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• What could cause a Labwindows/CVI C program to hate the number 2573?

  - by Adam Bard

  Using Windows So I'm reading from a binary file a list of unsigned int data values. The file contains a number of datasets listed sequentially. Here's the function to read a single dataset from a char* pointing to the start of it: function read_dataset(char* stream, t_dataset *dataset){ //...some init, including setting dataset->size; for(i=0;i<dataset->size;i++){ dataset->samples[i] = *((unsigned int *) stream); stream += sizeof(unsigned int); } //... } Where read_dataset in such a context as this: //... char buff[10000]; t_dataset* dataset = malloc( sizeof( *dataset) ); unsigned long offset = 0; for(i=0;i<number_of_datasets; i++){ fseek(fd_in, offset, SEEK_SET); if( (n = fread(buff, sizeof(char), sizeof(*dataset), fd_in)) != sizeof(*dataset) ){ break; } read_dataset(buff, *dataset); // Do something with dataset here. It's screwed up before this, I checked. offset += profileSize; } //... Everything goes swimmingly until my loop reads the number 2573. All of a sudden it starts spitting out random and huge numbers. For example, what should be ... 1831 2229 2406 2637 2609 2573 2523 2247 ... becomes ... 1831 2229 2406 2637 2609 0xDB00000A 0xC7000009 0xB2000008 ... If you think those hex numbers look suspicious, you're right. Turns out the hex values for the values that were changed are really familiar: 2573 -> 0xA0D 2523 -> 0x9DB 2247 -> 0x8C7 So apparently this number 2573 causes my stream pointer to gain a byte. This remains until the next dataset is loaded and parsed, and god forbid it contain a number 2573. I have checked a number of spots where this happens, and each one I've checked began on 2573. I admit I'm not so talented in the world of C. What could cause this is completely and entirely opaque to me.

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• PostgreSQL - fetch the row which has the Max value for a column

  - by Joshua Berry

  I'm dealing with a Postgres table (called "lives") that contains records with columns for time_stamp, usr_id, transaction_id, and lives_remaining. I need a query that will give me the most recent lives_remaining total for each usr_id There are multiple users (distinct usr_id's) time_stamp is not a unique identifier: sometimes user events (one by row in the table) will occur with the same time_stamp. trans_id is unique only for very small time ranges: over time it repeats remaining_lives (for a given user) can both increase and decrease over time example: time_stamp|lives_remaining|usr_id|trans_id ----------------------------------------- 07:00 | 1 | 1 | 1 09:00 | 4 | 2 | 2 10:00 | 2 | 3 | 3 10:00 | 1 | 2 | 4 11:00 | 4 | 1 | 5 11:00 | 3 | 1 | 6 13:00 | 3 | 3 | 1 As I will need to access other columns of the row with the latest data for each given usr_id, I need a query that gives a result like this: time_stamp|lives_remaining|usr_id|trans_id ----------------------------------------- 11:00 | 3 | 1 | 6 10:00 | 1 | 2 | 4 13:00 | 3 | 3 | 1 As mentioned, each usr_id can gain or lose lives, and sometimes these timestamped events occur so close together that they have the same timestamp! Therefore this query won't work: SELECT b.time_stamp,b.lives_remaining,b.usr_id,b.trans_id FROM (SELECT usr_id, max(time_stamp) AS max_timestamp FROM lives GROUP BY usr_id ORDER BY usr_id) a JOIN lives b ON a.max_timestamp = b.time_stamp Instead, I need to use both time_stamp (first) and trans_id (second) to identify the correct row. I also then need to pass that information from the subquery to the main query that will provide the data for the other columns of the appropriate rows. This is the hacked up query that I've gotten to work: SELECT b.time_stamp,b.lives_remaining,b.usr_id,b.trans_id FROM (SELECT usr_id, max(time_stamp || '*' || trans_id) AS max_timestamp_transid FROM lives GROUP BY usr_id ORDER BY usr_id) a JOIN lives b ON a.max_timestamp_transid = b.time_stamp || '*' || b.trans_id ORDER BY b.usr_id Okay, so this works, but I don't like it. It requires a query within a query, a self join, and it seems to me that it could be much simpler by grabbing the row that MAX found to have the largest timestamp and trans_id. The table "lives" has tens of millions of rows to parse, so I'd like this query to be as fast and efficient as possible. I'm new to RDBM and Postgres in particular, so I know that I need to make effective use of the proper indexes. I'm a bit lost on how to optimize. I found a similar discussion here. Can I perform some type of Postgres equivalent to an Oracle analytic function? Any advice on accessing related column information used by an aggregate function (like MAX), creating indexes, and creating better queries would be much appreciated! P.S. You can use the following to create my example case: create TABLE lives (time_stamp timestamp, lives_remaining integer, usr_id integer, trans_id integer); insert into lives values ('2000-01-01 07:00', 1, 1, 1); insert into lives values ('2000-01-01 09:00', 4, 2, 2); insert into lives values ('2000-01-01 10:00', 2, 3, 3); insert into lives values ('2000-01-01 10:00', 1, 2, 4); insert into lives values ('2000-01-01 11:00', 4, 1, 5); insert into lives values ('2000-01-01 11:00', 3, 1, 6); insert into lives values ('2000-01-01 13:00', 3, 3, 1);

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• Writing Device Drivers for Microcontrollers, where to define IO Port pins?

  - by volting

  I always seem to encounter this dilemma when writing low level code for MCU's. I never know where to declare pin definitions so as to make the code as reusable as possible. In this case Im writing a driver to interface an 8051 to a MCP4922 12bit serial DAC. Im unsure how/where I should declare the pin definitions for The CS(chip select) and LDAC(data latch) for the DAC. At the moment there declared in the header file for the driver. Iv done a lot of research trying to figure out the best approach but havent really found anything. Im basically want to know what the best practices... if there are some books worth reading or online information, examples etc, any recommendations would be welcome. Just a snippet of the driver so you get the idea /** @brief This function is used to write a 16bit data word to DAC B -12 data bit plus 4 configuration bits @param dac_data A 12bit word @param ip_buf_unbuf_select Input Buffered/unbuffered select bit. Buffered = 1; Unbuffered = 0 @param gain_select Output Gain Selection bit. 1 = 1x (VOUT = VREF * D/4096). 0 =2x (VOUT = 2 * VREF * D/4096) */ void MCP4922_DAC_B_TX_word(unsigned short int dac_data, bit ip_buf_unbuf_select, bit gain_select) { unsigned char low_byte=0, high_byte=0; CS = 0; /**Select the chip*/ high_byte |= ((0x01 << 7) | (0x01 << 4)); /**Set bit to select DAC A and Set SHDN bit high for DAC A active operation*/ if(ip_buf_unbuf_select) high_byte |= (0x01 << 6); if(gain_select) high_byte |= (0x01 << 5); high_byte |= ((dac_data >> 8) & 0x0F); low_byte |= dac_data; SPI_master_byte(high_byte); SPI_master_byte(low_byte); CS = 1; LDAC = 0; /**Latch the Data*/ LDAC = 1; }

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• Need Help on OAuthException Code 2500

  - by Deepak

  I am trying to develop an Facebook application (apps.facebook.com/some_app) using PHP where I need to present some information based on user's music interests. I found that its under "user_likes games". My problems are as follows: To gain access, I have implemented the oauth dialog method as suggested in API in my index page. $auth_url = "http://www.facebook.com/dialog/oauth?client_id=" . $app_id . "&redirect_uri=" . urlencode($canvas_page) ."&scope=user_likes"; After successful authorization I come back to index page with "code" as parameters. http://MY_CANVAS_PAGE/?code=some base64 encoded letters Firstly I don't know if I need access_token just to read user's music interests but I have tried all the methods suggested. I couldn't move forward from this point I have a code like this (in my index page), which redirects for authorization if code parameters is not set. if(empty($code) && !isset($_REQUEST['error'])) { $_SESSION['state'] = md5(uniqid(rand(), TRUE)); //CSRF protection echo("<script> top.location.href='" . $auth_url . "'</script>"); } Currently I am just trying to get user's public information here but with no success. I have tried the signed_request method as suggested but no success $signed_request = $_REQUEST["signed_request"]; list($encoded_sig, $payload) = explode('.', $signed_request, 2); $data = json_decode(base64_decode(strtr($payload, '-_', '+/')), true); echo ("Welcome User: " . $data["user_id"]); Also tried the code found in http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/500/ but I am getting error when trying to get the debug info using print_r($decoded_response); stdClass Object ( [error] => stdClass Object ( [message] => An active access token must be used to query information about the current user. [type] => OAuthException [code] => 2500 ) ) To get user's public info, I have tried also the suggested example in PHP SDK $facebook = new Facebook(array( 'appId' => MY_APP_ID, //registered facebook APP ID 'secret' => MY_SECRET, //secret key for APP )); $fb_user = $facebook->getUser(); if($fb_user){ try { $user_profile = $facebook->api('/me'); echo $user_profile['email']; } catch(FacebookApiException $e) { $fb_user = null; } } But no success. Can somebody explain me why I am getting this error and how to access the user's music interest properly. Probably I misunderstood the API. Thanks Deepak

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• Best of both worlds: browser and desktop game?

  - by Ricket

  When considering a platform for a game, I've decided on multi-platform (Win/Lin/Mac) but can't make up my mind as far as browser vs. desktop. As I'm not all too far in development, and now having second thoughts, I'd like your opinion! Browser-based games using Java applets: market penetration is reasonably high (for version 6, it's somewhere around 60% I believe?) using JOGL, 3D performance/quality is decent; certainly good enough to render the crappy 3D graphics that I make there's the (small?) possibility of porting something to Android great for an audience of gamers who switch computers often; can sit down at any computer, load a webpage and play it also great for casual gamers or less knowledgeable gamers who are quite happy with playing games in a browser but don't want to install more things to their computer written in a high-level language which I am more familiar with than C++ - but at the same time, I would like to improve my skills with C++ as it is probably where I am headed in the game industry once I get out of school... easier update process: reload the page. Desktop games using good ol' C++ and OpenGL 100% market penetration, assuming complete cross-platform; however, that number reduces when you consider how many people will go through downloading and installing an executable compared to just browsing to a webpage and hitting "yes" to a security warning. more trouble to maintain the cross-platform; but again, for learning purposes I would embrace the challenge and the knowledge I would gain better performance all around true full screen, whereas browser games often struggle with smooth full screen graphics (especially on Linux, in my experience) can take advantage of distribution platforms such as Steam more likely to be considered a "real" game, whereas browser and Java games are often dismissed as not being real games and therefore not played by "hardcore gamers" installer can be large; don't have to worry so much about download times Is there a way to have the best of both worlds? I love Java applets, but I also really like the reasons to write a desktop game. I don't want to constantly port everything between a Java applet project and a C++ project; that would be twice the work! Unity chose to write their own web player plugin. I don't like this, because I am one of the people that will not install their web player for anything, and I don't see myself being able to convince my audience to install a browser plugin. What are my options? Are there other examples out there besides Unity, of games that have browser and desktop versions? Did I leave out anything in the pro/con lists above?

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• Thinking about introducing PHP/MySQL into a .NET/SQL Server environment. Thoughts?

  - by abszero

  I posted this over at reddit but it didn't gain any momentum. So here is what is going on: our company was recently purchased by another web shop and I was promoted to head of development here in our office. Our office is completely .NET/SQL Server and the company who purchased us is a *nix/PHP/MySQL shop. Now several of our large clients who are on the .NET platform are up for complete rewrites (the sites are from '04 and are running on the 1.x framework.) While reviewing the proposal for one client with my superior I came across a pretty extensive module which would require several hundred man hours to complete and voiced some concern about it in relation to the quote. One of the guys from the PHP group happen to hear this and told me of a module that they (PHP Group) use in Drupal that does exactly what the proposal in front of me was describing and it only took, at most, 8 hours to completely setup / configure. My superior suggested that I take a look at Drupal and the module in question over the weekend but stressed that we should only go that route if it really made sense. So this weekend I spun up a CentOS instance in VirtualBox and started playing around with Drupal. I am still fleshing it out so don't have a solid opinion on it just yet. Anyway I have some questions / fears that I was hoping progit could help me out in! Has anyone had experience doing this and, if so, how did it turn out? I am completely ignorant to what IDE's (if any) are available to for PHP. The last time I worked with PHP it was in Notepad and that was less than intuitive. So is there are more intuitive IDE out there for PHP dev? I don't want to scare my .NET guys. Since the merger all of our new business clients that have had relatively small websites have gone on Drupal with the larger sites going on .NET. My concern is that if they see a large site go onto Drupal that they might start getting anxious and start handing out their resumes. For the foreseeable future there are no plans to liquidate the .NET platform and really we can't just from a support standpoint. What would be the best way to approach this? Any other helpful info? Thanks!

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• What the best approach to iterate and "store" files over a directory in C (Linux) ?

  - by Andrei Ciobanu

  I have written a function that checks if to files are duplicates or not. This function signature is: int check_dup_memmap(char *f1_name, char *f2_name) It returns: (-1) - If something went wrong; (0) - If the two files are similar; (+1) - If the two files are different; The next step is to write a function that iterates through all the files in a certain directory,apply the previous function, and gives a report on every existing duplicates. Initially I've thought to write a function that generates a file with all the filenames in a certain directory and then, read that file again and gain and compare every two files. Here is that version of the function, that gets all the filenames in a certain directory. void *build_dir_tree(char *dirname, FILE *f) { DIR *cdir = NULL; struct dirent *ent = NULL; struct stat buf; if(f == NULL){ fprintf(stderr, "NULL file submitted. [build_dir_tree].\n"); exit(-1); } if(dirname == NULL){ fprintf(stderr, "NULL dirname submitted. [build_dir_tree].\n"); exit(-1); } if((cdir = opendir(dirname)) == NULL){ char emsg[MFILE_LEN]; sprintf(emsg, "Cannot open dir: %s [build_dir_tree]\t",dirname); perror(emsg); } chdir(dirname); while ((ent = readdir(cdir)) != NULL) { lstat(ent->d_name, &buf); if (S_ISDIR(buf.st_mode)) { if (strcmp(".", ent->d_name) == 0 || strcmp("..", ent->d_name) == 0) { continue; } build_dir_tree(ent->d_name, f); } else{ fprintf(f, "/%s/%s\n",util_get_cwd(),ent->d_name); } } chdir(".."); closedir(cdir); } Still I consider this approach a little inefficient, as I have to parse the file again and again. In your opinion what are other approaches should I follow: Write a datastructure and hold the files instead of writing them in the file ? I think for a directory with a lot of files, the memory will become very fragmented. Hold all the filenames in auto-expanding array, so that I can easy access every file by their index, because they will in a contiguous memory location. Map this file in memory using mmap() ? But mmap may fail, as the file gets to big. Any opinions on this. I want to choose the most efficient path, and access as few resources as possible. This is the requirement of the program... EDIT: Is there a way to get the numbers of files in a certain directory, without iterating through it ?

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• jQuery i++ and i-- problems ... what on earth???

  - by michael

  Could someone please tell me what I am doing wrong? I'm not a newbie at programming but I feel like it tonight! Every time I increment the incrementing variable it throws a fit! When add one to it, it behaves fine, but if I try to add one more to it it wants to add 2 more. And then if I try to de-increment it wants to subtract from the original number that it was assigned to. I've tried: i++; i = i+1; i = i++; Nothing seems to work. It's got to be a stupid mistake. Press the buttons to increment and de-increment. http://michaelreynolds.net/iphone/ here's the code: var dayNum = 30; //---------------------------------------------------------------------- $.jQTouch({ icon: 'dailyqoteicon.png', statusBar: false, initializeTouch: 'a.touch' }); //---------------------------------------------------------------------- $(document).ready(function(){ //$(function(){}); $(function(){ $('a.touch').swipe( function(event, info){ //alert("jQTouch swipe event"); //alert(info.direction); }); }); $(function updateVerse(){ //alert("updateVerse called"); $.ajax({ type: "GET", dataType: 'JSON', data: 'day='+ dayNum, url: 'forward.php', success: function(data){ var obj = $.parseJSON(data); $("h2.quote").html(""); $("h3.reference").html(""); $("h2.quote").append(obj.quote); $("h3.reference").append(obj.reference, " ", obj.version); //$("span.version").append(obj.version); //----------------------------------- // JSON string {"id":"1","quote":"For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain","reference":"Philippians 1:21","version":"NKJV"} }, error: function(request, error){ alert("problem retrieving json data string"); } }); function addDayNum(){ dayNum = dayNum + 1; //dayNum = dayNum++; } function subDayNum(){ dayNum = dayNum - 1; //dayNum = dayNum--; } $("div#header a.next").tap( function(){ addDayNum(); //dayNum++;// doesn't work at all //dayNum = dayNum + 1;//doesn't work at all updateVerse(); //alert(dayNum); //alert("next clicked"); }); $("div#header a.prev").live('click', function(){ subDayNum(); //dayNum--;//doesn't work at all //dayNum = dayNum - 1;// doesn't work at all updateVerse(); //alert(dayNum); //alert("previous clicked"); }); }); });

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• Local Variables take 7x longer to access than global variables?

  - by ItzWarty

  I was trying to benchmark the gain/loss of "caching" math.floor, in hopes that I could make calls faster. Here was the test: <html> <head> <script> window.onload = function() { var startTime = new Date().getTime(); var k = 0; for(var i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) k += Math.floor(9.99); var mathFloorTime = new Date().getTime() - startTime; startTime = new Date().getTime(); window.mfloor = Math.floor; k = 0; for(var i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) k += window.mfloor(9.99); var globalFloorTime = new Date().getTime() - startTime; startTime = new Date().getTime(); var mfloor = Math.floor; k = 0; for(var i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) k += mfloor(9.99); var localFloorTime = new Date().getTime() - startTime; document.getElementById("MathResult").innerHTML = mathFloorTime; document.getElementById("globalResult").innerHTML = globalFloorTime; document.getElementById("localResult").innerHTML = localFloorTime; }; </script> </head> <body> Math.floor: <span id="MathResult"></span>ms <br /> var mathfloor: <span id="globalResult"></span>ms <br /> window.mathfloor: <span id="localResult"></span>ms <br /> </body> </html> My results from the test: [Chromium 5.0.308.0]: Math.floor: 49ms var mathfloor: 271ms window.mathfloor: 40ms [IE 8.0.6001.18702] Math.floor: 703ms var mathfloor: 9890ms [LOL!] window.mathfloor: 375ms [Firefox [Minefield] 3.7a4pre] Math.floor: 42ms var mathfloor: 2257ms window.mathfloor: 60ms [Safari 4.0.4[531.21.10] ] Math.floor: 92ms var mathfloor: 289ms window.mathfloor: 90ms [Opera 10.10 build 1893] Math.floor: 500ms var mathfloor: 843ms window.mathfloor: 360ms [Konqueror 4.3.90 [KDE 4.3.90 [KDE 4.4 RC1]]] Math.floor: 453ms var mathfloor: 563ms window.mathfloor: 312ms The variance is random, of course, but for the most part In all cases [this shows time taken]: [takes longer] mathfloor Math.floor window.mathfloor [is faster] Why is this? In my projects i've been using var mfloor = Math.floor, and according to my not-so-amazing benchmarks, my efforts to "optimize" actually slowed down the script by ALOT... Is there any other way to make my code more "efficient"...? I'm at the stage where i basically need to optimize, so no, this isn't "premature optimization"...

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• Returning different data types C#

  - by user1810659

  i have create a class library (DLL) with many different methods. and the return different types of data(string string[] double double[]). Therefore i have created one class i called CustomDataType for all the methods containing different data types so each method in the Library can return object of the custom class and this way be able to return multiple data types I have done it like this: public class CustomDataType { public double Value; public string Timestamp; public string Description; public string Unit; // special for GetparamterInfo public string OpcItemUrl; public string Source; public double Gain; public double Offset; public string ParameterName; public int ParameterID; public double[] arrayOfValue; public string[] arrayOfTimestamp; // public string[] arrayOfParameterName; public string[] arrayOfUnit; public string[] arrayOfDescription; public int[] arrayOfParameterID; public string[] arrayOfItemUrl; public string[] arrayOfSource; public string[] arrayOfModBusRegister; public string[] arrayOfGain; public string[] arrayOfOffset; } The Library contains methods like these: public CustomDataType GetDeviceParameters(string deviceName) { ...................... code getDeviceParametersObj.arrayOfParameterName; return getDeviceParametersObj; } public CustomDataType GetMaxMin(string parameterName, string period, string maxMin) { .....................................code getMaxMingObj.Value = (double)reader["MaxMinValue"]; getMaxMingObj.Timestamp = reader["MeasurementDateTime"].ToString(); getMaxMingObj.Unit = reader["Unit"].ToString(); getMaxMingObj.Description = reader["Description"].ToString(); return getMaxMingObj; } public CustomDataType GetSelectedMaxMinData(string[] parameterName, string period, string mode) {................................code selectedMaxMinObj.arrayOfValue = MaxMinvalueList.ToArray(); selectedMaxMinObj.arrayOfTimestamp = MaxMintimeStampList.ToArray(); selectedMaxMinObj.arrayOfDescription = MaxMindescriptionList.ToArray(); selectedMaxMinObj.arrayOfUnit = MaxMinunitList.ToArray(); return selectedMaxMinObj; } As illustrated thi different methods returns different data types,and it works fine for me but when i import the DLL and want to use the methods Visual studio shwos all the data types in the CustomDataType class as suggestion for all the methods even though the return different data.This is illusrtated in the picture below. As we can see from the picture with the suggestion of all the different return data the user can get confused and choose wrong return data for some of the methods. So my question is how can i improve this. so Visual studio suggest just the belonging return data type for each method.

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• Accesing server control from withing app_code class

  - by OverSeven

  My question is about how to acces a server control (listbox) that is located in default.aspx. I wish to acces this control in Functions.cs (this class is located in the App_Code folder). My page structures: - 1 masterpage with 1 content holder - Default.aspx (all the controls are within the content place holder) - Functions.cs (located in App_Code) Now when i try to fill up the listbox elements i get the error "object reference not set to an instance of an object." What i have tried to gain acces to this control: (this code is located in Functions.cs in App_Code). This is basicly showing some items in the listbox that are located in the xml file private static string file = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/Questions.xml"); public static void ListItems() { XmlDocument XMLDoc = new XmlDocument(); XMLDoc.Load(file); XPathNavigator nav = XMLDoc.CreateNavigator(); XPathExpression expr; expr = nav.Compile("/root/file/naam"); XPathNodeIterator iterator = nav.Select(expr); //ATTEMPT to get acces to ServerControl(listbox) Page page = (Page)HttpContext.Current.Handler; ListBox test = (ListBox)page.FindControl("lbTest"); //control is called lbTest in Default.aspx test.Items.Clear(); while (iterator.MoveNext()) { test.Items.Add(iterator.Current.Value); } } Code from the default.apx file <%@ Page Title="" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/MasterFile.master" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="default.aspx.cs" Inherits="default" Debug="true" %> <%@ MasterType TypeName="Master" %> <asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="cphContent" Runat="Server" > <asp:MultiView ID="mvTest" runat="server" > <asp:View ID="vCollection" runat="server"> <asp:ListBox ID="lbTest" runat="server" CssClass="listbox" ></asp:ListBox> </asp:View> </asp:MultiView> </asp:Content> The masterfile itself just has 1 placeholder. Then i call upon the funcion ListItems in the Default.aspx.cs file protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { Functions.ListItems(); } Regards.

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• Writing OpenGL enabled GUI

  - by Jaen

  I am exploring a possibility to write a kind of a notebook analogue that would reproduce the look and feel of using a traditional notebook, but with the added benefit of customizing the page in ways you can't do on paper - ask the program to lay ruled paper here, grid paper there, paste an image, insert a recording from the built-in camera, try to do handwriting recognition on the tablet input, insert some latex for neat formulas and so on. I'm pretty interested in developing it just to see if writing notes on computer can come anywhere close to the comfort plain paper + pencil offer (hard to do IMO) and can always turn it in as a university C++ project, so double gain there. Coming from the type of project there are certain requirements for the user interface: the user will be able to zoom, move and rotate the notebook as he wishes and I think it's pretty sensible delegate it to OpenGL, so the prospective GUI needs to work well with OGL (preferably being rendered in it) the interface should be navigable with as little of keyboard input as user wishes (incorporating some sort of gestures maybe) up to limiting the keyboard keys as modifiers to the pen movements and taps; this includes tablet and possible multitouch support the interface should keep out of the way where not needed and come up where needed and be easily layerable the notebook sheet itself will be a container for objects representing the notebook blurbs, so it would be nice if the GUI would be able to overlay some frames over the exact parts of the OpenGL-drawn sheet to signify what can be done with given part (like moving, rotating, deleting, copying, editing etc.) and it's extents In terms of interface it's probably going to end up similar to Alias' Sketch Book Pro: [picture][http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GGxlzvZW-CY/SeKYA_oBdSI/AAAAAAAAErE/J6A0kyXiuqA/s400/Autodesk_Alias_SketchBook_Pro_2.jpg] As far as toolkits go I'm considering Qt and nui, but I'm not really aware how well would they match up the requirements and how well would they handle such an application. As far as I know you can somehow coerce Qt into doing widget drawing with OpenGL, but on the other hand I heard voices it's slot-signal framework isn't exactly optimal and requires it's own preprocessor and I don't know how hard would be to do all the custom widgets I would need (say color-wheel, ruler, blurb frames, blurb selection, tablet-targeted pop-up menu etc.) in the constraints of Qt. Also quite a few Qt programs I've had on my machine seemed really sluggish, but it may be attributed to me having old PC or programmers using Qt suboptimally rather to the framework itself. As for [nui][http://www.libnui.net/] I know it's also cross-platform and all of the basic things you would require of a GUI toolkit and what is the biggest plus it is OpenGL-enabled from the start, but I don't know how it is with custom widgets and other facets and it certainly has smaller userbase and less elaborate documentation than Qt. The question goes as this: Does any of these toolkits fulfill (preferably all of) the requirements or there is a well fitting toolkit I haven't come across or maybe I should just roll up my sleeves, get SFML (or maybe Clutter would be more suited to this?) and something like FastDelegates or libsigc++ and program the GUI framework from the ground up myself? I would be very glad if anyone had experience with a similar GUI project and can offer some comments on how well these toolkits hold up or is it worthwhile to pursue own GUI toolkit in this case. Sorry for longwindedness, duh.

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• pointer to preallocated memory as an input parameter and have the function fill it

  - by djones2010

  test code: void modify_it(char * mystuff) { char test[7] = "123456"; //last element is null i presume for c style strings here. //static char test[] = "123123"; //when i do this i thought i should be able to gain access to this bit of memory when the function is destroyed but that does not seem to be the case. //char * test = new char[7]; //this is also creating memory on stack and not the heap i reckon and gets destroyed once the function is done with. strcpy_s(mystuff,7,test); //this does the job as long as memory for mystuff has been allocated outside the function. mystuff = test; //this does not work. I know with c style strings you can't just do string assignments they have to be actually copied. in this case I was using this in conjunction with static char test thinking by having it as static the memory would not get destroyed and i can then simply point mystuff to test and be done with it. i would later have address the memory cleanup in the main function. but anyway this never worked. } int main(void) { char * mystuff = new char [7]; //allocate memory on heap where the pointer will point cool(mystuff); std::string test_case(mystuff); std::cout<<test_case.c_str(); //this is the only way i know how to use cout by making it into a string c++ string. delete [] mystuff; return 0; } in the case, of a static array in the function why would it not work. in the case, when i allocated memory using new in the function does it get created on the stack or heap? in the case, i have string which needs to be copied into a char * form. everything i see usually requires const char* instead of just char*. I know i could use reference to take care of this easy. Or char ** to send in the pointer and do it that way. But i just wanted to know if I could do it with just char *. Anyway your thoughts and comments plus any examples would be very helpful.

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• Week in Geek: LastPass Rescues Xmarks Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to breathe new life into an aging Windows Mobile 6.x device, use filters in Photoshop, backup and move VirtualBox machines, use the BitDefender Rescue CD to clean an infected PC, and had fun setting up a pirates theme on our computers. Photo by _nash. Weekly Feature Do you love using the Faenza icon set on your Ubuntu system but feel that there are a few much needed icons missing (or you desire a different version of a particular icon)? Then you may want to take a look at the Faenza Variants icon pack. The icons are available in the following sizes: 16px, 22px, 32px, 48px and scalable sizes. Photo by Asian Angel. Faenza Variants Random Geek Links Another week with extra link goodness to help keep you on top of the news. Photo by Asian Angel. LastPass acquires Xmarks, premium service announced Xmarks announced that it has been acquired by LastPass, a cross-platform password management service. This also means that Xmarks is now in transition from a “free” to a “freemium” business model. WikiLeaks reappears on European Net domains WikiLeaks has re-emerged on a Swiss Internet domain followed by domains in Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands, sidestepping a move that had in effect taken the controversial site off the Internet. Iran: Yes, Stuxnet hurt our nuclear program The Stuxnet worm got some big play from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who acknowledged that the malware dinged his nuclear program. More Windows Rogues than Just AV – Fake Defragmenter Check Disk Don’t think for a second that rogues are limited to scareware, because as so-called products such as “System Defragmenter”, “Scan Disk” “Check Disk” prove, they’re not. Internet Explorer’s Protected Mode can be bypassed Researchers from Verizon Business have now described a way of bypassing Protected Mode in IE 7 and 8 in order to gain access to user accounts. Can you really see who viewed your Facebook profile? Rogue application spreads virally Once again, a rogue application is spreading virally between Facebook users pretending to offer you a way of seeing who has viewed your profile. More holes in Palm’s WebOS Researchers Orlando Barrera and Daniel Herrera, who both work for security firm SecTheory, have discovered a gaping security hole in Palm’s WebOS smartphone operating system. Next-gen banking Trojans hit APAC With the proliferation of banking Trojans, Web and smartphone users of online banking services have to be on constant alert to avoid falling prey to fraud schemes, warned Etay Maor, project manager for RSA Fraud Action. AVG update cripples 64-bit computers A signature update automatically deployed by the AVG virus scanner Thursday has crippled numerous computers. Article includes link to forums to fix computers affected after a restart. Congress moves to outlaw ‘mystery charges’ for Web shoppers Legislation that makes it illegal for Web merchants and so-called post-transaction marketers to charge credit cards without the card owners’ say-so came closer to becoming law this week. Ballmer Set to “Look Into” Windows Home Server Drive Extender Fiasco Tuesday’s announcement from Microsoft regarding the removal of Drive Extender from Windows Home Server has sent shock waves across the web. Google tweaks search recipe to ding scam artists Google has changed its search algorithm to penalize sites deemed to provide an “extremely poor user experience” following a New York Times story on a merchant who justified abusive behavior towards customers as a search-engine optimization tactic. Geek Video of the Week Watch as our two friends debate back and forth about the early adoption of new technology through multiple time periods (Stone Age to the far future). Will our reluctant friend finally succumb to the temptation? Photo by CollegeHumor. Early Adopters Through History Random TinyHacker Links Fix Issues in Windows 7 Using Reliability Monitor Learn how to analyze Windows 7 errors and then fix them using the built-in reliability monitor. Learn About IE Tab Groups Tab groups is a useful feature in IE 8. Here’s a detailed guide to what it is all about. Google’s Book Helps You Learn About Browsers and Web A cool new online book by the Google Chrome team on browsers and the web. TrustPort Internet Security 2011 – Good Security from a Less Known Provider TrustPort is not exactly a well-known provider of security solutions. At least not in the consumer space. This review tests in detail their latest offering. How the World is Using Cell phones An infographic showing the shocking demographics of cell phone use. Super User Questions See the great answers to these questions from Super User. I am unable to access my C drive. It says it is unable to display current owner. List of Windows special directories/shortcuts like ‘%TEMP%’ Is using multiple passes for wiping a disk really necessary? How can I view two files side by side in Notepad++ Is there any tool that automatically puts screenshots to my Dropbox? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Look through our hottest articles from this past week at How-To Geek. How to Create a Software RAID Array in Windows 7 9 Alternatives for Windows Home Server’s Drive Extender Why Doesn’t Disk Cleanup Delete Everything from the Temp Folder? Ask the Readers: How Much Do You Customize Your Operating System? How to Upload Really Large Files to SkyDrive, Dropbox, or Email One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy reading through these awesome articles from one year ago. How To Upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium Edition How To Fix No Aero Transparency in Windows 7 Troubleshoot Startup Problems with Startup Repair Tool in Windows 7 & Vista Rename the Guest Account in Windows 7 for Enhanced Security Disable Error Reporting in XP, Vista, and Windows 7 The Geek Note That wraps things up here for this week. Regardless of the weather wherever you may be, we hope that you have an opportunity to get outside and have some fun! Remember to keep sending those great tips in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Tony the Misfit. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Get the Complete Android Guide eBook for Only 99 Cents [Update: Expired] Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography How to Choose What to Back Up on Your Linux Home Server How To Harmonize Your Dual-Boot Setup for Windows and Ubuntu Hang in There Scrat! – Ice Age Wallpaper How Do You Know When You’ve Passed Geek and Headed to Nerd? On The Tip – A Lamborghini Theme for Chrome and Iron What if Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were Human? [Video] Peaceful Winter Cabin Wallpaper Store Tabs for Later Viewing in Opera with Tab Vault

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• Bye Bye Year of the Dragon, Hello BPM

  - by Ajay Khanna

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} As 2012 fades and we usher in a New Year, let’s look back at some of the hottest BPM trends and those we’ll be seeing more of in the coming months. BPM is as much about people as it is about technology. As people adopt new ways of engagement, new channels of communications and new devices to interact , the changes are reflected in BPM practices. As Social and Mobile have become an integral part of our personal and professional lives, we’ll see tighter integration of social and mobile with BPM, and more use cases emerging for smarter process management in 2013. And with products and services becoming less differentiated, organizations will strive to differentiate on Customer Experience. Concepts like Pace Layered Architecture and Dynamic Case Management will provide more flexibility and agility to IT groups and knowledge workers. Take a look at some of these capabilities we showcased (see video) at Oracle OpenWorld 2012. Some of these trends that will continue to gain momentum in 2013: Social networks and social media have provided a new way for businesses to engage with customers. A prospect is likely to reach out to their social network before making any purchase. Companies are increasingly engaging with customers in social networks to influence their purchasing decisions, as well as listening to customers via tools like sentiment analysis to see what customers think about a particular product or process. These insights are valuable as companies look to improve their processes. Inside organizations, workers are using social tools to engage with each other to design new products and processes. Social collaboration tools are being used to resolve issues where an employee needs consultation to reach a decision. Oracle BPM Suite includes social interaction as an integral part of its process design and work management to empower today’s business users. Ubiquitous smart mobile devices are trending as a tool of choice for many workers. Many companies are adopting the policy of “Bring Your Own Device,” and the device of choice is a tablet. Devices like smart phones and tablets not only provide mobility to workers and customers, but they also provide additional important information – the context. By integrating the mobile context (location, photos, and preferences) into your processes, organizations can make much more informed decisions, as well as offer more personalized service to customers. Using Oracle ADF Mobile, you can easily create user interfaces for mobile devices and also capture location data for process execution. Customer experience was at the forefront of trending topics in 2012. Organizations are trying to understand their customers better and offer them more personalized and differentiated services. Customer experience is paramount when companies design sales and support processes. Companies are looking to BPM to consistently and efficiently orchestrate customer facing processes across disparate systems, departments and channels of communication. Oracle BPM Suite provides just the right capabilities for organizations to design and deliver an excellent customer experience. Pace Layered Architecture strategy is gaining traction as a way to maximize agility and minimize disruption in organizations. It provides a framework to manage the evolution of your information system when different pieces of it are changing at different rates and need to be updated independent of one another. Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle BPM Suite are designed with this in mind. The database layer, integration layer, application layer, and process layer should not be required to change at the same time. Most of the business changes to policy or process can be done at the process layer without disrupting the whole infrastructure. By understanding the type of change needed at a particular level, organizations can become much more agile and efficient. Adaptive Case Management proposes more flexibility to manage processes or cases that do not follow a structured process flow. In such situations, the knowledge worker managing the case needs to evaluate what step should occur next because the sequence of steps can’t be predetermined. Another characteristic is that it requires much more collaboration than straight-through process. As simple processes become automated, and customers adopt more and more self-service, cases that reach the case workers are much more complex and need more investigation. Oracle BPM suite includes comprehensive adaptive case management capability to manage such unstructured and complex processes. Smart BPM or making your BPM intelligent has been the holy grail for BPM practitioners who imagined that one day BPM would become one with Business Intelligence, Business Activity Monitoring and Complex Event Processing, making it much more responsive and helpful in organizational decision making. In 2013, organizations will begin to deploy these intelligent BPM solutions. Oracle offers an integrated solution that brings together the powerful functionality of BI, BAM, event processing, and Real Time Decisions to help organizations create smart process based solutions. In order to help customers reach their BPM goals faster and remove risks associated with BPM initiatives, Oracle has introduced Oracle Process Accelerators, pre-built best practices applications built on Oracle BPM Suite that are fully production grade and ready to deploy. These are exiting times for BPM practitioners and there is so much to look forward to in 2013. We wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year 2013. Happy BPMing!

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• Oracle Data Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study

  - by charlie.berger

  There is a complete and detailed Telco Churn case study "How to" Blog Series just posted by Ari Mozes, ODM Dev. Manager.  In it, Ari provides detailed guidance in how to leverage various strengths of Oracle Data Mining including the ability to: mine Star Schemas and join tables and views together to obtain a complete 360 degree view of a customer combine transactional data e.g. call record detail (CDR) data, etc. define complex data transformation, model build and model deploy analytical methodologies inside the Database  His blog is posted in a multi-part series.  Below are some opening excerpts for the first 3 blog entries.  This is an excellent resource for any novice to skilled data miner who wants to gain competitive advantage by mining their data inside the Oracle Database.  Many thanks Ari! Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study (1 of 3) One of the strengths of Oracle Data Mining is the ability to mine star schemas with minimal effort.  Star schemas are commonly used in relational databases, and they often contain rich data with interesting patterns.  While dimension tables may contain interesting demographics, fact tables will often contain user behavior, such as phone usage or purchase patterns.  Both of these aspects - demographics and usage patterns - can provide insight into behavior.Churn is a critical problem in the telecommunications industry, and companies go to great lengths to reduce the churn of their customer base.  One case study1 describes a telecommunications scenario involving understanding, and identification of, churn, where the underlying data is present in a star schema.  That case study is a good example for demonstrating just how natural it is for Oracle Data Mining to analyze a star schema, so it will be used as the basis for this series of posts...... Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study (2 of 3) This post will follow the transformation steps as described in the case study, but will use Oracle SQL as the means for preparing data.  Please see the previous post for background material, including links to the case study and to scripts that can be used to replicate the stages in these posts.1) Handling missing values for call data recordsThe CDR_T table records the number of phone minutes used by a customer per month and per call type (tariff).  For example, the table may contain one record corresponding to the number of peak (call type) minutes in January for a specific customer, and another record associated with international calls in March for the same customer.  This table is likely to be fairly dense (most type-month combinations for a given customer will be present) due to the coarse level of aggregation, but there may be some missing values.  Missing entries may occur for a number of reasons: the customer made no calls of a particular type in a particular month, the customer switched providers during the timeframe, or perhaps there is a data entry problem.  In the first situation, the correct interpretation of a missing entry would be to assume that the number of minutes for the type-month combination is zero.  In the other situations, it is not appropriate to assume zero, but rather derive some representative value to replace the missing entries.  The referenced case study takes the latter approach.  The data is segmented by customer and call type, and within a given customer-call type combination, an average number of minutes is computed and used as a replacement value.In SQL, we need to generate additional rows for the missing entries and populate those rows with appropriate values.  To generate the missing rows, Oracle's partition outer join feature is a perfect fit.  select cust_id, cdre.tariff, cdre.month, minsfrom cdr_t cdr partition by (cust_id) right outer join     (select distinct tariff, month from cdr_t) cdre     on (cdr.month = cdre.month and cdr.tariff = cdre.tariff);   ....... Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study (3 of 3) Now that the "difficult" work is complete - preparing the data - we can move to building a predictive model to help identify and understand churn.The case study suggests that separate models be built for different customer segments (high, medium, low, and very low value customer groups).  To reduce the data to a single segment, a filter can be applied: create or replace view churn_data_high asselect * from churn_prep where value_band = 'HIGH'; It is simple to take a quick look at the predictive aspects of the data on a univariate basis.  While this does not capture the more complex multi-variate effects as would occur with the full-blown data mining algorithms, it can give a quick feel as to the predictive aspects of the data as well as validate the data preparation steps.  Oracle Data Mining includes a predictive analytics package which enables quick analysis. begin  dbms_predictive_analytics.explain(   'churn_data_high','churn_m6','expl_churn_tab'); end; /select * from expl_churn_tab where rank <= 5 order by rank; ATTRIBUTE_NAME       ATTRIBUTE_SUBNAME EXPLANATORY_VALUE RANK-------------------- ----------------- ----------------- ----------LOS_BAND                                      .069167052          1MINS_PER_TARIFF_MON  PEAK-5                   .034881648          2REV_PER_MON          REV-5                    .034527798          3DROPPED_CALLS                                 .028110322          4MINS_PER_TARIFF_MON  PEAK-4                   .024698149          5From the above results, it is clear that some predictors do contain information to help identify churn (explanatory value > 0).  The strongest uni-variate predictor of churn appears to be the customer's (binned) length of service.  The second strongest churn indicator appears to be the number of peak minutes used in the most recent month.  The subname column contains the interior piece of the DM_NESTED_NUMERICALS column described in the previous post.  By using the object relational approach, many related predictors are included within a single top-level column. .....   NOTE:  These are just EXCERPTS.  Click here to start reading the Oracle Data Mining a Star Schema: Telco Churn Case Study from the beginning.    

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• How Oracle Data Integration Customers Differentiate Their Business in Competitive Markets

  - by Irem Radzik

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 With data being a central force in driving innovation and competing effectively, data integration has become a key IT approach to remove silos and ensure working with consistent and trusted data. Especially with the release of 12c version, Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate offer easy-to-use and high-performance solutions that help companies with their critical data initiatives, including big data analytics, moving to cloud architectures, modernizing and connecting transactional systems and more. In a recent press release we announced the great momentum and analyst recognition Oracle Data Integration products have achieved in the data integration and replication market. In this press release we described some of the key new features of Oracle Data Integrator 12c and Oracle GoldenGate 12c. In addition, a few from our 4500+ customers explained how Oracle’s data integration platform helped them achieve their business goals. In this blog post I would like to go over what these customers shared about their experience. Land O’Lakes is one of America’s premier member-owned cooperatives, and offers an extensive line of agricultural supplies, as well as production and business services. Rich Bellefeuille, manager, ETL & data warehouse for Land O’Lakes told us how GoldenGate helped them modernize their critical ERP system without impacting service and how they are moving to new projects with Oracle Data Integrator 12c: “With Oracle GoldenGate 11g, we've been able to migrate our enterprise-wide implementation of Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, ERP system, to a new database and application server platform with minimal downtime to our business. Using Oracle GoldenGate 11g we reduced database migration time from nearly 30 hours to less than 30 minutes. Given our quick success, we are considering expansion of our Oracle GoldenGate 12c footprint. We are also in the midst of deploying a solution leveraging Oracle Data Integrator 12c to manage our pricing data to handle orders more effectively and provide a better relationship with our clients. We feel we are gaining higher productivity and flexibility with Oracle's data integration products." ICON, a global provider of outsourced development services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries, highlighted the competitive advantage that a solid data integration foundation brings. Diarmaid O’Reilly, enterprise data warehouse manager, ICON plc said “Oracle Data Integrator enables us to align clinical trials intelligence with the information needs of our sponsors. It helps differentiate ICON’s services in an increasingly competitive drug-development industry."  You can find more info on ICON's implementation here. A popular use case for Oracle GoldenGate’s real-time data integration is offloading operational reporting from critical transaction processing systems. SolarWorld, one of the world’s largest solar-technology producers and the largest U.S. solar panel manufacturer, implemented Oracle GoldenGate for real-time data integration of manufacturing data for fast analysis. Russ Toyama, U.S. senior database administrator for SolarWorld told us real-time data helps their operations and GoldenGate’s solution supports high performance of their manufacturing systems: “We use Oracle GoldenGate for real-time data integration into our decision support system, which performs real-time analysis for manufacturing operations to continuously improve product quality, yield and efficiency. With reliable and low-impact data movement capabilities, Oracle GoldenGate also helps ensure that our critical manufacturing systems are stable and operate with high performance."  You can watch the full interview with SolarWorld's Russ Toyama here. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Starwood Hotels and Resorts is one of the many customers that found out how well Oracle Data Integration products work with Oracle Exadata. Gordon Light, senior director of information technology for StarWood Hotels, says they had notable performance gain in loading Oracle Exadata reporting environment: “We leverage Oracle GoldenGate to replicate data from our central reservations systems and other OLTP databases – significantly decreasing the overall ETL duration. Moving forward, we plan to use Oracle GoldenGate to help the company achieve near-real-time reporting.”You can listen about Starwood Hotels' implementation here. Many companies combine the power of Oracle GoldenGate with Oracle Data Integrator to have a single, integrated data integration platform for variety of use cases across the enterprise. Ufone is another good example of that. The leading mobile communications service provider of Pakistan has improved customer service using timely customer data in its data warehouse. Atif Aslam, head of management information systems for Ufone says: “Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate help us integrate information from various systems and provide up-to-date and real-time CRM data updates hourly, rather than daily. The applications have simplified data warehouse operations and allowed business users to make faster and better informed decisions to protect revenue in the fast-moving Pakistani telecommunications market.” You can read more about Ufone's use case here. In our Oracle Data Integration 12c launch webcast back in November we also heard from BT’s CTO Surren Parthab about their use of GoldenGate for moving to private cloud architecture. Surren also shared his perspectives on Oracle Data Integrator 12c and Oracle GoldenGate 12c releases. You can watch the video here. These are only a few examples of leading companies that have made data integration and real-time data access a key part of their data governance and IT modernization initiatives. They have seen real improvements in how their businesses operate and differentiate in today’s competitive markets. You can read about other customer examples in our Ebook: The Path to the Future and access resources including white papers, data sheets, podcasts and more via our Oracle Data Integration resource kit. /* 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:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Is there really a need for encryption to have true wireless security? [closed]

  - by Cawas

  I welcome better key-wording here, both on tags and title. I'm trying to conceive a free, open and secure network environment that would work anywhere, from big enterprises to small home networks of just 1 machine. I think since wireless Access Points are the most, if not only, true weak point of a Local Area Network (let's not consider every other security aspect of having internet) there would be basically two points to consider here: Having an open AP for anyone to use the internet through Leaving the whole LAN also open for guests to be able to easily read (only) files on it, and even a place to drop files on Considering these two aspects, once everything is done properly... What's the most secure option between having that, or having just an encrypted password-protected wifi? Of course "both" would seem "more secure". But it shouldn't actually be anything substantial. That's the question, but I think it may need more elaborating on. If you don't think so, please feel free to skip the next (long) part. Elaborating more on the two aspects ... I've always had the feeling using any kind of the so called "wireless security" methods is actually a bad design. I'm talking mostly about encrypting and pass-phrasing (which are actually two different concepts), since I won't even consider hiding SSID and mac filtering. I understand it's a natural way of thinking. With cable networking nobody can access the network unless they have access to the physical cable, so you're "secure" in the physical way. In a way, encrypting is for wireless what building walls is for the cables. And giving pass-phrases would be adding a door with a key. But the cabling without encryption is also insecure. If someone plugin all the data is right there. So, while I can see the use for encrypting data, I don't think it's a security measure in wireless networks. It's wasting resources for too little gain. I believe we should encrypt only sensitive data regardless of wires. That's already done with HTTPS, so I don't really need to encrypt my torrents, for instance. They're torrents, they are meant to be freely shared! As for using passwords, they should be added to the users, always. Not to wifi. For securing files, truly, best solution is backup. Sure all that doesn't happen that often, but I won't consider the most situations where people just don't care. I think there are enough situations where we actually use passwords on our OS users, so let's go with that in mind. I keep promoting the Fonera concept as an instance. It opens up a free wifi port, if you choose so, and anyone can connect to the internet through that, without having any access to your LAN. It also uses a QoS which will never let your bandwidth drop from that public usage. That's security, and it's open. But it's lacking the second aspect. I'll probably be bashed for promoting the non-usage of WPA 2 with AES or whatever, but I wanted to know from more experienced (super) users out there: what do you think?

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• Improving the Industry’s Best Cloud Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Solution – New Release of Instantis EnterpriseTrack

  - by Melissa Centurio Lopes

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} By Yasser Mahmud, Vice President of Product Strategy & Industry Marketing, Oracle Primavera We know that in today’s rapidly changing world, organizations and leaders must adapt to fierce competition, business climate change and customers consistently demanding more for less. And project portfolio management (PPM) initiatives are a key component to help organizations thrive and stand out among competitors. That’s why I’m excited to announce Instantis EnterpriseTrack 8.5. Since Oracle’s acquisition of Instantis late last year, we’ve been busy working to enhance the leading cloud PPM solution. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Here’s what’s new: Perform more precise resource planning and management  Gain more precise capacity visibility for resource planning and project execution with resource calendars that capture vacation, LOA and part-time resource availability Ensure compliance and governance processes  with activity labor cost capitalization Improve project labor cost estimation, tracking and administration with variable resource rates Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Optimize Project Demand Management And Execution Enhance productivity and analysis with project request flexible staffing plan and simplified finance estimation Improve project status communication and execution with estimated time to complete (ETC) in timesheets and projects Achieve audit compliance and governance with field change history for key project and project request fields Enforce proper financial accounting processes with the new strict finance lock/close period option Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Improve Reporting and the User Experience Enhance user productivity and analysis with improved listing pages Improve program reporting with new program filters in listing pages and reports Run large data volume user defined Excel reports with MS Excel 2010 support Accelerate user productivity and satisfaction with an improved user interface for project issues, risks, and scope changes Enjoy faster system response and improved user experience with  optimized listing pages, resource planning, and application cache Deliver user self-service training on demand with UPK support And if that wasn’t enough, we’ve also made additional improvements to timesheets, field change history and finance lock/close period. Learn more about Instantis EnterpriseTrack 8.5.

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• Server 2003 R2 doesn't allow logon after a few days of uptime

  - by Bryan

  We have a server 2003 R2 standard (which I'll refer to as SRV01) that's knocking on a bit now, but it still acts as a file, print and SQL server on our company's network. SRV01 hosts user profiles, home directories and pretty much all our business data. Note our AD is currently at 2008 R2 level. This server is due to be upgraded in the next 12 months, but I've no budget to spend on it just yet. A bit of history of this server follows: When SRV01 was first commissioned, it acted as a domain controller (with the same 2003 R2 install it has today), paired with another server that ran Server 2003 R2 SBS. A few years ago, we purchased a pair of dedicated DCs (2008 R2) and at this point we decommissioned the 2003 SBS server, and SRV01 was DCPROMOed out of the AD. Up until very recently, SRV01 used to run Exchange 2003, however we've recently purchased a dedicated server for Exchange 2010 and upgraded (following Microsoft recommended upgrade path). Exchange 2003 was recently uninstalled. - Cleanly to the best of my knowledge. Ever since Exchange was removed from SRV01, I'm finding that after a few days of uptime, when I attempt to logon, pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL just hides the Welcome to Windows Server 2003 banner, and never presents the logon dialog. All I see is a moveable mouse pointer and a blank background. It's a similar story with an admin TS session, the RDP client connects and gives me a blank background, but no logon dialog is presented. The RDP session indefinitely hangs until I give up and close it. The only way I've been able to gain access to the server is to pull the plug on it. Whilst the server does have a battery backed up RAID 5 controller, I'm unhappy about having to do this, so as a temporary measure, I've created a scheduled job to reboot SRV01 each night. Not only do I not like the idea of scheduling a reboot of a server like this, but it is also causing problems for users that leave desktop PCs left logged on overnight. Users complain of 'Delayed Write Failures', and there has also been a number of users that have started to complain about account lockout problems, as well as users not able to connect to shares on SRV01 until they reboot their desktop PCs. I've examined event logs on SRV01 and on the DCs looking for clues as to what the problem is, but there really is nothing untoward being logged. How could I being to investigate this problem when nothing of any relevance is being logged? Is there some additional logging that can be enabled that might give some clues as to what could be causing this problem? Could performance monitor help me out here, and if so, what counters would you consider monitoring? It's worth mentioning that whilst the server is unresponsive via the console and TS, it does still respond to clients connecting to shares without problems for several days, but after about a week I then start to hear users reporting problems accessing shares, but this seems quite sporadic. I've also tried leaving the console logged on (and locked), when I notice I can no longer logon via TS, I can unlock the server console without problem, but it refuses to reboot/shutdown, and subsequent attempts to reboot report that a system shutdown is already in progress and the system then completely hangs. I've tried playing the waiting game for several hours thinking that a timeout might allow the shutdown to continue, but to no avail.

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• Life Technologies: Making Life Easier to Manage

  - by Michael Snow

  12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} When we’re thinking about customer engagement, we’re acutely aware of all the forces at play competing for our customer’s attention. Solutions that make life easier for our customers draw attention to themselves. We tend to engage more when there is a distinct benefit and we can take a deep breath and accept that there is hope in the world and everything isn’t designed to frustrate us and make our lives miserable. (sigh…) When products are designed to automate processes that were consuming hours of our time with no relief in sight, they deserve to be recognized. One of our recent Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation Award Winners in the WebCenter category, Life Technologies, has recently posted a video promoting their “award winning” solution. The Oracle Innovation Awards are part of the overall Oracle Excellence awards given to customers for innovation with Oracle products. More info here. Their award nomination included this description: Life Technologies delivered the My Life Service Portal as part of a larger Digital Hub strategy. This Portal is the first of its kind in the biotechnology service providing industry. The Portal provides access to Life Technologies cloud based service monitoring system where all customer deployed instruments can be remotely monitored and proactively repaired. The portal provides alerts from these cloud based monitoring services directly to the customer and to Life Technologies Field Engineers. The Portal provides insight into the instruments and services customers purchased for the purpose of analyzing and anticipating future customer needs and creating targeted sales and service programs. This portal not only provides benefits for Life Technologies internal sales and service teams but provides customers a central place to track all pertinent instrument information including: instrument service history instrument status and previous activities instrument performance analytics planned service visits warranty/contract information discussion forums social networks for lab management and collaboration alerts and notifications on all of the above team scheduling for instrument usage promote optional reagents required to keep instruments performing From their website The Life Technologies Instruments & Services Portal Helps You Save Time and Gain Peace of Mind Introducing the new, award-winning, free online tool that enables easier management of your instrument use and care, faster response to requests for service or service quotes, and instant sharing of key instrument and service information with your colleagues. Now – this unto itself is obviously beneficial for their customers who were previously burdened with having to do all of these tasks separately, manually and inconsistently by nature. Now – all in one place and free to their customers – a portal that ties it all together. They now have built the platform to give their customers yet another reason to do business with them – Their headline on their product page says it all: “Life is now easier to manage - All your instrument use and care in one place – the no-cost, no-hassle Instruments and Services Portal.” Of course – it’s very convenient that the company name includes “Life” and now can also promote to their clients and prospects that doing business with them is easy and their sophisticated lab equipment is easy to manage. In an industry full of PhD’s – “Easy” isn’t usually the first word that comes to mind, but Life Technologies has now tied the word to their brand in a very eloquent way. Between our work lives and family or personal lives, getting any mono-focused minutes of dedicated attention has become such a rare occurrence in our current era of multi-tasking that those moments of focus are highly prized. So – when something is done really well – so well that it becomes captivating and urges sharing impulses – I take notice and dig deeper and most of the time I discover other gems not so hidden below the surface. And then I share with those I know would enjoy and understand. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit here that the first person I shared the videos below with was my daughter. She’s in her senior year of high school in the midst of her college search. She’s passionate about her academics and has already decided that she wants to study Neuroscience in college and like her mother will be in for the long haul to a PhD eventually. In a summer science program at Smith College 2 summers ago – she sent the family famous text to me – “I just dissected a sheep’s brain – wicked cool!” – This was followed by an equally memorable text this past summer in a research mentorship in Neuroscience at UConn – “Just sliced up some rat brain. Reminded me of a deli slicer at the supermarket… sorry I forgot to call last night…” So… needless to say – I knew I had an audience that would enjoy and understand these videos below and are now being shared among her science classmates and faculty. And evidently - so does Life Technologies! They’ve done a great job on these making them fun and something that will easily be shared among their customers social networks. They’ve created a neuro-archetypal character, “Ph.Diddy” and know that their world of clients in academics, research, and other institutions would understand and enjoy the “edutainment” value in this series of videos on their YouTube channel that pokes fun at the stereotypes while also promoting their products at the same time. They use their Facebook page for additional engagement with their clients and as another venue to promote these videos. Enjoy this one as well! More to be found here: http://www.youtube.com/lifetechnologies Stay tuned to this Oracle WebCenter blog channel. Tomorrow we'll be taking a look at another winner of the Innovation Awards, LADWP - helping to keep the citizens of Los Angeles engaged with their Water and Power provider.

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• Amazon Web Services (AWS) Plug-in for Oracle Enterprise Manager

  - by Anand Akela

  v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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"; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} Contributed by Sunil Kunisetty and Daniel Chan Introduction and ArchitectureAs more and more enterprises deploy some of their non-critical workload on Amazon Web Services (AWS), it’s becoming critical to monitor those public AWS resources along side with their on-premise resources. Oracle recently announced Oracle Enterprise Manager Plug-in for Amazon Web Services (AWS) allows you to achieve that goal. The on-premise Oracle Enterprise Manager (EM12c) acts as a single tool to get a comprehensive view of your public AWS resources as well as your private cloud resources.  By deploying the plug-in within your Cloud Control environment, you gain the following management features: Monitor EBS, EC2 and RDS instances on Amazon Web Services Gather performance metrics and configuration details for AWS instances Raise alerts and violations based on thresholds set on monitoring Generate reports based on the gathered data Users of this Plug-in can leverage the rich Enterprise Manager features such as system promotion, incident generation based on thresholds, integration with 3rd party ticketing applications etc. AWS Monitoring via this Plug-in is enabled via Amazon CloudWatch API and the users of this Plug-in are responsible for supplying credentials for accessing AWS and the CloudWatch API. This Plug-in can only be deployed on an EM12C R2 platform and agent version should be at minimum 12c R2.Here is a pictorial view of the overall architecture: Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) Here are a few key features: Rich and exhaustive list of metrics. Metrics can be gathered from an Agent running outside AWS. Critical configuration information. Custom Home Pages with charts and AWS configuration information. Generate incidents based on thresholds set on monitoring data. Discovery and Monitoring AWS instances can be added to EM12C either via the EM12c User Interface (UI) or the EM12c Command Line Interface ( EMCLI)  by providing the AWS credentials (Secret Key and Access Key Id) as well as resource specific properties as target properties. Here is a quick mapping of target types and properties for each AWS resources AWS Resource Type Target Type Resource specific properties EBS Resource Amazon EBS Service CloudWatch base URI, EC2 Base URI, Period, Volume Id, Proxy Server and Port EC2 Resource Amazon EC2 Service CloudWatch base URI, EC2 Base URI, Period, Instance  Id, Proxy Server and Port RDS Resource Amazon RDS Service CloudWatch base URI, RDS Base URI, Period, Instance  Id, Proxy Server and Port Proxy server and port are optional and are only needed if the agent is within the firewall. Here is an emcli example to add an EC2 target. Please read the Installation and Readme guide for more details and step-by-step instructions to deploy  the plugin and adding the AWS the instances. ./emcli add_target \       -name="<target name>" \       -type="AmazonEC2Service" \       -host="<host>" \       -properties="ProxyHost=<proxy server>;ProxyPort=<proxy port>;EC2_BaseURI=http://ec2.<region>.amazonaws.com;BaseURI=http://monitoring.<region>.amazonaws.com;InstanceId=<EC2 instance Id>;Period=<data point periond>"  \     -subseparator=properties="=" ./emcli set_monitoring_credential \                 -set_name="AWSKeyCredentialSet"  \                 -target_name="<target name>"  \                 -target_type="AmazonEC2Service" \                 -cred_type="AWSKeyCredential"  \                 -attributes="AccessKeyId:<access key id>;SecretKey:<secret key>" Emcli utility is found under the ORACLE_HOME of EM12C install. Once the instance is discovered, the target will show up under the ‘All Targets’ list under “Amazon EC2 Service’. Once the instances are added, one can navigate to the custom homepages for these resource types. The custom home pages not only include critical metrics, but also vital configuration parameters and incidents raised for these instances.  By mapping the configuration parameters as instance properties, we can slice-and-dice and group various AWS instance by leveraging the EM12C Config search feature. The following configuration properties and metrics are collected for these Resource types. Resource Type Configuration Properties Metrics EBS Resource Volume Id, Volume Type, Device Name, Size, Availability Zone Response: Status Utilization: QueueLength, IdleTime Volume Statistics: ReadBrandwith, WriteBandwidth, ReadThroughput, WriteThroughput Operation Statistics: ReadSize, WriteSize, ReadLatency, WriteLatency EC2 Resource Instance ID, Owner Id, Root Device type, Instance Type. Availability Zone Response: Status CPU Utilization: CPU Utilization Disk I/O:  DiskReadBytes, DiskWriteBytes, DiskReadOps, DiskWriteOps, DiskReadRate, DiskWriteRate, DiskIOThroughput, DiskReadOpsRate, DiskWriteOpsRate, DiskOperationThroughput Network I/O : NetworkIn, NetworkOut, NetworkInRate, NetworkOutRate, NetworkThroughput RDS Resource Instance ID, Database Engine Name, Database Engine Version, Database Instance Class, Allocated Storage Size, Availability Zone Response: Status Disk I/O:  ReadIOPS, WriteIOPS, ReadLatency, WriteLatency, ReadThroughput, WriteThroughput DB Utilization:  BinLogDiskUsage, CPUUtilization, DatabaseConnections, FreeableMemory, ReplicaLag, SwapUsage Custom Home Pages As mentioned above, we have custom home pages for these target types that include basic configuration information,  last 24 hours availability, top metrics and the incidents generated. Here are few snapshots. EBS Instance Home Page: EC2 Instance Home Page: RDS Instance Home Page: Further Reading: 1)      AWS Plugin download 2)      Installation and  Read Me. 3)      Screenwatch on SlideShare 4)      Extensibility Programmer's Guide 5)      Amazon Web Services

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• Windows 8.1 Will Start Encrypting Hard Drives By Default: Everything You Need to Know

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Windows 8.1 will automatically encrypt the storage on modern Windows PCs. This will help protect your files in case someone steals your laptop and tries to get at them, but it has important ramifications for data recovery. Previously, “BitLocker” was available on Professional and Enterprise editions of Windows, while “Device Encryption” was available on Windows RT and Windows Phone. Device encryption is included with all editions of Windows 8.1 — and it’s on by default. When Your Hard Drive Will Be Encrypted Windows 8.1 includes “Pervasive Device Encryption.” This works a bit differently from the standard BitLocker feature that has been included in Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows for the past few versions. Before Windows 8.1 automatically enables Device Encryption, the following must be true: The Windows device “must support connected standby and meet the Windows Hardware Certification Kit (HCK) requirements for TPM and SecureBoot on ConnectedStandby systems.”  (Source) Older Windows PCs won’t support this feature, while new Windows 8.1 devices you pick up will have this feature enabled by default. When Windows 8.1 installs cleanly and the computer is prepared, device encryption is “initialized” on the system drive and other internal drives. Windows uses a clear key at this point, which is removed later when the recovery key is successfully backed up. The PC’s user must log in with a Microsoft account with administrator privileges or join the PC to a domain. If a Microsoft account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Microsoft’s servers and encryption will be enabled. If a domain account is used, a recovery key will be backed up to Active Directory Domain Services and encryption will be enabled. If you have an older Windows computer that you’ve upgraded to Windows 8.1, it may not support Device Encryption. If you log in with a local user account, Device Encryption won’t be enabled. If you upgrade your Windows 8 device to Windows 8.1, you’ll need to enable device encryption, as it’s off by default when upgrading. Recovering An Encrypted Hard Drive Device encryption means that a thief can’t just pick up your laptop, insert a Linux live CD or Windows installer disc, and boot the alternate operating system to view your files without knowing your Windows password. It means that no one can just pull the hard drive from your device, connect the hard drive to another computer, and view the files. We’ve previously explained that your Windows password doesn’t actually secure your files. With Windows 8.1, average Windows users will finally be protected with encryption by default. However, there’s a problem — if you forget your password and are unable to log in, you’d also be unable to recover your files. This is likely why encryption is only enabled when a user logs in with a Microsoft account (or connects to a domain). Microsoft holds a recovery key, so you can gain access to your files by going through a recovery process. As long as you’re able to authenticate using your Microsoft account credentials — for example, by receiving an SMS message on the cell phone number connected to your Microsoft account — you’ll be able to recover your encrypted data. With Windows 8.1, it’s more important than ever to configure your Microsoft account’s security settings and recovery methods so you’ll be able to recover your files if you ever get locked out of your Microsoft account. Microsoft does hold the recovery key and would be capable of providing it to law enforcement if it was requested, which is certainly a legitimate concern in the age of PRISM. However, this encryption still provides protection from thieves picking up your hard drive and digging through your personal or business files. If you’re worried about a government or a determined thief who’s capable of gaining access to your Microsoft account, you’ll want to encrypt your hard drive with software that doesn’t upload a copy of your recovery key to the Internet, such as TrueCrypt. How to Disable Device Encryption There should be no real reason to disable device encryption. If nothing else, it’s a useful feature that will hopefully protect sensitive data in the real world where people — and even businesses — don’t enable encryption on their own. As encryption is only enabled on devices with the appropriate hardware and will be enabled by default, Microsoft has hopefully ensured that users won’t see noticeable slow-downs in performance. Encryption adds some overhead, but the overhead can hopefully be handled by dedicated hardware. If you’d like to enable a different encryption solution or just disable encryption entirely, you can control this yourself. To do so, open the PC settings app — swipe in from the right edge of the screen or press Windows Key + C, click the Settings icon, and select Change PC settings. Navigate to PC and devices -> PC info. At the bottom of the PC info pane, you’ll see a Device Encryption section. Select Turn Off if you want to disable device encryption, or select Turn On if you want to enable it — users upgrading from Windows 8 will have to enable it manually in this way. Note that Device Encryption can’t be disabled on Windows RT devices, such as Microsoft’s Surface RT and Surface 2. If you don’t see the Device Encryption section in this window, you’re likely using an older device that doesn’t meet the requirements and thus doesn’t support Device Encryption. For example, our Windows 8.1 virtual machine doesn’t offer Device Encryption configuration options. This is the new normal for Windows PCs, tablets, and devices in general. Where files on typical PCs were once ripe for easy access by thieves, Windows PCs are now encrypted by default and recovery keys are sent to Microsoft’s servers for safe keeping. This last part may be a bit creepy, but it’s easy to imagine average users forgetting their passwords — they’d be very upset if they lost all their files because they had to reset their passwords. It’s also an improvement over Windows PCs being completely unprotected by default.     

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• Azure, don't give me multiple VMs, give me one elastic VM

  - by FransBouma

  Yesterday, Microsoft revealed new major features for Windows Azure (see ScottGu's post). It all looks shiny and great, but after reading most of the material describing the new features, I still find the overall idea behind all of it flawed: why should I care on how much VMs my web app runs? Isn't that a problem to solve for the Windows Azure engineers / software? And what if I need the file system, why can't I simply get a virtual filesystem ? To illustrate my point, let's use a real example: a product website with a customer system/database and next to it a support site with accompanying database. Both are written in .NET, using ASP.NET and use a SQL Server database each. The product website offers files to download by customers, very simple. You have a couple of options to host these websites: Buy a server, place it in a rack at an ISP and run the sites on that server Use 'shared hosting' with an ISP, which means your sites' appdomains are running on the same machine, as well as the files stored, and the databases are hosted in the same server as the other shared databases. Hire a VM, install your OS of choice at an ISP, and host the sites on that VM, basically the same as the first option, except you don't have a physical server At some cloud-vendor, either host the sites 'shared' or in a VM. See above. With all of those options, scalability is a problem, even the cloud-based ones, though not due to the same reasons: The physical server solution has the obvious problem that if you need more power, you need to buy a bigger server or more servers which requires you to add replication and other overhead Shared hosting solutions are almost always capped on memory usage / traffic and database size: if your sites get too big, you have to move out of the shared hosting environment and start over with one of the other solutions The VM solution, be it a VM at an ISP or 'in the cloud' at e.g. Windows Azure or Amazon, in theory allows scaling out by simply instantiating more VMs, however that too introduces the same overhead problems as with the physical servers: suddenly more than 1 instance runs your sites. If a cloud vendor offers its services in the form of VMs, you won't gain much over having a VM at some ISP: the main problems you have to work around are still there: when you spin up more than one VM, your application must be completely stateless at any moment, including the DB sub system, because what's in memory in instance 1 might not be in memory in instance 2. This might sounds trivial but it's not. A lot of the websites out there started rather small: they were perfectly runnable on a single machine with normal memory and CPU power. After all, you don't need a big machine to run a website with even thousands of users a day. Moving these sites to a multi-VM environment will cause a problem: all the in-memory state they use, all the multi-page transitions they use while keeping state across the transition, they can't do that anymore like they did that on a single machine: state is something of the past, you have to store every byte of state in either a DB or in a viewstate or in a cookie somewhere so with the next request, all state information is available through the request, as nothing is kept in-memory. Our example uses a bunch of files in a file system. Using multiple VMs will require that these files move to a cloud storage system which is mounted in each VM so we don't have to store the files on each VM. This might require different file paths, but this change should be minor. What's perhaps less minor is the maintenance procedure in place on the new type of cloud storage used: instead of ftp-ing into a VM, you might have to update the files using different ways / tools. All in all this makes moving an existing website which was written for an environment that's based around a VM (namely .NET with its CLR) overly cumbersome and problematic: it forces you to refactor your website system to be able to be used 'in the cloud', which is caused by the limited way how e.g. Windows Azure offers its cloud services: in blocks of VMs. Offer a scalable, flexible VM which extends with my needs Instead, cloud vendors should offer simply one VM to me. On that VM I run the websites, store my DB and my files. As it's a virtual machine, how this machine is actually ran on physical hardware (e.g. partitioned), I don't care, as that's the problem for the cloud vendor to solve. If I need more resources, e.g. I have more traffic to my server, way more visitors per day, the VM stretches, like I bought a bigger box. This frees me from the problem which comes with multiple VMs: I don't have any refactoring to do at all: I can simply build my website as if it runs on my local hardware server, upload it to the VM offered by the cloud vendor, install it on the VM and I'm done. "But that might require changes to windows!" Yes, but Microsoft is Windows. Windows Azure is their service, they can make whatever change to what they offer to make it look like it's windows. Yet, they're stuck, like Amazon, in thinking in VMs, which forces developers to 'think ahead' and gamble whether they would need to migrate to a cloud with multiple VMs in the future or not. Which comes down to: gamble whether they should invest time in code / architecture which they might never need. (YAGNI anyone?) So the VM we're talking about, is that a low-level VM which runs a guest OS, or is that VM a different kind of VM? The flexible VM: .NET's CLR ? My example websites are ASP.NET based, which means they run inside a .NET appdomain, on the .NET CLR, which is a VM. The only physical OS resource the sites need is the file system, however this too is accessed through .NET. In short: all the websites see is what .NET allows the websites to see, the world as the websites know it is what .NET shows them and lets them access. How the .NET appdomain is run physically, that's the concern of .NET, not mine. This begs the question why Windows Azure doesn't offer virtual appdomains? Or better: .NET environments which look like one machine but could be physically multiple machines. In such an environment, no change has to be made to the websites to migrate them from a local machine or own server to the cloud to get proper scaling: the .NET VM will simply scale with the need: more memory needed, more CPU power needed, it stretches. What it offers to the application running inside the appdomain is simply increasing, but not fragmented: all resources are available to the application: this means that the problem of how to scale is back to where it should be: with the cloud vendor. "Yeah, great, but what about the databases?" The .NET application communicates with the database server through a .NET ADO.NET provider. Where the database is located is not a problem of the appdomain: the ADO.NET provider has to solve that. I.o.w.: we can host the databases in an environment which offers itself as a single resource and is accessible through one connection string without replication overhead on the outside, and use that environment inside the .NET VM as if it was a single DB. But what about memory replication and other problems? This environment isn't simple, at least not for the cloud vendor. But it is simple for the customer who wants to run his sites in that cloud: no work needed. No refactoring needed of existing code. Upload it, run it. Perhaps I'm dreaming and what I described above isn't possible. Yet, I think if cloud vendors don't move into that direction, what they're offering isn't interesting: it doesn't solve a problem at all, it simply offers a way to instantiate more VMs with the guest OS of choice at the cost of me needing to refactor my website code so it can run in the straight jacket form factor dictated by the cloud vendor. Let's not kid ourselves here: most of us developers will never build a website which needs a truck load of VMs to run it: almost all websites created by developers can run on just a few VMs at most. Yet, the most expensive change is right at the start: moving from one to two VMs. As soon as you have refactored your website code to run across multiple VMs, adding another one is just as easy as clicking a mouse button. But that first step, that's the problem here and as it's right there at the beginning of scaling the website, it's particularly strange that cloud vendors refuse to solve that problem and leave it to the developers to solve that. Which makes migrating 'to the cloud' particularly expensive.

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• Using Lightbox with _Screen

  Although, I have to admit that I discovered Bernard Bout's ideas and concepts about implementing a lightbox in Visual FoxPro quite a while ago, there was no "spare" time in active projects that allowed me to have a closer look into his solution(s). Luckily, these days I received a demand to focus a little bit more on this. This article describes the steps about how to integrate and make use of Bernard's lightbox class in combination with _Screen in Visual FoxPro. The requirement in this project was to be able to visually lock the whole application (_Screen area) and guide the user to an information that should not be ignored easily. Depending on the importance any current user activity should be interrupted and focus put onto the notification. Getting the "meat", eh, source code Please check out Bernard's blog on Foxite directly in order to get the latest and greatest version. As time of writing this article I use version 6.0 as described in this blog entry: The Fastest Lightbox Ever The Lightbox class is sub-classed from the imgCanvas class from the GdiPlusX project on VFPx and therefore you need to have the source code of GdiPlusX as well, and integrate it into your development environment. The version I use is available here: Release GDIPlusX 1.20 As soon as you open the bbGdiLightbox class the first it, VFP might ask you to update the reference to the gdiplusx.vcx. As we have the sources, no problem and you have access to Bernard's code. The class itself is pretty easy to understand, some properties that you do not need to change and three methods: Setup(), ShowLightbox() and BeforeDraw() The challenge - _Screen or not? Reading Bernard's article about the fastest lightbox ever, he states the following: "The class will only work on a form. It will not support any other containers" Really? And what about _Screen? Isn't that a form class, too? Yes, of course it is but nonetheless trying to use _Screen directly will fail. Well, let's have look at the code to see why: WITH This .Left = 0 .Top = 0 .Height = ThisForm.Height .Width = ThisForm.Width .ZOrder(0) .Visible = .F.ENDWITH During the setup of the lightbox as well as while capturing the image as replacement for your forms and controls, the object reference Thisform is used. Which is a little bit restrictive to my opinion but let's continue. The second issue lies in the method ShowLightbox() and introduced by the call of .Bitmap.FromScreen(): Lparameters tlVisiblilty* tlVisiblilty - show or hide (T/F)* grab a screen dump with controlsIF tlVisiblilty Local loCaptureBmp As xfcBitmap Local lnTitleHeight, lnLeftBorder, lnTopBorder, lcImage, loImage lnTitleHeight = IIF(ThisForm.TitleBar = 1,Sysmetric(9),0) lnLeftBorder = IIF(ThisForm.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(3)) lnTopBorder = IIF(ThisForm.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(4)) With _Screen.System.Drawing loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(ThisForm.HWnd,; lnLeftBorder,; lnTopBorder+lnTitleHeight,; ThisForm.Width ,; ThisForm.Height) ENDWITH * save it to a property This.capturebmp = loCaptureBmp ThisForm.SetAll("Visible",.F.) This.DraW() This.Visible = .T.ELSE ThisForm.SetAll("Visible",.T.) This.Visible = .F.ENDIF My first trials in using the class ended in an exception - GdiPlusError:OutOfMemory - thrown by the Bitmap object. Frankly speaking, this happened mainly because of my lack of knowledge about GdiPlusX. After reading some documentation, especially about the FromScreen() method I experimented a little bit. Capturing the visible area of _Screen actually was not the real problem but the dimensions I specified for the bitmap. The modifications - step by step First of all, it is to get rid of restrictive object references on Thisform and to change them into either This.Parent or more generic into This.oForm (even better: This.oControl). The Lightbox.Setup() method now sets the necessary object reference like so: *====================================================================* Initial setup* Default value: This.oControl = "This.Parent"* Alternative: This.oControl = "_Screen"*====================================================================With This .oControl = Evaluate(.oControl) If Vartype(.oControl) == T_OBJECT .Anchor = 0 .Left = 0 .Top = 0 .Width = .oControl.Width .Height = .oControl.Height .Anchor = 15 .ZOrder(0) .Visible = .F. EndIfEndwith Also, based on other developers' comments in Bernard articles on his lightbox concept and evolution I found the source code to handle the differences between a form and _Screen and goes into Lightbox.ShowLightbox() like this: *====================================================================* tlVisibility - show or hide (T/F)* grab a screen dump with controls*====================================================================Lparameters tlVisibility Local loControl m.loControl = This.oControl If m.tlVisibility Local loCaptureBmp As xfcBitmap Local lnTitleHeight, lnLeftBorder, lnTopBorder, lcImage, loImage lnTitleHeight = Iif(m.loControl.TitleBar = 1,Sysmetric(9),0) lnLeftBorder = Iif(m.loControl.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(3)) lnTopBorder = Iif(m.loControl.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(4)) With _Screen.System.Drawing If Upper(m.loControl.Name) == Upper("Screen") loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(m.loControl.HWnd) Else loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(m.loControl.HWnd,; lnLeftBorder,; lnTopBorder+lnTitleHeight,; m.loControl.Width ,; m.loControl.Height) EndIf Endwith * save it to a property This.CaptureBmp = loCaptureBmp m.loControl.SetAll("Visible",.F.) This.Draw() This.Visible = .T. Else This.CaptureBmp = .Null. m.loControl.SetAll("Visible",.T.) This.Visible = .F. Endif {loadposition content_adsense} Are we done? Almost... Although, Bernard says it clearly in his article: "Just drop the class on a form and call it as shown." It did not come clear to my mind in the first place with _Screen, but, yeah, he is right. Dropping the class on a form provides a permanent link between those two classes, it creates a valid This.Parent object reference. Bearing in mind that the lightbox class can not be "dropped" on the _Screen, we have to create the same type of binding during runtime execution like so: *====================================================================* Create global lightbox component*==================================================================== Local llOk, loException As Exception m.llOk = .F. m.loException = .Null. If Not Vartype(_Screen.Lightbox) == "O" Try _Screen.AddObject("Lightbox", "bbGdiLightbox") Catch To m.loException Assert .F. Message m.loException.Message EndTry EndIf m.llOk = (Vartype(_Screen.Lightbox) == "O")Return m.llOk Through runtime instantiation we create a valid binding to This.Parent in the lightbox object and the code works as expected with _Screen. Ease your life: Use properties instead of constants Having a closer look at the BeforeDraw() method might wet your appetite to simplify the code a little bit. Looking at the sample screenshots in Bernard's article you see several forms in different colors. This got me to modify the code like so: *====================================================================* Apply the actual lightbox effect on the captured bitmap.*====================================================================If Vartype(This.CaptureBmp) == T_OBJECT Local loGfx As xfcGraphics loGfx = This.oGfx With _Screen.System.Drawing loGfx.DrawImage(This.CaptureBmp,This.Rectangle,This.Rectangle,.GraphicsUnit.Pixel) * change the colours as needed here * possible colours are (220,128,0,0),(220,0,0,128) etc. loBrush = .SolidBrush.New(.Color.FromArgb( ; This.Opacity, .Color.FromRGB(This.BorderColor))) loGfx.FillRectangle(loBrush,This.Rectangle) EndwithEndif Create an additional property Opacity to specify the grade of translucency you would like to have without the need to change the code in each instance of the class. This way you only need to change the values of Opacity and BorderColor to tweak the appearance of your lightbox. This could be quite helpful to signalize different levels of importance (ie. green, yellow, orange, red, etc...) of notifications to the users of the application. Final thoughts Using the lightbox concept in combination with _Screen instead of forms is possible. Already Jim Wiggins comments in Bernard's article to loop through the _Screen.Forms collection in order to cascade the lightbox visibility to all active forms. Good idea. But honestly, I believe that instead of looping all forms one could use _Screen.SetAll("ShowLightbox", .T./.F., "Form") with Form.ShowLightbox_Access method to gain more speed. The modifications described above might provide even more features to your applications while consuming less resources and performance. Additionally, the restrictions to capture only forms does not exist anymore. Using _Screen you are able to capture and cover anything. The captured area of _Screen does not include any toolbars, docked windows, or menus. Therefore, it is advised to take this concept on a higher level and to combine it with additional classes that handle the state of toolbars, docked windows and menus. Which I did for the customer's project.

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