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• Amazon Elastic Terms and Conditions

  - by PP

  WARNING: Have you really read Amazon's Terms and Conditions? Would anybody seriously agree to this term on Amazon's Elastic services sign up page? 6.2. Restrictions with Respect to Use of Marks. Your use of any trademarks, service marks, service or trade names, logos, and other designations of AWS and its affiliates or licensors, hereinafter "Marks", shall strictly comply with the following provisions. You may use the Marks in conjunction with the display of the AWS Content and for the purpose of indicating that your Application was created using the Services. You may use the Marks only in the form in which we make them available to you and not in any manner that disparages Amazon, its affiliates or its licensors, or that otherwise dilutes any Mark. Other than your limited right to use the Marks as provided in this Agreement, we and our licensors retain all right, title, and interest in and to the Marks. You will not at any time now or in the future challenge or assist others to challenge the validity of the Marks, or attempt to register confusingly similar trademarks, trade names, service marks or logos. You agree to follow our the Trademark Use Guidelines posted on the Amazon Web Services™ Trademark Guidelines page (the "Trademark Guidelines") as those guidelines may change from time to time. The Trademark Guidelines are incorporated herein by reference. You must immediately discontinue use of any Mark as specified by us at any time in writing. We may modify any Marks provided to you at any time, and upon notice, you will use only the modified Marks and not the old Marks. Other than as specified in this Agreement, you may not use any trademark, service mark, trade name or other business identifier of Amazon or its affiliates unless you obtain Amazon's or its affiliates' prior written consent. The foregoing prohibition includes the use of "amazon," any other trademark of AWS, Amazon or its affiliates, or variations or misspellings of any of them, in the name of an Application or in a URL to the left of the top-level domain name (e.g., ".com", ".net", "co.uk", etc.)-for example, a URL such as "amazon.mydomain.com", "amaozn.com" or "amazonauctions.net" are expressly prohibited. Any use you make of the Marks shall inure to our benefit and you hereby irrevocably assign to us all right, title and interest in the same. In addition, you agree not to misrepresent or embellish the relationship between us and you, for example by implying that we support, sponsor, endorse, or contribute money to you or your business endeavors. If you are a large company and you want to use Amazon's services you must agree that: you may not use the word "amazon" in any domain name you control (even if you are a forestry company) you may not use any word Amazon choose to trademark in any domain you control (regardless of whether the name has a different meaning/purpose in your industry) from now until forever you will never dispute any claim Amazon makes on any word you or anybody else uses Seriously, who would sign such a thing?

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• UAE and the mysteries of unreachable websites

  - by 0plus1

  I write here because I'm really lost, please stay with me because it's not easy to explain. A company asked me to set-up a private server, now I'm a programmer so I got a solution with technical support and cpanel which helped me to setup everything and it's working smoothless. I'm by no means a professional sysadmin, but I have a fair knowledge of server configurations, but this problem is way over my knowledge, and apparently way over the knowledge of most sysadmins, I really hope that here I'll find someone with enough experience to help me or at least give me more insight. Now this company for which I'm consulting operates in the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and from there the server is almost unreachable. It started with ns not registering in the UAE, after a week that sorted itself out and now the site is indeed reachable, but it takes almost 2 minutes to load a webpage with one line of text. Emails go in timeout. The domain currently parked there has been bought appositely for tests, the main one that was supposed to go there, after a catastrophic week has been transferred to a shared hosting solution in the UK, and from there it works like a charme. Now after doing some research I discovered that I'm not alone in this, there are several reports of webmasters discovering that their website is not reachable inside the UAE, and mind this has nothing to do with the state-wide block of questionable sites, because in that case an error message appears, this seems to be related to the infrastructure of the UAE, which apparently reroutes everything through their own "fake" internet. Apparently new servers with their own IP are not recognized (yet?) by the UAE infrastructure, while shared hosting solutions seeing that they operates tons of other websites are more likely to be part of the UAE network. Now my questions are: 1) Has someone a real explanation for this? The only thing I can think of is that the server is on a new IP that is not yet recognized by the UAE, but that doesn't explain why it loads (even if after 2 minutes). I don't have any help from within the UAE as the only people that are "experts" are questionable companies that simply try to sell their own services. 2) If there is really some kind of block of new servers, is it possible to know before if a server is reachable from within the UAE, currently this is not a ns problem as even accessing the server with its IP result in a 2 minute wait. 3) Can it be that the problem lies somewhere else? There are some tests that I can perform? I'm not physically in the UAE, but I can ask the people there, or use teamviewer. Could it be some misconfiguration on the server (mind that the site works EVERYWHERE else in the world). Thank you for ANY kind of help

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• What is good usage scenario for Rackspace Cloud Files CDN (powered by AKAMAI) [closed]

  - by Andrew Smith

  I have just setup my website as static page via Rackspace CDN / Akamai. www.example.co.uk is an alias for d9771e6f24423091aebc-345678991111238fabcdef6114258d0e1.r61.cf3.rackcdn.com. d9771e6f24423091aebc-345678991111238fabcdef6114258d0e1.r61.cf3.rackcdn.com is an alias for a61.rackcdn.com. a61.rackcdn.com is an alias for a61.rackcdn.com.mdc.edgesuite.net. a61.rackcdn.com.mdc.edgesuite.net is an alias for a63.dscg10.akamai.net. a63.dscg10.akamai.net has address 63.166.98.41 a63.dscg10.akamai.net has address 63.166.98.40 a63.dscg10.akamai.net has IPv6 address 2001:428:4c02::cda8:ecb9 a63.dscg10.akamai.net has IPv6 address 2001:428:4c02::cda8:ed09 The HTTP header: HTTP/1.0 200 OK Last-Modified: Fri, 19 Oct 2012 23:27:41 GMT ETag: fdf9e14b77def799e09e8ce815a521da X-Timestamp: 1350689261.23382 Content-Type: text/html X-Trans-Id: tx457979be3bd746c2b4e5403a1189cdbc Cache-Control: public, max-age=900 Expires: Sat, 27 Oct 2012 22:18:56 GMT Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2012 22:03:56 GMT Content-Length: 7124 Connection: keep-alive I am wondering, if it's really the fastest solution to power the website? By investigating it thru http://www.just-ping.com/ it seems, that from many places the ping is very high, and during quick investigation I found that they use GeoIP to resolve addresses based on WHOIS, which is not accurate and because of that from many places the ping is above 300ms (for example, if ISP is in balgladore and request is routed to bangladore even if it's 300ms, for period of 1 month), while by just using Amazon Web Services and Route 53 Anycast DNS servers and only 4 EC2 instances it seems that for example India is always below 100ms, while using Akamai it goes above 300ms in some cases, and this is because Route 53 is using BGP. By quickly checking the Akamai, it seems that they are not getting feedback from the traffic - the high ping stays constant even if I keep downloading large files and videos, which is opposite to what they say on their website. They state, that they optimize the performance by taking feedback from the requests, while it seems they just use GeoIP with per City resolution (which are mostly big cities). Because of this, AWS with Route 53 / Anycast DNS seems to be much more reliable, as well EdgeCast which is using BGP, but I dont know how much does it cost to deploy static website. Actually, I dont know if EdgeCast is not a lie, because from isolated places there are many errors - so their performance is at the cost of quality of delivery, because of BGP switching the routes during transfer of large files. So I was wondering, what is really Akamai good for, because they dont seem to pose any strength in any field in what I do understand now, except they offer some software based WAF on their website, but what I really care about is the core distribiution, so the question is? Is really Akamai good for Videos? For static websites? ??? I found so far AWS most usable with most consistent ping and stable transfers.

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• Why doesn't video run smoothly on my laptop anymore?

  - by andygrunt

  This might be an impossible question to answer remotely but I figure there may be some common causes that people can suggest so I think it's worth asking... Video no longer plays smoothly on my laptop. It used to but not for a while now. For example, playing a video on YouTube is pretty typical: I press play (making sure it's not on HD or even HQ) and the video buffers a little then starts to play. At first it plays fine then the video starts to stutter, turning into a slideshow while the sound continues to play smoothly. If I try playing the same video on my Playstation 3 (which is linked to the same network) it plays smoothly so it can't be the connection. Another example is streaming DivX videos. Again, I wait while it buffers and it starts but very soon, instead of a slideshow, this time the video just plays slowly while the sound continues as normal (instantly getting out of sync). Even if I let the video fully load before pressing play (i.e. it's no longer streaming), it still behaves the same way. I can even let it load 100% then save the file to hard disk and use VLC player to view it, and the same thing happens. I'm using an old laptop running Windows XP. For the past several years it's been connected to the router via Wi-Fi but in the past few days I've changed that to a network cable (like my PS3) but that hasn't helped. Yes, I regularly install various bits and pieces of software but nothing that I can identify as being the cause. So, are there known causes of this sort of behaviour and if so, what can I do to fix it? Thanks. Update to answer a few questions... Laptop Spec' (note: video has played back fine for the majority of time I've had the laptop) Toshiba Satellite 1900-603 (possibly called something else outside the UK) Intel Pentium 4 2.2 Ghz Processor Originally had 512Mb memory but recently doubled that to 1 Gig of memory Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon 16Mb DDR VRAM Windows XP SP3 (Home edition) Over the years I've done several things to speed it up (disabling indexing etc) and am generally happy with the performance. I also regularly have a clear out of old software (if for no other reason than the laptop only has a 40Gb hard disk) and use CCleaner and Glary Utilities to strip out much of the crap from my system. Also recently (after doubling the memory), I've tried a few new things which might be likely candidates for slowing the video down such as Rocketdock, Jingle keyboard (which gives an old style 'clacky' typewriter sound when I type - love it), SugarSync, Taskbar Shuffle. However, the video doesn't play smoothly even when I try quit all these apps.

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• PHP hits 100% CPU and eats RAM at the same time Monday to Friday

  - by Daniel Samuels

  We run a learning platform for primary schools here in the UK and it's all been running extremely well. However at around 4PM Monday to Friday we see the same issue arise -- 1-2 PHP threads will spike to 100% CPU and gradually start eating up RAM until the server(s) fall over. 98%+ of our requests are HTTPS, these come into our Layer 7 load balancer which then decrypts the SSL data, adds the X-HTTP-Forwarded-For header and forwards the data onto an application server (we have 2 of those at the moment) on port 80. Our application servers have Varnish on port 80 which takes in the request from the load balancer and passes the request through to Nginx on port 81. Nginx then works out which 'vhost' it needs to use and passes any PHP processing through to PHP-CGI which is listening on a socket (managed through spawn-fcgi). There's an instance of Memcached running too, MySQL runs on a separate server / slave setup. Throughout the day the load will typically go no higher than 0.8 on either of the application servers, however at around 4PM our problem arises. I've managed to run strace on a few of the actual threads when they cause the problem and I always see the same thing: stat("/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/London", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644,st_size=3661, ...}) = 0 stat("/usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/London", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644,st_size=3661, ...}) = 0 This is repeated infinitely and never stops until you SEGKILL the process or oomkiller kills it. There are no cron jobs scheduled to run at that time and I don't have any way of seeing exactly what Nginx request is associated with the PHP process which is running. We are running PHP 5.3.14 which we upgraded to from 5.3.8 last week to rule out the older version being the problem. This issue has been going on a few months now and we have no idea what is causing it. We deploy our software very frequently, so it's difficult to track down a specific release which may have started the problem - especially as we do not know the date of the first occurrence of this issue. Varnish is version 3.0.1, Nginx is 1.0.6 (which I understand is about a year old now), our servers are running CentOS release 5.7 (Final) they have Intel i3 540s at 3.07Ghz and 8GB of RAM. There's a discussion on the Debian mailing list about something very similar, you can find that here. Has anyone seen anything like this in the past, does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Are there a way of linking an Nginx request directly to a PHP thread? Is there a better way of seeing what the PHP process is doing? (I've seen GDB mentioned, though I'll have to recompile PHP) Thanks!

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• Error sending email to alias with Postfix

  - by Burning the Codeigniter

  I'm on Ubuntu 11.04 64bit. I'm trying to set up Postfix on my VPS, which has been configured but when I send an email to an alias e.g. [email protected] it will send it to [email protected].uk. Now when I sent the email from my GMail account, I got this returned: Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: [email protected] Technical details of permanent failure: Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected [email protected] (state 14). ----- Original message ----- DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; bh=R1WtjVRWywfkWCR2g4QKbSjAfUaU9DAAMKbg9UAWqvs=; b=FiSfdhEaV4pEq/76ENlH4tvOgm35Ow3ulRg06kDYrIQTaDf3eOEgfSEgH25PjZuAj/ 7Hg1CL++o6Rt/tl80ZiR2AWekhA0zIn2JkqE7KssMG7WbBmMmbf8V9KDo2jOw+mZv+C/ KDKsQ65AudBZ/NYLDDpTT7MkKf8DzqeGCKj9MAct6sHDoC0wCciXYxNfTf+MKxrZvRHQ oICTkH5LOugKW9wEjPF2AoO8X0qgYmTLYeSUtXxu46VeNKRBGmdRkkpPOoJlQN9ank7i SW6kU6M9bk2bYOgKwV/YPsaantmYlu1XdmYx+kWeJkNJAyYOfXfZZ8WUJhbbFFD9bZCi m/hw== MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.101.3.5 with SMTP id f5mr783908ani.86.1334247306547; Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:15:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.236.73.136 with HTTP; Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:15:06 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:15:06 +0100 Message-ID: <CAN+9S2aB=xjiDxVZx3qYZoBMFD4XuadUyR_3OYWaxw1ecrZmOQ@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Test Email From: My Name <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001636c597eabfd21504bd7da8fd Now that I don't understand why it isn't working, my aliases are set up correctly - I see no error messages being produced in /var/log/mail.log or any other mail logs, which makes it harder for me to debug. This is my postfix configuration (postconf -n): alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases append_dot_mydomain = no biff = no config_directory = /etc/postfix inet_interfaces = all mailbox_command = procmail -a "$EXTENSION" mailbox_size_limit = 0 mydestination = $mydomain, $myhostname, localhost, localhost.localdomain, localhost mydomain = domain.com myhostname = localhost mynetworks = 192.168.1.0/24 127.0.0.0/8 readme_directory = no recipient_delimiter = + smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtp_scache smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Ubuntu) smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${data_directory}/smtpd_scache smtpd_use_tls = yes Does anyone know how to solve this specific issue?

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• Creating a network link between 2 very close buildings

  - by Daniel Johnson

  I have a charity who have two adjacent medium sized modern detached houses (in the UK): the buildings stand next to each other and are less than 5 metres apart. They have DSL connected to a single computer in one of the buildings. They want to add a network with wireless, and want it to work across both buildings. Being a charity they need to keep costs down. The network would be used for sharing Word documents, e-mail, browsing and skyping. My initial thoughts were to connect the buildings with fibre. So: Option 1 Use fibre between the buildings. Sufficient cable and two TP-LINK MC100CM Fast Ethernet Media Converters. Cost ~£80.00. But there is the extra cost and hassle of running the cable down and up the external walls, lifting and relaying paving, and burying underground. Never having fitted fibre I'm also a little worried about going up the wall and then bending the cable at 90 degrees to go through the wall and into the building. Option 2 Use two TP-Link TL-WA7510N High Powered Outdoor 5Ghz 15dBi Wireless antennas to connect the buildings. There is a clear line of sight at first floor level. Cost ~£100. And much easier to fit than fibre! Is using the TL-WA7510Ns overkill? Is there something more suitable? I had hoped to use some Netgear stuff, e.g. two DGN2200, one in each house and also use them to provide the wireless link between the buildings. However, in bridge mode wireless client association is not available and repeater mode with client association only supports WEP security which isn't strong enough. Is there something similar that would be up to the job? Option 3 Connect the buildings with UTP cable. My concerns here are risk of electric shock due to a difference of potential between the buildings (or are they so close this shouldn't be an issue) and protection from lightning strikes. Is fitting lighting arrestors expensive? And what can be done to ameliorate against the risk of shock? This all falls outside my area of expertise so I would really appreciate some advice.

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• How to encrypt dual boot windows 7 and xp (bitlocker, truecrypt combo?) on sdd (recommended?)

  - by therobyouknow

  I would like to setup a dual boot Windows 7 and Windows XP laptop/notebook computer where each operation system's partition is fully encrypted. I would like to do this on a SSD - a 128Gb Crucial M4. My research Dual boot of truecrypt encrypted OSs on one drive (not possible - in Truecript 7.x at time of writing) This cannot be done on a standard Truecrypt setup - it will only support encrypting one of the operating systems. I have tried this and also read about it here on superuser.com However, I did see a solution here that uses grub4dos as the initial bootloader to chain to separate truecrypt encrypted OSs, in my case Windows 7 and Windows XP: http://yyzyyz.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/truecrypt-how-to-encrypt-multiple.html I am not going to consider this solution as it relies upon some custom code for use in the bootloader that is provided by the author. I would prefer a solution that can be fully understood so that I can be sure that there is nothing undesirable occuring (i.e. malware or just simply bugs in the code). I would like to believe such a solution doesn't have those risks but I can't be sure. BitLocker and Truecrypt combination - possible solution? So I am now considering a combination of encryption programs: I now aim to encrypt Windows XP with Truecrypt and Windows 7 with BitLocker. Assuming Truecrypt bootloader can boot into non-Truecrypt OSs (e.g. via hitting Escape to go to another menu), then this solution may be viable. SSDs and Encryption (use fastest possible spinning hard disk instead (?)) I read on various superuser.com posts and elsewhere that current SSDs are not suited to whole drive encryption for various reasons: impact of performance algorithms that give SSDs advantage over spinning harddisks. Algorithms used in compression of data for example. Wear on the SSD, shortening its life Security issues whereby data is repeated, as indicated in some Truecrypt documentation So I am now considering not using SSD. But with the aim to have the fastest drive possible, I am considering using the Western Digital Scorpion black 2.5" 7200rpm harddisk as this appears to be top rated among spinning platter-based harddrives (don't work for Western Digital). Summary So to achieve whole drive encrypted dual boot Windows 7 and Windows XP with minimal performance impact I intend to use a combination of Truecrypt and Bitlocker on a top-rated conventional spinning platter-based harddisk. Questions Will my summary: achieve whole disk encryption of the dual-boot Windows XP, Windows 7? OR an you suggest a simpler solution, including one that only requires only Truecrypt (BitLocker not available on XP). Or another encryption tool, including paid-for? provide the highest performance. Am I correct to avoid using SDD with encryption for the reasons I discovered? Are the concerns about SSDs and encryption still very real (some articles I read go back to 2010) Thanks for your input!

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• Postfix issues sending mail to addresses under domain located on server

  - by iamthewit

  I recently installed virtualmin on my nice shiny new rackspace cloud. Everything went seemlessly but I've been having some issues getting emails to send properly. The problem seems to be that the server can not send mail to email addresses where the domain is owned by my server. For example, on my server I run multiple virtual domains, lets call this one test.com. When I run the mail command from shell (mail [email protected]) I get the following back from my maillog: Oct 6 14:55:18 test postfix/pickup[8737]: DC1131612CC: uid=0 from= Oct 6 14:55:18 test postfix/cleanup[8769]: DC1131612CC: [email protected] Oct 6 14:55:18 test postfix/qmgr[8738]: DC1131612CC: [email protected], size=353, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Oct 6 14:55:18 test postfix/error[8771]: DC1131612CC: [email protected].uk, relay=none, delay=0, delays=0/0/0/0, dsn=5.0.0, status=bounced (User unknown in virtual alias table) Oct 6 14:55:18 test postfix/cleanup[8769]: DD07D1612D1: [email protected] Oct 6 14:55:18 test postfix/bounce[8772]: DC1131612CC: sender non-delivery notification: DD07D1612D1 Oct 6 14:55:18 test postfix/qmgr[8738]: DD07D1612D1: from=<, size=2268, nrcpt=1 (queue active) Oct 6 14:55:18 test postfix/qmgr[8738]: DC1131612CC: removed Oct 6 14:55:18 test postfix/local[8773]: DD07D1612D1: [email protected], relay=local, delay=0.03, delays=0/0/0/0.03, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (delivered to command: /usr/bin/procmail-wrapper -o -a $DOMAIN -d $LOGNAME) Oct 6 14:55:18 test postfix/qmgr[8738]: DD07D1612D1: removed when I run mail [email protected] the message is sent and received perfectly fine. I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to servers, but I pick things up fairly quickly, so please excuse any incorrect terminology and my general noobiness. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I've been googling for quite a while but I haven't found a solution yet, I'll add a copy of my main.cf file in a response below cheers guys here is the reformatted postconf, do you want the reformatted main.cf file too, or is this enough? alias_database = hash:/etc/postfix/aliases alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/aliases broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes command_directory = /usr/sbin config_directory = /etc/postfix daemon_directory = /usr/libexec/postfix debug_peer_level = 2 home_mailbox = Maildir/ html_directory = no mailbox_command = /usr/bin/procmail-wrapper -o -a $DOMAIN -d $LOGNAME mailq_path = /usr/bin/mailq.postfix manpage_directory = /usr/share/man myhostname = server.test.com newaliases_path = /usr/bin/newaliases.postfix readme_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix-2.3.3/README_FILES sample_directory = /usr/share/doc/postfix-2.3.3/samples sender_bcc_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/bcc sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix setgid_group = postdrop smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks permit_sasl_authenticated reject_unauth_destination smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous unknown_local_recipient_reject_code = 550 virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual

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• Model M Keyboard inputs incorrect characters after logging in to Fedora

  - by mickburkejnr

  I recently bought a 24 year old IBM Model M keyboard. From what I gather, it'd been left on a shelf for the last 5 years, so you can imagine the amount of dust dirt and crap that was on it. Before cleaning it, I plugged it in to my laptop (running Fedora 17) using a PS/2 to USB adapter. What I found was, while it still works, the keys I press don't correspond to what is displayed on the screen. So for example, when I type S on the keyboard, I get ß display on the screen instead. At the time, I put this down to the adapter not working properly. Since then, I stripped the keys off the keyboard and cleaned the whole thing. It looks like it's just come out of a box! I then plugged it in to my computer (also running Fedora 17) via a standard PS/2 plug. The computer loaded up to the login screen, and I typed in my password. Pressed enter, and I logged straight in to my machine. At this point, I opened up a text editor and started typing some stuff. To my horror, the keystrokes I was entering weren't coming up as intended. What came up instead were characters that would map to the pressed key but only under a different keyboard language setting. I opened up a program to see what keyboard language had been selected, and the correct one for the keyboard was selected (which is UK in my case). I opened up a window that would show what characters mapped to what keys, and I pressed every single key on the keyboard, and every corresponding block representing each key lit up. I went back to the text editor to try again, but I was still getting these random characters. Whats more is that the backspace key would not work, although in the other utility it would flash when pressed. What I know is that at the login screen the keyboard must have entered the correct characters, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to log in. Further more, keys that don't respond while using a text editor as sending signals to the computer, as illustrated in that keyboard utility. The question is why random characters are displayed when they really shouldn't be? Would this be a hardware fault or a software issue?

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• Choosing parts for a high-spec custom PC - feedback required [closed]

  - by James

  I'm looking to build a high-spec PC costing under ~£800 (bearing in mind I can get the CPU half price). This is my first time doing this so I have plenty of questions! I have been doing lots of research and this is what I have come up with: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/p/j4lE Usage: I will be using it for Adobe CS6, rendering in 3DS Max, particle simulations in Realflow and for playing games like GTA IV (and V when it comes out), Crysis 1/2, Saints Row The Third, Deus Ex HR, etc. Questions: Can you see any obvious problem areas with the current setup? Will it be sufficient for the above usage? I won't be doing any overclocking initially. Is it worth buying the H60 liquid cooler, or will the fan that comes with the CPU be sufficient? Is water cooling generally quieter? Is the chosen motherboard good for the current components? And is it future-proof? I read that the HDD is often the bottleneck when it comes to gaming. I presume this is true to other high-end applications? If so, is my selection good? I keep changing my mind about the GPU; first the 560, now the 660. Can anyone shed some light on how to choose? I read mixed opinions about matching the GPU to the CPU. Will the 560 or the 660 be sufficient for my required usage? Atm I'm basing my choice on the PassMark benchmarks and how much they cost. The specs on the GeForce website state that the 560 and the 660 both require 450W. Is this a good figure to base the wattage of my PSU on? If so, how do you decide? Do I really need 750W? The latest GTX 690 requires 650W. Is it a good idea to buy a 750W PSU now to future-proof myself?

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

  - by eric01

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

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• Why can't we reach some (but not all) external web service via VPN connection?

  - by Paul Haldane

  At work (UK university) we use a set of Windows servers running WS2008R2 and RRAS which offer VPN service to students in our accommodation. We do this to associate the network connections with individuals. Before they've connected to the VPN all they can talk to is the stuff thats needed to setup the VPN and a local web site with documentation on how to connect. Medium term we'll probably replace this but it's what we're using at the moment. VPN on the 2008 servers allocates client a private (10.x) address. Access to external sites is through NAT on the campus routers (same as any other directly connected client on a private address). Non-VPN connections aren't seeing this problem. Older servers run WS 2003 and ISA2004. That setup works but has become unreliable under load. Big difference there was that we were allocating non-RFC1918 addresses to the clients (so no NAT required). Behaviour we're seeing is that once connected to the VPN, clients can reach local web sites (that is sites on the campus network) but only some external sites. It seems (but this may be chance) that the sites we can reach are Google ones (including YouTube). We certainly have trouble reaching Microsoft's Office 365 service (which is a pain because that's where mail for most of our students is). One odd bit of behaviour is that clients can fetch (using wget on a Windows 7 client) http://www.oracle.com/ (which gets a 301 redirect) but hangs when asked to fetch http://www.oracle.com/index.html (which is what the first URL redirects to). Access works reliably if we configure clients to use our local web proxies (Squid). My gut tells me that this is likely to be something in the chain dropping replies either based on HTTP inspection or the IP address in the reply. However I'm puzzled about why we're seeing this with the VPN clients. Plan for tomorrow (when I'm back in the office) is to setup a web server on external connection so that we can monitor behaviour at both ends of the conversation (hoping that the problem manifests itself with our test server). Any suggestions for things we should be looking at?

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• TrueCrypt partition will no longer mount

  - by sparkyuiop

  I am hoping for some advice to help me out of my situation, with luck. I have a computer running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 with 3 hard disks installed. On my 2TB hard disk 2 (non-system disk) I have 4 partitions. One is for music, another for video, a downloads partition and a 500GB RAW Truecrypt encrypted partition / volume that I had setup to mount with 4 photographs used as keyfiles. The 4 photographs are located in my 'Documents' partition which is one of four partitions on my 1.5TB hard disk 1 (non-system disk) When I setup the disk encryption I did not (I'm 99% sure) create a password, I only used the 4 photograph keyfiles to mount the volume. Recently my 1TB hard disk 0 (system / boot) started to fail so I decided to replace it. I was going to clone the old disk to a new disk but decided that a fresh installation would be more beneficial. Once I had transferred all the required 'User Data' from my old hard disk 0 (C: disk) I discarded it. I reinstalled Truecrypt, pointed to the partition, selected my 4 keyfiles photographs and I mounted my encrypted volume with no issues. In fact I mounted it several times after re-installing Windows and after reboots. Now all of a sudden when I try and mount it I get the message "incorrect keyfile(s) and/or password or not a Truecrypt volume". Now I am not sure why this happened as I do not recall exactly what I did between last mounting the volume successfully and it not mounting. Here are some of the possible things I may have done to cause it to stop working but I am at a loss as to where to start to try and resolve the problem. 1. I had swapped the drive letters to a preferred order. 2. I possibly swapped the physical SATA connectors on the mainboard. 3. I enabled 'Hot Plugging' for the two non-system hard disk SATA ports and the DVD SATA port in the BIOS. I have tried changing the encrypted partition drive letter as suggested in another post but this does not help. On my old system the encrypted drive was drive "X". I have about tried it with all the other free drive letters but alas nothing changes. I do not recall what drive letter was allocated to the encrypted partition before I changed them all. I have not tried to change the letter back to what it possibly was to start with as I am happy with the current layout. I will try this is anyone thinks it would be worthwhile though. I do hope I have managed to convey my situation in an understandable manner and live in hope someone could help me recover years of personal files. Thank you very much for taking the time to read my post and for any suggestions you may offer. Regards Phillip Thorne (UK) Anyone???

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• PHP form auto response

  - by Mark

  Hi, I am using the following php code which has been given to me, it works fine, apart from the auto response bit. I know its not a lot of code I just dont know how to do it or why it snot working. Any help would be appreciated. thanks in advance. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> <title> - Contact Us</title> <!-- css --> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/reset.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/styles.css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/colorbox.css" /> <!-- javascript libraries --> <?php require_once('includes/js.php'); ?> </head> <body> <?php //FIll out the settings below before using this script $your_email = "(email address)"; $website = "(website name)"; //BOTS TO BLOCK $bots = "/(Indy|Blaiz|Java|libwww-perl|Python|OutfoxBot|User-Agent|PycURL|AlphaServer|T8Abot|Syntryx|WinHttp|WebBandit|nicebot)/i"; //Check if known bot is visiting if (preg_match($bots, $_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"])) { exit ("Sorry bots are not allowed here!"); } //Known Exploits $exploits = "/(content-type|bcc:|cc:|from:|reply-to:|javascript|onclick|onload)/i"; //Spam words $spam_words = "/(viagra|poker|blackjack|porn|sex)/i"; // BAD WORDS $words = "/( bitch|dick|pussy|pussies|ass|fuck|cum|cumshot|cum shot| gangbang|gang bang|god dammit|goddammit|viagra|anus|analsex )/i"; //BAD WORD/SPAM WORD/EXPLOIT BLOCKER function wordBlock($word) { //Make variables global global $words; global $exploits; global $spam_words; if (preg_match($words, $word)) { $word = preg_replace($words, "#####", $word); } if(preg_match($exploits,$word)){ $word = preg_replace($exploits,"",$word); } if(preg_match($spam_words,$word)){ $word = preg_replace($spam_words,"$$$$",$word); } return $word; } //CLean data function function dataClean($data) { $data = stripslashes(trim(rawurldecode(strip_tags($data)))); return $data; } //CREATE MAIN VARIABLES $name = (isset ($_POST['name'])) ? dataClean($_POST['name']) : FALSE; $company = (isset ($_POST['company'])) ? dataClean($_POST['company']) : FALSE; $address = (isset ($_POST['address'])) ? dataClean($_POST['address']) : FALSE; $postcode = (isset ($_POST['postcode'])) ? dataClean($_POST['postcode']) : FALSE; $phone = (isset ($_POST['phone'])) ? dataClean($_POST['phone']) : FALSE; $email = (isset ($_POST['email'])) ? dataClean($_POST['email']) : FALSE; $comment = (isset ($_POST['message'])) ? wordBlock(dataClean($_POST['message'])) : FALSE; $submit = (isset ($_POST['send'])) ? TRUE : FALSE; $email_check = "/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,6}$/i"; //$ip = $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"]; $errors = array(); //Check if send button was clicked if ($submit) { if (!$name) { $errors[] = "Please enter a name!"; } if ($name) { if (!ereg("^[A-Za-z' -]*$", $name)) { $errors[] = "You may not use special characters in the name field!"; } } if (!$email) { $errors[] = "Please enter an email address!"; } if ($email) { if (!preg_match($email_check, $email)) { $errors[] = "The E-mail you entered is invalid!"; } } /* if (!$subject) { $errors[] = "Please enter an email subject!"; } */ if (!$comment) { $errors[] = "Please don't leave the message field blank!"; } //Check if any errors are present if (count($errors) > 0) { foreach ($errors AS $error) { print "&bull; $error <br />"; } } else { //MESSAGE TO SEND TO ADMIN //Create main headers $headers = "From: " . $website . " <$your_email> \n"; $headers .= "Reply-to:" . $email . " \n"; $headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\n"; $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"; $headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8\n"; $message = ""; $message .= "<h1>New E-Mail From " . $website . "</h1><br /><br />"; $message .= "<b>Name:</b> " . $name . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>Company:</b> " . $company . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>Address:</b> " . $address . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>Postcode:</b > " . $postcode . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>Phone No:</b> " . $phone . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>E-mail:</b> " . $email . "<br />"; $message .= "<b>Message:</b> " . $comment . "<br />"; //E-mails subject $mail_subject = "Message from " . $website . ""; /* CHECK TO BE SURE FIRST E-MAIL TO ADMIN IS A SUCCESS AND SEND EMAIL TO ADMIN OTHERWISE DON'T SEND AUTO RESPONCE */ if (mail($your_email, $mail_subject, $message, $headers)) { //UNSET ALL VARIABLES unset ($name, $email, $company, $address, $postcode, $phone, $comment, $_REQUEST); //JAVASCRIPT SUCCESS MESSAGE echo " <script type='text/javascript' language='JavaScript'> alert('Your message has been sent'); </script> "; //SUCCESS MESSAGE TO SHOW IF JAVASCRIPT IS DISABLED echo "<noscript><p>THANK YOU YOUR MESSAGE HAS BEEN SENT</p></noscript>"; /* -----------------END MAIL BLOCK FOR SENDING TO ADMIN AND START AUTO RESPONCE SEND----------------- */ //AUTO RESPONCE MESSAGE //Create main headers $headers = "From: " . $website . " <$your_email> \n"; $headers .= "Reply-to:" . $your_email . " \n"; $headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\n"; $headers .= "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"; $headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8\n"; $message = ""; $message .= "<h1>Thank You For Contacting Us </h1><br /><br />"; $message .= "On behalf of <b>" . $website . "</b> we wanna thank you for contacting us and to let you know we will respond to your message as soon as possible thank you again."; //E-mails subject $mail_subject = "Thank you for contacting " . $website . ""; //Send the email mail($email, $mail_subject, $message, $headers); /* -----------------END MAIL BLOCK FOR SENDING AUTO RESPONCE ----------------- */ } else { echo " <script type='text/javascript' language='JavaScript'> alert('Sorry could not send your message'); </script> "; echo "<noscript><p style='color:red;'>SORRY COULD NOT SEND YOUR MESSAGE</p></noscript>"; } } } ?> <div id="wrapper"> <div id="grad_overlay"> <!-- Header --> <div id="header"> <a href="index.php" title="Regal Balustrades"><img src="images/regal_logo.png" alt="Regal Balustrades" /></a> <div id="strapline"> <img src="images/strapline.png" alt="Architectural metalwork systems" /> </div> </div> <!-- Navigation --> <div id="nav"> <?php require_once('includes/nav.php'); ?> </div> <!-- Content --> <div id="content"> <div id="details"> <p class="getintouch env">Get In Touch</p> <ul class="details"> <li>T. (0117) 935 3888</li> <li>F. (0117) 967 7333</li> <li>E. <a href="mailto:[email protected].uk" title="Contact via email">[email protected]</a></li> </ul> <p class="whereto hse">Where To Find Us</p> <ul class="details"> <li>Regal Balustrades</li> <li>Regal House, </li> <li>Honey Hill Road,</li> <li>Kingswood, </li> <li>Bristol BS15 4HG</li> </ul> </div> <div id="contact"> <h1>Contact us</h1> <p>Please use this form to request further information about Regal Balustrades and our services. To speak to a member of our staff in person, please call us on 0117 9353888</p> <div id="form"> <form method='POST' action='<?php echo "".$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'].""; ?>'> <p class='form-element'> <label for='name'>Name:</label> <input type='text' name='name' value='<?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['name'] . "";?>' /> </p> <p class='form-element'> <label for='company'>Company:</label> <input type='text' name='company' value='<?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['company'] . "";?>' /> </p> <p class='form-element'> <label for='address'>Address:</label> <textarea name='address' rows='5' id='address' class='address' ><?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['address'] . "";?></textarea> </p> <p class='form-element'> <label for='postcode'>Postcode:</label> <input type='text' name='postcode' value='<?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['postcode'] . "";?>' /> </p> <p class='form-element'> <label for='phone'>Telephone:</label> <input type='text' name='phone' value='<?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['phone'] . "";?>' /> </p> <p class='form-element'> <label for='email'>Email:</label> <input type='text' name='email' value='<?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['email'] . "";?>' /> </p> </div> <div id='form-right'> <p class='form-element'> <label for='message'>Enquiry:</label> <textarea name='message' class='enquiry' id='enquiry' rows='5' cols='40' ><?php echo "" . $_REQUEST['message'] . "";?></textarea> </p> <p class='form-element'> <input type='submit' class='submit' name='send' value='Send message' /> </p> </div> <p class='nb'><em>We will respond as soon as possible.</em></p> </form> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <!-- Footer --> <div id="footer-container"> <?php require_once('includes/footer.php'); ?> </div> <!-- js functions --> <script> $(document).ready(function() { $("ul#navig li:nth-child(6)").addClass("navon"); }); </script> </body> </html>

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• Referencing movie clips from within an actionscript class

  - by Ant

  Hi all, I have been given the task of adding a scoring system to various flash games. This simply involves taking input, adding functionality such as pausing and replaying and then outputting the score, time left etc. at the end. I've so far successfully edited two games. Both these games used the "actions" code on frames. The latest game I'm trying to do uses an actionscript class which makes it both easier and harder. I'm not very adept at flash at all, but I've worked it out so far. I've added various movie clips that are to be used for displaying the pause screen background, buttons for replaying etc. I've been showing and hiding these using: back._visible = true; //movie clip, instance of back (back.png) I doubt it's best practice, but it's quick and has been working. However, now with the change of coding style to classes, this doesn't seem to work. I kinda understand why, but I'm now unsure how to hide/show these elements. Any help would be greatly appreciated :) I've attached the modified AS. class RivalOrbs extends MovieClip { var infinite_levels, orbs_start, orbs_inc, orbs_per_level, show_timer, _parent, one_time_per_level, speed_start, speed_inc_percent, max_speed, percent_starting_on_wrong_side, colorize, colors, secs_per_level; function RivalOrbs() { super(); mc = this; this.init(); } // End of the function function get_num_orbs() { if (infinite_levels) { return (orbs_start + (level - 1) * orbs_inc); } else if (level > orbs_per_level.length) { return (0); } else { return (orbs_per_level[level - 1]); } // end else if } // End of the function function get_timer_str(secs) { var _loc2 = Math.floor(secs / 60); var _loc1 = secs % 60; return ((_loc2 > 0 ? (_loc2) : ("0")) + ":" + (_loc1 >= 10 ? (_loc1) : ("0" + _loc1))); } // End of the function function frame() { //PLACE PAUSE CODE HERE if (!Key.isDown(80) and !Key.isDown(Key.ESCAPE)) { _root.offKey = true; } else if (Key.isDown(80) or Key.isDown(Key.ESCAPE)) { if (_root.offKey and _root.game_mode == "play") { _root.game_mode = "pause"; /* back._visible = true; btn_resume._visible = true; btn_exit._visible = true; txt_pause._visible = true; */ } else if (_root.offKey and _root.game_mode == "pause") { _root.game_mode = "play"; } _root.offKey = false; } if (_root.game_mode == "pause" or paused) { return; } else { /* back._visible = false; btn_resume._visible = false; btn_exit._visible = false; txt_pause._visible = false; */ } if (show_timer && total_secs != -1 || show_timer && _parent.timesup) { _loc7 = total_secs - Math.ceil((getTimer() - timer) / 1000); var diff = oldSeconds - (_loc7 + additional); if (diff > 1) additional = additional + diff; _loc7 = _loc7 + additional; oldSeconds = _loc7; trace(oldSeconds); mc.timer_field.text = this.get_timer_str(Math.max(0, _loc7)); if (_loc7 <= -1 || _parent.timesup) { if (one_time_per_level) { _root.gotoAndPlay("Lose"); } else { this.show_dialog(false); return; } // end if } // end if } // end else if var _loc9 = _root._xmouse; var _loc8 = _root._ymouse; var _loc6 = {x: _loc9, y: _loc8}; mc.globalToLocal(_loc6); _loc6.y = Math.max(-mc.bg._height / 2 + gap / 2, _loc6.y); _loc6.y = Math.min(mc.bg._height / 2 - gap / 2, _loc6.y); mc.wall1._y = _loc6.y - gap / 2 - mc.wall1._height / 2; mc.wall2._y = _loc6.y + gap / 2 + mc.wall1._height / 2; var _loc5 = true; for (var _loc4 = 0; _loc4 < this.get_num_orbs(); ++_loc4) { var _loc3 = mc.stage["orb" + _loc4]; _loc3.x_last = _loc3._x; _loc3.y_last = _loc3._y; _loc3._x = _loc3._x + _loc3.x_speed; _loc3._y = _loc3._y + _loc3.y_speed; if (_loc3._x < l_thresh) { _loc3.x_speed = _loc3.x_speed * -1; _loc3._x = l_thresh + (l_thresh - _loc3._x); _loc3.gotoAndPlay("hit"); } // end if if (_loc3._x > r_thresh) { _loc3.x_speed = _loc3.x_speed * -1; _loc3._x = r_thresh - (_loc3._x - r_thresh); _loc3.gotoAndPlay("hit"); } // end if if (_loc3._y < t_thresh) { _loc3.y_speed = _loc3.y_speed * -1; _loc3._y = t_thresh + (t_thresh - _loc3._y); _loc3.gotoAndPlay("hit"); } // end if if (_loc3._y > b_thresh) { _loc3.y_speed = _loc3.y_speed * -1; _loc3._y = b_thresh - (_loc3._y - b_thresh); _loc3.gotoAndPlay("hit"); } // end if if (_loc3.x_speed > 0) { if (_loc3._x >= m1_thresh && _loc3.x_last < m1_thresh || _loc3._x >= m1_thresh && _loc3._x <= m2_thresh) { if (_loc3._y <= mc.wall1._y + mc.wall1._height / 2 || _loc3._y >= mc.wall2._y - mc.wall2._height / 2) { _loc3.x_speed = _loc3.x_speed * -1; _loc3._x = m1_thresh - (_loc3._x - m1_thresh); _loc3.gotoAndPlay("hit"); } // end if } // end if } else if (_loc3._x <= m2_thresh && _loc3.x_last > m2_thresh || _loc3._x >= m1_thresh && _loc3._x <= m2_thresh) { if (_loc3._y <= mc.wall1._y + mc.wall1._height / 2 || _loc3._y >= mc.wall2._y - mc.wall2._height / 2) { _loc3.x_speed = _loc3.x_speed * -1; _loc3._x = m2_thresh + (m2_thresh - _loc3._x); _loc3.gotoAndPlay("hit"); } // end if } // end else if if (_loc3.side == 1 && _loc3._x > 0) { _loc5 = false; } // end if if (_loc3.side == 2 && _loc3._x < 0) { _loc5 = false; } // end if } // end of for if (_loc5) { this.end_level(); } // end if } // End of the function function colorize_hex(mc, hex) { var _loc4 = hex >> 16; var _loc5 = (hex ^ hex >> 16 << 16) >> 8; var _loc3 = hex >> 8 << 8 ^ hex; var _loc2 = new flash.geom.ColorTransform(0, 0, 0, 1, _loc4, _loc5, _loc3, 0); mc.transform.colorTransform = _loc2; } // End of the function function tint_hex(mc, hex, amount) { var _loc4 = hex >> 16; var _loc5 = hex >> 8 & 255; var _loc3 = hex & 255; this.tint(mc, _loc4, _loc5, _loc3, amount); } // End of the function function tint(mc, r, g, b, amount) { var _loc4 = 100 - amount; var _loc1 = new Object(); _loc1.ra = _loc1.ga = _loc1.ba = _loc4; var _loc2 = amount / 100; _loc1.rb = r * _loc2; _loc1.gb = g * _loc2; _loc1.bb = b * _loc2; var _loc3 = new Color(mc); _loc3.setTransform(_loc1); } // End of the function function get_num_levels() { if (infinite_levels) { return (Number.MAX_VALUE); } else { return (orbs_per_level.length); } // end else if } // End of the function function end_level() { _global.inputTimeAvailable = _global.inputTimeAvailable - (60 - oldSeconds); ++level; _parent.levelOver = true; if (level <= this.get_num_levels()) { this.show_dialog(true); } else { _root.gotoAndPlay("Win"); } // end else if } // End of the function function get_speed() { var _loc3 = speed_start; for (var _loc2 = 0; _loc2 < level - 1; ++_loc2) { _loc3 = _loc3 + _loc3 * (speed_inc_percent / 100); } // end of for return (Math.min(_loc3, Math.max(max_speed, speed_start))); } // End of the function function init_orbs() { var _loc6 = this.get_speed(); var _loc7 = Math.max(1, Math.ceil(this.get_num_orbs() * (percent_starting_on_wrong_side / 100))); for (var _loc3 = 0; _loc3 < this.get_num_orbs(); ++_loc3) { var _loc2 = null; if (_loc3 % 2 == 0) { _loc2 = mc.stage.attachMovie("Orb1", "orb" + _loc3, _loc3); _loc2.side = 1; if (colorize && color1 != -1) { this.colorize_hex(_loc2.orb.bg, color1); } // end if _loc2._x = Math.random() * (mc.bg._width * 4.000000E-001) - mc.bg._width * 2.000000E-001 - mc.bg._width / 4; } else { _loc2 = mc.stage.attachMovie("Orb2", "orb" + _loc3, _loc3); _loc2.side = 2; if (colorize && color2 != -1) { this.colorize_hex(_loc2.orb.bg, color2); } // end if _loc2._x = Math.random() * (mc.bg._width * 4.000000E-001) - mc.bg._width * 2.000000E-001 + mc.bg._width / 4; } // end else if _loc2._width = _loc2._height = orb_w; _loc2._y = Math.random() * (mc.bg._height * 8.000000E-001) - mc.bg._height * 4.000000E-001; if (_loc3 < _loc7) { _loc2._x = _loc2._x * -1; } // end if var _loc5 = Math.random() * 60; var _loc4 = _loc5 / 180 * 3.141593E+000; _loc2.x_speed = Math.cos(_loc4) * _loc6; _loc2.y_speed = Math.sin(_loc4) * _loc6; if (Math.random() >= 5.000000E-001) { _loc2.x_speed = _loc2.x_speed * -1; } // end if if (Math.random() >= 5.000000E-001) { _loc2.y_speed = _loc2.y_speed * -1; } // end if } // end of for } // End of the function function init_colors() { if (colorize && colors.length >= 2) { color1 = colors[Math.floor(Math.random() * colors.length)]; for (color2 = colors[Math.floor(Math.random() * colors.length)]; color2 == color1; color2 = colors[Math.floor(Math.random() * colors.length)]) { } // end of for this.tint_hex(mc.side1, color1, 40); this.tint_hex(mc.side2, color2, 40); } else { color1 = -1; color2 = -1; } // end else if } // End of the function function get_total_secs() { if (show_timer) { if (secs_per_level.length > 0) { if (level > secs_per_level.length) { return (secs_per_level[secs_per_level.length - 1]); } else { return (secs_per_level[level - 1]); } // end if } // end if } // end else if return (-1); } // End of the function function start_level() { trace ("start_level"); _parent.timesup = false; _parent.levelOver = false; _parent.times_up_comp.start_timer(); this.init_orbs(); mc.level_field.text = "LEVEL " + level; total_secs = _global.inputTimeAvailable; if (total_secs > 60) total_secs = 60; timer = getTimer(); paused = false; mc.dialog.gotoAndPlay("off"); } // End of the function function clear_orbs() { for (var _loc2 = 0; mc.stage["orb" + _loc2]; ++_loc2) { mc.stage["orb" + _loc2].removeMovieClip(); } // end of for } // End of the function function show_dialog(new_level) { mc.back._visible = false; trace("yes"); paused = true; if (new_level) { this.init_colors(); } // end if this.clear_orbs(); mc.dialog.gotoAndPlay("level"); if (!new_level || _parent.timesup) { mc.dialog.level_top.text = "Time\'s Up!"; /* dyn_line1.text = "Goodbye " + _global.inputName + "!"; dyn_line2.text = "You scored " + score; //buttons if (_global.inputTimeAvailable > 60) btn_replay._visible = true; btn_resume._visible = false; btn_exit._visible = false; txt_pause._visible = false; sendInfo = new LoadVars(); sendLoader = new LoadVars(); sendInfo.game_name = 'rival_orbs'; sendInfo.timeavailable = _global.inputTimeAvailable; if (sendInfo.timeavailable < 0) sendInfo.timeavailable = 0; sendInfo.id = _global.inputId; sendInfo.score = level*_global.inputFactor; sendInfo.directive = 'record'; //sendInfo.sendAndLoad('ncc1701e.aspx', sendLoader, "GET"); sendInfo.sendAndLoad('http://keyload.co.uk/output.php', sendLoader, "POST"); */ } else if (level > 1) { mc.dialog.level_top.text = "Next Level:"; } else { mc.dialog.level_top.text = ""; } // end else if mc.dialog.level_num.text = "LEVEL " + level; mc.dialog.level_mid.text = "Number of Orbs: " + this.get_num_orbs(); _root.max_level = level; var _this = this; mc.dialog.btn.onRelease = function () { _this.start_level(); }; } // End of the function function init() { var getInfo = new LoadVars(); var getLoader = new LoadVars(); getInfo.directive = "read"; getInfo.sendAndLoad('http://keyload.co.uk/input.php', getLoader, "GET"); getLoader.onLoad = function (success) { if (success) { _global.inputId = this.id; _global.inputTimeAvailable = this.timeavailable; _global.inputFactor = this.factor; _global.inputName = this.name; } else { trace("Failed"); } } _root.game_mode = "play"; /* back._visible = false; btn_exit._visible = false; btn_replay._visible = false; btn_resume._visible = false; txt_pause._visible = false; */ l_thresh = -mc.bg._width / 2 + orb_w / 2; t_thresh = -mc.bg._height / 2 + orb_w / 2; r_thresh = mc.bg._width / 2 - orb_w / 2; b_thresh = mc.bg._height / 2 - orb_w / 2; m1_thresh = -wall_w / 2 - orb_w / 2; m2_thresh = wall_w / 2 + orb_w / 2; this.show_dialog(true); mc.onEnterFrame = frame; } // End of the function var mc = null; var orb_w = 15; var wall_w = 2; var l_thresh = 0; var r_thresh = 0; var t_thresh = 0; var b_thresh = 0; var m1_thresh = 0; var m2_thresh = 0; var color1 = -1; var color2 = -1; var level = 1; var total_secs = 30; var gap = 60; var timer = 0; var additional = 0; var oldSeconds = 0; var paused = true; var _loc7 = 0; } // End of Class

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

  - by Gopinath

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

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• XNA Notes 006

  - by George Clingerman

  If you used to think the XNA community was small and inactive, hopefully these XNA Notes are opening your eyes. And I honestly feel like I’m still only catching the tail end of everything that’s going on. It’s a large and active community and you can be so mired down in one part of it you miss all sorts of cool stuff another part is doing. XNA is many things to a lot of people and that makes for a lot of really awesome things going on. So here’s what I saw going on this last week! Time Critical XNA New: XNA Team - Peer Review now closes for XNA 3.1 games http://blogs.msdn.com/b/xna/archive/2011/02/08/peer-review-pipeline-closed-for-new-xna-gs-3-1-games-or-updates-on-app-hub.aspx http://twitter.com/XNACommunity/statuses/34649816529256448 The XNA Team posts about a meet up with Microsoft for Creator’s going to be at GDC, March 3rd at the Lobby Bar http://on.fb.me/fZungJ XNA Team: @mklucher is busying playing the the bubblegum on WP7 made by a member of the XNA team (although reportedly made in Silverlight? Crazy! ;) ) http://twitter.com/mklucher/statuses/34645662737895426 http://bubblegum.me Shawn Hargreaves posts multiple posts (is this a sign that something new is coming from the XNA team? Usually when Shawn has time to post, something has just wrapped up…) Random Shuffle http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2011/02/09/random-shuffle.aspx Doing the right thing: resume, rewind or skip ahead http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnhar/archive/2011/02/10/doing-the-right-thing-resume-rewind-or-skip-ahead.aspx XNA Developers: Andrew Russel was on .NET Rocks recently talking with Carl and Richard about developing games for Xbox, iPhone and Android http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?ShowNum=635 Eric W. releases the Fishing Girl source code into the wild http://ericw.ca/blog/posts/fishing-girl-now-open-source/ http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/74642/454512.aspx#454512 BinaryTweedDeej reminds that XNA community that Indie City wants you involved http://twitter.com/BinaryTweedDeej/statuses/34596114028044288 http://www.indiecity.com Mike McLaughlin (@mikebmcl) releases his first two XNA articles on the TechNet wiki http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/xna-framework-overview.aspx http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/content-pipeline-overview.aspx John Watte plays around with the Content Pipeline and Music Visualization exploring just what can be done. http://www.enchantedage.com/xna-content-pipeline-fft-song-analysis http://www.enchantedage.com/fft-in-xna-content-pipeline-for-beat-detection-for-the-win Simon Stevens writes up his talk on Vector Collision Physics http://www.simonpstevens.com/News/VectorCollisionPhysics @domipheus puts together an XNA Task Manager http://www.flickr.com/photos/domipheus/5405603197/ MadNinjaSkillz releases his fork of Nick's Easy Storage component on CodePlex http://twitter.com/MadNinjaSkillz/statuses/34739039068229634 http://ezstorage.codeplex.com @ActiveNick was interviewed by Rob Cameron and discusses Windows Phone 7, Bing Maps and XNA http://twitter.com/ActiveNick/statuses/35348548526546944 http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/cc537546 Radiangames (Luke Schneider) posts about converting his games from XNA to Unity http://radiangames.com/?p=592 UberMonkey (@ElementCy) posts about a new project in the works, CubeTest a Minecraft style terrain http://www.ubergamermonkey.com/personal-projects/new-project-in-the-works/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Ubergamermonkey+%28UberGamerMonkey%29 Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): VideoGamer Rob review Bonded Realities http://videogamerrob.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/xblig-review-bonded-realities/ XBLIG Round Up on Gamergeddon http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/02/06/xbox-indie-game-round-up-february-6th/ Are gamers still rating Indie Games after the Xbox Dashboard update? http://www.gamemarx.com/news/2011/02/06/are-gamers-still-rating-indie-games-after-the-xbox-dashboard-update.aspx Joystiq - Xbox Live Indie Gems: Corrupted http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/04/xbox-live-indie-gems-corrupted/ Raymond Matthews of DarkStarMatryx reviews (Almost) Total Mayhem and Aban Hawkins & the 1000 Spikes http://www.darkstarmatryx.com/?p=225 http://www.darkstarmatryx.com/?p=229 8 Bit Horse reviews Aban Hawkins & the 1000 spikes http://8bithorse.blogspot.com/2011/01/aban-hawkins-1000-spikes-xbl-indie.html 2010 wrap-up for FunInfused Games http://www.krissteele.net/blogdetails.aspx?id=245 NeoGaf roundup of January's XBLIGs http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=420528 Armless Ocotopus interviews Michael Ventnor creator of Bonded Realities http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/02/07/interview-michael-ventnor-of-red-crest-studios/ @recharge_media posts about the new city music for Woodvale in Sin Rising http://rechargemedia.com/2011/02/08/new-city-theme-woodvale/ @DrMisty posts some footage of YoYoYo in action http://www.mstargames.co.uk/mistryblogmain/54-yoyoyoblogs/184-video-update.html Xona Games - Decimation X3 on Reviews on the Run http://video.citytv.com/video/detail/782443063001.000000/reviews-on-the-run--february-8-2011/g4/ @benkane gives an early peek at his action RPG coming to XBLIG http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDF_PrvtwU8 Rock, Paper Shotgun talks to Zeboyd games about bringing Cthulhu Saves the World to PC http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/02/11/summoning-cthulhu-natter-with-zeboyd/ Xbox LIVE Indieverse interviews the creator of Bonded Realities http://xbl-indieverse.blogspot.com/2011/02/xbl-indieverse-interview-red-crest.html XNA Game Development: Dream-In-Code posts about an upcoming XNA Challenge/Coding contest http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/blog/1385/entry-3192-xna-challengecontest/ Sgt.Conker covers Fishing Girl and IndieFreaks Game Framework release http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/02/fishing-girl-did-not-sell-a-single-copy/ http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/02/indiefreaks-game-framework-v0-2-0-0/ @slyprid releases Transmute v0.40a with lots of new features and fixes http://twitter.com/slyprid/statuses/34125423067533312 http://twitter.com/slyprid/statuses/35326876243337216 http://forgottenstarstudios.com/ Jeff Brown writes an XNA 4.0 tutorial on Saving/Loading on the Xbox 360 http://www.robotfootgames.com/xna-tutorials/92-xna-tutorial-savingloading-on-xbox-360-40 XNA for Silverlight Developers: Part 3- Animation http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/XNA-for-Silverlight-developers-Part-3-Animation-transforms.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+xna-connection-twitter-specific-stream+%28XNA+Connection%27s+Twitter+specific+stream%29 The news from Nokia is definitely something XNA developers will want to keep their eye on http://blogs.forum.nokia.com/blog/nokia-developer-news/2011/02/11/letter-to-developers?sf1066337=1

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• ICC Cricket World Cup 2011- Free Online Live Streaming, Mobile Apps, TV and Radio Guide

  - by Kavitha

  The ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 will be hosted jointly by Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. This 10th edition of World Cup is held between 19 February-2 April 2011. The World Cup drive will be starting in Dhaka on 19 February with the inaugural match between India and Bangladesh. The 43 days long ICC World Cup Cricket 2011 event will host 49 matches, day matches starting as early as 9.30am IST and day-night matches starting at 2.30pm IST. Here is our guide to follow 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup live on your computers, televisions,mobiles and radios Free Live Streaming On The Web (Official & Unofficial) http://espnstar.com will live stream all the matches of World Cup 2011 and they will be available in HD quality as they are the official broadcasters of World Cup 2011 cricket event. This is the first time ever a world cup cricket event is streamed online officially. If you are not able to access the official live streaming of Cricket World Cup due to regional restrictions, point your browser to any of the following unofficial live streams on the web. NOTE: MAKE SURE THAT YOUR ANTIVIRUS and ANTIMALWARE software are up and running before opening any of these sites. crictime.com - this site offers 6 live streaming servers that offer World Cup 2011 Cricket matches streams. Don’t mind the ads that are displayed left,right and center and just enjoy the cricket. Web pages dedicated for the world cup streaming are already live and you can bookmark them for your reference. cricfire.com/live-cricket: cricfire   gathers cricket live streams available around the web and provides them for easy access. Also they provide links for watching highlights and other post match analysis shows. Other sites that provide live streaming videos extracover.net webcric.com Searching for Unofficial Streams On Live Video Streaming Sites One of the best ways to find the unofficial streams is look for live streaming feeds on popular video streaming websites. We can be assured that these sites does not spread malware and spammy ads as they are well established. Here are the queries that you can use to search the popular sites FreedoCast  http://freedocast.com/search.aspx?go=cricket%20world%20cup Justin.tv      http://www.justin.tv/search?q=cricket+world+cup Ustream.tv  http://www.ustream.tv/discovery/live/all?q=cricket%20world%20cup TV Channels That Telecast Cricket World Cup Live Even though web is the place where we spend most of our time for entertainment, TVs are still popular for watching sports events. Mostly 90% of us are going to follow this cricket world cup matches on television sets. Here is the list of TV channels that paid whooping amounts of money for broadcasting rights and going to telecast live cricket Afghanistan – Ariana Television Network: Lemar TV Australia – Nine Network, Fox Sports Bangladesh – Bangladesh Television Canada – Asian Television Network China – ESPN Star Sports Europe (Except UK & Ireland) – Eurosport2 Fiji – Fiji TV India – ESPN Star Sports, Star Cricket, DD National (mostly India matches alone) Ireland – Zee Cafe Jamaica – Television Jamaica Middle East – Arab Radio and Television Network Nepal – ESPN Star Sports New Zealand – Sky Sport Pacific Islands – Sky Pacific Pakistan – GEO Super, Pakistan Television Corporation Pan-Africa – South African Broadcasting Corporation Singapore – Star Cricket South Africa – Supersport, Sabc3 Sport Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation United Kingdom – Sky Sports HD USA – Willow Cricket, DirecTV, Dish Network West Indies – Caribbean Media Corporation Radio Stations That Provide Live Commentary Don’t we listen to radio? Yes we still listen to radios, especially when we are on the go. Radios are part of our mobiles as well as music players like iPods. Here are the stations that you can tune into for catching live cricket commentary Australia – ABC Local Radio Bangladesh – Bangladesh Betar Canada , Central America – EchoStar India – All India Radio Pakistan, United Arab Emirates – Hum FM Sri Lanka – FM Derana United Kingdom, Ireland – BBC Radio West Indies – Caribbean Media Corporation Watch World Cup Cricket On Your Mobile This section is for Indian users. 3G rollout is happening at very high pace in all part of the India and most of the metros and towns are able to access 3G services. With 3G on your mobile you will be able to watch live ICC world cricket on your Reliance Mobiles and you can read more about it here. Top 10 Cricket Websites Check out our earlier post on top 10 cricket web sites for information. This article titled,ICC Cricket World Cup 2011- Free Online Live Streaming, Mobile Apps, TV and Radio Guide, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• Book Review: Oracle ADF Real World Developer’s Guide

  - by Frank Nimphius

  Recently PACKT Publishing published "Oracle ADF Real World Developer’s Guide" by Jobinesh Purushothaman, a product manager in our team. Though already the sixth book dedicated to Oracle ADF, it has a lot of great information in it that none of the previous books covered, making it a safe buy even for those who own the other books published by Oracle Press (McGrwHill) and PACKT Publishing. More than the half of the "Oracle ADF Real World Developer’s Guide" book is dedicated to Oracle ADF Business Components in a depth and clarity that allows you to feel the expertise that Jobinesh gained in this area. If you enjoy Jobinesh blog (http://jobinesh.blogspot.co.uk/) about Oracle ADF, then, no matter what expert you are in Oracle ADF, this book makes you happy as it provides you with detail information you always wished to have. If you are new to Oracle ADF, then this book alone doesn't get you flying, but, if you have some Java background, accelerates your learning big, big, big times. Chapter 1 is an introduction to Oracle ADF and not only explains the layers but also how it compares to plain Java EE solutions (page 13). If you are new to Oracle JDeveloper and ADF, then at the end of this chapter you know how to start JDeveloper and begin your ADF development Chapter 2 starts with what Jobinesh really is good at: ADF Business Components. In this chapter you learn about the architecture ingredients of ADF Business Components: View Objects, View Links, Associations, Entities, Row Sets, Query Collections and Application Modules. This chapter also provides a introduction to ADFBC SDO services, as well as sequence diagrams for what happens when you execute queries or commit updates. Chapter 3 is dedicated to entity objects and  is one of many chapters in this book you will enjoy and never want to miss. Jobinesh explains the artifacts that make up an entity object, how to work with entities and resource bundles, and many advanced topics, including inheritance, change history tracking, custom properties, validation and cursor handling.  Chapter 4 - you guessed it - is all about View objects. Comparable to entities, you learn about the XM files and classes that make a view object, as well as how to define and work with queries. List-of-values, inheritance, polymorphism, bind variables and data filtering are interesting - and important topics that follow. Again the chapter provides helpful sequence diagrams for you to understand what happens internally within a view object. Chapter 5 focuses on advanced view object and entity object topics, like lifecycle callback methods and when you want to override them. This chapter is a good digest of Jobinesh's blog entries (which most ADF developers have in their bookmark list). Really worth reading ! Chapter 6 then is bout Application Modules. Beside of what application modules are, this chapter covers important topics like properties, passivation, activation, application module pooling, how and where to write custom logic. In addition you learn about the AM lifecycle and request sequence. Chapter 7 is about the ADF binding layer. If you are new to Oracle ADF and got lost in the more advanced ADF Business Components chapters, then this chapter is where you get back into the game. In very easy terms, Jobinesh explains what the ADF binding is, how it fits into the JSF request lifecycle and what are the metadata file involved. Chapter 8 then goes into building data bound web user interfaces. In this chapter you get the basics of JavaServer Faces (e.g. managed beans) and learn about the interaction between the JSF UI and the ADF binding layer. Later this chapter provides advanced solutions for working with tree components and list of values. Chapter 9 introduces bounded task flows and ADF controller. This is a chapter you want to read if you are new to ADF of have started. Experts don't find anything new here, which doesn't mean that it is not worth reading it (I for example, enjoyed the controller talk very much) Chapter 10 is an advanced coverage of bounded task flow and talks about contextual events  Chapter 11 is another highlight and explains error handling, trains, transactions and more. I can only recommend you read this chapter. I am aware of many documents that cover exception handling in Oracle ADF (and my Oracle Magazine article for January/February 2013 does the same), but none that covers it in such a great depth. Chapter 12 covers ADF best practices, which is a great round-up of all the tips provided in this book (without Jobinesh to repeat himself). Its all cool stuff that helps you with your ADF projects. In summary, "Oracle ADF Real World Developer’s Guide" by Jobinesh Purushothaman is a great book and addition for all Oracle ADF developers and those who want to become one. Frank

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• BI&EPM in Focus June 2014

  - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM

  Applications Webcast Centre – A Library of Discussion and Research for Best Practice: Achieving Reliable Planning, Budgeting and Forecasting Talent Analytics and Big Data – Is HR ready for the challenge Enterprise Data – The cost of non-quality Customers Josephine Niemiec from ADP talks about Oracle Hyperion Workforce Planning at Collaborate 2014 (link) Video Chris Nelms from Ameren talks about Oracle BI Spend and Procurement Analytics at Collaborate 2014 (link) Video Leggett & Platt Leverages Oracle Hyperion EPM and Demantra (link) Video Pella Corporation Accelerates Close Cycle by Cutting Time for Financial Consolidation from Three Days to Less Than One Day (link) Secretaría General de Administración de Justicia en España Enhances Citizen Services with Near-Real-Time Business Intelligence Gleaned from 500 Databases  (link) Bellco Credit Union Speeds Budget Development by 30%—Gains Insight into Specific Branch and Financial Product Profitability  (link)  Video QDQ media Speeds up Financial Reporting by 24x, Gains Business Agility, and Integrates Seamlessly into Corporate Accounting System  (link) Westfield Group Maximizes Shopping Mall Revenue, Shortens Year-End Financial Consolidation by 75%  (link)  IL&FS Transportation Networks Shortens Financial Consolidation and Reporting Cycle by Eight Days, Gains In-Depth Insight into Business Performance   (link) Angel Trains Optimizes Rail Operations for Purchasing, Sourcing, and Project Management to Meet Challenges of Evolving Rail Industry  (link) Enterprise Performance Management June 11, at Oracle Utrecht, NL: Morning session: Explore Planning and Budgeting in the Cloud (link) June 12, London: PureApps Presents: Best Practice Financial Consolidation and Reporting Workshop (link) July 3, Koln: Oracle Hyperion Business Analytics Roundtable (link) Blog: What's Your Tax Strategy? Automate the Operational Transfer Pricing Process (link) YouTube Video: Automate Tax Reporting with Oracle Hyperion Tax Provision (link) YouTube Video: Introducing Oracle Hyperion Planning’s Tablet Optimized Interface (link) OracleEPMWebcasts @ YouTube (link) Partner webcasts: Wednesday, 4 June, 5.00 GMT - Case Study:  Lessons Learned from Edgewater Ranzal's Internal Implementation of Oracle Planning & Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) - Learn more and register here! Thursday, 5 June, 4.00 GMT - Achieving Accountable Care Using Oracle Technology - Learn more and register here! Tuesday, 17 June, 4.00 GMT - Optimizing Performance for Oracle EPM Systems - Learn more and register here! Oracle University Blog: The Coolest Features Available with Oracle Hyperion 11.1.2.3 – Training from OU to help you to best use them (link) Support: Proactive Support: EPM Hyperion Planning 11.1.2.3.500 Using RMI Service [Blog] Proactive Support: Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service Videos (link) Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS) 11.1.2.3.410 Patch Bundle [Doc ID 1670981.1] Hyperion Analytic Provider Services 11.1.2.2.106 Patch Set Update [Doc ID 1667350.1] Hyperion Essbase 11.1.2.2.106 Patch Set Update [Doc ID 1667346.1] Hyperion Essbase Administration Services 11.1.2.2.106 Patch Set Update [Doc ID 1667348.1] Hyperion Essbase Studio 11.1.2.2.106 Patch Set Update [Doc ID 1667329.1] Hyperion Smart View 11.1.2.5.210 Patch Set Update [Doc ID 1669427.1] Using HPCM, HSF or DRM Communities (link) Business Intelligence June 12, Birmingham, UK: Oracle Big Data at Work - Use Cases and Architecture (link) June 17, London: Oracle at Cloud & Big Data World Forums (link) June 17, Partner Webcast: Transform your Planning Capabilities with Peloton's CloudAccelerator for Oracle PBCS (link) June 19, London: Oracle at the Whitehall Media Big Data Analytics Conference and Exhibition (link) June 19, London: Partner Event - Agile BI Conference by Peak Indicators [link] June 25, Munich: Oracle Special Day auf der TDWI 2014 Konferenz (link) July 15, London: Oracle Endeca Information Discovery Workshop (link) July 16, London: BI Applications Workshop – Financial Analytics & Procurement Analytics (link) July 17, London: BI Applications Workshop – HR Analytics (link) Milan, Italy: L’Osservatorio Big Data Analytics & Business Intelligence with Politecnico di Milano (link) OBIA 11.1.1.8.1 - Now Available [Blog] What’s New in OBIA 11.1.1.8.1 [Blog] BI Blog: A closer look at Oracle BI Applications 11.1.1.8.1 release (link) Press Release: BI Applications Deliver Greater Insight into Talent and Procurement (link) Support Blog: OBIA 11.1.1.8.1 Upgrade Guide & Documentation (link) YouTube Video: Glenn Hoormann of Ludus talks to us about Oracle Business Intelligence and ERP at Collaborate 2014 (Link) YouTube Video: Performance Architects talks about key BI and Mobile trends, including Endeca at Collaborate 2014 (link) Big Data Blog: 3 Keys for Using Big Data Effectively for Enhanced Customer Experience (link) Big Data Lite Demo VM 3.0 Now Available on OTN BI Blog: Data Relationship Governance - Workflow in a Bottle (link) MDM Blog: Register for Product Data Management Weekly Cloudcasts (link) MDM Blog: Improve your Customer Experience with High Quality Information (link) MDM Blog: Big Data Challenges & Considerations (link) Oracle University: Oracle BI Applications 11g: Implementation using ODI (link) Proactive Support: Monthly Index [Blog] My Oracle Support: Partner Accreditation for Business Analytics Support [Blog] OBIEE 11g Test-to-Production (T2P) / Clone Procedures Guide [Blog] Normal 0 false false false EN-GB 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; 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-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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• Visualising data a different way with Pivot collections

  - by Rob Farley

  Roger’s been doing a great job extending PivotViewer recently, and you can find the list of LobsterPot pivots at http://pivot.lobsterpot.com.au Many months back, the TED Talk that Gary Flake did about Pivot caught my imagination, and I did some research into it. At the time, most of what we did with Pivot was geared towards what we could do for clients, including making Pivot collections based on students at a school, and using it to browse PDF invoices by their various properties. We had actual commercial work based on Pivot collections back then, and it was all kinds of fun. Later, we made some collections for events that were happening, and even got featured in the TechEd Australia keynote. But I’m getting ahead of myself... let me explain the concept. A Pivot collection is an XML file (with .cxml extension) which lists Items, each linking to an image that’s stored in a Deep Zoom format (this means that it contains tiles like Bing Maps, so that the browser can request only the ones of interest according to the zoom level). This collection can be shown in a Silverlight application that uses the PivotViewer control, or in the Pivot Browser that’s available from getpivot.com. Filtering and sorting the items according to their facets (attributes, such as size, age, category, etc), the PivotViewer rearranges the way that these are shown in a very dynamic way. To quote Gary Flake, this lets us “see patterns which are otherwise hidden”. This browsing mechanism is very suited to a number of different methods, because it’s just that – browsing. It’s not searching, it’s more akin to window-shopping than doing an internet search. When we decided to put something together for the conferences such as TechEd Australia 2010 and the PASS Summit 2010, we did some screen-scraping to provide a different view of data that was already available online. Nick Hodge and Michael Kordahi from Microsoft liked the idea a lot, and after a bit of tweaking, we produced one that Michael used in the TechEd Australia keynote to show the variety of talks on offer. It’s interesting to see a pattern in this data: The Office track has the most sessions, but if the Interactive Sessions and Instructor-Led Labs are removed, it drops down to only the sixth most popular track, with Cloud Computing taking over. This is something which just isn’t obvious when you look an ordinary search tool. You get a much better feel for the data when moving around it like this. The more observant amongst you will have noticed some difference in the collection that Michael is demonstrating in the picture above with the screenshots I’ve shown. That’s because it’s been extended some more. At the SQLBits conference in the UK this year, I had some interesting discussions with the guys from Xpert360, particularly Phil Carter, who I’d met in 2009 at an earlier SQLBits conference. They had got around to producing a Pivot collection based on the SQLBits data, which we had been planning to do but ran out of time. We discussed some of ways that Pivot could be used, including the ways that my old friend Howard Dierking had extended it for the MSDN Magazine. I’m not suggesting I influenced Xpert360 at all, but they certainly inspired us with some of their posts on the matter So with LobsterPot guys David Gardiner and Roger Noble both having dabbled in Pivot collections (and Dave doing some for clients), I set Roger to work on extending it some more. He’s used various events and so on to be able to make an environment that allows us to do quick deployment of new collections, as well as showing the data in a grid view which behaves as if it were simply a third view of the data (the other two being the array of images and the ‘histogram’ view). I see PivotViewer as being a significant step in data visualisation – so much so that I feature it when I deliver talks on Spatial Data Visualisation methods. Any time when there is information that can be conveyed through an image, you have to ask yourself how best to show that image, and whether that image is the focal point. For Spatial data, the image is most often a map, and the map becomes the central mode for navigation. I show Pivot with postcode areas, since I can browse the postcodes based on their data, and many of the images are recognisable (to locals of South Australia). Naturally, the images could link through to the map itself, and so on, but generally people think of Spatial data in terms of navigating a map, which doesn’t always gel with the information you’re trying to extract. Roger’s even looking into ways to hook PivotViewer into the Bing Maps API, in a similar way to the Deep Earth project, displaying different levels of map detail according to how ‘zoomed in’ the images are. Some of the work that Dave did with one of the schools was generating the Deep Zoom tiles “on the fly”, based on images stored in a database, and Roger has produced a collection which uses images from flickr, that lets you move from one search term to another. Pulling the images down from flickr.com isn’t particularly ideal from a performance aspect, and flickr doesn’t store images in a small-enough format to really lend itself to this use, but you might agree that it’s an interesting concept which compares nicely to using Maps. I’m looking forward to future versions of the PivotViewer control, and hope they provide many more events that can be used, and even more hooks into it. Naturally, LobsterPot could help provide your business with a PivotViewer experience, but you can probably do a lot of it yourself too. There’s a thorough guide at getpivot.com, which is how we got into it. For some examples of what we’ve done, have a look at http://pivot.lobsterpot.com.au. I’d like to see PivotViewer really catch on a data visualisation tool.

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• Hiding an item conditionally through SPEL in OAF ( VO Extension + Personalization )

  - by Manoj Madhusoodanan

  In this blog I will explain how to conditionally set property of an item through personalization.Let me discuss using a business scenario. My customer wants to make Hold from Payment/ All Invoices column readonly when the Operating Unit is UK ( Configured in a lookup XXCUST_EXCLUDED_ORGS ). Analysis First thing is we have to find out the page and business components. Page: /oracle/apps/pos/supplier/webui/QuickUpdatePGView Object: oracle.apps.pos.supplier.server.SitesVO Solution Download oracle.apps.pos.supplier.server.SitesVO from $JAVA_TOP to JDEV_USER_HOME/myprojects.Make sure the transfer mode of the file (See below table). 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;} File Type Transfer Mode .xml ASCII .class Binary .tar Binary .java ASCII  Since there is no VO attribute available to determine the Site Org against the lookup Org we have to add the logic inside a custom VO attribute. So VO extension is required in this scenario. Add an attribute "isPymtReadOnlyStr" in the existing query.This column returns 'Y' if there is a match in the lookup otherwise 'N'. Create a transient attribute "isPymtReadOnly" of type BOOLEAN.This will return TRUE if "isPymtReadOnlyStr" is "Y" otherwise FALSE. The reason behind adding the "isPymtReadOnly" is we are setting the item property as readonly through SPEL.It will recognize only BOOLEAN.But SQL query doesn't support BOOLEAN.So we are building a BOOLEAN attribute from the SQL which will use in the personalization layer to set the item property. Steps 1) Create a new VO xxcust.oracle.apps.pos.supplier.server.XXCUSTSitesVO which extends from oracle.apps.pos.supplier.server.SitesVO. Make sure the binding style should be same as SitesVO. Create the XXCUSTSitesVO which same query of SitesVO.Later we will add the new attribute to XXCUSTSitesVO. At this point of time all the existing VO attributes are of Updatable property as "Always". Press Finish without creating XXCUSTSitesVORowImpl.java 2) Select the XXCUSTSitesVO from JDeveloper Application Navigator. Modify the query and add the extra column. 3) Create a new transient attribute as follows. 4) Once you modify the query all the existing attributes Updatable property will change to Never.So revert that property back to orginal. 5) Create XXCUSTSitesVORowImpl.java by checking the following check box. 6) Add the following code snippet in XXCUSTSitesVORowImpl.java 7) Create the substitution for SitesVO as follows. Following entry will get created in current jpx file.    <Substitutes>      <Substitute OldName ="oracle.apps.pos.supplier.server.SitesVO" NewName ="xxcust.oracle.apps.pos.supplier.server.XXCUSTSitesVO" />   </Substitutes> 8) Migrate XXCUSTSitesVOImpl.java,XXCUSTSitesVORowImpl.java and XXCUSTSitesVO.xml from desktop to actual instance. 9) Migrate the substitution using jpximporter. 10) Restart the server and verify the substitution has done perfectly. 11) Go to /oracle/apps/pos/supplier/webui/QuickUpdatePG and personalize the page.Set the item read only property to ${oa.SitesVO.IsPymtReadOnly} 12) Click on Apply and in next page click on Return to Application. Verify your output.  Note: You can remove the substitution using following script.Please click here.

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• top tweets WebLogic Partner Community – March 2012

  - by JuergenKress

  Send us your tweets @wlscommunity #WebLogicCommunity and follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/wlscommunity PeterPaul ? RT @JDeveloper: EJB 3 Deployment guide for WebLogic Server Version: 10.3.4.0 dlvr.it/1J5VcV Andrejus Baranovskis ?Open ADF PopUp on Page Load fb.me/1Rx9LP3oW Sten Vesterli ? RT @OracleBlogs: Using the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java on ADF Applications ow.ly/1hVKbB <- Neat! No more WS calls Java Buddy ?JavaFX 2.0: Example of MediaPlay java-buddy.blogspot.com/2012/03/javafx… Georges Saab Build improvements coming to #openJDK for #jdk8 mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/buil… NetBeans Team Share your #Java experience! JavaOne 2012 India call for papers: ow.ly/9xYg0 GlassFish ? GlassFish 3.1.2 Screencasts & Videos – bit.ly/zmQjn2 chriscmuir ?G+: New blog post: ADF Runtimes vs WLS versions as of JDeveloper 11.1.1.6.0 – bit.ly/y8tkgJ Michael Heinrichs New article: Creating a Sprite Animation with JavaFX blog.netopyr.com/2012/03/09/cre… Oracle WebLogic ? #WebLogic Devcast Webinar Series for March: Enterprise Java Scale Out, JPA, Distributed Grid Data Cache bit.ly/zeUXEV #Coherence Andrejus Baranovskis ?Extending Application Module for ADF BC Proxy User DB Connection fb.me/Bj1hLUqm OTNArchBeat ? Oracle Fusion Middleware on JDK 7 | Mark Nelson bit.ly/w7IroZ OTNArchBeat ? Java Champion Jonas Bonér Explains the Akka Platform bit.ly/x2GbXm Adam Bien ? (Java) FX Experience Tools–Feels Like Native Mac App: FX Experience Tools application comes with a native Mac O… bit.ly/waHF3H GlassFish ? GlassFish new recruit and Eclipse integration progress – bit.ly/y5eEkk JDeveloper & ADF Prototyping ADF Libraries dlvr.it/1Hhnw0 Eric Elzinga ?Oracle Fusion Middleware on JDK 7, bit.ly/xkphFQ ADF EMG ? Working with ADF in Arabic, Hebrew or other right-to-left-written language? Oracle UX asks for your help. groups.google.com/forum/?fromgro… Java ? A simple #JavaFX Login Form with a TRON like effect ow.ly/9n9AG JDeveloper & ADF ? Logging in Oracle ADF Applications dlvr.it/1HZhcX OTNArchBeat ? Oracle Cloud Conference: dates and locations worldwide bit.ly/ywXydR UK Oracle User Group ? Simon Haslam, ACE Director present on #WebLogic for DBAs at #oug_ire2012 j.mp/zG6vz3 @oraclewebcenter @oracleace #dublin Steven Davelaar ? Working with ADF and not a member of ADF EMG? You miss lots of valuable info, join now! sites.google.com/site/oracleemg… Simon Haslam @MaciejGruszka: Oracle plans to provide Forms & Reports plug-in for OVAB next year to help deployment. #ukoug MW SIG GlassFish ? Introducing JSR 357: Social Media API – bit.ly/yC8vez JAX London ? Are you coming to Java EE workshops by @AdamBien at JAX Days? Save £100 by registering today. #jaxdays #javaee jaxdays.com WebLogic Community ?Welcome to our Munich WebLogic 12c Bootcamp in Munich! If you also want to attend a training register for the Community oracle.com/partners/goto/… chriscmuir ? My first webcast for Oracle! (be kind) Basing ADF Business Component View Objects on More that one Entity Object bit.ly/ArKija OTNArchBeat ? Oracle Weblogic Server 12c is available on Oracle Solaris 11 (SPARC and x86) bit.ly/xE3TLg JDeveloper & ADF ? Basing ADF Business Component View Objects on More that one Entity Object – YouTube dlvr.it/1H93Qr OTNArchBeat ? Application-Driven Virtualization with Oracle Virtual Assembly Builder | Ronen Kofman bit.ly/wF1C1N Oracle WebLogic ? Steve Button’s blog: WebLogic Server Singleton Services ow.ly/1hOu4U Barbara Ann May ?@oracledevtools: New update: #NetBeans IDE 7.1.1, with support for #GlassFish 3.1.2 bit.ly/mOLcQd #java #developer OTNArchBeat ? Using Coherence with JDeveloper: bit.ly/AkoEQb WebLogic Community ? WebLogic Partner Community Newsletter February 2012 wp.me/p1LMIb-f3 GlassFish ? GlassFish 3.1.2 – new Podcast episode : bit.ly/wc6oBE Frank Nimphius ?Cool! Open JDeveloper 11.1.1.5, go help–>check for updates. First thing shown is that 11.1.1.6 is available. Never miss a new release Adam Bien ?5 Minutes (Video) With Java EE …Or With NetBeans + GlassFish: This screencast covers a 5-minute development of a… bit.ly/xkOJMf WebLogic Community ? Free Oracle WebLogic Certification Application Grid Implementation Specialist wp.me/p1LMIb-eT OTNArchBeat ?Oracle Coherence: First Steps Using Clusters and Basic API Usage | Ricardo Ferreira bit.ly/yYQ3Wz GlassFish ? JMS 2.0 Early Draft is here – bit.ly/ygT1VN OTNArchBeat ? Exalogic Networking Part 2 | The Old Toxophilist bit.ly/xuYMIi OTNArchBeat ?New Release: GlassFish Server 3.1.2. Read All About It! | Paul Davies bit.ly/AtlGxo Oracle WebLogic ?OTN Virtual Developer Day: #WebLogic 12c & #Coherence ost-conference on-demand page live with bonus #Virtualbox lab – bit.ly/xUy6BJ Oracle WebLogic ? Steve Button’s blog: WebLogic Server 11g (10.3.6) Documentation ow.ly/1hJgUB Lucas Jellema ? Just published an article on the AMIS blog: technology.amis.nl/2012/03/adf-11… ADF 11g – programmatically sorting rich table columns. Java Certification ? New Course! Learn how to create mobile applications using Java ME: bit.ly/xZj1Jh Simon Haslam ? @MaciejGruszka WebLogic 12c can run against 11g domain config without changes …and can rollback to 11. #ukoug MW SIG Justin Kestelyn ? Learn Advanced ADF, free and online bit.ly/wEKSRc WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Wiki Technorati Tags: twitter,WebLogic,WebLogic Community,OPN,Oracle,Jürgen Kress,WebLogic 12c

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• Red Gate does Byte Night 2012

  - by red(at)work

  On the 5th of October 2012, a team of nine plucky Red Gaters braved the howling wind and the driving rain to sleep outside. No tents or mattresses were allowed – all we took for protection were sleeping bags, groundsheets, plastic sacks and Colin’s enormous fishing umbrella (a godsend in umbrella-y disguise). Why would we do such a thing? For Byte Night, an annual tech sector sleepout in support of Action for Children, who tackle the causes as well as the consequences of youth homelessness. Byte Night encourages technology professionals to do for one night a year what thousands of young people have to do every night – sleep rough.  We signed up for Byte Night in the warm, heady midst of the British summer, thinking it couldn’t possibly be all that bad. Even on the night itself – before the rain began to fall, sat in the comfort and warmth of a company canteen, drinking wine and eating chill and preparing to win the pub quiz – we were excited and optimistic about the night that lay ahead of us. All of that changed as soon as we stepped out into one of the worst rainstorms of the year. Brian, the team’s birthday boy, describes it best: Picture the scene: it’s 3 am on a Friday. I’m lying outside, fully clothed in a sleeping bag, wearing a raincoat, trussed up inside a large plastic pocket, on a ground sheet beneath a giant umbrella, wedged so tightly between two of my colleagues that I can’t move my arms. I’m wide awake, staring up at the grey sky beyond the edge of the umbrella; a limp, flickering white glow hints at a moon somewhere behind the drifting clouds. I haven’t slept since we first moved outside at 11 pm. Outside. Did I mention we were outside? I’m hung over. I need the loo. But there is no way on earth that I’m getting out of this sleeping bag. It’s cold. It’s raining. Not just raining, but chucking it down. It’s been doing this non-stop since 10pm. The rain sounds like a hyperactive drummer on the fishing umbrella, and the noise is loud and relentless. Puddles of water are forming all over the groundsheet, and, despite being ensconced inside the plastic pouch, I am wet. The fishing umbrella is protecting me from the worst of the driving rain, but not all of me is under it, and five hours of rain is no match for it. Everything is wet. My left side has become horribly damp. My trainers, which I placed next to my sleeping bag, are now completely soaked through. Mmm. That’ll be fun in the morning. My head is next to Colin’s head on one side, and a multi-pack of McCoy’s cheddar and onion crisps on the other. Don’t ask about the tub of hummus. That’s somewhere down by my ankles, abandoned to the night. Jess, who is lying next to me, rolls over onto her side. A mini waterfall cascades from her rain-pouch onto my face. Bah. I continue to stare into the heavens, willing the dawn to hurry up. Something lands on my face. It’s a mosquito. Great. Midnight, when this still seemed like fun – when we opened some champagne and my colleagues presented me with a caterpillar birthday cake, when everyone was drunk and jolly and full of stoic resolve – feels like a long time ago. Did I mention that today is my birthday? The remains of the caterpillar cake endure the same fate as the hummus, left out in the rain like a metaphor for sadness. It’s getting colder. I can see my breath. Silence has descended on the group, apart from the rustle of plastic. And the rain, obviously. Someone snores, and I envy whoever it is the sweet escape of sleep. I try to wriggle a bit further down inside my sleeping bag, but it doesn’t want to be wriggled into. Only 3 hours till dawn. 180 minutes. I begin to count them off, one at a time.  All nine of us got to go home in the morning, but thousands of children across the UK don’t have that luxury. If you’d like to sponsor the Red Gate Byte Night team, our JustGiving page can be found here.   Chris, before the outside bit actually happened. More photos from Byte Night Cambridge 2012 can be found here.

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