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• Generating custom-form documents from base-form plus XML?

  - by KlaymenDK

  Hi all, this is my first stack overflow, and it's a complex one. Sorry. My task is to generate custom documents from a basic template plus some XML without having a custom form design element for each case. Here's the whole picture: We are building a Lotus Notes (client, not web) application for world-wide application access control; the scope is something like 400.000 users being able to request access to any of 1000+ applications. Each application needs its own request form -- different number of approvers, various info required, that sort of thing. We simply can't have a thousand forms in a database (one per application), and anyway their maintenance really needs to be pushed from the developers to the application owners. So instead of custom forms, we'd like to create a generic "template" form that stores a block of basic fields, but then allows application owners to define another block of fields dynamically -- "I want a mandatory plain-text field named 'Name' here, and then a date field named 'Due' here that must be later than today's date, and then ...". I hope this makes sense (if not, think of it as a generic questionnaire application). I pretty much have the structure in place for designing the dynamic fields (form builder GUI - XML-encoded data - pre-rendered DXL for injecting into a form), including mark-up for field types, value options, and rudimentary field validation instructions. My problem is generating a document with this dynamic content injected at the proper location (without needing a custom form design element for each case). Doing the dynamic content via HTML is out. The Notes client web rendering is simply way too poor, and it would be quite a challenge to implement things like field validation instructions, date selectors, and name look-ups. DXL, on the other hand, would allow us to use native Notes fields and code. As a tech demo, I've managed to implement a custom form generator that injects the pre-rendered DXL for the dynamic content into a base form; but as I said, we don't want a ton of custom form design elements. I've tried to implement a way to create a document with the "store form in document" flag set, but once I've created the document from the base form, I can't get DXL access to the stored form design, and so I can't inject my dynamic content. I know this is not something Notes was ever intended to do. Has anyone ever tried something like it (and gotten away with it)? Thanks for reading this far. With a boatload of thanks in advance, Jan Gundtofte-Bruun

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• How do you remind your Scrum Product Owner about his promises/actions?

  - by Felix Ogg

  ** EDIT: Rephrased the question to re-focus ** Our Scrum team meets as seldomly as possible, but we meet with the product owner every chance we get. We track everyone's agreed action points (particularly theirs). We are 100% agile, but our product owner lives in traditional world, we remain off-site. We facilitate him in crossing over to our fast-paced world. There's not much wrong. The team and the PO are in good spirits. PO is present at every meeting and positively energized. Just imagine this person as a 70 year old, slow grandpa, who is forgetful, yet kind. In reality he isn't, but he is used to a working environment (public servants) that is much slooooower. Manyana-manyana etc. It is frustrating for my team to cooperate: PO lives in a non-prioritized environment, and everyone in it has learned the productivity-technique of NGTD (Not Getting Things Done). He WANTS to, it's just that he forgets or 'sinks' somewhere along the away. We have experimented with a text file, maintained by the Scrum master (low-tech), which he broadcasts by e-mail every day JIRA, our issue tracker. Turns out this is nice for programmers, but too steep for 'regular people' I Googled for Issue tracking webtools but came up empty handed: All tools are aimed at IT issue tracking, instead of meeting action point tracking/planning for mere mortals. I did find TODO-lists like RememberTheMilk, but they don't track comments, and - to be honest - I doubt we could get our product owner to use it (too complicated). We have three requirements: Register action points, assign to a team member and a deadline Offer anyone to 'comment' on progress of any action point Do not build our own tool from scratch We do not need: - impressive authorization models, - multi-project, - workflow, - crosslinking. Is there any trick/tool you use to assist your product owner 'fly' like the rest of the rest of the team? Communication before tools I agree with the general consensus that one should not try to apply technology to a communication problem, however in this case I am merely looking for a tool to save me time in setting up prioritized lists. I found www.thymer.com today, may be what I am looking for. The guys are cool. It is getting rather feature-bloated though.

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• SOAP not fetches result in PHP for Mouzenidis travel

  - by ????? ????????????

  I try to get results from http://api.mouzenidis-travel.com/search/ServiceMainSearch.svc?Wsdl There is some methods to fetch data: GetCountries // fetch available country data GetCityDeparture(int countryID) //fetch available departure city data GetFilter(int countryId, List departureCityId) // fetch others filters // My PHP code: $client = new SoapClient("http://api.mouzenidis-travel.com/search/ServiceMainSearch.svc?Wsdl"); $countryList = $client-GetCountries(); // results below [0] => stdClass Object ( [Code] => GR [ID] => 29 [Name] => Греция [NameLat] => Greece ) [1] => stdClass Object ( [Code] => CZ [ID] => 6240 [Name] => Чехия [NameLat] => Czech Republic ) $cityDepObj = $client-GetCityDeparture(array('countryID'=29)); [0] => stdClass Object ( [Code] => MOW [GroupName] => Россия [GroupNameLat] => Россия [GroupOrder] => 4 [ID] => 1 [Name] => Москва [NameLat] => Moscow [CountryID] => 460 [IsDeparture] => 1 [RegionID] => 0 ) [1] => stdClass Object ( [Code] => [GroupName] => Россия [GroupNameLat] => Россия [GroupOrder] => 4 [ID] => 299 [Name] => Архангельск [NameLat] => Arkhangelsk [CountryID] => 460 [IsDeparture] => 1 [RegionID] => 0 ) . . . $client-GetFilter(array(29,array(1))); Fatal error: Uncaught SoapFault exception: [s:Client] No connections available ... I wrote to the Mouzendinis Tech Support, no results. What make I wrong?

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• Adding google.maps.latlng within a loop

  - by Mick Morrison

  I am new to Java Script. I am using it, in combination with Java Server Faces. I want to add some points to define a Polilyne using GoogleMaps Apiv3. My problem is that I can't add a FOR statement to the javascript, because it dumps. If I comment this FOR loop, it also dumps. The dump I am getting is: "javax.servlet.ServletException: null source". Has anyone any suggestion to solve this? Thanks in advance, Emanuel <script type="text/javascript"> function initialize() { var longit = "${dateRange.longitude}" ; var lat = "${dateRange.latitude}" ; var latlng = new google.maps.LatLng(lat, longit); var myOptions = { zoom: 15, center: latlng, mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP }; var map = new google.maps.Map(document.getElementById("map_canvas"), myOptions); var points = []; var cadena1 = "${dateRange.latArray}" ; var cadena2 = "${dateRange.longArray}" ; var latArray = cadena1.split('?'); var longArray = cadena2.split('?'); /* The code Below is the one that fails */ for (var i=0; i < latArray.length; i++) { points.push(new google.maps.LatLng(latArray[i], longArray[i])); } /* Finish of the error code */ // The Polilyne is created var mapPath = new google.maps.Polyline ({ path: points, strokeColor: "#FF0000", strokeOpacity: 1.0, strokeWeight: 4 }); mapPath.setMap(map); } </script> </head> <body onload="initialize()"> <h:graphicImage url="http://localhost:8080/gps_tracking/faces/resources/images/logo.jpg"> </h:graphicImage> <h1 align="center">Sol-Tech</h1><br /> <hr></hr> <div id="map_canvas" style="width:100%; height:100%"></div> </body>

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• How should I ethically approach user password storage for later plaintext retrieval?

  - by Shane

  As I continue to build more and more websites and web applications I am often asked to store user's passwords in a way that they can be retrieved if/when the user has an issue (either to email a forgotten password link, walk them through over the phone, etc.) When I can I fight bitterly against this practice and I do a lot of ‘extra’ programming to make password resets and administrative assistance possible without storing their actual password. When I can’t fight it (or can’t win) then I always encode the password in some way so that it at least isn’t stored as plaintext in the database—though I am aware that if my DB gets hacked that it won’t take much for the culprit to crack the passwords as well—so that makes me uncomfortable. In a perfect world folks would update passwords frequently and not duplicate them across many different sites—unfortunately I know MANY people that have the same work/home/email/bank password, and have even freely given it to me when they need assistance. I don’t want to be the one responsible for their financial demise if my DB security procedures fail for some reason. Morally and ethically I feel responsible for protecting what can be, for some users, their livelihood even if they are treating it with much less respect. I am certain that there are many avenues to approach and arguments to be made for salting hashes and different encoding options, but is there a single ‘best practice’ when you have to store them? In almost all cases I am using PHP and MySQL if that makes any difference in the way I should handle the specifics. Additional Information for Bounty I want to clarify that I know this is not something you want to have to do and that in most cases refusal to do so is best. I am, however, not looking for a lecture on the merits of taking this approach I am looking for the best steps to take if you do take this approach. In a note below I made the point that websites geared largely toward the elderly, mentally challenged, or very young can become confusing for people when they are asked to perform a secure password recovery routine. Though we may find it simple and mundane in those cases some users need the extra assistance of either having a service tech help them into the system or having it emailed/displayed directly to them. In such systems the attrition rate from these demographics could hobble the application if users were not given this level of access assistance, so please answer with such a setup in mind. Thanks to Everyone This has been a fun questions with lots of debate and I have enjoyed it. In the end I selected an answer that both retains password security (I will not have to keep plain text or recoverable passwords), but also makes it possible for the user base I specified to log into a system without the major drawbacks I have found from normal password recovery. As always there were about 5 answers that I would like to have marked correct for different reasons, but I had to choose the best one--all the rest got a +1. Thanks everyone!

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• What is the problems for my xml file format ?

  - by python

  <? $xml="<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' standalone='no'?> <Document> <pain.001.001.02> <books> <book> <qty>12</qty> <title>C++</title> </book> <book> <qty>21</qty> <title>PHP</title> </book> </books> <books> <book> <qty>25</qty> <title>Java</title> </book> <book> <qty>32</qty> <title>Python</title> </book> <book> <qty>22</qty> <title>History</title> </book> </books> </pain.001.001.02> </Document> "; $doc = new DOMDOcument; $doc->loadxml($xml); $xpath = new DOMXpath($doc); $arr = array( array( '12;C++', '21;PHP'), array( '25;Java', '32;Python' ) ); # Remove elements based on qty and title foreach($arr as $items) { foreach($items as $item) { list($qty, $title) = explode(';', $item); foreach($xpath->query('//pain.001.001.02/books/book[title="'.$title.'"][qty="'.$qty.'"]') as $book) { $book->parentNode->removeChild($book); } } } # Remove empty <books> foreach($xpath->query('pain.001.001.02/books[count(book)=0]') as $empty) { $empty->parentNode->removeChild($empty); } header('Content-type: text/xml'); echo $doc->savexml(); ?> If I put <Document> in the xml document , get the expected result BUT If change <Document> to <Document xmlns="urn:iso:std:iso:20022:tech:xsd:pain.001.001.02"> get UNEXPECTED RESULT? Do you have any idea? thanks

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• How to setup Lucene/Solr for a B2B web app?

  - by Bill Paetzke

  Given: 1 database per client (business customer) 5000 clients Clients have between 2 to 2000 users (avg is ~100 users/client) 100k to 10 million records per database Users need to search those records often (it's the best way to navigate their data) Possibly relevant info: Several new clients each week (any time during business hours) Multiple web servers and database servers (users can login via any web server) Let's stay agnostic of language or sql brand, since Lucene (and Solr) have a breadth of support For Example: Joel Spolsky said in Podcast #11 that his hosted web app product, FogBugz On-Demand, uses Lucene. He has thousands of on-demand clients. And each client gets their own database. They use an index per client and store it in the client's database. I'm not sure on the details. And I'm not sure if this is a serious mod to Lucene. The Question: How would you setup Lucene search so that each client can only search within its database? How would you setup the index(es)? Where do you store the index(es)? Would you need to add a filter to all search queries? If a client cancelled, how would you delete their (part of the) index? (this may be trivial--not sure yet) Possible Solutions: Make an index for each client (database) Pro: Search is faster (than one-index-for-all method). Indices are relative to the size of the client's data. Con: I'm not sure what this entails, nor do I know if this is beyond Lucene's scope. Have a single, gigantic index with a database_name field. Always include database_name as a filter. Pro: Not sure. Maybe good for tech support or billing dept to search all databases for info. Con: Search is slower (than index-per-client method). Flawed security if query filter removed. One last thing: I would also accept an answer that uses Solr (the extension of Lucene). Perhaps it's better suited for this problem. Not sure.

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• Form Search Onkeyup event

  - by Aryan

  I Have a Form In which the form should automatically search when i complete entering the 10th character in the text field but the below code is searching for each n every character i enter in the text field . . . I just want the result after completing the 10th character not for each n every character . . i have used onkeyup event and i set that value to 10 but still it is searching for each n every character... please do help me <body OnKeyPress="return disableKeyPress(event)"> <section id="content" class="container_12 clearfix" data-sort=true> <center><table class='dynamic styled with-prev-next' data-table-tools='{'display':true}' align=center> <script> function disableEnterKey(e) { var key; if(window.event) key = window.event.keyCode; //IE else key = e.which; //firefox return (key != 13); } function showUser(str) { if (str=="") { document.getElementById("txtHint").innerHTML=""; return; } if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest(); } else {// code for IE6, IE5 xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP"); } xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function() { if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200) { document.getElementById("txtHint").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText; } } xmlhttp.open("GET","resdb.php?id="+str,true); xmlhttp.send(); } </script> <script type='text/javascript'> //<![CDATA[ $(window).load(function(){ $('#id').keyup(function(){ if(this.value.length ==10) }); });//]]> </script> <form id="form" method="post" name="form" > <tr><td><p align="center"><font size="3"><b>JNTUH - B.Tech IV Year II Semester (R07) Advance Supplementary Results - July 2012</b></font></p></td></tr> <td><p align="center"><b>Last Date for RC/RV : 8th August 2012</b></p></td> <tr><td><p align="center"></b> <input type="text" onkeyup="showUser(this.value)" onKeyPress="return disableEnterKey(event)" data-type="autocomplete" data-source="extras/autocomplete1.php" name="id" id="id" maxlength="10" placeholder=" Hall-Ticket Number">&emsp;</p></td></tr> </table> </center> </form> <center> <div id="txtHint"><b>Results will be displayed here</b></div> </center> </body>

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• A versioning workflow for multiple similar (but not identical) deployments

  - by rs77

  I'm currently employed at a small non-tech organisation and have been given the role of coding the organisations' website. While I have enjoyed the task and have learnt much with web dev I've encountered a few issues that I'm hoping someone will be able to help with me or at least point me in the right direction on. A little background: The site I work on has subdomains that each have their own separate WordPress installation on - as this has been the easiest "backend" admin panel for the type of user who will be responsible for updating content (etc). Within the organisation I work under the Marketing Manager (MM) and I code according to his style guide and wire frames. While we have been working with only one subdomain since the beginning of the year the project has been relatively simple and straightforward. However, lately the workflow is becoming a little more complicated as our original subdomain has been copied over to the other subdomains. Each of the new subdomains receives minor edits to their stylesheets (eg. different pictures for background, slightly different colours here and there, etc). The issue: At the moment managing all the different subdomains has been "bearable", but the straw that's braking the camel's back at the moment has been the slight reversions the MM has required now that the CEO has seen the final product. The problem I'm having with reversions in stylesheets is that the CEO will one week state that he likes change "X" and then as the MM and I continue to modify the site (to now "Z"), will another week state that he wants us to change "X" to "W" but keeping most of the changes made in "Y". What I'm looking for is something that allows for: tracking file changes reverting changes made (or reverting back to 'a' from 'e' but including changes 'b' & 'c') easily upload necessary files to their respective WP-theme installation Does anything out there come close to addressing these issues? If so, what? Thanks for any help! PS - I'm learning Git at the moment and it seems to do the "tracking file changes" quite nicely. Haven't learnt about the reverting changes bit yet, though. Maybe for my final point I'm thinking of creating a shell script to automatically upload the files to their folders. Does Git do this too though? Addendum (alexbbrown) I had a similar problem: I ran a custom version of mediawiki where I installed various extensions in the versioned core (with svn). Each of the extensions required an section in the confit file, but the confit file also needed local configuration for each of several deployments. I could have implemented it using includes, but they would not be versioned; and rebasing branches each time is a chore. +50 experience points for a good answer in git.

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• Wireless AAA for a small, bandwidth-limited hotel.

  - by Anthony Hiscox

  We (the tech I work with and myself) live in a remote northern town where Internet access is somewhat of a luxury, and bandwidth is quite limited. Here, overage charges ranging from few hundreds, to few thousands of dollars a month, is not uncommon. I myself incur regular monthly charges just through my regular Internet usage at home (I am allowed 10G for $60CAD!) As part of my work, I have found myself involved with several hotels that are feeling this. I know that I can come up with something to solve this problem, but I am relatively new to system administration and I don't want my dreams to overcome reality. So, I pass these ideas on to you, those with much more experience than I, in hopes you will share some of your thoughts and concerns. This system must be cost effective, yes the charges are high here, but the trust in technology is the lowest I've ever seen. Must be capable of helping client reduce their usage (squid) Allow a limited (throughput and total usage) amount of free Internet, as this is often franchise policy. Allow a user to track their bandwidth usage Allow (optional) higher speed and/or usage for an additional charge. This fee can be obtained at the front desk on checkout and should not require the use of PayPal or Credit Card. Unfortunately some franchises have ridiculous policies that require the use of a third party remote service to authenticate guests to your network. This means WPA is out, and it also means that I do not auth before Internet usage, that will be their job. However, I do require the ABILITY to perform authentication for Internet access if a hotel does not have this policy. I will still have to track bandwidth (under a guest account by default) and provide the same limiting, however the guest often will require a complete 'unlimited' access, in terms of existence, not throughput. Provide firewalling capabilities for hotels that have nothing, Office, and Guest network segregation (some of these guys are running their office on the guest network, with no encryption, and a simple TOS to get on!) Prevent guests from connecting to other guests, however provide a means to allow this to happen. IE. Each guest connects to a page and allows the other guest, this writes a iptables rule (with python-netfilter) and allows two rooms to play a game, for instance. My thoughts on how to implement this. One decent box (we'll call it a router now) with a lot of ram, and 3 NIC's: Internet Office Guests (AP's + In Room Ethernet) Router Firewall Rules Guest can talk to router only, through which they are routed to where they need to go, including Internet services. Office can be used to bridge Office to Internet if an existing solution is not in place, otherwise, it simply works for a network accessible web (webmin+python-webmin?) interface. Router Software: OpenVZ provides virtualization for a few services I don't really trust. Squid, FreeRADIUS and Apache. The only service directly accessible to guests is Apache. Apache has mod_wsgi and django, because I can write quickly using django and my needs are low. It also potentially has the FreeRADIUS mod, but there seems to be some caveats with this. Firewall rules are handled on the router with iptables. Webmin (or a custom django app maybe) provides abstracted control over any features that the staff may need to access. Python, if you haven't guessed it's the language I feel most comfortable in, and I use it for almost everything. And finally, has this been done, is it a overly massive project not worth taking on for one guy, and/or is there some tools I'm missing that could be making my life easier? For the record, I am fairly good with Python, but not very familiar with many other languages (I can struggle through PHP, it's a cosmetic issue there). I am also an avid linux user, and comfortable with config files and command line. Thank you for your time, I look forward to reading your responses. Edit: My apologies if this is not a Q&A in the sense that some were expecting, I'm just looking for ideas and to make sure I'm not trying to do something that's been done. I'm looking at pfSense now as a possible start for what I need.

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• Troubleshooting PHP email sending?

  - by darkAsPitch

  I created a website that occasionally emails users when they register/change their password/etc. Every other person however cannot or does not receive the emails. They are telling me that they are not even hitting their spam folders. I don't know a ton about MX records or email sending, but when I "Edit DNS Zone" for this domain in particular there is 1 MX record listed there. How do you go about troubleshooting botched PHP mail actions? UPDATE: Here is my super-simple php mailing code: $subject = "Subject Here"; $message = "Emails Message"; $to = $verified_user_data["email_address"]; $headers = "From: [email protected]\r\n" . "Reply-To: [email protected]\r\n" . "X-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion(); //returns true on success, false on failure $email_result = mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers); re: "are you saying that some do and some do not?" @ Jacob Yes, basically. I send the emails containing the user's login username/password using similar code above. And I sell to fairly tech-savvy people. About 50% of the time, my customers claim they cannot find their welcome emails in their inbox OR in their spam box. It's as if it never arrived. I have the largest problem with Yahoo email addresses accepting my emails or so it seems. re: "The MX record at your end doesn't factor in, although the SPF record (or lack of it) will. How much access and control do you have on the server itself?" @ John Gardeniers I rent a dedicated server from Codero. Running CentOS 5, WHM + cPanel. I have full root access to the entire thing. Don't know much about MX records and/or SPF records. I just want the PHP mail function to work. It doesn't say much about that on the php mail function's help page. re: "What are you using for the SMTP server?" @ JonLim No idea. I use the code above when I need to fire off an email to a loyal customer, and that's it. Do I need to be worrying about SMTP servers? re: "Could be many, many things. Can you describe how you're sending mail in your code? i.e. are you relaying off of another mail server somewhere, using the local sendmail or postfix? Any consistency in domains that can/cannot receive email? Do you have a PTR record setup from the IP address that you're sending mail out as? What about SPF records?" @ gravyface I just described my simple code above! I believe I have been having the most trouble with Yahoo domains, however "independent" domains (probably running spamassasin) ex. [email protected] as opposed to [email protected] seem to give a lot of trouble as well. I do not know if I have a PTR record setup from the IP address I'm sending my mail from. It's probably the same IP address that I setup my domain on, because I didn't do anything extra special. No idea about SPF records either, where can I go to create one? Side Note: It's a crying shame what havoc the spammers have brought upon our beloved email system.

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• Windows Server 2012 Migration (DNS/AD DS Standard Eval to Essentials OEM) P2V -> Do I need a Secondary Domain Controller during migration?

  - by Aubrey Robertson

  This is my first post on this exchange (although not my first on stack exchange), so please have patience. I am a 3rd year student intern, and I have been tasked with virtualizing the server systems at the company I work for. I have come a long way, and I am almost ready to install the VM Server in migration mode. Here is some information: Source Server: Windows Server 2012 Standard Evaluation DNS Server (local only) Advanced Directory Domain Services File and Storage stuff A few other server roles Destination Server: Windows Server 2012 Essentials OEM (Hyper-V client) Running under a temporary Hyper-V host (will migrate the Hyper-V host back to the old machine after the original server is virtualized as a client). Sitting currently at the "Select Installation Mode" screen. I have been following the guides on Microsoft tech net, and today I spent most of the day getting rid of issues in the Best Practices Analyser on the source machine. I have 3 remaining issues (which are all related): ERROR: DNS: DNS servers on Ethernet (adapter name) should include the loopback address, but not as the first entry (flavour text indicates that, during migration, the DNS server may not be found) WARNING: All domains should have at least two domain controllers for redundancy. WARNING: DNS: Ethernet should be configured to use both a preferred and an alternate DNS Server. All of these issues can be resolved by deploying a secondary domain controller, but I have never done that before (see my concerns below). The main issue here that I am concerned with for installing in migration mode is the FIRST one (the error). If I try and set-up the new server deployment, and the adapter domain controller is listed as localhost, then this may cause the installation to fail. (at least, this is what the Microsoft documentation suggests). But I do not have another IP address to enter here as I have no other local domain controllers. So I did the first obvious thing that came to my mind, and tried to use Google DNS servers as my alternates. That did not work because they couldn't recognize other computers in the "forest". Now I'm no expert when it comes to DNS, so please forgive my ignorance. This DNS server is concerned only with Active Directory stuffs for the local network. If I go ahead with migration, and it fails, then I will just have to go ahead and install a secondary DNS server I suppose. The problem I have here is that I am limited by the amount of Windows Server keys I have available (I have 2); however, I do have access to a Linux box running Debian Wheezy that I set-up two weeks ago as a Mantis server. I could install Windows Server 2012 as a secondary DNS (I think) in a VM and use that, but then it seems like I will be wasting time, and probably the Windows key too, and if there's another way to do it with Linux that would be much better. Even better still, do I even need a secondary DNS server for migration at all? The hints said that during migration the original machine "might" not be found. Thank you for your time and consideration.

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• Symantec Protection Suite and System Recovery 2011 Desktop Edition

  - by rihatum

  I am re-posting this as my previous question was being treated as if I am "Shopping or seeking Product Recommendations" even though I was NOT - BTW they have deleted my comments too which were not offensive in nature. anyway - I have re-phrased some parts of my question and I hope SF Admins "Do Not Modify / Edit" this one - will be most grateful for that. I have a lot of respect for the People who visit this SITE and help others ! Just To clarify : Just to go by SF rules - I am not seeking someone to Design this solution, I am simply seeking real world examples, experiences, technical expert opinions / suggestions, any tips or tricks they may have or any problems they may have faced while doing something similar above with these products. I am also not asking for Capacity Planning for Storage, We have done some research and I am seeking Expert Assurance / Suggestions. We (our company) are planning to deploy Symantec Endpoint Protection and Symantec Desktop Recovery 2011 Desktop Edition to our 3000 - 4000 workstations (Windows7 32 and 64) with a few 100s with Windows XP 32/64 Bit. I have read the implementation guide for SEP and have read tech-notes for Desktop Recovery 2011. Our team have planned to deploy this as follows : 1 x dedicated SQL 2008R2 for Symantec Endpoint Protection (Instead of using the Embedded Database) 1 x Dedicated SQL 2008R2 for Symantec Desktop Recovery 2011 (Instead of using the Embedded Database) 1 x Dedicated W2K8 R2 Box for the SEPM (Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager - Mgmt. APP) 1 x Dedicated W2K8 R2 Box for the Symantec Desktop Recovery 2011 Management Application Agent Deployment : As per Symantec Documentation for both of the above, an agent can be pushed via the Mgmt. Application (provided no firewalls are blocking ports required etc. - we have Windows firewall disabled already). Server Hardware : Per SQL Server : 16GB RAM + SAS DISKS + Dual XEON, RAID-10 for the SQL DB or I can always mount a LUN from our existing Hitachi or EMC SAN. SEPM Server : 16GB RAM + SAS DISKS + DUAL XEON System Recovery MGMT SERVER : 16GB RAM + SAS DISKS + DUAL XEON Above is the initial plan we have for 3000 - 4000 client workstation (Windows) Now my Questions :-) a) If we had these users distributed amongst two sites with AD DC / GC in each site, How would I restrict SEPM and Desktop Mgmt. solution to only check for users in their respective site ? b) At present all users are under one building but we are going to move some dept. to a new location (with dedicated connectivity), How would we control which SEPM / MGMT Server is responsible for which site ? c) We have netbackup in our environment backing up other servers, I am planning to protect these 4 (2 x SQL, 1 x SEPM, 1 x System Recovery Mgmt. Server) via netbackup or I can use System recovery 2011 server edition on all 4 of these boxes as well. (License is not an issue as we have the complete symantec portfolio included in our license). d) Now - Saving Desktop backups - What strategies have you implemented ? Any best practice recommendation for a large user base ? I was thinking to either mount a LUN from our Hitachi SAN on the Symantec Recovery Server itself or backup to the users hard drive locally and then copy it over to a network location ? Suggestions welcome :-) If you have anything to add / correct - that will be really helpful before diving into the actual implementation phase. Will be most grateful with your suggestions, recommendations and corrections with above - Many Thanks !

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• Dell Latitude E6430 Docking Station + Dual Monitor + Laptop Screen Tri-Monitor setup

  - by Larry

  I have a company issued laptop and docking station as well as two monitors The specifications of the hardware are as follows; Laptop: Latitude E6430 BIOS: A02.00 Processor: i7-3720QM CPU @ 2.60 (8 CPUs) Memory: 4096MB RAM Page file: 1825MB used, 4793MB available DirectX 11 Display Driver/Chip: MVIDIA NVS 5200M DAC: Integrated RAMDAC Aprox Total Memory: 2376 (Above 3 details same for both displays) Current Display Mode (Display 1): 1600x900 Current Display Mode (Display 2): 1440x900 the docking station is a Dell Latitude E6420 Docking Station PR03X Port Replicator and I don't think the monitor model is particularly relevant to resolving this issue but they are both Acer V193Ws The story goes like this; the laptop works fine if I VGA one monitor into the laptop through the vga port on the back of the lefthand side of the laptop I can achieve dual monitor display fine (laptop screen + monitor) if I plug the laptop into the docking station and use the vga port in the back of the docking station I can dual monitor fine (laptop screen + monitor) if I plug the laptop into the docking station, the laptop's lefthand side VGA port no longer seems to function at all I've spoken to internal IT about this issue and they're going to get me some kind of VGA splitter or a DVI-VGA adapter to use with the docking station for the second Acer Monitor, but that isn't going to happen for a few days. So I guess what I'm wondering is; is there any way to continue to use the side VGA port on my laptop while using the docking station VGA port? and as a secondary 'followup' pending resolution of the initial issue with getting both monitors up and running (at the moment I have both monitors on my desk but am just using my laptop screen as one of my dual monitor display with one of the monitors [the one connected to dock]), is there any way to CONTINUE to use my laptop monitor to in effect have a triple monitor display (2 monitors + docked laptop)? I am wondering this because internal IT told me that they were aware of some issues with the particular display drivers in my box and triple monitor displays but weren't really going to look TOO much in-depth into that (which is perfectly understandable) since getting the adapter for the dual monitors up and running was the greater priority within their purview. So this is a two parter; Can I dual monitor using two vga cables with 1 docking station vga port and one laptop vga port? is there a setting that can be tweaked somewhere? because plugging the box into the station seems to make the side port stop working and... Is there any reasonably simple and cost-effective work around (e.g. I am find with shelling out maybe a few dollars out of my own pocket for some hardware or software to make my company box tri-display capable) but if this requires some extensive rebuild or new OSs or doing stuff to the BIOS I'd rather have a straight answer about this being untenable as a slight modification to a (once again) company laptop and stop wasting time looking into it Thanks! and please let me know if you guys need any more details (tech specs or something) to answer this question [EDIT] 2/10/2014 Just an update; turned out it really was just a hardware limitation issue. The old laptop just couldn't hack it. Got a new laptop with a better video card and different monitors from my company and am successfully using a triple display currently (2 monitors + laptop screen)

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• What seems to be plaguing my hard drives?

  - by Craig

  In a little bit of a tech nightmare here. I know oodles about software, not so much more than the above average user about hardware. I recently had to toss an old desktop of mine. It was gradually getting slower and slower, and after shutting the desktop down for long periods of time, it would choke up upon startup. Sometimes it'd give a disk read error, sometimes say no OS was found, etc. Restarting it about 5-15 times would eventually boot properly. Weird. I also noticed that startup programs were going missing, Dropbox was reindexing my entire folder, and Backblaze was backing up less than the number of files that it should. This lead me to believe it was probably a hard drive issue. I began to wonder why I'd have hard drive issues, and came to closure when I assumed it was because of recent power surges and outages. I'm sure that does a number on the drive. I bought a new desktop recently. It's not a beast or anything, but it's enough for what I do. It's an eMachines (I know, I know) Ultra-Slim (http://www.amazon.com/eMachines-Ultra-Slim-ER1401-57-Desktop-PC/dp/B00475OG9U). This is ideal for me because it's small and portable. It comes with an AC adapter and battery, like a laptop. Just to be safe, I bought an uninterruptable power supply on top of that. It's basically protected completely from any outages that might scramble the drive. I set this up a few days ago and for the past few days I've been perfecting settings, downloading the usual applications, etc. Two days ago, I noticed Dropbox was reindexing my entire Dropbox folder. I installed both Dropbox and Backblaze on this system, but it is very much more lightweight than the other. Only about 15 third-party applications installed. I thought that maybe Dropbox and Backblaze were stressing my system, so I turned off Backblaze. Still, Dropbox runs and comes across this infinite reindex issue. I noticed that upon a reboot recently, two applications did not start on startup either. Also, much like my old desktop, every 3rd or 4th reboot, I'll be forced into a chkdsk. This makes me incredibly nervous. What could possibly be going wrong with my old, years-old desktop that is immediately causing the same issues to my new one? I've considered all of the basics. I'm in a very air conditioned room. I take run routine virus scans. I'd like to think I take care of my systems very well. What is this issue that is haunting me? There's always the possibility that this new desktop has a junk hard drive, but it just seems way too coincidental.

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• Setting up home DNS with Ubuntu Server

  - by Zeophlite

  I have a webserver (with static IP 192.168.1.5), and I want to have my machines on my local network to be able to access it without modifying /etc/hosts (or equivalent for Windows/OSX). My router has Primary DNS server 192.168.1.5 Secondary DNS server 8.8.8.8 (Google's public DNS). Nginx is set up to server websites externally as *.example.com Internally, I want *.example.local to point to the server. My webserver has BIND9 installed, but I'm unsure of the settings. I've been through various contradicting tutorials, and so most of my settings have been clobbered. I've stripped out the lines which I'm confused about. The tutorials I looked at are http://tech.surveypoint.com/blog/installing-a-local-dns-server-behind-a-hardware-router/ and http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=236093 . They mostly differ on what should be put in /etc/bind/zones/db.example.local and /etc/bind/zones/db.192, so I've left the conflicting lines out below. Can someone suggest what the correct lines are to give my above behaviour (namely *.example.local pointing to 192.168.1.5)? /etc/network/interfaces auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 192.168.1.5 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255 gateway 192.168.1.254 /etc/hostname avalon /etc/resolv.conf # Dynamic resolv.conf(5) file for glibc resolver(3) generated by resolvconf(8) # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE BY HAND -- YOUR CHANGES WILL BE OVERWRITTEN /etc/bind/named.conf.options options { directory "/var/cache/bind"; forwarders { 8.8.8.8; 8.8.4.4; }; dnssec-validation auto; auth-nxdomain no; # conform to RFC1035 listen-on-v6 { any; }; }; /etc/bind/named.conf.local zone "example.local" { type master; file "/etc/bind/zones/db.example.local"; }; zone "1.168.192.in-addr.arpa" { type master; file "/etc/bind/zones/db.192"; }; /etc/bind/zones/db.example.local $TTL 604800 @ IN SOA avalon.example.local. webadmin.example.local. ( 5 ; Serial, increment each edit 604800 ; Refresh 86400 ; Retry 2419200 ; Expire 604800 ) ; Negative Cache TTL /etc/bind/zones/db.192 $TTL 604800 @ IN SOA avalon.example.local. webadmin.example.local. ( 4 ; Serial, increment each edit 604800 ; Refresh 86400 ; Retry 2419200 ; Expire 604800 ) ; Negative Cache TTL ; What do I need to add to the above files so that on a laptop on the internal network, I can type in webapp.example.local, and be served by my webserver? EDIT I made several changes to the above files on the webserver. /etc/network/interfaces (end of file) dns-nameservers 127.0.0.1 dns-search example.local /etc/bind/zones/db.example.local (end of file) @ IN NS avalon.example.local. @ IN A 192.168.1.5 avalon IN A 192.168.1.5 webapp IN A 192.168.1.5 www IN CNAME 192.168.1.5 /etc/bind/zones/db.192 (end of file) IN NS avalon.example.local. 73 IN PTR avalon.example.local. As a side note, my spare Win7 machine was able to connect directly to webapp.example.local, but for a Ubuntu 13.10 machine, I had to make the following changes as well (not on the webserver, but on a separate machine): /etc/nsswitch.conf before hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4 after hosts: files dns /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf before dns=dnsmasq after #dns=dnsmasq The issue remains that its not wildcard DNS, and so I have to add entries to /etc/bind/zones/db.example.local for webapp1, webapp2, ...

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• My PC suddenly doesn't detect the primary drive (SSD)

  - by smoth190

  My computer has been working fine for months, and it worked today, but tonight I went to start it up to find that my OCZ Vertex 2 isn't being found. When I turn on my computer, the loading screen gets stuck at "Detecting IDE drives...". After a while, it keeps going and lists the drives it finds. The first one in the list should be my Vertex 2, but it just says "None". The computer proceeds to get stuck on "Loading operating system...", which is understandable because the drive with the OS is "gone". My first thought was drive failure, but every time drives have crashed on me, they're still detected--they just don't work. This drive is an SSD, it's pretty new, and I had no problems beforehand. I find it hard to believe it failed. I'm sure it's possible, but I hope this isn't the case. There has been nothing strange going on at all with my PC, it's been running perfect until now. I was just about to do my monthly dskchk and defrag today. I popped in my Windows 7 Home Premium disk and booted from it. When I launched the repair tool, it didn't list any operating systems (because the drive is 100% missing...). When I've had disks crash before, it still listed the OS, you just couldn't do anything with it. I tried to restore from an image, but I don't have any of those, either. I opened the command console and listed the drivers with wmic logicaldisk get name. Only C: and D: came up. C: was my 1TB storage driver (luckily, all my stuff is here--only the OS is on the SSD!) and D: was the disk driver. So I still had an MIA drive... The SSD didn't come with any driver disks, so I can't install drivers. If there's a way to do this from a CD I can burn with my other PC, please let me know. What the heck do I do? Although only the OS is on my SSD, a new SSD is expensive. I'll probably also have to buy a new copy of Windows (an upgrade would be nice, though...) because I've found it eats my registration key when my PC crashes (and my thousands of dollars of Adobe programs, I'll be on the phone with tech support for a week to get those keys back). And I'll lose my registry, all my settings, all sorts of other stuff that I'll spend weeks restoring. My computer is a pain in the butt to take out and open up, so if I can't fix it, I'll try fiddling with the plug or putting it into a new computer, but not right now. Any help is greatly appreciated! The day when they make crash-less drives will be the day I live without worry.

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• Week in Geek: USDA Chooses Microsoft for Cloud Services Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to create geeky LED holiday lights with old bottles, dig deeper in Windows Defrag via the command prompt, use Google Chrome’s drag/drop feature to upload files easier, find great gift recommendations by looking through the How-To Geek holiday gift guide, and have fun adding Merry Christmas fonts to our computers. Photo by ntr23. Random Geek Links It has been a busy week, so we have extra news link goodness with information that is good for you to know. USDA making the move to Microsoft The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that it has chosen Microsoft to host things like e-mail, instant messaging, and collaboration through the software giant’s Business Productivity Online Suite. Google says it was cut off from USDA project bid Google is claiming that it was not given a chance to bid on a cloud-computing project for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for which the contract was awarded to rival Microsoft. Apache is being forced into a Java Fork When Oracle rolled over Apache and Google’s objections to its Java plans in December, the scene was set for Apache to leave and, eventually, force a Java code fork. Tumblr explains daylong outage After experiencing an outage that started on Sunday afternoon and stretched through most of the day yesterday, Tumblr has explained what happened. Google demos Chrome OS, launches pilot program During a press briefing this week in San Francisco, Google launched the Chrome application store and demonstrated Chrome OS, its browser-centric netbook operating system. Don’t expect Spotify in U.S. this holiday season As of last week, Spotify had yet to sign a single licensing deal with a major label, after spending more than a year negotiating, multiple music sources told CNET. December 2010 Patch Tuesday will come with most bulletins ever According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue 17 Security Bulletins addressing 40 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, December 14. It will also host a webcast to address customer questions the following day. Hacker plants back door in Symbian firmware Indian hacker Atul Alex has had a look at the firmware for Symbian S60 smartphones and come up with a back door for it. PC quarantines raise tough complexities The concept of quarantining PCs to prevent widespread infection is “interesting, but difficult to implement, with far too many problems”, said security experts. Symantec: DDoS attacks hard to defend It has surfaced that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Visa and MasterCard Web sites on Wednesday were carried out by a toolkit known as low orbit ion cannon (LOIC). Web Sockets and the risks of unfinished standards Enthusiasm for a promising new standard called Web Sockets has quickly cooled in some quarters as a potential security problem led some browser makers to hastily postpone support. Internet Explorer 9 to get tracking protection Microsoft is making changes to Internet Explorer 9’s security features that will better enable users to keep sites from tracking their activity across browsing sessions. NASA sold PCs with sensitive data NASA failed to remove sensitive data from computers that it sold, according to an audit report released this week. Cybercrooks create fake Amazon receipts The bad guys have created yet another online scam, this one involving fake Amazon receipts. World of Warcraft character move fees waived Until December 22, Blizzard will allow free realm transfers from 25 highly populated servers to alleviate log-in queues or performance issues. (The free transfers are one-way and one-time only.) SpaceX Dragon reaches orbit atop a Falcon with a fiery tail The Space Exploration Technologies corporation has become the first nongovernmental entity to put a vehicle into low Earth orbit. Geek Video of the Week If birds have wings, then why are the Angry Birds using slingshots? Photo by Dorkly Bits. Wait… Birds have Wings, Why are the Angry Ones Using Slingshots? Sysadmin Geek Tips How To Setup Email Alerts on Linux Using Gmail or SMTP Linux machines may require administrative intervention in countless ways, but without manually logging into them how would you know about it? Here’s how to setup emails to get notified when your machines want some tender love and attention. Random TinyHacker Links Red Panda Webcam Support Firefox and the Knoxville Zoo’s Red Panda program. Christmas Icons (Icons we like) Superb set of holiday icons by lgp85 at deviantArt. Download the .zip and use as .png or convert to .ico at Convertico.com or with tiny app Imagicon. Super User Questions Enjoy reading the great answers to this week’s popular questions from Super User Useful USB boot disks? DVD/CD burning .zip: is it more reliable, faster, longer lasting to burn a zip of files rather than the files as a folder? What are other ways to backup my files if I do not have an external drive? Anti virus what is the difference between these all? How can I block all Facebook elements/content? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Have you had a busy week between work and preparing for the holidays? Get caught up on your HTG reading with our hottest articles of the week. 20 Windows Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology HTG Explains: Which Linux File System Should You Choose? How to Use and Customize Google Chrome Web Apps One Year Ago on How-To Geek This week’s batch of retro geeky goodness is all about customizing Windows 7. ClassicShell Adds Classic Start Menu and Explorer Features to Windows 7 Get an Aero-Styled Classic Start Menu in Windows 7 Customize the Windows 7 Logon Screen Get the Classic Style Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7 How To Enable Check Boxes for Items In Windows 7 The Geek Note We would like you to join us in welcoming Jason Fitzpatrick to the writing staff here at How-To Geek. He started with us this past week, so take some time to read through his articles about the Wii, Kindle, & PlayStation 2 Peripherals and leave a friendly comment to say “Hi”! Got a great tip to share? Make sure to send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by real00. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek Settle into Orbit with the Voyage Theme for Chrome and Iron Awesome Safari Compass Icons Set Escape from the Exploding Planet Wallpaper Move Your Tumblr Blog to WordPress Pytask is an Easy to Use To-Do List Manager for Your Ubuntu System Snowy Christmas House Personas Theme for Firefox

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• Week in Geek: FBI Back Door in OpenBSD Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to migrate bookmarks from Delicious to Diigo, fix annoying arrows, play old-school DOS games, schedule smart computer shutdowns, use breaks in Microsoft Word to better format documents, check the condition of hard-disks using Linux disk utilities, & what the Linux fstab is and how it works. Photo by Jameson42. Random Geek Links Another week with extra news link goodness to help keep you up to date. Photo by justmakeit. Report of FBI back door roils OpenBSD community Allegations that the FBI surreptitiously placed a back door into the OpenBSD operating system have alarmed the computer security community, prompting calls for an audit of the source code and claims that the charges must be a hoax. Fortinet: Job outlook improving for cybercrooks In an ironic twist in the job market, more positions will open up for developers who can write customized malware packers, people who can break CAPTCHA codes, and distributors who can spread malicious code, according to Fortinet. Enisa: Malware for smartphones is a ’serious risk’ Businesses and consumers are at risk of data breaches through smartphone use, according to the European Network and Information Security Agency. The trick with the f: Google and Microsoft web sites distribute malware Last week, Google’s DoubleClick advertising platform and Microsoft’s rad.msn.com online ad network briefly distributed malware to other web sites in the form of advertising banners. New scam tactic: Fake disk defraggers It would appear that scammers are trying out new programs to see which might best confuse potential victims and evade detection by legitimate antivirus software. Microsoft closes IE and Stuxnet holes As previously announced, Microsoft has released 17 security updates to close 40 security holes. All four Windows holes so far disclosed in connection with Stuxnet have now been closed. Microsoft Offers H.264 Support to Firefox on Windows via Add-On The new HTML5 Extension for Windows Media Player Firefox Plug-in add-on from Microsoft offers users that are running Firefox on Windows 7 H.264 support for HTML5 video playback. Google proclaims Chrome business-ready Google has announced that Chrome is ready for corporate use. Microsoft Tells Exchange Customers to Think Twice Before Opting for Google Message Continuity This week, Microsoft is telling companies still running Exchange 2010’s precursors that they should carefully consider the implications of embracing Google Message Continuity. Who Google has in mind for its Chrome OS users Steven Vaughan-Nichols explains why he feels that Chrome OS will be ideal for either office-workers or people who need a computer, but do not know the first thing about how to use one safely. Oracle takes office suite to the cloud Oracle has introduced Cloud Office 1.0, a cloud-based version of its office suite, which is aimed at web and mobile users. Mozilla pays premiums for reports of vulnerabilities The Mozilla Foundation has followed Google’s example by expanding its rewards program for reports of vulnerabilities in its Web applications. Who bought those 882 Novell patents? Not just Microsoft The mysterious CPTN Holdings — the organization that bought the 882 Novell patents as part of the terms of the Attachmate acquisition of Novell – has been unmasked (Microsoft, Apple, EMC and Oracle). Appeals court: Feds need warrants for e-mail Police must obtain search warrants before perusing Internet users’ e-mail records, a federal appeals court ruled today in a landmark decision that struck down part of a 1986 law allowing warrantless access. Geek Video of the Week What happens when someone plays a wicked prank by shoveling crazy snow paths that lead to dead ends or turn back on themselves? Watch to find out! Photo by CollegeHumor. Janitor Snow Shoveling Prank Random TinyHacker Links The Oatmeal on Cat vs Internet What lengths will our poor neglected kitty hero have to go to in order to get some attention? Guide On Using JoliCloud With Windows JoliCloud is a nifty operating system that’s made for people who need a light-weight OS that’s mostly cloud based. Check this guide on using it with Windows. Use Cameyo to Easily Create Portable Programs Here’s a nifty tool to make portable apps out of programs in Windows. Check out the guide to do it. Better Family Tech Support A nice new site by Google to help members of family understand how computers work. Track Your Stolen Mobile Phone With F-Secure A useful anti-theft tool for your mobile phone. Super User Questions Another week with great answers to popular questions from Super User. What Chrome password manager fits my requirements? What’s the best way to be able to reimage windows computers? Could you suggest feature-rich disk-based personal backup program for linux (and I’ve seen a few)? What is IPv6 and why should I care? Is there any way to find out what programs are trying to connect to Internet on windows? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Here are our hottest articles full of geeky goodness from this past week at HTG. 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 Kills Viruses Dead. Download It Now. Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? Ask the Readers: Would You Be Willing to Give Windows Up and Use a Different O.S.? The Twelve Days of Geekmas One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy reading through our latest batch of retro-geek goodness from one year ago. Macrium Reflect is a Free and Easy To Use Backup Utility How To Turn a Physical Computer Into A Virtual Machine with Disk2vhd How To Restore Windows 7 from a System Image How To Manage Hard Drive Space Used by Windows 7 Backup and Restore How To Manage Hibernate Mode in Windows 7 The Geek Note That is all we have for you this week, so see you back here again after the holidays! Got a great tip? Send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by mitjamavsar. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Deathwing the Destroyer – WoW Cataclysm Dragon Wallpaper Drag2Up Lets You Drag and Drop Files to the Web With Ease The Spam Police Parts 1 and 2 – Goodbye Spammers [Videos] Snow Angels Theme for Windows 7 Exploring the Jungle Ruins Wallpaper Protect Your Privacy When Browsing with Chrome and Iron Browser

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• Week in Geek: 4chan Falls Victim to DDoS Attack Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to tweak the low battery action on a Windows 7 laptop, access an eBook collection anywhere in the world, “extend iPad battery life, batch resize photos, & sync massive music collections”, went on a reign of destruction with Snow Crusher, and had fun decorating our desktops with abstract icon collections. Photo by pasukaru76. Random Geek Links We have included extra news article goodness to help you catch up on any developments that you may have missed during the holiday break this past week. Note: The three 27C3 articles listed here represent three different presentations at the 27th Chaos Communication Congress hacker conference. 4chan victim of DDoS as FBI investigates role in PayPal attack Users of 4chan may have gotten a taste of their own medicine after the site was knocked offline by a DDoS attack from an unknown origin early Thursday morning. Report: FBI seizes server in probe of WikiLeaks attacks The FBI has seized a server in Texas as part of its hunt for the groups behind the pro-WikiLeaks denial-of-service attacks launched in December against PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and others. Mozilla exposes older user-account database Mozilla has disabled 44,000 older user accounts for its Firefox add-ons site after a security researcher found part of a database of the account information on a publicly available server. Data breach affects 4.9 million Honda customers Japanese automaker Honda has put some 2.2 million customers in the United States on a security breach alert after a database containing information on the owners and their cars was hacked. Chinese Trojan discovered in Android games An Android-based Trojan called “Geinimi” has been discovered in the wild and the Trojan is capable of sending personal information to remote servers and exhibits botnet-like behavior. 27C3 presentation claims many mobiles vulnerable to SMS attacks According to security experts, an ‘SMS of death’ threatens to disable many current Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, Micromax and LG mobiles. 27C3: GSM cell phones even easier to tap Security researchers have demonstrated how open source software on a number of revamped, entry-level cell phones can decrypt and record mobile phone calls in the GSM network. 27C3: danger lurks in PDF documents Security researcher Julia Wolf has pointed out numerous, previously hardly known, security problems in connection with Adobe’s PDF standard. Critical update for WordPress A critical update has been made available for WordPress in the form of version 3.0.4. The update fixes a security bug in WordPress’s KSES library. McAfee Labs Predicts Geolocation, Mobile Devices and Apple Will Top the List of Targets for Emerging Threats in 2011 The list comprises 2010’s most buzzed about platforms and services, including Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone, foursquare, Google TV and the Mac OS X platform, which are all expected to become major targets for cybercriminals. McAfee Labs also predicts that politically motivated attacks will be on the rise. Windows Phone 7 piracy materializes with FreeMarketplace A proof-of-concept application, FreeMarketplace, that allows any Windows Phone 7 application to be downloaded and installed free of charge has been developed. Empty email accounts, and some bad buzz for Hotmail In the past few days, a number of Hotmail users have been complaining about a rather disconcerting issue: their Hotmail accounts, some up to 10 years old, appear completely empty.  No emails, no folders, nothing, just what appears to be a new account. Reports: Nintendo warns of 3DS risk for kids Nintendo has reportedly issued a warning that the 3DS, its eagerly awaited glasses-free 3D portable gaming device, should not be used by children under 6 when the gadget is in 3D-viewing mode. Google eyes ‘cloaking’ as next antispam target Google plans to take a closer look at the practice of “cloaking,” or presenting one look to a Googlebot crawling one’s site while presenting another look to users. Facebook, Twitter stock trading drawing SEC eye? The high degree of investor interest in shares of hot Silicon Valley companies that aren’t yet publicly traded–like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Zynga–may be leading to scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Random TinyHacker Links Photo by jcraveiro. Exciting Software Set for Release in 2011 A few bloggers from great websites such as How-To Geek, Guiding Tech and 7 Tutorials took the time to sit down and talk about their software wishes for 2011. Take the time to read it and share… Wikileaks Infopr0n An infographic detailing the quest to plug WikiLeaks. The New York Times Guide to Mobile Apps A growing collection of all mobile app coverage by the New York Times as well as lists of favorite apps from Times writers. 7,000,000,000 (Video) A fascinating look at the world’s population via National Geographic Magazine. Super User Questions Check out the great answers to these hot questions from Super User. How to use a Personal computer as a Linux web server for development purposes? How to link processing power of old computers together? Free virtualization tool for testing suspicious files? Why do some actions not work with Remote Desktop? What is the simplest way to send a large batch of pictures to a distant friend or colleague? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Had a busy week and need to get caught up on your HTG reading? Then sit back and relax while enjoying these hot posts full of how-to roundup goodness. The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 How to Search Just the Site You’re Viewing Using Google Search Ask the Readers: Backing Your Files Up – Local Storage versus the Cloud One Year Ago on How-To Geek Need more how-to geekiness for your weekend? Then look through this great batch of articles from one year ago that focus on dual-booting and O.S. installation goodness. Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Vista Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with XP How To Setup a USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 7 Dual Boot Your Pre-Installed Windows 7 Computer with Ubuntu Easily Install Ubuntu Linux with Windows Using the Wubi Installer The Geek Note We hope that you and your families have had a terrific holiday break as everyone prepares to return to work and school this week. Remember to keep those great tips coming in to us at [email protected]! Photo by pjbeardsley. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 The 50 Best How-To Geek Windows Articles of 2010 The 20 Best How-To Geek Explainer Topics for 2010 How to Disable Caps Lock Key in Windows 7 or Vista How to Use the Avira Rescue CD to Clean Your Infected PC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Tune Pop Enhances Android Music Notifications Another Busy Night in Gotham City Wallpaper Classic Super Mario Brothers Theme for Chrome and Iron Experimental Firefox Builds Put Tabs on the Title Bar (Available for Download) Android Trojan Found in the Wild Chaos, Panic, and Disorder Wallpaper

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• Adding DTrace Probes to PHP Extensions

  - by cj

  The powerful DTrace tracing facility has some PHP-specific probes that can be enabled with --enable-dtrace. DTrace for Linux is being created by Oracle and is currently in tech preview. Currently it doesn't support userspace tracing so, in the meantime, Systemtap can be used to monitor the probes implemented in PHP. This was recently outlined in David Soria Parra's post Probing PHP with Systemtap on Linux. My post shows how DTrace probes can be added to PHP extensions and traced on Linux. I was using Oracle Linux 6.3. Not all Linux kernels are built with Systemtap, since this can impact stability. Check whether your running kernel (or others installed) have Systemtap enabled, and reboot with such a kernel: # grep CONFIG_UTRACE /boot/config-`uname -r` # grep CONFIG_UTRACE /boot/config-* When you install Systemtap itself, the package systemtap-sdt-devel is needed since it provides the sdt.h header file: # yum install systemtap-sdt-devel You can now install and build PHP as shown in David's article. Basically the build is with: $ cd ~/php-src $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-dtrace $ make (For me, running 'make' a second time failed with an error. The workaround is to do 'git checkout Zend/zend_dtrace.d' and then rerun 'make'. See PHP Bug 63704) David's article shows how to trace the probes already implemented in PHP. You can also use Systemtap to trace things like userspace PHP function calls. For example, create test.php: <?php $c = oci_connect('hr', 'welcome', 'localhost/orcl'); $s = oci_parse($c, "select dbms_xmlgen.getxml('select * from dual') xml from dual"); $r = oci_execute($s); $row = oci_fetch_array($s, OCI_NUM); $x = $row[0]->load(); $row[0]->free(); echo $x; ?> The normal output of this file is the XML form of Oracle's DUAL table: $ ./sapi/cli/php ~/test.php <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> To trace the PHP function calls, create the tracing file functrace.stp: probe process("sapi/cli/php").function("zif_*") { printf("Started function %s\n", probefunc()); } probe process("sapi/cli/php").function("zif_*").return { printf("Ended function %s\n", probefunc()); } This makes use of the way PHP userspace functions (not builtins) like oci_connect() map to C functions with a "zif_" prefix. Login as root, and run System tap on the PHP script: # cd ~cjones/php-src # stap -c 'sapi/cli/php ~cjones/test.php' ~cjones/functrace.stp Started function zif_oci_connect Ended function zif_oci_connect Started function zif_oci_parse Ended function zif_oci_parse Started function zif_oci_execute Ended function zif_oci_execute Started function zif_oci_fetch_array Ended function zif_oci_fetch_array Started function zif_oci_lob_load <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> Ended function zif_oci_lob_load Started function zif_oci_free_descriptor Ended function zif_oci_free_descriptor Each call and return is logged. The Systemtap scripting language allows complex scripts to be built. There are many examples on the web. To augment this generic capability and the PHP probes in PHP, other extensions can have probes too. Below are the steps I used to add probes to OCI8: I created a provider file ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace.d, enabling three probes. The first one will accept a parameter that runtime tracing can later display: provider php { probe oci8__connect(char *username); probe oci8__nls_start(); probe oci8__nls_done(); }; I updated ext/oci8/config.m4 with the PHP_INIT_DTRACE macro. The patch is at the end of config.m4. The macro takes the provider prototype file, a name of the header file that 'dtrace' will generate, and a list of sources files with probes. When --enable-dtrace is used during PHP configuration, then the outer $PHP_DTRACE check is true and my new probes will be enabled. I've chosen to define an OCI8 specific macro, HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE, which can be used in the OCI8 source code: diff --git a/ext/oci8/config.m4 b/ext/oci8/config.m4 index 34ae76c..f3e583d 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/config.m4 +++ b/ext/oci8/config.m4 @@ -341,4 +341,17 @@ if test "$PHP_OCI8" != "no"; then PHP_SUBST_OLD(OCI8_ORACLE_VERSION) fi + + if test "$PHP_DTRACE" = "yes"; then + AC_CHECK_HEADERS([sys/sdt.h], [ + PHP_INIT_DTRACE([ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace.d], + [ext/oci8/oci8_dtrace_gen.h],[ext/oci8/oci8.c]) + AC_DEFINE(HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE,1, + [Whether to enable DTrace support for OCI8 ]) + ], [ + AC_MSG_ERROR( + [Cannot find sys/sdt.h which is required for DTrace support]) + ]) + fi + fi In ext/oci8/oci8.c, I added the probes at, for this example, semi-arbitrary places: diff --git a/ext/oci8/oci8.c b/ext/oci8/oci8.c index e2241cf..ffa0168 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/oci8.c +++ b/ext/oci8/oci8.c @@ -1811,6 +1811,12 @@ php_oci_connection *php_oci_do_connect_ex(char *username, int username_len, char } } +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT(username); + } +#endif + /* Initialize global handles if they weren't initialized before */ if (OCI_G(env) == NULL) { php_oci_init_global_handles(TSRMLS_C); @@ -1870,11 +1876,22 @@ php_oci_connection *php_oci_do_connect_ex(char *username, int username_len, char size_t rsize = 0; sword result; +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_START_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_START(); + } +#endif PHP_OCI_CALL_RETURN(result, OCINlsEnvironmentVariableGet, (&charsetid_nls_lang, 0, OCI_NLS_CHARSET_ID, 0, &rsize)); if (result != OCI_SUCCESS) { charsetid_nls_lang = 0; } smart_str_append_unsigned_ex(&hashed_details, charsetid_nls_lang, 0); + +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE + if (DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_DONE_ENABLED()) { + DTRACE_OCI8_NLS_DONE(); + } +#endif } timestamp = time(NULL); The oci_connect(), oci_pconnect() and oci_new_connect() calls all use php_oci_do_connect_ex() internally. The first probe simply records that the PHP application made a connection call. I already showed a way to do this without needing a probe, but adding a specific probe lets me record the username. The other two probes can be used to time how long the globalization initialization takes. The relationships between the oci8_dtrace.d names like oci8__connect, the probe guards like DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT_ENABLED() and probe names like DTRACE_OCI8_CONNECT() are obvious after seeing the pattern of all three probes. I included the new header that will be automatically created by the dtrace tool when PHP is built. I did this in ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h: diff --git a/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h b/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h index b0d6516..c81fc5a 100644 --- a/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h +++ b/ext/oci8/php_oci8_int.h @@ -44,6 +44,10 @@ # endif # endif /* osf alpha */ +#ifdef HAVE_OCI8_DTRACE +#include "oci8_dtrace_gen.h" +#endif + #if defined(min) #undef min #endif Now PHP can be rebuilt: $ cd ~/php-src $ rm configure && ./buildconf --force $ ./configure --disable-all --enable-dtrace \ --with-oci8=instantclient,/home/cjones/instantclient $ make If 'make' fails, do the 'git checkout Zend/zend_dtrace.d' trick I mentioned. The new probes can be seen by logging in as root and running: # stap -l 'process.provider("php").mark("oci8*")' -c 'sapi/cli/php -i' process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__connect") process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__nls_done") process("sapi/cli/php").provider("php").mark("oci8__nls_start") To test them out, create a new trace file, oci.stp: global numconnects; global start; global numcharlookups = 0; global tottime = 0; probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-connect") { printf("Connected as %s\n", user_string($arg1)); numconnects += 1; } probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-nls_start") { start = gettimeofday_us(); numcharlookups++; } probe process.provider("php").mark("oci8-nls_done") { tottime += gettimeofday_us() - start; } probe end { printf("Connects: %d, Charset lookups: %ld\n", numconnects, numcharlookups); printf("Total NLS charset initalization time: %ld usecs/connect\n", (numcharlookups 0 ? tottime/numcharlookups : 0)); } This calculates the average time that the NLS character set lookup takes. It also prints out the username of each connection, as an example of using parameters. Login as root and run Systemtap over the PHP script: # cd ~cjones/php-src # stap -c 'sapi/cli/php ~cjones/test.php' ~cjones/oci.stp Connected as cj <?xml version="1.0"?> <ROWSET> <ROW> <DUMMY>X</DUMMY> </ROW> </ROWSET> Connects: 1, Charset lookups: 1 Total NLS charset initalization time: 164 usecs/connect This shows the time penalty of making OCI8 look up the default character set. This time would be zero if a character set had been passed as the fourth argument to oci_connect() in test.php.

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• Another Marketing Conference, part two – the afternoon

  - by Roger Hart

  In my previous post, I’ve covered the morning sessions at AMC2012. Here’s the rest of the write-up. I’ve skipped Charles Nixon’s session which was a blend of funky futurism and professional development advice, but you can see his slides here. I’ve also skipped the Google presentation, as it was a little thin on insight. 6 – Brand ambassadors: Getting universal buy in across the organisation, Vanessa Northam Slides are here This was the strongest enforcement of the idea that brand and campaign values need to be delivered throughout the organization if they’re going to work. Vanessa runs internal communications at e-on, and shared her experience of using internal comms to align an organization and thereby get the most out of a campaign. She views the purpose of internal comms as: “…to help leaders, to communicate the purpose and future of an organization, and support change.” This (and culture) primes front line staff, which creates customer experience and spreads brand. You ensure a whole organization knows what’s going on with both internal and external comms. If everybody is aligned and informed, if everybody can clearly articulate your brand and campaign goals, then you can turn everybody into an advocate. Alignment is a powerful tool for delivering a consistent experience and message. The pathological counter example is the one in which a marketing message goes out, which creates inbound customer contacts that front line contact staff haven’t been briefed to handle. The NatWest campaign was again mentioned in this context. The good example was e-on’s cheaper tariff campaign. Building a groundswell of internal excitement, and even running an internal launch meant everyone could contribute to a good customer experience. They found that meter readers were excited – not a group they’d considered as obvious in providing customer experience. But they were a group that has a lot of face-to-face contact with customers, and often were asked questions they may not have been briefed to answer. Being able to communicate a simple new message made it easier for them, and also let them become a sales and marketing asset to the organization. 7 – Goodbye Internet, Hello Outernet: the rise and rise of augmented reality, Matt Mills I wasn’t going to write this up, because it was essentially a sales demo for Aurasma. But the technology does merit some discussion. Basically, it replaces QR codes with visual recognition, and provides a simple-looking back end for attaching content. It’s quite sexy. But here’s my beef with it: QR codes had a clear visual language – when you saw one you knew what it was and what to do with it. They were clunky, but they had the “getting started” problem solved out of the box once you knew what you were looking at. However, they fail because QR code reading isn’t native to the platform. You needed an app, which meant you needed to know to download one. Consequentially, you can’t use QR codes with and ubiquity, or depend on them. This means marketers, content providers, etc, never pushed them, and they remained and awkward oddity, a minority sport. Aurasma half solves problem two, and re-introduces problem one, making it potentially half as useful as a QR code. It’s free, and you can apparently build it into your own apps. Add to that the likelihood of it becoming native to the platform if it takes off, and it may have legs. I guess we’ll see. 8 – We all need to code, Helen Mayor Great title – good point. If there was anybody in the room who didn’t at least know basic HTML, and if Helen’s presentation inspired them to learn, that’s fantastic. However, this was a half hour sales pitch for a basic coding training course. Beyond advocating coding skills it contained no useful content. Marketers may also like to consider some of these resources if they’re looking to learn code: Code Academy – free interactive tutorials Treehouse – learn web design, web dev, or app dev WebPlatform.org – tutorials and documentation for web tech  11 – Understanding our inner creativity, Margaret Boden This session was the most theoretical and probably least actionable of the day. It also held my attention utterly. Margaret spoke fluently, fascinatingly, without slides, on the subject of types of creativity and how they work. It was splendid. Yes, it raised a wry smile whenever she spoke of “the content of advertisements” and gave an example from 1970s TV ads, but even without the attempt to meet the conference’s theme this would have been thoroughly engaging. There are, Margaret suggested, three types of creativity: Combinatorial creativity The most common form, and consisting of synthesising ideas from existing and familiar concepts and tropes. Exploratory creativity Less common, this involves exploring the limits and quirks of a particular constraint or style. Transformational creativity This is uncommon, and arises from finding a way to do something that the existing rules would hold to be impossible. In essence, this involves breaking one of the constraints that exploratory creativity is composed from. Combinatorial creativity, she suggested, is particularly important for attaching favourable ideas to existing things. As such is it probably worth developing for marketing. Exploratory creativity may then come into play in something like developing and optimising an idea or campaign that now has momentum. Transformational creativity exists at the edges of this exploration. She suggested that products may often be transformational, but that marketing seemed unlikely to in her experience. This made me wonder about Listerine. Crucially, transformational creativity is characterised by there being some element of continuity with the strictures of previous thinking. Once it has happened, there may be  move from a revolutionary instance into an explored style. Again, from a marketing perspective, this seems to chime well with the thinking in Youngme Moon’s book: Different Talking about the birth of Modernism is visual art, Margaret pointed out that transformational creativity has historically risked a backlash, demanding what is essentially an education of the market. This is best accomplished by referring back to the continuities with the past in order to make the new familiar. Thoughts The afternoon is harder to sum up than the morning. It felt less concrete, and was troubled by a short run of poor presentations in the middle. Mainly, I found myself wrestling with the internal comms issue. It’s one of those things that seems astonishingly obvious in hindsight, but any campaign – particularly any large one – is doomed if the people involved can’t believe in it. We’ve run things here that haven’t gone so well, of course we have; who hasn’t? I’m not going to air any laundry, but people not being informed (much less aligned) feels like a common factor. It’s tough though. Managing and anticipating information needs across an organization of any size can’t be easy. Even the simple things like ensuring sales and support departments know what’s in a product release, and what messages go with it are easy to botch. The thing I like about framing this as a brand and campaign advocacy problem is that it makes it likely to get addressed. Better is always sexier than less-worse. Any technical communicator who’s ever felt crowded out by a content strategist or marketing copywriter  knows this – increasing revenue gets a seat at the table far more readily than reducing support costs, even if the financial impact is identical. So that’s it from AMC. The big thought-provokers were social buying behaviour and eliciting behaviour change, and the value of internal communications in ensuring successful campaigns and continuity of customer experience. I’ll be chewing over that for a while, and I’d definitely return next year.      

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• SharePoint – The Most Important Feature

  - by Bil Simser

  Watching twitter and doing a search for SharePoint and you see a lot (almost one every few minutes) of tweets about the top 10 new features in SharePoint. What answer do you get when you ask the question, “What’s the most important feature in SharePoint?”. Chances are the answer will vary. Some will say it’s the collaboration aspect, others might say it’s the new ribbon interface, multi-item editing, external content types, faceted search, large list support, document versioning, Silverlight, etc. The list goes on. However I think most people might be missing the most important feature that’s sitting right under their noses all this time. The most important feature of SharePoint? It’s called User Empowerment. Huh? What? Is that something I find in the Site Actions menu? Nope. It’s something that’s always been there in SharePoint, you just need to get the word out and support it. How many times have you had a team ask you for a team site (assuming you had SharePoint up and running). Or to create them a contact list. Or how long have you employed that guy in the corner who’s been copying and pasting content from Corporate Communications into the web from a Word document. Let’s stop the insanity. It doesn’t have to be this way. SharePoint’s strongest feature isn’t anything you can find in the Site Settings screen or Central Admin. It’s all about empowering your users and letting them take control of their content. After all, SharePoint really is a bunch of tools to allow users to collaborate on content isn’t it? So why are you stepping in as IT and helping the user every moment along the way. It’s like having to ask users to fill out a help desk ticket or call up the Windows team to create a folder on their desktop or rearrange their Start menu. This isn’t something IT should be spending their time doing nor is it something the users should be burdened with having to wait until their friendly neighborhood tech-guy (or gal) shows up to help them sort the icons on their desktop. SharePoint IS all about empowerment. Site owners can create whatever lists and libraries they need for their team, and if the template isn’t there they can always turn to my friend and yours, the Custom List. From that can spew forth approval tracking systems, new hire checklists, and server inventory. You’re only limited by your imagination and needs. Users should be able to create new sites as they need. Want a blog to let everyone know what your team is up to? Go create one, here’s how. What’s a blog you ask? Here’s what it is and why you would use one. SharePoint is the shift in the balance of power and you need, and an IT group, let go of certain responsibilities and let your users run with the tools. A power user who knows how to create sites and what features are available to them can help a team go from the forming stage to the storming stage overnight. Again, this all hinges on you as an IT organization and what you can and empower your users with as far as features go. Running with tools is great if you know how to use them, running with scissors not recommended unless you enjoy trips to the hospital. With Great Power comes Great Responsibility so don’t go out on Monday and send out a memo to the organization saying “This Bil guy says you peeps can do anything so here it is, knock yourself out” (for one, they’ll have *no* idea who this Bil guy is). This advice comes with the task of getting your users ready for empowerment. Whether it’s through some kind of internal training sessions, in-house documentation; videos; blog posts; on how to accomplish things in SharePoint, or full blown one-on-one sit downs with teams or individuals to help them through their problems. The work is up to you. Helping them along also should be part of your governance (you do have one don’t you?). Just because you have InfoPath client deployed with your Office suite, doesn’t mean users should just start publishing forms all over your SharePoint farm. There should be some governance behind that in what you’ll support and what is possible. The other caveat to all this is that SharePoint is not everything for everyone. It can’t cook you breakfast and impregnate your cat or solve world hunger. It also isn’t suited for every IT solution out there. It’s a horrible source control system (even though some people try to use it as such) and really can’t do financials worth a darn. Again, governance is key here and part of that governance and your responsibility in setting up and unleashing SharePoint into your organization is to provide users guidance on what should be in SharePoint and (more importantly) what should not be in SharePoint. There are boundaries you have to set where you don’t want your end users going as they might be treading into trouble. Again, this is up to you to set these constraints and help users understand why these pylons are there. If someone understands why they can’t do something they might have a better understanding and respect for those that put them there in the first place. Of course you’ll always have the power-users who want to go skiing down dead mans curve so this doesn’t work for everyone, but you can catch the majority of the newbs who don’t wander aimlessly off the beaten path. At the end of the day when all things are going swimmingly your end users should be empowered to solve the needs they have on a day to day basis and not having to keep bugging the IT department to help them create a view to show only approved documents. I wouldn’t go as far as business users building out full blown solutions and handing the keys to SharePoint Designer or (worse) Visual Studio to power-users might not be a path you want to go down but you also don’t have to lock up the SharePoint system in a tight box where users can’t use what’s there. So stop focusing on the shiny things in SharePoint and maybe consider making a shift to what’s really important. Making your day job easier and letting users get the most our of your technology investment.

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• Cloud Based Load Testing Using TF Service &amp; VS 2013

  - by Tarun Arora [Microsoft MVP]

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TarunArora/archive/2013/06/30/cloud-based-load-testing-using-tf-service-amp-vs-2013.aspx One of the new features announced as part of the Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate Preview is ‘Cloud Based Load Testing’. In this blog post I’ll walk you through, What is Cloud Based Load Testing? How have I been using this feature? – Success story! Where can you find more resources on this feature? What is Cloud Based Load Testing? It goes without saying that performance testing your application not only gives you the confidence that the application will work under heavy levels of stress but also gives you the ability to test how scalable the architecture of your application is. It is important to know how much is too much for your application! Working with various clients in the industry I have realized that the biggest barriers in Load Testing & Performance Testing adoption are, High infrastructure and administration cost that comes with this phase of testing Time taken to procure & set up the test infrastructure Finding use for this infrastructure investment after completion of testing Is cloud the answer? 100% Visual Studio Compatible Scalable and Realistic Start testing in < 2 minutes Intuitive Pay only for what you need Use existing on premise tests on cloud There are a lot of vendors out there offering Cloud Based Load Testing, to name a few, Load Storm Soasta Blaze Meter Blitz And others… The question you may want to ask is, why should you go with Microsoft’s Cloud based Load Test offering. If you are a Microsoft shop or already have investments in Microsoft technologies, you’ll see great benefit in the natural integration this offers with existing Microsoft products such as Visual Studio and Windows Azure. For example, your existing Web tests authored in Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2012 will run on the cloud without requiring any modifications what so ever. Microsoft’s cloud test rig also supports API based testing, for example, if you are building a WPF application which consumes WCF services, you can write unit tests to invoke the WCF service, these tests can be run on the cloud test rig and loaded with ‘N’ concurrent users for performance testing. If you have your assets already hosted in the Azure and possibly in the same data centre as the Cloud test rig, your Azure app will not incur a usage cost because of the generated traffic since the traffic is coming from the same data centre. The licensing or pricing information on Microsoft’s cloud based Load test service is yet to be announced, but I would expect this to be priced attractively to match the market competition.   The only additional configuration required for running load tests on Microsoft Cloud based Load Tests service is to select the Test run location as Run tests using Visual Studio Team Foundation Service, How have I been using Microsoft’s Cloud based Load Test Service? I have been part of the Microsoft Cloud Based Load Test Service advisory council for the last 7 months. This gave the opportunity to see the product shape up from concept to working solution. I was also the first person outside of Microsoft to try this offering out. This gave me the opportunity to test real world application at various clients using the Microsoft Load Test Service and provide real world feedback to the Microsoft product team. One of the most recent systems I tested using the Load Test Service has been an insurance quote generation engine. This insurance quote generation engine is,   hosted in Windows Azure expected to get quote requests from across the globe expected to handle 5 Million quote requests in a day (not clear how this load will be distributed across the day) There was no way, I could simulate such kind of load from on premise without standing up additional hardware. But Microsoft’s Cloud based Load Test service allowed me to test my key performance testing scenarios, i.e. Simulate expected Load, Endurance Testing, Threshold Testing and Testing for Latency. Simulating expected load: approach to devising a load pattern My approach to devising a load test pattern has been to run the test scenario with 1 user to figure out the response time. Then work out how many users are required to reach the target load. So, for example, to invoke 1 quote from the quote engine software takes 0.5 seconds. Now if you do the math,   1 quote request by 1 user = 0.5 seconds   quotes generated by 1 user in 24 hour = 1 * (((2 * 60) * 60) * 24) = 172,800   quotes generated by 30 users in 24 hours = 172,800 * 30 =  5,184,000 This was a very simple example, if your application requires more concurrent users to test scenario’s such as caching, etc then you can devise your own load pattern, some examples of load test patterns can be found here.  Endurance Testing To test for endurance, I loaded the quote generation engine with an expected fixed user load and ran the test for very long duration such as over 48 hours and observed the affect of the long running test on the Azure infrastructure. Currently Microsoft Load Test service does not support metrics from the machine under test. I used Azure diagnostics to begin with, but later started using Cerebrata Azure Diagnostics Manager to capture the metrics of the machine under test. Threshold Testing To figure out how much user load the application could cope with before falling on its belly, I opted to step load the quote generation engine by incrementing user load with different variations of incremental user load per minute till the application crashed out and forced an IIS reset. Testing for Latency Currently the Microsoft Load Test service does not support generating geographically distributed load, I however, deployed the insurance quote generation engine in different Azure data centres and ran the same set of performance tests to measure for latency. Because I could compare load test results from different runs by exporting the results to excel (this feature is provided out of the box right from Visual Studio 2010) I could see the different in response times. More resources on Microsoft Cloud based Load Test Service A few important links to get you started, Download Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 Preview Getting started guide for load testing using Team Foundation Service Troubleshooting guide for FAQs and known issues Team Foundation Service forum for questions and support Detailed demo and presentation (link to Tech-Ed session recording) Detailed demo and presentation (link to Build session recording) There a few limits on the usage of Microsoft Cloud based Load Test service that you can read about here. If you have any feedback on Microsoft Cloud based Load Test service, feel free to share it with the product team via the Visual Studio User Voice forum. I hope you found this useful. Thank you for taking the time out and reading this blog post. If you enjoyed the post, remember to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TarunArora. Stay tuned!

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, March 11, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, March 11, 2010New ProjectsASP.NET Wiki Control: This ASP.NET user control allows you to embed a very useful wiki directly into your already existing ASP.NET website taking advantage of the popula...BabyLog: Log baby daily activity.buddyHome: buddyHome is a project that can make your home smarter. as good as your buddy. Cloud Community: Cloud Community makes it easier for organizations to have a simple to use community platform. Our mission is to create an easy to use community pl...Community Connectors for Microsoft CRM 4.0: Community Connectors for Microsoft CRM 4.0 allows Microsoft CRM 4.0 customers and partners to monitor and analyze customers’ interaction from their...Console Highlighter: Hightlights Microsoft Windows Command prompt (cmd.exe) by outputting ANSI VT100 Control sequences to color the output. These sequences are not hand...Cornell Store: This is IN NO WAY officially affiliated or related to the Cornell University store. Instead, this is a project that I am doing for a class. Ther...DevUtilities: This project is for creating some utility tools, and they will be useful during the development.DotNetNuke® Skin Maple: A DotNetNuke Design Challenge skin package submitted to the "Personal" category by DyNNamite.co.uk. The package includes 4 color variations and sev...HRNet: HRNetIIS Web Site Monitoring: A software for monitor a particular web site on IIS, even if its IP is sharing between different web site.Iowa Code Camp: The source code for the Iowa Code Camp website.Leonidas: Leonidas is a virtual tutorLunch 'n Learn: The Lunch 'n Learn web application is an open source ASP.NET MVC application that allows you to setup lunch 'n learn presentations for your team, c...MNT Cryptography: A very simple cryptography classMooiNooi MVC2LINQ2SQL Web Databinder: mvc2linq2sql is a databinder for ASP.NET MVC that make able developer to clean bind object from HTML FORMS to Linq entities. Even 1 to N relations ...MoqBot: MoqBot is an auto mocking library for Moq and Ninject.mtExperience1: hoiMvcPager: MvcPager is a free paging component for ASP.NET MVC web application, it exposes a series of extension methods for using in ASP.NET MVC applications...OCal: OCal is based on object calisthenics to identify code smellsPex Custom Arithmetic Solver: Pex Custom Arithmetic Solver contains a collection of meta-heuristic search algorithms. The goal is to improve Pex's code coverage for code involvi...SetControls: Расширеные контролы для ASP.NET приложений. Полная информация ближе к релизу...shadowrage1597: CTC 195 Game Design classSharePoint Team-Mailer: A SharePoint 2007 solution that defines a generic CustomList for sending e-mails to SharePoint Groups.Sql Share: SQL Share is a collaboration tool used within the science to allow database engineers to work tightly with domain scientists.TechCalendar: Tech Events Calendar ASP.NET project.ZLYScript: A very simple script language compiler.New ReleasesALGLIB: ALGLIB 2.4.0: New ALGLIB release contains: improved versions of several linear algebra algorithms: QR decomposition, matrix inversion, condition number estimatio...AmiBroker Plug-Ins with C#: AmiBroker Plug-Ins v0.0.2: Source codes and a binaryAppFabric Caching UI Admin Tool: AppFabric Caching Beta 2 UI Admin Tool: System Requirements:.NET 4.0 RC AppFabric Caching Beta2 Test On:Win 7 (64x)Autodocs - WCF REST Automatic API Documentation Generator: Autodocs.ServiceModel.Web: This archive contains the reference DLL, instructions and license.Compact Plugs & Compact Injection: Compact Injection and Compact Plugs 1.1 Beta: First release of Compact Plugs (CP). The solution includes a simple example project of CP, called "TestCompactPlugs1". Also some fixes where made ...Console Highlighter: Console Highlighter 0.9 (preview release): Preliminary release.Encrypted Notes: Encrypted Notes 1.3: This is the latest version of Encrypted Notes (1.3). It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My Documents. The last one was ...Family Tree Analyzer: Version 1.0.2: Family Tree Analyzer Version 1.0.2 This early beta version implements loading a gedcom file and displaying some basic reports. These reports inclu...FRC1103 - FRC Dashboard viewer: 2010 Documentation v0.1: This is my current version of the control system documentation for 2010. It isn't complete, but it has the information required for a custom dashbo...jQuery.cssLess: jQuery.cssLess 0.5 (Even less release): NEW - support for nested special CSS classes (like :hover) MAIN RELEASE This release, code "Even less", is the one that will interpret cssLess wit...MooiNooi MVC2LINQ2SQL Web Databinder: MooiNooi MVC2LINQ2SQL DataBinder: I didn't try this... I just took it off from my project. Please, tell me any problem implementing in your own development and I'll be pleased to h...MvcPager: MvcPager 1.2 for ASP.NET MVC 1.0: MvcPager 1.2 for ASP.NET MVC 1.0Mytrip.Mvc: Mytrip 1.0 preview 1: Article Manager Blog Manager L2S Membership(.NET Framework 3.5) EF Membership(.NET Framework 4) User Manager File Manager Localization Captcha ...NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel 2007 Template, version 1.0.1.117: The NodeXL Excel 2007 template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 workbook. What's NewThis version adds ...Pex Custom Arithmetic Solver: PexCustomArithmeticSolver: This is the alpha release containing the Alternating Variable Method and Evolution Strategies to try and solve constraints over floating point vari...Scrum Sprint Monitor: v1.0.0.44877: What is new in this release? Major performance increase in animations (up to 50 fps from 2 fps) by replacing DropShadow effect with png bitmaps; ...sELedit: sELedit v1.0b: + Added support for empty strings / wstrings + Fixed: critical bug in configuration files (list 53)sPWadmin: pwAdmin v0.9_nightly: + Fixed: XML editor can now open and save character templates + Added: PWI item name database + Added: Plugin SupportTechCalendar: Events Calendar v.1.0: Initial release.The Silverlight Hyper Video Player [http://slhvp.com]: Beta 2: Beta 2.0 Some fixes from Beta 1, and a couple small enhancements. Intensive testing continues, and I will continue to update the code at least ever...ThreadSafe.Caching: 2010.03.10.1: Updates to the scavanging behaviour since last release. Scavenging will now occur every 30 seconds by default and all objects in the cache will be ...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30310.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio DSite: Email Sender (C++): The same Email Sender program that I but made in visual c plus plus 2008 instead of visual basic 2008.Web Forms MVP: Web Forms MVP CTP7: The release can be considered stable, and is in use behind several high traffic, public websites. It has been marked as a CTP release as it is not ...White Tiger: 0.0.3.1: Now you can load or create files with whatever root element you want *check f or sets file permisionsMost Popular ProjectsMetaSharpWBFS ManagerRawrAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesASP.NET Ajax LibraryMost Active ProjectsUmbraco CMSRawrSDS: Scientific DataSet library and toolsN2 CMSFasterflect - A Fast and Simple Reflection APIjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesBlogEngine.NETFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryCaliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and Silverlight

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