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• Vertical Seek not progress value not showing on MainActivity textView

  - by Raju Gujarati

  I am try to display the progress value of the seekBar but when it comes to the execution, there is no update on the value being display on the TextView. I wonder what alternatives than putting two classes onto one big class in order to archive this aim ? The below is my code VerticalSeekBar.java package com.example.imagerotation; import android.content.Context; import android.graphics.Canvas; import android.util.AttributeSet; import android.view.MotionEvent; import android.widget.SeekBar; import android.widget.Toast; public class VerticalSeekBar extends SeekBar { public VerticalSeekBar(Context context) { super(context); } public VerticalSeekBar(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) { super(context, attrs, defStyle); } public VerticalSeekBar(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) { super(context, attrs); } protected void onSizeChanged(int w, int h, int oldw, int oldh) { super.onSizeChanged(h, w, oldh, oldw); } @Override protected synchronized void onMeasure(int widthMeasureSpec, int heightMeasureSpec) { super.onMeasure(heightMeasureSpec, widthMeasureSpec); setMeasuredDimension(getMeasuredHeight(), getMeasuredWidth()); } protected void onDraw(Canvas c) { c.rotate(-90); c.translate(-getHeight(), 0); super.onDraw(c); } @Override public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) { if (!isEnabled()) { return false; } switch (event.getAction()) { case MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN: case MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE: case MotionEvent.ACTION_UP: int progress = getMax() - (int) (getMax() * event.getY() / getHeight()); setProgress(progress); onSizeChanged(getWidth(), getHeight(), 0, 0); //Toast.makeText(getContext(), String.valueOf(progress), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); break; case MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL: break; } return true; } } MainActvity.java package com.example.imagerotation; import android.app.Activity; import android.os.Bundle; import android.view.Menu; import android.view.MenuItem; import android.widget.TextView; public class MainActivity extends Activity { private VerticalSeekBar seek; private TextView by; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); seek = (VerticalSeekBar)findViewById(R.id.seekBar1); by = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.textView1); by.setText(String.valueOf(seek.getProgress())); } }

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• Java Flow Control Problem

  - by Kyle_Solo

  I am programming a simple 2d game engine. I've decided how I'd like the engine to function: it will be composed of objects containing "events" that my main game loop will trigger when appropriate. A little more about the structure: Every GameObject has an updateEvent method. objectList is a list of all the objects that will receive update events. Only objects on this list have their updateEvent method called by the game loop. I’m trying to implement this method in the GameObject class (This specification is what I’d like the method to achieve): /** * This method removes a GameObject from objectList. The GameObject * should immediately stop executing code, that is, absolutely no more * code inside update events will be executed for the removed game object. * If necessary, control should transfer to the game loop. * @param go The GameObject to be removed */ public void remove(GameObject go) So if an object tries to remove itself inside of an update event, control should transfer back to the game engine: public void updateEvent() { //object's update event remove(this); System.out.println("Should never reach here!"); } Here’s what I have so far. It works, but the more I read about using exceptions for flow control the less I like it, so I want to see if there are alternatives. Remove Method public void remove(GameObject go) { //add to removedList //flag as removed //throw an exception if removing self from inside an updateEvent } Game Loop for(GameObject go : objectList) { try { if (!go.removed) { go.updateEvent(); } else { //object is scheduled to be removed, do nothing } } catch(ObjectRemovedException e) { //control has been transferred back to the game loop //no need to do anything here } } // now remove the objects that are in removedList from objectList 2 questions: Am I correct in assuming that the only way to implement the stop-right-away part of the remove method as described above is by throwing a custom exception and catching it in the game loop? (I know, using exceptions for flow control is like goto, which is bad. I just can’t think of another way to do what I want!) For the removal from the list itself, it is possible for one object to remove one that is farther down on the list. Currently I’m checking a removed flag before executing any code, and at the end of each pass removing the objects to avoid concurrent modification. Is there a better, preferably instant/non-polling way to do this?

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• Sharing the same file between different projects

  - by selsine

  Hi Everyone, For version control we currently use Visual Source Safe and are thinking of migrating to another version control system (SVN, Mercurial, Git). Currently we use Visual Source Safe's "Shared" file feature quite heavily. This allows us to share code between design and runtimes of a single product, and between multiple products as well. For example: **Product One** - Design Login.cpp Login.h Helper.cpp Helper.h - Runtime Login.cpp Login.h Helper.cpp Helper.h **Product Two** - Design Login.cpp Login.h - Launcher Login.cpp Login.h - Runtime Login.cpp Login.h In this example Login.cpp and Login.h contain common code that all of our projects need, Helper.cpp and Helper.h is only used in Product One. In Visual Source Safe they are shared between the specific projects, which means that whenever the files are updated in one project they are updated in any project they are shared with. This is a simple example but hopefully it explains why we use the shared feature: to reduce the amount of duplicated code and ensure that when a bug is fixed all projects automatically have access to the new fixed code. After researching alternatives to Visual Source Safe it seems that most version control systems do not have the idea of shared files, instead they seem to use the idea of sub repositories. (http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/subrepos http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/ch07s03.html) My question (after all of that) is about what the best practices for achieving this are using other version control systems? Should we restructure our projects so that two copies of the files do not exist and an include directory is used instead? e.g. Product One Design Login.cpp Login.h Runtime Login.cpp Login.h Common Helper.cpp Helper.h This still leaves what to do with Login.cpp and Logon.h Should the shared files be moved to their own repository and then compiled into a lib or dll? This would make bug fixing more time consuming as the lib projects would have to be edited and then rebuilt. Should we use externals or sub repositories? Should we combine our projects (i.e. runtime, design, and launcher) into one large project? Any help would be appreciated. We have the feeling that our project design has evolved based on the tools that we used and now that we are thinking of switching tools it's difficult for us to see how we can best modify our practices. Or maybe we are the only people are there doing this...? Also, we use Visual Studio for all of our stuff. Thanks.

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• How to create a Link that supplies its own Markup?

  - by Aranian

  I'm trying to create a link that will hide or show a part of my page. The link should be reusable and display one of two images, depending on state. Adding the two subcomponents on every page where I use the link is kind of clunky so I wanted to create a component that behaves like a link while automatically adding its content. This is the Link component: public class ToggleVisibilityLink extends AjaxFallbackLink<Boolean> { public ToggleVisibilityLink(final String id, final IModel<Boolean> model) { super(id, model); setOutputMarkupId(true); add(new Image("collapseImage") { @Override public boolean isVisible() { return !getModelObject(); } }); add(new Image("expandImage") { @Override public boolean isVisible() { return getModelObject(); } }); } @Override public void onClick(final AjaxRequestTarget target) { setModelObject(!getModelObject()); if (target != null) { target.add(this); send(this.getParent(), Broadcast.EXACT, target); } } } And this is how I currently use it in HTML (this is added to the page or panel where I use the link): <a href="#" wicket:id="collapseExpandLink" class="collapseExpandLink"> <wicket:link> <img src="collapse.png" wicket:id="collapseImage" class="collapseExpandImage collapse"> </wicket:link> <wicket:link> <img src="expand.png" wicket:id="expandImage" class="collapseExpandImage expand"> </wicket:link> </a> And the corresponding Java call: add(new ToggleVisibilityLink("collapseExpandLink", new PropertyModel(this, "hidden"))); But I want to be able to skip the body inside the link as one would have to know about the internals of ToggleVisibilityLink. I experimented with IMarkupResourceStreamProvider, using Dynamic markup in Wicket as a starting point. By googling I found another example where the poster was only able to get that to work when using a Panel, and I was able to do that as well. But I'd really like to keep the link and not package it inside a Panel, as I would not be able to style the link in the markup. I'm also open to alternatives to encapsulate the link and its body.

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• Declare Ajax-webservicecall OnSuccess method anonymous.

  - by user333113

  I write a lot of ajax javascript code and have a little design problem which I'm not totally satisfied with. A lot of times I end up with writing something like this: var typeOfPopup; function RetrievePopupContent(_typeOfPopup) { switch (_typeOfPopup) { case Popup1: WebService.RetrievePopup1Content(param1, param2, DisplayPopup, OnError); break; case Popup2: WebService.RetrievePopup2Content(param1, param2, DisplayPopup, OnError); break; } typeOfPopup = _typeOfPopup; } function DisplayPopup(result) { switch (typeOfPopup) { case Popup1: $get('Popup1').innerHTML = result; break; case Popup2: $get('Popup2').innerHTML = result; break; } Allright. This is a simplified example of what I mean. Often I end up with a lot worse code I believe. What I don't like is the global state variabel outside the functions. One solution I wasn't thinking about when writing this code is to send a context object. I believe you could write something like this: function RetrievePopupContent(typeOfPopup) { switch (typeOfPopup) { case Popup1: WebService.RetrievePopup1Content(param1, param2, DisplayPopup, OnError, typeOfPopup); break; case Popup2: WebService.RetrievePopup2Content(param1, param2, DisplayPopup, OnError, typeOfPopup); break; } } function DisplayPopup(result, typeOfPopup) { switch (typeOfPopup) { case Popup1: $get('Popup1').innerHTML = result; break; case Popup2: $get('Popup2').innerHTML = result; break; } Is this the recommended way? What I also want to do is to be able to write something like this: function RetrievePopupContent(typeOfPopup) { switch (typeOfPopup) { case Popup1: WebService.RetrievePopup1Content(param1, param2, new function(result) { $get('Popup1').innerHTML = result; }, OnError); break; case Popup2: WebService.RetrievePopup2Content(param1, param2, new function(result) { $get('Popup2').innerHTML = result; }, OnError); break; } } Is this possible at all? To declare the callback function anonymous? I am grateful for all opinions on the two options I mentioned myself and also new alternatives to get rid of my global variables I have used this way.

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• Managing access to multiple linux system

  - by Swartz

  A searched for answers but have found nothing on here... Long story short: a non-profit organization is in dire need of modernizing its infrastructure. First thing is to find an alternatives to managing user accounts on a number of Linux hosts. We have 12 servers (both physical and virtual) and about 50 workstations. We have 500 potential users for these systems. The individual who built and maintained the systems over the years has retired. He wrote his own scripts to manage it all. It still works. No complaints there. However, a lot of the stuff is very manual and error-prone. Code is messy and after updates often needs to be tweaked. Worst part is there is little to no docs written. There are just a few ReadMe's and random notes which may or may not be relevant anymore. So maintenance has become a difficult task. Currently accounts are managed via /etc/passwd on each system. Updates are distributed via cron scripts to correct systems as accounts are added on the "main" server. Some users have to have access to all systems (like a sysadmin account), others need access to shared servers, while others may need access to workstations or only a subset of those. Is there a tool that can help us manage accounts that meets the following requirements? Preferably open source (i.e. free as budget is VERY limited) mainstream (i.e. maintained) preferably has LDAP integration or could be made to interface with LDAP or AD service for user authentication (will be needed in the near future to integrate accounts with other offices) user management (adding, expiring, removing, lockout, etc) allows to manage what systems (or group of systems) each user has access to - not all users are allowed on all systems support for user accounts that could have different homedirs and mounts available depending on what system they are logged into. For example sysadmin logged into "main" server has main://home/sysadmin/ as homedir and has all shared mounts sysadmin logged into staff workstations would have nas://user/s/sysadmin as homedir(different from above) and potentially limited set of mounts, a logged in client would have his/her homedir at different location and no shared mounts. If there is an easy management interface that would be awesome. And if this tool is cross-platform (Linux / MacOS / *nix), that will be a miracle! I have searched the web and so have found nothing suitable. We are open to any suggestions. Thank you. EDIT: This question has been incorrectly marked as a duplicate. The linked to answer only talks about having same homedirs on all systems, whereas we need to have different homedirs based on what system user is currently logged into(MULTIPLE homedirs). Also access needs to be granted only to some machinees not the whole lot. Mods, please understand the full extent of the problem instead of merely marking it as duplicate for points...

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• Cheapest way to connect 20-24 Sata II HDDs in a budget storage server?

  - by Joe Hopfgartner

  I need to assemble a high density storage server for as cheap as possible. It's been a while for me and the last systems I integrated didn't even have Sata yet... During my Research I of course stumbled about Nexsan SATA Beast, the BackBlaze storage Pods as well as some ridiculously overpriced HP Proliant or Dell storage solutions. Finally I choose Norco cases as the way to go. My eye is set on the RPC-4020, which is a 4U 19" Rackmount case with 20 Hot Swap 3.5" SATA/SAS Hdd trays (Backplanes included) and room for two 2.5" OS drives as well as a Slim Line CD-Rom. The backplanes connect with a single SATA port for each drive, so there are 20 internal SATA ports to to be connected. They also have redundant power ports which I think is quite nice. The cheapest price I have found is 290$ + 40$ shipping. In europe the cheapest unfortunately is 370€ (500$) + 40 € shipping... A nice alternative would be the RPC-4224 which has SFF-8087 Mini SAS connectors that bundle 4 SATA trays each. But it doesn't seem to be available in Europe (where i am) anywhere. So here comes my problem: What Mainboard/Controller to choose to connect them for as cheap as possible while still having nice data rates? I have to say that the server is intended as a Storage server with 1gps connectivity and the data transfer will be distributed very evenly across all drives. I also don't require any raid functionality. This is all done at application level, I just need JBOD. So for example if I go for the RPC 4020 Model I need to connect 20 Storage + 1 OS + 1 CDROM Sata ports. I searched a bit and stumbled across this very low priced controller: http://www.intel.com/products/server/raid-controllers/SASWT4I/SASWT4I-overview.htm They sell it for 115 € here and the specs say it can control up to 122 hard discs and has 4 Mini SAS connectors. So I would use 4 Mini SAS 36pin - 4 SATA 7pin cables to connect 4 SATA drives to each port and choose a Mainboard taht has 6 SATA on board (for example this one) and hurray, I can connect my 22 SATA devices for as low as about ~ 220 EUR (cpu, ram, psu, case not counted) Question: WOULD THAT WORK? And if not, why? 2nd Question: If I go for the 4220 or 4224 Model, I have internal Mini SAS connectors. Am I right in assuming that the backplane than acts as a "SAS Expander"? And can I just plug these SAS connectors into any SAS port I can find on my controller / mainboard or are there certain requirements? I know that SATA port multipliers only work with controllers that are ready for that. But isn't this expansion already implemented in the SAS standard? I am sorry that this is a very broad question, but I really spent the last week reading up and it seems to be not so clear! Especially all the controlling hardware specifications! 3rd Question: A lot of hardware specs feature "internal channels" and "internal connectors". The connecors are the physical numbers of places where I can plug a cable in. I got that. But are the "internal channels" always the maximum numbers of physical drives that can be used in the end? Or can I enhance this further by Expanders/Fanouts? 4th and last question: What do you think about the setup so far? Do you know any good alternatives? Maby I am completely going the wrong way and some DAS would be way better? Are there any comparable chassis available in europe? Please feel free to say whatever you think is relevant to the subject!

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• Rsyslog is not working properly, it does not log anything

  - by Victor Henriquez

  I'm running a Debian server and a couple of days ago my rsyslog started to behave very weird, the daemon is running but it doesn't seem to do anything. Many people use the system but I'm the only one with (legal) root access. I'm using the default rsyslogd configuration (if you think is relevant I'll attach it, but it's the one that comes with the package). After I rotated all the log files, they have remained empty: # ls -l /var/log/*.log -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jun 27 00:25 /var/log/alternatives.log -rw-r----- 1 root adm 0 Jun 26 13:03 /var/log/auth.log -rw-r----- 1 root adm 0 Jun 26 13:03 /var/log/daemon.log -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jun 27 00:25 /var/log/dpkg.log -rw-r----- 1 root adm 0 Jun 26 13:03 /var/log/kern.log -rw-r----- 1 root adm 0 Jun 26 13:03 /var/log/lpr.log -rw-r----- 1 root adm 0 Jun 26 13:03 /var/log/mail.log -rw-r----- 1 root adm 0 Jun 26 13:03 /var/log/user.log Any try to force a log writing does not have any effect: # logger hey # ls -l /var/log/messages -rw-r----- 1 root adm 0 Jun 26 13:03 /var/log/messages Lsof shows that rsyslogd does not have any log files opened: # lsof -p 1855 COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME rsyslogd 1855 root cwd DIR 202,0 4096 2 / rsyslogd 1855 root rtd DIR 202,0 4096 2 / rsyslogd 1855 root txt REG 202,0 342076 21649 /usr/sbin/rsyslogd rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 38556 32153 /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libnss_nis-2.13.so rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 79728 32165 /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libnsl-2.13.so rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 26456 32163 /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libnss_compat-2.13.so rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 297500 1061058 /usr/lib/rsyslog/imuxsock.so rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 42628 32170 /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libnss_files-2.13.so rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 22784 1061106 /usr/lib/rsyslog/imklog.so rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 1401000 32169 /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libc-2.13.so rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 30684 32175 /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/librt-2.13.so rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 9844 32157 /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libdl-2.13.so rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 117009 32154 /lib/i386-linux-gnu/i686/cmov/libpthread-2.13.so rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 79980 17746 /usr/lib/libz.so.1.2.3.4 rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 18836 1061094 /usr/lib/rsyslog/lmnet.so rsyslogd 1855 root mem REG 202,0 117960 31845 /lib/i386-linux-gnu/ld-2.13.so rsyslogd 1855 root 0u unix 0xebe8e800 0t0 640 /dev/log rsyslogd 1855 root 3u FIFO 0,5 0t0 2474 /dev/xconsole rsyslogd 1855 root 4u unix 0xebe8e400 0t0 645 /var/spool/postfix/dev/log rsyslogd 1855 root 5r REG 0,3 0 4026532176 /proc/kmsg I was so frustrated that even reinstall the rsyslog package, but it still refuses to log anything: # apt-get remove --purge rsyslog # apt-get install rsyslog I thought someone had hacked the system, so run rkhunter, chkrootkit, unhide in an attempt to find hide processes / ports and nmap in a remote host to compare with the ports shown by netstat. And I know this doesn't mean anything, but all looks ok. The system also have an iptables firewall that is very restrictive with incoming / outgoing connections. This is driving me crazy, any idea what is going on here? [EDIT - disk space info] # df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs 24G 22G 629M 98% / /dev/root 24G 22G 629M 98% / devtmpfs 10M 112K 9.9M 2% /dev tmpfs 76M 48K 76M 1% /run tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock tmpfs 151M 40K 151M 1% /tmp tmpfs 151M 0 151M 0% /run/shm

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• Hard drive write speed - finding a lighter antivirus?

  - by Shingetsu

  I recently have been getting a lot of system lag here (for example, the mouse and the display in general take about 15 seconds to react in the worst cases). After a lot of monitoring the resources, I found that the problem mainly happens when too much Disk I/O is being done. Three culprits have been identified: My browser had the highest write I/O with 35,000,000 I/O Write Bytes. Steam had the highest read I/O (when IDLE!!!) with 106,000,000 I/O Read Bytes. My antivirus (in both cases I will soon mention) was the runner up in both cases with: 30,000,000ish write and 80,000,000ish read. The first AV I had was Avast! which I had liked on my previous system. After noticing it taking so much I/O I switched to Panda (supposing it wouldn't use TOO much during idle phase). However it only used a bit less I/O. Just a lot less memory and cpu and somewhat more network. My browser at the moment is Maxthon 3 (which I like a lot). Before this I was running chrome which had similar data and much higher cpu when running in the background was enabled. I'm not going to be running steam all the time and there aren't many alternatives to it. I like my browser very much, but I AM willing to switch if there's an obvious problem (I'm in programming, however I'm not a very good sysadmin, especially not when it comes to windows). Finally, my system almost stops lagging when I turn off the antivirus (and preferably steam) (some remains but once in every 5-6 hours for a few seconds so it isn't a big problem). My question (has a few parts): Is it possible to configure steam to lower it's I/O usage? (and maybe network while we're at it?) Which antivirus (very preferably free) uses lowest I/O while idle (I leave PC alone during active scans so that isn't a problem). Is there an obvious problem with my current browser and, if so, is there a way to fix it or should I switch and, if so, to what? (P.S. I've been on FFox for some time too). Info on system: Windows 7 (32 bit T_T, I am getting a new one in a few months but I want to keep using system during that time though). Hard Drive (main) is a Raid0. (Also have an external 1TB one which contains steam (and steam alone). As such it doesn't get used by much anything other than steam and isn't a very large problem. However steam still uses some I/O of registry) CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU [email protected] RAM: 6GB (3.25GB usable) (this and CPU have little effect as shown in next section) Additional info: Memory usage during problematic times: 44% CPU usage during problematic times: 35% Page File: main drive: system managed. 1TB drive: none. The current system I'm using is about 6 years old and is mainly a place holder while I await the new one in a few months. Final words: this is my 1st post on Super User (this question wouldn't feel right on Stack Overflow where I usually stay). If it doesn't have it's place here please tell me. If anything is wrong with it, same. Edit Technically I'm looking for a live thread detection program with minimal IO usage. I already have good active scan capability: Kaspersky (the free scanner uses the paid database) and MalwareBytes. Edit 2 Noticed another one, it seems that windows media player has been using stuff even when off! Turning it off and restarting now. If the problem is fixed I'll tell you guys. The reason I didn't notice it before was because I didn't have resource manager in front of me at the MOMENT of the problem. Now I did and it was at the very top of the list!

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• Connecting PC to TV via HDMI/DVI: Windows XP doesn't allow the appropriate screen resolution

  - by Jørgen

  I have a computer that is connected to the living room TV (a Panasonic) via HDMI. There is no other monitor connected. My problem is that the computer, which is running Windows XP, does not allow me to set the proper resolution for the TV. Both the graphics adapter and the TV should support the 1280x720 resolution, but it cannot be selected - the only available options are 1280x600 and 800x600, both in the "native" Windows dialog box and the custom Intel graphics options dialog box. Do anyone have a suggestion for a solution for this? Things I've thought of: Setting the resolution directly in the registry (where?) Installing some "custom" monitor driver (the TV manufacturer does not appear to provide any, currently the "generic" one is used) Details on the setup: Connection: DVI output on the computer via a passive DVI-HDMI adapter to the HDMI input on the TV, audio is run on a separate link, the TV is able to combine video and audio without any problem, the problem is there regardless of whether or not the audio is connected. The connection is several meters long through some walls, for this reason using a VGA cable instead is not an option. Note that the report explicitly says that the TV supports 1280x720. Still, I am not allowed to select it in Graphics Options, only 1280x600 and 800x600 is available. For 800x600, there's a lot of black around the edges; for 1280x600, the screen is "zoomed" so the edges of the monitor image (like the taskbar) is not visible. Other: The computer is running Windows XP. More recent versions of Windows are not an option (I have no licence). Linux is probably not an option (some of the video streaming sites I plan to use do not support it, I think) I wrote the rest of the details below. Thanks for any help!! TV: Panasonic TX-L32X10Y, European version; a 720p 32" quite "regular" LCD TV. Allowed resolutions according to manual: Signal name: 640x480 @60HZ Horizontal frequency: 31.47 kHz Vertical frequency: 60Hz Signal name: 750/720) /60p Horizontal frequency: 45.00 kHz Vertical frequency: 60Hz Signal name: 1,125 (1,080) / 60p Horizontal frequency: 67.50 kHz Vertical frequency: 60Hz (this is exactly how the manual presents it. PC via D-SUB (VGA cable) and "regular" HDMI have more alternatives.) Messing with the "zoom" settings on the TV does not affect the available resolution options on the computer. Computer: The following is a printout from one of the graphics adapter option pages. I think it covers most of it. The computer is a Dell. INTEL(R) EXTREME GRAPHICS 2 REPORT Report Date: 04/17/2011 Report Time[hr:mm:ss]: 20:18:02 Driver Version: 6.14.10.4396 Operating System: Windows XP* Professional, Service Pack 3 (5.1.2600) Default Language: English DirectX* Version: 9.0 Physical Memory: 1021 MB Minimum Graphics Memory: 1 MB Maximum Graphics Memory: 96 MB Graphics Memory in Use: 6 MB Processor: x86 Processor Speed: 2593 MHZ Vendor ID: 8086 Device ID: 2572 Device Revision: 02 * Accelerator Information * Accelerator in Use: Intel(R) 82865G Graphics Controller Video BIOS: 2972 Current Graphics Mode: 1280 by 600 True Color (60 Hz) * Devices Connected to the Graphics Accelerator * Active Digital Displays: 1 * Digital Display * Monitor Name: Plug and Play Monitor Display Type: Digital Gamma Value: 2.20 DDC2 Protocol: Supported Maximum Image Size: Horizontal: Not Available Vertical: Not Available Monitor Supported Modes: 1280 by 720 (50 Hz) 1280 by 720 (60 Hz) Display Power Management Support: Standby Mode: Not Supported Suspend Mode: Not Supported Active Off Mode: Not Supported (disclaimer: this question was also asked at the Wikipedia Reference Desk some time ago and might show up in a Google search. I got no useful answers there.)

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• Scan a Windows PC for Viruses from a Ubuntu Live CD

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  Getting a virus is bad. Getting a virus that causes your computer to crash when you reboot is even worse. We’ll show you how to clean viruses from your computer even if you can’t boot into Windows by using a virus scanner in a Ubuntu Live CD. There are a number of virus scanners available for Ubuntu, but we’ve found that avast! is the best choice, with great detection rates and usability. Unfortunately, avast! does not have a proper 64-bit version, and forcing the install does not work properly. If you want to use avast! to scan for viruses, then ensure that you have a 32-bit Ubuntu Live CD. If you currently have a 64-bit Ubuntu Live CD on a bootable flash drive, it does not take long to wipe your flash drive and go through our guide again and select normal (32-bit) Ubuntu 9.10 instead of the x64 edition. For the purposes of fixing your Windows installation, the 64-bit Live CD will not provide any benefits. Once Ubuntu 9.10 boots up, open up Firefox by clicking on its icon in the top panel. Navigate to http://www.avast.com/linux-home-edition. Click on the Download tab, and then click on the link to download the DEB package. Save it to the default location. While avast! is downloading, click on the link to the registration form on the download page. Fill in the registration form if you do not already have a trial license for avast!. By the time you’ve filled out the registration form, avast! will hopefully be finished downloading. Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications in the top-left corner of the screen, then expanding the Accessories menu and clicking on Terminal. In the terminal window, type in the following commands, pressing enter after each line. cd Downloadssudo dpkg –i avast* This will install avast! on the live Ubuntu environment. To ensure that you can use the latest virus database, while still in the terminal window, type in the following command: sudo sysctl –w kernel.shmmax=128000000 Now we’re ready to open avast!. Click on Applications on the top-left corner of the screen, expand the Accessories folder, and click on the new avast! Antivirus item. You will first be greeted with a window that asks for your license key. Hopefully you’ve received it in your email by now; open the email that avast! sends you, copy the license key, and paste it in the Registration window. avast! Antivirus will open. You’ll notice that the virus database is outdated. Click on the Update database button and avast! will start downloading the latest virus database. To scan your Windows hard drive, you will need to “mount” it. While the virus database is downloading, click on Places on the top-left of your screen, and click on your Windows hard drive, if you can tell which one it is by its size. If you can’t tell which is the correct hard drive, then click on Computer and check out each hard drive until you find the right one. When you find it, make a note of the drive’s label, which appears in the menu bar of the file browser. Also note that your hard drive will now appear on your desktop. By now, your virus database should be updated. At the time this article was written, the most recent version was 100404-0. In the main avast! window, click on the radio button next to Selected folders and then click on the “+” button to the right of the list box. It will open up a dialog box to browse to a location. To find your Windows hard drive, click on the “>” next to the computer icon. In the expanded list, find the folder labelled “media” and click on the “>” next to it to expand it. In this list, you should be able to find the label that corresponds to your Windows hard drive. If you want to scan a certain folder, then you can go further into this hierarchy and select that folder. However, we will scan the entire hard drive, so we’ll just press OK. Click on Start scan and avast! will start scanning your hard drive. If a virus is found, you’ll be prompted to select an action. If you know that the file is a virus, then you can Delete it, but there is the possibility of false positives, so you can also choose Move to chest to quarantine it. When avast! is done scanning, it will summarize what it found on your hard drive. You can take different actions on those files at this time by right-clicking on them and selecting the appropriate action. When you’re done, click Close. Your Windows PC is now free of viruses, in the eyes of avast!. Reboot your computer and with any luck it will now boot up! Alternatives to avast! If avast! and a liberal amount of Googling doesn’t fix your problem, it’s possible that a different virus scanner will fix your obscure issue. Here are a list of other virus scanners available for Ubuntu that are either free or offer free trials. See their support forums for help on installing these virus scanners. Avira AntiVir Personal for Linux / Solaris Panda Antivirus for Linux Installation and usage guide from Ubuntu F-PROT Antivirus for Linux ClamAV installation and usage guide from Ubuntu NOD32 Antivirus for Linux Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 Bitdefender Antivirus for Unices Conclusion Running avast! from a Ubuntu Live CD can clean the vast majority of viruses from your Windows PC. This is another reason to always have a Ubuntu Live CD ready just in case something happens to your Windows installation! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Secure Computing: Windows Live OneCareHow To Remove Antivirus Live and Other Rogue/Fake Antivirus MalwareUse the Windows Key for the "Start" Menu in Ubuntu LinuxScan Files for Viruses Before You Download With Dr.WebAsk the Readers: Share Your Tips for Defeating Viruses and Malware TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos Add a Custom Title in IE using Spybot or Spyware Blaster When You Need to Hail a Taxi in NYC

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• Week in Geek: LastPass Rescues Xmarks Edition

  - by Asian Angel

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

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• Week in Geek: US Govt E-card Scam Siphons Confidential Data Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to “back up photos to Flickr, automate repetitive tasks, & normalize MP3 volume”, enable “stereo mix” in Windows 7 to record audio, create custom papercraft toys, read up on three alternatives to Apple’s flaky iOS alarm clock, decorated our desktops & app docks with Google icon packs, and more. Photo by alexschlegel. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week on the security & malware fronts and we have a roundup of the latest news to help keep you updated. Photo by TopTechWriter.US. US govt e-card scam hits confidential data A fake U.S. government Christmas e-card has managed to siphon off gigabytes of sensitive data from a number of law enforcement and military staff who work on cybersecurity matters, many of whom are involved in computer crime investigations. Security tool uncovers multiple bugs in every browser Michal Zalewski reports that he discovered the vulnerability in Internet Explorer a while ago using his cross_fuzz fuzzing tool and reported it to Microsoft in July 2010. Zalewski also used cross_fuzz to discover bugs in other browsers, which he also reported to the relevant organisations. Microsoft to fix Windows holes, but not ones in IE Microsoft said that it will release two security bulletins next week fixing three holes in Windows, but it is still investigating or working on fixing holes in Internet Explorer that have been reportedly exploited in attacks. Microsoft warns of Windows flaw affecting image rendering Microsoft has warned of a Windows vulnerability that could allow an attacker to take control of a computer if the user is logged on with administrative rights. Windows 7 Not Affected by Critical 0-Day in the Windows Graphics Rendering Engine While confirming that details on a Critical zero-day vulnerability have made their way into the wild, Microsoft noted that customers running the latest iteration of Windows client and server platforms are not exposed to any risks. Microsoft warns of Office-related malware Microsoft’s Malware Protection Center issued a warning this week that it has spotted malicious code on the Internet that can take advantage of a flaw in Word and infect computers after a user does nothing more than read an e-mail. *Refers to a flaw that was addressed in the November security patch releases. Make sure you have all of the latest security updates installed. Unpatched hole in ImgBurn disk burning application According to security specialist Secunia, a highly critical vulnerability in ImgBurn, a lightweight disk burning application, can be used to remotely compromise a user’s system. Hole in VLC Media Player Virtual Security Research (VSR) has identified a vulnerability in VLC Media Player. In versions up to and including 1.1.5 of the VLC Media Player. Flash Player sandbox can be bypassed Flash applications run locally can read local files and send them to an online server – something which the sandbox is supposed to prevent. Chinese auction site touts hacked iTunes accounts Tens of thousands of reportedly hacked iTunes accounts have been found on Chinese auction site Taobao, but the company claims it is unable to take action unless there are direct complaints. What happened in the recent Hotmail outage Mike Schackwitz explains the cause of the recent Hotmail outage. DOJ sends order to Twitter for Wikileaks-related account info The U.S. Justice Department has obtained a court order directing Twitter to turn over information about the accounts of activists with ties to Wikileaks, including an Icelandic politician, a legendary Dutch hacker, and a U.S. computer programmer. Google gets court to block Microsoft Interior Department e-mail win The U.S. Federal Claims Court has temporarily blocked Microsoft from proceeding with the $49.3 million, five-year DOI contract that it won this past November. Google Apps customers get email lockdown Companies and organisations using Google Apps are now able to restrict the email access of selected users. LibreOffice Is the Default Office Suite for Ubuntu 11.04 Matthias Klose has announced some details regarding the replacement of the old OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 packages with the new LibreOffice 3.3 ones, starting with the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) Alpha 2 release. Sysadmin Geek Tips Photo by Filomena Scalise. How to Setup Software RAID for a Simple File Server on Ubuntu Do you need a file server that is cheap and easy to setup, “rock solid” reliable, and has Email Alerting? This tutorial shows you how to use Ubuntu, software RAID, and SaMBa to accomplish just that. How to Control the Order of Startup Programs in Windows While you can specify the applications you want to launch when Windows starts, the ability to control the order in which they start is not available. However, there are a couple of ways you can easily overcome this limitation and control the startup order of applications. Random TinyHacker Links Using Opera Unite to Send Large Files A tutorial on using Opera Unite to easily send huge files from your computer. WorkFlowy is a Useful To-do List Tool A cool to-do list tool that lets you integrate multiple tasks in one single list easily. Playing Flash Videos on iOS Devices Yes, you can play flash videos on jailbroken iPhones. Here’s a tutorial. Clear Safari History and Cookies On iPhone A tutorial on clearing your browser history on iPhone and other iOS devices. Monitor Your Internet Usage Here’s a cool, cross-platform tool to monitor your internet bandwidth. Super User Questions See what the community had to say on these popular questions from Super User this week. Why is my upload speed much less than my download speed? Where should I find drivers for my laptop if it didn’t come with a driver disk? OEM Office 2010 without media – how to reinstall? Is there a point to using theft tracking software like Prey on my laptop, if you have login security? Moving an “all-in-one” PC when turned on/off How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles from this past week. How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? Did You Know Facebook Has Built-In Shortcut Keys? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy looking through our latest gathering of retro article goodness. Learning Windows 7: Create a Homegroup & Join a New Computer To It How To Disconnect a Machine from a Homegroup Use Remote Desktop To Access Other Computers On a Small Office or Home Network How To Share Files and Printers Between Windows 7 and Vista Allow Users To Run Only Specified Programs in Windows 7 The Geek Note That is all we have for you this week and we hope your first week back at work or school has gone very well now that the holidays are over. Know a great tip? Send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by Pamela Machado. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Arctic Theme for Windows 7 Gives Your Desktop an Icy Touch Install LibreOffice via PPA and Receive Auto-Updates in Ubuntu Creative Portraits Peek Inside the Guts of Modern Electronics Scenic Winter Lane Wallpaper to Create a Relaxing Mood Access Your Web Apps Directly Using the Context Menu in Chrome The Deep – Awesome Use of Metal Objects as Deep Sea Creatures [Video]

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• The Windows Browser Ballot Screen Offers Web Browser Choice to European Users

  - by Matthew Guay

  Since March, our friends across the pond in Europe get to decide which browser they want to install with their Windows OS. Today we thought we would take a look at the ballot choices, some are well known, and others you may not have heard of. Windows users in European countries should start seeing the so called “Browser Ballot Screen” after installing the Windows Update KB976002 (link below). The browser ballot offers a dozen different browsers, including some you’ve likely never heard of.  They each have some unique features, and are all free, and here we take a quick look at each of them. Internet Explorer 8 Internet Explorer is the world’s most used web browser, as it’s bundled with Windows. It also includes several unique features, including Accelerators that make it easy to search or find a map of a location, and InPrivate filtering to directly control what sites can get personal information.  Additionally, it offers great integration with Windows Touch and the new taskbar in Windows 7. IE 8 runs on Windows XP and newer, and is bundled with Windows 7. Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Firefox is the most popular browser other than Internet Explorer.  It is the modern descendant of Netscape, and is loved by web developers for its adherence to web standards, openness, and expandability.  It offers thousands of Add-ons and themes to let you customize it to fit your preferences. The most recent version has added Personas, which are quick, lightweight themes to let you personalize the look your browser. It’s open source, and runs on all modern versions of Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Of course thanks to Asian Angel, our resident browser expert, you can check out several articles regarding this popular IE alternative. Google Chrome 4 Google Chrome has gained an impressive amount of market share during its short time in the market. It offers a minimalistic interface and fast speeds with intensive web applications. The address bar is also a search bar, so you can enter a search query or web address and quickly get the information you need. With version 4 you can add a growing number of extensions, personalize it with a variety of stylish themes, and automatically translate foreign websites into your own language. Opera 10.50 Although Opera has been around for over a decade, relatively few users have used it. With the new 10.50 release, Opera has many unique features packed in a sleek UI. It integrates great with Aero and the Windows 7 taskbar, and lets you preview the contents of your websites in the tab bar. It also includes Opera Unite, a small personal web server to make file sharing easy, Opera Turbo to speed up your internet when the connection is slow, and Opera Link to keep all your copies of Opera in sync. It’s a popular browser on many mobile devices, and version 10.50 has a lot of enhancements. Apple Safari 4 Safari is the default browser in Mac OS X, and starting with version 3 it has been available for Windows as well. It’s based on Webkit, the popular new rendering engine that provides great speed and standards compatibility.  Safari 4 lets you browse your browsing history in a unique Coverflow interface, and shows your Top Sites in a fancy, 3D interface.  It’s also great for viewing mobile websites for the iPhone and other mobile devices through Developer Tools. Flock 2.5 Based on the popular Firefox core, Flock brings a multitude of social features to your browsing experience. You can view the latest YouTube videos, Flickr pictures, update your favorite social network, and keep up with your webmail thanks to It’s integration with a wide variety of services. You can even post to your blog through the integrated blog editor. If your time online is mostly spent in social services, this may be a browser you want to check out. Maxthon 2.5 Maxthon is a unique browser that builds on Internet Explorer to bring more features with IE’s rendering. Formerly known as MyIE2, Maxthon was popular for bringing tabbed browsing with IE rendering during the days of IE 6.  Today Maxthon supports a wide range of plugins and skins, so you can customize it however you want. It includes mouse gestures, a web accelerator to speed up pokey internet connections, a content blocker to remove unwanted content from sites, an online account to backup your favorites, and a nice download manager. Avant Browser Another nice browser based on Internet Explorer, Avant brings a wide variety of features in a nice brushed-metal interface. It includes an integrated AutoFill for forms, mouse gestures, customizable skins, and privacy protection features. It also includes a Flash blocker that will only load flash in webpages when you select them. You can also integrate Avant with an online account to store your bookmarks, feeds, settings and passwords online. Sleipnir Sleipnir is a customizable browser meant for advance users that is quite popular in Japan. It’s built on the Trident engine and virtually every aspect of is customizable unlike Internet Explorer.   FlashPeak SlimBrowser SlimBrowser from FlashPeak incorporates a lot of features like Popup Killer, Auto Login, site filtering and more. It’s based on Internet Explorer but offers a lot more customizable options out of the box.   K-meleon This basic browser is light on system resources and based on the Gecko engine. It’s been in development for years on SourceForge, and if you like to tweak virtually any aspect of your browser, this might be a good choice for you.   GreenBrowser GreenBrowser is based on Internet Explorer and is available in several languages. It has a large amount of features out of the box and is light on system resources.   Conclusion The European Union asked for more choices in the web browser they could choose from when installing Windows, and with the Browser Ballot Screen, they certainly get a variety to choose from.  If you’ve tried out some of the lesser known browsers, or think some important ones have been left out, leave a comment and tell us about it. Learn More About the Browser Ballot Screen and Download Alternatives to IE Windows Update KB976002 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Set the Default Browser on Ubuntu From the Command LineQuick Tip: Empty Internet Explorer 7 Cache when Browser is ClosedView Hidden Files and Folders in Ubuntu File BrowserSet the Default Browser and Email Client in UbuntuAccess Multiple Browsers from Firefox with Browser View Plus TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Play Music in Chrome by Simply Dragging a File 15 Great Illustrations by Chow Hon Lam Easily Sync Files & Folders with Friends & Family Amazon Free Kindle for PC Download Stretch popurls.com with a Stylish Script (Firefox) OldTvShows.org – Find episodes of Hitchcock, Soaps, Game Shows and more

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• 17 new features in Visual Studio 2010

  - by vik20000in

  Visual studio 2010 has been released to RTM a few days back. This release of Visual studio 2010 comes with a big number of improvements on many fronts. In this post I will try and point out some of the major improvements in Visual Studio 2010. 1)      Visual studio IDE Improvement. Visual studio IDE has been rewritten in WPF. The look and feel of the studio has been improved for improved readability. Start page has been redesigned and template so that anyone can change the start page as they wish. 2)      Multiple Monitor - Support for Multiple Monitor was already there in Visual studio. But in this edition it has been improved as much that we can now place the document, design and code window outside the IDE in another monitor. 3)      ZOOM in Code Editor – Making the editors in WPF has made significant improvement for them. The best one that I like is the ZOOM feature. We can now zoom in the code editor with the help of the ctrl + Mouse scroll. The zoom feature does not work on the Design surface or windows with icon like solution view and toolbox. 4)      Box Selection - Another Important improvement in the Visual studio 2010 is the box selection. We can select a rectangular by holding down the Alt Key and selecting with mouse.  Now in the rectangular selection we can insert text, Paste same code in different line etc. This is helpful if you want to convert a number of variables from public to private etc… 5)      New Improved Search – One of the best productivity improvements in Visual studio 2010 is its new search as you type support. This has been done in the Navigate To window which can be brought up by pressing (Ctrl + ,). The navigate To windows also take help of the Camel casing and will be able to search with the help of camel casing when character is entered in upper case. For example we can search AOH for AddOrederHeader. 6)      Call Hierarchy – This feature is only available to the Visual C# and Visual C++ editor. The call hierarchy windows displays the calls made to and from (yes both to and from) a selected method property or a constructor. The call hierarchy also shows the implementation of interface and the overrides of virtual or abstract methods. This window is very helpful in understanding the code flow, and evaluating the effect of making changes. The best part is it is available at design time and not at runtime only like a debugger. 7)      Highlighting references – One of the very cool stuff in Visual Studio 2010 is the fact if you select a variable then all the use of that variable will be highlighted alongside. This should work for all the result of symbols returned by Find all reference. This also works for Name of class, objects variable, properties and methods. We can also use the Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow or Up Arror to move through them. 8)      Generate from usage - The Generate from usage feature lets you use classes and members before you define them. You can generate a stub for any undefined class, constructor, method, property, field, or enum that you want to use but have not yet defined. You can generate new types and members without leaving your current location in code, This minimizes interruption to your workflow.9)      IntelliSense Suggestion Mode - IntelliSense now provides two alternatives for IntelliSense statement completion, completion mode and suggestion mode. Use suggestion mode for situations where classes and members are used before they are defined. In suggestion mode, when you type in the editor and then commit the entry, the text you typed is inserted into the code. When you commit an entry in completion mode, the editor shows the entry that is highlighted on the members list. When an IntelliSense window is open, you can press CTRL+ALT+SPACEBAR to toggle between completion mode and suggestion mode. 10)   Application Lifecycle Management – A client application for management of application lifecycle like version control, work item tracking, build automation, team portal etc is available for free (this is not available for express edition.). 11)   Start Page – The start page has been redesigned with WPF for new functionality and look. Tabbed areas are provided for content from different source including MSDN. Once you open some project the start page closes automatically. The list of recent project also lets you remove project from the list. And above all the start page is customizable enough to be changed as per individual requirement. 12)   Extension Manager – Visual Studio 2010 has provided good ways to be extended. We can also use MEF to extend most of the features of Visual Studio. The new extension manager now can go the visual studio gallery and install the extension without even opening any explorer. 13)   Code snippets – Visual studio 2010 for HTML, Jscript and Asp.net also. 14)   Improved Intelligence for JavaScript has been improved vastly (around 2-5 times). Intelligence now also shows the XML documentation comment on the go. 15)   Web Deployment – Web Deployment has been vastly improved. We can package and publish the web application in one click. Three major supported deployment scenarios are Web packages, one click deployment and Web configuration Transformation. 16)   SharePoint - Visual Studio 2010 also brings vastly improved development experience for SharePoint. We can create, edit, debug, package, deploy and activate SharePoint project from within Visual Studio. Deployment of Site is as easy as hitting F5. 17)   Azure – Visual Studio 2010 also comes with handy improvement for developing on windows Azure environment. Vikram

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• I Can't Install or Remove Any Application

  - by berkay gürsoy

  when i try to install or remove an application via either software center or apt-get install they both fail and give some debconf errors below is the log please help.Sorry some of the text is not english. sudo apt-get install aptitude Paket listeleri okunuyor... Bitti Bagimlilik agaci insa ediliyor. Durum bilgisi okunuyor... Bitti Asagidaki ek paketler de yüklenecek: aptitude-common libboost-iostreams1.49.0 libcwidget3 Önerilen paketler: aptitude-doc-en aptitude-doc tasksel debtags libcwidget-dev Asagidaki YENI paketler kurulacak: aptitude aptitude-common libboost-iostreams1.49.0 libcwidget3 Yükseltilen: 0, Yeni Kurulan: 4, Kaldirilacak: 0 ve Yükseltilmeyecek: 48. 8 tam olarak kurulmadi veya kaldirilmadi. Indirilmesi gereken dosya boyutu 0 B/2.498 kB Bu islemden sonra 10,4 MB ek disk alani kullanilacak. Devam etmek istiyor musunuz [E/h]? e Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 44, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in -e at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 46, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 47, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in -d at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 48, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 49, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. debconf: DbDriver "config": mkdir :Böyle bir dosya ya da dizin yok Selecting previously unselected package aptitude-common. dpkg: uyari: files list file for package 'aspell' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed dpkg: uyari: files list file for package 'ubuntu-desktop' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed dpkg: uyari: files list file for package 'vuze' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed dpkg: uyari: files list file for package 'java-wrappers' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed (Veritabani okunuyor... 198988 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking aptitude-common (from .../aptitude-common_0.6.8.1-2ubuntu1_all.deb) ... Selecting previously unselected package libboost-iostreams1.49.0. Unpacking libboost-iostreams1.49.0 (from .../libboost-iostreams1.49.0_1.49.0-3.1ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ... Selecting previously unselected package libcwidget3. Unpacking libcwidget3 (from .../libcwidget3_0.5.16-3.4ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ... Selecting previously unselected package aptitude. Unpacking aptitude (from .../aptitude_0.6.8.1-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ... wicd-daemon (1.7.2.4-2ubuntu1) kuruluyor... Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 44, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in -e at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 46, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 47, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in -d at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 48, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 49, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. debconf: DbDriver "config": mkdir :Böyle bir dosya ya da dizin yok dpkg: error processing wicd-daemon (--configure): installed post-installation script alt islemi çikis durumunda hata döndürdü : 1 man-db (2.6.3-1) kuruluyor... Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 44, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in -e at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 46, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 47, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in -d at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 48, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 49, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. debconf: DbDriver "config": mkdir :Böyle bir dosya ya da dizin yok dpkg: error processing man-db (--configure): installed post-installation script alt islemi çikis durumunda hata döndürdü : 1 dictionaries-common (1.12.10) kuruluyor... Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 44, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in -e at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 46, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 47, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in -d at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 48, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 49, <DEBCONF_CONFIG> chunk 3. debconf: DbDriver "config": mkdir :Böyle bir dosya ya da dizin yok dpkg: error processing dictionaries-common (--configure): installed post-installation script alt islemi çikis durumunda hata döndürdü : 1 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of aspell: aspell depends on dictionaries-common (>> 0.40); bununla beraber: Package dictionaries-common is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing aspell (--configure): bagimlilik sorunlari - yapilandirilmadan birakiliyor dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of aspell-en: aspell-en depends on aspell (>= 0.60.3-2); bununla beraber: Package aspell is not configured yet. aspell-en depends on dictionaries-common (>= 0.49.2); bununla beraber: Package dictionaries-common is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing aspell-en (--configure): bagimlilik sorunlari - yapilandirilmadan birakiliyor dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of hyphen-en-us: hyphen-en-us depends on dictionaries-common (>= 0.10) | openoffice.org-updatedicts; bununla beraber: Package dictionaries-common is not configured yet. openoffice.org-updatedicts paketi yüklenmedi. Package dictionaries-common which provides openoffice.org-updatedicts is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing hyphen-en-us (--configure): bagimlilik sorunlari - yapilandirilmadan birakiliyor dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of wicd-gtk: wicd-gtk depends on wicd-daemon (= 1.7.2.4-2ubuntu1); bununla beraber: Package wicd-daemon is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing wicd-gtk (--configure): bagimlilik sorunlari - yapilandirilmadan birakiliyor dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of wicd: wicd depends on wicd-daemon (= 1.7.2.4-2ubuntu1); bununla beraber: Package wicd-daemon is not configured yet. wicd depends on wicd-gtk (= 1.7.2.4-2ubuntu1) | wicd-curses (= 1.7.2.4-2ubuntu1) | wicd-cli (= 1.7.2.4-2ubuntu1) | wicd-client; bununla beraber: Package wicd-gtk is not configured yet. wicd-curses paketi yüklenmedi. wicd-cli paketi yüklenmedi. wicd-client paketi yüklenmedi. Package wicd-gtk which provides wicd-client is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing wicd (--configure): bagimlilik sorunlari - yapilandirilmadan birakiliyor aptitude-common (0.6.8.1-2ubuntu1) kuruluyor... libboost-iostreams1.49.0 (1.49.0-3.1ubuntu1) kuruluyor... libcwidget3 (0.5.16-3.4ubuntu1) kuruluyor... aptitude (0.6.8.1-2ubuntu1) kuruluyor... update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/aptitude-curses to provide /usr/bin/aptitude (aptitude) in Otomatik Mod Processing triggers for libc-bin ... ldconfig deferred processing now taking place Islem sirasinda hatalar bulundu: wicd-daemon man-db dictionaries-common aspell aspell-en hyphen-en-us wicd-gtk wicd E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

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• The Incremental Architect&acute;s Napkin - #1 - It&acute;s about the money, stupid

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/05/24/the-incremental-architectacutes-napkin---1---itacutes-about-the.aspx Software development is an economic endeavor. A customer is only willing to pay for value. What makes a software valuable is required to become a trait of the software. We as software developers thus need to understand and then find a way to implement requirements. Whether or in how far a customer really can know beforehand what´s going to be valuable for him/her in the end is a topic of constant debate. Some aspects of the requirements might be less foggy than others. Sometimes the customer does not know what he/she wants. Sometimes he/she´s certain to want something - but then is not happy when that´s delivered. Nevertheless requirements exist. And developers will only be paid if they deliver value. So we better focus on doing that. Although is might sound trivial I think it´s important to state the corollary: We need to be able to trace anything we do as developers back to some requirement. You decide to use Go as the implementation language? Well, what´s the customer´s requirement this decision is linked to? You decide to use WPF as the GUI technology? What´s the customer´s requirement? You decide in favor of a layered architecture? What´s the customer´s requirement? You decide to put code in three classes instead of just one? What´s the customer´s requirement behind that? You decide to use MongoDB over MySql? What´s the customer´s requirement behind that? etc. I´m not saying any of these decisions are wrong. I´m just saying whatever you decide be clear about the requirement that´s driving your decision. You have to be able to answer the question: Why do you think will X deliver more value to the customer than the alternatives? Customers are not interested in romantic ideals of hard working, good willing, quality focused craftsmen. They don´t care how and why you work - as long as what you deliver fulfills their needs. They want to trust you to recognize this as your top priority - and then deliver. That´s all. Fundamental aspects of requirements If you´re like me you´re probably not used to such scrutinization. You want to be trusted as a professional developer - and decide quite a few things following your gut feeling. Or by relying on “established practices”. That´s ok in general and most of the time - but still… I think we should be more conscious about our decisions. Which would make us more responsible, even more professional. But without further guidance it´s hard to reason about many of the myriad decisions we´ve to make over the course of a software project. What I found helpful in this situation is structuring requirements into fundamental aspects. Instead of one large heap of requirements then there are smaller blobs. With them it´s easier to check if a decisions falls in their scope. Sure, every project has it´s very own requirements. But all of them belong to just three different major categories, I think. Any requirement either pertains to functionality, non-functional aspects or sustainability. For short I call those aspects: Functionality, because such requirements describe which transformations a software should offer. For example: A calculator software should be able to add and multiply real numbers. An auction website should enable you to set up an auction anytime or to find auctions to bid for. Quality, because such requirements describe how functionality is supposed to work, e.g. fast or secure. For example: A calculator should be able to calculate the sinus of a value much faster than you could in your head. An auction website should accept bids from millions of users. Security of Investment, because functionality and quality need not just be delivered in any way. It´s important to the customer to get them quickly - and not only today but over the course of several years. This aspect introduces time into the “requrements equation”. Security of Investments (SoI) sure is a non-functional requirement. But I think it´s important to not subsume it under the Quality (Q) aspect. That´s because SoI has quite special properties. For one, SoI for software means something completely different from what it means for hardware. If you buy hardware (a car, a hair blower) you find that a worthwhile investment, if the hardware does not change it´s functionality or quality over time. A car still running smoothly with hardly any rust spots after 10 years of daily usage would be a very secure investment. So for hardware (or material products, if you like) “unchangeability” (in the face of usage) is desirable. With software you want the contrary. Software that cannot be changed is a waste. SoI for software means “changeability”. You want to be sure that the software you buy/order today can be changed, adapted, improved over an unforseeable number of years so as fit changes in its usage environment. But that´s not the only reason why the SoI aspect is special. On top of changeability[1] (or evolvability) comes immeasurability. Evolvability cannot readily be measured by counting something. Whether the changeability is as high as the customer wants it, cannot be determined by looking at metrics like Lines of Code or Cyclomatic Complexity or Afferent Coupling. They may give a hint… but they are far, far from precise. That´s because of the nature of changeability. It´s different from performance or scalability. Also it´s because a customer cannot tell upfront, “how much” evolvability he/she wants. Whether requirements regarding Functionality (F) and Q have been met, a customer can tell you very quickly and very precisely. A calculation is missing, the calculation takes too long, the calculation time degrades with increased load, the calculation is accessible to the wrong users etc. That´s all very or at least comparatively easy to determine. But changeability… That´s a whole different thing. Nevertheless over time the customer will develop a feedling if changeability is good enough or degrading. He/she just has to check the development of the frequency of “WTF”s from developers ;-) F and Q are “timeless” requirement categories. Customers want us to deliver on them now. Just focusing on the now, though, is rarely beneficial in the long run. So SoI adds a counterweight to the requirements picture. Customers want SoI - whether they know it or not, whether they state if explicitly or not. In closing A customer´s requirements are not monolithic. They are not all made the same. Rather they fall into different categories. We as developers need to recognize these categories when confronted with some requirement - and take them into account. Only then can we make true professional decisions, i.e. conscious and responsible ones. I call this fundamental trait of software “changeability” and not “flexibility” to distinguish to whom it´s a concern. “Flexibility” to me means, software as is can easily be adapted to a change in its environment, e.g. by tweaking some config data or adding a library which gets picked up by a plug-in engine. “Flexibiltiy” thus is a matter of some user. “Changeability”, on the other hand, to me means, software can easily be changed in its structure to adapt it to new requirements. That´s a matter of the software developer. ?

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• Interview with Lenz Grimmer about MySQL Connect

  - by Keith Larson

  Keith Larson: Thank you for allowing me to do this interview with you.  I have been talking with a few different Oracle ACEs   about the MySQL Connect Conference. I figured the MySQL community might be missing you as well. You have been very busy with Oracle Linux but I know you still have an eye on the MySQL Community. How have things been?Lenz Grimmer: Thanks for including me in this series of interviews, I feel honored! I've read the other interviews, and really liked them. I still try to follow what's going on over in the MySQL community and it's good to see that many of the familiar faces are still around. Over the course of the 9 years that I was involved with MySQL, many colleagues and contacts turned into good friends and we still maintain close relationships.It's been almost 1.5 years ago that I moved into my new role here in the Linux team at Oracle, and I really enjoy working on a Linux distribution again (I worked for SUSE before I joined MySQL AB in 2002). I'm still learning a lot - Linux in the data center has greatly evolved in so many ways and there are a lot of new and exciting technologies to explore. Keith Larson: What were your thoughts when you heard that Oracle was going to deliver the MySQL Connect conference to the MySQL Community?Lenz Grimmer: I think it's testament to the fact that Oracle deeply cares about MySQL, despite what many skeptics may say. What started as "MySQL Sunday" two years ago has now evolved into a full-blown sub-conference, with 80 sessions at one of the largest corporate IT events in the world. I find this quite telling, not many products at Oracle enjoy this level of exposure! So it certainly makes me feel proud to see how far MySQL has come. Keith Larson: Have you had a chance to look over the sessions? What are your thoughts on them?Lenz Grimmer: I did indeed look at the final schedule.The content committee did a great job with selecting these sessions. I'm glad to see that the content selection was influenced by involving well-known and respected members of the MySQL community. The sessions cover a broad range of topics and technologies, both covering established topics as well as recent developments. Keith Larson: When you get a chance, what sessions do you plan on attending?Lenz Grimmer: I will actually be manning the Oracle booth in the exhibition area on one of these days, so I'm not sure if I'll have a lot of time attending sessions. But if I do, I'd love to see the keynotes and catch some of the sessions that talk about recent developments and new features in MySQL, High Availability and Clustering . Quite a lot has happened and it's hard to keep up with this constant flow of new MySQL releases.In particular, the following sessions caught my attention: MySQL Connect Keynote: The State of the Dolphin Evaluating MySQL High-Availability Alternatives CERN’s MySQL “as a Service” Deployment with Oracle VM: Empowering Users MySQL 5.6 Replication: Taking Scalability and High Availability to the Next Level What’s New in MySQL Server 5.6? MySQL Security: Past and Present MySQL at Twitter: Development and Deployment MySQL Community BOF MySQL Connect Keynote: MySQL Perspectives Keith Larson: So I will ask you just like I have asked the others I have interviewed, any tips that you would give to people for handling the long hours at conferences?Lenz Grimmer: Wear comfortable shoes and make sure to drink a lot! Also prepare a plan of the sessions you would like to attend beforehand and familiarize yourself with the venue, so you can get to the next talk in time without scrambling to find the location. The good thing about piggybacking on such a large conference like Oracle OpenWorld is that you benefit from the whole infrastructure. For example, there is a nice schedule builder that helps you to keep track of your sessions of interest. Other than that, bring enough business cards and talk to people, build up your network among your peers and other MySQL professionals! Keith Larson: What features of the MySQL 5.6 release do you look forward to the most ?Lenz Grimmer: There has been solid progress in so many areas like the InnoDB Storage Engine, the Optimizer, Replication or Performance Schema, it's hard for me to really highlight anything in particular. All in all, MySQL 5.6 sounds like a very promising release. I'm confident it will follow the tradition that Oracle already established with MySQL 5.5, which received a lot of praise even from very critical members of the MySQL community. If I had to name a single feature, I'm particularly and personally happy that the precise GIS functions have finally made it into a GA release - that was long overdue. Keith Larson:  In your opinion what is the best reason for someone to attend this event?Lenz Grimmer: This conference is an excellent opportunity to get in touch with the key people in the MySQL community and ecosystem and to get facts and information from the domain experts and developers that work on MySQL. The broad range of topics should attract people from a variety of roles and relations to MySQL, beginning with Developers and DBAs, to CIOs considering MySQL as a viable solution for their requirements. Keith Larson: You will be attending MySQL Connect and have some Oracle Linux Demos, do you see a growing demand for MySQL on Oracle Linux ?Lenz Grimmer: Yes! Oracle Linux is our recommended Linux distribution and we have a good relationship to the MySQL engineering group. They use Oracle Linux as a base Linux platform for development and QA, so we make sure that MySQL and Oracle Linux are well tested together. Setting up a MySQL server on Oracle Linux can be done very quickly, and many customers recognize the benefits of using them both in combination.Because Oracle Linux is available for free (including free bug fixes and errata), it's an ideal choice for running MySQL in your data center. You can run the same Linux distribution on both your development/staging systems as well as on the production machines, you decide which of these should be covered by a support subscription and at which level of support. This gives you flexibility and provides some really attractive cost-saving opportunities. Keith Larson: Since I am a Linux user and fan, what is on the horizon for  Oracle Linux?Lenz Grimmer: We're working hard on broadening the ecosystem around Oracle Linux, building up partnerships with ISVs and IHVs to certify Oracle Linux as a fully supported platform for their products. We also continue to collaborate closely with the Linux kernel community on various projects, to make sure that Linux scales and performs well on large systems and meets the demands of today's data centers. These improvements and enhancements will then rolled into the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel, which is the key ingredient that sets Oracle Linux apart from other distributions. We also have a number of ongoing projects which are making good progress, and I'm sure you'll hear more about this at the upcoming OpenWorld conference :) Keith Larson: What is something that more people should be aware of when it comes to Oracle Linux and MySQL ?Lenz Grimmer: Many people assume that Oracle Linux is just tuned for Oracle products, such as the Oracle Database or our Engineered Systems. While it's of course true that we do a lot of testing and optimization for these workloads, Oracle Linux is and will remain a general-purpose Linux distribution that is a very good foundation for setting up a LAMP-Stack, for example. We also provide MySQL RPM packages for Oracle Linux, so you can easily stay up to date if you need something newer than what's included in the stock distribution.One more thing that is really unique to Oracle Linux is Ksplice, which allows you to apply security patches to the running Linux kernel, without having to reboot. This ensures that your MySQL database server keeps up and running and is not affected by any downtime. Keith Larson: What else would you like to add ?Lenz Grimmer: Thanks again for getting in touch with me, I appreciated the opportunity. I'm looking forward to MySQL Connect and Oracle OpenWorld and to meet you and many other people from the MySQL community that I haven't seen for quite some time! Keith Larson:  Thank you Lenz!

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• Software Architecture: Quality Attributes

  Quality is what all software engineers should strive for when building a new system or adding new functionality. Dictonary.com ambiguously defines quality as a grade of excellence. Unfortunately, quality must be defined within the context of a situation in that each engineer must extract quality attributes from a project’s requirements. Because quality is defined by project requirements the meaning of quality is constantly changing base on the project. Software architecture factors that indicate the relevance and effectiveness The relevance and effectiveness of architecture can vary based on the context in which it was conceived and the quality attributes that are required to meet. Typically when evaluating architecture for a specific system regarding relevance and effectiveness the following questions should be asked.   Architectural relevance and effectiveness questions: Does the architectural concept meet the needs of the system for which it was designed? Out of the competing architectures for a system, which one is the most suitable? If we look at the first question regarding meeting the needs of a system for which it was designed. A system that answers yes to this question must meet all of its quality goals. This means that it consistently meets or exceeds performance goals for the system. In addition, the system meets all the other required system attributers based on the systems requirements. The suitability of a system is based on several factors. In order for a project to be suitable the necessary resources must be available to complete the task. Standard Project Resources: Money Trained Staff Time Life cycle factors that affect the system and design The development life cycle used on a project can drastically affect how a system’s architecture is created as well as influence its design. In the case of using the software development life cycle (SDLC) each phase must be completed before the next can begin.  This waterfall approach does not allow for changes in a system’s architecture after that phase is completed. This can lead to major system issues when the architecture for the system is not as optimal because of missed quality attributes. This can occur when a project has poor requirements and makes misguided architectural decisions to name a few examples. Once the architectural phase is complete the concepts established in this phase must move on to the design phase that is bound to use the concepts and guidelines defined in the previous phase regardless of any missing quality attributes needed for the project. If any issues arise during this phase regarding the selected architectural concepts they cannot be corrected during the current project. This directly has an effect on the design of a system because the proper qualities required for the project where not used when the architectural concepts were approved. When this is identified nothing can be done to fix the architectural issues and system design must use the existing architectural concepts regardless of its missing quality properties because the architectural concepts for the project cannot be altered. The decisions made in the design phase then preceded to fall down to the implementation phase where the actual system is coded based on the approved architectural concepts established in the architecture phase regardless of its architectural quality. Conversely projects using more of an iterative or agile methodology to implement a system has more flexibility to correct architectural decisions based on missing quality attributes. This is due to each phase of the SDLC is executed more than once so any issues identified in architecture of a system can be corrected in the next architectural phase. Subsequently the corresponding changes will then be adjusted in the following design phase so that when the project is completed the optimal architectural and design decision are applied to the solution. Architecture factors that indicate functional suitability Systems that have function shortcomings do not have the proper functionality based on the project’s driving quality attributes. What this means in English is that the system does not live up to what is required of it by the stakeholders as identified by the missing quality attributes and requirements. One way to prevent functional shortcomings is to test the project’s architecture, design, and implementation against the project’s driving quality attributes to ensure that none of the attributes were missed in any of the phases. Another way to ensure a system has functional suitability is to certify that all its requirements are fully articulated so that there is no chance for misconceptions or misinterpretations by all stakeholders. This will help prevent any issues regarding interpreting the system requirements during the initial architectural concept phase, design phase and implementation phase. Consider the applicability of other architectural models When considering an architectural model for a project is also important to consider other alternative architectural models to ensure that the model that is selected will meet the systems required functionality and high quality attributes. Recently I can remember talking about a project that I was working on and a coworker suggested a different architectural approach that I had never considered. This new model will allow for the same functionally that is offered by the existing model but will allow for a higher quality project because it fulfills more quality attributes. It is always important to seek alternatives prior to committing to an architectural model. Factors used to identify high-risk components A high risk component can be defined as a component that fulfills 2 or more quality attributes for a system. An example of this can be seen in a web application that utilizes a remote database. One high-risk component in this system is the TCIP component because it allows for HTTP connections to handle by a web server and as well as allows for the server to also connect to a remote database server so that it can import data into the system. This component allows for the assurance of data quality attribute and the accessibility quality attribute because the system is available on the network. If for some reason the TCIP component was to fail the web application would fail on two quality attributes accessibility and data assurance in that the web site is not accessible and data cannot be update as needed. Summary As stated previously, quality is what all software engineers should strive for when building a new system or adding new functionality. The quality of a system can be directly determined by how closely it is implemented when compared to its desired quality attributes. One way to insure a higher quality system is to enforce that all project requirements are fully articulated so that no assumptions or misunderstandings can be made by any of the stakeholders. By doing this a system has a better chance of becoming a high quality system based on its quality attributes

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• Dynamic Code for type casting Generic Types 'generically' in C#

  - by Rick Strahl

  C# is a strongly typed language and while that's a fundamental feature of the language there are more and more situations where dynamic types make a lot of sense. I've written quite a bit about how I use dynamic for creating new type extensions: Dynamic Types and DynamicObject References in C# Creating a dynamic, extensible C# Expando Object Creating a dynamic DataReader for dynamic Property Access Today I want to point out an example of a much simpler usage for dynamic that I use occasionally to get around potential static typing issues in C# code especially those concerning generic types. TypeCasting Generics Generic types have been around since .NET 2.0 I've run into a number of situations in the past - especially with generic types that don't implement specific interfaces that can be cast to - where I've been unable to properly cast an object when it's passed to a method or assigned to a property. Granted often this can be a sign of bad design, but in at least some situations the code that needs to be integrated is not under my control so I have to make due with what's available or the parent object is too complex or intermingled to be easily refactored to a new usage scenario. Here's an example that I ran into in my own RazorHosting library - so I have really no excuse, but I also don't see another clean way around it in this case. A Generic Example Imagine I've implemented a generic type like this: public class RazorEngine<TBaseTemplateType> where TBaseTemplateType : RazorTemplateBase, new() You can now happily instantiate new generic versions of this type with custom template bases or even a non-generic version which is implemented like this: public class RazorEngine : RazorEngine<RazorTemplateBase> { public RazorEngine() : base() { } } To instantiate one: var engine = new RazorEngine<MyCustomRazorTemplate>(); Now imagine that the template class receives a reference to the engine when it's instantiated. This code is fired as part of the Engine pipeline when it gets ready to execute the template. It instantiates the template and assigns itself to the template: var template = new TBaseTemplateType() { Engine = this } The problem here is that possibly many variations of RazorEngine<T> can be passed. I can have RazorTemplateBase, RazorFolderHostTemplateBase, CustomRazorTemplateBase etc. as generic parameters and the Engine property has to reflect that somehow. So, how would I cast that? My first inclination was to use an interface on the engine class and then cast to the interface.  Generally that works, but unfortunately here the engine class is generic and has a few members that require the template type in the member signatures. So while I certainly can implement an interface: public interface IRazorEngine<TBaseTemplateType> it doesn't really help for passing this generically templated object to the template class - I still can't cast it if multiple differently typed versions of the generic type could be passed. I have the exact same issue in that I can't specify a 'generic' generic parameter, since there's no underlying base type that's common. In light of this I decided on using object and the following syntax for the property (and the same would be true for a method parameter): public class RazorTemplateBase :MarshalByRefObject,IDisposable { public object Engine {get;set; } } Now because the Engine property is a non-typed object, when I need to do something with this value, I still have no way to cast it explicitly. What I really would need is: public RazorEngine<> Engine { get; set; } but that's not possible. Dynamic to the Rescue Luckily with the dynamic type this sort of thing can be mitigated fairly easily. For example here's a method that uses the Engine property and uses the well known class interface by simply casting the plain object reference to dynamic and then firing away on the properties and methods of the base template class that are common to all templates:/// <summary> /// Allows rendering a dynamic template from a string template /// passing in a model. This is like rendering a partial /// but providing the input as a /// </summary> public virtual string RenderTemplate(string template,object model) { if (template == null) return string.Empty; // if there's no template markup if(!template.Contains("@")) return template; // use dynamic to get around generic type casting dynamic engine = Engine; string result = engine.RenderTemplate(template, model); if (result == null) throw new ApplicationException("RenderTemplate failed: " + engine.ErrorMessage); return result; } Prior to .NET 4.0  I would have had to use Reflection for this sort of thing which would have a been a heck of a lot more verbose, but dynamic makes this so much easier and cleaner and in this case at least the overhead is negliable since it's a single dynamic operation on an otherwise very complex operation call. Dynamic as  a Bailout Sometimes this sort of thing often reeks of a design flaw, and I agree that in hindsight this could have been designed differently. But as is often the case this particular scenario wasn't planned for originally and removing the generic signatures from the base type would break a ton of other code in the framework. Given the existing fairly complex engine design, refactoring an interface to remove generic types just to make this particular code work would have been overkill. Instead dynamic provides a nice and simple and relatively clean solution. Now if there were many other places where this occurs I would probably consider reworking the code to make this cleaner but given this isolated instance and relatively low profile operation use of dynamic seems a valid choice for me. This solution really works anywhere where you might end up with an inheritance structure that doesn't have a common base or interface that is sufficient. In the example above I know what I'm getting but there's no common base type that I can cast to. All that said, it's a good idea to think about use of dynamic before you rush in. In many situations there are alternatives that can still work with static typing. Dynamic definitely has some overhead compared to direct static access of objects, so if possible we should definitely stick to static typing. In the example above the application already uses dynamics extensively for dynamic page page templating and passing models around so introducing dynamics here has very little additional overhead. The operation itself also fires of a fairly resource heavy operation where the overhead of a couple of dynamic member accesses are not a performance issue. So, what's your experience with dynamic as a bailout mechanism? © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in CSharp   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Using Apache FOP from .NET level

  - by Lukasz Kurylo

  In one of my previous posts I was talking about FO.NET which I was using to generate a pdf documents from XSL-FO. FO.NET is one of the .NET ports of Apache FOP. Unfortunatelly it is no longer maintained. I known it when I decidec to use it, because there is a lack of available (free) choices for .NET to render a pdf form XSL-FO. I hoped in this implementation I will find all I need to create a pdf file with my really simple requirements. FO.NET is a port from some old version of Apache FOP and I found really quickly that there is a lack of some features that I needed, like dotted borders, double borders or support for margins. So I started to looking for some alternatives. I didn’t try the NFOP, another port of Apache FOP, because I found something I think much more better, the IKVM.NET project.   IKVM.NET it is not a pdf renderer. So what it is? From the project site:   IKVM.NET is an implementation of Java for Mono and the Microsoft .NET Framework. It includes the following components: a Java Virtual Machine implemented in .NET a .NET implementation of the Java class libraries tools that enable Java and .NET interoperability   In the simplest form IKVM.NET allows to use a Java code library in the C# code and vice versa.   I tried to use an Apache FOP, the best I think open source pdf –> XSL-FO renderer written in Java from my project written in C# using an IKVM.NET and it work like a charm. In the rest of the post I want to show, how to prepare a .NET *.dll class library from Apache FOP *.jar’s with IKVM.NET and generate a simple Hello world pdf document.   To start playing with IKVM.NET and Apache FOP we need to download their packages: IKVM.NET Apache FOP and then unpack them.   From the FOP directory copy all the *.jar’s files from lib and build catalogs to some location, e.g. d:\fop. Second step is to build the *.dll library from these files. On the console execute the following comand:   ikvmc –target:library –out:d:\fop\fop.dll –recurse:d:\fop   The ikvmc is located in the bin subdirectory where you unpacked the IKVM.NET. You must execute this command from this catalog, add this path to the global variable PATH or specify the full path to the bin subdirectory.   In no error occurred during this process, the fop.dll library should be created. Right now we can create a simple project to test if we can create a pdf file.   So let’s create a simple console project application and add reference to the fop.dll and the IKVM dll’s: IKVM.OpenJDK.Core and IKVM.OpenJDK.XML.API.   Full code to generate a pdf file from XSL-FO template:   static void Main(string[] args)         {             //initialize the Apache FOP             FopFactory fopFactory = FopFactory.newInstance();               //in this stream we will get the generated pdf file             OutputStream o = new DotNetOutputMemoryStream();             try             {                 Fop fop = fopFactory.newFop("application/pdf", o);                 TransformerFactory factory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();                 Transformer transformer = factory.newTransformer();                   //read the template from disc                 Source src = new StreamSource(new File("HelloWorld.fo"));                 Result res = new SAXResult(fop.getDefaultHandler());                 transformer.transform(src, res);             }             finally             {                 o.close();             }             using (System.IO.FileStream fs = System.IO.File.Create("HelloWorld.pdf"))             {                 //write from the .NET MemoryStream stream to disc the generated pdf file                 var data = ((DotNetOutputMemoryStream)o).Stream.GetBuffer();                 fs.Write(data, 0, data.Length);             }             Process.Start("HelloWorld.pdf");             System.Console.ReadLine();         }   Apache FOP be default using a Java’s Xalan to work with XML files. I didn’t find a way to replace this piece of code with equivalent from .NET standard library. If any error or warning will occure during generating the pdf file, on the console will ge shown, that’s why I inserted the last line in the sample above. The DotNetOutputMemoryStream this is my wrapper for the Java OutputStream. I have created it to have the possibility to exchange data between the .NET <-> Java objects. It’s implementation:   class DotNetOutputMemoryStream : OutputStream     {         private System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream();         public System.IO.MemoryStream Stream         {             get             {                 return ms;             }         }         public override void write(int i)         {             ms.WriteByte((byte)i);         }         public override void write(byte[] b, int off, int len)         {             ms.Write(b, off, len);         }         public override void write(byte[] b)         {             ms.Write(b, 0, b.Length);         }         public override void close()         {             ms.Close();         }         public override void flush()         {             ms.Flush();         }     } The last thing we need, this is the HelloWorld.fo template.   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">   <fo:layout-master-set>     <fo:simple-page-master master-name="simple"                   page-height="29.7cm"                   page-width="21cm"                   margin-top="1.8cm"                   margin-bottom="0.8cm"                   margin-left="1.6cm"                   margin-right="1.2cm">       <fo:region-body margin-top="3cm"/>       <fo:region-before extent="3cm"/>       <fo:region-after extent="1.5cm"/>     </fo:simple-page-master>   </fo:layout-master-set>   <fo:page-sequence master-reference="simple">     <fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">       <fo:block font-size="18pt" color="black" text-align="center">         Hello, World!       </fo:block>     </fo:flow>   </fo:page-sequence> </fo:root>   I’m not going to explain how how this template is created, because this will be covered in the near future posts.   Generated pdf file should look that:

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• The Presentation Isn't Over Until It's Over

  - by Phil Factor

  The senior corporate dignitaries settled into their seats looking important in a blue-suited sort of way. The lights dimmed as I strode out in front to give my presentation.  I had ten vital minutes to make my pitch.  I was about to dazzle the top management of a large software company who were considering the purchase of my software product. I would present them with a dazzling synthesis of diagrams, graphs, followed by  a live demonstration of my software projected from my laptop.  My preparation had been meticulous: It had to be: A year’s hard work was at stake, so I’d prepared it to perfection.  I stood up and took them all in, with a gaze of sublime confidence. Then the laptop expired. There are several possible alternative plans of action when this happens     A. Stare at the smoking laptop vacuously, flapping ones mouth slowly up and down     B. Stand frozen like a statue, locked in indecision between fright and flight.     C. Run out of the room, weeping     D. Pretend that this was all planned     E. Abandon the presentation in favour of a stilted and tedious dissertation about the software     F. Shake your fist at the sky, and curse the sense of humour of your preferred deity I started for a few seconds on plan B, normally referred to as the ‘Rabbit in the headlamps of the car’ technique. Suddenly, a little voice inside my head spoke. It spoke the famous inane words of Yogi Berra; ‘The game isn't over until it's over.’ ‘Too right’, I thought. What to do? I ran through the alternatives A-F inclusive in my mind but none appealed to me. I was completely unprepared for this. Nowadays, longevity has since taught me more than I wanted to know about the wacky sense of humour of fate, and I would have taken two laptops. I hadn’t, but decided to do the presentation anyway as planned. I started out ignoring the dead laptop, but pretending, instead that it was still working. The audience looked startled. They were expecting plan B to be succeeded by plan C, I suspect. They weren’t used to denial on this scale. After my introductory talk, which didn’t require any visuals, I came to the diagram that described the application I’d written.  I’d taken ages over it and it was hot stuff. Well, it would have been had it been projected onto the screen. It wasn’t. Before I describe what happened then, I must explain that I have thespian tendencies.  My  triumph as Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady at the local operatic society is now long forgotten, but I remember at the time of my finest performance, the moment that, glancing up over the vast audience of  moist-eyed faces at the during the poignant  scene between Eliza and Higgins at the end, I  realised that I had a talent that one day could possibly  be harnessed for commercial use I just talked about the diagram as if it was there, but throwing in some extra description. The audience nodded helpfully when I’d done enough. Emboldened, I began a sort of mime, well, more of a ballet, to represent each slide as I came to it. Heaven knows I’d done my preparation and, in my mind’s eye, I could see every detail, but I had to somehow project the reality of that vision to the audience, much the same way any actor playing Macbeth should do the ghost of Banquo.  My desperation gave me a manic energy. If you’ve ever demonstrated a windows application entirely by mime, gesture and florid description, you’ll understand the scale of the challenge, but then I had nothing to lose. With a brief sentence of description here and there, and arms flailing whilst outlining the size and shape of  graphs and diagrams, I used the many tricks of mime, gesture and body-language  learned from playing Captain Hook, or the Sheriff of Nottingham in pantomime. I set out determinedly on my desperate venture. There wasn’t time to do anything but focus on the challenge of the task: the world around me narrowed down to ten faces and my presentation: ten souls who had to be hypnotized into seeing a Windows application:  one that was slick, well organized and functional I don’t remember the details. Eight minutes of my life are gone completely. I was a thespian berserker.  I know however that I followed the basic plan of building the presentation in a carefully controlled crescendo until the dazzling finale where the results were displayed on-screen.  ‘And here you see the results, neatly formatted and grouped carefully to enhance the significance of the figures, together with running trend-graphs!’ I waved a mime to signify an animated  window-opening, and looked up, in my first pause, to gaze defiantly  at the audience.  It was a sight I’ll never forget. Ten pairs of eyes were gazing in rapt attention at the imaginary window, and several pairs of eyes were glancing at the imaginary graphs and figures.  I hadn’t had an audience like that since my starring role in  Beauty and the Beast.  At that moment, I realized that my desperate ploy might work. I sat down, slightly winded, when my ten minutes were up.  For the first and last time in my life, the audience of a  ‘PowerPoint’ presentation burst into spontaneous applause. ‘Any questions?’ ‘Yes,  Have you got an agent?’ Yes, in case you’re wondering, I got the deal. They bought the software product from me there and then. However, it was a life-changing experience for me and I have never ever again trusted technology as part of a presentation.  Even if things can’t go wrong, they’ll go wrong and they’ll kill the flow of what you’re presenting.  if you can’t do something without the techno-props, then you shouldn’t do it.  The greatest lesson of all is that great presentations require preparation and  ‘stage-presence’ rather than fancy graphics. They’re a great supporting aid, but they should never dominate to the point that you’re lost without them.

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• Slicing the EDG

  - by Antony Reynolds

  Different SOA Domain Configurations In this blog entry I would like to introduce three different configurations for a SOA environment.  I have omitted load balancers and OTD/OHS as they introduce a whole new round of discussion.  For each possible deployment architecture I have identified some of the advantages. Super Domain This is a single EDG style domain for everything needed for SOA/OSB.   It extends the standard EDG slightly but otherwise assumes a single “super” domain. This is basically the SOA EDG.  I have broken out JMS servers and Coherence servers to improve scalability and reduce dependencies. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if rest of domain is unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service. Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Benefits Single Administration Point (1 Admin Server) Closely follows EDG with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Drawbacks Patching is an all or nothing affair. Startup time for SOA may be slow if large number of composites deployed. Multiple Domains This extends the EDG into multiple domains, allowing separate management and update of these domains.  I see this type of configuration quite often with customers, although some don't have OWSM, others don't have separate Coherence etc. SOA & BAM are kept in the same domain as little benefit is obtained by separating them. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if other domains are unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service. Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Benefits Follows EDG but in separate domains and with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Patch lifecycle of OSB/SOA/JMS are no longer lock stepped. JMS may be kept running independently of other domains allowing applications to insert messages fro later consumption by SOA/OSB. OSB may be kept running independent of other domains, allowing service virtualization to continue independent of other domains availability. All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM). Drawbacks Multiple domains to manage and configure. Multiple Admin servers (single view requires use of Grid Control) Multiple Admin servers/WSM clusters waste resources. Additional homes needed to enjoy benefits of separate patching. Cross domain trust needs setting up to simplify cross domain interactions. Startup time for SOA may be slow if large number of composites deployed. Shared Service Environment This model extends the previous multiple domain arrangement to provide a true shared service environment.This extends the previous model by allowing multiple additional SOA domains and/or other domains to take advantage of the shared services.  Only one non-shared domain is shown, but there could be multiple, allowing groups of applications to share patching independent of other application groups. Key Points Separate JMS allows those servers to be kept up separately from rest of SOA Domain, allowing JMS clients to post messages even if other domains are unavailable. JMS servers are only used to host application specific JMS destinations, SOA/OSB JMS destinations remain in relevant SOA/OSB managed servers. Separate Coherence servers allow OSB cache to be offloaded from OSB servers. Use of Coherence by other components as a shared infrastructure data grid service Coherence cluster may be managed by WLS but more likely run as a standalone Coherence cluster. Shared SOA Domain hosts Human Workflow Tasks BAM Common "utility" composites Single OSB domain provides "Enterprise Service Bus" All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM) Benefits Follows EDG but in separate domains and with addition of application specific JMS servers and standalone Coherence servers for OSB caching and application specific caches. Coherence grid can be scaled independent of OSB/SOA. JMS queues provide for inter-application communication. Patch lifecycle of OSB/SOA/JMS are no longer lock stepped. JMS may be kept running independently of other domains allowing applications to insert messages fro later consumption by SOA/OSB. OSB may be kept running independent of other domains, allowing service virtualization to continue independent of other domains availability. All domains use same OWSM policy store (MDS-WSM). Supports large numbers of deployed composites in multiple domains. Single URL for Human Workflow end users. Single URL for BAM end users. Drawbacks Multiple domains to manage and configure. Multiple Admin servers (single view requires use of Grid Control) Multiple Admin servers/WSM clusters waste resources. Additional homes needed to enjoy benefits of separate patching. Cross domain trust needs setting up to simplify cross domain interactions. Human Workflow needs to be specially configured to point to shared services domain. Summary The alternatives in this blog allow for patching to have different impacts, depending on the model chosen.  Each organization must decide the tradeoffs for itself.  One extreme is to go for the shared services model and have one domain per SOA application.  This requires a lot of administration of the multiple domains.  The other extreme is to have a single super domain.  This makes the entire enterprise susceptible to an outage at the same time due to patching or other domain level changes.  Hopefully this blog will help your organization choose the right model for you.

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• SharePoint logging to a list

  - by Norgean

  I recently worked in an environment with several servers. Locating the correct SharePoint log file for error messages, or development trace calls, is cumbersome. And once the solution hit the cloud, it got even worse, as we had no access to the log files at all. Obviously we are not the only ones with this problem, and the current trend seems to be to log to a list. This had become an off-hour project, so rather than do the sensible thing and find a ready-made solution, I decided to do it the hard way. So! Fire up Visual Studio, create yet another empty SharePoint solution, and start to think of some requirements. Easy on/offI want to be able to turn list-logging on and off.Easy loggingFor me, this means being able to use string.Format.Easy filteringLet's have the possibility to add some filtering columns; category and severity, where severity can be "verbose", "warning" or "error". Easy on/off Well, that's easy. Create a new web feature. Add an event receiver, and create the list on activation of the feature. Tear the list down on de-activation. I chose not to create a new content type; I did not feel that it would give me anything extra. I based the list on the generic list - I think a better choice would have been the announcement type. Approximately: public void CreateLog(SPWeb web)         {             var list = web.Lists.TryGetList(LogListName);             if (list == null)             {                 var listGuid = web.Lists.Add(LogListName, "Logging for the masses", SPListTemplateType.GenericList);                 list = web.Lists[listGuid];                 list.Title = LogListTitle;                 list.Update();                 list.Fields.Add(Category, SPFieldType.Text, false);                 var stringColl = new StringCollection();                 stringColl.AddRange(new[]{Error, Information, Verbose});                 list.Fields.Add(Severity, SPFieldType.Choice, true, false, stringColl);                 ModifyDefaultView(list);             }         }Should be self explanatory, but: only create the list if it does not already exist (d'oh). Best practice: create it with a Url-friendly name, and, if necessary, give it a better title. ...because otherwise you'll have to look for a list with a name like "Simple_x0020_Log". I've added a couple of fields; a field for category, and a 'severity'. Both to make it easier to find relevant log messages. Notice that I don't have to call list.Update() after adding the fields - this would cause a nasty error (something along the lines of "List locked by another user"). The function for deleting the log is exactly as onerous as you'd expect:         public void DeleteLog(SPWeb web)         {             var list = web.Lists.TryGetList(LogListTitle);             if (list != null)             {                 list.Delete();             }         } So! "All" that remains is to log. Also known as adding items to a list. Lots of different methods with different signatures end up calling the same function. For example, LogVerbose(web, message) calls LogVerbose(web, null, message) which again calls another method which calls: private static void Log(SPWeb web, string category, string severity, string textformat, params object[] texts)         {             if (web != null)             {                 var list = web.Lists.TryGetList(LogListTitle);                 if (list != null)                 {                     var item = list.AddItem(); // NOTE! NOT list.Items.Add… just don't, mkay?                     var text = string.Format(textformat, texts);                     if (text.Length > 255) // because the title field only holds so many chars. Sigh.                         text = text.Substring(0, 254);                     item[SPBuiltInFieldId.Title] = text;                     item[Degree] = severity;                     item[Category] = category;                     item.Update();                 }             } // omitted: Also log to SharePoint log.         } By adding a params parameter I can call it as if I was doing a Console.WriteLine: LogVerbose(web, "demo", "{0} {1}{2}", "hello", "world", '!'); Ok, that was a silly example, a better one might be: LogError(web, LogCategory, "Exception caught when updating {0}. exception: {1}", listItem.Title, ex); For performance reasons I use list.AddItem rather than list.Items.Add. For completeness' sake, let us include the "ModifyDefaultView" function that I deliberately skipped earlier.         private void ModifyDefaultView(SPList list)         {             // Add fields to default view             var defaultView = list.DefaultView;             var exists = defaultView.ViewFields.Cast<string>().Any(field => String.CompareOrdinal(field, Severity) == 0);               if (!exists)             {                 var field = list.Fields.GetFieldByInternalName(Severity);                 if (field != null)                     defaultView.ViewFields.Add(field);                 field = list.Fields.GetFieldByInternalName(Category);                 if (field != null)                     defaultView.ViewFields.Add(field);                 defaultView.Update();                   var sortDoc = new XmlDocument();                 sortDoc.LoadXml(string.Format("<Query>{0}</Query>", defaultView.Query));                 var orderBy = (XmlElement) sortDoc.SelectSingleNode("//OrderBy");                 if (orderBy != null && sortDoc.DocumentElement != null)                     sortDoc.DocumentElement.RemoveChild(orderBy);                 orderBy = sortDoc.CreateElement("OrderBy");                 sortDoc.DocumentElement.AppendChild(orderBy);                 field = list.Fields[SPBuiltInFieldId.Modified];                 var fieldRef = sortDoc.CreateElement("FieldRef");                 fieldRef.SetAttribute("Name", field.InternalName);                 fieldRef.SetAttribute("Ascending", "FALSE");                 orderBy.AppendChild(fieldRef);                   fieldRef = sortDoc.CreateElement("FieldRef");                 field = list.Fields[SPBuiltInFieldId.ID];                 fieldRef.SetAttribute("Name", field.InternalName);                 fieldRef.SetAttribute("Ascending", "FALSE");                 orderBy.AppendChild(fieldRef);                 defaultView.Query = sortDoc.DocumentElement.InnerXml;                 //defaultView.Query = "<OrderBy><FieldRef Name='Modified' Ascending='FALSE' /><FieldRef Name='ID' Ascending='FALSE' /></OrderBy>";                 defaultView.Update();             }         } First two lines are easy - see if the default view includes the "Severity" column. If it does - quit; our job here is done.Adding "severity" and "Category" to the view is not exactly rocket science. But then? Then we build the sort order query. Through XML. The lines are numerous, but boring. All to achieve the CAML query which is commented out. The major benefit of using the dom to build XML, is that you may get compile time errors for spelling mistakes. I say 'may', because although the compiler will not let you forget to close a tag, it will cheerfully let you spell "Name" as "Naem". Whichever you prefer, at the end of the day the view will sort by modified date and ID, both descending. I added the ID as there may be several items with the same time stamp. So! Simple logging to a list, with sensible a view, and with normal functionality for creating your own filterings. I should probably have added some more views in code, ready filtered for "only errors", "errors and warnings" etc. And it would be nice to block verbose logging completely, but I'm not happy with the alternatives. (yetanotherfeature or an admin page seem like overkill - perhaps just removing it as one of the choices, and not log if it isn't there?) Before you comment - yes, try-catches have been removed for clarity. There is nothing worse than having a logging function that breaks your site!

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• How to make sure that grub does use menu.lst?

  - by Glen S. Dalton

  On my Ubuntu 9.04 ("Karmic") laptop I suspect grub does not use the /boot/grub/menu.lst file. What happens on boot is that I see a blank screen and nothing happens. When I press ESC I see a boot list which is different from what I would expect from the menu.lst file. The menu lines are different and when I choose the first entry it does not use the kernel options that are in the first entry in menu.lst. Where do the entries that grub uses come from? How can I find out what happens, is there a log? I could not find anything in /var/log/syslog or /var/log/dmesg about grub using a menu.lst. How can I set it to work like expected? Some Files: $ sudo ls -la /boot/grub/*lst -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1558 2009-12-12 15:25 /boot/grub/command.lst -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 121 2009-12-12 15:25 /boot/grub/fs.lst -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 272 2009-12-12 15:25 /boot/grub/handler.lst -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4576 2010-03-19 11:26 /boot/grub/menu.lst -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1657 2009-12-12 15:25 /boot/grub/moddep.lst -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 62 2009-12-12 15:25 /boot/grub/partmap.lst -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 22 2009-12-12 15:25 /boot/grub/parttool.lst $ sudo ls -la /vm* lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 2009-12-12 16:15 /vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-16-generic lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 2009-12-12 14:07 /vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic $ sudo ls -la /init* lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 2009-12-12 16:15 /initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-16-generic lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 2009-12-12 14:07 /initrd.img.old -> boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic The only menu.lst that I found: $ sudo find / -name "menu.lst" /boot/grub/menu.lst $ sudo cat /boot/grub/menu.lst # menu.lst - See: grub(8), info grub, update-grub(8) # grub-install(8), grub-floppy(8), # grub-md5-crypt, /usr/share/doc/grub # and /usr/share/doc/grub-doc/. ## default num # Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and # the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used. # # You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry # is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'. # WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not use 'savedefault' or your # array will desync and will not let you boot your system. default 0 ## timeout sec # Set a timeout, in SEC seconds, before automatically booting the default entry # (normally the first entry defined). timeout 3 ## hiddenmenu # Hides the menu by default (press ESC to see the menu) #hiddenmenu # Pretty colours color cyan/blue white/blue ## password ['--md5'] passwd # If used in the first section of a menu file, disable all interactive editing # control (menu entry editor and command-line) and entries protected by the # command 'lock' # e.g. password topsecret # password --md5 $1$gLhU0/$aW78kHK1QfV3P2b2znUoe/ # password topsecret # examples # # title Windows 95/98/NT/2000 # root (hd0,0) # makeactive # chainloader +1 # # title Linux # root (hd0,1) # kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro # Put static boot stanzas before and/or after AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST ### BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST ## lines between the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST markers will be modified ## by the debian update-grub script except for the default options below ## DO NOT UNCOMMENT THEM, Just edit them to your needs ## ## Start Default Options ## ## default kernel options ## default kernel options for automagic boot options ## If you want special options for specific kernels use kopt_x_y_z ## where x.y.z is kernel version. Minor versions can be omitted. ## e.g. kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro ## kopt_2_6_8=root=/dev/hdc1 ro ## kopt_2_6_8_2_686=root=/dev/hdc2 ro # kopt=root=UUID=9b454298-18e1-43f7-a5bc-f56e7ed5f9c6 ro noresume ## default grub root device ## e.g. groot=(hd0,0) # groot=70fcd2b0-0ee0-4fe6-9acb-322ef74c1cdf ## should update-grub create alternative automagic boot options ## e.g. alternative=true ## alternative=false # alternative=true ## should update-grub lock alternative automagic boot options ## e.g. lockalternative=true ## lockalternative=false # lockalternative=false ## additional options to use with the default boot option, but not with the ## alternatives ## e.g. defoptions=vga=791 resume=/dev/hda5 ## defoptions=quiet splash # defoptions=apm=on acpi=off ## should update-grub lock old automagic boot options ## e.g. lockold=false ## lockold=true # lockold=false ## Xen hypervisor options to use with the default Xen boot option # xenhopt= ## Xen Linux kernel options to use with the default Xen boot option # xenkopt=console=tty0 ## altoption boot targets option ## multiple altoptions lines are allowed ## e.g. altoptions=(extra menu suffix) extra boot options ## altoptions=(recovery) single # altoptions=(recovery mode) single ## controls how many kernels should be put into the menu.lst ## only counts the first occurence of a kernel, not the ## alternative kernel options ## e.g. howmany=all ## howmany=7 # howmany=all ## specify if running in Xen domU or have grub detect automatically ## update-grub will ignore non-xen kernels when running in domU and vice versa ## e.g. indomU=detect ## indomU=true ## indomU=false # indomU=detect ## should update-grub create memtest86 boot option ## e.g. memtest86=true ## memtest86=false # memtest86=true ## should update-grub adjust the value of the default booted system ## can be true or false # updatedefaultentry=false ## should update-grub add savedefault to the default options ## can be true or false # savedefault=false ## ## End Default Options ## title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-14-generic noresume uuid 70fcd2b0-0ee0-4fe6-9acb-322ef74c1cdf kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=9b454298-18e1-43f7-a5bc-f56e7ed5f9c6 ro quiet splash apm=on acpi=off noresume initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic title Ubuntu 9.10, kernel 2.6.31-14-generic (recovery mode) uuid 70fcd2b0-0ee0-4fe6-9acb-322ef74c1cdf kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=9b454298-18e1-43f7-a5bc-f56e7ed5f9c6 ro sing le initrd /initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic title Ubuntu 9.10, memtest86+ uuid 70fcd2b0-0ee0-4fe6-9acb-322ef74c1cdf kernel /memtest86+.bin ### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST These are the choices that grub displays after i press ESC: Ubuntu, Linux 2-6-31-16-generic Ubuntu, Linux 2-6-31-16-generic (recovery mode) Ubuntu, Linux 2-6-31-14-generic Ubuntu, Linux 2-6-31-14-generic (recovery mode) Memory test (memtest86+) Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)

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