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  • Why is it that software is still easily pirated today?

    - by mohabitar
    I've always been curious about this. Now I wouldn't call myself a programmer yet, but I'm learning, so maybe the answer to this is obvious. It just seems a little hard to believe that with all of our technological advances and the billions of dollars spent on engineering the most unbelievable and mind-blowing software, we still have no other means of protecting against piracy then a "serial number/activation key". I'm sure a ton of money, maybe even billions, went into creating Windows 7 or Office and even Snow Leopard, yet I can get it for free in less than 20 minutes. Same for all of Adobe's products, which are probably the easiest. I guess my question is: can there exist a fool proof and hack proof method of protecting your software against piracy? If not realistically, how about theoretically possible? Or no matter what mechanisms these companies deploy, hackers can always find a way around it? EDIT: So apparently, the answer is no. There's pretty much no way. And so I'm sure these big companies have realized this as well. Should they adopt another sales model rather than charging a crapload for their software (I know its justified and they put a lot of hard work into their software, but its still a lot of money). Are there any alternative solutions that will benefit both the company and the user (i.e. if you purchase our product, we'll apply $X dollars to your account that will apply to future purchases from our company)?

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  • Ubuntu impossible to install: "unable to find a medium containing a live filesystem"

    - by Lorenzo
    Yes, I have read questions and answers with similar titles for this issue, which prevented me from installing Ubuntu for several MONTHS now, trying to figure it out. I have a MacBookPro with triple partition (one for Mac Snow Leopard, one for Windows 7, one for Linux) created with reFIT firmware (not BootCamp). I set up the system according to these instructions for reFIT: http://lifehacker.com/5531037/how-to-triple+boot-your-mac-with-windows-and-linux-no-boot-camp-required Now. There is a free partition ready to accept Linux into its arms, but Linux does not want to participate. Most answers to the issue "unable to find a medium containing a live filesystem" point to changing the BIOS booting system (which I don't know how to do, especially using this reFIT booting system), and to changing the socket of the USB (which does not concern me, since I am using a CD, actually I tried with a CD, then with a DVD, since a blank CD is only 700MB while the iso image file of Ubuntu is about 731MB). Anyway. This is what happens: I am in the Mac system (using the Mac partition) I insert the DVD with the burned image of Ubuntu (yes I have tried burning it again and agin on both CD and DVD blank discs). I restart the computer. When reFIT loads, I hold down the ALT key until the CD image appears. I select it, and hit Enter. A small Ubuntu icon appears at the bottom of the screen. Then a Ubuntu sign appears in the middle of the screen with small dots underneath, lighting up progressively over and over to indicate it's loading. Then everything turns black and the following message appears, at the end of a few lines of text: "unable to find medium with live file system". Please provide very practical suggestions on what to do to an unexperienced wannabe Ubuntu very patient user. Please start by saying how do I access the BIOS setup from reFIT bootup, and exactly what and why I need to try and change. (Will this mess up my reFIT bootup?) And anything else I need to do to finally be able to install Ubuntu. Thanks

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  • Can no longer boot with rEFIt and Grub on early 2006 MacBook Pro

    - by Don Quixote
    I don't know what happened to cause this. I have Snow Leopard, Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal and Windows XP SP3 on my early 2006 MacBook Pro. It is a Core Duo unit, NOT Core 2 Duo, so it is 32-bit only - Model Identifier MacBookPro1,1. I use rEFIt 0.14 for my boot menu. For some reason neither XP nor Ubuntu would boot anymore. I'd just get a black screen with a rapidly flashing underscore in the top-left corner. Having both those OSes failing to boot suggested a problem with the boot loader in my MBR. The rEFIT partition tool verified that my MBR partitions were still synced with my GPT partitions, so I rewrote my MBR partition table with fdisk while booted from Parted Magic: # fdisk /dev/sda (fdisk warns about the disk having a GPT. I press on anyway.) p (Print the existing partition table to make sure it's OK.) w (Write the old partition table back to disk. This also writes a new MBR boot loader.) After this XP would boot but Ubuntu would not, with the same symptom. Now I used update-grub while chrooted into Ubuntu from Parted Magic: # mount /dev/sda3 /mnt # mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev # mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys # mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc # chroot /mnt Chroot issues some warnings about not being able to identify some group IDs. I don't know why that happens, or whether it is a problem. At this point while I am still booted off of Parted Magic's kernel, I am running from Natty's filesystem. # update-grub Update-grub detects each of my operating systems then claims to complete successfully, but still won't boot. I asked this same question over at rEFIt's Sourceforge support forum but there have been no replies yet. I also Googled quite a bit, and see many who have the same black screen problem, but none of their situations seem quite like mine. Thanks for any help you can give me. -- Don Quixote

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  • How to Change the Cmd+Q Shortcut Key in OS X (to Stop Accidentally Closing Apps)

    - by The Geek
    If you’ve spent any time using Mac OS X, you’ve figured out that the Cmd+W shortcut key closes a window or tab, while the Cmd+Q key quits the entire app. The problem? The keys are right next to each other, and way too easy to accidentally hit! Here’s how to change it. This problem is compounded even more when you’re using an application like Google Chrome, Safari, or Firefox, where you’re opening or closing tabs all the time, and probably using the Cmd+W key to close just the current tab. If you aren’t careful, you’ll accidentally hit Cmd+Q instead, and your entire browser gets closed. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC 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 HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? HTG Explains: Why Does Photo Paper Improve Print Quality? 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 A Look Back at 2010 Through Infographics Monitor the Weather with the Weather Forecast Extension for Opera

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  • Location Change Salary Differences [closed]

    - by GameDev
    DISCLAIMER: I know that this might be a "regional" question but I'm also asking for help as far as what resources to use to determine my decision. I'm currently talking to a recruiter for a game developer in the SF Bay area. I work in a relatively low-cost area in the south. I really want to get into game development but my current career is general web development. I'm very interested in taking the job, but my concern is that the amount they're willing to pay might be a relative pay cut. Here are some factors: It's not an entry-level position, the title is Senior Software Engineer. I have 5+ years of experience. The calculators online tell me that I should be expecting around 2x my current pay rate(http://www.bestplaces.net/col/). My current pay is in the mid $60k/yr, so that's like 120-130k. The recruiter told me at my experience level I can expect about $90-100/yr, and that those cost of living calculators were way off. The benefits will definitely be better, it's much larger company (help with commuting, catered meals, etc). But is the recruiter trying to give me a snow job on the pay scale, or is that a reasonable change from a smallish town in the south to somewhere in the SF bay area? How can I find this out? Glassdoor and Payscale seem to say "senior software developers" in that area make around 110 in median salary, but Payscale says it's closer to $135k, that range seems pretty large.

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  • A Look Back at 2010 Predictions

    - by David Dorf
    Now is the time of year people make their predictions for next year, but before I start thinking about 2011 it's worth a look back to see how my predictions for 2010 fared. 1. Borders and Blockbuster bite the dust. I would have never predicted a strong brand such as Circuit City could die, but now I know it can happen to anyone. Borders has lost the battle with Barnes & Noble and Blockbuster has lost to Netflix. And just to be sure, Amazon put an extra nail in each coffin. Borders received additional investment from Bennett LeBow to keep it afloat, but the stock is down around $1.25 with no profits in sight. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy back in September. 2. Every retailer finally has a page on Facebook... but very few figure out how to keep fans engaged. Retailer postings become noise, and fans start to unsubscribe. Twitter goes in the same direction. A few standout retailers will figure out how to use social media, and the rest will remain dumbfounded. Most retailers are on the Facebook bandwagon, and their fan bases seem to be increasing thanks to promotions like The Gap's logo redesign, Lowes' black Friday sneak peak, and Walmart's Crowd Savers. There are several examples of f-commerce advancements, including some interesting integrations from Amazon.3. Smartphones consolidate and grow. More and more people will step-up to smartphones, most of which will choose iPhone, Blackberry, and Android phones. Other smartphones will vanish, and networks will start to strain. But retailers will finally embrace mobile as the next big channel. Retail marketing departments will build mobile apps without the help of their IT department, and eventually they will get into a bind. Android has been on a tear lately stealing market share from Blackberry. Palm and Microsoft are trending down, and Apple is holding steady. Smartphone sales are up 15% and expected to continue. Retailers understand the importance of mobile, and some innovative applications have been produced this year. 4. Google helps the little guys. Google will push its Favorite Places project to help give exposure to small retailers and restaurants. They will enable small retailers to act like big ones by providing storefronts, detailed product information, and coupons for consumers. Google will find a way to bring augmented reality to the masses. I can't say I've seen much new from Google regarding Favorite Places, but they've continued to push local product search. From the PC or smartphone, consumers can search for products and see which nearby stores have it stock. Oracle Retail even productized an integration to Google to support this effort. I suppose if Google ever buys Groupon then it will bring them even closer to local shopping. Google talked about augmented humanity, but that has nothing to do with augmented reality. 5. Steve Jobs Is Bugs Bunny and Steve Ballmer is Elmer Fudd. (OK, I stole that headline from an InformationWeek article. I couldn't resist.) Both Apple and Microsoft will continue to open new stores, but only Apple will show real growth. POSReady 2009 (formerly WEPOS) will continue to share the POS market with Linux. The iPhone and iPod will continue to capture market share, but there won't be an Apple tablet. There won't be an Apple tablet? What was I thinking? While Apple has well over 300 stores, there are less than 10 Microsoft stores. Initial impressions show that even though Microsoft is locating its store near Apple Stores, they are not converting customers, with shoppers citing a lack of assortment and high prices. 6. Consolidation of e-commerce software providers. Software vendors in the areas of search, reviews, online call-centers, payments, and e-commerce will consolidate, partly driven by the success of m-commerce and SaaS. Amazon will find someone else to buy, and eBay will continue to lose momentum. Consolidation of e-commerce providers continued with IBM acquiring Sterling Commerce and CoreMetrics, and Oracle recently announcing the acquisition of ATG. Amazon grabbed Zappos, Woot, and Diapers.com to continue its dominance of online selling. While eBay's Marketplace growth may have slowed, its PayPal division is doing quite well, fueled in part by demand for mobile payments. 7. Book publishers mirror music labels. Just as the iPod brought digital downloads to the masses, the Kindle and Nook will power the e-book revolution. Books will continue to use DRM for a few more years before following the path of music. Publishers will try to preserve the margins of hardbacks by associating e-book releases with paperbacks. Amazon has done a good job providing e-reader clients for smartphones, PCs, and tablets. Competition from Barnes & Noble has forced Amazon to support book loaning, and both companies are making it easier for people to publish ebooks (with or without DRM). Progress is slow but steady. 8. NFC makes inroads, RFID treads water. Near Field Communications start to appear in mobile phones, and retailers beta test its use for payments and loyalty programs. RFID tag costs come down a bit, but not enough to spur accelerated adoption.Nokia announced plans to offer NFC-enabled phones in 2011, and rumors are swirling about NFC in the upcoming iPhone.  I think NFC is heading in the right direction, and I've heard more interest from retailers about specialized uses for RFID.9. Digital Signage goes the way of augmented reality. People use their camera phones to leave geo-tagged notes all over cities, rating stores and restaurants, and "painting" graffiti. But people get tired of holding their phones in front of their faces, so AR glasses are offered in much the same way bluetooth headsets emerged. Retailers experiement with in-store advertising using AR. Several retailers like Pizza Hut, Benetton, and Target have experimented with AR but its still somewhat of a gimmick used by marketing.  I think this prediction is a year or two too early. 10. JDA flip-flops again. After announcing their embracing of the .Net architecture, then switching to J2EE after the Manugistics acquisition, JDA will finally decide to standardize on Apple's Objective C. Everything will be ported to the iPhone and be available on the AppStore. After all, there's not much left to try. This was, of course, a joke but the sentiment is still valid.  JDA seems more supply-chain focused than retail focused, which is a an outcrop if their i2 acquisition.  Of the 10 predictions, I'm going to say I got 6 somewhat correct.  (Don't you just love grading your own paper?)  Soon I'll post my predictions for 2011 so be on the lookout.  Until then here's one more prediction:  Va Tech beats Stanford in the Orange Bowl -- count on it!

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  • Underwriting in a New Frontier: Spurring Innovation

    - by [email protected]
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* 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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} Susan Keuer, product strategy manager for Oracle Insurance, shares her experiences and insight from the 2010 Association of Home Office Underwriters (AHOU) Annual Conference, April 11-14, in San Antonio, Texas    How can I be more innovative in underwriting?  It's a common question I hear from insurance carriers, producers and others, so it was no surprise that it was the key theme at the recent 2010 AHOU Annual Conference.  This year's event drew more than 900 insurance professionals involved in the underwriting process across life and annuities, property and casualty and reinsurance from around the globe, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, Bahamas, and more, to San Antonio - a Texas city where innovation transformed a series of downtown drainage canals into its premiere River Walk tourist destination.   CNN's Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta kicked off the conference with a phenomenal opening session that drove home the theme of the conference, "Underwriting in a New Frontier:  Spurring Innovation."   Drawing from his own experience as a neurosurgeon treating critically injured medical patients in the field in Iraq, Gupta inspired audience members to think outside the box during the underwriting process. He shared a compelling story of operating on a soldier who had suffered a head-related trauma in a field hospital.  With minimal supplies available Gupta used a Black and Decker saw to operate on the soldier's head and reduce pressure on his swelling brain. Drawing from this example, Gupta encouraged underwriters to think creatively, be innovative, and consider new tools and sources of information, such as social networking sites, during the underwriting process. So as you are looking at risk take into consideration all resources you have available.    Gupta also stressed the concept of IKIGAI - noting that individuals who believe that their life is worth living are less likely to die than are their counterparts without this belief.  How does one quantify this approach to life or thought process when evaluating risk?  Could this be something to consider as a "category" in the near future? How can this same belief in your own work spur innovation?   The role of technology was a hot topic of discussion throughout the conference.  Sessions delved into the latest in underwriting software to the rise of social media and how it is being increasingly integrated into underwriting process and solutions.  In one session a trio of panelists representing the carrier, producer and vendor communities stressed the importance to underwriters of leveraging new technology and the plethora of online information sources, which all could be used to accurately, honestly and consistently evaluate the risk throughout the underwriting process.   Another focused on the explosion of social media noting:  1.    Social media is growing exponentially - About eight percent of Americans used social media five years ago. Today about 46 percent of Americans do so, with 85 percent of financial services professionals using social media in their work.  2.    It will impact your business - Underwriters reconfirmed over and over that they are increasingly using "free" tools that are available in cyberspace in lieu of more costly solutions, such as inspection reports conducted by individuals in the field.  3.    Information is instantly available on the Web, anytime, anywhere - LinkedIn was mentioned as a way to connect to peers in the underwriting community and producers alike.  Many carriers and agents also are using Facebook to promote their company to customers - and as a point-of-entry to allow them to perform some functionality - such as accessing product marketing information versus directing users to go to the carrier's own proprietary website.  Other carriers have released their tight brand marketing to allow their producers to drive more business to their personal Facebook site where they offer innovative tools such as Application Capture or asking medical information in a more relaxed fashion.     Other key topics at the conference included the economy, ongoing industry consolidation, real-estate valuations as an asset and input into the underwriting process, and producer trends.  All stressed a "back to basics" approach for low cost, term products.   Finally, Connie Merritt, RN, PHN, entertained the large group of atttendees with audience-engaging insight on how to "Tame the Lions in Your Life - Dealing with Complainers, Bullies, Grump and Curmudgeon." Merritt noted "we are too busy for our own good." She shared how her overachieving personality had impacted her life.  Audience members then were asked to pick red, yellow, blue, or green shapes, without knowing that each one represented a specific personality trait.  For example, those who picked blue were the peacemakers. Those who choose yellow were social - the hint was to "Be Quiet Longer."  She then offered these "lion taming" steps:   1.    Admit It 2.    Accept It 3.    Let Go 4.    Be Present (which paralleled Gupta's IKIGAI concept)   When thinking about underwriting I encourage you to be present in the moment and think creatively, but don't be afraid to look ahead to the future and be an innovator.  I hope to see you at next year's AHOU Annual Conference, May 1-4, 2011 at The Mirage in Las Vegas, Nev.     Susan Keuer is the product strategy manager for new business underwriting.  She brings more than 20 years of insurance industry experience working with leading insurance carriers and technology companies to her role on the product strategy team for life/annuities solutions within the Oracle Insurance Global Business Unit  

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  • Expectations + Rewards = Innovation

    - by D'Arcy Lussier
    “Innovation” is a heavy word. We regard those that embrace it as “Innovators”. We describe organizations as being “Innovative”. We hold those associated with the word in high regard, even though its dictionary definition is very simple: Introducing something new. What our culture has done is wrapped Innovation in white robes and a gold crown. Innovation is rarely just introducing something new. Innovations and innovators are typically associated with other terms: groundbreaking, genius, industry-changing, creative, leading. Being a true innovator and creating innovations are a big deal, and something companies try to strive for…or at least say they strive for. There’s huge value in being recognized as an innovator in an industry, since the idea is that innovation equates to increased profitability. IBM ran an ad a few years back that showed what their view of innovation is: “The point of innovation is to make actual money.” If the money aspect makes you feel uneasy, consider it another way: the point of innovation is to <insert payoff here>. Companies that innovate will be more successful. Non-profits that innovate can better serve their target clients. Governments that innovate can better provide services to their citizens. True innovation is not easy to come by though. As with anything in business, how well an organization will innovate is reliant on the employees it retains, the expectations placed on those employees, and the rewards available to them. In a previous blog post I talked about one formula: Right Employees + Happy Employees = Productive Employees I want to introduce a new one, that builds upon the previous one: Expectations + Rewards = Innovation  The level of innovation your organization will realize is directly associated with the expectations you place on your staff and the rewards you make available to them. Expectations We may feel uncomfortable with the idea of placing expectations on our staff, mainly because expectation has somewhat of a negative or cold connotation to it: “I expect you to act this way or else!” The problem is in the or-else part…we focus on the negative aspects of failing to meet expectations instead of looking at the positive side. “I expect you to act this way because it will produce <insert benefit here>”. Expectations should not be set to punish but instead be set to ensure quality. At a recent conference I spoke with some Microsoft employees who told me that you have five years from starting with the company to reach a “Senior” level. If you don’t, then you’re let go. The expectation Microsoft placed on their staff is that they should be working towards improving themselves, taking more responsibility, and thus ensure that there is a constant level of quality in the workforce. Rewards Let me be clear: a paycheck is not a reward. A paycheck is simply the employer’s responsibility in the employee/employer relationship. A paycheck will never be the key motivator to drive innovation. Offering employees something over and above their required compensation can spur them to greater performance and achievement. Working in the food service industry, this tactic was used again and again: whoever has the highest sales over lunch will receive a free lunch/gift certificate/entry into a draw/etc. There was something to strive for, to try beyond the baseline of what our serving jobs were. It was through this that innovative sales techniques would be tried and honed, with key servers being top sellers time and time again. At a code camp I spoke at, I was amazed to see that all the employees from one company receive $100 Visa gift cards as a thank you for taking time to speak. Again, offering something over and above that can give that extra push for employees. Rewards work. But what about the fairness angle? In the restaurant example I gave, there were servers that would never win the competition. They just weren’t good enough at selling and never seemed to get better. So should those that did work at performing better and produce more sales for the restaurant not get rewarded because those who weren’t working at performing better might get upset? Of course not! Organizations succeed because of their top performers and those that strive to join their ranks. The Expectation/Reward Graph While the Expectations + Rewards = Innovation formula may seem like a simple mathematics formula, there’s much more going under the hood. In fact there are three different outcomes that could occur based on what you put in as values for Expectations and Rewards. Consider the graph below and the descriptions that follow: Disgruntled – High Expectation, Low Reward I worked at a company where the mantra was “Company First, Because We Pay You”. Even today I still hear stories of how this sentiment continues to be perpetuated: They provide you a paycheck and a means to live, therefore you should always put them as your top priority. Of course, this is a huge imbalance in the expectation/reward equation. Why would anyone willingly meet high expectations of availability, workload, deadlines, etc. when there is no reward other than a paycheck to show for it? Remember: paychecks are not rewards! Instead, you see employees be disgruntled which not only affects the level of production but also the level of quality within an organization. It also means that you see higher turnover. Complacent – Low Expectation, Low Reward Complacency is a systemic problem that typically exists throughout all levels of an organization. With no real expectations or rewards, nobody needs to excel. In fact, those that do try to innovate, improve, or introduce new things into the organization might be shunned or pushed out by the rest of the staff who are just doing things the same way they’ve always done it. The bigger issue for the organization with low/low values is that at best they’ll never grow beyond their current size (and may shrink actually), and at worst will cease to exist. Entitled – Low Expectation, High Reward It’s one thing to say you have the best people and reward them as such, but its another thing to actually have the best people and reward them as such. Organizations with Entitled employees are the former: their organization provides them with all types of comforts, benefits, and perks. But there’s no requirement before the rewards are dolled out, and there’s no short-list of who receives the rewards. Everyone in the company is treated the same and is given equal share of the spoils. Entitlement is actually almost identical with Complacency with one notable difference: just try to introduce higher expectations into an entitled organization! Entitled employees have been spoiled for so long that they can’t fathom having rewards taken from them, or having to achieve specific levels of performance before attaining them. Those running the organization also buy in to the Entitled sentiment, feeling that they must persist the same level of comforts to appease their staff…even though the quality of the employee pool may be suspect. Innovative – High Expectation, High Reward Finally we have the Innovative organization which places high expectations but also provides high rewards. This organization gets it: if you truly want the best employees you need to apply equal doses of pressure and praise. Realize that I’m not suggesting crazy overtime or un-realistic working conditions. I do not agree with the “Glengary-Glenross” method of encouragement. But as anyone who follows sports can tell you, the teams that win are the ones where the coaches push their players to be their best; to achieve new levels of performance that they didn’t know they could receive. And the result for the players is more money, fame, and opportunity. It’s in this environment that organizations can focus on innovation – true innovation that builds the business and allows everyone involved to truly benefit. In Closing Organizations love to use the word “Innovation” and its derivatives, but very few actually do innovate. For many, the term has just become another marketing buzzword to lump in with all the other business terms that get overused. But for those organizations that truly get the value of innovation, they will be the ones surging forward while other companies simply fade into the background. And they will be the organizations that expect more from their employees, and give them their just rewards.

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  • Why do we (really) program to interfaces?

    - by Kyle Burns
    One of the earliest lessons I was taught in Enterprise development was "always program against an interface".  This was back in the VB6 days and I quickly learned that no code would be allowed to move to the QA server unless my business objects and data access objects each are defined as an interface and have a matching implementation class.  Why?  "It's more reusable" was one answer.  "It doesn't tie you to a specific implementation" a slightly more knowing answer.  And let's not forget the discussion ending "it's a standard".  The problem with these responses was that senior people didn't really understand the reason we were doing the things we were doing and because of that, we were entirely unable to realize the intent behind the practice - we simply used interfaces and had a bunch of extra code to maintain to show for it. It wasn't until a few years later that I finally heard the term "Inversion of Control".  Simply put, "Inversion of Control" takes the creation of objects that used to be within the control (and therefore a responsibility of) of your component and moves it to some outside force.  For example, consider the following code which follows the old "always program against an interface" rule in the manner of many corporate development shops: 1: ICatalog catalog = new Catalog(); 2: Category[] categories = catalog.GetCategories(); In this example, I met the requirement of the rule by declaring the variable as ICatalog, but I didn't hit "it doesn't tie you to a specific implementation" because I explicitly created an instance of the concrete Catalog object.  If I want to test the functionality of the code I just wrote I have to have an environment in which Catalog can be created along with any of the resources upon which it depends (e.g. configuration files, database connections, etc) in order to test my functionality.  That's a lot of setup work and one of the things that I think ultimately discourages real buy-in of unit testing in many development shops. So how do I test my code without needing Catalog to work?  A very primitive approach I've seen is to change the line the instantiates catalog to read: 1: ICatalog catalog = new FakeCatalog();   once the test is run and passes, the code is switched back to the real thing.  This obviously poses a huge risk for introducing test code into production and in my opinion is worse than just keeping the dependency and its associated setup work.  Another popular approach is to make use of Factory methods which use an object whose "job" is to know how to obtain a valid instance of the object.  Using this approach, the code may look something like this: 1: ICatalog catalog = CatalogFactory.GetCatalog();   The code inside the factory is responsible for deciding "what kind" of catalog is needed.  This is a far better approach than the previous one, but it does make projects grow considerably because now in addition to the interface, the real implementation, and the fake implementation(s) for testing you have added a minimum of one factory (or at least a factory method) for each of your interfaces.  Once again, developers say "that's too complicated and has me writing a bunch of useless code" and quietly slip back into just creating a new Catalog and chalking any test failures up to "it will probably work on the server". This is where software intended specifically to facilitate Inversion of Control comes into play.  There are many libraries that take on the Inversion of Control responsibilities in .Net and most of them have many pros and cons.  From this point forward I'll discuss concepts from the standpoint of the Unity framework produced by Microsoft's Patterns and Practices team.  I'm primarily focusing on this library because it questions about it inspired this posting. At Unity's core and that of most any IoC framework is a catalog or registry of components.  This registry can be configured either through code or using the application's configuration file and in the most simple terms says "interface X maps to concrete implementation Y".  It can get much more complicated, but I want to keep things at the "what does it do" level instead of "how does it do it".  The object that exposes most of the Unity functionality is the UnityContainer.  This object exposes methods to configure the catalog as well as the Resolve<T> method which is used to obtain an instance of the type represented by T.  When using the Resolve<T> method, Unity does not necessarily have to just "new up" the requested object, but also can track dependencies of that object and ensure that the entire dependency chain is satisfied. There are three basic ways that I have seen Unity used within projects.  Those are through classes directly using the Unity container, classes requiring injection of dependencies, and classes making use of the Service Locator pattern. The first usage of Unity is when classes are aware of the Unity container and directly call its Resolve method whenever they need the services advertised by an interface.  The up side of this approach is that IoC is utilized, but the down side is that every class has to be aware that Unity is being used and tied directly to that implementation. Many developers don't like the idea of as close a tie to specific IoC implementation as is represented by using Unity within all of your classes and for the most part I agree that this isn't a good idea.  As an alternative, classes can be designed for Dependency Injection.  Dependency Injection is where a force outside the class itself manipulates the object to provide implementations of the interfaces that the class needs to interact with the outside world.  This is typically done either through constructor injection where the object has a constructor that accepts an instance of each interface it requires or through property setters accepting the service providers.  When using dependency, I lean toward the use of constructor injection because I view the constructor as being a much better way to "discover" what is required for the instance to be ready for use.  During resolution, Unity looks for an injection constructor and will attempt to resolve instances of each interface required by the constructor, throwing an exception of unable to meet the advertised needs of the class.  The up side of this approach is that the needs of the class are very clearly advertised and the class is unaware of which IoC container (if any) is being used.  The down side of this approach is that you're required to maintain the objects passed to the constructor as instance variables throughout the life of your object and that objects which coordinate with many external services require a lot of additional constructor arguments (this gets ugly and may indicate a need for refactoring). The final way that I've seen and used Unity is to make use of the ServiceLocator pattern, of which the Patterns and Practices team has also provided a Unity-compatible implementation.  When using the ServiceLocator, your class calls ServiceLocator.Retrieve in places where it would have called Resolve on the Unity container.  Like using Unity directly, it does tie you directly to the ServiceLocator implementation and makes your code aware that dependency injection is taking place, but it does have the up side of giving you the freedom to swap out the underlying IoC container if necessary.  I'm not hugely concerned with hiding IoC entirely from the class (I view this as a "nice to have"), so the single biggest problem that I see with the ServiceLocator approach is that it provides no way to proactively advertise needs in the way that constructor injection does, allowing more opportunity for difficult to track runtime errors. This blog entry has not been intended in any way to be a definitive work on IoC, but rather as something to spur thought about why we program to interfaces and some ways to reach the intended value of the practice instead of having it just complicate your code.  I hope that it helps somebody begin or continue a journey away from being a "Cargo Cult Programmer".

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  • External USB attached drive works in Windows XP but not in Windows 7. How to fix?

    - by irrational John
    Earlier this week I purchased this "N52300 EZQuest Pro" external hard drive enclosure from here. I can connect the enclosure using USB 2.0 and access the files in both NTFS partitions on the MBR partitioned drive when I use either Windows XP (SP3) or Mac OS X 10.6. So it works as expected in XP & Snow Leopard. However, the enclosure does not work in Windows 7 (Home Premium) either 64-bit or 32-bit or in Ubuntu 10.04 (kernel 2.6.32-23-generic). I'm thinking this must be a Windows 7 driver problem because the enclosure works in XP & Snow Leopard. I do know that no special drivers are required to use this enclosure. It is supported using the USB mass storage drivers included with XP and OS X. It should also work fine using the mass storage support in Windows 7, no? FWIW, I have also tried using 32-bit Windows 7 on both my desktop, a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 with a Pentium Dual-Core E6500 @ 2.93GHz, and on my early 2008 MacBook. I see the same failure in both cases that I see with 64-bit Windows 7. So it doesn't appear to be specific to one hardware platform. I'm hoping someone out there can help me either get the enclosure to work in Windows 7 or convince me that the enclosure hardware is bad and should be RMAed. At the moment though an RMA seems pointless since this appears to be a (Windows 7) device driver problem. I have tried to track down any updates to the mass storage drivers included with Windows 7 but have so far come up empty. Heck, I can't even figure out how to place a bug report with Microsoft since apparently the grace period for Windows 7 email support is only a few months. I came across a link to some USB troubleshooting steps in another question. I haven't had a chance to look over the suggestions on that site or try them yet. Maybe tomorrow if I have time ... ;-) I'll finish up with some more details about the problem. When I connect the enclosure using USB to Windows 7 at first it appears everything worked. Windows detects the drive and installs a driver for it. Looking in Device Manager there is an entry under the Hard Drives section with the title, Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 USB Device. When you open Windows Disk Management the first time after the enclosure has been attached the drive appears as "Not initialize" and I'm prompted to initialize it. This is bogus. After all, the drive worked fine in XP so I know it has already been initialized, partitioned, and formatted. So of course I never try to initialize it "again". (It's a 1 GB drive and I don't want to lose the data on it). Except for this first time, the drive never shows up in Disk Management again unless I uninstall the Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 USB Device entry under Hard Drives, unplug, and then replug the enclosure. If I do that then the process in the previous paragraph repeats. In Ubuntu the enclosure never shows up at all at the file system level. Below are an excerpt from kern.log and an excerpt from the result of lsusb -v after attaching the enclosure. It appears that Ubuntu at first recongnizes the enclosure and is attempting to attach it, but encounters errors which prevent it from doing so. Unfortunately, I don't know whether any of this info is useful or not. excerpt from kern.log [ 2684.240015] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22 [ 2684.393618] usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice [ 2684.395399] scsi17 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices [ 2684.395570] usb-storage: device found at 22 [ 2684.395572] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning [ 2689.390412] usb-storage: device scan complete [ 2689.390894] scsi 17:0:0:0: Direct-Access Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 ST6O PQ: 0 ANSI: 4 [ 2689.392237] sd 17:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg7 type 0 [ 2689.395269] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] 1953525168 512-byte logical blocks: (1.00 TB/931 GiB) [ 2689.395632] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off [ 2689.395636] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 11 00 00 00 [ 2689.395639] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through [ 2689.412003] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through [ 2689.412009] sde: sde1 sde2 [ 2689.455759] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through [ 2689.455765] sd 17:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI disk [ 2692.620017] usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22 [ 2707.740014] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2722.970103] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2723.200027] usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22 [ 2738.320019] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2753.550024] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2753.780020] usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22 [ 2758.810147] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2763.940142] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2764.170014] usb 1-2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22 [ 2769.200141] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2774.330137] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2774.440069] usb 1-2: USB disconnect, address 22 [ 2774.440503] sd 17:0:0:0: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery [ 2774.590023] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 23 [ 2789.710020] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2804.940020] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2805.170026] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 24 [ 2820.290019] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2835.520027] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2835.750018] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 25 [ 2840.780085] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2845.910079] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2846.140023] usb 1-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 26 [ 2851.170112] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2856.300077] usb 1-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2856.410027] hub 1-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2 [ 2856.730033] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 11 [ 2871.850017] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2887.080014] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2887.310011] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 12 [ 2902.430021] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2917.660013] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/64, error -110 [ 2917.890016] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 13 [ 2922.911623] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2928.051753] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2928.280013] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 14 [ 2933.301876] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2938.431993] usb 3-2: device descriptor read/8, error -110 [ 2938.540073] hub 3-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2 excerpt from lsusb -v Bus 001 Device 017: ID 0dc4:0000 Macpower Peripherals, Ltd Device Descriptor: bLength 18 bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 64 idVendor 0x0dc4 Macpower Peripherals, Ltd idProduct 0x0000 bcdDevice 0.01 iManufacturer 1 EZ QUEST iProduct 2 USB Mass Storage iSerial 3 220417 bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 2 wTotalLength 32 bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue 1 iConfiguration 5 Config0 bmAttributes 0xc0 Self Powered MaxPower 0mA Interface Descriptor: bLength 9 bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber 0 bAlternateSetting 0 bNumEndpoints 2 bInterfaceClass 8 Mass Storage bInterfaceSubClass 6 SCSI bInterfaceProtocol 80 Bulk (Zip) iInterface 4 Interface0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x01 EP 1 OUT bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0200 1x 512 bytes bInterval 0 Endpoint Descriptor: bLength 7 bDescriptorType 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type Bulk Synch Type None Usage Type Data wMaxPacketSize 0x0200 1x 512 bytes bInterval 0 Device Qualifier (for other device speed): bLength 10 bDescriptorType 6 bcdUSB 2.00 bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level) bDeviceSubClass 0 bDeviceProtocol 0 bMaxPacketSize0 64 bNumConfigurations 1 Device Status: 0x0001 Self Powered Update: Results using Firewire to connect. Today I recieved a 1394b 9 pin to 1394a 6 pin cable which allowed me to connect the "EZQuest Pro" via Firewire. Everything works. When I use Firewire I can connect whether I'm using Windows 7 or Ubuntu 10.04. I even tried booting my Gigabyte desktop as an OS X 10.6.3 Hackintosh and it worked there as well. (Though if I recall correctly, it also worked when using USB 2.0 and booting OS X on the desktop. Certainly it works with USB 2.0 and my MacBook.) I believe the firmware on the device is at the latest level available, v1.07. I base this on the excerpt below from the OS X System Profiler which shows Firmware Revision: 0x107. Bottom line: It's nice that the enclosure is actually usable when I connect with Firewire. But I am still searching for an answer as to why it does not work correctly when using USB 2.0 in Windows 7 (and Ubuntu ... but really Windows 7 is my biggest concern). OXFORD IDE Device 1: Manufacturer: EZ QUEST Model: 0x0 GUID: 0x1D202E0220417 Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec Connection Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec Sub-units: OXFORD IDE Device 1 Unit: Unit Software Version: 0x10483 Unit Spec ID: 0x609E Firmware Revision: 0x107 Product Revision Level: ST6O Sub-units: OXFORD IDE Device 1 SBP-LUN: Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes) Removable Media: Yes BSD Name: disk3 Partition Map Type: MBR (Master Boot Record) S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported

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  • How can I resolve this one application coming up with an "You don't have permission to use the application" error?

    - by morgant
    I've got a Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server Open Directory Master with a user who's getting Mobility & Application managed preferences from a group (the only group they're a member of). The workstation is also running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, when the user logs in and tries to run our primary application which they're explicitly allowed to run (via the group's preferences), it says "You don't have permission to use the application 'Blah'". Now, the application is added to the group's list of always allowed applications, unsigned (so a minor difference in application version or file contents shouldn't disallow it). It even lives in a subdirectory of /Applications which is in the list of folders to allow applications. I've run into this when logging this user into new workstations and the following usually works: Log them out Remove the following files from their mobile home folder on the workstation: /Library/Managed\ Preferences/, ~/.FileSync, ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist, and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist. Remove the following files from their network home folder on the server: ~/.FileSync, ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist, and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist. Log them back in on the workstation. However, this no longer resolves the issue. Their Home Sync preferences are set (on the group) to sync ~, but not the following files (manually, at login, and at logout... no background sync here): ~/.SymAVQSFile ~/NAVMac800QSFile ~/Library ~/.FileSync ~/.account Their Preferences Sync preferences are set (also on the group) to sync ~/Library & ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data, but not the following files (also manually, at login, and at logout... no background sync): ~/.SymAVQSFile ~/.Trash ~/.Trashes ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Temp ~/Library/Application Support/SyncServices ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync ~/Library/Caches ~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache ~/Library/Logs ~/Library/Mail/AvailableFeeds ~/Library/Mail/Envelope Index ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/ ~/Library/Printers ~/Library/PubSub/Database ~/Library/PubSub/Downloads ~/Library/PubSub/Feeds ~/Library/Safari/Icons.db ~/Library/Safari/HistoryIndex.sk ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates IMAP-* Exchange-* EWS-* Mac-* ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sitebarlists.plist ~/Library/Application Support/4D ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist ~/.FileSync ~/.account Even with ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist prevented from syncing during a Preferences Sync, it still seems to show up in the network home on the server frequently. Are there any other files other than ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist that contain application Managed Preferences that might be causing this one app to be showing up as not allowed? Any ideas on how ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist keeps getting sync'd back up the network home folder on the server? Update: I thought I had found a workaround this morning, but it also seemed to be extremely temporary. Basically, loking at /Library/Managed\ Preferences/[shortname]/com.apple.applicationaccess.new.plist I discovered that it didn't have an entry for the application in question, but /Library/Managed\ Preferences/[shortname]/complete.plist did. Naturally, I deleted com.apple.applicationaccess.new.plist, logged in again, and it worked... on one workstation. It failed on others, and after logging out & back in a couple more times it started failing on all of them again, even after further deletions of com.apple.applicationaccess.new.plist. Oddly, com.apple.applicationaccess.new.plist & complete.plist do both contain an entry for the application in question now, but it still says it's not allowed. Further Update: Okay, so I now have a reproducible workaround which seems to be required after every reboot of the workstation: Log in as the user (you'll discover you cannot launch the application in question). Fast User Switch to the local admin account on the workstation (we always have one on every machine). From that local admin account, run sudo mcxrefresh -n 'shortname' (logging out and back in as the user in question will not work). Fast User Switch back to the user (you'll still not be allowed to run the application). Log the user out and back in (you'll now be able to run the application in question.) Fast User Switch back to the local admin account, log it out, and log back in as the user in question. If you do all that exactly as described it'll keep working through log out & log back in, but NOT through a reboot. If, after a reboot, you try something like logging in as the local admin account, running sudo mcxrefresh -n 'shortname', logging out, then logging in as the user in question, it will NOT work. Yet Another Update We don't have any computer groups in our Open Directory, so it shouldn't be getting any conflicting settings from there. I ran sudo mcxquery -format xml -user shortname -group groupname before & after performing the aforementioned process to allow the application in question to be run and the results were identical (saved the result to files & diff'd... I'm not just guessing here). One Step Forward, Half a Step Back: When the Mac OS X 10.6.5 Server update was released, we upgraded our Open Directory Master to it as the changes included the following managed preferences fixes which I hoped might address this issue: Addresses an issue that could prevent managed preferences from being applied when a user logs in on a workstation that has been idle. Fixes an issue that could prevent administrators from bypassing client management settings on a workstation. This seemed to improve the situation slightly. The application in question now usually launches without error. If, and when it does launch with the "You don't have permission to use the application" error, logging the user out and back in seems to correct it. That said, we've since had to add a couple of applications to the user's ~/Applications/ directory and those are still prevented from launching. The workstations are running Mac OS X 10.6.4, the OD Master (which the workstations are bound to) is running Mac OS 10.6.5 Server (although there are two OD Replicas still running 10.6.4 Server), and we're using Workgroup Manager 10.6.3 (which is included with the Server Admin Tools 10.6.5 upgrade) to add the applications (unsigned, as always). This time, I've caught the following in /var/log/system.log when attempting to launch one of the allowed applications from ~/Applications: Dec 22 17:36:24 hostname parentalcontrolsd[43221]: -[ActivityTracker checkApp:csFlags:] [954:username] -- *** Incoming app appears to be masquerading as white listed app and failed signature validation: /Users/username/Applications/FileMaker Pro 5.5/FileMaker Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/FileMaker Pro. Note: This may be a valid app of a different version than what was whitelisted (on a different volume?) Dec 22 17:36:24 hostname [0x0-0xa42a42].com.filemaker.filemakerpro[43304]: launch of /Users/username/Applications/FileMaker Pro 5.5/FileMaker Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/FileMaker Pro was blocked Dec 22 17:36:24 hostname com.apple.launchd.peruser.1340[6375] ([0x0-0xa42a42].com.filemaker.filemakerpro[43304]): Exited with exit code: 255 Dec 22 17:36:24 hostname parentalcontrolsd[43221]: -[ActivityTracker(Private) _removeAppFromWhiteList:] [1362:username] -- *** Couldn't find local user record Running sudo mcxquery -format xml -user username -group groupname includes the following entry for FileMaker Pro 5.5 (and appears to include a full integration of the user's application whitelist & group's application whitelist): <dict> <key>bundleID</key> <string>com.filemaker.filemakerpro</string> <key>displayName</key> <string>FileMaker Pro</string> </dict> Note the lack of <key>appID</key><data> ... </data> which seems to specify a signed application. While whitelisted directories also appear to be correctly listed in the results, they too do not actually allow the applications to be run either. What is going on here?! Where else should I be looking?

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  • How can I resolve this one application coming up with an "You don't have permission to use the application" error?

    - by morgant
    I've got a Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server Open Directory Master with a user who's getting Mobility & Application managed preferences from a group (the only group they're a member of). The workstation is also running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, when the user logs in and tries to run our primary application which they're explicitly allowed to run (via the group's preferences), it says "You don't have permission to use the application 'Blah'". Now, the application is added to the group's list of always allowed applications, unsigned (so a minor difference in application version or file contents shouldn't disallow it). It even lives in a subdirectory of /Applications which is in the list of folders to allow applications. I've run into this when logging this user into new workstations and the following usually works: Log them out Remove the following files from their mobile home folder on the workstation: /Library/Managed\ Preferences/, ~/.FileSync, ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist, and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist. Remove the following files from their network home folder on the server: ~/.FileSync, ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist, and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist. Log them back in on the workstation. However, this no longer resolves the issue. Their Home Sync preferences are set (on the group) to sync ~, but not the following files (manually, at login, and at logout... no background sync here): ~/.SymAVQSFile ~/NAVMac800QSFile ~/Library ~/.FileSync ~/.account Their Preferences Sync preferences are set (also on the group) to sync ~/Library & ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data, but not the following files (also manually, at login, and at logout... no background sync): ~/.SymAVQSFile ~/.Trash ~/.Trashes ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Temp ~/Library/Application Support/SyncServices ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync ~/Library/Caches ~/Library/Calendars/Calendar Cache ~/Library/Logs ~/Library/Mail/AvailableFeeds ~/Library/Mail/Envelope Index ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/ ~/Library/Printers ~/Library/PubSub/Database ~/Library/PubSub/Downloads ~/Library/PubSub/Feeds ~/Library/Safari/Icons.db ~/Library/Safari/HistoryIndex.sk ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates IMAP-* Exchange-* EWS-* Mac-* ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sitebarlists.plist ~/Library/Application Support/4D ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist ~/.FileSync ~/.account Even with ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist prevented from syncing during a Preferences Sync, it still seems to show up in the network home on the server frequently. Are there any other files other than ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist that contain application Managed Preferences that might be causing this one app to be showing up as not allowed? Any ideas on how ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.MCX.plist keeps getting sync'd back up the network home folder on the server? Update: I thought I had found a workaround this morning, but it also seemed to be extremely temporary. Basically, loking at /Library/Managed\ Preferences/[shortname]/com.apple.applicationaccess.new.plist I discovered that it didn't have an entry for the application in question, but /Library/Managed\ Preferences/[shortname]/complete.plist did. Naturally, I deleted com.apple.applicationaccess.new.plist, logged in again, and it worked... on one workstation. It failed on others, and after logging out & back in a couple more times it started failing on all of them again, even after further deletions of com.apple.applicationaccess.new.plist. Oddly, com.apple.applicationaccess.new.plist & complete.plist do both contain an entry for the application in question now, but it still says it's not allowed. Further Update: Okay, so I now have a reproducible workaround which seems to be required after every reboot of the workstation: Log in as the user (you'll discover you cannot launch the application in question). Fast User Switch to the local admin account on the workstation (we always have one on every machine). From that local admin account, run sudo mcxrefresh -n 'shortname' (logging out and back in as the user in question will not work). Fast User Switch back to the user (you'll still not be allowed to run the application). Log the user out and back in (you'll now be able to run the application in question.) Fast User Switch back to the local admin account, log it out, and log back in as the user in question. If you do all that exactly as described it'll keep working through log out & log back in, but NOT through a reboot. If, after a reboot, you try something like logging in as the local admin account, running sudo mcxrefresh -n 'shortname', logging out, then logging in as the user in question, it will NOT work. Yet Another Update We don't have any computer groups in our Open Directory, so it shouldn't be getting any conflicting settings from there. I ran sudo mcxquery -format xml -user shortname -group groupname before & after performing the aforementioned process to allow the application in question to be run and the results were identical (saved the result to files & diff'd... I'm not just guessing here). One Step Forward, Half a Step Back: When the Mac OS X 10.6.5 Server update was released, we upgraded our Open Directory Master to it as the changes included the following managed preferences fixes which I hoped might address this issue: Addresses an issue that could prevent managed preferences from being applied when a user logs in on a workstation that has been idle. Fixes an issue that could prevent administrators from bypassing client management settings on a workstation. This seemed to improve the situation slightly. The application in question now usually launches without error. If, and when it does launch with the "You don't have permission to use the application" error, logging the user out and back in seems to correct it. That said, we've since had to add a couple of applications to the user's ~/Applications/ directory and those are still prevented from launching. The workstations are running Mac OS X 10.6.4, the OD Master (which the workstations are bound to) is running Mac OS 10.6.5 Server (although there are two OD Replicas still running 10.6.4 Server), and we're using Workgroup Manager 10.6.3 (which is included with the Server Admin Tools 10.6.5 upgrade) to add the applications (unsigned, as always). This time, I've caught the following in /var/log/system.log when attempting to launch one of the allowed applications from ~/Applications: Dec 22 17:36:24 hostname parentalcontrolsd[43221]: -[ActivityTracker checkApp:csFlags:] [954:username] -- *** Incoming app appears to be masquerading as white listed app and failed signature validation: /Users/username/Applications/FileMaker Pro 5.5/FileMaker Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/FileMaker Pro. Note: This may be a valid app of a different version than what was whitelisted (on a different volume?) Dec 22 17:36:24 hostname [0x0-0xa42a42].com.filemaker.filemakerpro[43304]: launch of /Users/username/Applications/FileMaker Pro 5.5/FileMaker Pro.app/Contents/MacOS/FileMaker Pro was blocked Dec 22 17:36:24 hostname com.apple.launchd.peruser.1340[6375] ([0x0-0xa42a42].com.filemaker.filemakerpro[43304]): Exited with exit code: 255 Dec 22 17:36:24 hostname parentalcontrolsd[43221]: -[ActivityTracker(Private) _removeAppFromWhiteList:] [1362:username] -- *** Couldn't find local user record Running sudo mcxquery -format xml -user username -group groupname includes the following entry for FileMaker Pro 5.5 (and appears to include a full integration of the user's application whitelist & group's application whitelist): <dict> <key>bundleID</key> <string>com.filemaker.filemakerpro</string> <key>displayName</key> <string>FileMaker Pro</string> </dict> Note the lack of <key>appID</key><data> ... </data> which seems to specify a signed application. While whitelisted directories also appear to be correctly listed in the results, they too do not actually allow the applications to be run either. What is going on here?! Where else should I be looking?

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  • Selenium RC 403 Error - Forbidden for proxy

    - by FarmBoy
    I'm trying to run Selenium RC 1.0.3 using Java 6, JUnit 4, and Eclipse on Snow Leopard. Here is my test class, from the Selenium docs: public class TestCase extends SeleneseTestCase { @Before public void before() throws Exception { setUp("http://www.google.com/", "*firefox"); } @Test public void test() { selenium.open("/"); selenium.type("q", "selenium rc"); selenium.click("btnG"); selenium.waitForPageToLoad("30000"); assertTrue(selenium.isTextPresent("Advanced search")); } } I've tried (finding various suggestions on the web) replacing *firefox with *chrome or *firefox, replacing http with https and adding selenium.start(), but none have helped, or even changed the behavior. Any ideas?

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  • Xcode duplicate symbol _main .

    - by Prithvi Raj
    I'm getting the following error in Xcode 3.2.1 on Snow Leopard 10.6.2 whenever I try to compile any iPhone application generated by Appcelerator's Titanium . However , the build error only appears when I select iPhone simulator on the architecture menu , and if I select iPhone device , I am able to run the app on my device . Further , the iPhone simulator launches successfully and executes the program directly from the Titanium environment , which uses Xcode to build . Why is this happening ? ld: duplicate symbol _main in Resources/libTitanium.a(main.o) and /Users/prithviraj/Documents/project/Final/build/iphone/build/Final.build/Debug-iphonesimulator/Final.build/Objects-normal/i386/main.o collect2: ld returned 1 exit status Command /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/usr/bin/gcc-4.2 failed with exit code 1

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  • iPhone SDK "loading" on Titanium Developer

    - by raulriera
    Hi, I have tried this question on the site of Titanium and several tweets to their account, but they either ignore me or refuse to answer. I want to start using their framework, but for some reason the iPhone SDK is always "loading" when in the "TEST & PACKAGE" tab. Have you guys found a fix for this? I have: Snow Leopard 10.6.3 Titanium Developer 1.2.1 iPhone SDK 3.2 All the certificates "blah blah" from Apple because I am able to test and deploy apps on my device using XCode. Help please :)

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  • [BUG] gc_sweep() with ruby 1.8.7

    - by kgrad
    I have a rails app being developed with mongrel 1.1.5. I can run the app and click on 3 or 4 links, but after that mongrel always crashes with an error: [BUG] gc_sweep(): unknown data type 0x0. It happens on both windows 7 and mac os x snow leopard, so it has to be something in my code, or something wrong with ruby 1.8.7 (less likely). Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a fix or likely cause? thanks edit: interestingly, it does not crash when deployed via heroku.

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  • Where is ~/.config/MonoDevelop/ for MonoDevelop

    - by jpm
    I'm using Mac Snow Lepord and can't find "~/.config/MonoDevelop/" for the life of me. I have MonoDevelop (v2.2.2) up and running already, but when I tried to set up a template the IDE started having problems. Namely, whenever I went to Monodevelop - preferences- Code Templates I would get an error saying "Argument cannont be null". I tried removing MonoDevelop from my Mac and re-installing but that doesn't appear to fix this problem so I thought if I could find the above folder maybe I could remove that. However I am not sure how to find it. I put the address directly into Mac's "finder" search box and no results were returned. Can anyone help?

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  • Setup Padrino with DataMapper and MySQL database

    - by Ivo Sabev
    Hello I am trying to setup a Padrino project using DataMapper and MySQL on my Mac OSX Snow Leopard. I have the necessary gems: dm-core data_objects do_mysql mysql (linked to my original Mac OSX installation) But when I try to start the padrino with PADRINO START from the console, I get the following error: /Users/ivolution/.bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/dm-core-0.10.2/lib/dm-core/adapters/mysql_adapter.rb:3:in `require': no such file to load -- do_mysql (LoadError) But as I said I do have do_mysql gem installed so there shouldn't be such error, I did bundle install in my project folder before trying to start Padrino. Any ideas?

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  • Macports sudo expands ~ to /var/root in python

    - by calavera
    This might be a bit dev-heavy for the site... but here goes. I installed the macports version of sudo. All is well, except for one thing. Using python 2.6 to expand ~ to the user's home directory results in a different output than the version of sudo that comes with Snow Leopard. For example consider the following python code: #expand_home_dir.py import os os.path.expanduser('~') Below are 3 different calls of the code listed above. The first call using sudo is using the Macports version because my $PATH begins with /opt/local/bin: robert$ python2.6 expand_home_dir.py /Users/robert robert$ sudo python2.6 expand_home_dir.py /var/root robert$ /usr/bin/sudo python2.6 expand_home_dir.py /Users/robert Any idea why this is happening?

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  • error when installing mysql ruby gem on OSX 10.6.3

    - by kapil.israni
    So I am getting the same issue as mentioned here - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1366746/gem-install-mysql-failure-in-snow-leopard But I haven't been able to get it fixed using the answers on this link. Here's a brief history - I had MAMP on my machine, but now I downloaded the latest MySQL from mysql.com and installed version 5.1.46 this new version runs fine and client "mysql" is able to connect and I also have XCode v3.2.1, since someone mentioned that it can cause issues. Here's the error - **Building native extensions. This could take a while... ERROR: Error installing mysql: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension. /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby extconf.rb --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config mkmf.rb can't find header files for ruby at /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/ruby.h Gem files will remain installed in /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.8.1 for inspection. Results logged to /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.8.1/ext/mysql_api/gem_make.out**

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  • NSStatusItem (cocoa) location on screen

    - by Craig
    I am trying to get the on screen location of an NSStatusItem so that I can perform a click on that area via code like below. I am doing this so that my users can press a hotkey to see the menu. event = CGEventCreateMouseEvent(NULL, kCGEventLeftMouseDown, newLocation, kCGMouseButtonLeft); CGEventPost(kCGHIDEventTap, event); CFRelease(event); Does anyone know of a way to get the location?, I have been trying ideas and searching for days and have found several ideas but none of them seem to work in leopard/snow leopard The NSStatusItem is using an NSMenu not a custom view.

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  • iPhone Simulator chrashes in NSKeyedUnarchiver after setting base SDK

    - by Florian
    Hi! I started a project in xcode (3.2 on snow leopard) with base sdk 3.1.2. Now I changed this setting to 3.0 and it compiles without a warning. There are no problems running the app on the device, but the simulator crashes on launch every time with the following exception: Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '[NSKeyedUnarchiver initForReadingWithData:]: incomprehensible archive (0x4e, 0x49, 0x42, 0x41, 0x72, 0x63, 0x68, 0x69)' I do not use the NSKeyedUnarchiver, so why is the app trying to call it? And what archive is incomprehensible? I reset the simulator before building, so there are no userDefaults or anything else around. Thanks for your help!

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  • Strange error in PDF2SWF and no file is created

    - by Corey
    I'm running Snow Leopard and using PDF2SWF via MacPorts. I tried this out using a simple PDF I made from text and it worked fine so I have a feeling this is a problem with my PDF. Here is the command I'm using: pdf2swf 2166D.pdf -o 2166D.swf It doesn't output any file but it throws these errors: Error: Illegal entry in bfchar block in ToUnicode CMap Error: Illegal entry in bfchar block in ToUnicode CMap NOTICE processing PDF page 1 (612x396:0:0) (move:0:0) Segmentation fault I couldn't find anything in teh Googs so now I come to you Stack Overflow. Thanks.

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  • TextMate suddenly highlighting all text dark red...?

    - by AP257
    I'm using TextMate on Snow Leopard, don't know much about how it works. After I hit an unknown keyboard shortcut, it suddenly decided to highlight almost all text in my Python files dark red - making all my Python virtually unreadable! I must have accidentally pressed a shortcut - but I've no idea what I did or how to turn it off, and can't find any relevant help in the manual or form. Even just 'turn off all highlighting' would do. Anyone know how to turn this highlighting off? Bit desperate!

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  • Error happening when running "rake db:create RAILS_ENV='development' "

    - by Dean
    Hi, I am getting this error in my terminal when i execute the command above, Deans-MacBook:depot dean$ rake db:create RAILS_ENV='development' (in /Users/dean/src/RailsBook/depot) Couldn't create database for {"username"=>"root", "adapter"=>"mysql", "database"=>"depot_development", "host"=>"localhost", "password"=>nil}, charset: utf8, collation: utf8_unicode_ci (if you set the charset manually, make sure you have a matching collation) In database config file i have the following: development: adapter: mysql database: depot_development username: root password: host: localhost I have the mysql gem installed and now i am unsure on what to do next. I am running snow leopard on a Macbook. Does anyone know why this error is happening? Thanks in Advance Dean

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