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• So No TECH job so far.

  - by Ratman21

  O I found some temp work for the US Census and I have managed to keep the house (so far) but, it looks like I/we are going to have to do a short sale and the temp job will be ending soon.   On top of that it looks like the unemployment fund for me is drying up. I will have about one month left after the Census job is done. I am now down to Appling for work at the KFC.   This is type a work I started with, before I was a tech geek and really I didn’t think I would be doing this kind of work in my later years but, I have a wife and kid. So I got to suck it up and do it.   Oh and here is my new resume…go ahead I know you want to tare it up. I really don’t care any more.   Scott L. Newman 45219 Dutton Way, Callahan, FL32011 H: (904)879-4880 C: (352)356-0945 E: [email protected] Web:  http://beingscottnewman.webs.com/                                                       ______                                                                                 OBJECTIVE To obtain a Network or Technical support position     KEYWORD SUMMARY CompTIA A+, Network+, and Security+ Certified., Network Operation, Technical Support, Client/Vendor Relations, Networking/Administration, Cisco Routers/Switches, Helpdesk, Microsoft Office Suite, Website Design/Dev./Management, Frame Relay, ISDN, Windows NT/98/XP, Visio, Inventory Management, CICS, Programming, COBOL IV, Assembler, RPG   QUALIFICATIONS SUMMARY Twenty years’ experience in computer operations, technical support, and technical writing. Also have two and half years’ experience in internet / intranet operations.   PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE October 2009 – Present*   Volunteer Web site and PC technician – Part time       True Faith Christian Fellowship Church – Callahan, FL, Project: Create and maintain web site for Church to give it a worldwide exposure Aug 2008 – September 2009:* Volunteer Church sound and video technician – Part time      Thomas Creek Baptist Church – Callahan, FL   *Note Jobs were for the learning and/or keeping updated on skills, while looking for a tech job and training for new skills.   February 2005 to October 2008: Client Server Dev/Analyst I, Fidelity National Information Services, Jacksonville, FL (FNIS acquired Certegy in 2005 and out of 20 personal, was one of three kept on.) August 2003 to February 2005: Senior NetOps Operator, Certegy, St.Pete, Fl. (August 2003, Certegy terminated contract with EDS and out of 40 personal, was one of six kept on.) Projects: Creation and update of listing and placement for all raised floor equipment at St.Pete site. Listing was made up of, floor plan of the raised floor and equipment racks diagrams showing the placement of all devices using Visio. This was cross-referenced with an inventory excel document showing what dept was responsible for each device. Sole creator of Network operation and Server Operation procedures guide (NetOps Guide).  Expertise: Resolving circuit and/or router issues or assist circuit carrier in resolving issue from the company Network Operation Center (NOC). As well as resolving application problems or assist application support in resolution of it.     July 1999 to August 2003: Senior NetOps Operator,EDS (Certegy Account), St.Pete, FL Same expertise and on going projects as listed above for FNIS/Certegy. (Equifax outsourced the NetOps dept. to EDS in 1999)         January 1991 to July 1999: NetOps/Tandem Operator, Equifax, St.Pete & Tampa, FL Same as all of the above for FNIS/Certegy/EDS except for circuit and router issues   EDUCATION ? New Horizons Computer Learning Center, Jacksonville, Florida - CompTIA A+, Security+, and     Network+ Certified.                        Currently working on CCNA Certification 07/30/10 ? Mott Community College, Flint, Michigan – Associates Degree - Data Processing and General Education ? Currently studying Japanese

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• Collaborate10 &ndash; THEconference

  - by jean-pierre.dijcks

  After spending a few days in Mandalay Bay's THEHotel, I guess I now call everything THE... Seriously, they even tag their toilet paper with THEtp... I guess the brand builders in Vegas thought that once you are on to something you keep on doing it, and granted it is a nice hotel with nice rooms. THEanalytics Most of my collab10 experience was in a room called Reef C, where the BIWA bootcamp was held. Two solid days of BI, Warehousing and Analytics organized by the BIWA SIG at IOUG. Didn't get to see all sessions, but what struck me was the high interest in Analytics. Marty Gubar's OLAP session was full and he did some very nice things with the OLAP option. The cool bit was that he actually gets all the advanced calculations in OLAP to show up in OBI EE without any effort. It was nice to see that the idea from OWB where you generate an RPD is now also in AWM. I think it makes life so much simpler to generate these RPD's from your data model. Even if the end RPD needs some tweaking, it is all a lot less effort to get something going. You can see this stuff for yourself in this demo (click here). OBI EE uses just SQL to get to the calculations, and so, if you prefer APEX, you can build you application there and get the same nice calculations in an APEX application. Marty also showed the Simba MDX driver used with Excel. I guess we should call that THEcoolone... and it is very slick and wonderfully useful for all of you who actually know Excel. The nice thing is that you leverage pure Excel for all operations (no plug-ins). That means no new tools to learn, no new controls, all just pure Excel. THEdatabasemachine Got some very good questions in my "what makes Exadata fast" session and overall, the interest in Exadata is overwhelming. One of the things that I did try to do in my session is to get people to think in new patterns rather than in patterns based on Oracle 9i running on some random hardware configuration. We talked a little bit about the often over-indexing and how everyone has to unlearn all of that on Exadata. The main thing however is that everyone needs to get used to the shear size of some of the components in a Database machine V2. 5TB of flash cache is a lot of very fast data storage, half a TB of memory gets quite interesting as well. So what I did there was really focus on some of the content in these earlier posts on Upward ILM and In-Memory processing. In short, I do believe the these newer media point out a trend. In-memory and other fast media will get cheaper and will see more use. Some of that we do automatically by adding new functionality, but in some cases I think the end user of the system needs to start thinking about how to leverage all this new hardware. I think most people got very excited about these new capabilities and opportunities. THEcoolkids One of the cool things about the BIWA track was the hand-on track. Very cool to see big crowds for both OLAP and OWB hands-on. Also quite nice to see that the folks at RittmanMead spent so much time on preparing for that session. While all of them put down cool stuff, none was more cool that seeing Data Mining on an Apple iPAD... it all just looks great on an iPAD! Very disappointing to see that Mark Rittman still wasn't showing OWB on his iPAD ;-) THEend All in all this was a great set of sessions in the BIWA track. Lots of value to our guests (we hope) and we hope they all come again next year!

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• “I could use a little help here” or “I can do it myself, thank you” for Cloud Projects

  - by BuckWoody

  Windows Azure allows you to write code in languages within the .NET stack, you can use Java, C++, PHP, NodeJS and others. Code is code - other than keeping things stateless, using a Web or Worker Role in Azure is not all that different from working with an on-premises system. However…. Working in a scalable, component-based stateless architecture that can use federated security is not all that common for many developers. Some are used to owning the server, scaling up, and state-full paradigms that have a single security domain. Making the transition whilst trying to create a new software application or even port a previous one can be daunting. Sure, we have absolutely tons of free training, kits, videos, online books and more to learn on your own, but some things like architecture can be pivotal as you move along. So the question is, should you just strike out on your own for a Cloud project, or get Microsoft Consulting Services or another partner to work with you on your first one? I use a few decision points to help guide the projects I assist in. Note: I’m a huge fan of having help that ends up giving you training and leaves you in charge. If you do engage with someone to help you, make sure you keep this clear and take more and more ownership yourself as the project progresses. How much time do you have? Usually the first thing I ask is about the timeline for the project. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are, if you have a short window to get things done it’s better to get help - especially if this is your first cloud project. Having someone that knows the platform well can save you amazing amounts of time. If you have longer, then start with the training in the link above and once you feel confident, jump in. How complex is the project? If there are a lot of moving parts, it’s best to engage a partner. The reason is that certain interactions - particularly things like Service Bus or Data Integration  - can be quite different than what you may have encountered before. How many people do you have? I have a “pizza rule” about projects I’ve used in my career - if it takes over two pizzas to feed everyone on the project, it’s too big and will fail. That being said, one developer and a one-week deadline does not a good project make, usually. It’s best to have at least one architect (or someone in that role) guiding the project along, and at least two developers to work on a cloud project. That’s a generalization of course, since I’ve seen great software on Azure with one developer writing code all by herself, but for more complex projects, more (to a point) is better. The nice thing about bringing on a partner is that you don’t have to hire them full time - they help you and then they go away. How critical is the project? There’s no shame in using some help. If the platform is new, if the project is large and complex, and if it is critical to the business, you should engage a partner. That’s regardless of Cloud or anything else - get some help. You don’t want to hit your company’s bottom line in a negative way, but you have to innovate and get them a competitive advantage. Do your research, make sure the partner is qualified to help you, and get it done. Don’t let these questions scare you off. There are lots of projects you can implement on Windows and SQL Azure with nothing other than the Software Development Kit (SDK) that you get for free with Windows Azure. And assistance comes in many forms - sometimes just phone support, a friend you can ask. Microsoft Consulting Services or any of our great partners. You can get help on just the architecture piece or have them show you how to write the code. They’ll get involved as little or as much as you like.

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• Ask the Readers: Backing Your Files Up – Local Storage versus the Cloud

  - by Asian Angel

  Backing up important files is something that all of us should do on a regular basis, but may not have given as much thought to as we should. This week we would like to know if you use local storage, cloud storage, or a combination of both to back your files up. Photo by camknows. For some people local storage media may be the most convenient and/or affordable way to back up their files. Having those files stored on media under your control can also provide a sense of security and peace of mind. But storing your files locally may also have drawbacks if something happens to your storage media. So how do you know whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages or not? Here are some possible pros and cons that may affect your decision to use local storage to back up your files: Local Storage Pros You are in control of your data Your files are portable and can go with you when needed if using external or flash drives Files are accessible without an internet connection You can easily add more storage capacity as needed (additional drives, etc.) Cons You need to arrange room for your storage media (if you have multiple externals drives, etc.) Possible hardware failure No access to your files if you forget to bring your storage media with you or it is too bulky to bring along Theft and/or loss of home with all contents due to circumstances like fire If you are someone who is always on the go and needs to travel as lightly as possible, cloud storage may be the perfect way for you to back up and access your files. Perhaps your laptop has a hard-drive failure or gets stolen…unhappy events to be sure, but you will still have a copy of your files available. Perhaps a company wants to make sure their records, files, and other information are backed up off site in case of a major hardware or system failure…expensive and/or frustrating to fix if it happens, but once again there is a nice backup ready to go once things are fixed. As with local storage, here are some possible pros and cons that may influence your choice of cloud storage to back up your files: Cloud Storage Pros No need to carry around flash or bulky external drives All of your files are accessible wherever there is an internet connection No need to deal with local storage media (or its’ upkeep) Your files are still safe if your home is broken into or other unfortunate circumstances occur Cons Your files and data are not 100% under your control Possible hardware failure or loss of files on the part of your cloud storage provider (this could include a disgruntled employee wreaking havoc) No access to your files if you do not have an internet connection The cloud storage provider may eventually shutdown due to financial hardship or other unforeseen circumstances The possibility of your files and data being stolen by hackers due to a security breach on the part of your cloud storage provider You may also prefer to try and cover all of the possibilities by using both local and cloud storage to back up your files. If something happens to one, you always have the other to fall back on. Need access to those files at or away from home? As long as you have access to either your storage media or an internet connection, you are good to go. Maybe you are getting ready to choose a backup solution but are not sure which one would work better for you. Here is your chance to ask your fellow HTG readers which one they would recommend. Got a great backup solution already in place? Then be sure to share it with your fellow readers! How-To Geek Polls require Javascript. Please Click Here to View the Poll. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know Winter Sunset by a Mountain Stream Wallpaper Add Sleek Style to Your Desktop with the Aston Martin Theme for Windows 7 Awesome WebGL Demo – Flight of the Navigator from Mozilla Sunrise on the Alien Desert Planet Wallpaper Add Falling Snow to Webpages with the Snowfall Extension for Opera [Browser Fun] Automatically Keep Up With the Latest Releases from Mozilla Labs in Firefox 4.0

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• Converting Openfire IM datetime values in SQL Server to / from VARCHAR(15) and DATETIME data types

  - by Brian Biales

  A client is using Openfire IM for their users, and would like some custom queries to audit user conversations (which are stored by Openfire in tables in the SQL Server database). Because Openfire supports multiple database servers and multiple platforms, the designers chose to store all date/time stamps in the database as 15 character strings, which get converted to Java Date objects in their code (Openfire is written in Java).  I did some digging around, and, so I don't forget and in case someone else will find this useful, I will put the simple algorithms here for converting back and forth between SQL DATETIME and the Java string representation. The Java string representation is the number of milliseconds since 1/1/1970.  SQL Server's DATETIME is actually represented as a float, the value being the number of days since 1/1/1900, the portion after the decimal point representing the hours/minutes/seconds/milliseconds... as a fractional part of a day.  Try this and you will see this is true:     SELECT CAST(0 AS DATETIME) and you will see it returns the date 1/1/1900. The difference in days between SQL Server's 0 date of 1/1/1900 and the Java representation's 0 date of 1/1/1970 is found easily using the following SQL:   SELECT DATEDIFF(D, '1900-01-01', '1970-01-01') which returns 25567.  There are 25567 days between these dates. So to convert from the Java string to SQL Server's date time, we need to convert the number of milliseconds to a floating point representation of the number of days since 1/1/1970, then add the 25567 to change this to the number of days since 1/1/1900.  To convert to days, you need to divide the number by 1000 ms/s, then by  60 seconds/minute, then by 60 minutes/hour, then by 24 hours/day.  Or simply divide by 1000*60*60*24, or 86400000.   So, to summarize, we need to cast this string as a float, divide by 86400000 milliseconds/day, then add 25567 days, and cast the resulting value to a DateTime.  Here is an example:   DECLARE @tmp as VARCHAR(15)   SET @tmp = '1268231722123'   SELECT @tmp as JavaTime, CAST((CAST(@tmp AS FLOAT) / 86400000) + 25567 AS DATETIME) as SQLTime   To convert from SQL datetime back to the Java time format is not quite as simple, I found, because floats of that size do not convert nicely to strings, they end up in scientific notation using the CONVERT function or CAST function.  But I found a couple ways around that problem. You can convert a date to the number of  seconds since 1/1/1970 very easily using the DATEDIFF function, as this value fits in an Int.  If you don't need to worry about the milliseconds, simply cast this integer as a string, and then concatenate '000' at the end, essentially multiplying this number by 1000, and making it milliseconds since 1/1/1970.  If, however, you do care about the milliseconds, you will need to use DATEPART to get the milliseconds part of the date, cast this integer to a string, and then pad zeros on the left to make sure this is three digits, and concatenate these three digits to the number of seconds string above.  And finally, I discovered by casting to DECIMAL(15,0) then to VARCHAR(15), I avoid the scientific notation issue.  So here are all my examples, pick the one you like best... First, here is the simple approach if you don't care about the milliseconds:   DECLARE @tmp as VARCHAR(15)   DECLARE @dt as DATETIME   SET @dt = '2010-03-10 14:35:22.123'   SET @tmp = CAST(DATEDIFF(s, '1970-01-01 00:00:00' , @dt) AS VARCHAR(15)) + '000'   SELECT @tmp as JavaTime, @dt as SQLTime If you want to keep the milliseconds:   DECLARE @tmp as VARCHAR(15)   DECLARE @dt as DATETIME   DECLARE @ms as int   SET @dt = '2010-03-10 14:35:22.123'   SET @ms as DATEPART(ms, @dt)   SET @tmp = CAST(DATEDIFF(s, '1970-01-01 00:00:00' , @dt) AS VARCHAR(15))           + RIGHT('000' + CAST(@ms AS VARCHAR(3)), 3)   SELECT @tmp as JavaTime, @dt as SQLTime Or, in one fell swoop:   DECLARE @dt as DATETIME   SET @dt = '2010-03-10 14:35:22.123'   SELECT @dt as SQLTime     , CAST(DATEDIFF(s, '1970-01-01 00:00:00' , @dt) AS VARCHAR(15))           + RIGHT('000' + CAST( DATEPART(ms, @dt) AS VARCHAR(3)), 3) as JavaTime   And finally, a way to simply reverse the math used converting from Java date to SQL date. Note the parenthesis - watch out for operator precedence, you want to subtract, then multiply:   DECLARE @dt as DATETIME   SET @dt = '2010-03-10 14:35:22.123'   SELECT @dt as SQLTime     , CAST(CAST((CAST(@dt as Float) - 25567.0) * 86400000.0 as DECIMAL(15,0)) as VARCHAR(15)) as JavaTime Interestingly, I found that converting to SQL Date time can lose some accuracy, when I converted the time above to Java time then converted  that back to DateTime, the number of milliseconds is 120, not 123.  As I am not interested in the milliseconds, this is ok for me.  But you may want to look into using DateTime2 in SQL Server 2008 for more accuracy.

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• Home Energy Management & Automation with Windows Phone 7

  A number of people at Clarity are personally interested in home energy conservation and home automation. We feel that a mobile device is a great fit for bringing this idea to fruition. While this project is merely a concept and not directly associated with Microsofts Hohm web service, it provides a great model for communicating the concept. I wanted to take the idea a step further and combine saving energy in your home with the ability to track water usage and control your home devices. I designed an application that focuses on total home control and not just energy usage. Application Overview By monitoring home consumption in real time and with yearly projections users can pinpoint vampire devices, times of high or low consumption, and wasteful patterns of energy use. Energy usage meters indicate total current consumption as well as individual device consumption. Users can then use the information to take action, make adjustments, and change their consumption behaviors. The app can be used to automate certain systems like lighting, temperature, or alarms. Other features can be turned on an off at the touch of a toggle switch on your phone, away from home. Forget to turn off the TV or shut the garage door? No problem, you can do it from your phone. Through settings you can enable and disable features of the phone that apply to your home making it a completely customized and convenient experience. To be clear, this equates to more security, big environmental impact, and even bigger savings.   Design and User Interface  Since this panorama application is designed for win phone 7 devices, it complies with the UI Design and Interaction Guide for wp7. I developed the frame and page hierarchy from existing examples. The interface takes advantage of the interactive nature of touch screens with slider controls, pivot control views, and toggle switches to turn on and off devices (not shown in mockup). I followed recommendations for text based elements and adapted the tile notifications to display the most recent user activity. For example, the mockup indicates upon launching the app that the last thing you did was program the thermostat. This model is great for quick launching common user actions. One last design feature to point out is the technical reasons for supplying both light and dark themes for the app. Since this application is targeting energy consumption it only makes sense to consider the effect of the apps background color or image on the phones energy use. When displaying darker colors like black the OLED display may use less power, extending battery life. Other Considerations For now I left out options of wind and solar powered energy options because they are not available to everyone. Renewable energy sources and new technologies associated with them are definitely ideas to keep in mind for a next iteration. Another idea to explore for such an application would be to include a savings model similar to mint.com. In addition to general energy-saving recommendations the application could recommend customized ways to save based on your current utility providers and available options in your area. If your television or refrigerator is guilty of sucking a lot of energy then you may see recommendations for energy star products that could save you even more money! 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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• 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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• Windows Azure PowerShell for Node.js

  - by shiju

  The Windows Azure PowerShell for Node.js is a command-line tool that  allows the Node developers to build and deploy Node.js apps in Windows Azure using Windows PowerShell cmdlets. Using Windows Azure PowerShell for Node.js, you can develop, test, deploy and manage Node based hosted service in Windows Azure. For getting the PowerShell for Node.js, click All Programs, Windows Azure SDK Node.js and run  Windows Azure PowerShell for Node.js, as Administrator. The followings are the few PowerShell cmdlets that lets you to work with Node.js apps in Windows Azure Create New Hosted Service New-AzureService <HostedServiceName> The below cmdlet will created a Windows Aazure hosted service named NodeOnAzure in the folder C:\nodejs and this will also create ServiceConfiguration.Cloud.cscfg, ServiceConfiguration.Local.cscfg and ServiceDefinition.csdef and deploymentSettings.json files for the hosted service. PS C:\nodejs> New-AzureService NodeOnAzure The below picture shows the files after creating the hosted service Create Web Role Add-AzureNodeWebRole <RoleName> The following cmdlet will create a hosted service named MyNodeApp along with web.config file. PS C:\nodejs\NodeOnAzure> Add-AzureNodeWebRole MyNodeApp The below picture shows the files after creating the web role app. Install Node Module npm install <NodeModule> The following command will install Node Module Express onto your web role app. PS C:\nodejs\NodeOnAzure\MyNodeApp> npm install Express Run Windows Azure Apps Locally in the Emulator Start-AzureEmulator -launch The following cmdlet will create a local package and run Windows Azure app locally in the emulator PS C:\nodejs\NodeOnAzure\MyNodeApp> Start-AzureEmulator -launch Stop Windows Azure Emulator Stop-AzureEmulator The following cmdlet will stop your Windows Azure in the emulator. PS C:\nodejs\NodeOnAzure\MyNodeApp> Stop-AzureEmulator Download Windows Azure Publishing Settings Get-AzurePublishSettings The following cmdlet will redirect to Windows Azure portal where we can download Windows Azure publish settings PS C:\nodejs\NodeOnAzure\MyNodeApp> Get-AzurePublishSettings Import Windows Azure Publishing Settings Import-AzurePublishSettings <Location of .publishSettings file> The following cmdlet will import the publish settings file from the location c:\nodejs PS C:\nodejs\NodeOnAzure\MyNodeApp>  Import-AzurePublishSettings c:\nodejs\shijuvar.publishSettings Publish Apps to Windows Azure Publish-AzureService –name <Name> –location <Location of Data centre> The following cmdlet will publish the app to Windows Azure with name “NodeOnAzure” in the location Southeast Asia. Please keep in mind that the service name should be unique. PS C:\nodejs\NodeOnAzure\MyNodeApp> Publish-AzureService –name NodeonAzure –location "Southeast Asia” –launch Stop Windows Azure Service Stop-AzureService The following cmdlet will stop your service which you have deployed previously. PS C:\nodejs\NodeOnAzure\MyNodeApp> Stop-AzureService Remove Windows Azure Service Remove-AzureService The following cmdlet will remove your service from Windows Azure. PS C:\nodejs\NodeOnAzure\MyNodeApp> Remove-AzureService Quick Summary for PowerShell cmdlets Create  a new Hosted Service New-AzureService <HostedServiceName> Create a Web Role Add-AzureNodeWebRole <RoleName> Install Node Module npm install <NodeModule> Running Windows Azure Apps Locally in Emulator Start-AzureEmulator -launch Stop Windows Azure Emulator Stop-AzureEmulator Download Windows Azure Publishing Settings Get-AzurePublishSettings Import Windows Azure Publishing Settings Import-AzurePublishSettings <Location of .publishSettings file> Publish Apps to Windows Azure Publish-AzureService –name <Name> –location <Location of Data centre> Stop Windows Azure Service Stop-AzureService Remove Windows Azure Service Remove-AzureService

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• How do NTP Servers Manage to Stay so Accurate?

  - by Akemi Iwaya

  Many of us have had the occasional problem with our computers and other devices retaining accurate time settings, but a quick sync with an NTP server makes all well again. But if our own devices can lose accuracy, how do NTP servers manage to stay so accurate? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. Photo courtesy of LEOL30 (Flickr). The Question SuperUser reader Frank Thornton wants to know how NTP servers are able to remain so accurate: I have noticed that on my servers and other machines, the clocks always drift so that they have to sync up to remain accurate. How do the NTP server clocks keep from drifting and always remain so accurate? How do the NTP servers manage to remain so accurate? The Answer SuperUser contributor Michael Kjorling has the answer for us: NTP servers rely on highly accurate clocks for precision timekeeping. A common time source for central NTP servers are atomic clocks, or GPS receivers (remember that GPS satellites have atomic clocks onboard). These clocks are defined as accurate since they provide a highly exact time reference. There is nothing magical about GPS or atomic clocks that make them tell you exactly what time it is. Because of how atomic clocks work, they are simply very good at, having once been told what time it is, keeping accurate time (since the second is defined in terms of atomic effects). In fact, it is worth noting that GPS time is distinct from the UTC that we are more used to seeing. These atomic clocks are in turn synchronized against International Atomic Time or TAI in order to not only accurately tell the passage of time, but also the time. Once you have an exact time on one system connected to a network like the Internet, it is a matter of protocol engineering enabling transfer of precise times between hosts over an unreliable network. In this regard a Stratum 2 (or farther from the actual time source) NTP server is no different from your desktop system syncing against a set of NTP servers. By the time you have a few accurate times (as obtained from NTP servers or elsewhere) and know the rate of advancement of your local clock (which is easy to determine), you can calculate your local clock’s drift rate relative to the “believed accurate” passage of time. Once locked in, this value can then be used to continuously adjust the local clock to make it report values very close to the accurate passage of time, even if the local real-time clock itself is highly inaccurate. As long as your local clock is not highly erratic, this should allow keeping accurate time for some time even if your upstream time source becomes unavailable for any reason. Some NTP client implementations (probably most ntpd daemon or system service implementations) do this, and others (like ntpd’s companion ntpdate which simply sets the clock once) do not. This is commonly referred to as a drift file because it persistently stores a measure of clock drift, but strictly speaking it does not have to be stored as a specific file on disk. In NTP, Stratum 0 is by definition an accurate time source. Stratum 1 is a system that uses a Stratum 0 time source as its time source (and is thus slightly less accurate than the Stratum 0 time source). Stratum 2 again is slightly less accurate than Stratum 1 because it is syncing its time against the Stratum 1 source and so on. In practice, this loss of accuracy is so small that it is completely negligible in all but the most extreme of cases. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.

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• SQL – Quick Start with Admin Sections of NuoDB – Manage NuoDB Database

  - by Pinal Dave

  In the yesterday’s blog post we have seen that it is extremely easy to install the NuoDB database on your local machine. Now that the application is properly set up, let us explore NuoDB a bit more and get you familiar with the how it works and what the important areas of the NuoDB are that you should learn. As we have already installed NuoDB, now we will quickly start with two of the important areas in NuoDB: 1) Admin and 2) Explorer. In this blog post I will explore how the Admin Section of the NuoDB Console works.  In the next blog post we will learn how the Explorer Section works. Let us go to the NuoDB Console by typing the following URL in your browser: http://localhost:8080/ It will bring you to the following screen: On this screen you can see a big Start QuickStart button. Click on the button and it will bring you to following screen. On this screen you will find very important information about Domain and Database Settings. It is our habit that we do not read what is written on the screen and keep on clicking on continue without reading. While we are familiar with most wizards, we can often miss the very important message on the screen. Please note the information of Domain Settings and Database Settings from the following screen before clicking on Create Database. Domain Settings User: quickstart Password: quickstart Database Settings User: dba Password: goalie Database: test Schema: HOCKEY Once you click on the Create Database button it will immediately start creating sample database. First, it will start a Storage Manager and right after that it will start a Transaction Engine. Once the engine is up, it will Create a Schema and Sample Data. On the success of the creating the sample database it will show the following screen. Now is the time where we can explore the NuoDB Admin or NuoDB Explorer. If you click on Admin, it will first show following login screen. Enter for the username “domain” and for the password “bird”. Alternatively you can enter “quickstart”  twice for username and password.  It works as too. Once you enter into the Admin Section, on the left side you can see information about NuoDB and Admin Console and on the right side you can see the domain overview area. From this Administrative section you can do any of the following tasks: Create a view of the entire domain Add and remove databases Start and stop NuoDB Transaction Engines and Storage Managers Monitor transaction across all the NuoDB databases On the right side of the Admin Section we can see various information about a particular NuoDB domain. You can quickly view various alerts, find out information about the number of host machines that are provisioned for the domain, and see the number of databases and processes that are running in the domain. If you click on the “1 host” link you will be able to see various processes, CPU usage and other information. In the Processes Section you can see that there are two different types of processes. The first process (where you can see the floppy drive icon) represents a running Storage Manager process and the second process a running Transaction Engine process. You can click on the links for the Storage Manager and Transaction Engine to see further statistical details right down to the last byte of the data. There are various charts available for analysis as well. I think the product is quite mature and the user can add different monitor charts to the Admin section. Additionally, the Admin section is the place where you can create and manage new databases. I hope today’s tutorial gives you enough confidence that you can try out NuoDB and checkout various administrative activities with the database. I am personally impressed with their dashboard related to various counters. For more information about how the NuoDB architecture works and what a Storage Manager or Transaction Engine does, check out this short video with NuoDB CTO Seth Proctor:  In the next blog post, we will try out the Explorer section of NuoDB, which allows us to run SQL queries and write SQL code.  Meanwhile, I strongly suggest you download and install NuoDB and get yourself familiar with the product. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: NuoDB

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• You Are Hiring But Do Candidate&rsquo;s Want to Work For You

  - by david.talamelli

  So here you are – it has happened, you are now interviewing for that position that you have either applied for or maybe were called about. Whether you are an “active” candidate looking for a job or a “passive” candidate who was contacted about the opportunity, it doesn’t matter now. Regardless of the circumstances of how you got to the interview stage, how you and your new potential manager connect with each other at interview will play a part in whether you are successful in landing that job. The best manager/employee relationships I think tend to be the ones where both the manager and employee have a common goal that they are both working towards and they work together in unison to achieve these goals. Candidates – when you are interviewing for a role, remember that an interview is a two way process. An interview shouldn’t be just a case of a company interviewing you to see if you are a good fit for a certain role. Don’t forget in an interview process it is equally important that you take the opportunity to similarly interview the company to see if that role/company are the right place for you to move to as the next step in your career. I think an interview should not only be a chance for a Hiring Manager to get to better know a candidate and asses his capability and cultural fit for a team/company but it should also be a chance for the candidate to similarly assess a company or manager about whether they are someone that they want to work with. Managers – I know Recruiters have been talking about the “war for talent” since before many of you were managers, but there is no denying it – it exists. You are not only competing with other companies for talented individuals but you are also competing with the existing companies that those talented individuals are working at. Companies are not going to let the people they have identified as superstars resign without a fight (this is the classic Counter Offer scenario which may be another blog post in itself). So how do we get these great people – their current employer will do all they can to keep them, everyone else wants them – does this mean all hope is lost? No, absolutely not. The same reasons that have always existed on why candidates are interested in other opportunities is still there: it could be that someone is looking for career advancement, or they want the chance to work with new technology or maybe you have an opportunity that is exactly what that person is looking to do. As a Hiring Manager don’t just conduct your interviews in question/answer mode. You should talk to that individual to work out what it is they are looking for and you can then relate how your role addresses that. It is potentially going to be the two of you working together so you two are the ones who have to be most comfortable with each other. Don’t oversell the role – set realistic expectations of what that candidate can expect working in your team – give them the good, the bad and the ugly so they can make an informed decision. Manager’s think back to when you last were looking for a job and put yourself in the candidate’s shoes. When you were looking for a job, what was it that you wanted to know about Oracle, or what was it that you wanted more information about. There are some great Business Leaders that work here at Oracle – if you are one of them it is likely that you already are doing all these things anyway. The good news for you is that you are also likely raising yourself head and shoulders above what many interviewers do – that in itself gives you a competitive advantage in this ‘war for talent’ but as a great Business Leader you already know that

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• Running ODI 11gR1 Standalone Agent as a Windows Service

  - by fx.nicolas

  ODI 11gR1 introduces the capability to use OPMN to start and protect agent processes as services. Setting up the OPMN agent is covered in the following post and extensively in the ODI Installation Guide. Unfortunately, OPMN is not installed along with ODI, and ODI 10g users who are really at ease with the old Java Wrapper are a little bit puzzled by OPMN, and ask: "How can I simply set up the agent as a service?". Well... although the Tanuki Service Wrapper is no longer available for free, and the agentservice.bat script lost, you can switch to another service wrapper for the same result. For example, Yet Another Java Service Wrapper (YAJSW) is a good candidate. To configure a standalone agent with YAJSW: download YAJSW Uncompress the zip to a folder (called %YAJSW% in this example) Configure, start and test your standalone agent. Make sure that this agent is loaded with all the required libraries and drivers, as the service will not load dynamically the drivers added subsequently in the /drivers directory. Retrieve the PID of the agent process: Open Task Manager. Select View Select Columns Select the PID (Process Identifier) column, then click OK In the list of processes, find the java.exe process corresponding to your agent, and note its PID. Open a command line prompt in %YAJSW%/bat and run: genConfig.bat <your_pid> This command generates a wrapper configuration file for the agent. This file is called %YAJSW%/conf/wrapper.conf. Stop your agent. Edit the wrapper.conf file and modify the configuration of your service. For example, modify the display name and description of the service as shown in the example below. Important: Make sure to escape the commas in the ODI encoded passwords with a backslash! In the example below, the ODI_SUPERVISOR_ENCODED_PASS contained a comma character which had to be prefixed with a backslash. # Title to use when running as a console wrapper.console.title=\"AGENT\" #******************************************************************** # Wrapper Windows Service and Posix Daemon Properties #******************************************************************** # Name of the service wrapper.ntservice.name=AGENT_113 # Display name of the service wrapper.ntservice.displayname=ODI Agent # Description of the service wrapper.ntservice.description=Oracle Data Integrator Agent 11gR3 (11.1.1.3.0) ... # Escape the comma in the password with a backslash. wrapper.app.parameter.7 = -ODI_SUPERVISOR_ENCODED_PASS=fJya.vR5kvNcu9TtV\,jVZEt Execute your wrapped agent as console by calling in the command line prompt: runConsole.bat Check that your agent is running, and test it again.This command starts the agent with the configuration but does not install it yet as a service. To Install the agent as service call installService.bat From that point, you can view, start and stop the agent via the windows services. Et voilà ! Two final notes: - To modify the agent configuration, you must uninstall/reinstall the service. For this purpose, run the uninstallService.bat to uninstall it and play again the process above. - To be able to uninstall the agent service, you should keep a backup of the wrapper.conf file. This is particularly important when starting several services with the wrapper.

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• WCF REST Service Activation Errors when AspNetCompatibility is enabled

  - by Rick Strahl

  I’m struggling with an interesting problem with WCF REST since last night and I haven’t been able to track this down. I have a WCF REST Service set up and when accessing the .SVC file it crashes with a version mismatch for System.ServiceModel: Server Error in '/AspNetClient' Application. Could not load type 'System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpHandler' from assembly 'System.ServiceModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089'.Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpHandler' from assembly 'System.ServiceModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089'.Source Error: An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below. Stack Trace: [TypeLoadException: Could not load type 'System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpHandler' from assembly 'System.ServiceModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089'.] System.RuntimeTypeHandle.GetTypeByName(String name, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase, Boolean reflectionOnly, StackCrawlMarkHandle stackMark, Boolean loadTypeFromPartialName, ObjectHandleOnStack type) +0 System.RuntimeTypeHandle.GetTypeByName(String name, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase, Boolean reflectionOnly, StackCrawlMark& stackMark, Boolean loadTypeFromPartialName) +95 System.RuntimeType.GetType(String typeName, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase, Boolean reflectionOnly, StackCrawlMark& stackMark) +54 System.Type.GetType(String typeName, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase) +65 System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.GetType(String typeName, Boolean throwOnError, Boolean ignoreCase) +69 System.Web.Configuration.HandlerFactoryCache.GetTypeWithAssert(String type) +38 System.Web.Configuration.HandlerFactoryCache.GetHandlerType(String type) +13 System.Web.Configuration.HandlerFactoryCache..ctor(String type) +19 System.Web.HttpApplication.GetFactory(String type) +81 System.Web.MaterializeHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +223 System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +184 Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.0.30319.1 What’s really odd about this is that it crashes only if it runs inside of IIS (it works fine in Cassini) and only if ASP.NET Compatibility is enabled in web.config:<serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true" /> Arrrgh!!!!! After some experimenting and some help from Glenn Block and his team mates I was able to track down the problem in ApplicationHost.config. Specifically the problem was that there were multiple *.svc mappings in the ApplicationHost.Config file and the older 2.0 runtime specific versions weren’t marked for the proper runtime. Because these handlers show up at the top of the list they execute first resulting in assembly load errors for the wrong version assembly. To fix this problem I ended up making a couple changes in applicationhost.config. On the machine level root’s Handler mappings I had an entry that looked like this:<add name="svc-Integrated" path="*.svc" verb="*" type="System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpHandler, System.ServiceModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" preCondition="integratedMode" /> and it needs to be changed to this:<add name="svc-Integrated" path="*.svc" verb="*" type="System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpHandler, System.ServiceModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" preCondition="integratedMode,runtimeVersionv2.0" />Notice the explicit runtime version assignment in the preCondition attribute which is key to keep ASP.NET 4.0 from executing that handler. The key here is that the runtime version needs to be set explicitly so that the various *.svc handlers don’t fire only in the order defined which in case of a .NET 4.0 app with the original setting would result in an incompatible version of System.ComponentModel to load.What was really hard to track this down is that even when looking in the debugger when launching the Web app, the AppDomain assembly loads showed System.ServiceModel V4.0 starting up just fine. Apparently the ASP.NET runtime load occurs at a different point and that’s when things break.So how did this break? According to the Microsoft folks it’s some older tools that got installed that change the default service handlers. There’s a blog entry that points at this problem with more detail:http://blogs.iis.net/webtopics/archive/2010/04/28/system-typeloadexception-for-system-servicemodel-activation-httpmodule-in-asp-net-4.aspxNote that I tried running aspnet_regiis and that did not fix the problem for me. I had to manually change the entries in applicationhost.config.   © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in AJAX   ASP.NET  WCF  

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• Changing the action of a hyperlink in a Silverlight RichTextArea

  - by Marc Schluper

  The title of this post could also have been "Move over Hyperlink, here comes Actionlink" or "Creating interactive text in Silverlight." But alas, there can be only one. Hyperlinks are very useful. However, they are also limited because their action is fixed: browse to a URL. This may have been adequate at the start of the Internet, but nowadays, in web applications, the one thing we do not want to happen is a complete change of context. In applications we typically like a hyperlink selection to initiate an action that updates a part of the screen. For instance, if my application has a map displayed with some text next to it, the map would react to a selection of a hyperlink in the text, e.g. by zooming in on a location and displaying additional locational information in a popup. In this way, the text becomes interactive text. It is quite common that one company creates and maintains websites for many client companies. To keep maintenance cost low, it is important that the content of these websites can be updated by the client companies themselves, without the need to involve a software engineer. To accommodate this scenario, we want the author of the interactive text to configure all hyperlinks (without writing any code). In a Silverlight RichTextArea, the default action of a Hyperlink is the same as a traditional hyperlink, but it can be changed: if the Command property has a value then upon a click event this command is called with the value of the CommandParameter as parameter. How can we let the author of the text specify a command for each hyperlink in the text, and how can we let an application react properly to a hyperlink selection event? We are talking about any command here. Obviously, the application would recognize only a specific set of commands, with well defined parameters, but the approach we take here is generic in the sense that it pertains to the RichTextArea and any command. So what do we require? We wish that: As a text author, I can configure the action of a hyperlink in a (rich) text without writing code; As a text author, I can persist the action of a hyperlink with the text; As a reader of persisted text, I can click a hyperlink and the configured action will happen; As an application developer, I can configure a control to use my application specific commands. In an excellent introduction to the RichTextArea, John Papa shows (among other things) how to persist a text created using this control. To meet our requirements, we can create a subclass of RichTextArea that uses John's code and allows plugging in two command specific components: one to prompt for a command definition, and one to execute the command. Since both of these plugins are application specific, our RichTextArea subclass should not assume anything about them except their interface. public interface IDefineCommand { void Prompt(string content, // the link content Action<string, object> callback); // the method called to convey the link definition } public interface IPerformCommand : ICommand {} The IDefineCommand plugin receives the content of the link (the text visible to the reader) and displays some kind of control that allows the author to define the link. When that's done, this (possibly changed) content string is conveyed back to the RichTextArea, together with an object that defines the command to execute when the link is clicked by the reader of the published text. The IPerformCommand plugin simply implements System.Windows.Input.ICommand. Let's use MEF to load the proper plugins. In the example solution there is a project that contains rudimentary implementations of these. The IDefineCommand plugin simply prompts for a command string (cf. a command line or query string), and the IPerformCommand plugin displays a MessageBox showing this command string. An actual application using this extended RichTextArea would have its own set of commands, each having their own parameters, and hence would provide more user friendly application specific plugins. Nonetheless, in any case a command can be persisted as a string and hence the two interfaces defined above suffice. For a Visual Studio 2010 solution, see my article on The Code Project.

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• How to Restore the Real Internet Explorer Desktop Icon in Windows 7

  - by The Geek

  Remember how previous versions of Windows had an Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, and you could right-click it to quickly access the Internet Options screen? It’s completely gone in Windows 7, but a geeky hack can bring it back. Microsoft removed this feature to comply with all those murky legal battles they’ve had, and their alternate suggestion is to create a standard shortcut to iexplore.exe on the Desktop, but it’s not the same thing. We’ve got a registry hack to bring it back. This guest article was written by Ramesh from the WinHelpOnline blog, where he’s got loads of really geeky registry hacks. Bring Back the Internet Explorer Namespace Icon in Windows 7 the Easy Way If you just want the IE icon back, all you need to do is download the RealInternetExplorerIcon.zip file, extract the contents, and then double-click on the w7_ie_icon_restore.reg file. That’s all you have to do. There’s also an undo registry file there if you want to get rid of it. Download the Real Internet Explorer Icon Registry Hack Manual Registry Hack If you prefer doing things the manual way, or just really want to understand how this hack works, you can follow through the manual steps below to learn how it was done, but we’ll have to warn you that it’s a lot of steps. Launch Regedit.exe using the Start Menu search box, and then navigate to the following location: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \ {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} Right-click on the key on the left-hand pane, choose Export, and save it to a .REG file (say, ie-guid.reg) Open up the REG file using Notepad… From the Edit menu, click Replace, and replace every occurrence of the following GUID string {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} … with a custom GUID string, such as: {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} Save the REG file and close Notepad, and then double-click on the file to merge the contents to the registry. Either re-open the registry editor, or use the F5 key to reload everything with the new changes (this step is important). Now you can navigate downto the following registry key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \ {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} \ Shellex \ ContextMenuHandlers \ ieframe Double-click on the (default) key in the right-hand pane and set its data as: {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} With this done, press F5 on the desktop and you’ll see the Internet Explorer icon that looks like this: The icon appears incomplete without the Properties command in right click menu, so keep reading. Final Registry Hack Adjustments Click on the following key, which should still be viewable in your Registry editor window from the last step. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} Double-click LocalizedString in the right-hand pane and type the following data to rename the icon. Internet Explorer Select the following key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D}\shell Add a subkey and name it as Properties, then select the Properties key, double-click the (default) value and type the following: P&roperties Create a String value named Position, and type the following data bottom At this point the window should look something like this: Under Properties, create a subkey and name it as Command, and then set its (default) value as follows: control.exe inetcpl.cpl Navigate down to the following key, and then delete the value named LegacyDisable HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ CLSID \ {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} \ shell \ OpenHomePage Now head to the this key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Desktop \ NameSpace Create a subkey named {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30301D} (which is the custom GUID that we used earlier in this article.) Press F5 to refresh the Desktop, and here is how the Internet Explorer icon would look like, finally. That’s it! It only took 24 steps, but you made it through to the end—of course, you could just download the registry hack and get the icon back with a double-click. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Quick Help: Restore Show Desktop Icon in Windows VistaQuick Help: Restore Flip3D Icon in Windows VistaAdd Internet Explorer Icon to Windows XP / Vista DesktopHide, Delete, or Destroy the Recycle Bin Icon in Windows 7 or VistaBuilt-in Quick Launch Hotkeys in Windows Vista 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 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 Open Multiple Links At One Go

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• Watch Netflix Instant Movies in Boxee

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Boxee is multi-platform Media PC application with a host of media applications. One of which is the popular Movie service, Netflix. Today we’ll show you how to get setup to watch Netflix Instant streaming video in Boxee. Note: Nexflix requires Microsoft Silverlight which unfortunately means Boxee users running Linux out of luck. What You’ll Need A Netflix account Authorize your Netflix account with Boxee Install Microsoft Silverlight Authorize Your Netflix Account First, we need to authorize our Netflix account with Boxee. (See link below). Type in your Boxee username and password and click “Login.”  When prompted, click “Authorize.”   Click “Yes, Link This Account.”    Install Silverlight If you don’t already have Silverlight installed, you’ll need to do so. See the download link at the end of the article.   Log into Boxee Now we’re ready to log into Boxee. Once logged in, click on “Apps” on the Home screen.   From the My Apps screen click on Netflix. Then click “Start.” Click “Yes” to enable the cookie.   Now you’ll enter the Netflix App. From here, you can browse your Instant Queue, Recommendations, New Arrivals, Browse Genre, or Search for available titles.   Click on a selection you’d like to watch. From here, you can Play, Rate, or even add the title to your regular Netflix Queue.   With a remote or the on-screen controls you can pause, stop, play, and skip forward or back through the video.   Now you’re all set to enjoy the Netflix Instant library with Boxee. Netflix Instant is one of many great Apps included with Boxee. While the current available selection isn’t exactly overwhelming, most subscribers will likely find enough to keep themselves entertained in between DVD deliveries. Haven’t tried Boxee yet? Check out our article on getting started with Boxee. Links Authorize your Netflix account with Boxee Install Microsoft Silverlight Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Find Movies and TV Based on your Mood with JinniGetting Started with BoxeeQuickly Find Movies to Watch at Hello MoviesIntegrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7 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 Change DNS servers on the fly with DNS Jumper Live PDF Searches PDF Files and Ebooks Converting Mp4 to Mp3 Easily Use Quick Translator to Translate Text in 50 Languages (Firefox) Get Better Windows Search With UltraSearch Scan News With NY Times Article Skimmer

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• OSI Model

  - by kaleidoscope

  The Open System Interconnection Reference Model (OSI Reference Model or OSI Model) is an abstract description for layered communications and computer network protocol design. In its most basic form, it divides network architecture into seven layers which, from top to bottom, are the Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link, and Physical Layers. It is therefore often referred to as the OSI Seven Layer Model. A layer is a collection of conceptually similar functions that provide services to the layer above it and receives service from the layer below it. Description of OSI layers: Layer 1: Physical Layer ·         Defines the electrical and physical specifications for devices. In particular, it defines the relationship between a device and a physical medium. ·         Establishment and termination of a connection to a communications medium. ·         Participation in the process whereby the communication resources are effectively shared among multiple users. ·         Modulation or conversion between the representation of digital data in user equipment and the corresponding signals transmitted over a communications channel. Layer 2: Data Link Layer ·         Provides the functional and procedural means to transfer data between network entities. ·         Detect and possibly correct errors that may occur in the Physical Layer. The error check is performed using Frame Check Sequence (FCS). ·         Addresses is then sought to see if it needs to process the rest of the frame itself or whether to pass it on to another host. ·         The Layer is divided into two sub layers: The Media Access Control (MAC) layer and the Logical Link Control (LLC) layer. ·         MAC sub layer controls how a computer on the network gains access to the data and permission to transmit it. ·         LLC layer controls frame synchronization, flow control and error checking.   Layer 3: Network Layer ·         Provides the functional and procedural means of transferring variable length data sequences from a source to a destination via one or more networks. ·         Performs network routing functions, and might also perform fragmentation and reassembly, and report delivery errors. ·         Network Layer Routers operate at this layer—sending data throughout the extended network and making the Internet possible.   Layer 4: Transport Layer ·         Provides transparent transfer of data between end users, providing reliable data transfer services to the upper layers. ·         Controls the reliability of a given link through flow control, segmentation/de-segmentation, and error control. ·         Transport Layer can keep track of the segments and retransmit those that fail. Layer 5: Session Layer ·         Controls the dialogues (connections) between computers. ·         Establishes, manages and terminates the connections between the local and remote application. ·         Provides for full-duplex, half-duplex, or simplex operation, and establishes checkpointing, adjournment, termination, and restart procedures. ·         Implemented explicitly in application environments that use remote procedure calls. Layer 6: Presentation Layer ·         Establishes a context between Application Layer entities, in which the higher-layer entities can use different syntax and semantics, as long as the presentation service understands both and the mapping between them. The presentation service data units are then encapsulated into Session Protocol data units, and moved down the stack. ·         Provides independence from differences in data representation (e.g., encryption) by translating from application to network format, and vice versa. The presentation layer works to transform data into the form that the application layer can accept. This layer formats and encrypts data to be sent across a network, providing freedom from compatibility problems. It is sometimes called the syntax layer. Layer 7: Application Layer ·         This layer interacts with software applications that implement a communicating component. ·         Identifies communication partners, determines resource availability, and synchronizes communication. o       When identifying communication partners, the application layer determines the identity and availability of communication partners for an application with data to transmit. o       When determining resource availability, the application layer must decide whether sufficient network or the requested communication exists. o       In synchronizing communication, all communication between applications requires cooperation that is managed by the application layer. Technorati Tags: Kunal,OSI,Networking

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• Wipe, Delete, and Securely Destroy Your Hard Drive’s Data the Easy Way

  - by The Geek

  Giving a computer to somebody else? Maybe you’re putting it out on Craigslist to sell to a stranger—either way, you’ll want to make sure that your drive is completely wiped, scrubbed, and clean of any personal data. Here’s the easy way to do it. If you only have access to an Ubuntu Live CD or thumb drive, you can actually use that instead if you prefer, and we’ve got you covered with a full guide to securely wiping your PC’s hard drive. Otherwise, keep reading. Wipe the Drive with DBAN Darik’s Boot and Nuke CD is the easiest way to permanently and totally destroy every bit of personal information on that drive—nobody is going to recover a thing once this is done. The first thing you’ll need to do is download a copy of the ISO image, and then burn it to a blank CD with something really useful like Imgburn. Just choose Burn image to Disc at the start screen, select the little file icon, grab the downloaded ISO, and then go. If you need a little more help, we’ve got you covered with a beginner’s guide to burning an ISO image. Once you’re done, stick the disc into the drive, start the PC up, and then once you boot to the DBAN prompt you’ll see a menu. You can pretty much ignore everything on here, and just type… autonuke And there you are, your disk is now being securely wiped. Once it’s all done, you can remove the CD, and then either pack the PC up to sell, or re-install Windows on there if you feel like it. More Advanced Method If you’re really paranoid, want to run a different type of wipe, or just like fiddling with the options, you can choose F3 or hit Enter at the prompt to head to the advanced selection screen. Here you can choose exactly which drive to wipe, or hit the M key to change the method. You’ll be able to choose between a bunch of different wipe options. The Quick Erase is all you really need though.   So there you are, easy PC wiping in one package. What about you? Do you make sure to wipe your old PCs before giving them away? Personally I’ve always just yanked out the hard drives before I got rid of an old PC, but that’s just me. Download DBAN from dban.org Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Use an Ubuntu Live CD to Securely Wipe Your PC’s Hard DriveHow to Dispose of Old Computers ResponsiblyHow To Delete a VHD in Windows 7Speed up External USB Hard Drives in Windows VistaSpeed Up SATA Hard Drives in Windows Vista 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 Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites

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• CRMIT’s HIGH VALUE CRM++ PLUGINS FOR CRM On DEMAND

  - by Soumo Das

  Customer satisfaction and experience being the two most considerable factors, these days businesses are on the lookout for automation tools that are world class, agile and keep quality at its core. CRMIT has developed such tools using cutting edge technologies and abstracting industry best practices and R&D.  Self Service Portal  With customers being so meticulous about regular updates and reliable access to their data, administrators just cannot think of walking a thin line. Surviving without a resource that provides a track of customer requirements for services available 24 x 7 can severely affect the productivity. In such a scenario, CRMIT’s Self Service Portal (SSP) is the best solution. This not only tracks the required customer data, but also allows companies to stay in tune with their employees, vendors and stakeholders.   One can directly sign up to become a CRMOD contact and SSP user. One need not use the database, as operations and interactions are d at run time. This is a fully configurable solution that tracks results periodically, thus making it easy for end users. It also offers better security and data visibility that enables users to progress smoothly. Quote and Order Management   When dealing with quotes, contracts and orders becomes complicated, only Quote & Order Management can work as a one-stop solution. CRMIT offers this great tool for managing all this information and for taking care of customer orders and service requirements.  This CRM On Demand plug-in allows one to create a new quote or copy the existing one. Products can be directly added from the product list of CRMOD and the pricing is calculated automatically. Quote can be generated and mailed to the external users in PDF, HTML and XLS formats. This not only allows management of quotes in an enhanced manner, but also supports various billing and tax calculation features that make work effortless.    Report Scheduler  When it comes to analyzing and providing statistics of various business processes currently running in an organization, one cannot depend on manual updates, which sometimes may be inaccurate or even delayed. CRMIT provides a SaaS based powerful solution - Report Scheduler - that allows CRM users to schedule reports as per the frequencies and then receive them as email attachments at the scheduled time.   With this powerful tool, administrators can control the report scheduler for assigning specific reports to specific users. After that, users can login and schedule any assigned report for viewing at particular intervals on monthly, weekly or daily basis. Additionally, users can also copy the mail to external users and can choose the preferred format. The best part is that sharing business data with third party become easy with this and for viewing reports, users need not log into their CRMOD account.  CRM On Demand Offline Solution CRM On-Demand Offline is another great CRM++ extension that allows one to work in both online and offline modes. Synchronizing both the modes is absolutely easy and offers ease while working. CRM OD offline works as an automation tool that not only improves efficiency, but also works as a backup in most cases. It is readily available as a windows application installer and requires users to be online only while validating and synchronizing. The best part is that working in the offline mode also works as a backup. 

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• Great Customer Service Example

  - by MightyZot

  A few days ago I wrote about what I consider a poor customer service interaction with TiVo, a company that I have been faithful to for the past 12 years or so. In that post I talked about how they helped me, but I felt like I was doing something wrong at the end of the call – when in reality I was just following through with an offer that TiVo made possible through my cable company. Today I had a wonderful customer service interaction with American Express, another company that I have been loyal to for many years.(I am a Gold Card member.) I like my Amex card because I can use it for big purchases and it forces me to pay them off at the end of the month. Well, the reality is that I’m not always so good at doing that, so sometimes my payments are over a couple of months.  :) A few days ago I received an email from “American Express” fraud detection. The email stated that I should call a toll free number and have the last four digits of my card handy. I grew up during the BBS era with some creative and somewhat mischievous friends. I’ve learned to be extremely cautious with regard to my online life! So, I did what you would expect…I sent them a nice reply that said “Go screw yourself.” For the past couple of days someone has been trying to call me and I assumed it was the same prankster trying to get the last four digits of my card. The last caller left a message indicating that they were from American Express and they wanted to talk to me about my card. After looking up their customer service numbers on the www.americanexpress.com web site, I called and was put through to the fraud detection group. The rep explained that there were some charges on my wife’s card that did not fit our purchase profile. She went through each charge and, for the most part, they looked like charges my wife may have made. My wife had asked to use the card for some Christmas shopping during the same timeframe as the charges. The American Express rep very politely explained that these looked out of character to her. She continued through the charges. She listed a charge for $160 – at this point my adrenaline started kicking in. My wife said she was going to charge about $25 or $30 dollars, not $160. Next, the rep listed a charge for over $1200. Uh oh!! Now I know that my account has been compromised. I informed the rep that we definitely did not make those charges. She replied with, “that’s ok Mr Pope, we declined those charges as well as some others.” We went through the pending charges and there were a couple more that were questionable. The rep very patiently waited while I called my wife on my office phone to verify the charges. Sure enough, my wife had not ordered anything from Netflix or purchased anything with Yahoo Wallet! “No problem Mr Pope, we will remove those charges as well.” “We are going to cancel your wife’s card and send her a new one. She will receive it by 7pm tomorrow via Federal Express. Please watch your statements over the next couple of months. If you notice anything fishy, give us a call and we will take care of it for you.” (Wow, I’m thinking to myself!) “Is there anything else I can help you with Mr Pope?” “Nope, thank you very much for catching this so early and declining those charges!”, I said smiling. Apparently she could hear me smiling on the other end of the phone line because she replied with “keep smiling Mr Pope and have a good rest of your week.” Now THAT’s customer service!  Thank you American Express!!! I shall remain an ever faithful customer. Interesting…

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• Chalk Talk with John: Business Value of Identity and Access Management

  - by John Brunswick

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Conveying the business value of Identity and Access Management to non technologists can potentially be challenging, especially considering the breadth capability supplied by these technologies. In this episode of Chalk Talk with John, Bob at Codeaway Valley asks Jim from Middleware Fields how they are able to manage access to buildings and facilities throughout their community. Bob and his team struggle to keep up with the needs of their community members, while ensuring the community’s safety. Jim shares his creative solution to simplifying the management of access throughout their community in Middleware Fields. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} About me: Hi, I am John Brunswick, an Oracle Enterprise Architect. As an Oracle Enterprise Architect, I focus on the alignment of technical capabilities in support of business vision and objectives, as well as the overall business value of technology.  Before coming to Oracle, I was a Practice Manager within BEA System's Business Interaction Division consulting organization, orchestrating enterprise systems in support of line of business goals. Follow me on Twitter and visit my site for Oracle Fusion Middleware related tips.

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• Challenges and Opportunities to Drive Change in the Healthcare System Explored at America’s Health Insurance Plans Exchange Conference and Institute 2013

  - by elaine blog

  The program theme at the June America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Exchange Conference and AHIP’s Institute 2013 was Transforming Our Health Care System: Navigating and Succeeding in the New Marketplace.  Topics included care delivery transformation, innovation for a new healthcare eco system, Health Insurance Exchanges, the nexus of consumerism, retail and healthcare, driving value through improved operations and leveraging technology, data and innovation to transform care. Oracle participated as a sponsor of both conferences, signaling the significant investment and activity Oracle continues to make in helping health plans, providers and government agencies become more efficient and more relevant in the healthcare market place. AHIP is a national trade association representing the health insurance industry. AHIP’s members provide health and supplemental benefits to more than 200 million Americans through employer-sponsored coverage, the individual insurance market and public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.   AHIP advocates for public policies that expand access to affordable health care. Health plans are focusing on the Health Insurance Exchanges and the opportunities they offer to provide better access and higher quality healthcare.  With the opportunities come operational challenges to implementation and innovative technology solutions to consider.   At the Exchange Conference, Oracle hosted a breakfast symposium on “Strategies for Success:  Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market”. With Health Insurance Exchanges as catalysts for change, attendees learned about how to achieve integration within an Exchange and deploy new business strategies to support health reform initiatives. Discussion covered steps and processes to successfully establish and implement enrollment systems, quote to card activities, program pricing, claims billing, automated claims processing and new customer service tools. Piyush Pushkar, COO of Benefitalign, an Oracle partner that provides solutions to adopt innovative business models for retail, HIX, consumer-centric health plan and benefits administration, spoke on the state of the Exchanges in the U.S. and the activities health plans are engaged in to support individuals entering the healthcare system, including sales automation, member enrollment automation/portals and integration strategies with the Exchanges. The Oracle and Benefitalign partnership allows seamless integration between a health plan enrollment solution with the HIX individual market and allows for the health plan to customize and characterize the offerings available to the HIX that may or may not be available through other channels.  This approach can benefit the health plan through separation of interests, but also because some state-run HIXs require such separation. Janice W. Young, Program Director, Payer IT Strategies, IDC Health Insights, reviewed a survey of health plans on their investment priorities for this last year as well as this year.  She also identified the 2013-2015 strategies of go/get to market with front end and compliance investments; leveraging existing business processes and internal technologies; and establishing best practices.  Of key interest to the audience was a reform era payer solutions platform overview mapping technologies to support the business operations. David Bonham of the Oracle Health Insurance organization moderated the panel and spoke on Oracle’s presence in healthcare and products for payers to help them drive efficiencies and gain a competitive advantage in an ever changing market. Oracle serves healthcare stakeholders with applications such as billing, rating and underwriting, analytics, CRM, enrollment, and products for processing of health insurance claims including pricing and benefits administration, as well as payment of providers through alternative, non-fee for service reimbursement methods. Oracle in Healthcare….Did you know? More than 80 healthcare payers run Oracle applications. More than 300 leading healthcare providers run Oracle applications. 10 out of the top 12 fortune Global 500 healthcare organizations run Oracle applications. For more information on Oracle solutions for healthcare payers, please visit oracle.com/insurance or these individual solution pages: Oracle Health Insurance Components Oracle Insurance Insbridge Rating and Underwriting Oracle Insurance Revenue Management and Billing Oracle Documaker Oracle Healthcare Oracle CRM Related Resources Webcast On Demand: Strategies for Success: Driving Business Transformation in the Growing Health Insurance Exchange Market Strategy Brief: Executing on the Individual Mandate: Opportunities and Challenges for Healthcare Payers White Paper: White paper: Navigating Alternative Provider Reimbursement Models of the Future Strategy Brief: Enterprise Rating Agility Improves Payer Response to Healthcare Reform Podcast: Technology Implications of Healthcare Reform Don’t forget to keep up with us year-round: Facebook: www.facebook.com/oracleinsurance Twitter: www.twitter.com/oracleinsurance YouTube: www.youtube.com/oracleinsurance

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• Add Social Elements to Your Gmail Contacts with Rapportive

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to discover more about your contacts?  Xobni is a great tool for this in Outlook, and thanks to a small plugin for Gmail, you can get similar functionality right from your favorite webmail app. Setup Rapportive on Your Gmail Browse to the Rapportive site (link below), and click install to add it to your browser.  Rapportive currently only supports Firefox and Google Chrome.  In this test, we installed it on Google Chrome.  Notice that Chrome warns Rapportive may access your private data from Gmail, though Rapportive says that they only use this data securely on your computer or their servers. Next time you log into Gmail, open a message to see the new Rapportive sidebar.  Click Log in to get started. Choose if you want to let Rapportive to access your data. Finally, choose whether to stay logged into Rapportive or to log out when you log out of Gmail.   Using Rapportive Now, when you open an email, you should see more information about your contact on the right side of the message where you usually see Google AdSense ads. You may see an avatar, short bio, and links to their social networks.  You can add notes about a contact also, which lets you use Rapportive as a CRM. You may see more information on some contacts.  Here we see a contact that shows recent Tweets and links to several social networks. Take Rapportive Further You can add more features to Rapportive with Raplets, which are small extensions that add more information or CRM functionality.  To add these, click the Rapportive button on the top of Gmail, and select Add Raplets to Rapportive. Find a Raplet you want, and click Add This. A popup will open to give you more information about the Raplet; click the Add button at the bottom if you still want it. And, if you’re wish to close Rapportive without logging out of Gmail, click the Rapportive link in Gmail and select Log out. Conclusion Whether you want to find out more about your contacts or keep track of notes about them, Rapportive is a great way to do this from Gmail.  With tools like this, Gmail gets a bit more powerful and feels more like a desktop application. If you would like this type of functionality in Outlook, check out our article on how to power up Outlook’s search and contacts with Xobni. Add Rapportive to Gmail Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How to Import Gmail Contacts Into Outlook 2007Enhance Your Gmail Account in ChromeFigure out which Online accounts are selling your email to spammersAdd Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress BlogFix for New Contact Group Button Not Displaying in Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Easily Search Food Recipes With Recipe Chimp Tech Fanboys Field Guide Check these Awesome Chrome Add-ons iFixit Offers Gadget Repair Manuals Online Vista style sidebar for Windows 7 Create Nice Charts With These Web Based Tools

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• Don&rsquo;t Kill the Password

  - by Anthony Trudeau

  A week ago Mr. Honan from Wired.com penned an article on security he titled “Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore.” He asserts that the password is not effective and a new solution is needed. Unfortunately, Mr. Honan was a victim of hacking. As a result he has a victim’s vendetta. His conclusion is ill conceived even though there are smatterings of truth and good advice. The password is a security barrier much like a lock on your door. In of itself it’s not guaranteeing protection. You can have a good password akin to a steel reinforced door with the best lock money can buy, or you can have a poor password like “password” which is like a sliding lock like on a bathroom stall. But, just like in the real world a lock isn’t always enough. You can have a lock, security system, video cameras, guard dogs, and even armed security guards; but none of that guarantees your protection. Even top secret government agencies can be breached by someone who is just that good (as dramatized in movies like Mission Impossible). And that’s the crux of it. There are real hackers out there that are that good. Killer coding ninja monkeys do exist! We still have locks on our doors, because they still serve their role. Passwords are no different. Security doesn’t end with the password. Most people would agree that stuffing your mattress with your life savings isn’t a good idea even if you have the best locks and security system. Most people agree its safest to have the money in a bank. Essentially this is compartmentalization. Compartmentalization extends to the online world as well. You’re at risk if your online banking accounts are linked to the same account as your social networks. This is especially true if you’re lackadaisical about linking those social networks to outside sources including apps. The object here is to minimize the damage that can be done. An attacker should not be able to get into your bank account, because they breached your Twitter account. It’s time to prioritize once you’ve compartmentalized. This simply means deciding how much security you want for the different compartments which I’ll call security zones. Social networking applications like Facebook provide a lot of security features. However, security features are almost always a compromise with privacy and convenience. It’s similar to an engineering adage, but in this case it’s security, convenience, and privacy – pick two. For example, you might use a safe instead of bank to store your money, because the convenience of having your money closer or the privacy of not having the bank records is more important than the added security. The following are lists of security do’s and don’ts (these aren’t meant to be exhaustive and each could be an article in of themselves): Security Do’s: Use strong passwords based on a phrase Use encryption whenever you can (e.g. HTTPS in Facebook) Use a firewall (and learn to use it properly) Configure security on your router (including port blocking) Keep your operating system patched Make routine backups of important files Realize that if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product Security Don’ts Link accounts if at all possible Reuse passwords across your security zones Use real answers for security questions (e.g. mother’s maiden name) Trust anything you download Ignore message boxes shown by your system or browser Forget to test your backups Share your primary email indiscriminately Only you can decide your comfort level between convenience, privacy, and security. Attackers are going to find exploits in software. Software is complex and depends on other software. The exploits are the responsibility of the software company. But your security is always your responsibility. Complete security is an illusion. But, there is plenty you can do to minimize the risk online just like you do in the physical world. Be safe and enjoy what the Internet has to offer. I expect passwords to be necessary just as long as locks.

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• Instant Rename and Rename Refactoring

  - by Petr

  During the last weeks I have got  a few questions about rename refactoring and some users also complain to me that the refactoring in NetBeans 6.x was much faster. So I would like to explain the situation. For some people, who don't know, Instant Rename action and Rename Refactoring  can look like one action. But it's not true, even if  both actions use the same shortcut (CTRL + R). NetBeans 6.x contained only Instant Rename action (speaking about PHP support), which we can mark as very simple rename refactoring through one file. From NetBeans 7.0 the Instant Rename action works only in "non public" context. It means that this action is used for fast renaming variables that has local context like inside a method, or for renaming private methods and fields that can not be used outside of the scope, where they are declared. From user point of view these two action can be simply recognized. When is after CTRL+R called Instant Rename action, then the identifier is surrounded with rectangle and you can rename it directly in the file. It's fast and simple, also the usages of this identifier are renamed in the same time as you write. The picture below shows Instant Rename action for $message identifier, that is visible only in the print_test method and due this after CTRL+R is called Instant Rename. In NetBeans 7.0, there was added Rename Refactoring that is called for public identifiers. It means for identifiers that could be used in other files. If you press CTRL+R shortcut when the caret is inside $hello identifier from the picture above, NetBeans recognizes that $hello is declared / used in a global context and calls the Rename Refactoring that brings a dialog to change the name of the identifier. From this dialog you have to preview suggested changes, through pressing Preview button and then execute the refactoring through Do Refactoring button. Yes, it's more complicated from user point of view than Instant Rename, but in Rename Refactoring NetBeans can change more files at once. It should be  the developer responsibility to decide whether the suggested changes are right and the refactoring can be executed or in some files original name should be kept. Someone can argue that he doesn't use $hello variable in any other file so Instant Rename could be used in such case. Yes it's true, but in such case NetBeans has to know all usages of all identifiers and keep this informations up to date during editing a file. I'm sure that this is not possible due to the performance problems, mainly for big projects. So the usages are computed after pressing the Preview button. And why is the Refactor button always disabled in the Rename dialog and user has to always go through the preview phase? NetBeans has API and SPI for implementing refactoring actions and this dialog is a part of this infrastructure. If you rename an identifier for example in Java, the Refactor buttons is enabled, but Java is strongly type language and you can be almost in 99% sure that the IDE will suggest the right results. In PHP as a dynamic language, we can not be sure, what NetBeans finds is only a "guess". This is why NetBeans pushes developers to preview the changes for PHP rename. I hope that I have explain it clearly. I'm open to any discussion. What I have described above is situation in NetBeans 7.0, 7.0.1 and probably it will be also in NetBeans 7.1, because there is no plan to change it. Please write your opinion here.

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