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• Dual Screen will only mirror after 12.04 upgrade

  - by Ne0

  I have been using Ubuntu with a dual screen for years now, after upgrading to 12.04 LTS i cannot get my dual screen working properly Graphics: 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RV350 AR [Radeon 9600] 01:00.1 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RV350 AR [Radeon 9600] (Secondary) I noticed i was using open source drivers and attempted to install official binaries using the methods in this thread. Output: liam@liam-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install fglrx fglrx-amdcccle Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages will be upgraded: fglrx fglrx-amdcccle 2 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 12 not upgraded. Need to get 45.1 MB of archives. After this operation, 739 kB of additional disk space will be used. Get:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/restricted fglrx i386 2:8.960-0ubuntu1 [39.2 MB] Get:2 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/restricted fglrx-amdcccle i386 2:8.960-0ubuntu1 [5,883 kB] Fetched 45.1 MB in 1min 33s (484 kB/s) (Reading database ... 328081 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace fglrx 2:8.951-0ubuntu1 (using .../fglrx_2%3a8.960-0ubuntu1_i386.deb) ... Removing all DKMS Modules Error! There are no instances of module: fglrx 8.951 located in the DKMS tree. Done. Unpacking replacement fglrx ... Preparing to replace fglrx-amdcccle 2:8.951-0ubuntu1 (using .../fglrx-amdcccle_2%3a8.960-0ubuntu1_i386.deb) ... Unpacking replacement fglrx-amdcccle ... Processing triggers for ureadahead ... ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot Setting up fglrx (2:8.960-0ubuntu1) ... update-alternatives: warning: forcing reinstallation of alternative /usr/lib/fglrx/ld.so.conf because link group i386-linux-gnu_gl_conf is broken. update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /etc/OpenCL/vendors/amdocl64.icd because associated file /usr/lib/fglrx/etc/OpenCL/vendors/amdocl64.icd (of link group i386-linux-gnu_gl_conf) doesn't exist. update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/lib32/libaticalcl.so because associated file /usr/lib32/fglrx/libaticalcl.so (of link group i386-linux-gnu_gl_conf) doesn't exist. update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/lib32/libaticalrt.so because associated file /usr/lib32/fglrx/libaticalrt.so (of link group i386-linux-gnu_gl_conf) doesn't exist. update-alternatives: warning: forcing reinstallation of alternative /usr/lib/fglrx/ld.so.conf because link group i386-linux-gnu_gl_conf is broken. update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /etc/OpenCL/vendors/amdocl64.icd because associated file /usr/lib/fglrx/etc/OpenCL/vendors/amdocl64.icd (of link group i386-linux-gnu_gl_conf) doesn't exist. update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/lib32/libaticalcl.so because associated file /usr/lib32/fglrx/libaticalcl.so (of link group i386-linux-gnu_gl_conf) doesn't exist. update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/lib32/libaticalrt.so because associated file /usr/lib32/fglrx/libaticalrt.so (of link group i386-linux-gnu_gl_conf) doesn't exist. update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated) update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-25-generic-pae Loading new fglrx-8.960 DKMS files... Building only for 3.2.0-25-generic-pae Building for architecture i686 Building initial module for 3.2.0-25-generic-pae Done. fglrx: Running module version sanity check. - Original module - No original module exists within this kernel - Installation - Installing to /lib/modules/3.2.0-25-generic-pae/updates/dkms/ depmod....... DKMS: install completed. update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated) Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ... Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index... Setting up fglrx-amdcccle (2:8.960-0ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ... update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-25-generic-pae Processing triggers for libc-bin ... ldconfig deferred processing now taking place liam@liam-desktop:~$ sudo aticonfig --initial -f aticonfig: No supported adapters detected When i attempt to get my settings back to what they were before upgrading i get this message requested position/size for CRTC 81 is outside the allowed limit: position=(1440, 0), size=(1440, 900), maximum=(1680, 1680) and GDBus.Error:org.gtk.GDBus.UnmappedGError.Quark._gnome_2drr_2derror_2dquark.Code3: requested position/size for CRTC 81 is outside the allowed limit: position=(1440, 0), size=(1440, 900), maximum=(1680, 1680) Any idea's on what i need to do to fix this issue?

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• LibGDX Box2D Body and Sprite AND DebugRenderer out of sync

  - by Free Lancer

  I am having a couple issues with Box2D bodies. I have a GameObject holding a Sprite and Body. I use a ShapeRenderer to draw an outline of the Body's and Sprite's bounding boxes. I also added a Box2DDebugRenderer to make sure everything's lining up properly. My problem is the Sprite and Body at first overlap perfectly, but as I turn the Body moves a bit off the sprite then comes back when the Car is facing either North or South. Here's an image of what I mean: (Not sure what that line is, first time to show up) BLUE is the Body, RED is the Sprite, PURPLE is the Box2DDebugRenderer. Also, you probably noticed a purple square in the top right corner. Well that's the Car drawn by the Box2D Debug Renderer. I thought it might be the camera but I've been playing with the Cameras for hours and nothing seems to work. All give me weird results. Here's my code: Screen: public void show() { // --------------------- SETUP ALL THE CAMERA STUFF ------------------------------ // battleStage = new Stage( 720, 480, false ); // Setup the camera. In Box2D we operate on a meter scale, pixels won't do it. So we use // an Orthographic camera with a Viewport of 24 meters in width and 16 meters in height. battleStage.setCamera( new OrthographicCamera( CAM_METER_WIDTH, CAM_METER_HEIGHT ) ); battleStage.getCamera().position.set( CAM_METER_WIDTH / 2, CAM_METER_HEIGHT / 2, 0 ); // The Box2D Debug Renderer will handle rendering all physics objects for debugging debugger = new Box2DDebugRenderer( true, true, true, true ); //debugCam = new OrthographicCamera( CAM_METER_WIDTH, CAM_METER_HEIGHT ); } public void render(float delta) { // Update the Physics World, use 1/45 for something around 45 Frames/Second for mobile devices physicsWorld.step( 1/45.0f, 8, 3 ); // 1/45 for devices // Set the Camera matrices and clear the screen Gdx.gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); battleStage.getCamera().update(); // Draw game objects here battleStage.act(delta); battleStage.draw(); // Again update the Camera matrices and call the debug renderer debugCam.update(); debugger.render( physicsWorld, debugCam.combined); // Vehicle handles its own interaction with the HUD // update all Actors movements in the game Stage hudStage.act( delta ); // Draw each Actor onto the Scene at their new positions hudStage.draw(); } Car: (extends Actor) public Car( Texture texture, float posX, float posY, World world ) { super( "Car" ); mSprite = new Sprite( texture ); mSprite.setSize( WIDTH * Consts.PIXEL_METER_RATIO, HEIGHT * Consts.PIXEL_METER_RATIO ); mSprite.setOrigin( mSprite.getWidth()/2, mSprite.getHeight()/2); // set the origin to be at the center of the body mSprite.setPosition( posX * Consts.PIXEL_METER_RATIO, posY * Consts.PIXEL_METER_RATIO ); // place the car in the center of the game map FixtureDef carFixtureDef = new FixtureDef(); mBody = Physics.createBoxBody( BodyType.DynamicBody, carFixtureDef, mSprite ); } public void draw() { mSprite.setPosition( mBody.getPosition().x * Consts.PIXEL_METER_RATIO, mBody.getPosition().y * Consts.PIXEL_METER_RATIO ); mSprite.setRotation( MathUtils.radiansToDegrees * mBody.getAngle() ); // draw the sprite mSprite.draw( batch ); } Physics: (Create the Body) public static Body createBoxBody( final BodyType pBodyType, final FixtureDef pFixtureDef, Sprite pSprite ) { float pRotation = 0; float pWidth = pSprite.getWidth(); float pHeight = pSprite.getHeight(); final BodyDef boxBodyDef = new BodyDef(); boxBodyDef.type = pBodyType; boxBodyDef.position.x = pSprite.getX() / Consts.PIXEL_METER_RATIO; boxBodyDef.position.y = pSprite.getY() / Consts.PIXEL_METER_RATIO; // Temporary Box shape of the Body final PolygonShape boxPoly = new PolygonShape(); final float halfWidth = pWidth * 0.5f / Consts.PIXEL_METER_RATIO; final float halfHeight = pHeight * 0.5f / Consts.PIXEL_METER_RATIO; boxPoly.setAsBox( halfWidth, halfHeight ); // set the anchor point to be the center of the sprite pFixtureDef.shape = boxPoly; final Body boxBody = BattleScreen.getPhysicsWorld().createBody(boxBodyDef); boxBody.createFixture(pFixtureDef); } Sorry for all the code and long description but it's hard to pin down what exactly might be causing the problem.

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• Bluetooth not found on BCM43228

  - by TK Kocheran

  I've got a Broadcom BCM43228 mPCIe card which came with my motherboard (ASUS ROG Maximus V Extreme, can't seem to find a link to what the card is) which is working great for WiFi right now, but I can't detect the Bluetooth hardware onboard. In Windows, I have full Bluetooth 4.0 support. $ lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core Processor Family PCI Express Root Port (rev 09) 00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point MEI Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82579V Gigabit Network Connection (rev 04) 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Panther Point High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4) 00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev c4) 00:1c.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 7 (rev c4) 00:1c.7 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 8 (rev c4) 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point LPC Controller (rev 04) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point 6 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Panther Point SMBus Controller (rev 04) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1189 (rev a1) 01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0e0a (rev a1) 0d:00.0 USB controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1042 SuperSpeed USB Host Controller 0e:00.0 PCI bridge: PLX Technology, Inc. PEX 8608 8-lane, 8-Port PCI Express Gen 2 (5.0 GT/s) Switch (rev ba) 0f:01.0 PCI bridge: PLX Technology, Inc. PEX 8608 8-lane, 8-Port PCI Express Gen 2 (5.0 GT/s) Switch (rev ba) 0f:04.0 PCI bridge: PLX Technology, Inc. PEX 8608 8-lane, 8-Port PCI Express Gen 2 (5.0 GT/s) Switch (rev ba) 0f:05.0 PCI bridge: PLX Technology, Inc. PEX 8608 8-lane, 8-Port PCI Express Gen 2 (5.0 GT/s) Switch (rev ba) 0f:06.0 PCI bridge: PLX Technology, Inc. PEX 8608 8-lane, 8-Port PCI Express Gen 2 (5.0 GT/s) Switch (rev ba) 0f:07.0 PCI bridge: PLX Technology, Inc. PEX 8608 8-lane, 8-Port PCI Express Gen 2 (5.0 GT/s) Switch (rev ba) 0f:08.0 PCI bridge: PLX Technology, Inc. PEX 8608 8-lane, 8-Port PCI Express Gen 2 (5.0 GT/s) Switch (rev ba) 0f:09.0 PCI bridge: PLX Technology, Inc. PEX 8608 8-lane, 8-Port PCI Express Gen 2 (5.0 GT/s) Switch (rev ba) 10:00.0 USB controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1042 SuperSpeed USB Host Controller 12:00.0 SATA controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1062 Serial ATA Controller (rev 01) 15:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n 17:00.0 SATA controller: ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1062 Serial ATA Controller (rev 01) The key line seems to be: 15:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n If I try to detect the Bluetooth card, I don't see anything: $ hcitool dev Devices: rfkill list all: Output lspci: Output lsusb: Output I finally found the card with usb-devices: T: Bus=01 Lev=02 Prnt=02 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#= 3 Spd=12 MxCh= 0 D: Ver= 2.00 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=01 Prot=01 MxPS=64 #Cfgs= 1 P: Vendor=0b05 ProdID=17b5 Rev=01.12 S: Manufacturer=Broadcom Corp S: Product=BCM20702A0 S: SerialNumber=############ C: #Ifs= 4 Cfg#= 1 Atr=e0 MxPwr=0mA I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 3 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=01 Prot=01 Driver=(none) I: If#= 1 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=01 Prot=01 Driver=(none) I: If#= 2 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=ff Prot=ff Driver=(none) I: If#= 3 Alt= 0 #EPs= 0 Cls=fe(app. ) Sub=01 Prot=01 Driver=(none) I've heard that this card needs to have firmware injected into it in order to function. If that's the case, how do I do it?

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• Pondering New Technology

  - by MOSSLover

  So I have been standing at the end of a fork for a year peering down a corner looking at this way and that way trying to figure out where I fit in.  I was so enthusiastic and excited about Silverlight when it came out.  It was this amazing awesome technology that had this really cool animation and webcam/multimedia piece.  I thought if I put my money on Silverlight it’s going somewhere, then HTML 5 came out and the wind shifted.  I realized times were changing. I have been working with web technologies since I was 15 years old.  Playing with html and javascript and even css back when it first came out.  In tech years 15 years is forever.  Things change so quickly and so often.  So I guess the question is where am I heading?  The answer is mobile technology.  For some reason I was resisting change and I have no idea why.  I guess I really wanted to see more than one player.  I didn’t quite feel that Microsoft was ready with Windows Phone 7.  It was a great start, but it just didn’t feel like they went all the way.  Now with Windows 8 it feels like they are at version 2.0.  It’s like hitting Silverlight 2.0 where they finally added the .Net bits.  The path is paved, but we don’t know where it’s leading.  Then we had 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 to mature the technology into what it is today (man I’m hoping they are going to roll some of the cool bits into other tech if they don’t exist). Anyway, I’m on board, but I’m not buying a Windows Tablet just yet.  I was hoping for a 7 inch screen from Apple around $300 or just above and a 7 inch screen from the MS side around the same price.  What I got was the Apple side, but nothing from Microsoft.  I was pretty disappointed with the $500 market price on the RT version.  I realized Microsoft is close, but not quite where Apple is today.  Yes the devices have Office that they are offering, but the sticker is just too much for a first generation device.  If you guys remember correctly the first generation iPad was quite expensive.  I guess for a 1st generation device $500 is pretty good. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I am shifting my focus entirely away from Silverlight and more towards mobile.  I will be doing a lot of postings on iOS, Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8 with SharePoint 2013.  Since I don’t have a tablet and don’t foresee myself buying one just yet it might be mostly on the phones for right now.  I want to do a bunch of testing on various devices on what needs to be done in apps on each device.  I might add a bit on porting code from one to the other.  I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and make things flow a little better for me.  In a way it’s kind of like Star Trek 6 where they talk about the Undiscovered Country.  I’m going to jump forward completely and see where I land. Technorati Tags: SharePoint 2013,Mobile,Windows 8,iOS

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• Windows Azure Recipe: Mobile Computing

  - by Clint Edmonson

  A while back, mashups were all the rage. The idea was to compose solutions that provided aggregation and integration across applications and services to make information more available, useful, and personal. Mashups ushered in the era of Web 2.0 in all it’s socially connected goodness. They taught us that to be successful, we needed to add web service APIs to our web applications. Web and client based mashups met with great success and have evolved even further with the introduction of the internet connected smartphone. Nothing is more available, useful, or personal than our smartphones. The current generation of cloud connected mobile computing mashups allow our mobilized workforces to receive, process, and react to information from disparate sources faster than ever before. Drivers Integration Reach Time to market Solution Here’s a sketch of a prototypical mobile computing solution using Windows Azure: Ingredients Web Role – with the phone running a dedicated client application, the web role is responsible for serving up backend web services that implement the solution’s core connected functionality. Database – used to store core operational and workflow data for the solution’s web services. Access Control – this service is used to authenticate and manage users identity, roles, and groups, possibly in conjunction with 3rd identity providers such as Windows LiveID, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook. Worker Role – this role is used to handle the orchestration of long-running, complex, asynchronous operations. While much of the integration and interaction with other services can be handled directly by the mobile client application, it’s possible that the backend may need to integrate with 3rd party services as well. Offloading this work to a worker role better distributes computing resources and keeps the web roles focused on direct client interaction. Queues – these provide reliable, persistent messaging between applications and processes. They are an absolute necessity once asynchronous processing is involved. Queues facilitate the flow of distributed events and allow a solution to send push notifications back to mobile devices at appropriate times. Training & Resources These links point to online Windows Azure training labs and resources where you can learn more about the individual ingredients described above. (Note: The entire Windows Azure Training Kit can also be downloaded for offline use.) Windows Azure (16 labs) Windows Azure is an internet-scale cloud computing and services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services which can be used individually or together. It gives developers the choice to build web applications; applications running on connected devices, PCs, or servers; or hybrid solutions offering the best of both worlds. New or enhanced applications can be built using existing skills with the Visual Studio development environment and the .NET Framework. With its standards-based and interoperable approach, the services platform supports multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and plain XML SQL Azure (7 labs) Microsoft SQL Azure delivers on the Microsoft Data Platform vision of extending the SQL Server capabilities to the cloud as web-based services, enabling you to store structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. Windows Azure Services (9 labs) As applications collaborate across organizational boundaries, ensuring secure transactions across disparate security domains is crucial but difficult to implement. Windows Azure Services provides hosted authentication and access control using powerful, secure, standards-based infrastructure. Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone The Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone is designed to make it easier for you to build mobile applications that leverage cloud services running in Windows Azure. The toolkit includes Visual Studio project templates for Windows Phone and Windows Azure, class libraries optimized for use on the phone, sample applications, and documentation Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS The Windows Azure Toolkit for iOS is a toolkit for developers to make it easy to access Windows Azure storage services from native iOS applications. The toolkit can be used for both iPhone and iPad applications, developed using Objective-C and XCode. Windows Azure Toolkit for Android The Windows Azure Toolkit for Android is a toolkit for developers to make it easy to work with Windows Azure from native Android applications. The toolkit can be used for native Android applications developed using Eclipse and the Android SDK. See my Windows Azure Resource Guide for more guidance on how to get started, including links web portals, training kits, samples, and blogs related to Windows Azure.

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• HTML5 Boilerplate template for ASP.NET with Visual Studio 2010

  - by Harish Ranganathan

  This is the 5th post in the series of HTML5 for ASP.NET Developers  Support for HTML5 in Visual Studio 2010 has been quite good with Visual Studio Service Pack 1 However, HTML5 Boilerplate template has been one of the most popular HTML5 templates out in the internet.  Now, there is one for your favorite ASP.NET Webforms as well as ASP.NET MVC 3 Projects (even for ASP.NET MVC 2).  And its available in the most optimal place, i.e. NuGet. Lets see it in action.  Let us fire up Visual Studio 2010 and create a “File – New Project – ASP.NET Web Application” and leave the default name to create the project.  The default project template creates Site.Master, Default.aspx and the Account (membership) files. When you run the project without any changes, it shows up the default Master Page with the Home and About placeholder pages. Also, just to check the rendering on devices, lets try running the same page in Windows Phone 7 Emulator.  You can download the SDK from here Clearly, it looks bad on the emulator and if we were to publish the application as is, its going to be the same experience when users browse this app. Close the browser and then switch to Visual Studio.   Right click on the project and select “Manage NuGet Packages” The NuGet Package Manager dialog opens up.  Search for HTML5 Boilerplate.  The options for MVC & Web Forms show up.  Click on Install corresponding to the “Add HTML5 Boilerplate to Web Forms” options. It installs the template in a few seconds.   Once installed, you will be able to see a lot of additional Script files and also the all important HTML5Boilerplate.Master file.  This would be the replacement for the default Site.Master.  We need to change the Content Pages (Default.aspx & other pages) to point to this Master Page.  Example <%@ <% Master Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Html5Boilerplate.Master.cs" Inherits="WebApplication14.SiteMaster" %> would be the setting in the Default.aspx Page. You can do a Find & Replace for Site.Master to HTML5Boilerplate.Master for the whole solution so that it is changed in all the locations. With this, we have our Webforms application ready with HTML5 capabilities.  Needless to say, we need to wire up HTML5 mark up level code, canvas, etc., further to use the actual HTML5 features, but even without that, the page is now HTML5’ed.   One of the advantages of HTML5 (here HTML5 is collectively referred for CSS3, Javascript enhancements etc.,)  is the ability to render the pages better on mobile and hand held devices. So, now when we run the page from Visual Studio, the following is what we get.  Notice the site.icon automatically added.  The page otherwise looks similar to what it was earlier. Now, when we also check this page on the Windows Phone Emulator, here below is what, we get. As you can see, we definitely get a better experience now.  Of course, this is not the only HTML5 feature that we can use.  We need to wire up additional code for using Canvas, SVG and other HTML5 features.  But, definitely, this is a good starting point. You can also install the HTML5boilerplate Template for your ASP.NET MVC 3 and ASP.NET MVC 2 from the NuGet packages and get them ready for HTML5. Cheers !!!

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• Five geeky things you must do with your Android Smartphone

  - by Gopinath

  Android is the Windows of next generation. Its open, free, widely adopted and smart enough to outsmart Apple’s iOS. It’s a stolen product and cheap imitation of iOS, but Steve Job’s once quoted saying good artists copy and great artists steal. Alright, this post is not about Android vs iOS or is it really stolen or not. Android is a great OS for mobile devices and it lets you do amazing through mobiles.  In this post I want to write about the geeky things we can do with an Android Smartphone. Control your computer using mobile Assume that it is a lazy weekend and you are on a couch watching movies on a laptop which is a meter away. Now you want to adjust volume or skip a scene/song. How to control your laptop without moving out of couch? Just install Universal Remote free app on your smartphone and start control your computer using phone. Universal Remove app controls computers over Wifi or Bluetooth networks with dedicated remote controls for various media players and applications like YouTube, VLC & Spotify.  The application is very easy to use and works amazingly well in controlling computers. Few of the remote controls provided in the app are – Mouse, Keyboard, Media Controls, Power, Start, Windows Media Player, VLC Player,  YouTube. There is also paid version of this app with additional remotes, but for most of the users Free version is good enough. Stream YouTube videos playing on you mobile to computer You can stream YouTube videos playing on your mobile to computer/smart tv. This is something similar to Apple’s most popular AirPlay feature, but works only with YouTube videos. To start streaming videos install Google’s YouTube Remote on your smartphone, open youtube.com/leanback on your computer  and pair up mobile with computer. Once the pairing is done, videos played on YouTube Remote app will be streamed on to your computer. Access your mobile using any web browser – send/receive SMS, view photos/call logs, etc. Want to control your mobile phone using a computer? Install AirDroid app on your phone and start controlling your phone using computer browser – send and receive messages, view call logs, play music, upload/download files, edit contacts and many more. At times it’s lot of fun to access mobile using a big screen devices like laptops. Launch a webpage on your mobile browser using your computer With Google Chrome to Phone installed on your computer and mobile, you can send links and other information from Chrome browser to your Android device. With a click on Chrome browser, the current webpage of Chrome browser will be automatically launched on Android device. This is very handy when you want to send links, send driving direction to mobile using Google Maps and launch phone dialer with number selected on webpage. Install Apps on mobile using computer To install apps on your smartphone you really don’t need to touch it. Open any web browser, sing in to Google Play with your Google id that is associated with smartphone and start installing apps on to your phone right from the browser. As you browse apps on Google Play store, you find Install button and all you need to do is to just click Install. Google will automatically installs app on your mobile within few seconds.

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• Ubuntu 12.04 lightdm dumps to tty. Cannot start GUI interface when booting off harddrive, but can when booting off usb

  - by user72681

  When booting, lightdm dumps to tty. No GUI interface works- this is after a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04 where the GUI interface works when running off the USB. I have an NVIDIA Corporation G98 [Quadro NVS 420] graphics card. After I call startx from the terminal it still doesn't work. I get the following in the Xorg.0.log: [ 327.718] (--) NVIDIA(0): Memory: 262144 kBytes [ 327.718] (--) NVIDIA(0): VideoBIOS: 62.98.6f.00.07 [ 327.718] (II) NVIDIA(0): Detected PCI Express Link width: 16X [ 327.718] (--) NVIDIA(0): Interlaced video modes are supported on this GPU [ 327.756] (--) NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s) on Quadro NVS 420 at PCI:3:0:0 [ 327.756] (--) NVIDIA(0): none [ 327.756] (EE) NVIDIA(0): No display devices found for this X screen. [ 328.010] (II) UnloadModule: "nvidia" [ 328.010] (II) Unloading nvidia [ 328.010] (II) UnloadModule: "wfb" [ 328.010] (II) Unloading wfb [ 328.010] (II) UnloadModule: "fb" [ 328.010] (II) Unloading fb [ 328.011] (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration. [ 328.011] Fatal server error: [ 328.011] no screens found /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log [+0.00s] DEBUG: Starting local X display [+0.00s] DEBUG: X server :0 will replace Plymouth [+0.02s] DEBUG: Using VT 7 [+0.02s] DEBUG: Activating VT 7 [+0.02s] DEBUG: Logging to /var/log/lightdm/x-0.log [+0.02s] DEBUG: Writing X server authority to /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 [+0.02s] DEBUG: Launching X Server [+0.02s] DEBUG: Launching process 1074: /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch -background none [+0.02s] DEBUG: Waiting for ready signal from X server :0 [+0.02s] DEBUG: Acquired bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager [+0.02s] DEBUG: Registering seat with bus path /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Seat0 [+1.38s] DEBUG: Process 1074 exited with return value 1 [+1.38s] DEBUG: X server stopped [+1.38s] DEBUG: Removing X server authority /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 [+1.38s] DEBUG: Releasing VT 7 [+1.38s] DEBUG: Stopping Plymouth, X server failed to start [+1.39s] DEBUG: Display server stopped [+1.39s] DEBUG: Stopping display [+1.39s] DEBUG: Display stopped [+1.39s] DEBUG: Stopping X local seat, failed to start a display [+1.39s] DEBUG: Stopping seat [+1.39s] DEBUG: Seat stopped [+1.39s] DEBUG: Required seat has stopped [+1.39s] DEBUG: Stopping display manager [+1.39s] DEBUG: Display manager stopped [+1.39s] DEBUG: Stopping daemon [+1.39s] DEBUG: Exiting with return value 1 /var/log/lightdm/x-0.log X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0 Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.24-31-server x86_64 Ubuntu Current Operating System: Linux oorn 3.2.0-23-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 10 20:39:51 UTC 2012 x86_64 Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-23-generic root=UUID=b25ab072-077d-40f1-95a4-c7fd66acd2f0 ro reboot=pci quiet splash vt.handoff=7 Build Date: 07 May 2012 11:43:21PM xorg-server 2:1.11.4-0ubuntu10.2 (For technical support please see http://www.ubuntu.com/support) Current version of pixman: 0.24.4 Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org to make sure that you have the latest version. Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting, (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational, (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown. (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Wed Jun 27 12:51:45 2012 (==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" (==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d" (EE) NVIDIA(0): No display devices found for this X screen. (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration. Fatal server error: no screens found Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support at http://wiki.x.org for help. Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information. ddxSigGiveUp: Closing log Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file.

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• Tweaking Remote Control (In-Kernel LIRC)

  - by Geoff

  I've recently rebuilt my MythTV box using Mythbuntu 12.04, to take advantage of newer hardware (Ivy Bridge). On my previous build I used lirc to manage the remote, i.e. the mapping of key codes - keypresses - application keys; it was quite a journey to learn it all, and I ended up fairly comfortable with how it all worked. What I have: I have a cheap Chinavasion remote and USB dongle, which I've found several articles on; these largely revolve around working with XBMC (interesting, but I don't think directly applicable) and also around getting a Harmony remote to work (it's a Chinavasion CVSB-983 - very useful, since I needed this to get my Harmony 900 working). Mythbuntu 12.04 64-bit MythTV 0.25 (likely irrelevant) How it is right now When I plug this in, it 'just works'. Which is great, except that Ubuntu uses it natively, and prevents some of the button presses from getting through to Myth. For example, I can send a button from the remote that equates to Ctrl-Alt-A (which I assume Ubuntu isn't interested in), and then trap that in Mythfrontend, but the remote's Play button is caught by Ubuntu (which displays a large circle with a line though it, as there's no media player loaded). I understand that this is because lirc is merged into the kernel now, and I like that. What I've done so far: Found the device using lsusb: $ lsusb Bus 001 Device 004: ID 073a:2230 Chaplet Systems, Inc. infrared dongle for remote Found the event device number: $ cat /proc/bus/input/devices I: Bus=0003 Vendor=073a Product=2230 Version=0110 N: Name="HID 073a:2230" P: Phys=usb-0000:00:1a.0-1.2/input0 S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.2/1-1.2:1.0/input/input5 U: Uniq= H: Handlers=sysrq kbd mouse1 event5 js0 B: PROP=0 B: EV=10001f B: KEY=4c37fff072ff32d bf54445600000000 ffffffffff 30c100b17c007 ffa67bfad951dfff febeffdfffefffff fffffffffffffffe B: REL=343 B: ABS=100030000 B: MSC=10 Tested the input with evtest (I pressed Play): $ sudo evtest /dev/input/event5 Input driver version is 1.0.1 Input device ID: bus 0x3 vendor 0x73a product 0x2230 version 0x110 Input device name: "HID 073a:2230" Supported events: Event type 0 (EV_SYN) Event type 1 (EV_KEY) Event code 1 (KEY_ESC) Event code 2 (KEY_1) Event code 3 (KEY_2) Event code 4 (KEY_3) Event code 5 (KEY_4) Event code 6 (KEY_5) Event code 7 (KEY_6) <------------snipped lots of 'Event code' lines------------> Testing ... (interrupt to exit) Event: time 1336435683.230656, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Event: time 1336435683.246648, type 4 (EV_MSC), code 4 (MSC_SCAN), value c00cd Event: time 1336435683.246652, type 1 (EV_KEY), code 164 (KEY_PLAYPAUSE), value 0 Event: time 1336435683.246655, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------ Tested showkey, again for the Play key: $ sudo showkey -s kb mode was RAW [ if you are trying this under X, it might not work since the X server is also reading /dev/console ] press any key (program terminates 10s after last keypress)... 0xe0 0x22 0xe0 0xa2 What I want: I'd like a way to scan the incoming button presses, if the above method isn't correct. I'd like to either remap each button press to something that Ubuntu/Unity will ignore, or even better pass the keypress directly to Myth (I suspect this later is only possible with lirc, but I could be wrong). I would really like to do this with the in-kernel drivers, i.e. without explicitly loading lirc; if that's the way the world is going, I'd rather find a way to map the current behaviour to what I want, rather than forcing the 'old' arrangement of loading lirc outside the kernel. Learning something new is also worthwhile! My guess: I'm assuming that this will require using setkeycodes, but have had trouble finding enough information to configure this. Any help greatly appreciated!

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• Using Oracle Linux iSCSI targets with Oracle VM

  - by wim.coekaerts

  A few days ago I had written a blog entry on how to use Oracle Solaris 10 (in my case), ZFS and the iSCSI target feature in Oracle Solaris to create a set of devices exported to my Oracle VM server. Oracle Linux can do this as well and I wanted to make sure I also tried out how to do this on Oracle Linux and here are the results. When you install Oracle Linux 5 update 5 (anything newer than update 3), it comes with an rpm called scsi-target-utils. To begin your quest, should you choose to accept it :) make sure this is installed. rpm -qa |grep scsi-target If it is not installed : up2date scsi-target-utils The target utils come with a tool tgtadm which is similar to iscsitadm on Oracle Solaris. There are 2 components again on the iSCSI server side. (1) create volumes - we will use lvm with lvcreate (2) expose a target using tgtadm. My server has a simple setup. All the disks are part of a single volume group called vgroot. To export a 50Gb volume I just create a new volume : lvcreate -L 50G -nmytest1 vgroot This will show up as a new volume in /dev/mapper as /dev/mapper/vgroot-mytest1. Create as many as you want for your environment. Since I already have my blog entry about the 5 volumes, I am not going to repeat the whole thing. You can just go look at the previous blog entry. Now that we have created the volume, we need to use tgtadm to set it up : make sure the service is running : /etc/init.d/tgtd start or service tgtd start (if you want to keep it running you can do chkconfig tgtd on to start it automatically at boottime) Next you need a targetname to set everything up. My recommendation would be to install iscsi-initiator-utils . This will create an iscsi id and put it in /etc/iscsi/initiatorname.iscsi. For convenience you can do : source /etc/iscsi/initiatorname.iscsi echo $InitiatorName and from here on use $InitiatorName instead of the long complex iqn. create your target : tgtadm --lld iscsi --op new --mode target --tid 1 -T $InitiatorName to show the status : tgtadm --lld iscsi --op show --mode target add the volume previously created : tgtadm --lld iscsi --op new --mode logicalunit --tid 1 --lun 1 -b /dev/mapper/vgroot-mytest1 re-run status to see it's there : tgtadm --lld iscsi --op show --mode target and just like on Oracle Solaris you now have to export (bind) it : tgtadm --lld iscsi --op bind --mode target --tid 1 -I iqn.1986-03.com.sun:01:2a7526f0ffff If you want to export the lun to every iscsi initiator then replace the iqn with ALL. Of course you have to add the iqn of each iscsi initiator or client you want to connect. In the case of my 2 node Oracle VM server setup, both Oracle VM server's initiator names would have to be added. use status again to see that it has this iqn under ACL tgtadm --lld iscsi --op show --mode target You can drop the --lld iscsi if you want, or alias it. It just makes the command line more obvious as to what you are doing. Oracle VM side : Refer back to the previous blog entry for the detailed setup of my Oracle VM server volumes but the exact same commands will be used there. discover : iscsiadm --mode discovery --type sendtargets --portal login : iscsiadm --mode node --targetname iscsi targetname --portal --login get devices : /etc/init.d/iscsi restart and voila you should be in business. have fun.

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• PC to USB transfer slow

  - by Vipin Ms

  I'm having trouble with USB transfer,not with external hard disk. Transfer starts with like, for the transfer of 700MB file it starts with 30mb/s and towards the end it stops at 0s and stays put for like 3-4 mins to transfer the last bit. I have tried different USB devices, but no luck. Is it a bug? Another important point is, in Kubuntu there is no such issue. So is it something related to Gnome? I'm using Ubuntu 11.10 64bit. Somebody please help, it's really annoying. Here are the details. PC all of my drives are in ext4. USB I tried ext3,ntfs and fat32. All having the same problem. Here are my USB controllers details: root@LAB:~# lspci|grep USB 00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03) 00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03) 00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03) 00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03) 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) Here is an example of one transfer. I connected one of my 4GB usb device. Nov 24 12:01:25 LAB kernel: [ 1175.082175] userif-2: sent link up event. Nov 24 12:01:25 LAB kernel: [ 1695.684158] usb 2-2: new high speed USB device number 3 using ehci_hcd Nov 24 12:01:25 LAB mtp-probe: checking bus 2, device 3: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-2" Nov 24 12:01:26 LAB mtp-probe: bus: 2, device: 3 was not an MTP device Nov 24 12:01:26 LAB kernel: [ 1696.132680] usbcore: registered new interface driver uas Nov 24 12:01:26 LAB kernel: [ 1696.142528] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver... Nov 24 12:01:26 LAB kernel: [ 1696.142919] scsi4 : usb-storage 2-2:1.0 Nov 24 12:01:26 LAB kernel: [ 1696.143146] usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage Nov 24 12:01:26 LAB kernel: [ 1696.143150] USB Mass Storage support registered. Nov 24 12:01:27 LAB kernel: [ 1697.141657] scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access SanDisk U3 Cruzer Micro 8.02 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS Nov 24 12:01:27 LAB kernel: [ 1697.168827] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0 Nov 24 12:01:27 LAB kernel: [ 1697.169262] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 7856127 512-byte logical blocks: (4.02 GB/3.74 GiB) Nov 24 12:01:27 LAB kernel: [ 1697.169762] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off Nov 24 12:01:27 LAB kernel: [ 1697.169767] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 45 00 00 08 Nov 24 12:01:27 LAB kernel: [ 1697.171386] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present Nov 24 12:01:27 LAB kernel: [ 1697.171391] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through Nov 24 12:01:27 LAB kernel: [ 1697.173503] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present Nov 24 12:01:27 LAB kernel: [ 1697.173510] sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through Nov 24 12:01:27 LAB kernel: [ 1697.175337] sdb: sdb1 After that I initiated one transfer. lsof -p 3575|tail -2 mv 3575 root 3r REG 8,8 1719599104 4325379 /media/Misc/The Tree of Life (2011) DVDRip XviD-MAXSPEED/The Tree of Life (2011) DVDRip XviD-MAXSPEED www.torentz.3xforum.ro.avi mv 3575 root 4w REG 8,17 1046347776 15 /media/SREE/The Tree of Life (2011) DVDRip XviD-MAXSPEED/The Tree of Life (2011) DVDRip XviD-MAXSPEED www.torentz.3xforum.ro.avi Here are the total time spent on that transfer. root@LAB:/media/SREE# time mv /media/Misc/The\ Tree\ of\ Life\ \(2011\)\ DVDRip\ XviD-MAXSPEED/ /media/SREE/ real 11m49.334s user 0m0.008s sys 0m5.260s root@LAB:/media/SREE# df -T|tail -2 /dev/sdb1 vfat 3918344 1679308 2239036 43% /media/SREE /dev/sda8 ext4 110110576 60096904 50013672 55% /media/Misc Do you think this is normal?? Approximately 12 minutes for 1.6Gb transfer? Thanks.

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• How to get bearable 2D and 3D performance on AMD Radeon HD 6950?

  - by l0b0

  I have had an AMD Radeon HD 6950 (i.e., Cayman series) for a couple years now, and I have tried a lot of combinations of drivers and settings with terrible results. I'm completely at a loss as to how to proceed. The open source driver has much better 2D performance, but it offloads all OpenGL rendering to the CPU. What I've tried so far: All the latest stable Ubuntu releases in the period, plus one Linux Mint release. All the latest stable AMD Catalyst Proprietary Display Drivers, and currently 13.1. The unofficial wiki installation instructions for every Ubuntu version and the semi-official Ubuntu instructions. All the tips and tweaks I could find for Minecraft (Optifine, reducing settings to minimum), VLC (postprocessing at minimum, rendering at native video size), Catalyst Control Center (flipped every lever in there) and X11 (some binary toggles I can no longer remember). Results: Typically 13-15 FPS in Minecraft, 30 max (100+ in Windows with the same driver version). Around 10 FPS in Team Fortress 2 using the official Steam client. Choppy video playback, in Flash and with VLC. CPU use goes through the roof when rendering video (150% for 1080p on YouTube in Chromium, 100% for 1080p H264 in VLC). glxgears shows 12.5 FPS when maximized. fgl_glxgears shows 10 FPS when maximized. Hardware details from lshw: Motherboard ASUS P6X58D-E CPU Intel Core i7 CPU 950 @ 3.07GHz (never overclocked; 64 bit) 6 GB RAM Video card product "Cayman PRO [Radeon HD 6950]", vendor "Hynix Semiconductor (Hyundai Electronics)" 2 x 1920x1200 monitors, both connected with HDMI. I feel I must be missing something absolutely fundamental here. Is there no accelerated support for anything on 64-bit architectures? Does a dual monitor completely mess up the driver? $ fglrxinfo display: :0 screen: 0 OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series OpenGL version string: 4.2.11995 Compatibility Profile Context $ glxinfo | grep 'direct rendering' direct rendering: Yes I am currently using the open source driver, with the following results: Full frame rate and low CPU load when playing 1080p video. Black screen (but music in the background) in Team Fortress 2. Similar performance in Minecraft as the Catalyst driver. In hindsight obvious, since both end up offloading the rendering to the CPU. My /var/log/Xorg.0.log after upgrading to AMD Catalyst 13.1. Some possibly important lines: (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fglrx (WW) fglrx: No matching Device section for instance (BusID PCI:0@3:0:1) found The generated xorg.conf. The disabled "monitor" 0-DFP9 is actually an A/V receiver, which sometimes confuses the monitor drivers when turned on/off (but not in Windows). All three "monitor" devices are connected with HDMI. Edit: Chris Carter's suggestion to use the xorg-edgers PPA (Catalyst 13.1) resulted in some improvement, but still pretty bad performance overall: Minecraft stabilizes at 13-17 FPS, but at least the CPU load is "only" at 45-60%. Still 150% CPU use for 1080p video rendering on YouTube in Chromium. Massive improvement for 1080p H264 in VLC: 40-50% CPU use and no visible jitter glxgears performance about doubled to 25-30 FPS when maximized. fgl_glxgears still at ~10 FPS when maximized.

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• Nest reinvents smoke detectors. Introduces smart and talking smoke detector that keeps quite when you wave

  - by Gopinath

  Nest, the leading smart thermostat maker has introduced a smart home device today- Nest Protect, a smart, talking smoke & carbon monoxide detector that can quite when you wave your hand. Less annoyances and more intelligence Smoke detectors are around for hundreds of years and playing a major role in providing safety from fire accidents at home. But the technology of these devices is stale and there is no major innovation for the past several years. With the introduction of Nest Protect, the landscape of smoke detectors is all set to change just like how Nest thermostat redefined the industry two years ago. Nest Protect is internet enabled and equipped with motion- and smoke-detection sensors so that when it starts beeping you can silence it by waving hand instead of doing circus feats to turn off the alarm. Everyone who cooks in a home equipped with smoke detector would know how annoying it is to turn off sensitive smoke detectors that goes off control quite often. Apart from addressing the annoyances of regular smoke detector, Nest Protect has talking capabilities. It can alert users with clear & actionable instructions when it detects a danger. Instead of harsh beeps it actually speak to you so you know what is happening. It will tell you what smoke it has detected and in which room it is detected. Multiple Nest Protects installed in a home can communicate with each other. Lets say that there is a smoke in bed room, the Nest Protect installed in bed room shares this information to all Nest Protects installed in the home and your kitchen device can alert you that there is a smoke in bed room. There is an App for that The internet enabled Nest Protect has an app to view its status and various alerts. When the Protect is running on low battery it alerts you to replace them soon. If there is a smoke at home and you are away, you will get message alerts. The app works on all major smartphones as well as tablets. Auto shuts down gas furnaces/heaters on smoke Apart from forming a network with other Nest Protect devices installed at home, they can also communicate with Nest Thermostat if it is installed. When carbon monoxide is detected it can shut off your gas furnace automatically. Also with the help of motion detectors it improves Nest Thermostat’s auto-away functionality. It looks elegant and costs a lot more than a regular smoke detector Just like Nest Thermostat, Nest Protect is elegant and adorable. You just fall in love with it the moment you see it. It’s another master piece from the designer of Apple’s iPod. All is good with the Nest Protect, except the price!! It costs whooping $129, which is almost 4 times more expensive than the best selling conventional thermostats available at $30. A single bed room apartment would require at least 3 detectors and it costs around $390 to install Nest Protects compared to 90$ required for conventional smoke detectors. Though Nest Thermostat is an expensive one compared to conventional thermostats, it offered great savings through its intelligent auto-away feature. Users were able to able to see returns on their investments. If Nest Protect also can provide good return on investment the it will be very successful.

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• Webcast Q&A: Demystifying External Authorization

  - by B Shashikumar

  Thanks to everyone who joined us on our webcast with SANS Institute on "Demystifying External Authorization". Also a special thanks to Tanya Baccam from SANS for sharing her experiences reviewing Oracle Entitlements Server. If you missed the webcast, you can catch a replay of the webcast here.  Here is a compilation of the slides that were used on today's webcast.  SANS Institute Product Review: Oracle Entitlements Server We have captured the Q&A from the webcast for those who couldn't attend. Q: Is Oracle ADF integrated with Oracle Entitlements Server (OES) ? A:  In Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g and later, Oracle ADF, Oracle WebCenter, Oracle SOA Suite and other middleware products are all built on Oracle Platform Security Services (OPSS). OPSS privodes many security functions like authentication, audit, credential stores, token validaiton, etc. OES is the authorization solution underlying OPSS. And OES 11g unifies different authorization mechanisms including Java2/ABAC/RBAC.  Q: Which portal frameworks support the use of OES policies for portal entitlement decisions? A:  Many portals including Oracle WebCenter 11g  run natively on top of OES. The authorization engine in WebCenter is OES. Besides, OES offers out of the box integration with Microsoft SharePoint. So SharePoint sites, sub sites, web parts, navigation items, document access control can all be secured with OES. Several other portals have also been secured with OES ex: IBM websphere portal Q:  How do we enforce Seperation of Duties (SoD) rules using OES (also how does that integrate with a product like OIA) ? A:  A product like OIM or OIA can be used to set up and govern SoD policies. OES enforces these policies at run time. Role mapping policies in OES can assign roles dynamically to users under certain conditions. So this makes it simple to enforce SoD policies inside an application at runtime. Q:  Our web application has objects like buttons, text fields, drop down lists etc. is there any ”autodiscovery” capability that allows me to use/see those web page objects so you can start building policies over those objects? or how does it work? A:  There ae few different options with OES. When you build an app, and make authorization calls with the app in the test environment, you can put OES in discovery mode and have OES register those authorization calls and decisions. Instead of doing  this after the fact, an application like Oracle iFlex has built-in UI controls where when the app is running, a script can intercept authorization calls and migrate those over to OES. And in Oracle ADF, a lot of resources are protected so pages, task flows and other resources be registered without OES knowing about them. Q: Does current Oracle Fusion application use OES ? The documentation does not seem to indicate it. A:  The current version of Fusion Apps is using a preview version of OES. Soon it will be repalced with OES 11g.  Q: Can OES secure mobile apps? A: Absolutely. Nowadays users are bringing their own devices such as a a smartphone or tablet to work. With the Oracle IDM platform, we can tie identity context into the access management stack. With OES we can make use of context to enforce authorization for users accessing apps from mobile devices. For example: we can take into account different elements like authentication scheme, location, device type etc and tie all that information into an authorization decision.  Q:  Does Oracle Entitlements Server (OES) have an ESAPI implementation? A:  OES is an authorization solution. ESAPI/OWASP is something we include in our platform security solution for all oracle products, not specifically in OES Q:  ESAPI has an authorization API. Can I use that API to access OES? A:  If the API supports an interface / sspi model that can be configured to invoke an external authz system through some mechanism then yes

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• Converting a PV vm back into an HVM vm

  - by wim.coekaerts

  I have been doing some Oracle VM benchmark stuff in the last week or 2 in my off hours and yesterday I wanted to convert one of my VMs that was based on a paravirt kernel into a vm that just boots as a regular hardware virt VM with a standard x86-64 kernel. It took me a little while to figure out the fastest way so now that I have it pretty much down I wanted to share the steps. A PV kernel uses pygrub and a paravirt kernel image that lives on the vm image virtual disk. since this disk image does not have to be bootable it doesn't contain a boot sector and if you just restart the VM in hvm mode the virtual bios will just not do much as it can't start the boot process from disk The first thing I do is make a backup of my vm.cfg file :-) and then edit it as follows : the original file contains : bootloader = '/usr/bin/pygrub' I replace that with : acpi = 1 apic = 1 builder = 'hvm' device_model = '/usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm' kernel = '/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader' then changing the disk files. I change my xvd disks to hd disks and I copy over the iso image of my instal lDVD. In the case of my VM template it was based on OL5U4 So I downloaded Enterprise-R5-U4-Server-x86_64-dvd.iso and added it as a cd device. disk = ['file:/ovs/OVM_EL5U4_X86_64_11202RAC_PVM/System.img,xvda,w', 'file:/ovs/OVM_EL5U4_X86_64_11202RAC_PVM/Oracle11202RAC_x86_64-xvdb.img,xvdb,w', ] to disk = ['file:/ovs/OVM_EL5U4_X86_64_11202RAC_PVM/System.img,hda,w', 'file:/ovs/OVM_EL5U4_X86_64_11202RAC_PVM/Oracle11202RAC_x86_64-xvdb.img,hdb,w', 'file:/ovs/OVM_EL5U4_X86_64_11202RAC_PVM/Enterprise-R5-U4-Server-x86_64-dvd.iso, hdc:cdrom,r', ] boot='d' for the network devices (vifs) I change : vif = ['bridge=xenbr2,type=netfront'] to vif = ['bridge=xenbr2,type=ioemu'] That should do it. Next, inside the VM, I copy over the regular kernel rpm that I want to end up running in hvm mode. In this example case it was : kernel-2.6.18-164.0.0.0.1.el5.x8664.rpm. I will use that later on in the process. I put this kernel simply in /root At this point I just start the vm with xm create vm.cfg and start my vnc console to the vm console. Oracle Linux will boot from the iso image, I just go through the install steps and click on UPgrade existing (not re-install). Because the VM is the same as the ISO the install won't actually do anything and it will run through instantly. When the "Reboot" button pops up, don't reboot. Switch to the command prompt console. hi alt-f2 to go to the shell prompt. Now it's easy : umount /mnt/sysimage/boot cd /mnt/sysimage chroot . mount /dev/hda1 (if that was your /boot partition) export PATH=/sbin:$PATH (just to clean that up) edit /etc/modprobe.conf and comment out the xen modules (just put a # in front) Install grub. if your /boot is hda1 then that is (hd0,0) $ grub root (hd0,0) setup (hd0) exit grub now you have a good bootsector, grub installed and you have your grub.conf file Install the new kernel cd root (this is your old /root in your pv image) rpm -ivh remove (or comment out) boot='d' in your vm.cfg restart the VM and you should be good to go, regular grub should start and load your environment. Caveats : this assumes you used labels for your filesystems. if /etc/fstab were to have devices listed then you would have to rename these device before rebooting as well. If you had a /dev/xvda disk then this would be /dev/hda or /dev/sda. All in all it is a relatively short and simple process.

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• Converting a PV vm back into an HVM vm

  - by wim.coekaerts

  I have been doing some Oracle VM benchmark stuff in the last week or 2 in my off hours and yesterday I wanted to convert one of my VMs that was based on a paravirt kernel into a vm that just boots as a regular hardware virt VM with a standard x86-64 kernel. It took me a little while to figure out the fastest way so now that I have it pretty much down I wanted to share the steps. A PV kernel uses pygrub and a paravirt kernel image that lives on the vm image virtual disk. since this disk image does not have to be bootable it doesn't contain a boot sector and if you just restart the VM in hvm mode the virtual bios will just not do much as it can't start the boot process from disk The first thing I do is make a backup of my vm.cfg file :-) and then edit it as follows : the original file contains : bootloader = '/usr/bin/pygrub' I replace that with : acpi = 1 apic = 1 builder = 'hvm' device_model = '/usr/lib/xen/bin/qemu-dm' kernel = '/usr/lib/xen/boot/hvmloader' then changing the disk files. I change my xvd disks to hd disks and I copy over the iso image of my instal lDVD. In the case of my VM template it was based on OL5U4 So I downloaded Enterprise-R5-U4-Server-x86_64-dvd.iso and added it as a cd device. disk = ['file:/ovs/OVM_EL5U4_X86_64_11202RAC_PVM/System.img,xvda,w', 'file:/ovs/OVM_EL5U4_X86_64_11202RAC_PVM/Oracle11202RAC_x86_64-xvdb.img,xvdb,w', ] to disk = ['file:/ovs/OVM_EL5U4_X86_64_11202RAC_PVM/System.img,hda,w', 'file:/ovs/OVM_EL5U4_X86_64_11202RAC_PVM/Oracle11202RAC_x86_64-xvdb.img,hdb,w', 'file:/ovs/OVM_EL5U4_X86_64_11202RAC_PVM/Enterprise-R5-U4-Server-x86_64-dvd.iso, hdc:cdrom,r', ] boot='d' for the network devices (vifs) I change : vif = ['bridge=xenbr2,type=netfront'] to vif = ['bridge=xenbr2,type=ioemu'] That should do it. Next, inside the VM, I copy over the regular kernel rpm that I want to end up running in hvm mode. In this example case it was : kernel-2.6.18-164.0.0.0.1.el5.x8664.rpm. I will use that later on in the process. I put this kernel simply in /root At this point I just start the vm with xm create vm.cfg and start my vnc console to the vm console. Oracle Linux will boot from the iso image, I just go through the install steps and click on UPgrade existing (not re-install). Because the VM is the same as the ISO the install won't actually do anything and it will run through instantly. When the "Reboot" button pops up, don't reboot. Switch to the command prompt console. hi alt-f2 to go to the shell prompt. Now it's easy : umount /mnt/sysimage/boot cd /mnt/sysimage chroot . mount /dev/hda1 (if that was your /boot partition) export PATH=/sbin:$PATH (just to clean that up) edit /etc/modprobe.conf and comment out the xen modules (just put a # in front) Install grub. if your /boot is hda1 then that is (hd0,0) $ grub root (hd0,0) setup (hd0) exit grub now you have a good bootsector, grub installed and you have your grub.conf file Install the new kernel cd root (this is your old /root in your pv image) rpm -ivh remove (or comment out) boot='d' in your vm.cfg restart the VM and you should be good to go, regular grub should start and load your environment. Caveats : this assumes you used labels for your filesystems. if /etc/fstab were to have devices listed then you would have to rename these device before rebooting as well. If you had a /dev/xvda disk then this would be /dev/hda or /dev/sda. All in all it is a relatively short and simple process.

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• Swap not available on System Monitor

  - by Zaki

  I had a swap partition of 1GB (RAM 1GB, Ubuntu 12.04 lts). Now swap is not shown on System Monitor neither can I hibernate my pc (sudo pm-hibernate). blkid output: /dev/sda1: UUID="B8B4FBB1B4FB706C" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda2: UUID="2ea7d608-2d89-4e41-9436-d05cb3ce8871" TYPE="swap" /dev/sda3: UUID="3219d03a-67e4-454b-8ce7-a27831846e35" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda5: LABEL="Softwares" UUID="AC1CC3301CC2F47C" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda6: LABEL="Education" UUID="1E103E6C103E4B53" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda7: LABEL="Recreation" UUID="2CC8D181C8D149AA" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda8: LABEL="Miscellaneous" UUID="0274D6B174D6A727" TYPE="ntfs" /etc/fstab # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 # / was on /dev/sda6 during installation UUID=3219d03a-67e4-454b-8ce7-a27831846e35 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation UUID=2ea7d608-2d89-4e41-9436-d05cb3ce8871 none swap sw 0 0 free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 991 867 123 0 27 418 -/+ buffers/cache: 421 569 Swap: 0 0 0 cat /proc/swaps Filename Type Size Used Priority fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x9f369f36 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 63 31471334 15735636 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda2 31471616 33470447 999416 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda3 33472512 62539775 14533632 83 Linux /dev/sda4 62541045 312592769 125025862+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA) /dev/sda5 62541108 125066024 31262458+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda6 125066088 187591004 31262458+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda7 187591068 250115984 31262458+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda8 250116048 312576704 31230328+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT swapon --all swapon: /dev/sda2: swapon failed: Invalid argument dmesg | grep -A 5 -B 5 -i swap [ 9.487404] EXT4-fs (sda3): ext4_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 131645 [ 9.487413] EXT4-fs (sda3): ext4_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 131330 [ 9.487418] EXT4-fs (sda3): 16 orphan inodes deleted [ 9.487420] EXT4-fs (sda3): recovery complete [ 9.578600] EXT4-fs (sda3): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null) [ 20.580539] Swap area shorter than signature indicates [ 20.588363] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready [ 20.619443] udevd[330]: starting version 175 [ 20.649959] lp: driver loaded but no devices found [ 20.662972] [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810 [ 20.675515] i915 0000:00:02.0: setting latency timer to 64 -- [ 72.288573] PM: thaw of drv:sr dev:3:0:0:0 complete after 178.143 msecs [ 72.288578] PM: thaw of drv:scsi_device dev:3:0:0:0 complete after 178.136 msecs [ 72.299677] PM: thaw of drv:scsi_device dev:2:0:0:0 complete after 189.270 msecs [ 72.309473] PM: thaw of devices complete after 202.763 msecs [ 72.309668] PM: writing image. [ 72.309670] PM: Cannot find swap device, try swapon -a. [ 72.309699] PM: Cannot get swap writer [ 72.329896] Restarting tasks ... done. [ 72.331777] PM: Basic memory bitmaps freed [ 72.331792] video LNXVIDEO:00: Restoring backlight state [ 72.420048] option1 ttyUSB0: option_instat_callback: error -84 [ 72.804047] option1 ttyUSB0: option_instat_callback: error -84 -- [ 145.960625] sd 7:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0 [ 145.972036] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk [ 172.430508] PPP BSD Compression module registered [ 172.455583] PPP Deflate Compression module registered [ 332.260789] type=1400 audit(1381814763.342:27): apparmor="DENIED" operation="capable" parent=1 profile="/usr/sbin/cupsd" pid=636 comm="cupsd" pid=636 comm="cupsd" capability=36 capname="block_suspend" [ 1913.030998] Swap area shorter than signature indicates [ 2022.530155] type=1400 audit(1381816453.610:28): apparmor="DENIED" operation="capable" parent=1 profile="/usr/sbin/cupsd" pid=636 comm="cupsd" pid=636 comm="cupsd" capability=36 capname="block_suspend" [ 4062.729509] Swap area shorter than signature indicates Please help. Thanks in advance. df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda3 14G 6.1G 7.0G 47% / udev 488M 4.0K 488M 1% /dev tmpfs 199M 868K 198M 1% /run none 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock none 496M 224K 496M 1% /run/shm

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• How does interpolation actually work to smooth out an object's movement?

  - by user22241

  I've asked a few similar questions over the past 8 months or so with no real joy, so I am going make the question more general. I have an Android game which is OpenGL ES 2.0. within it I have the following Game Loop: My loop works on a fixed time step principle (dt = 1 / ticksPerSecond) loops=0; while(System.currentTimeMillis() > nextGameTick && loops < maxFrameskip){ updateLogic(dt); nextGameTick+=skipTicks; timeCorrection += (1000d/ticksPerSecond) % 1; nextGameTick+=timeCorrection; timeCorrection %=1; loops++; } render(); My intergration works like this: sprite.posX+=sprite.xVel*dt; sprite.posXDrawAt=sprite.posX*width; Now, everything works pretty much as I would like. I can specify that I would like an object to move across a certain distance (screen width say) in 2.5 seconds and it will do just that. Also because of the frame skipping that I allow in my game loop, I can do this on pretty much any device and it will always take 2.5 seconds. Problem However, the problem is that when a render frame skips, the graphic stutter. It's extremely annoying. If I remove the ability to skip frames, then everything is smooth as you like, but will run at different speeds on different devices. So it's not an option. I'm still not sure why the frame skips, but I would like to point out that this is Nothing to do with poor performance, I've taken the code right back to 1 tiny sprite and no logic (apart from the logic required to move the sprite) and I still get skipped frames. And this is on a Google Nexus 10 tablet (and as mentioned above, I need frame skipping to keep the speed consistent across devices anyway). So, the only other option I have is to use interpolation (or extrapolation), I've read every article there is out there but none have really helped me to understand how it works and all of my attempted implementations have failed. Using one method I was able to get things moving smoothly but it was unworkable because it messed up my collision. I can foresee the same issue with any similar method because the interpolation is passed to (and acted upon within) the rendering method - at render time. So if Collision corrects position (character now standing right next to wall), then the renderer can alter it's position and draw it in the wall. So I'm really confused. People have said that you should never alter an object's position from within the rendering method, but all of the examples online show this. So I'm asking for a push in the right direction, please do not link to the popular game loop articles (deWitters, Fix your timestep, etc) as I've read these multiple times. I'm not asking anyone to write my code for me. Just explain please in simple terms how Interpolation actually works with some examples. I will then go and try to integrate any ideas into my code and will ask more specific questions if need-be further down the line. (I'm sure this is a problem many people struggle with).

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• Gartner PCC: A Shovel & Some Ah-Ha's

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  When Gartner Vice President and leading analyst Whit Andrews kicked off the Gartner Portals, Content & Collaboration Summit on Monday, March 12 at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando, FL by bringing a shovel to the stage, eyebrows raised and a few thoughts went through my head. Either this guy plans to go help the construction workers outside construct that new pool at the Gaylord or he took a wrong turn and is at the wrong conference. Oh and how did he get that shovel through airport security? As Whit explained more his objective became more clear…take everything anyone has ever told you about portals and throw it out the window, as portals have evolved and times they are most certainly changing. The future Web is here, available not only on browsers but also via a broad spectrum of access points, including automobiles, consumer electronics and more and more mobile devices. Not merely prevalent, the future Web is also multimedia-driven and operates in real time, driven by mobility, social media, streaming video and other dynamic services. Applications and user experiences are in the midst of an evolution — from the early, simple mobile Web models to today’s Web 2.0 mobile apps and, ultimately, to a world of predominantly Web apps. Additionally, cloud services will forever change how portals and user experience are designed, built, delivered, sourced and managed. So what does this mean for you? Today’s organizations need software that will enable them to not just do their jobs, but to do it in a way that is familiar and easy for them.  What does this mean for IT? Use software and technology as an enabler, not as a roadblock. Overall, we had a great week in Orlando learning about how to improve the user experience, manage content explosion, launch social initiatives, transition to mobile environments and understand cloud and SaaS options.  We had some great conversations throughout the conference and at the Oracle booth. Lots of demonstrations were given of Oracle WebCenter Sites and Oracle Social Network. And as Christie mentioned earlier this week, our Vice President of Product Management and Strategy for WebCenter Loren Weinberg presented on the topic of customer engagement and talked about how organization’s relationships with their customers have fundamentally changed today and the resulting impact that has on their priorities.  Loren also talked about the importance of customer engagement, why that matters now more than ever, and what you can do to help your company or organization succeed in this new world. The question asked in every keynote and session was a simple one: What is your “ah-ha” moment? I personally had quite a few, some of which I’ve captured below. 70% of internal social initiatives eventually fail. By 2014, refusing to communicate with consumers via social media will be as harmful as ignoring emails/phone calls is today. Customer engagement = multi-channel + social & interactive + personal & relevant + optimized. If people choose to talk about your product/company/service, it's because it's remarkable. -- Seth Godin's keynote (one of the highlights of the conference!) The Web will become the primary method used for delivering content and applications to mobile devices. By 2015, 20% of smart phone users worldwide will conduct commerce using context-enriched services on a weekly basis.  86% of customers will pay more for a better customer experience. 6 P's of Quality User Experience. Product. Enabled by: People, Patterns, Process, Profit, Priorities. Did you attend the Gartner Summit? What were your ah-ha moments?

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• Very slow KVM in Ubuntu 12.04

  - by Guy Fawkes

  I use Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit and KVM, my CPU is Core i5 3.3 GHz and I have 8 GB of DDR3 RAM. I run Windows 7 in KVM and it's extremely slow. My co-worker use Debian on the same PC configuration and can run Windows 7 extremely fast! Where can be my problem? sudo cat /etc/libvirt/qemu/windows.xml <!-- WARNING: THIS IS AN AUTO-GENERATED FILE. CHANGES TO IT ARE LIKELY TO BE OVERWRITTEN AND LOST. Changes to this xml configuration should be made using: virsh edit windows or other application using the libvirt API. --> <domain type='kvm'> <name>windows</name> <uuid>5c685175-baea-0ca6-591f-8269d923ffb8</uuid> <memory>2097152</memory> <currentMemory>2097152</currentMemory> <vcpu>1</vcpu> <os> <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-1.0'>hvm</type> <boot dev='hd'/> </os> <features> <acpi/> <apic/> <pae/> </features> <clock offset='localtime'/> <on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff> <on_reboot>restart</on_reboot> <on_crash>restart</on_crash> <devices> <emulator>/usr/bin/kvm</emulator> <disk type='file' device='disk'> <driver name='qemu' type='raw'/> <source file='/var/lib/libvirt/images/windows.img'/> <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/> <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' unit='0'/> </disk> <controller type='ide' index='0'> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x01' function='0x1'/> </controller> <interface type='network'> <mac address='52:54:00:94:63:91'/> <source network='default'/> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/> </interface> <serial type='pty'> <target port='0'/> </serial> <console type='pty'> <target type='serial' port='0'/> </console> <input type='tablet' bus='usb'/> <input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/> <graphics type='vnc' port='-1' autoport='yes'/> <sound model='ich6'> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x04' function='0x0'/> </sound> <video> <model type='vga' vram='262144' heads='1'/> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x0'/> </video> <memballoon model='virtio'> <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x05' function='0x0'/> </memballoon> </devices> </domain>

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• Sunshine after the iCloud release?

  - by Laila

  "Why should I believe them? They're the ones that brought us MobileMe? It was not our finest hour, but we learned a lot." Steve Jobs June 6th 2011 Apple's new cloud service has been met with uncritical excitement by industry commentators.  It is wonderful what a rename can do.  Apple has had a 'cloud' offering for three years called MobileMe, successor to .MAC and  iTools, so iCloud is now the fourth internet service Apple have attempted. If this had been Microsoft, there would have been catcalls all around the blogosphere.  I'll admit that there is a lot more functionality announced for iCloud than MobileMe has ever managed to achieve, but then almost anything has more functionality than MobileMe.  It's an expensive service (£120 a year in the UK, $90 in the states), launched as far back as  June 9, 2008, that has delivered very little and suffered a string of technical problems; the documentation was mainly  a community effort, built up gradually by the frustrated and angry users. It was supposed to synchronise PC Outlook calendars but couldn't manage Microsoft Exchange (Google could, of course). It used WebDAV to allow Windows users to attach to the filestore, but didn't document how to do it. The method for downloading and uploading files to the cloud-based filestore was ridiculously clunky. It allowed you to post photos on a public site, but forgot to include a way of deleting photos. I could go on with the list, but you can explore the many sites that have flourished to inhabit the support-vacuum left by Apple. MobileMe should have had all the bright new clever things announced for iCloud. Apple dropped the ball, and allowed services such as Flickr to fill the void. However, their PR skills are such that, a name-change later (the .ME.com email address remains), it has turned a rout into a victory, and hundreds of earnest bloggers have been extolling Apple's expertise in cloud matters. This must be frustrating for the other cloud providers who have quietly got the technology working right. I wish iCloud well, even though I resent the expensive mess they made of MobileMe. Apple promise that iCloud will sync files, apps, app data, and media across all the different iOS5 devices, Macs, and PCs. It also hopes to sync music across devices, but not video content. They've offered existing MobileMe users free use of the MobileMe service for a year as the product is morphed, and they will be able to transfer to iCloud when it is launched in the autumn.  On June 30, 2012, MobileMe will die, and Apple's iWeb is also soon to join iTools and .MAC in the hereafter. So why get excited about iCloud? That all depends on the level of PC integration. Whereas iOS5 machines will be full participants in the new world of data-sharing (Sorry iPod Touch users) what about .NET libraries? There is talk of synchronising 'My Pictures' libraries with iOS5 and iMac machines, but little more detail as yet. Apple has a lot to prove with iCloud and anyone with actual experience of their past attempts to get into cloud services will be wary.

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• Organization &amp; Architecture UNISA Studies &ndash; Chap 6

  - by MarkPearl

  Learning Outcomes Discuss the physical characteristics of magnetic disks Describe how data is organized and accessed on a magnetic disk Discuss the parameters that play a role in the performance of magnetic disks Describe different optical memory devices Magnetic Disk The way data is stored on and retried from magnetic disks Data is recorded on and later retrieved form the disk via a conducting coil named the head (in many systems there are two heads) The writ mechanism exploits the fact that electricity flowing through a coil produces a magnetic field. Electric pulses are sent to the write head, and the resulting magnetic patterns are recorded on the surface below with different patterns for positive and negative currents The physical characteristics of a magnetic disk   Summarize from book   The factors that play a role in the performance of a disk Seek time – the time it takes to position the head at the track Rotational delay / latency – the time it takes for the beginning of the sector to reach the head Access time – the sum of the seek time and rotational delay Transfer time – the time it takes to transfer data RAID The rate of improvement in secondary storage performance has been considerably less than the rate for processors and main memory. Thus secondary storage has become a bit of a bottleneck. RAID works on the concept that if one disk can be pushed so far, additional gains in performance are to be had by using multiple parallel components. Points to note about RAID… RAID is a set of physical disk drives viewed by the operating system as a single logical drive Data is distributed across the physical drives of an array in a scheme known as striping Redundant disk capacity is used to store parity information, which guarantees data recoverability in case of a disk failure (not supported by RAID 0 or RAID 1) Interesting to note that the increase in the number of drives, increases the probability of failure. To compensate for this decreased reliability RAID makes use of stored parity information that enables the recovery of data lost due to a disk failure.   The RAID scheme consists of 7 levels…   Category Level Description Disks Required Data Availability Large I/O Data Transfer Capacity Small I/O Request Rate Striping 0 Non Redundant N Lower than single disk Very high Very high for both read and write Mirroring 1 Mirrored 2N Higher than RAID 2 – 5 but lower than RAID 6 Higher than single disk Up to twice that of a signle disk for read Parallel Access 2 Redundant via Hamming Code N + m Much higher than single disk Highest of all listed alternatives Approximately twice that of a single disk Parallel Access 3 Bit interleaved parity N + 1 Much higher than single disk Highest of all listed alternatives Approximately twice that of a single disk Independent Access 4 Block interleaved parity N + 1 Much higher than single disk Similar to RAID 0 for read, significantly lower than single disk for write Similar to RAID 0 for read, significantly lower than single disk for write Independent Access 5 Block interleaved parity N + 1 Much higher than single disk Similar to RAID 0 for read, lower than single disk for write Similar to RAID 0 for read, generally  lower than single disk for write Independent Access 6 Block interleaved parity N + 2 Highest of all listed alternatives Similar to RAID 0 for read; lower than RAID 5 for write Similar to RAID 0 for read, significantly lower than RAID 5  for write   Read page 215 – 221 for detailed explanation on RAID levels Optical Memory There are a variety of optical-disk systems available. Read through the table on page 222 – 223 Some of the devices include… CD CD-ROM CD-R CD-RW DVD DVD-R DVD-RW Blue-Ray DVD Magnetic Tape Most modern systems use serial recording – data is lade out as a sequence of bits along each track. The typical recording used in serial is referred to as serpentine recording. In this technique when data is being recorded, the first set of bits is recorded along the whole length of the tape. When the end of the tape is reached the heads are repostioned to record a new track, and the tape is again recorded on its whole length, this time in the opposite direction. That process continued back and forth until the tape is full. To increase speed, the read-write head is capable of reading and writing a number of adjacent tracks simultaneously. Data is still recorded serially along individual tracks, but blocks in sequence are stored on adjacent tracks as suggested. A tape drive is a sequential access device. Magnetic tape was the first kind of secondary memory. It is still widely used as the lowest-cost, slowest speed member of the memory hierarchy.

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• Going by the eBook

  - by Tony Davis

  The book and magazine publishing world is rapidly going digital, and the industry is faced with making drastic changes to their ways of doing business. The sudden take-up of digital readers by the book-buying public has surprised even the most technological-savvy of the industry. Printed books just aren't selling like they did. In contrast, eBooks are doing well. The ePub file format is the standard around which all publishers are converging. ePub is a standard for formatting book content, so that it can be reflowed for various devices, with their widely differing screen-sizes, and can be read offline. If you unzip an ePub file, you'll find familiar formats such as XML, XHTML and CSS. This is both a blessing and a curse. Whilst it is good to be able to use familiar technologies that have been developed to a level of considerable sophistication, it doesn't get us all the way to producing a viable publication. XHTML is a page-description language, not a book-description language, as we soon found out during our initial experiments, when trying to specify headers, footers, indexes and chaptering. As a result, it is difficult to predict how any particular eBook application will decide to render a book. There isn't even a consensus as to how the cover image is specified. All of this is awkward for the publisher. Each book must be created and revised in a form from which can be generated a whole range of 'printed media', from print books, to Mobi for kindles, ePub for most Tablets and SmartPhones, HTML for excerpted chapters on websites, and a plethora of other formats for other eBook readers, each with its own idiosyncrasies. In theory, if we can get our content into a clean, semantic XML form, such as DOCBOOKS, we can, from there, after every revision, perform a series of relatively simple XSLT transformations to output anything from a HTML article, to an ePub file for reading on an iPad, to an ICML file (an XML-based file format supported by the InDesign tool), ready for print publication. As always, however, the task looks bigger the closer you get to the detail. On the way to the utopian world of an XML-based book format that encompasses all the diverse requirements of the different publication media, ePub looks like a reasonable format to adopt. Its forthcoming support for HTML 5 and CSS 3, with ePub 3.0, means that features, such as widow-and-orphan controls, multi-column flow and multi-media graphics can be incorporated into eBooks. This starts to make it possible to build an "app-like" experience into the eBook and to free publishers to think of putting context before container; to think of what content is required, be it graphical, textual or audio, from the point of view of the user, rather than what's possible in a given, traditional book "Container". In the meantime, there is a gap between what publishers require and what current technology can provide and, of course building this app-like experience is far from plain sailing. Real portability between devices is still a big challenge, and achieving the sort of wizardry seen in the likes of Theodore Grey's "Elements" eBook will require some serious device-specific programming skills. Cheers, Tony.

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• Personal Financial Management – The need for resuscitation

  - by Salil Ravindran

  Until a year or so ago, PFM (Personal Financial Management) was the blue eyed boy of every channel banking head. In an age when bank account portability is still fiction, PFM was expected to incentivise customers to switch banks. It still is, in some emerging economies, but if the state of PFM in matured markets is anything to go by, it is in a state of coma and badly requires resuscitation. Studies conducted around the year show an alarming decline and stagnation in PFM usage in mature markets. A Sept 2012 report by Aite Group – Strategies for PFM Success shows that 72% of users hadn’t used PFM and worse, 58% of them were not kicked about using it. Of the rest who had used it, only half did on a bank site. While there are multiple reasons for this lack of adoption, some are glaringly obvious. While pretty graphs and pie charts are important to provide a visual representation of my income and expense, it is simply not enough to encourage me to return. Static representation of data without any insightful analysis does not help me. Budgeting and Cash Flow is important but when I have an operative account, a couple of savings accounts, a mortgage loan and a couple of credit cards help me with what my affordability is in specific contexts rather than telling me I just busted my budget. Help me with relative importance of each budget category so that I know it is fine to go over budget on books for my daughter as against going over budget on eating out. Budget over runs and spend analysis are post facto and I am informed of my sins only when I return to online banking. That too, only if I decide to come to the PFM area. Fundamentally, PFM should be a part of my banking engagement rather than an analysis tool. It should be contextual so that I can make insight based decisions. So what can be done to resuscitate PFM? Amalgamation with banking activities – In most cases, PFM tools are integrated into online banking pages and they are like chapter 37 of a long story. PFM needs to be a way of banking rather than a tool. Available balances should shift to Spendable Balances. Budget and goal related insights should be integrated with transaction sessions to drive pre-event financial decisions. Personal Financial Guidance - Banks need to think ground level and see if their PFM offering is really helping customers achieve self actualisation. Banks need to recognise that most customers out there are non-proficient about making the best value of their money. Customers return when they know that they are being guided rather than being just informed on their finance. Integrating contextual financial offers and financial planning into PFM is one way ahead. Yet another way is to help customers tag unwanted spending thereby encouraging sound savings habits. Mobile PFM – Most banks have left all those numbers on online banking. With access mostly having moved to devices and the success of apps, moving PFM on to devices will give it a much needed shot in the arm. This is not only about presenting the same wine in a new bottle but also about leveraging the power of the device in pushing real time notifications to make pre-purchase decisions. The pursuit should be to analyse spend, budgets and financial goals real time and push them pre-event on to the device. So next time, I should know that I have over run my eating out budget before walking into that burger joint and not after. Increase participation and collaboration – Peer group experiences and comments are valued above those offered by the bank. Integrating social media into PFM engagement will let customers share and solicit their financial management experiences with their peer group. Peer comparisons help benchmark one’s savings and spending habits with those of the peer group and increases stickiness. While mature markets have gone through this learning in some way over the last one year, banks in maturing digital banking economies increasingly seem to be falling into this trap. Best practices lie in profiling and segmenting customers, being where they are and contextually guiding them to identify and achieve their financial goals. Banks could look at the likes of Simple and Movenbank to draw inpiration from.

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• Field Report - Notes from IHRIM Atlanta Event

  - by Natalia Rachelson

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} A guest post by Steve Boese, Director, Talent Strategy, Oracle Recently I had the pleasure to serve as a guest speaker at the IHRIM Atlanta/SE Chapter meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. The focus of my talk was Mobile Technology in Human Resources, and while still a new and developing area, the enormous growth and ubiquitous presence of mobile devices and increasing importance of and demand for constant connectivity in both our personal and professional lives has put planning and developing a mobile HR technology strategy high on many organizations lists of priorities in 2012. Numerous studies have shown that the confluence of ever-rising sales of smartphones and tablets; and the increasing tendency for workers of all kinds to be more mobile and less tied down to traditional, fixed-location workplaces and what now seem like old-fashioned PC-centric and traditional computing environments are driving Human Resources leaders to think about how, where, when, and for whom that the deployment of mobile HR solutions will help them address their business needs, and put information in the hands of those that need it, when they need it, and on their preferred devices. In the session we talked about some of the potential opportunities for mobile HR technologies, from simple workflow-based approval capability, to employee directories and robust employee profiles, to more advanced use cases like internal social networking and location-based mobile recruiting applications. And truly we are just scratching the surface of the potential and the value that all kinds of HR-related mobile technologies will help deliver to enterprises in the coming years. Additionally, it was encouraging to talk with many of the HR leaders in attendance who expressed interest in these kinds of mobile HR technology opportunities, as well as to hear how some of them are already working on developing their own mobile strategies or experimenting with mobile solutions in their workforces. It was a fantastic meeting and I’d like to express my thanks to Kim Bryant, IHRIM Atlanta/SE Board President, the other board members, and also the IHRIM Atlanta Chapter members and attendees at the event. If you are in the Atlanta area and are interested in HR and HR Technology, you can learn more about the programs and services that the Chapter has to offer at their website - http://www.ihrimatlantase.org/. And for people that are interested in what we at Oracle are working on in mobile, you can also sign up to receive the latest updates about the Oracle Fusion Applications tablet solutions, Oracle Fusion Tap, at https://fusiontap.oracle.com/.

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