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• Vista stuck at "Shutting down..." screen. Any way to get verbose logging?

  - by CapBBeard

  Hi all, My home machine has been running fine for about 3 years, no problems at all. Within the last couple of weeks it's had real trouble trying to shut down. It'll get so far and then just sit there at the "Shutting down..." screen for hours. I've left it overnight, I've tried in safe mode, all to no avail. These days, I just wait for the disk activity to finish up and then hold the power button to turn it off. Feels dirty as, especially because there's a RAID involved! The hardware itself is in pretty good shape and of decent spec; Core 2 Quad, 4GB RAM, 1TB RAID 1+0, so it's not quite like a 7 year old PC coming to end of life! In the last month, hardware hasn't changed except for a new monitor. Admittedly I haven't tried unplugging the monitor but I've never heard of that preventing a shutdown. I might give it a whirl later I guess, as a last resort. I've uninstalled old apps, done updates, checked the event log, looked in device manager, uninstalled all non-present devices, disabled various non-critical devices (imaging, audio etc), unplugged peripherals, stopped non-essential services, unplugged the network, disabled the network adapter entirely, ran chkdsk, verified my RAID, the list goes on. But not a single lead. I'm pretty stumped. It could be hardware, but I have no other evidence to suggest so; when the PC is running, it runs fine. Temperatures are good, gaming is smooth as always, disk performance is fine. Event log even makes it look like the shutdown was completed (gets to the point where the event log service stops). In fact, the PC doesn't appear to realise that I cut the power to it. So my question is, does anyone know if there is a way I can get some verbose output (or a log) from shutdown to give me some idea of what is causing the issue? I'm guessing it's stuck unloading some app/driver but it would be good to get some specifics! Unless anyone has any other ideas? I suspect a reinstall would resolve the issue, however I'm looking to get a new PC built in the next month or so, and the reinstall is going to be quite a big job so I'd rather just wait until then if it comes to that. Would still be nice to get this sorted in the mean time though. Cheers!

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• How to rate-limit concurrent sessions with nginx or haproxy?

  - by bantic

  I'm currently using nginx to reverse-proxy requests from web clients that are doing long-polling to an upstream. Since we're doing long polling (as opposed to websockets), when a client connects it will make multiple http connections to the server in serial, re-establishing a connection every time the server sends it some data (or timing out and re-establishing if the server has nothing to say for 10 seconds). What I'd like to do is limit the number of concurrent web clients. Since the clients are constantly making new HTTP requests instead of keeping a single request open, it's a little tricky to count the total number of web clients (because it's not the same as total number of concurrently connected http clients). The method I've come up with is to track http requests by the originating IP address, and store the IP address somewhere with a TTL of 20 seconds. If a request comes in whose IP isn't recognized, then we check the total number of unexpired stored IP addresses; if that's less than the maximum then we allow this request through. And if a request comes in with an IP address that we can find in the look-up table that hasn't yet expired, then it is allowed through as well. All requests that are allowed through have their IPs added to the table (if not there before) and the TTL refreshed to 20 seconds again. I had actually whipped something together that worked correctly this way using nginx along with the Redis 2.0 Nginx Module (and the nginx lua module to simplify the conditional branching), using redis to store my IP addresses with a TTL (the SETEX command), and checking the table size with the DBSIZE command. This worked but the performance was horrible. nginx and redis ended up using lots of cpu and the machine could only handle a very small number of concurrent requests. The new stick-table and tracking counters that were added to Haproxy in version 1.5 (via a commission from serverfault) seem like they might be ideal to implement exactly this sort of rate limiting, because the stick-table can track IP addresses and automatically expire entries. However, I don't see an easy way to get a total count of the unexpired entries in the stick table, which would be necessary to know the number of connected web clients. I'm curious if anyone has any suggestions, for nginx or haproxy or even for something else not mentioned here that I haven't thought of yet.

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• What the best way to achieve RPO of zero and lowest possible RTO (less than 15 minutes) with SQL 2008 R2?

  - by Adrian Hope-Bailie

  We are running a payments (EFT transaction processing) application which is processing high volumes of transactions 24/7 and are currently investigating a better way of doing DB replication to our disaster recovery site. Our current and previous strategies have included using both DoubleTake and Redgate to replicate data to a warm stand-by. DoubleTake is the supported solution from the payments software vendor however their (DoubleTake's) support in South Africa is very poor. We had a few issues and simply couldn't ever resolve them so we had to give up on DoubleTake. We have been using Redgate to manually read the data from the primary site (via queries) and write to the DR site but this is: A bad solution Getting the software vendor hot and bothered whenever we have support issues as it has a tendency to interfere with the payment application which is very DB intensive. We recently upgraded the whole system to run on SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise which means we should probably be looking at using some of the built-in replication features. The server has 2 fairly large databases with a mixture of tables containing highly volatile transactional data and pretty static configuration data. Replication would be done over a WAN link to a separate physical site and needs to achieve the following objectives. RPO: Zero loss - This is transactional data with financial impact so we can't lose anything. RTO: Tending to zero - The business depends on our ability to process transactions every minute we are down we are losing money I have looked at a few of the other questions/answers but none meet our case exactly: SQL Server 2008 failover strategy - Log shipping or replication? How to achieve the following RTO & RPO with logshipping only using SQL Server? What is the best of two approaches to achieve DB Replication? My current thinking is that we should use mirroring but I am concerned that for RPO:0 we will need to do delayed commits and this could impact the performance of the primary DB which is not an option. Our current DR process is to: Stop incoming traffic to the primary site and allow all in-flight transaction to complete. Allow the replication to DR to complete. Change network routing to route to DR site. Start all applications and services on the secondary site (Ideally we can change this to a warmer stand-by whereby the applications are already running but not processing any transactions). In other words the DR database needs to, as quickly as possible, catch up with primary and be ready for processing as the new primary. We would then need to be able to reverse this when we are ready to switch back. Is there a better option than mirroring (should we be doing log-shipping too) and can anyone suggest other considerations that we should keep in mind?

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• Synchronize the same set of files to 2 different locations with 2 different programs for 2 different purposes

  - by Hedgetrimmer

  Because of stupid questionable IT policies at my not-to-be-named place of occupation, I have been (and will be, for the forseeable future) carrying on an external hard drive a unison-synchronized copy of all of my documents and code, including code which resides in some of my "dotfiles" and other code which resides in ~/bin (things I've made are there because ~/bin is in my $PATH) along with some cruft generated (and to be generated) by conscript and its related "giter8" templating system for Scala project boilerplates. Despite this, I do use a symlinking program to store all of my important dotfiles in a subdirectory. Thanks to that somewhat complicated setup, I have resorted to making a directory full of symlinks to every directory (or file, as is the case with stuff under ~/bin) that I want synchronized, and then follow = True is in my unison profile. It happens to be that this collection of odds and ends—plus an automatically-generated text file containing every package installed on my system—is everything under ~ that needs to be backed up to a remote (rsync-over-ssh) host with client-side encryption and signing from GPG. I already believe that duplicity is the most appropriate program to do that. What isn't as clear-cut is how to make duplicity use the exact same set of files when it runs a backup; it would be simple if duplicity would follow symlinks, but it does not and the manpage lists no option for enabling any such behavior. Comparing unison's file selection algorithm to duplicity's, I don't think I can write a program that could compute a ruleset for one program given one for the other. For the record, I would rather not keep the symlinks manually synchronized with duplicity file-selection rules, as they can change thanks to the above-mentioned complications regarding ~/bin. I don't think running duplicity on the external hard disk is such a good idea either; I usually keep that hard disk unmounted and unplugged in case of a power failure or other physical problem with the computer, plus I'm not sure about duplicity's performance given that: the hard disk is NTFS-formatted in order to be useable at my Windows-imprisoned place of occupation. despite being a USB 3.0 disk, my computer has no USB 3.0 ports so it acts as a USB 2.0 disk. How can I have duplicity (or is there a better program that I have overlooked?) back up the exact same set of files that is bidirectionally synchronized with my external hard disk?

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• Is there a Distributed SAN/Storage System out there?

  - by Joel Coel

  Like many other places, we ask our users not to save files to their local machines. Instead, we encourage that they be put on a file server so that others (with appropriate permissions) can use them and that the files are backed up properly. The result of this is that most users have large hard drives that are sitting mainly empty. It's 2010 now. Surely there is a system out there that lets you turn that empty space into a virtual SAN or document library? What I envision is a client program that is pushed out to users' PCs that coordinates with a central server. The server looks to users just like a normal file server, but instead of keeping entire file contents it merely keeps a record of where those files can be found among various user PCs. It then coordinates with the right clients to serve up file requests. The client software would be able to respond to such requests directly, as well as be smart enough to cache recent files locally. For redundancy the server could make sure files are copied to multiple PCs, perhaps allowing you to define groups in different locations so that an instance of the entire repository lives in each group to protect against a disaster in one building taking down everything else. Obviously you wouldn't point your database server here, but for simpler things I see several advantages: Files can often be transferred from a nearer machine. Disk space grows automatically as your company does. Should ultimately be cheaper, as you don't need to keep a separate set of disks I can see a few downsides as well: Occasional degradation of user pc performance, if the machine has to serve or accept a large file transfer during a busy period. Writes have to be propogated around the network several times (though I suspect this isn't really much of a problem, as reading happens in most places more than writing) Still need a way to send a complete copy of the data offsite occasionally, and this would make it very hard to do differentials Think of this like a cloud storage system that lives entirely within your corporate LAN and makes use of your existing user equipment. Our old main file server is due for retirement in about 2 years, and I'm looking into replacing it with a small SAN. I'm thinking something like this would be a better fit. As a school, we have a couple computer labs I can leave running that would be perfect for adding a little extra redundancy to the system. Unfortunately, the closest thing I can find is Dienst, and it's just a paper that dates back to 1994. Am I just using the wrong buzzwords in my searches, or does this really not exist? If not, is there a big downside that I'm missing?

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• Nginx, proxy passing to Apache, and SSL

  - by Vic

  I have Nginx and Apache set up with Nginx proxy-passing everything to Apache except static resources. I have a server set up for port 80 like so: server { listen 80; server_name *.example1.com *.example2.com; [...] location ~* \.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png|pdf|te?xt)$ { access_log off; expires max; add_header Pragma public; add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate"; add_header Vary: Accept-Encoding; } location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080; include /etc/nginx/conf.d/proxy.conf; } } And since we have multiple ssl sites (with different ssl certificates) I have a server{} block for each of them like so: server { listen 443 ssl; server_name *.example1.com; [...] location ~* \.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png|pdf|te?xt)$ { access_log off; expires max; add_header Pragma public; add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate"; add_header Vary: Accept-Encoding; } location / { proxy_pass https://127.0.0.1:8443; include /etc/nginx/conf.d/proxy.conf; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Port 443; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https; } } server { listen 443 ssl; server_name *.example2.com; [...] location ~* \.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png|pdf|te?xt)$ { access_log off; expires max; add_header Pragma public; add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate"; add_header Vary: Accept-Encoding; } location / { proxy_pass https://127.0.0.1:8445; include /etc/nginx/conf.d/proxy.conf; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Port 443; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https; } } First of all, I think there is a very obvious problem here, which is that I'm double-encrypting everything, first at the nginx level and then again by Apache. To make everything worse, I just started using Amazon's Elastic Load Balancer, so I added the certificate to the ELB and now SSL encryption is happening three times. That's gotta be horrible for performance. What is the sane way to handle this? Should I be forwarding https on the ELB - http on nginx - http on apache? Secondly, there is so much duplication above. Is the best method to not repeat myself to put all of the static asset handling in an include file and just include it in the server?

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• How to disable or tune filesystem cache sharing for OpenVZ?

  - by gertvdijk

  For OpenVZ, an example of container-based virtualization, it seems that host and all guests are sharing the filesystem cache. This sounds paradoxical when talking about virtualization, but this is actually a feature of OpenVZ. It makes sense too. Because only one kernel is running, it's possible to benefit from sharing the same pages of filesystem cache in memory. And while it sounds beneficial, I think a set up here actually suffers in performance from it. Here's why I think why: my machines aren't actually sharing any files on disk so I can't benefit from this feature in OpenVZ. Several OpenVZ machines are running MySQL with MyISAM tables. MyISAM relies on the system's filesystem cache for caching of data files, unlike InnoDB's buffer pool. Also some virtual machines are known to do heavy and large I/O operations on the same filesystem in the host. For example, when running cat *.MYD > /dev/null on some large database in one machine, I saw the filesystem cache lowering in another, monitored by htop. This essentially flushes all the useful filesystem cache in guests (FIFO) and so it flushes the MySQL caches in the guests. Now users are complaining that MySQL is very slow. And it is. Some simple SELECT queries take several seconds on times disk I/O is heavily used by other machines. So, simply put: Is there a way to avoid filesystem cache being wiped out by other virtual machines in container-based virtualization? Some thoughts: Choosing algorithm for flushing filesystem cache in the kernel. (possible? how?) Reserving a certain amount of pages for a single VM. (seems no option for filesystem cache type of pages that reading man vzctl) Will running MySQL on another filesystem get me anywhere? If not, I think my alternatives are: Use KVM for MySQL-MyISAM running VMs. KVM actually assigns memory to the VM and does not allow swapping out caches unless using a balloon driver. Move to InnoDB and tune the buffer pools, dirty pages, etc. This is now considered to be 'nice to have' on the long-term as not everyone responsible for administration of the system understands InnoDB. more suggestions welcome. System software: Proxmox (now 1.9, could be upgraded to 2.x). One big LV assigned for the VMs.

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• Add Machine Key to machine.config in Load Balancing environment to multiple versions of .net framework

  - by davidb

  I have two web servers behind a F5 load balancer. Each web server has identical applications to the other. There was no issue until the config of the load balancer changed from source address persistence to least connections. Now in some applications I receieve this error Server Error in '/' Application. Validation of viewstate MAC failed. If this application is hosted by a Web Farm or cluster, ensure that configuration specifies the same validationKey and validation algorithm. AutoGenerate cannot be used in a cluster. 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.Web.HttpException: Validation of viewstate MAC failed. If this application is hosted by a Web Farm or cluster, ensure that configuration specifies the same validationKey and validation algorithm. AutoGenerate cannot be used in a cluster. Source Error: The source code that generated this unhandled exception can only be shown when compiled in debug mode. To enable this, please follow one of the below steps, then request the URL: Add a "Debug=true" directive at the top of the file that generated the error. Example: or: 2) Add the following section to the configuration file of your application: Note that this second technique will cause all files within a given application to be compiled in debug mode. The first technique will cause only that particular file to be compiled in debug mode. Important: Running applications in debug mode does incur a memory/performance overhead. You should make sure that an application has debugging disabled before deploying into production scenario. How do I add a machine key to the machine.config file? Do I do it at server level in IIS or at website/application level for each site? Does the validation and decryption keys have to be the same across both web servers or are they different? Should they be different for each machine.config version of .net? I cannot find any documentation of this scenario.

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• Will spreading your servers load not just consume more recourses

  - by Saif Bechan

  I am running a heavy real-time updating website. The amount of recourses needed per user are quite high, ill give you an example. Setup Every visit The application is php/mysql so on every visit static and dynamic content is loaded. Recourses: apache,php,mysql Every second (no more than a second will just be too long) The website needs to be updated real-time so every second there is an ajax call thats updates the website. Recourses: jQuery,apache,php,mysql Avarage spending for single user (spending one minute and visited 3 pages) Apache: +/- 63 requests / responsess serving static and dynamic content (img,css,js,html) php: +/- 63 requests / responses mysql: +/- 63 requests / responses jquery: +/- 60 requests / responses Optimization I want to optimize this process, but I think that maybe it would be just the same in the end. Before implementing and testing (which will take weeks) I wanted to have some second opinions from you guys. Every visit I want to start off with having nginx in the front and work as a proxy to deliver the static content. Recources: Dynamic: apache,php,mysql Static: nginx This will spread the load on apache a lot. Every Second For the script that loads every second I want to set up Node.js server side javascript with nginx in te front. I want to set it up that jquery makes a request ones a minute, and node.js streams the data to the client every second. Recources: jQuery,nginx,node.js,mysql Avarage spending for single user (spending one minute and visited 3 pages) Nginx: 4 requests / responsess serving mostly static conetent(img,css,js) Apache: 3 requests only the pages php: 3 requests only the pages node.js: 1 request / 60 responses jquery: 1 request / 60 responses mysql: 63 requests / responses Optimization As you can see in the optimisation the load from Apache and PHP are lifted and places on nginx and node.js. These are known for there light footprint and good performance. But I am having my doubts, because there are still 2 programs extra loaded in the memory and they consume cpu. So it it better to have less programs that do the job, or more. Before I am going to spend a lot of time setting this up I would like to know if it will be worth the while.

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• nginx rewrite for /blah/(.*) /$1

  - by skrewler

  I'm migrating from mod_php to nginx. I got everything working except for this rewrite.. I'm just not familiar enough with nginx configuration to know the correct way to do this. I came up with this by looking at a sample on the nginx site. server { server_name test01.www.myhost.com; root /home/vhosts/my_home/blah; access_log /var/log/nginx/blah.access.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/blah.error.log; index index.php; location / { try_files $uri $uri/ @rewrites; } location @rewrites { rewrite ^ /index.php last; rewrite ^/ht/userGreeting.php /js/iFrame/index.php last; rewrite ^/ht/(.*)$ /$1 last; rewrite ^/userGreeting.php$ /js/iFrame/index.php last; rewrite ^/a$ /adminLogin.php last; rewrite ^/boom\/(.*)$ /boom/index.php?q=$1 last; rewrite ^favicon.ico$ favico_ry.ico last; } # This block will catch static file requests, such as images, css, js # The ?: prefix is a 'non-capturing' mark, meaning we do not require # the pattern to be captured into $1 which should help improve performance location ~* \.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)$ { # Some basic cache-control for static files to be sent to the browser expires max; add_header Pragma public; add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate"; } include php.conf; } The issue I'm having is with this rewrite: rewrite ^ht\/(.*)$ /$1 last; 99% of requests that will hit this rewrite are static files. So I think maybe it's getting sent to the static files section and that's where things are being messed up? I tried adding this but it didn't work: location ~* ^ht\/.*\.(?:ico|css|js|gif|jpe?g|png)$ { # Some basic cache-control for static files to be sent to the browser expires max; add_header Pragma public; add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate, proxy-revalidate"; } Any help would be appreciated. I know the best thing to do would be to just change the references of /ht/whatever.jpg to /whatever.jpg in the code.. but that's not an option for now.

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• MongoDB and datasets that don't fit in RAM no matter how hard you shove

  - by sysadmin1138

  This is very system dependent, but chances are near certain we'll scale past some arbitrary cliff and get into Real Trouble. I'm curious what kind of rules-of-thumb exist for a good RAM to Disk-space ratio. We're planning our next round of systems, and need to make some choices regarding RAM, SSDs, and how much of each the new nodes will get. But now for some performance details! During normal workflow of a single project-run, MongoDB is hit with a very high percentage of writes (70-80%). Once the second stage of the processing pipeline hits, it's extremely high read as it needs to deduplicate records identified in the first half of processing. This is the workflow for which "keep your working set in RAM" is made for, and we're designing around that assumption. The entire dataset is continually hit with random queries from end-user derived sources; though the frequency is irregular, the size is usually pretty small (groups of 10 documents). Since this is user-facing, the replies need to be under the "bored-now" threshold of 3 seconds. This access pattern is much less likely to be in cache, so will be very likely to incur disk hits. A secondary processing workflow is high read of previous processing runs that may be days, weeks, or even months old, and is run infrequently but still needs to be zippy. Up to 100% of the documents in the previous processing run will be accessed. No amount of cache-warming can help with this, I suspect. Finished document sizes vary widely, but the median size is about 8K. The high-read portion of the normal project processing strongly suggests the use of Replicas to help distribute the Read traffic. I have read elsewhere that a 1:10 RAM-GB to HD-GB is a good rule-of-thumb for slow disks, As we are seriously considering using much faster SSDs, I'd like to know if there is a similar rule of thumb for fast disks. I know we're using Mongo in a way where cache-everything really isn't going to fly, which is why I'm looking at ways to engineer a system that can survive such usage. The entire dataset will likely be most of a TB within half a year and keep growing.

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• What DNS server to use for dynamic load-balancing of website?

  - by Marki555

  I will have 2 servers in different datacenters (different countries) and I want to use DNS load-balancing mainly for High Availability of website hosted on those 2 servers. It is just ad tracking site, which records hit in local database and returns few lines on html code. I want to return 2 A records each time because of DNS pinning in browsers (if one server fails, browser will try second A record which it has already cached). Both servers will be acting also as DNS servers for redundancy. Now comes my proposed solution: I will use BIND and have both servers as a master for that zone. On each server there will be running script, which will periodically test availability (http) of both servers and remove IP from DNS in case of failure. Now the questions :) 1) Is BIND suitable for this solution? I think BIND performance is good and it is easy to manipulate the zone file via script. And as I will modify the zone only in case of failure/maintenance, the modifications (and thus bind reload) won't be often. 2) I plan to use TTL of 5 minutes. The website will have about 1000-3000 req/s but from distinct clients (each IP only 1-3 requests), so I think the DNS load won't be too much. I suppose their ISPs will cache the responses for those 5 mins. Is there any reason to lower the TTL even more? 3) Is my master-master approach good? Or should I make one of the servers master and the other one slave? Right now each server can monitor both itself and the other one. If only webservice fails, both DNS nodes will notice it. If the whole server fails, then the remaining DNS node will notice it and the failed node will not answer DNS queries anyway. 4) Is it a big issue when one NS server does not respond to queries? If yes, I can make a third DNS, so anytime at least 2 of them would accept queries... 5) Should I rewrite the zone file via script, or just use dynamic DNS update (for example via nsupdateutility)?

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• Troubleshooting Network Speeds -- The Age Old Inquiry

  - by John K

  I'm looking for help with what I'm sure is an age old question. I've found myself in a situation of yearning to understand network throughput more clearly, but I can't seem to find information that makes it "click" We have a few servers distributed geographically, running various versions of Windows. Assuming we always use one host (a desktop) as the source, when copying data from that host to other servers across the country, we see a high variance in speed. In some cases, we can copy data at 12MB/s consistently, in others, we're seeing 0.8 MB/s. It should be noted, after testing 8 destinations, we always seem to be at either 0.6-0.8MB/s or 11-12 MB/s. In the building we're primarily concerned with, we have an OC-3 connection to our ISP. I know there are a lot of variables at play, but I guess I was hoping the experts here could help answer a few basic questions to help bolster my understanding. 1.) For older machines, running Windows XP, server 2003, etc, with a 100Mbps Ethernet card and 72 ms typical latency, does 0.8 MB/s sound at all reasonable? Or do you think that slow enough to indicate a problem? 2.) The classic "mathematical fastest speed" of "throughput = TCP window / latency," is, in our case, calculated to 0.8 MB/s (64Kb / 72 ms). My understanding is that is an upper bounds; that you would never expect to reach (due to overhead) let alone surpass that speed. In some cases though, we're seeing speeds of 12.3 MB/s. There are Steelhead accelerators scattered around the network, could those account for such a higher transfer rate? 3.) It's been suggested that the use SMB vs. SMB2 could explain the differences in speed. Indeed, as expected, packet captures show both being used depending on the OS versions in play, as we would expect. I understand what determines SMB2 being used or not, but I'm curious to know what kind of performance gain you can expect with SMB2. My problem simply seems to be a lack of experience, and more importantly, perspective, in terms of what are and are not reasonable network speeds. Could anyone help impart come context/perspective?

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• How to prevent dual booted OSes from damaging each other?

  - by user1252434

  For better compatibility and performance in games I'm thinking about installing Windows additionally to Linux. I have security concerns about this, though. Note: "Windows" in the remaining text includes not only the OS but also any software running on it. Regardless of whether it comes included or is additionally installed, whether it is started intentionally or unintentionally (virus, malware). Is there an easy way to achieve the following requirements: Windows MUST NOT be able to kill my linux partition or my data disk neither single files (virus infection) nor overwriting the whole disk Windows MUST NOT be able to read data disk (- extra protection against spyware) Linux may or may not have access to the windows partition both Linux and Windows should have full access to the graphics card this rules out desktop VM solutions for gaming I want the manufacturer's windows graphics card driver Regarding Windows to be unable to destroy my linux install: this is not just the usual paranoia, that has happened to me in the past. So I don't accept "no ext4 driver" as an argument. Once bitten, twice shy. And even if destruction targeted at specific (linux) files is nearly impossible, there should be no way to shred the whole partition. I may accept the risk of malware breaking out of a barrier (e.g. VM) around the whole windows box, though. Currently I have a system disk (SSD) and a data disk (HDD), both SATA. I expect I have to add another disk. If i don't: even better. My CPU is a Intel Core i5, with VT-x and VT-d available, though untested. Ideas I've had so far: deactivate or hide other HDs until reboot at low level possible? can the boot loader (grub) do this for me? tiny VM layer: load windows in a VM that provides access to almost all hardware, except the HDs any ready made software solution for this? Preferably free. as I said: the main problem seems to be to provide full access to the graphics card hardware switch to cut power to disks commercial products expensive and lots of warnings against cheap home built solutions preferably all three hard disks with one switch (one push) mobile racks - won't wear of daily swapping be a problem?

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• What else can I do to secure my Linux server?

  - by eric01

  I want to put a web application on my Linux server: I will first explain to you what the web app will do and then I will tell you what I did so far to secure my brand new Linux system. The app will be a classified ads website (like gumtree.co.uk) where users can sell their items, upload images, send to and receive emails from the admin. It will use SSL for some pages. I will need SSH. So far, what I did to secure my stock Ubuntu (latest version) is the following: NOTE: I probably did some things that will prevent the application from doing all its tasks, so please let me know of that. My machine's sole purpose will be hosting the website. (I put numbers as bullet points so you can refer to them more easily) 1) Firewall I installed Uncomplicated Firewall. Deny IN & OUT by default Rules: Allow IN & OUT: HTTP, IMAP, POP3, SMTP, SSH, UDP port 53 (DNS), UDP port 123 (SNTP), SSL, port 443 (the ones I didn't allow were FTP, NFS, Samba, VNC, CUPS) When I install MySQL & Apache, I will open up Port 3306 IN & OUT. 2) Secure the partition in /etc/fstab, I added the following line at the end: tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults,rw 0 0 Then in console: mount -o remount /dev/shm 3) Secure the kernel In the file /etc/sysctl.conf, there are a few different filters to uncomment. I didn't know which one was relevant to web app hosting. Which one should I activate? They are the following: A) Turn on Source Address Verification in all interfaces to prevent spoofing attacks B) Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv4 C) Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv6 D) Do no accept ICMP redirects (we are not a router) E) Accept ICMP redirects only for gateways listed in our default gateway list F) Do not send ICMP redirects G) Do not accept IP source route packets (we are not a router) H) Log Martian Packets 4) Configure the passwd file Replace "sh" by "false" for all accounts except user account and root. I also did it for the account called sshd. I am not sure whether it will prevent SSH connection (which I want to use) or if it's something else. 5) Configure the shadow file In the console: passwd -l to lock all accounts except user account. 6) Install rkhunter and chkrootkit 7) Install Bum Disabled those services: "High performance mail server", "unreadable (kerneloops)","unreadable (speech-dispatcher)","Restores DNS" (should this one stay on?) 8) Install Apparmor_profiles 9) Install clamav & freshclam (antivirus and update) What did I do wrong and what should I do more to secure this Linux machine? Thanks a lot in advance

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• Salesforce/PHP - Bulk Outbound message (SOAP), Time out issue - See update #2

  - by Phill Pafford

  Salesforce can send up to 100 requests inside 1 SOAP message. While sending this type of Bulk Ooutbound message request my PHP script finishes executing but SF fails to accept the ACK used to clear the message queue on the Salesforce side of things. Looking at the Outbound message log (monitoring) I see all the messages in a pending state with the Delivery Failure Reason "java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Read timed out". If my script has finished execution, why do I get this error? I have tried these methods to increase the execution time on my server as I have no access on the Salesforce side: set_time_limit(0); // in the script max_execution_time = 360 ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds max_input_time = 360 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data memory_limit = 32M ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume I used the high settings just for testing. Any thoughts as to why this is failing the ACK delivery back to Salesforce? Here is some of the code: This is how I accept and send the ACK file for the imcoming SOAP request $data = 'php://input'; $content = file_get_contents($data); if($content) { respond('true'); } else { respond('false'); } The respond function function respond($tf) { $ACK = <<<ACK <?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "utf-8"?> <soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <soapenv:Body> <notifications xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2005/09/outbound"> <Ack>$tf</Ack> </notifications> </soapenv:Body> </soapenv:Envelope> ACK; print trim($ACK); } These are in a generic script that I include into the script that uses the data for a specific workflow. I can process about 25 requests (That are in 1 SOAP response) but once I go over that I get the timeout error in the Salesforce queue. for 50 requests is usually takes my PHP script 86.77 seconds. Could it be Apache? PHP? I have also tested just accepting the 100 request SOAP response and just accepting and sending the ACK the queue clears out, so I know it's on my side of things. I show no errors in the apache log, the script runs fine. I did find some info on the Salesforce site but still no luck. Here is the link. Also I'm using the PHP Toolkit 11 (From Salesforce). Other forum with good SF help Thanks for any insight into this, --Phill UPDATE: If I receive the incoming message and print the response, should this happen first regardless if I do anything else after? Or does it wait for my process to finish and then print the response? UPDATE #2: okay I think I have the problem: PHP uses the single thread processing approach and will not send back the ACK file until the thread has completed it's processing. Is there a way to make this a mutli thread process? Thread #1 - accept the incoming SOAP request and send back the ACK Thread #2 - Process the SOAP request I know I could break it up into like a DB table or flat file, but is there a way to accomplish this without doing that? I'm going to try to close the socket after the ACK submission and continue the processing, cross my fingers it will work.

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• Building a JMX client in a servlet installed on the Deployment Manager

  - by Trevor

  Hi guys, I'm building a monitoring application as a servlet running on my websphere 7 ND deployment manager. The tool uses JMX to query the deployment manager for various data. Global Security is enabled on the dmgr. I'm having problems getting this to work however. My first attempt was to use the websphere client code: String sslProps = "file:" + base +"/properties/ssl.client.props"; System.setProperty("com.ibm.SSL.ConfigURL", sslProps); String soapProps = "file:" + base +"/properties/soap.client.props"; System.setProperty("com.ibm.SOAP.ConfigURL", pp); Properties connectProps = new Properties(); connectProps.setProperty(AdminClient.CONNECTOR_TYPE, AdminClient.CONNECTOR_TYPE_SOAP); connectProps.setProperty(AdminClient.CONNECTOR_HOST, dmgrHost); connectProps.setProperty(AdminClient.CONNECTOR_PORT, soapPort); connectProps.setProperty(AdminClient.CONNECTOR_SECURITY_ENABLED, "true"); AdminClient adminClient = AdminClientFactory.createAdminClient(connectProps) ; This results in the following exception: Caused by: com.ibm.websphere.management.exception.ConnectorNotAvailableException: ADMC0016E: The system cannot create a SOAP connector to connect to host ssunlab10.apaceng.net at port 13903. at com.ibm.ws.management.connector.soap.SOAPConnectorClient.getUrl(SOAPConnectorClient.java:1306) at com.ibm.ws.management.connector.soap.SOAPConnectorClient.access$300(SOAPConnectorClient.java:128) at com.ibm.ws.management.connector.soap.SOAPConnectorClient$4.run(SOAPConnectorClient.java:370) at com.ibm.ws.security.util.AccessController.doPrivileged(AccessController.java:118) at com.ibm.ws.management.connector.soap.SOAPConnectorClient.reconnect(SOAPConnectorClient.java:363) ... 22 more Caused by: java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(Native Method) at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.doConnect(PlainSocketImpl.java:333) at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(PlainSocketImpl.java:195) at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.connect(PlainSocketImpl.java:182) at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:366) at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:519) at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:469) at java.net.Socket.<init>(Socket.java:366) at java.net.Socket.<init>(Socket.java:209) at com.ibm.ws.management.connector.soap.SOAPConnectorClient.getUrl(SOAPConnectorClient.java:1286) ... 26 more So, I then tried to do it via RMI, but adding in the sas.client.properties to the environment, and setting the connectort type in the code to CONNECTOR_TYPE_RMI. Now though I got a NameNotFoundException out of CORBA: Caused by: javax.naming.NameNotFoundException: Context: , name: JMXConnector: First component in name JMXConnector not found. [Root exception is org.omg.CosNaming.NamingContextPackage.NotFound: IDL:omg.org/CosNaming/NamingContext/NotFound:1.0] To see if it was an IBM issue, I tried using the standard JMX connector as well with the same result (substitute AdminClient for JMXConnector in the above error) * JMXServiceURL url = new JMXServiceURL("service:jmx:rmi:///jndi/JMXConnector"); Hashtable h = new Hashtable(); String providerUrl = "corbaloc:iiop:" + dmgrHost + ":" + rmiPort + "/WsnAdminNameService"; h.put(Context.PROVIDER_URL, providerUrl); // Specify the user ID and password for the server if security is enabled on server. String[] credentials = new String[] { "***", "***" }; h.put("jmx.remote.credentials", credentials); // Establish the JMX connection. JMXConnector jmxc = JMXConnectorFactory.connect(url, h); // Get the MBean server connection instance. mbsc = jmxc.getMBeanServerConnection(); At this point, in desperation I wrote a wsadmin sccript to run both the RMI and SOAP methods. To my amazement, this works fine. So my question is, why does the code not work in a servlet installed on the dmgr ? regards, Trevor

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• Does this sound like a stack overflow?

  - by Jordan S

  I think I might be having a stack overflow problem or something similar in my embedded firmware code. I am a new programmer and have never dealt with a SO so I'm not sure if that is what's happening or not. The firmware controls a device with a wheel that has magnets evenly spaced around it and the board has a hall effect sensor that senses when magnet is over it. My firmware operates the stepper and also count steps while monitoring the magnet sensor in order to detect if the wheel has stalled. I am using a timer interrupt on my chip (8 bit, 8057 acrh.) to set output ports to control the motor and for the stall detection. The stall detection code looks like this... // Enter ISR // Change the ports to the appropriate value for the next step // ... StallDetector++; // Increment the stall detector if(PosSensor != LastPosMagState) { StallDetector = 0; LastPosMagState = PosSensor; } else { if (PosSensor == ON) { if (StallDetector > (MagnetSize + 10)) { HandleStallEvent(); } } else if (PosSensor == OFF) { if (StallDetector > (GapSize + 10)) { HandleStallEvent(); } } } this code is called every time the ISR is triggered. PosSensor is the magnet sensor. MagnetSize is the number of stepper steps that it takes to get through the magnet field. GapSize is the number of steps between two magnets. So I want to detect if the wheel gets stuck either with the sensor over a magnet or not over a magnet. This works great for a long time but then after a while the first stall event will occur because 'StallDetector (MagnetSize + 10)' but when I look at the value of StallDetector it is always around 220! This doesn't make sense because MagnetSize is always around 35. So the stall event should have been triggered at like 46 but somehow it got all the way up to 220? And I don't set the value of stall detector anywhere else in my code. Do you have any advice on how I can track down the root of this problem? The ISR looks like this void Timer3_ISR(void) interrupt 14 { OperateStepper(); // This is the function shown above TMR3CN &= ~0x80; // Clear Timer3 interrupt flag } HandleStallEvent just sets a few variable back to their default values so that it can attempt another move... #pragma save #pragma nooverlay void HandleStallEvent() { ///* PulseMotor = 0; //Stop the wheel from moving SetMotorPower(0); //Set motor power low MotorSpeed = LOW_SPEED; SetSpeedHz(); ERROR_STATE = 2; DEVICE_IS_HOMED = FALSE; DEVICE_IS_HOMING = FALSE; DEVICE_IS_MOVING = FALSE; HOMING_STATE = 0; MOVING_STATE = 0; CURRENT_POSITION = 0; StallDetector = 0; return; //*/ } #pragma restore

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• hosting simple python scripts in a container to handle concurrency, configuration, caching, etc.

  - by Justin Grant

  My first real-world Python project is to write a simple framework (or re-use/adapt an existing one) which can wrap small python scripts (which are used to gather custom data for a monitoring tool) with a "container" to handle boilerplate tasks like: fetching a script's configuration from a file (and keeping that info up to date if the file changes and handle decryption of sensitive config data) running multiple instances of the same script in different threads instead of spinning up a new process for each one expose an API for caching expensive data and storing persistent state from one script invocation to the next Today, script authors must handle the issues above, which usually means that most script authors don't handle them correctly, causing bugs and performance problems. In addition to avoiding bugs, we want a solution which lowers the bar to create and maintain scripts, especially given that many script authors may not be trained programmers. Below are examples of the API I've been thinking of, and which I'm looking to get your feedback about. A scripter would need to build a single method which takes (as input) the configuration that the script needs to do its job, and either returns a python object or calls a method to stream back data in chunks. Optionally, a scripter could supply methods to handle startup and/or shutdown tasks. HTTP-fetching script example (in pseudocode, omitting the actual data-fetching details to focus on the container's API): def run (config, context, cache) : results = http_library_call (config.url, config.http_method, config.username, config.password, ...) return { html : results.html, status_code : results.status, headers : results.response_headers } def init(config, context, cache) : config.max_threads = 20 # up to 20 URLs at one time (per process) config.max_processes = 3 # launch up to 3 concurrent processes config.keepalive = 1200 # keep process alive for 10 mins without another call config.process_recycle.requests = 1000 # restart the process every 1000 requests (to avoid leaks) config.kill_timeout = 600 # kill the process if any call lasts longer than 10 minutes Database-data fetching script example might look like this (in pseudocode): def run (config, context, cache) : expensive = context.cache["something_expensive"] for record in db_library_call (expensive, context.checkpoint, config.connection_string) : context.log (record, "logDate") # log all properties, optionally specify name of timestamp property last_date = record["logDate"] context.checkpoint = last_date # persistent checkpoint, used next time through def init(config, context, cache) : cache["something_expensive"] = get_expensive_thing() def shutdown(config, context, cache) : expensive = cache["something_expensive"] expensive.release_me() Is this API appropriately "pythonic", or are there things I should do to make this more natural to the Python scripter? (I'm more familiar with building C++/C#/Java APIs so I suspect I'm missing useful Python idioms.) Specific questions: is it natural to pass a "config" object into a method and ask the callee to set various configuration options? Or is there another preferred way to do this? when a callee needs to stream data back to its caller, is a method like context.log() (see above) appropriate, or should I be using yield instead? (yeild seems natural, but I worry it'd be over the head of most scripters) My approach requires scripts to define functions with predefined names (e.g. "run", "init", "shutdown"). Is this a good way to do it? If not, what other mechanism would be more natural? I'm passing the same config, context, cache parameters into every method. Would it be better to use a single "context" parameter instead? Would it be better to use global variables instead? Finally, are there existing libraries you'd recommend to make this kind of simple "script-running container" easier to write?

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• Infinite sharing system (PHP/MySQLi)

  - by Toine Lille

  I'm working on a discount system for whichever customer shares a product and brings in new customers. Each unique visit = $0.05 off, each new customer = $0.50 off (it's a cheap product so yeah, no big numbers). When a new customer shares the site, the customer initially responsible for the new customer (if any) will get half of the new customer's discount as well. The initial customer would get a fourth for the next level and the new customer half of that, etc, creating a tree or pyramid that way that could be infinite. Initial customer ($1.35 discount: 2 new+3 visits + half of 1 new+2 visits) Visitor ($0) Visitor ($0) New customer ($0.60) Visitor ($0) Visitor ($0) Newer customer ($0) New customer ($0) Visitor ($0) The customers are saved along with their IP addresses (bin2hex(inet_pton)) in a database table (customers) with info like a unique id, e-mail address and first date/time the purchased a product (= time of registration). The shares are saved in a separate table within the same database (sharing). Each unique IP addresses that visits the site creates a new row featuring the IP address (also saved as bin2hex(inet_pton)), the id of the customer who shared it and the date/time of the visit. Sharing goes via URL, featuring a GET element containing the customer's id. Visits and new customers overlap, as visits will always occur before the new customer does. That's fine. The date/times are used just to make it a little more secure (I also use the IP along with cookies to see if people cheat the system). If an IP is already in the sharing or customer tables, it does not count and will not create a new entry. Now the problem is, how to make the infinity happen and apply the different values to it? That's all I'd need to know. It needs to calculate the discount for each customer separately, but also allow for monitoring altogether (though that's just a matter of passing all ID's through it). I figured I'd start (after the database connection) with $stmt = $con->prepare('SELECT ip,datetime FROM sharing WHERE sender=?'); $stmt->bind_param('i',$customerid); $stmt->execute(); $stmt->store_result(); $discount = $discount + ($stmt->num_rows * 0.05); $stmt->bind_result($ip,$timeofsharing); to translate all the visits to $0.05 of discount each. To check for the new customers that came from these visits, I wrote the following: while ($sql->fetch()) { $stmt2 = $con->prepare("SELECT datetime FROM users WHERE ip=?"); $stmt2->bind_param('s',$ip); $stmt2->execute(); $stmt2->store_result(); $stmt2->bind_result($timeofpurchase); Followed by a little more security comparing the datetimes: while ($stmt2->fetch()) { if (strtotime($timeofpurchase) < strtotime($timeofsharing)) { $discount = $discount + $0.50; } But this is just for the initial customer's direct results. If I'd want to check for the next level, I'd basically have to put the exact same check and loop in itself, checking each new customer the initial customer they brought to the site, and then for the next level again to check all of the newer customers, etc, etc. What to do? / Where to go? / What would be the correct practice for this? Thanks!

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• How to Create Auto Playlists in Windows Media Player 12

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you getting tired of the same old playlists in Windows Media Player? Today we’ll show you how to create dynamic auto playlists based on criteria you choose in WMP 12 in Windows 7. Auto Playlists In Library view, click on Create playlist dropdown arrow and select Create auto playlist. On the New Auto Playlist window type in a name for the playlist in the text box. Now we need to choose our criteria by which to filter your playlist. Select Click here to add criteria. For our example, we will create a playlist of songs that were added to the library in the last week from the Alternative genre. So, we will first select Date Added from the dropdown list. Many criteria will have addition options to configure. In the example below you will see that we have a few options to fine tune.   We will filter all the songs added to the library in the last 7 days. We will select Is After from the first dropdown list. Then select Last 7 Days from the second dropdown list. You can add multiple criteria to further filter your playlist. If you can’t find the criteria you are looking for, select “More” at the bottom of the dropdown list.   This will pull up a filter window with all the criteria. Select a filter and then click OK when finished.   From the Genre dropdown, we will select Alternative. If you’d like to add Pictures, Videos, or TV Shows to your auto playlists you can do so by selecting them from the dropdown list under And also include. You will then be able to select criteria for your pictures, videos, or TV shows from the dropdown list.   Finally, you can also add restrictions to your music such as the number of items, duration, or total size. We will limit the duration of our playlist to one hour by selecting Limit Total Duration To… Then type in 1 hour…Click OK.   Our library is automatically filtered and a playlist is created based on the criteria we selected. When additional songs are added to the Windows Media Player library, any of new songs that fit the criteria will automatically be added to the New Songs playlist. You can also save a copy of an auto playlist as a regular playlist. Switch to Playlists view by clicking Playlists from either the top menu or the navigation bar. Select the Play tab and then click Clear list to remove any tracks from the list pane.   Right-click on the playlist you want to save, select Add to, and then Play list. The songs from your auto playlist will appear as an Unsaved list on the list pane. Click Save list. Type in a name for your playlist. Your auto playlist will continue to change as you add or remove items from your Media Player library that meet the criteria you established. The new saved playlist we just created will stay as it is currently. Editing a Auto playlist is easy. Right-click on the playlist and select Edit. Now you are ready to enjoy your playlist. Conclusion Auto playlists are great way to keep your playlists fresh in Windows Media Player 12. Users can get creative and experiment with the wide variety of criteria to customize their listening experience. If you are new to playlists in Windows Media Player, you may want to check our our previous post on how to create custom playlists in Windows Media Player 12. Are you looking to get better sound from WMP 12? Take a look at how to improve playback using enhancements in Windows Media Player 12. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create Custom Playlists in Windows Media Player 12Fixing When Windows Media Player Library Won’t Let You Add FilesInstall and Use the VLC Media Player on Ubuntu LinuxMake Windows Media Player Automatically Open in Mini Player ModeMake VLC Player Look like Windows Media Player 10 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Error Goblin Explains Windows Error Codes Twelve must-have Google Chrome plugins Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12 Move the Mouse Pointer With Your Face Movement Using eViacam Boot Windows Faster With Boot Performance Diagnostics Create Ringtones For Your Android Phone With RingDroid

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• Looking For iPhone 4S Alternatives? Here Are 3 Smartphones You Should Consider

  - by Gopinath

  If you going to buy iPhone 4S on a two year contract in USA, Europe or Australia you may not find it expensive. But if you are planning to buy it in any other parts of the world, you will definitely feel the heat of ridiculous iPhone 4S price. In India iPhone 4S costs approximately costs $1000 which is 30% more than the price tag of an unlocked iPhone sold in USA. Personally I love iPhones as there is no match for the user experience provided by Apple as well as the wide range of really meaning applications available for iPhone. But it breaks heart to spend $1000 for a phone and I’m forced to look at alternates available in the market. Here are the four iPhone 4S alternates available in almost all the countries where we can buy iPhone 4S Google Galaxy Nexus The Galaxy Nexus is Google’s own Android smartphone manufactured by Samsung and sold under the brand name of Google Nexus. Galaxy Nexus is the pure Android phone available in the market without any bloat software or custom user interfaces like other Androids available in the market. Galaxy Nexus is also the first Android phone to be shipped with the latest version of Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. This phone is the benchmark for the rest of Android phones that are going to enter the market soon. In the words of Google this smartphone is called as “Galaxy Nexus: Simple. Beautiful. Beyond Smart.”.  BGR review summarizes the phone as This is almost comical at this point, but the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is my favourite Android device in the world. Easily replacing the HTC Rezound, the Motorola DROID RAZR, and Samsung Galaxy S II, the Galaxy Nexus champions in a brand new version of Android that pushes itself further than almost any other mobile OS in the industry. Samsung Galaxy S II The one single company that is able to sell more smartphones than Apple is Samsung. Samsung recently displaced Apple from the top smartphone seller spot and occupied it with loads of pride. Samsung’s Galaxy S II fits as one the best alternatives to Apple’s iPhone 4S with it’s beautiful design and remarkable performance. Engadget summarizes Samsung Galaxy S2 review as It’s the best Android smartphone yet, but more importantly, it might well be the best smartphone, period. Of course, a 4.3-inch screen size won’t suit everyone, no matter how stupendously thin the device that carries it may be, and we also can’t say for sure that the Galaxy S II would justify a long-term iOS user foresaking his investment into one ecosystem and making the leap to another. Nonetheless, if you’re asking us what smartphone to buy today, unconstrained by such externalities, the Galaxy S II would be the clear choice. Sometimes it’s just as simple as that. Nokia Lumia 800 Here comes unexpected Windows Phone in to the boxing ring. May be they are not as great as Androids available in the market today, but they are picking up very quickly. Especially the Nokia Lumia 800 seems to be first ever Windows Phone 7 aimed at competing serious with Androids and iPhones available in the market. There are reports that Nokia Lumia 800 is outselling all Androids in UK and few high profile tech blogs are calling it as the king of Windows Phone. Considering this phone while evaluating the alternative of iPhone 4S will not disappoint you. We assure. Droid RAZR Remember the Motorola Driod that swept entire Android market share couple of years ago? The first two version of Motorola Droids were the best in the market and they out performed almost every other Android phone those days. The invasion of Samsung Androids, Motorola lost it charm. With the recent release of Droid RAZR, Motorola seems to be in the right direction to reclaiming the prestige. Droid RAZR is the thinnest smartphone available in the market and it’s beauty is not just skin deep. Here is a review of the phone from Engadget blog the RAZR’s beauty is not only skin deep. The LTE radio, 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM make sure this sleek number is ready to run with the big boys. It kept pace with, and in some cases clearly outclassed its high-end competition. Despite its deficiencies in the display department and underwhelming battery life, the RAZR looks to be a perfectly viable alternative when considering the similarly-pricey Rezound and Galaxy Nexus Further Reading So we have seen the four alternates of iPhone 4S available in the market and I personally love to buy a Samsung smartphone if I’m don’t have money to afford an iPhone 4S. If you are interested in deep diving into the alternates, here few links that help you do more research Apple iPhone 4S vs. Samsung Galaxy Nexus vs. Motorola Droid RAZR: How Their Specs Compare by Huffington Post Nokia Lumia 800 vs. iPhone 4S vs. Nexus Galaxy: Spec Smackdown by PC World Browser Speed Test: Nokia Lumia 800 vs. iPhone 4S vs. Samsung Galaxy S II – by Gizmodo iPhone 4S vs Samsung Galaxy S II by pocket lint Apple iPhone 4S vs. Samsung Galaxy S II by techie buzz This article titled,Looking For iPhone 4S Alternatives? Here Are 3 Smartphones You Should Consider, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• Use ASP.NET 4 Browser Definitions with ASP.NET 3.5

  - by Stephen Walther

  We updated the browser definitions files included with ASP.NET 4 to include information on recent browsers and devices such as Google Chrome and the iPhone. You can use these browser definition files with earlier versions of ASP.NET such as ASP.NET 3.5. The updated browser definition files, and instructions for installing them, can be found here: http://aspnet.codeplex.com/releases/view/41420 The changes in the browser definition files can cause backwards compatibility issues when you upgrade an ASP.NET 3.5 web application to ASP.NET 4. If you encounter compatibility issues, you can install the old browser definition files in your ASP.NET 4 application. The old browser definition files are included in the download file referenced above. What’s New in the ASP.NET 4 Browser Definition Files The complete set of browsers supported by the new ASP.NET 4 browser definition files is represented by the following figure:     If you look carefully at the figure, you’ll notice that we added browser definitions for several types of recent browsers such as Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.5, Google Chrome, Opera 10, and Safari 4. Furthermore, notice that we now include browser definitions for several of the most popular mobile devices: BlackBerry, IPhone, IPod, and Windows Mobile (IEMobile). The mobile devices appear in the figure with a purple background color. To improve performance, we removed a whole lot of outdated browser definitions for old cell phones and mobile devices. We also cleaned up the information contained in the browser files. Here are some of the browser features that you can detect: Are you a mobile device? <%=Request.Browser.IsMobileDevice %> Are you an IPhone? <%=Request.Browser.MobileDeviceModel == "IPhone" %> What version of JavaScript do you support? <%=Request.Browser["javascriptversion"] %> What layout engine do you use? <%=Request.Browser["layoutEngine"] %>   Here’s what you would get if you displayed the value of these properties using Internet Explorer 8: Here’s what you get when you use Google Chrome: Testing Browser Settings When working with browser definition files, it is useful to have some way to test the capability information returned when you request a page with different browsers. You can use the following method to return the HttpBrowserCapabilities the corresponds to a particular user agent string and set of browser headers: public HttpBrowserCapabilities GetBrowserCapabilities(string userAgent, NameValueCollection headers) { HttpBrowserCapabilities browserCaps = new HttpBrowserCapabilities(); Hashtable hashtable = new Hashtable(180, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase); hashtable[string.Empty] = userAgent; // The actual method uses client target browserCaps.Capabilities = hashtable; var capsFactory = new System.Web.Configuration.BrowserCapabilitiesFactory(); capsFactory.ConfigureBrowserCapabilities(headers, browserCaps); capsFactory.ConfigureCustomCapabilities(headers, browserCaps); return browserCaps; } At the end of this blog entry, there is a link to download a simple Visual Studio 2008 project – named Browser Definition Test -- that uses this method to display capability information for arbitrary user agent strings. For example, if you enter the user agent string for an iPhone then you get the results in the following figure: The Browser Definition Test application enables you to submit a user-agent string and display a table of browser capabilities information. The browser definition files contain sample user-agent strings for each browser definition. I got the iPhone user-agent string from the comments in the iphone.browser file. Enumerating Browser Definitions Someone asked in the comments whether or not there is a way to enumerate all of the browser definitions. You can do this if you ware willing to use a little reflection and read a private property. The browser definition files in the config\browsers folder get parsed into a class named BrowserCapabilitesFactory. After you run the aspnet_regbrowsers tool, you can see the source for this class in the config\browser folder by opening a file named BrowserCapsFactory.cs. The BrowserCapabilitiesFactoryBase class has a protected property named BrowserElements that represents a Hashtable of all of the browser definitions. Here's how you can read this protected property and display the ID for all of the browser definitions: var propInfo = typeof(BrowserCapabilitiesFactory).GetProperty("BrowserElements", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance); Hashtable browserDefinitions = (Hashtable)propInfo.GetValue(new BrowserCapabilitiesFactory(), null); foreach (var key in browserDefinitions.Keys) { Response.Write("" + key); } If you run this code using Visual Studio 2008 then you get the following results: You get a huge number of outdated browsers and devices. In all, 449 browser definitions are listed. If you run this code using Visual Studio 2010 then you get the following results: In the case of Visual Studio 2010, all the old browsers and devices have been removed and you get only 19 browser definitions. Conclusion The updated browser definition files included in ASP.NET 4 provide more accurate information for recent browsers and devices. If you would like to test the new browser definitions with different user-agent strings then I recommend that you download the Browser Definition Test project: Browser Definition Test Project

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• Our Look at the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview

  - by Asian Angel

  Have you been hearing all about Microsoft’s work on Internet Explorer 9 and are curious about it? If you are wanting a taste of the upcoming release then join us as we take a look at the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview. Note: Windows Vista and Server 2008 users may need to install a Platform Update (see link at bottom for more information). Getting Started If you are curious about the systems that the platform preview will operate on here is an excerpt from the FAQ page (link provided below). There are two important points of interest here: The platform preview does not replace your regular Internet Explorer installation The platform preview (and the final version of Internet Explorer 9) will not work on Windows XP There really is not a lot to the install process…basically all that you will have to deal with is the “EULA Window” and the “Install Finished Window”. Note: The platform preview will install to a “Program Files Folder” named “Internet Explorer Platform Preview”. Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview in Action When you start the platform preview up for the first time you will be presented with the Internet Explorer 9 Test Drive homepage. Do not be surprised that there is not a lot to the UI at this time…but you can get a good idea of how Internet Explorer will act. Note: You will not be able to alter the “Homepage” for the platform preview. Of the four menus available there are two that will be of interest to most people…the “Page & Debug Menus”. If you go to navigate to a new webpage you will need to go through the “Page Menu” unless you have installed the Address Bar Mini-Tool (shown below). Want to see what a webpage will look like in an older version of Internet Explorer? Then choose your version in the “Debug Menu”. We did find it humorous that IE6 was excluded from the choices offered. Here is what the URL entry window looks like if you are using the “Page Menu” to navigate between websites. Here is the main page of the site here displayed in “IE9 Mode”…looking good. Here is the main page viewed in “Forced IE5 Document Mode”. There were some minor differences (colors, sidebar, etc.) in how the main page displayed in comparison to “IE9 Mode”. Being able to switch between modes makes for an interesting experience… As you can see there is not much to the “Context Menu” at the moment. Notice the slightly altered icon for the platform preview… “Add” an Address Bar of Sorts If you would like to use a “make-shift” Address Bar with the platform preview you can set up the portable file (IE9browser.exe) for the Internet Explorer 9 Test Platform Addressbar Mini-Tool. Just place it in an appropriate folder, create a shortcut for it, and it will be ready to go. Here is a close look at the left side of the Address Bar Mini-Tool. You can try to access “IE Favorites” but may have sporadic results like those we experienced during our tests. Note: The Address Bar Mini-Tool will not line up perfectly with the platform preview but still makes a nice addition. And a close look at the right side of the Address Bar Mini-Tool. In order to completely shut down the Address Bar Mini-Tool you will need to click on “Close”. Each time that you enter an address into the Address Bar Mini-Tool it will open a new window/instance of the platform preview. Note: During our tests we noticed that clicking on “Home” in the “Page Menu” opened the previously viewed website but once we closed and restarted the platform preview the test drive website was the starting/home page again. Even if the platform preview is not running the Address Bar Mini-Tool can still run as shown here. Note: You will not be able to move the Address Bar Mini-Tool from its’ locked-in position at the top of the screen. Now for some fun. With just the Address Bar Mini-Tool open you can enter an address and cause the platform preview to open. Here is our example from above now open in the platform preview…good to go. Conclusion During our tests we did experience the occasional crash but overall we were pleased with the platform preview’s performance. The platform preview handled rather well and definitely seemed much quicker than Internet Explorer 8 on our test system (a definite bonus!). If you are an early adopter then this could certainly get you in the mood for the upcoming beta releases! Links Download the Internet Explorer 9 Preview Platform Download the Internet Explorer 9 Test Platform Addressbar Mini-Tool Information about Platform Update for Windows Vista & Server 2008 View the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview FAQ Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Mysticgeek Blog: A Look at Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 on Windows XPMake Ctrl+Tab in Internet Explorer 7 Use Most Recent OrderRemove ISP Text or Corporate Branding from Internet Explorer Title BarWhy Can’t I Turn the Details/Preview Panes On or Off in Windows Vista Explorer?Prevent Firefox or Internet Explorer from Printing the URL on Every Page 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 Awesome Lyrics Finder for Winamp & Windows Media Player Download Videos from Hulu Pixels invade Manhattan Convert PDF files to ePub to read on your iPad Hide Your Confidential Files Inside Images Get Wildlife Photography Tips at BBC’s PhotoMasterClasses

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• March 21st Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, AJAX, Visual Studio, Silverlight

  - by ScottGu

  Here is the latest in my link-listing series. If you haven’t already, check out this month’s "Find a Hoster” page on the www.asp.net website to learn about great (and very inexpensive) ASP.NET hosting offers.  [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] ASP.NET URL Routing in ASP.NET 4: Scott Mitchell has a nice article that talks about the new URL routing features coming to Web Forms applications with ASP.NET 4.  Also check out my previous blog post on this topic. Control of Web Control ClientID Values in ASP.NET 4: Scott Mitchell has a nice article that describes how it is now easy to control the client “id” value emitted by server controls with ASP.NET 4. Web Deployment Made Awesome: Very nice MIX10 talk by Scott Hanselman on the new web deployment features coming with VS 2010, MSDeploy, and .NET 4.  Makes deploying web applications much, much easier. ASP.NET 4’s Browser Capabilities Support: Nice blog post by Stephen Walther that talks about the new browser definition capabilities support coming with ASP.NET 4. Integrating Twitter into an ASP.NET Website: Nice article by Scott Mitchell that demonstrates how to call and integrate Twitter from within your ASP.NET applications. Improving CSS with .LESS: Nice article by Scott Mitchell that describes how to optimize CSS using .LESS – a free, open source library. ASP.NET MVC Upgrading ASP.NET MVC 1 applications to ASP.NET MVC 2: Eilon Lipton from the ASP.NET team has a nice post that describes how to easily upgrade your ASP.NET MVC 1 applications to ASP.NET MVC 2.  He has an automated tool that makes this easy. Note that automated MVC upgrade support is also built-into VS 2010.  Use the tool in this blog post for updating existing MVC projects using VS 2008. Advanced ASP.NET MVC 2: Nice video talk by Brad Wilson of the ASP.NET MVC team.  In it he describes some of the more advanced features in ASP.NET MVC 2 and how to maximize your productivity with them. Dynamic Select Lists with ASP.NET MVC and jQuery: Michael Ceranski has a nice blog post that describes how to dynamically populate dropdownlists on the client using AJAX. AJAX Microsoft AJAX Minifier: We recently shipped an updated minifier utility that allows you to shrink/minify both JavaScript and CSS files – which can improve the performance of your web applications.  You can run this either manually as a command-line tool or now automatically integrate it using a Visual Studio build task.  You can download it for free here. Visual Studio VS 2010 Tip: Quickly Closing Documents: Nice blog post that describes some techniques for optimizing how windows are closed with the new VS 2010 IDE. Collpase to Definitions with Outlining: Nice tip from Zain on how to collapse your code editor to outline mode using Ctrl + M, Ctrl + O.  Also check out his post on copy/paste with outlining here. $299 VS 2010 Upgrade Offer for VS 2005/2008 Standard Users: Soma blogs about a nice VS 2010 upgrade offer you can take advantage of if you have VS 2005 or VS 2008 Standard editions.  For $299 you can upgrade to VS 2010 Professional edition. Dependency Graphics: Jason Zander (who runs the VS team) has a nice blog post that covers the new dependency graph support within VS 2010.  This makes it easier to visualize the dependencies within your application.  Also check out this video here. Layer Validation: Jason Zander has a nice blog post that talks about the new layer validation features in VS 2010.  This enables you to enforce cleaner layering within your projects and solutions.  VS 2010 Profiler Blog: The VS 2010 Profiler Team has their own blog and on it you can find a bunch of nice posts from the last few months that talk about a lot of the new features coming with VS 2010’s Profiler support.  Some really nice features coming. Silverlight Silverlight 4 Training Course: Nice free set of training courses from Microsoft that can help bring you up to speed on all of the new Silverlight 4 features and how to build applications with them.  Updated and current with the recently released Silverlight 4 RC build and tools. Getting Started with Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 Development: Nice blog post by Tim Heuer that summarizes how to get started building Windows Phone 7 applications using Silverlight.  Also check out my blog post from last week on how to build a Windows Phone 7 Twitter application using Silverlight. A Guide to What Has Changed with the Silverlight 4 RC: Nice summary post by Tim Heuer that describes all of the things that have changed between the Silverlight 4 Beta and the Silverlight 4 RC. Path Based Layout - Part 1 and Part 2: Christian Schormann has a nice blog post about a really cool new feature in Expression Blend 4 and Silverlight 4 called Path Layout. Also check out Andy Beaulieu’s blog post on this. Hope this helps, Scott

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