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  • Persisting high score table in flash game without a network. (Featuring: HttpListenerException)

    - by bearcdp
    Hi everyone, this question is very programming-centric, but it's for a game so I figured I might as well post it here. I'm doing polishing work on a GGJ '11 game because it will be shown at an indie arcade tomorrow afternoon, and they're expecting our final build in the morning. We'd like to have a high score table that displays during attract mode, but since it's Flash (Flixel) it would require some networking, Mochi, or something to keep a record of these scores. Only problem is the machine we'd be running on probably won't have network access. As a quick solution, I thought I'd just write up a dinky little high score server in C#/.NET that could take basic GET requests for submitting scores and getting the score list. We're talking REAL basic, like blocking while waiting for an incoming request, run & forget console app, etc. There's no guarantee that our .swf won't get reloaded, and we'd like the scores to persist, so this server would pretty much exists to keep a safe copy of the scores that the game can add to and request, and occasionally the server will write the scores to a flat text file. But, HttpListener is giving me Error Code 87 'The parameter is incorrect.' Have any idea what I'm doing wrong? Or better yet, am I barking up the wrong tree and missing an obviously simpler solution? This is all I've got so far in my Main(): HttpListener listener = new HttpListener(); listener.Prefixes.Add("http://localhost:66666/"); listener.Start(); The exception happens at listener.Start(); and the stack trace is: at System.Net.HttpListener.AddAllPrefixes() at System.Net.HttpListener.Start() at WOSEBCE_ScoreServer.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\Users\Michael\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\VS2010 Projects\WOSEBCE_ScoreServer\WOSEBCE_ScoreServer\Program.cs:line 24 at System.AppDomain._nExecuteAssembly(RuntimeAssembly assembly, String[] args) at System.AppDomain.ExecuteAssembly(String assemblyFile, Evidence assemblySecurity, String[] args) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.HostingProcess.HostProc.RunUsersAssembly() at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(Object state) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean ignoreSyncCtx) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state) at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

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  • Maintaining C/C++/Java skills as a web developer

    - by wwwuser
    When I was in college I learned how to program in C, C++, and Java. Currently, I'm a web developer using front end and back end technologies (HTML/CSS/JS, PHP, MYSQL). While the sorting algorithms and OOP concepts that I learned in college can be applied to web development, I'm looking for ways to keep up my knowledge of all languages. I enjoy programming in C-Style (C/C++/Java) languages and front-end/back-end technologies. Unfortunately, there aren't many options to use C-style languages to build websites. However, I would like to keep up my knowledge and skills in the languages I learned in college as I know they will continue to help me with my growth. What resources are available to keep challenging myself in C-style languages that are relevant to web development? Would contract work for C-style languages be beneficial? Are there sites that offer algorithm challenges? Any help is appreciated. I'm also interested in how others that have asked themselves this have solved this problem.

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  • How to identify web development benchmarking questions? [closed]

    - by GenericJam
    I am in my final year of college and I have to put forward some sort of thesis for my final year project. The project is a web based attendance system that I am building for the college. I have it about 70% complete in Java. After completing it in Java, the plan is for me to rewrite the server bit in Erlang and then release the bitter rivals in a head to head cage match. The idea being that there is some sort of grounds for comparison. There are a few hurdles along the way, such as me learning Erlang. I understand that a performance comparison like this isn't strictly scientific as there are many factors such as the programmer (myself); the hardware it runs on; etc... but it is meant to be a reasonable comparison of the merits of using Java vs. Erlang for web development. I need help in identifying what the relevant questions are that my project could address. Even though the project scope is fixed, I am trying to shoehorn in some worthwhile scientific inquiries.

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  • How do you plan your asynchronous code?

    - by NullOrEmpty
    I created a library that is a invoker for a web service somewhere else. The library exposes asynchronous methods, since web service calls are a good candidate for that matter. At the beginning everything was just fine, I had methods with easy to understand operations in a CRUD fashion, since the library is a kind of repository. But then business logic started to become complex, and some of the procedures involves the chaining of many of these asynchronous operations, sometimes with different paths depending on the result value, etc.. etc.. Suddenly, everything is very messy, to stop the execution in a break point it is not very helpful, to find out what is going on or where in the process timeline have you stopped become a pain... Development becomes less quick, less agile, and to catch those bugs that happens once in a 1000 times becomes a hell. From the technical point, a repository that exposes asynchronous methods looked like a good idea, because some persistence layers could have delays, and you can use the async approach to do the most of your hardware. But from the functional point of view, things became very complex, and considering those procedures where a dozen of different calls were needed... I don't know the real value of the improvement. After read about TPL for a while, it looked like a good idea for managing tasks, but in the moment you have to combine them and start to reuse existing functionality, things become very messy. I have had a good experience using it for very concrete scenarios, but bad experience using them broadly. How do you work asynchronously? Do you use it always? Or just for long running processes? Thanks.

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  • How much information can you mine out of a name?

    - by Finglas Fjorn
    While not directly related to programming, I figured that the programmers on here would be just as curious as I was about this question. Feel free to close the question if it does not meet with the guidelines. A name: first, possibly a middle, and surname. I'm curious about how much information you can mine out of a name, using publicly available datasets. I know that you can get the following with anywhere between a low-high probability (depending on the input) using US census data: 1) Gender. 2) Race. Facebook for instance, used exactly that to find out, with a decent level of accuracy, the racial distribution of users of their site (https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=205925658858). What else can be mined? I'm not looking for anything specific, this is a very open-ended question to assuage my curiousity. My examples are US specific, so we'll assume that the name is the name of someone located in the US; but, if someone knows of publicly available datasets for other countries, I'm more than open to them too. I hope this is an interesting question!

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  • Are null references really a bad thing?

    - by Tim Goodman
    I've heard it said that the inclusion of null references in programming languages is the "billion dollar mistake". But why? Sure, they can cause NullReferenceExceptions, but so what? Any element of the language can be a source of errors if used improperly. And what's the alternative? I suppose instead of saying this: Customer c = Customer.GetByLastName("Goodman"); // returns null if not found if (c != null) { Console.WriteLine(c.FirstName + " " + c.LastName + " is awesome!"); } else { Console.WriteLine("There was no customer named Goodman. How lame!"); } You could say this: if (Customer.ExistsWithLastName("Goodman")) { Customer c = Customer.GetByLastName("Goodman") // throws error if not found Console.WriteLine(c.FirstName + " " + c.LastName + " is awesome!"); } else { Console.WriteLine("There was no customer named Goodman. How lame!"); } But how is that better? Either way, if you forget to check that the customer exists, you get an exception. I suppose that a CustomerNotFoundException is a bit easier to debug than a NullReferenceException by virtue of being more descriptive. Is that all there is to it?

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  • Is there a (family of) monotonically non-decreasing noise function(s)?

    - by Joe Wreschnig
    I'd like a function to animate an object moving from point A to point B over time, such that it reaches B at some fixed time, but its position at any time is randomly perturbed in a continuous fashion, but never goes backwards. The objects move along straight lines, so I only need one dimension. Mathematically, that means I'm looking for some continuous f(x), x ? [0,1], such that: f(0) = 0 f(1) = 1 x < y ? f(x) = f(y) At "most" points f(x + d) - f(x) bears no obvious relation to d. (The function is not uniformly increasing or otherwise predictable; I think that's also equivalent to saying no degree of derivative is a constant.) Ideally, I would actually like some way to have a family of these functions, providing some seed state. I'd need at least 4 bits of seed (16 possible functions), for my current use, but since that's not much feel free to provide even more. To avoid various issues with accumulation errors, I'd prefer the function not require any kind of internal state. That is, I want it to be a real function, not a programming "function".

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  • issues with ASUS S301L ultrabooks

    - by Wuerze
    I just like to tell you what still is a Problem in Ubuntu 14.04 and should be solved for a nice experience of this distribution. Unfortunately I do not have any hints to tell you, because I am just a user and know not much about programming. Anyway, I hope it helps. 1) Intel open source Graphics issues (proprietary) -when attaching HDMI-cable the screen switches to the external monitor and it's fine, but there is no switching back unless restart with HDMI deattached -black screen appears for like 2 seconds as if I would change screen in the settings; frequency increases with intensity of driver use (i.e. videos or video games) 2) hotkeys (commonly recognised) -there is no possibility to adjust brightness with the hotkeys (Fn+F5 and Fn+F6) 3) touchscreen (commonly recognised) -the touchscreen is behaving like a mouse -configuring gestures for the multi touch screen seems to always end in disabling touch pad gestures 4) panel symbols -battery symbol has got a low accuracy while it determines accurately the energy left; only 5 steps of energy are shown by the symbol Thank you all for participating in the solution of these problems! I will stay tuned and edit this list if something has been solved.

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  • CMS and Databases vs. DIY

    - by hozza
    I have been programming for many years now, primarily in PHP and the like and would consider myself an intermediate programmer. Some of my online projects have now gone global and very widely used, i am now in deep thought about scalability etc. All of my systems so far are written in PHP, no known database structure such as MySQL etc. Instead our databases use an 'operating system style' method of storing information, files and folders if you will. We also do not use any outside/third-party software or CMS, so far this has work out extremely well. Most people, when they hear about the way we do things, criticize and say that is an idiotic idea but normally after seeing our systems in more dept are converted to our way of doing things. Is it really that bad to not use a standard databasing systems and only using the one (slightly heavier than others) language of PHP? How well on the face of it will this kind of setup scale? N.B. Our systems include things such as account and user management, documentation development and task/project managing.

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  • One good reason for a rewrite

    - by Supermighty
    I have a personal web project I cut my teeth on learning how to program. I wrote it in PHP and learned as I went. I eventually I re-factored it to use MVC and removed all mixing of php/html. Right now it has no users, save myself, and it makes no money. I have a strong desire to rewrite the entire app. Which really isn't that large of an app. I have a lot of reasons why I should not rewrite it. I know that I should move forward. It's a working app now and it will only set me back to rewrite it. But I can't shake this feeling that I would be better off using a different programming language in the long run. That I'd enjoy it more. That I'd feel comfortable with it. I feel like my one good reason to rewrite my app is that I have a gut feeling that I should. PHP seems like a hack thrown together. I want to use a language that feels more elegant to me. Any feedback you have would be welcome.

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  • Is There a Cloud Over OpenWorld?

    - by Tony Berk
    If you have been to OpenWorld in the past, you know it can be overwhelming or at least a bit "large." If this is your first time at OpenWorld, get ready! You are in for a big (or I should say HUGE) treat. The first thing you'll notice when you get to San Francisco is there are a lot of people, buses with "Oracle" posters, large exhibit halls filled with demos, games and tchotchkes from vendors with hot new solutions, and then there are the sessions. Yes, in fact there are over 2000 sessions. How can you possibly sort through 2000 sessions to find the best 20 or so for you? Which are the 1% for you? We will try to help with some insight over the next few weeks.  I'm going start at the highest level. Up in the Clouds! Since I know many people are looking for an update on The Oracle Cloud. We will drill down into the cloud and other topics for CRM and Customer Experience sessions in the next set of posts. Below is a list of some of the Oracle executive keynotes during OpenWorld highlighting The Oracle Cloud and applications related topics (the full list is here). In these sessions you will get details on Oracle's strategy and how Oracle is changing the industry to help our customers be more efficient, effective and innovative. Sunday, September 30 6:00pm - 7:00pm Larry Ellison: Hardware and Software, Engineered to Work Together: Why it's a Different Approach Tuesday, October 2 8:45am - 9:45am Thomas Kurian: The Oracle Cloud: Oracle's Cloud Platform and Application's Strategy Tuesday, October 2 3:30pm - 4:30pm Larry Ellison: The Oracle Cloud: Where Social is Built in Thursday, October 4 9:45am - 10:45am Mark Hurd: See More, Act Faster: Oracle Business Analytics We encourage you to also join the keynotes on the Oracle Database and Cloud Infrastructure and the fascinating partner keynotes, as well. Check the full list on the OpenWorld site. Oh, if you haven't registered yet, what are you waiting for? OpenWorld Registration Details.

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  • I cannot boot Ubuntu from WUBI install with windows 7, get an error message every time

    - by Tom
    i have tried several times to install ubuntu using wubi, i can't use a disc as i have a notebook computer and there is no optical drive. the download and installation all seem to work well but whenever i try to boot ubuntu at the windows 7/ubuntu menu it comes up with this error screen. I have used both the C: drive and the D: drive to install Ubuntu several times each, it's always unsuccessful. "Windows has failed to start. a recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem: Insert your windows installation disc and restart your computer Choose your language settings and then click 'next' Click repair your computer. If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance. File: \ubuntu\winboot\wubildr.mbr Status: 0xc000000F Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt." I use an ASUS x501a with windows 7. What do i do to fix this? I want to be able to dual boot Windows 7 and ubuntu. Thanks a lot :)

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  • Majoring in computer science, but i'm not to sure I'm in the right field [closed]

    - by user74340
    Throught out my high school years and first year in college, I never thought of studying computer science. I studied biology and chemistry during my first year, and I didn't like the research, nor any type of medical professionals. So I took an introductory CS course, and loved the diverse roles this field can have. So I declare CS as my major. I finished first, and second year CS courses. Then now, I'm doing my co-op(intern) as a web developer. During my first and second year, I was always just an average student. My grades is around low B. But I put so much effort to understand my course' materials. I see many brilliants peers who not only excel at what they do, but have the passion. So I always doubt myself if I don't belong in this field. I'm not good at math, I usually get Cs on my math courses. My internship (a corporate developer job) is okay. But doesn't want to work like this after my graduation). Some aspects of CS that I like is HCI. In my experience in programming, and group projects, I enjoyed designing User interface, and thinking of user experience. I'm also thinking of taking some psychology courses.. I would appreciate any criticism, or advices.

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  • Fault Handling Slides and Q&A by Vennester

    - by JuergenKress
    Fault Handling It is one thing to architect, design, and code the “happy flow” of your automated business processes and services. It is another thing to deal with situations you do not want or expect to occur in your processes and services. This session dives into fault handling in Oracle Service Bus 11g and Oracle SOA Suite 11g, based on an order-to-cash business process. Faults can be divided into business faults, technical faults, programming errors, and faulty user input. Each type of fault needs a different approach to prevent them from occurring or to deal with them. For example, apply User Experience (UX) techniques to improve the quality of your application so that faulty user input can be prevented as much as possible. This session shows and demos what patterns and techniques can be used in Oracle Service Bus and Oracle SOA Suite to prevent and handle technical faults as well as business faults. Q&A This section lists answers to the questions that were raised during the preview event. Q: Where can retries be configured in Oracle Service Bus? The retry mechanism is used to prevent faults caused by temporary glitches such as short network interruptions. A faulted message is resend (retried) and might succeed this time since the glitch has passed. Retries are an out-of-the-box feature that can be used in Oracle Service Bus and Oracle SOA Suite using the Fault Policy framework. By default, retries are disabled in Oracle Service Bus. Read the full article. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit  www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: fault handling,vennester,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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  • loss of sound in ubuntu 12.04

    - by Leo Simon
    I'm running Linux E6520 3.2.0-56-generic #86-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 23 09:20:45 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux on a Dell Latitude E6530. (This is a new machine; have run the same version of linux on an older machine for a year, without this happening.) I've been losing sound regularly, though have not been able to isolate the trigger for this. I've scoured the web on this subject, in particular https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshootingProcedure and Audio stopped working suddenly in 12.04 Nothing from the first site seemed to work for me. From the second site, I learned enough to be able to fix the problem when it happens, but nothing on the web has helped me figure out why the problem is happening in the first place. Patching together stuff from the web, and with some blind luck, I've found that the following steps seem to restore sound pulseaudio --kill pulseaudio --start pavucontrol -> output devices Click on the "Mute audio" icon, which mutes audio Click on the "Mute audio" icon, which unmutes audio. This obviously doesn't make sense: audio wasn't muted in the first place, but somehow, magically, toggling mute audio off and on seems to reset something. Can anybody suggest from this information why sound would be disappearing in the first place (it seems as though something is getting muted at the system level, but I don't know what)? a simpler (command-line/script) way of restoring sound, in particular, is it possible to reset pavucontrol from the commandline? Some other pieces of information that may be of use: The problem is clearly happening at the system level, since I've set up a clean new user, and this user has the same problems that I do. So user fixes like deleting the .pulse directory aren't (and don't) help. Sound works fine in Windows (dual-boot) so it's not a hardware problem Any help/suggestions on this would be most appreciated.

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  • Headphones not working in ubuntu 12.04LTS

    - by mursalat
    So after a million warnings about not supported ubuntu OS, last night I finally upgraded to 12.04 - went somewhat smoothly (sadly) After my installation I got all excited with the exciting new look when I login, and all the new shebang, gently I installed chrome and went to youtube to check out some of my music and test flash in the process, now the sound worked awesomely, however when I plugged in my headphones, I could hear only a buzz-like sound when the base drops or there is a loud noise, maybe I didn't hear it from the headphones, but some other source. However sadly my headphones are not working, and I am a noob at fixing these stuff on Ubuntu. I've done loads of programming but when it comes to linux drivers and settings I seem to get frustrated. So I would really appreciate any help people! IN SUMMARY: My headphones are not working, my laptop's internal speakers are working awesome. To be as helpful as I can I have pasted the output from lspci -v to http://pastebin.com/VQNzDkZs I have also checked the volume levels from alsamixer and none are on mute. If you need any more information, please just ask, and I will be checking this post every 3 to 4 hours! Cheers!

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  • Ubuntu 3D does not work on Dell system with a AMD Radeon HD 6470M

    - by VeeKay
    I am running 64 bit Ubuntu on Dell with 1GB graphic card. I login with "Ubuntu" hoping to see Unity 3d but it doesn't. Unity 2D runs instead. when I type in echo "$DESKTOP_SESSION" it confirms the Unity-2D. I've checked the System info that shows like : The graphics row shows itself as empty. SO I've presumed that the graphic drivers aren't detected and hence I went to Unity- Additional Drivers and installed the fglrx driver that the UI has suggested. Even after installing so, the graphics part in System info details shows nothing and still Unity 2D runs in spite of all the effort. Please help! How can I get my Unity 3D back? Hardware Info Video Card : AMD Radeon™ HD 6470M - 1GB (For ICC) RAM : 6GB (1 X 2GB + 1 X 4GB) 2 DIMM DDR3 1333Mhz OS : 64 bit Ubuntu 11.10 Edit : Output for /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p X Error of failed request: BadRequest (invalid request code or no such operation) Major opcode of failed request: 155 (GLX) Minor opcode of failed request: 19 (X_GLXQueryServerString) Serial number of failed request: 21 Current serial number in output stream: 21

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  • SEO questions about PR, Page Structure, and Other

    - by jasondavis
    A couple of basic questions related to SEO. 1) If I have a site that has several different niches that I am trying to promote from. Example Web Developer broke down into section of Web Design, Graphic Design, Programming, Software for SEO purposes, would it be better to use subdomains for these main sections or use the main domain with a folder like structure? 2) Is PR different for each page of a domain or ever page has a PR of the same on that domain? Also do sub-domains have a different PR? 3) When entering a hugely over saturated niche such as web-design, is it even possible to compete with the big sites that have been ranked on google #1 page for years? 4) Lastly, I have read about how important titles, link anchors, and headings are for SEO and how content is the most important. So left's say we are building a standard header, body, sidebar, footer page. In the the actual markup, would it be better to make sure the main content comes before the sidebar on the page or does this probably not make a difference? 5) I seen mentioned in another answer here that microformats can help with SEO, is there any fact behind this? Thank you for any info on this

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  • Random compositing lag

    - by user1020567
    My laptop specs: 512 mb of RAM, out of which 64 mb are shared with an integrated GPU - ATI Radeon Xpress 200 M. Intel 1,6 Ghz Celeron M single-core processor. I've spent months trying to figure out why compositing and effects sometimes lag on any distro I try. Now I've come to realise that no matter what drivers I try (the default ones work for me on pretty much any linux) compositing lag is random. When I used Ubuntu 10.10, for example, sometimes window compositing would lag and sometimes it wouldn't. The PC is able to render those effects so hardware is not the problem. It's completely random and unpredictable - sometimes when I turn on the computer the effects lag horribly and sometimes it's completely smooth. I've also checked startup items and there doesn't seem to be any unnecessary entries. I also tried building my own OS with Arch Linux and the problem persists there, therefore I can only assume that it's a driver issue of some sort. By default there are lots of drivers supplied with linux distributions. Could it be that they're in the way? The ones that I need are ati/radeon (or both? What's the difference between them?) and there seem to be a lot of others... What should I do?

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  • ubuntu 11.10 can't find wireless after waking from sleep

    - by Colleen
    I've tried a lot of proposed solutions, most of them adding files to /etc/pm/config.d, as well as WiFi stops working after waking from suspend and nothing has worked. hardware info: [colleen@colleen-HP ~]$ sudo lshw -C network [sudo] password for colleen: *-network description: Ethernet interface product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:07:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: 06 serial: 2c:27:d7:b1:ea:67 size: 10Mbit/s capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s resources: irq:41 ioport:4000(size=256) memory:c1404000-c1404fff memory:c1400000-c1403fff *-network description: Wireless interface product: Centrino Wireless-N 1000 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:0d:00.0 logical name: wlan0 version: 00 serial: 8c:a9:82:99:48:8c width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlagn driverversion=3.0.0-21-generic-pae firmware=39.31.5.1 build 35138 ip=192.168.0.4 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn resources: irq:48 memory:c5500000-c5501fff Is anyone else still having this problem? The two solutions I haven't tried are installing wicd and upgrading because I've heard both are kind of unstable/buggy and wicd frankly scares me.

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  • Web Hosting Checklist

    - by Chris
    I am a web developer that is starting to look into hosting his own website. I would like to showcase my programming skills (PHP, MySQl, C#, Wordpress). My knowledge of languages I am OK with but the actually hosting site is where my knowledge starts to get a little shaky. I know the basics (bandwidth, sub-domains, re-write rules) but I would love your input, to help me formulate a check list of certain web-hosting services that I should be on the look-out for. Also I was wondering if there were any reliable hosting providers who give you the option to host both c# code-behinds and PHP code. As I would like to have two versions of my site, one in C# and one in PHP the hope is that if I need to look for another job this website will help me show possible employers my server side knowledge. I hope this is enough info, I did some researching online but found a bunch of unless articles and I've always have had luck on the StackExchange sites. So hopefully you, can help me. Thanks alot.

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  • Web dev/programmer with 4.5 yrs experience. Better for career: self-study or master's degree? [closed]

    - by Anonymous Programmer
    I'm a 28 year-old web developer/programmer with 4.5 years of experience, and I'm looking to jump-start my career. I'm trying to decide between self-study and a 1-year master's program in CS at a top school. I'm currently making 65K in a high cost-of-living area that is NOT a hot spot for technology firms. I code almost exclusively in Ruby/Rails, PHP/CodeIgniter, SQL, and JavaScript. I've slowly gained proficiency with Git. Roughly half the time I am architecting/coding, and half the time I am pounding out HTML/CSS for static brochureware sites. I'd like to make more more money while doing more challenging/interesting work, but I don't know where to start. I have an excellent academic record (math major with many CS credits, 3.9+ GPA), GRE scores, and recommendations, so I am confident that I could be admitted to a great CS master's program. On the other hand, there is the tuition and opportunity cost to consider. I feel like there are a number of practical languages/tools/skills worth knowing that I could teach myself - shell scripting, .NET, Python, Node.js, MongoDB, natural language processing techniques, etc. That said, it's one thing to read about a subject and another thing to have experience with it, which structured coursework provides. So, on to the concrete questions: What programming skills/knowledge should I develop to increase my earning potential and make me competitive for more interesting jobs? Will a master's degree in CS from a top school help me develop the above skills/knowledge, and if so, is it preferable to self-study (possibly for other reasons, e.g., the degree's value as a credential)?

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  • What's a good way to check that a player has clicked on an object in a 3D game?

    - by imja
    I'm programming a 3D game (using C++ and OpenGL), and I have a few 3D objects in the scene, we can say they are boxes for this example. I want to let the player click on those boxes to select them (ie. they might change color) with the typical restriction like if more than one box is located where the user clicked, only the one closest to the camera would get selected. What would be the best way to do this? The fact that these objects go through several transforms before getting to window coordinates is what makes this a bit tricky. One approach I thought about was that if the player clicks on the screen, I could normalize the x,y coordinates of mouse click and then transform the bounding box coordinates of the objects into clip-space so that I could compare then to the normalized mouse coordinates. I guess I could then do some sort of ray-box collision test to see if any objects lie as the path of the mouse click. I'm afraid I might be over complicating it. Any better methods out there?

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  • Help Decide between C#/XNA client or Java

    - by Sparkky
    The game runs on a client/server architecture currently setup for TCP, and the client code was built in AS3 to be web based. What we're running into is 3 problems for the client. AS3 has no hardware acceleration so we are having some issues with slowdown when implementing some features TCP is really frustrating for a sidescroller when you're talking with a server. I'm having a heck of a time with the interpolation/extrapolation to make everyone else look smooth while minimizing lag. I would much rather be able to use UDP and throw in something similar to the age old Quake interpolation/extrapolation. No right click I work professionally with C#, and I did all my University (almost 2 years ago) with Java. Java really appeals to me because of the compatability while C# appeals to me because I've heard so much good about XNA and I love visual studio. For a Client/Server based MMOish sidescroller in your opinion should I stick with AS3 and the TCP protocol, or should I abandon some of my audience, ramp up the graphics and hit C#, or journey back to the land of Java. Thanks :D

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  • Boundary conditions for testing

    - by Loggie
    Ok so in a programming test I was given the following question. Question 1 (1 mark) Spot the potential bug in this section of code: void Class::Update( float dt ) { totalTime += dt; if( totalTime == 3.0f ) { // Do state change m_State++; } } The multiple choice answers for this question were. a) It has a constant floating point number where it should have a named constant variable b) It may not change state with only an equality test c) You don't know what state you are changing to d) The class is named poorly I wrongly answered this with answer C. I eventually received feedback on the answers and the feedback for this question was Correct answer is a. This is about understanding correct boundary conditions for tests. The other answers are arguably valid points, but do not indicate a potential bug in the code. My question here is, what does this have to do with boundary conditions? My understanding of boundary conditions is checking that a value is within a certain range, which isn't the case here. Upon looking over the question, in my opinion, B should be the correct answer when considering the accuracy issues of using floating point values.

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