and missing information. Thanks for helping!

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  • Wireless 802.11x Disconnects

    - by BillP3rd
    I've looked at (and read) all of the similar questions and none of them get exactly to the issue I'm having at home. I have an 802.11g access point (two, actually, with different SSIDs and on different channels). One is an Airlink AR525W. The other is a Linksys WRT54G v.2. The issue is that at random times, my laptop will lose its wireless connection. This occurs regardless of which access point I'm connected to. When I lose the connection, the affected AP no longer appears in the list of available APs. Also, it doesn't have anything to do with walls or distance. It can happen within 30' and when my laptop is literally within line-of-sight. When it loses the signal, it can take from 10 to 30 minutes to reconnect and it always will without intervention. I've done all the “standard” things to troubleshoot the problem and it has improved. For example, I surveyed other access points in my vicinity and have selected a different channel for each of my APs that no one else nearby is using. Both APs are configured WPA2/AES. I'm down to wondering [Note: This is not a shopping question. I'm not buying a new AP] if the fact that I didn't drop two bills on my APs and instead opted for more modest solutions has anything to do with it? I've oft wondered why anyone would go for the high-end AP when they didn't have to. Also, I am aware of DD-WRT and have chosen not to go there because only one of my APs is supported. Oh, and one final thing. It an HP x64 laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate. The wireless interface is an Atheros AR9285 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter. All the latest drivers and service packs have been applied. It did the same thing with my old laptop (a Lenovo) so I don't the problem is in the laptop. It's really annoying when this happens and suggestions of things I haven't thought of or may have overlooked (No, really. As unlikely as it is, I admit that I may have overlooked something :-)) are appreciated.

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  • Subversion/Hudson/Sonar/Artifactory - too much for my little server to handle! Help!

    - by Ricket
    I have a little dedicated server. It's at a cheap price and has a simple AMD 1800+ (1.5ghz), 256mb DDR RAM, ...need I continue? And I think I'm overloading it already. I have installed the following, and it's running CentOS 5.4: Webmin Apache MySQL Subversion as an Apache module Hudson (standalone) Sonar (standalone, runs with a standalone Jetty install) Artifactory (standalone) That's pretty much it. But I'm having problems; pages are loading quite slowly. Network speed of the server is excellent, but I think I'm just running out of CPU and/or memory. A side-effect of the pages loading slowly is that sometimes Hudson times out, not being able to start Maven or contact Sonar in a certain amount of time. I think the next step to speed things up might be to move to an application server and use the WAR version of Hudson, Sonar and Artifactory together on that server. I don't know that it will help, but it just seems to make sense, especially with Sonar running on its own Jetty install and the other two probably running their own mini application servers as well. Am I correct in thinking this? Is this the right course of action? Any other tips on how to make the server run faster? I can post more data if you'd like, just let me know what else would help you answer my question. Oh, also just to cure any suspicions, I don't have any sort of virus or spyware. I protect my SSH access with DenyHosts (which has blocked 300+ brute forcers in the past few months), and I have confirmed that the top four processes in terms of memory and CPU usage are Sonar, Artifactory, Hudson, and MySQL. Edit: I just thought of another thing that I'd like you to comment on as well: Apache currently has 8 spawned slave processes, taking 42MB of ram apiece. This is not my web server. Is everything else able to function if I shut down Apache? Can you point me towards a tutorial or something on migrating Subversion from Apache into something that might work along with the other three applications, maybe even make Subversion a WAR file or something?

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  • Bypassing "Found New Hardware Wizard" / Setting Windows to Install Drivers Automatically

    - by Synetech inc.
    Hi, My motherboard finally died after the better part of a decade, so I bought a used system. I put my old hard-drive and sound-card in the new system, and connected my old keyboard and mouse (the rest of the components—CPU, RAM, mobo, video card—are from the new system). I knew beforehand that it would be a challenge to get Windows to boot and install drivers for the new hardware (particularly since the foundational components are new), but I am completely unable to even attempt to get through the work of installing drivers for things like the video card because the keyboard and mouse won't work (they do work, in the BIOS screen, in DOS mode, in Windows 7, in XP's boot menu, etc., just not in Windows XP itself). Whenever I try to boot XP (in normal or safe mode), I get a bunch of balloons popping up for all the new hardware detected, and a New Hardware Found Wizard for Processor (obviously it has to install drivers for the lowest-level components on up). Unfortunately I cannot click Next since the keyboard and mouse won't work yet because the motherboard drivers (for the PS/2 or USB ports) are not yet installed. I even tried a serial mouse, but to no avail—again, it does work in DOS, 7, etc., but not XP because it doesn't have the serial port driver installed. I tried mounting the SOFTWARE and SYSTEM hives under Windows 7 in order to manually set the "unsigned drivers warning" to ignore (using both of the driver-signing policy settings that I found references to). That didn't work; I still get the wizard. They are not even fancy, proprietary, third-party, or unsigned drivers. They are drivers that come with Windows—as the drivers for CPU, RAM, IDE controller, etc. tend to be. And the keyboard and mouse drivers are the generic ones at that (but like I said, those are irrelevant since the drivers for the ports that they are connected to are not yet installed). Obviously at some point in time over the past several years, a setting got changed to make Windows always prompt me when it detects new hardware. (It was also configured to show the Shutdown Event Tracker on abnormal shutdowns, so I had to turn that off so that I could even see the desktop.) Oh, and I tried deleting all of the PNF files so that they get regenerated, but that too did not help. Does anyone know how I can reset Windows to at least try to automatically install drivers for new hardware before prompting me if it fails? Conversely, does anyone know how exactly one turns off automatic driver installation (and prompt with the wizard)? Thanks a lot.

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  • Seriousness of a "Smart" disk error. How long will it last?

    - by Workshop Alex
    I have an 1 TB data disk and the bios and Windows are reporting a "Smart" error. At least, I get a Smart event but it doesn't indicate how serious the failure could be. My system is about 6 months old, including the disk so the warranty will cover the damage. Unfortunately, I lack a second disk of 1 TB in size which I can use to make a full backup. The most important data on this disk is safe, but there's a lot of work data which can be regenerated but this would cost a lot of time. So I ordered an USB disk of 1 TB which will arrive in three days. By then I can make a full backup of the data and afterwards, it can crash. But will the disk live that long? (Well, I won't use the PC as long as I can't make a backup.) How serious is such a Smart event? I know it's serious enough to have it replaced, but will it live for another week or could it die any moment?Update: I purchased an 1 TB external disk and spent most of the day making a backup of the 1 TB disk. It survived that. I then received a new disk, since it was still under warranty and replaced the hard disk. Then I had to spend most of a day again to put back the backup. I need to send back the faulty disk and now have an additional external disk, which could always be practical. :-) The Smart Error report did not cause any failures on the original disk. I won't advise to ignore these warnings, but the disk still has enough life in it to last a few more days. (Just make sure you have a good back-up.) And oh, the horror of having to make a complete backup such a huge disk. :-) If your data is important, make sure you have something that supports incremental backups and lots of space. (In my case, the data wasn't very important, just practical to have on-disk together.)

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  • Change Logon DPI setting in Windows 8.1

    - by jmc302005
    I love how M$ keeps making decisions for me about how I want my desktop to look. Now they have added per-user dpi settings. The problem this has created is that there is no adjustable dpi setting for the Lock/Logon screen. Let me explain. you can change the dpi setting to be the same across all displays and this does affect the icons and font on the lock/logon screen. However it does not affect any app/program that can run on the lock/logon screen. Ex. I use a 44" flat screen tv for my monitor on my desktop. Big enough for me to sit in my recliner and use my comp. But I don't have a wireless keyboard. And it sucks having the wire from the keyboard running across the floor. Plus I really don't want to keep a keyboard next to me. So I use the on screen keyboard for logging in and quick typing (search, web address, etc.) So the problem is that with the new dpi setup my on screen keyboard takes up nearly half the screen. Does M$ think we are all blind? Oh no I remember they think desktops should look like tablets and phones. I tried looking through the registry to see if I could find a setting for it. In the key HKEY_USERS.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop there is a string value named "LogicalDPIOverride" with a value of -1. I have a feeling this is where I can fix the issue. I tried changing the value to 0 and to 1 with no change in the result. Instead I noticed that after logging out and back in the -1 value was back in the registry. So now M$ has also added a way for us to not be able to change a setting in the registry. They are making it harder and harder for us power users to be able to do anything with the settings in windows. Soon we will all have the same exact Windows with absolutely no customization. ok sorry for the quick rant. The real question here is. How can I change this defualt dpi crap? Can I use the LogPixels string that worked for dpi in Windows 7? Here are 2 Screen shots 1 of the Lock Screen and 1 of the Logon Screen http://i.imgur.com/6RM5ufE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/cnY5bmm.jpg Please any help will be appreciated.

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  • Windows 7 & Virtual PC and Internet (gateway) problems on host PC

    - by Mufasa
    I upgraded to Windows 7 on a PC that is a few years old. The CPU was one revision away from having Hyper-V on it. So, I had to install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 (v6.0.156.0) to run full XP instances instead of the seamless XP virtualization that is advertised so much. That's fine though; the 'older' version is useful since I use it to run different versions of the whole XP/IE stack for testing. (I'm a web developer.) ...And for the one 16-bit application we still use at the office for scheduling. * sigh * The virtual instances work fine, including networking. My issue is that after a reboot or coming out of sleep mode, my host Windows 7 won't connect to the Internet. It will connect to the local network fine. If I disable the "Virtual Machine Network Services" item (I'll call "VMNS" from here on) in the LAN Connection properties box, it starts working. But than the Virtual PC instances lose their network connectivity. If I re-enable VMNS again in the same instance, everything works (Internet on host and in the virtualized instances). But after the next reboot/sleep cycle this starts over. The route table gave me a clue though. When doing a cycle w/ VMNS enabled: IPv4 Route Table =========================================================================== Active Routes: Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 On-link 10.0.3.51 20 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.0.10.10 10.0.3.51 276 ... After VMNS is disabled, the first route goes away. I assume that is for VMNS to intercept virtualized instance's network connections and forward them correctly? Just a guess though. More info: I checked my Firewall settings and Services (because I'm sort of a control nazi and turn off a lot) but couldn't find anything that made sense and if turned on changed anything. So it might be something there I'm missing, but I don't know what. My current hacked solution: So, I figured I'd mess with the routes myself to see if that helped, it did. If I run a route delete 0.0.0.0 on the universal (0.0.0.0) gateway routes, and add back in just the 2nd line with route add 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 10.0.10.10--the one that points to my actual gateway (10.0.10.10)--then I don't have to mess with the disable/enable cycle of VMNS, and everything works. Running those two commands is faster then bringing up connection options and disabling and re-enabling VMNS, but I still don't want to have use that hack script every boot either. (Oh, and I also tried messing with hard-coding TCP/IP settings in my network adapter, including setting high metrics, etc., but that didn't help either.) Any suggestions on the right way to fix this?

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  • Linux bonded Interfaces hanging periodically

    - by David
    I've several hosts that are showing problems with connectivity. When working from the command line, for example, typing is frozen for a second or so, then recovers - then it does it again. The most egregious example host would freeze (input) for 15-30 seconds, then recover and go out 5 seconds later. Switching cables didn't do anything - but removing one of the physical cables caused everything to clear up instantly (which why I think this is a network problem). Looking at the network I couldn't see any packets floating that would explain this. These ethernet interfaces (Gigabit Dell) were working normally previously, but since we moved the systems - and put them on a new set of switches - this has been a problem on multiple theoretically identically-configured hosts. The original switches were an HP Procurve 1810-24G and an HP Procurve 1800-24G connected with LLDP; the new switches are both Cisco SG 200-26, which I understand are rebranded Linksys switches. Is this caused by a problem with the switches? Is it the switch configurations? Are the Cisco switches incapable of handling this? I don't see where the configuration is located; I searched the usual /etc/sysconfig/network/devices but there's nothing in there about options (like mii polling) and nothing about the method of balancing the two. Searching scripts, I can't find anything in /etc/init.d/network either. The hosts are almost all Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.x systems (5.6, 5.7) but some are Ubuntu Server 10.04.3 Lucid Lynx. I need help with both if it comes to that. UPDATE: We're also seeing some problems with servers on the original switches. The HP switches and the Cisco switches are also interconnected (temporarily); there is a cable run from one switch to the next. Pings on any of these hosts show about one ICMP packet out of every 5-6 getting dropped (timed out). Could there be an interaction between the two switches? Oh, and the hosts are using bonding with Balance-RR as the method.

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  • Enterprise IPv6 Migration - End of proxypac ? Start of Point-to-Point ? +10K users

    - by Yohann
    Let's start with a diagram : We can see a "typical" IPv4 company network with : An Internet acces through a proxy An "Others companys" access through an dedicated proxy A direct access to local resources All computers have a proxy.pac file that indicates which proxy to use or whether to connect directly. Computers have access to just a local DNS (no name resolution for google.com for example.) By the way ... The company does not respect the RFC1918 internally and uses public addresses! (historical reason). The use of internet proxy explicitly makes it possible to not to have problem. What if we would migrate to IPv6? Step 1 : IPv6 internet access Internet access in IPv6 is easy. Indeed, just connect the proxy in Internet IPv4 and IPv6. There is nothing to do in internal network : Step 2 : IPv6 AND IPv4 in internal network And why not full IPv6 network directly? Because there is always the old servers that are not compatible IPv6 .. Option 1 : Same architecture as in IPv4 with a proxy pac This is probably the easiest solution. But is this the best? I think the transition to IPv6 is an opportunity not to bother with this proxy pac! Option 2 : New architecture with transparent proxy, whithout proxypac, recursive DNS Oh yes! In this new architecture, we have: Explicit Internet Proxy becomes a Transparent Internet Proxy Local DNS becomes a Normal Recursive DNS + authorative for local domains No proxypac Explicit Company Proxy becomes a Transparent Company Proxy Routing Internal Routers reditect IP of appx.ext.example.com to Company Proxy. The default gateway is the Transparent Internet proxy. Questions What do you think of this architecture IPv6? This architecture will reveal the IP addresses of our internal network but it is protected by firewalls. Is this a real big problem? Should we keep the explicit use of a proxy? -How would you make for this migration scenario? -And you, how do you do in your company? Thanks! Feel free to edit my post to make it better.

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  • New-ManagedContentSettings - not working properly under Exchange 2010

    - by mfinni
    I have a client that is divesting a business unit into a new AD forest, Exchange org, etc. We're using Quest tools to migrate users and mailboxes. However, I have to build the new infrastructure to match the old one. In the old one, we're using Managed Folder Mailbox Policies to limit (or allow) retention. They started with Exchange 2007 and never upgraded to Retention Policies; oh well. So, in the old environment, when you use a 2007 server to define a new Managed Content Setting, you can pick "Email" from the dropdown for MessageClass. This is a display name; the actual MessageClass values are thus: MessageClass : IPM.Note;IPM.Note.AS/400 Move Notification Form v1.0;IPM.Note.Delayed;IPM.Note.Exchange.ActiveSync.Report;IPM.Note.JournalReport.Msg;IPM.Note.JournalReport.Tnef;IPM.Note.Microsoft.Missed.Voice;IPM.Note.Rules.OofTemplate.Microsoft;IPM.Note.Rules.ReplyTemplate.Microsoft;IPM.Note.Secure.Sign;IPM.Note.SMIME;IPM.Note.SMIME.MultipartSigned;IPM.Note.StorageQuotaWarning;IPM.Note.StorageQuotaWarning.Warning;IPM.Notification.Meeting.Forward;IPM.Outlook.Recall;IPM.Recall.Report.Success;IPM.Schedule.Meeting.*;REPORT.IPM.Note.NDR If I take that and try to mangle it into a new cmdlet for Ex2010 in my new environment here's what I get New-ManagedContentSettings -Name "Delete Messages older then 90 days" -FolderName "Entire Mailbox" -RetentionEnabled $True -AgeLimitForRetention 90 -TriggerForRetention WhenDelivered -RetentionAction DeleteAndAllowRecovery -MessageClass "IPM.Note","IPM.Note.AS/400MoveNotificationFormv1.0","IPM.Note.Delayed","IPM.Note.Exchange.ActiveSync.Report","IPM.Note.JournalReport.Msg","IPM.Note.JournalReport.Tnef","IPM.Note.Microsoft.Missed.Voice","IPM.Note.Rules.OofTemplate.Microsoft","IPM.Note.Rules.ReplyTemplate.Microsoft","IPM.Note.Secure.Sign","IPM.Note.SMIME","IPM.Note.SMIME.MultipartSigned","IPM.Note.StorageQuotaWarning","IPM.Note.StorageQuotaWarning.Warning","IPM.Notification.Meeting.Forward","IPM.Outlook.Recall","IPM.Recall.Report.Success","IPM.Schedule.Meeting.*","REPORT.IPM.Note.NDR" -whatif Invoke-Command : Cannot bind parameter 'MessageClass' to the target. Exception setting "MessageClass": "The length of t he property is too long. The maximum length is 255 and the length of the value provided is 518." At C:\Users\MFinnigan.sa\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Exchange\RemotePowerShell\pfexcas02.fve.ad.5ssl.com\pfexcas02.fve.ad .5ssl.com.psm1:28204 char:29 + $scriptCmd = { & <<<< $script:InvokeCommand ` + CategoryInfo : WriteError: (:) [New-ManagedContentSettings], ParameterBindingException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterBindingFailed,Microsoft.Exchange.Management.SystemConfigurationTasks.NewManaged ContentSettings So, the config object can store all that mess, but I can't fit it in through the cmdlet to create the object. Lovely. Any ideas?

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  • Should I choose KVM/XEN over OpenVZ or use them together?

    - by Krystian
    I've got a dual xeon e5504 server, with [for now] only 8GB of ram. Storage is'n impressive either: 3x 146GB sas in raid5 + 500GB sata drives. Currently it works as a development server, but it's over speced for our needs and since our development methods changed through last 2 years we decided it will work as a production system for some of our applications + we would like to have a separate system for testing/research. Our apps are mainly web apps deployed on tomcats [plural as some of the apps require older versions] and connected to Postgres. I would like to have a production system, where only httpd+tomcat+db are setup and nothing else runs there. Sterile system. Apart from that, I would like a test system, where I can play with different JVM settings, deploy my test apps, play with tomcat/httpd settings and restart them without interfering with the production system. Apart from that, I would like to be able to play with different linux flavors, with newer kernels to test how they work etc. I know, this is not possible with OpenVZ and I would have to choose KVM for that. I am thinking about merging the two, and setting up a KVM to be able to work with different systems [linux only to be frank] + use openVZ to setup separate machines for my development needs. I would simply go with that, but reading here and there about the performance impact full virtualization has over containers and looking at the specs of my server makes me think twice about it. I don't want to loose too much performance, especially because of the nature of my apps [few JVMs running at the same time]. It will be my first time with virtualization, apart from using desktop virtualbox/vmserver. Although I am a fast learner I don't want to mess with the main system so much that it will break the production apps or make them crawl. Although they are more or less internal apps and they don't produce much load, they need to be stable. I've read, that KVM host is a normal linux installation and it allows to run normal processes on it. If that is so, does it allow to run openVZ as well? I mean... can I have KVM and OpenVZ running on the same system/kernel? Or do I have to setup another system to run OpenVZ containers? How much performance impact can this have for me? Will my hardware suffice? oh and one more thing... unfortunately I'm quite limited with the funds... I'm looking for a free solution only :/

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  • Is there a way to replicate a very large file shares in real-time?

    - by fsckin
    I have an hourly cron job that copies about 40GB of data from a source folder into a new folder with the hour appended on the end. When it's done, the job prunes anything older than 24 hours. This data changes very often during work hours and is on a samba file share. Here's how the folder structure looks: \server\Version.1 \server\Version.2 \server\Version.3 ... \server\Version.24 The contents of each new folder compared to the last one usually doesn't change very much, since this is a hourly job. Now you might be thinking that I'm an idiot for setting dreaming this up. Truth is, I just found out. It's actually been used for years and is so incredibly simple, anyone could delete the ENTIRE 40GB share (imagine that dialog spooling up... deleting thousands and thousands of files) and it would actually be faster to restore by moving the latest copy back to the source than it took to delete. Brilliant! Now to top this off, I need to efficiently replicate this 960GB of "mostly similar" data to a remote server over WAN link, with the replication happening as close to real-time as possible -- think hot spare, disaster recovery, etc. My first thought was rsync. Total failure. Rsync sees it sees a deletion of the folder that is 24 hours old and the addition of a new folder with 30GB of data to sync! I also looked at rdiff-backup and unison, they both appear to use similar algorithms and do not keep enough meta-data to do this intelligently. Best thing that I can find "out of the box" to do this is Windows Server "Distributed Filesystem Replication" which uses "Remote Differential Compression" -- After reading the background information on how this works, it actually looks like exactly what I need. Problem: Both servers are running Linux. D'oh! One approach to this I'm looking at is this, say it's 5AM and the cron job finishes: New Version.5 folder arrives at on local server SSH to remote server and copy Version.4 to Version.5 Run rsync on the local server pushing changes to the remote server. Rsync finally knows to do a differential copy between Version.4 and Version.5 Is there a smarter way to replicate Samba shares as close to real-time as possible? Anything out there that does "Remote Differential Compression" on Linux?

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  • Looking Back at MIX10

    - by WeigeltRo
    It’s the sad truth of my life that even though I’m fascinated by airplanes and flight in general since my childhood days, my body doesn’t like flying. Even the ridiculously short flights inside Germany are taking their toll on me each time. Now combine this with sitting in the cramped space of economy class for many hours on a transatlantic flight from Germany to Las Vegas and back, and factor in some heavy dose of jet lag (especially on my way eastwards), and you get an idea why after coming back home I had this question on my mind: Was it really worth it to attend MIX10? This of course is a question that will also be asked by my boss at Comma Soft (for other reasons, obviously), who decided to send me and my colleague Jens Schaller, to the MIX10 conference. (A note to my German readers: An dieser Stelle der Hinweis, dass Comma Soft noch Silverlight-Entwickler und/oder UI-Designer für den Standort Bonn sucht – aussagekräftige Bewerbungen bitte an [email protected]) Too keep things short: My answer is yes. Before I’ll go into detail, let me ask the heretical questions whether tech conferences in general still make sense. There was a time, where actually being at a tech conference gave you a head-start in regard to learning about new technologies. Nowadays this is no longer true, where every bit of information and every detail is immediately twittered, blogged and whatevered to death. In the case of MIX10 you even can download the video-taped sessions shortly after. So: Does visiting a conference still make sense? It depends on what you expect from a conference. It should be clear to everybody that you’ll neither get exclusive information, nor receive training in a small group. What a conference does offer that sitting in front of your computer does not can be summarized as follows: Focus Being away from work and home will help you to focus on the presented information. Of course there are always the poor guys who are haunted by their work (with mails and short text messages reporting the latest showstopper problem), but in general being out of your office makes a huge difference. Inspiration With the focus comes the emotional involvement. I find it much easier to absorb information if I feel that certain vibe when sitting in a session. This still means that I have put work into reviewing the information later, but it’s a better starting point. And all the impressions collected at a (good) conference combined lead to a higher motivation – be it by the buzz (“this is gonna be sooo cool!”) or by the fear to fall behind (“man, we’ll have work on this, or else…”). People At a conference it’s pretty easy to get into contact with other people during breakfast, lunch and other breaks. This is a good opportunity to get a feel for what other development teams are doing (on a very general level of course, nobody will tell you about their secret formula) and what they are thinking about specific technologies. So MIX10 did offer focus, inspiration and people, but that would have meant nothing without valuable content. When I (being a frontend developer with a strong interest in UI/UX) planned my visit to MIX10, I made the decision to focus on the "soft" topics of design, interaction and user experience. I figured that I would be bombarded with all the technical details about Silverlight 4 anyway in the weeks and months to come. Actually, I would have liked to catch a few technical sessions, but the agenda wasn’t exactly in favor of people interested in any kind of Silverlight and UI/UX/Design topics. That’s one of my few complaints about the conference – I would have liked one more day and/or more sessions per day. Overall, the quality of the workshops and sessions was pretty high. In fact, looking back at my collection of conferences I’ve visited in the past I’d say that MIX10 ranks somewhere near the top spot. Here’s an overview of the workshops/sessions I attended (I’ll leave out the keynotes): Day 0 (Workshops on Sunday) Design Fundamentals for Developers Robby Ingebretsen is the man! Great workshop in three parts with the perfect mix of examples, well-structured definition of terminology and the right dose of humor. Robby was part of the WPF team before founding his own company so he not only has a strong interest in design (and the skillz!) but also the technical background.   Design Tools and Techniques Originally announced to be held by Arturo Toledo, the Rosso brothers from ArcheType filled in for the first two parts, and Corrina Black had a pretty general part about the Windows Phone UI. The first two thirds were a mixed bag; the two guys definitely knew what they were talking about, and the demos were great, but the talk lacked the preparation and polish of a truly great presentation. Corrina was not allowed to go into too much detail before the keynote on Monday, but the session was still very interesting as it showed how much thought went into the Windows Phone UI (and there’s always a lot to learn when people talk about their thought process). Day 1 (Monday) Designing Rich Experiences for Data-Centric Applications I wonder whether there was ever a test-run for this session, but what Ken Azuma and Yoshihiro Saito delivered in the first 15 minutes of a 30-minutes-session made me walk out. A commercial for a product (just great: a video showing a SharePoint plug-in in an all-Japanese UI) combined with the most generic blah blah one could imagine. EPIC FAIL.   Great User Experiences: Seamlessly Blending Technology & Design I switched to this session from the one above but I guess I missed the interesting part – what I did catch was what looked like a “look at the cool stuff we did” without being helpful. Or maybe I was just in a bad mood after the other session.   The Art, Technology and Science of Reading This talk by Kevin Larson was very interesting, but was more a presentation of what Microsoft is doing in research (pretty impressive) and in the end lacked a bit the helpful advice one could have hoped for.   10 Ways to Attack a Design Problem and Come Out Winning Robby Ingebretsen again, and again a great mix of theory and practice. The clean and simple, yet effective, UI of the reader app resulted in a simultaneous “wow” of Jens and me. If you’d watch only one session video, this should be it. Microsoft has to bring Robby back next year! Day 2 (Tuesday) Touch in Public: Multi-touch Interaction Design for Kiosks & Architectural Experiences Very interesting session by Jason Brush, a great inspiration with many details to look out for in the examples. Exactly what I was hoping for – and then some!   Designing Bing: Heart and Science How hard can it be to design the UI for a search engine? An input field and a list of results, that should be it, right? Well, not so fast! The talk by Paul Ray showed the many iterations to finally get it right (up to the choice of a specific blue for the links). And yes, I want an eye-tracking device to play around with!   The Elephant in the Room When Nishant Kothary presented a long list of what his session was not about, I told to myself (not having the description text present) “Am I in the wrong talk? Should I leave?”. Boy, was I wrong. A great talk about human factors in the process of designing stuff.   An Hour with Bill Buxton Having seen Bill Buxton’s presentation in the keynote, I just had to see this man again – even though I didn’t know what to expect. Being more or less unplanned and intended to be more of a conversation, the session didn’t provide a wealth of immediately useful information. Nevertheless Bill Buxton was impressive with his huge knowledge of seemingly everything. But this could/should have been a session some when in the evening and not in parallel to at least two other interesting talks. Day 3 (Wednesday) Design the Ordinary, Like the Fixie This session by DL Byron and Kevin Tamura started really well and brought across the message to keep things simple. But towards the end the talk lost some of its steam. And, as a member of the audience pointed out, they kind of ignored their own advice when they used a fancy presentation software other then PowerPoint that sometimes got in the way of showing things.   Developing Natural User Interfaces Speaking of alternative presentation software, Joshua Blake definitely had the most remarkable alternative to PowerPoint, a self-written program called NaturalShow that was controlled using multi-touch on a touch screen. Not a PowerPoint-killer, but impressive nevertheless. The (excellent) talk itself was kind of eye-opening in regard to what “multi-touch support” on various platforms (WPF, Silverlight, Windows Phone) actually means.   Treat your Content Right The talk by Tiffani Jones Brown wasn’t even on my planned schedule, but somehow I ended up in that session – and it was great. And even for people who don’t necessarily have to write content for websites, some points made by Tiffani are valid in many places, notably wherever you put texts with more than a single word into your UI. Creating Effective Info Viz in Microsoft Silverlight The last session of MIX10 I attended was kind of disappointing. At first things were very promising, with Matthias Shapiro giving a brief but well-structured introduction to info graphics and interactive visualizations. Then the live-coding began and while the result was interesting, too much time was spend on wrestling to get the code working. Ending earlier than planned, the talk was a bit light on actual content, but at least it included a nice list of resources. Conclusion It could be felt all across MIX10, UIs will take a huge leap forward; in fact, there are enough examples that have already. People who both have the technical know-how and at least a basic understanding of design (“literacy” as Bill Buxton called it) are in high demand. The concept of the MIX conference and initiatives like design.toolbox shows that Microsoft understands very well that frontend developers have to acquire new knowledge besides knowing how to hack code and putting buttons on a form. There are extremely exciting times before us, with lots of opportunity for those who are eager to develop their skills, that is for sure.

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  • Surface RT: To Be Or Not To Be (Part 1)

    - by smehaffie
    So the Surface RT has been out for 9 months and Microsoft just declared a $900 million dollar write-down. So how did this happen and what does it mean for Microsoft’s efforts to break into the tablet market? I have been thinking a lot about most of the information below since the Surface product line was released. If you are looking for a “Microsoft Is Dead” story, then don’t read any further. But if you want an honest look at what I think led Microsoft to this point and what I think can be done to make Surface RT devices better, then please continue reading. What Led Microsoft To The $900 Million Write-Down Surface Unveiling:Microsoft totally missed the boat when they unveiled the Surface product line on June 18th, 2012. Microsoft should’ve been ready to post the specifications of both devices that night. Microsoft should’ve had a site up and running right after the event so people could pre-order the devices. This would have given them a good idea what the interest was in each device.  They could also have used this data to make a better estimate for the number of units to to have available for the launch and beyond.  They also lost out on taking advantage of the excitement generated by the Surface RT and Surface Pro announcement. They could have thrown in a free touch keyboard to anyone who pre-ordered. The advertising should have started right after the announcement and gotten bigger as launch day approached. Push for as many pre-order as possible and build excitement for the launch. Actual Launch (Surface RT): By this time all excitement was gone from the initial announcement, except for the Micorsoft faithful. Microsoft should have been ready to sell the Surface in as many markets as possible at launch. The limited market release was a real letdown for a lot of people.  A limited release right after the initial announce is understandable, but not at the official launch of the product. Microsoft overpriced the device and now they are lowering it to what it should have been to start with. The $349 price is within the range I suggested it should be at before pricing was announced. (Surface Tablets: The Price Must Be Right). Limited ordering options online was also a killer. User should have been able to buy the base unit of each device and then add on whatever keyboard they wanted to (this applies more to the Surface Pro).  There should have also been a place where users could order any additional add-ins that they wanted to buy (covers, extra power supplies, etc.) Marketing was better and the dancing “Click In” commercial was cool, but the ads comparing the iPad with Siri should have been on the air from day one of the announcement (or at least the launch).  Consumers want to know why you tablet is better, not just that is has a clickable keyboard and built-in kickstand. They could have also compared it to some of the other mid-range tablets if they had not overprices it to begin with. Stock Applications (Mail, People, Calendar, Music, Video, Reader and IE): This is where Microsoft really blew it. They had all the time in the world to make these applications the best of breed and instead we got applications that seemed thrown together.  Some updates have made these application better, but they are all still lacking in features that should have been there from day one. This did not help to enhance a new users experience any. ** I will admit that the applications that were data driven were first class citizen’s and that makes it even more perplexing why MS could knock it out of the park with the Weather, Travel, Finance, Bing, etc.) and fail so miserably on the core applications users would use the most on a tablet. Desktop on Tablet: The desktop just is so out of place on the tablet  I understand it was needed for Office but think it would have been better to not have the desktop in Windows RT, but instead open up the Office applications in full screen mode, in a desktop shell (same goes for  IE11).That way the user wouldn’t realize they are leaving Metro and going to the desktop. The other option would have been to just not include Office on Windows RT devices. Instead they could have made awesome Widows Store Apps for Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint. In addition, they could have made the stock Mail, People, and Calendar applications contain all the functions that Outlook gives desktop users. Having some of the settings in desktop mode and others under “Change PC Settings” made Windows RT seemed unfinished and rushed to market. What Can Be Done To Make Windows RT Based Tablets Better (At least in my opinion) Either eliminate the desktop all together from Windows RT or at least make the user experience better by hiding the fact the user is running Office/IE in the desktop. Personally I ‘d like them to totally get rid of it and just make awesome Windows Store Application version of Word, Excel PowerPoint & OneNote.  This might also make the OS smaller and give the user more available disk space. I doubt there will ever be a Windows Store App versions of Office, but I still think it is a good idea. Make is so users can easily direct their documents, picture, videos and music to their extra storage and can access these files from the standard libraries.  A user should not have to create a VM on their microSD card or create symbolic links to get this to work properly. Most consumers would not be able to do this. Then users get frustrated when they run out or room on their main storage because nothing is automatically save to their microSD card when saved to libraries.  This is a major bug that needs to be fixed, otherwise Microsoft’s selling point of having a microSD slot is worthless. Allows users to uninstall and re-install any of the Office product that come with the Surface. That way people can free up storage space by uninstalling the Office applications they do not need. Everyone’s needs are different, so make the options flexible. Don’t take up storage space for applications the user will not use. Make the Core applications the “Cream of the Crop” Windows App Store applications. The should set the bar for all other Store applications. Improve performance as much as possible, if it seems to be sluggish on a tablet consumer will not buy it. They need to price the next line of Surface product very aggressive to undercut not only iPad but also Android low end tablets (Nook, Kindle Fire, and Nexus, etc.) Give developers incentives to write quality applications for the devices. Don’t reward developers for cranking out cookie cutter, low quality applications. I’d even suggest Microsoft consider implementing some new store certification guideline to stop these type of applications being published. Allow users to easily move the recover disk “partition between their microSD card and main storage. My Predictions for the Surface RT and Windows RT I honestly think even with all the missteps MS has made since the announcement  about the Surface product line, that they are on the right path. I was excited the Surface tablets when they were announced, and I still am. The truth be told, Windows 8 on a tablet (aka: Windows RT) is better than both iOS and Android. My nephew who is an Apple fan boy told me after he saw and used Windows 8 (he got the beta running on his iPad), that Windows 8 kicked Apples butt as a tablet OS. So there is hope for all Windows RT based tablets. I agree with my nephew and that is why whenever anyone asks me about my Surface, I love showing it off and recommend it. The 6 keys to gaining market share in the tablet market are; Aggressive pricing by both Microsoft and their OEM’s Good quality devices put out by Microsoft and their OEM’s (there are some out there, but not enough) Marketing, Marketing, Marketing from both Microsoft and their OEM’s (Need more ads showing why windows based tablets are better than iPads and Android tablets) Getting Widows tablets in retails stores all over, and giving sales people incentive to sell them. Consumers like to try electronics out before they buy them, and most will listen to what the sales person suggest. Microsoft needs sales people in retail stores directing people to buy windows based tablets over iPads and Android tablets. I think the Microsoft Stores within Best Buy is a good start, but they also need to get prominent displays in Walmart, Target, etc.. Release a smaller form factor Surface, Hopefully the 8”-10” next generation Surface is not a rumor. Make “Surface” the brand name for all Microsoft tablets and hybrid devices that they come out with. They cannot change the name with each new release.  Make Surface synonymous with quality, the same way that iPad  is for Apple. Well, that is my 2 cents on the subject. Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below. Soon to follow will be my thought on the Surface Pro, so keep an eye out for it. var addthis_pub="smehaffie"; var addthis_options="email, print, digg, slashdot, delicious, twitter, live, myspace, facebook, google, stumbleupon, newsvine";

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  • What would cause ANY .NET application to crash immediately... except a project I create and Debug in

    - by blak3r
    My software recently got deployed to a customer who said that the application was crashing immediately after it started. After some initial debugging, the customer provided me remote access to one of the computers which was unable to run the application. I found that the crash wasn't specific to my application. Any application which depended on the .NET framework crashed immediately. Conveniently, Visual Studio 2008 was installed so I created a quick hello world application on it and clicked Debug. The application worked fine. But, then when I tried to execute the generated binaries in the /bin/Debug/HelloWorld.exe directory outside of visual studio it crashed. List of things i've tried (UPDATED): I checked that "Everyone" has Read&Execute permissions for c:\Windows. To test that the problem was with the .NET Framework (and not my application), I attempted to download Paint .NET on to the computers. The setup frontend crashed in the same manner. Performed a repair of the .NET framework as outlined in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908077 (Boy was this fun and time consuming). No luck. Installed .NET 3.5 SP1 (before it just had .NET 3.5) Note: my application targets 2.0 so I did this more as a long shot... but i learned in the process that .NET 3.5 SP1 also updates the underlying frameworks. Ran Aaron Stebner's .NET Setup Verification Tool. This tool indicated that .NET was successfully installed. (I forget if i checked all the versions but at least 2.0 worked). Tested some mini hello world applications which were targeted for .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.5 and both crashed in the same way. Tried launching .NET apps via windbg cmd line. Doing this did allow me invoke my simple hello world applications. So, simple .NET hello world works when invoked by windbg or by launching via debug in visual studio... but doesn't if i try to execute it standalone. I created a dump file using WinDbg. It wasn't all that revealing to me. FAULTING_IP: mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+21 79f4ff9d f6401010 test byte ptr [eax+10h],10h EXCEPTION_RECORD: 0012f710 -- (.exr 0x12f710) ExceptionAddress: 79f4ff9d (mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+0x00000021) ExceptionCode: c0000005 (Access violation) ExceptionFlags: 00000000 NumberParameters: 2 Parameter[0]: 00000000 Parameter[1]: 00000010 Attempt to read from address 00000010 FAULTING_THREAD: 00000b44 PROCESS_NAME: MyProcess.exe ERROR_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0x80000003 - {EXCEPTION} Breakpoint A breakpoint has been reached. EXCEPTION_CODE: (HRESULT) 0x80000003 (2147483651) - One or more arguments are invalid DETOURED_IMAGE: 1 NTGLOBALFLAG: 0 APPLICATION_VERIFIER_FLAGS: 0 MANAGED_STACK: !dumpstack -EE OS Thread Id: 0xb44 (0) Current frame: ChildEBP RetAddr Caller,Callee EXCEPTION_OBJECT: !pe cb10b4 Exception object: 00cb10b4 Exception type: System.ExecutionEngineException Message: <none> InnerException: <none> StackTrace (generated): <none> StackTraceString: <none> HResult: 80131506 MANAGED_OBJECT_NAME: System.ExecutionEngineException CONTEXT: 0012f72c -- (.cxr 0x12f72c) eax=00000000 ebx=00000000 ecx=00000000 edx=0000000e esi=001a1490 edi=00000001 eip=79f4ff9d esp=0012f9f8 ebp=0012fa1c iopl=0 nv up ei pl zr na pe nc cs=001b ss=0023 ds=0023 es=0023 fs=003b gs=0000 efl=00010246 mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+0x21: 79f4ff9d f6401010 test byte ptr [eax+10h],10h ds:0023:00000010=?? Resetting default scope READ_ADDRESS: 00000010 FOLLOWUP_IP: mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+21 79f4ff9d f6401010 test byte ptr [eax+10h],10h BUGCHECK_STR: APPLICATION_FAULT_NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE_SHUTDOWN PRIMARY_PROBLEM_CLASS: NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE_SHUTDOWN DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE_SHUTDOWN LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from 79ef02b5 to 79f4ff9d STACK_TEXT: 79f4ff9d mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+0x21 79ef02b5 mscorwks!PEFile::GetEntryPointToken+0xa0 79eefeaf mscorwks!SystemDomain::ExecuteMainMethod+0xd4 79fb9793 mscorwks!ExecuteEXE+0x59 79fb96df mscorwks!_CorExeMain+0x15c 7900b1b3 mscoree!_CorExeMain+0x2c 7c817077 kernel32!BaseProcessStart+0x23 SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 0 SYMBOL_NAME: mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+21 FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner MODULE_NAME: mscorwks IMAGE_NAME: mscorwks.dll DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 471ef729 STACK_COMMAND: .cxr 0012F72C ; kb ; dds 12f9f8 ; kb FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE_SHUTDOWN_80000003_mscorwks.dll!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken BUCKET_ID: APPLICATION_FAULT_NULL_CLASS_PTR_DEREFERENCE_SHUTDOWN_DETOURED_mscorwks!PEImage::GetEntryPointToken+21 WATSON_STAGEONE_URL: http://watson.microsoft.com/StageOne/MyProcess_exe/2_4_4_39/4a8a192c/unknown/0_0_0_0/bbbbbbb4/80000003/00000000.htm?Retriage=1 Followup: MachineOwner Edit 1:The event log details for this error say it's a .NET Runtime version 2.0.50727.3053 - Fatal Execution Engine Error (7A097706)(80131506). Edit 2 (10-7-09): This issue is still active. Edit 3 (3-29-10): This update is to let everyone know that I never did successfully solve the problem. The customer who's machine this was on lost interest in solving it and just reimaged the machine :(. Thanks for all the contributions though.

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