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• Compress Large Video Files with DivX / Xvid and AutoGK

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Have you ever recorded home video on a camcorder only to find the video size is enormous? What if you wanted to share a video clip on YouTube or another video sharing site, but the file size was bigger than the maximum upload size? Today we’ll look at a way to compress certain video files, such as MPEG and AVI, with Auto Gordian Knot (AutoGK). AutoGK is a free application that runs on Windows. It supports Mpeg1, Mpeg2, Transport Streams, Vobs, and virtually any codec used for an .AVI file. AutoGK will accept as input the following file types: MPG, MPEG, VOB, VRO, M2V, DAT, IFO, TS, TP, TRP, M2T, and AVI. Files are output as .AVI files and are converted using the DivX or XviD codecs. Installing and Using AutoGK Download and install AutoGK (link below) Open the AutoGK. You’ll need to navigate a few wizard screens, but you can just accept the defaults.   Choose your video file by clicking on the folder to the right of the Input file text box.   Browse for and select your video file and click “Open.”   For this example, we’ll be working with an .AVI file that’s 167MB in size.   The output file is copied into the same directory as the input file by default, but you can change this if you choose. If the input file is also .AVI, AutoGK will append an _agk to the output file so that the original is not overwritten. Next, you’ll see any audio tracks listed. You can unselect the check box if you’d like to remove the audio track. You can choose one of the Predefined size options… Or, select a Custom size in MB or Target Quality in percentage. For our example, we’ll be compressing our 167MB file to 35MB. Click on Advanced Settings. Here you can choose your codec, if you have a preference, as well as output resolution and output audio. If you’d like to use the DivX codec, you’ll need to download and install it separately. (See link below) Typically you’ll want to keep the defaults. Click “OK.” Now you’re ready to add your file conversion job to the Job queue. Click Add Job to add it to the queue. You can add multiple files conversions to the job queue and  convert them in one batch. Click Start to begin the conversion process. The process will begin. You’ll be able to see the progress in the Log window on the bottom left. When the conversion is complete you’ll see a “Job finished” and the total time in the log window.   Check your output file to see it’s compressed size. Test your video just to make sure the output quality is satisfactory.   Note:  Conversion times can vary greatly depending on the size of the file and your computer hardware. Files that are several GBs in size may take several hours to compress. AutoGK is no longer being actively developed but is still a wonderful DivX/XviD conversion tool. It can also be used to compress and convert non-copy protected DVDs. Downloads AutoGordianKnot DivX (optional) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Use Your Mac Mini as a Media Server Part 2Make Disk Cleanup Compress Older(or Newer) Files on XPMysticgeek Blog: Exclusive Look Inside Vreel – Including Interview With Vreel Founder!Friday Fun: Watch HD Video Content with MeevidConvert a DVD Movie Directly to AVI with FairUse Wizard 2.9 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos Add a Custom Title in IE using Spybot or Spyware Blaster When You Need to Hail a Taxi in NYC Live Map of Marine Traffic NoSquint Remembers Site Specific Zoom Levels (Firefox)

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 07, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 07, 2010New ProjectsAlgorithminator: Universal .NET algorithm visualizer, which helps you to illustrate any algorithm, written in any .NET language. Still in development.ALToolkit: Contains a set of handy .NET components/classes. Currently it contains: * A Numeric Text Box (an Extended NumericUpDown) * A Splash Screen base fo...Automaton Home: Automaton is a home automation software built with a n-Tier, MVVM pattern utilzing WCF, EF, WPF, Silverlight and XBAP.Developer Controls: Developer Controls contains various controls to help build applications that can script/write code.Dynamic Reference Manager: Dynamic Reference Manager is a set (more like a small group) of classes and attributes written in C# that allows any .NET program to reference othe...indiologic: Utilities of an IndioNeural Cryptography in F#: This project is my magistracy resulting work. It is intended to be an example of using neural networks in cryptography. Hashing functions are chose...Particle Filter Visualization: Particle Filter Visualization Program for the Intel Science and Engineering FairPólya: Efficient, immutable, polymorphic collections. .Net lacks them, we provide them*. * By we, we mean I; and by efficient, I mean hopefully so.project euler solutions from mhinze: mhinze project euler solutionsSilverlight 4 and WCF multi layer: Silverlight 4 and WCF multi layersqwarea: Project for a browser-based, minimalistic, massively multiplayer strategy game. Part of the "Génie logiciel et Cloud Computing" course of the ENS (...SuperSocket: SuperSocket, a socket application framework can build FTP/SMTP/POP server easilyToast (for ASP.NET MVC): Dynamic, developer & designer friendly content injection, compression and optimization for ASP.NET MVCNew ReleasesALToolkit: ALToolkit 1.0: Binary release of the libraries containing: NumericTextBox SplashScreen Based on the VB.NET code, but that doesn't really matter.Blacklist of Providers: 1.0-Milestone 1: Blacklist of Providers.Milestone 1In this development release implemented - Main interface (Work Item #5453) - Database (Work Item #5523)C# Linear Hash Table: Linear Hash Table b2: Now includes a default constructor, and will throw an exception if capacity is not set to a power of 2 or loadToMaintain is below 1.Composure: CassiniDev-Trunk-40745-VS2010.rc1.NET4: A simple port of the CassiniDev portable web server project for Visual Studio 2010 RC1 built against .NET 4.0. The WCF tests currently fail unless...Developer Controls: DevControls: These are the version 1.0 releases of these controls. Download the individually or all together (in a .zip file). More releases coming soon!Dynamic Reference Manager: DRM Alpha1: This is the first release. I'm calling it Alpha because I intend implementing other functions, but I do not intend changing the way current functio...ESB Toolkit Extensions: Tellago SOA ESB Extenstions v0.3: Windows Installer file that installs Library on a BizTalk ESB 2.0 system. This Install automatically configures the esb.config to use the new compo...GKO Libraries: GKO Libraries 0.1 Alpha: 0.1 AlphaHome Access Plus+: v3.0.3.0: Version 3.0.3.0 Release Change Log: Added Announcement Box Removed script files that aren't needed Fixed & issue in directory path Stylesheet...Icarus Scene Engine: Icarus Scene Engine 1.10.306.840: Icarus Professional, Icarus Player, the supporting software for Icarus Scene Engine, with some included samples, and the start of a tutorial (with ...mavjuz WndLpt: wndlpt-0.2.5: New: Response to 5 LPT inputs "test i 1" New: Reaction to 12 LPT outputs "test q 8" New: Reaction to all LPT pins "test pin 15" New: Syntax: ...Neural Cryptography in F#: Neural Cryptography 0.0.1: The most simple version of this project. It has a neural network that works just like logical AND and a possibility to recreate neural network from...Password Provider: 1.0.3: This release fixes a bug which caused the program to crash when double clicking on a generic item.RoTwee: RoTwee 6.2.0.0: New feature is as next. 16649 Add hashtag for tweet of tune.Now you can tweet your playing tune with hashtag.Visual Studio DSite: Picture Viewer (Visual C++ 2008): This example source code allows you to view any picture you want in the click of a button. All you got to do is click the button and browser via th...WatchersNET CKEditor™ Provider for DotNetNuke: CKEditor Provider 1.8.00: Whats New File Browser: Folders & Files View reworked File Browser: Folders & Files View reworked File Browser: Folders are displayed as TreeVi...WSDLGenerator: WSDLGenerator 0.0.0.4: - replaced CommonLibrary.dll by CommandLineParser.dll - added better support for custom complex typesMost Popular ProjectsMetaSharpSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryAll-In-One Code FrameworkWindows 7 USB/DVD Download Toolニコ生アラートWindows Double ExplorerVirtual Router - Wifi Hot Spot for Windows 7 / 2008 R2Caliburn: An Application Framework for WPF and SilverlightArkSwitchMost Active ProjectsUmbraco CMSRawrSDS: Scientific DataSet library and toolsBlogEngine.NETjQuery Library for SharePoint Web Servicespatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterFarseer Physics EngineFasterflect - A Fast and Simple Reflection APIFluent Assertions

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• Laissez les bon temps rouler! (Microsoft BI Conference 2010)

  - by smisner

  "Laissez les bons temps rouler" is a Cajun phrase that I heard frequently when I lived in New Orleans in the mid-1990s. It means "Let the good times roll!" and encapsulates a feeling of happy expectation. As I met with many of my peers and new acquaintances at the Microsoft BI Conference last week, this phrase kept running through my mind as people spoke about their plans in their respective businesses, the benefits and opportunities that the recent releases in the BI stack are providing, and their expectations about the future of the BI stack. Notwithstanding some jabs here and there to point out the platform is neither perfect now nor will be anytime soon (along with admissions that the competitors are also not perfect), and notwithstanding several missteps by the event organizers (which I don't care to enumerate), the overarching mood at the conference was positive. It was a refreshing change from the doom and gloom hovering over several conferences that I attended in 2009. Although many people expect economic hardships to continue over the coming year or so, everyone I know in the BI field is busier than ever and expects to stay busy for quite a while. Self-Service BI Self-service was definitely a theme of the BI conference. In the keynote, Ted Kummert opened with a look back to a fairy tale vision of self-service BI that he told in 2008. At that time, the fairy tale future was a time when "every end user was able to use BI technologies within their job in order to move forward more effectively" and transitioned to the present time in which SQL Server 2008 R2, Office 2010, and SharePoint 2010 are available to deliver managed self-service BI. This set of technologies is presumably poised to address the needs of the 80% of users that Kummert said do not use BI today. He proceeded to outline a series of activities that users ought to be able to do themselves--from simple changes to a report like formatting or an addtional data visualization to integration of an additional data source. The keynote then continued with a series of demonstrations of both current and future technology in support of self-service BI. Some highlights that interested me: PowerPivot, of course, is the flagship product for self-service BI in the Microsoft BI stack. In the TechEd keynote, which was open to the BI conference attendees, Amir Netz (twitter) impressed the audience by demonstrating interactivity with a workbook containing 100 million rows. He upped the ante at the BI keynote with his demonstration of a future-state PowerPivot workbook containing over 2 billion records. It's important to note that this volume of data is being processed by a server engine, and not in the PowerPivot client engine. (Yes, I think it's impressive, but none of my clients are typically wrangling with 2 billion records at a time. Maybe they're thinking too small. This ability to work quickly with large data sets has greater implications for BI solutions than for self-service BI, in my opinion.) Amir also demonstrated KPIs for the future PowerPivot, which appeared to be easier to implement than in any other Microsoft product that supports KPIs, apart from simple KPIs in SharePoint. (My initial reaction is that we have one more place to build KPIs. Great. It's confusing enough. I haven't seen how well those KPIs integrate with other BI tools, which will be important for adoption.) One more PowerPivot feature that Amir showed was a graphical display of the lineage for calculations. (This is hugely practical, especially if you build up calculations incrementally. You can more easily follow the logic from calculation to calculation. Furthermore, if you need to make a change to one calculation, you can assess the impact on other calculations.) Another product demonstration will be available within the next 30 days--Pivot for Reporting Services. If you haven't seen this technology yet, check it out at www.getpivot.com. (It definitely has a wow factor, but I'm skeptical about its practicality. However, I'm looking forward to trying it out with data that I understand.) Michael Tejedor (twitter) demonstrated a feature that I think is really interesting and not emphasized nearly enough--overshadowed by PowerPivot, no doubt. That feature is the Microsoft Business Intelligence Indexing Connector, which enables search of the content of Excel workbooks and Reporting Services reports. (This capability existed in MOSS 2007, but was more cumbersome to implement. The search results in SharePoint 2010 are not only cooler, but more useful by describing whether the content is found in a table or a chart, for example.) This may yet be the dawning of the age of self-service BI - a phrase I've heard repeated from time to time over the last decade - but I think BI professionals are likely to stay busy for a long while, and need not start looking for a new line of work. Kummert repeatedly referenced strategic BI solutions in contrast to self-service BI to emphasize that self-service BI is not a replacement for the services that BI professionals provide. After all, self-service BI does not appear magically on user desktops (or whatever device they want to use). A supporting infrastructure is necessary, and grows in complexity in proportion to the need to simplify BI for users. It's one thing to hear the party line touted by Microsoft employees at the BI keynote, but it's another to hear from the people who are responsible for implementing and supporting it within an organization. Rob Collie (blog | twitter), Kasper de Jonge (blog | twitter), Vidas Matelis (site | twitter), and I were invited to join Andrew Brust (blog | twitter) as he led a Birds of a Feather session at TechEd entitled "PowerPivot: Is It the BI Deal-Changer for Developers and IT Pros?" I would single out the prevailing concern in this session as the issue of control. On one side of this issue were those who were concerned that they would lose control once PowerPivot is implemented. On the other side were those who believed that data should be freely accessible to users in PowerPivot, and even acknowledgment that users would get the data they want even if it meant they would have to manually enter into a workbook to have it ready for analysis. For another viewpoint on how PowerPivot played out at the conference, see Rob Collie's observations. Collaborative BI I have been intrigued by the notion of collaborative BI for a very long time. Before I discovered BI, I was a Lotus Notes developer and later a manager of developers, working in a software company that enabled collaboration in the legal industry. Not only did I help create collaborative systems for our clients, I created a complete project management from the ground up to collaboratively manage our custom development work. In that case, collaboration involved my team, my client contacts, and me. I was also able to produce my own BI from that system as well, but didn't know that's what I was doing at the time. Only in recent years has SharePoint begun to catch up with the capabilities that I had with Lotus Notes more than a decade ago. Eventually, I had the opportunity at that job to formally investigate BI as another product offering for our software, and the rest - as they say - is history. I built my first data warehouse with Scott Cameron (who has also ventured into the authoring world by writing Analysis Services 2008 Step by Step and was at the BI Conference last week where I got to reminisce with him for a bit) and that began a career that I never imagined at the time. Fast forward to 2010, and I'm still lauding the virtues of collaborative BI, if only the tools will catch up to my vision! Thus, I was anxious to see what Donald Farmer (blog | twitter) and Rita Sallam of Gartner had to say on the subject in their session "Collaborative Decision Making." As I suspected, the tools aren't quite there yet, but the vendors are moving in the right direction. One thing I liked about this session was a non-Microsoft perspective of the state of the industry with regard to collaborative BI. In addition, this session included a better demonstration of SharePoint collaborative BI capabilities than appeared in the BI keynote. Check out the video in the link to the session to see the demonstration. One of the use cases that was demonstrated was linking from information to a person, because, as Donald put it, "People don't trust data, they trust people." The Microsoft BI Stack in General A question I hear all the time from students when I'm teaching is how to know what tools to use when there is overlap between products in the BI stack. I've never taken the time to codify my thoughts on the subject, but saw that my friend Dan Bulos provided good insight on this topic from a variety of perspectives in his session, "So Many BI Tools, So Little Time." I thought one of his best points was that ideally you should be able to design in your tool of choice, and then deploy to your tool of choice. Unfortunately, the ideal is yet to become real across the platform. The closest we come is with the RDL in Reporting Services which can be produced from two different tools (Report Builder or Business Intelligence Development Studio's Report Designer), manually, or by a third-party or custom application. I have touted the idea for years (and publicly said so about 5 years ago) that eventually more products would be RDL producers or consumers, but we aren't there yet. Maybe in another 5 years. Another interesting session that covered the BI stack against a backdrop of competitive products was delivered by Andrew Brust. Andrew did a marvelous job of consolidating a lot of information in a way that clearly communicated how various vendors' offerings compared to the Microsoft BI stack. He also made a particularly compelling argument about how the existence of an ecosystem around the Microsoft BI stack provided innovation and opportunities lacking for other vendors. Check out his presentation, "How Does the Microsoft BI Stack...Stack Up?" Expo Hall I had planned to spend more time in the Expo Hall to see who was doing new things with the BI stack, but didn't manage to get very far. Each time I set out on an exploratory mission, I got caught up in some fascinating conversations with one or more of my peers. I find interacting with people that I meet at conferences just as important as attending sessions to learn something new. There were a couple of items that really caught me eye, however, that I'll share here. Pragmatic Works. Whether you develop SSIS packages, build SSAS cubes, or author SSRS reports (or all of the above), you really must take a look at BI Documenter. Brian Knight (twitter) walked me through the key features, and I must say I was impressed. Once you've seen what this product can do, you won't want to document your BI projects any other way. You can download a free single-user database edition, or choose from more feature-rich standard or professional editions. Microsoft Press ebooks. I also stopped by the O'Reilly Media booth to meet some folks that one of my acquisitions editors at Microsoft Press recommended. In case you haven't heard, Microsoft Press has partnered with O'Reilly Media for distribution and publishing. Apart from my interest in learning more about O'Reilly Media as an author, an advertisement in their booth caught me eye which I think is a really great move. When you buy Microsoft Press ebooks through the O'Reilly web site, you can receive it in any (or all) of the following formats where possible: PDF, epub, .mobi for Kindle and .apk for Android. You also have lifetime DRM-free access to the ebooks. As someone who is an avid collector of books, I fnd myself running out of room for storage. In addition, I travel a lot, and it's hard to lug my reference library with me. Today's e-reader options make the move to digital books a more viable way to grow my library. Having a variety of formats means I am not limited to a single device, and lifetime access means I don't have to worry about keeping track of where I've stored my files. Because the e-books are DRM-free, I can copy and paste when I'm compiling notes, and I can print pages when necessary. That's a winning combination in my mind! Overall, I was pleased with the BI conference. There were many more sessions that I couldn't attend, either because the room was full when I got there or there were multiple sessions running concurrently that I wanted to see. Fortunately, many of the sessions are accessible for viewing online at http://www.msteched.com/2010/NorthAmerica along with the TechEd sessions. You can spot the BI sessions by the yellow skyline on the title slide of the presentation as shown below. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• .NET 3.5 Installation Problems in Windows 8

  - by Rick Strahl

  Windows 8 installs with .NET 4.5. A default installation of Windows 8 doesn't seem to include .NET 3.0 or 3.5, although .NET 2.0 does seem to be available by default (presumably because Windows has app dependencies on that). I ran into some pretty nasty compatibility issues regarding .NET 3.5 which I'll describe in this post. I'll preface this by saying that depending on how you install Windows 8 you may not run into these issues. In fact, it's probably a special case, but one that might be common with developer folks reading my blog. Specifically it's the install order that screwed things up for me -  installing Visual Studio before explicitly installing .NET 3.5 from Windows Features - in particular. If you install Visual Studio 2010 I highly recommend you install .NET 3.5 from Windows features BEFORE you install Visual Studio 2010 and save yourself the trouble I went through. So when I installed Windows 8, and then looked at the Windows Features to install after the fact in the Windows Feature dialog, I thought - .NET 3.5 - who needs it. I'd be happy to not have to install .NET 3.5, but unfortunately I found out quite a while after initial installation that one of my applications/tools (DevExpress's awesome CodeRush) depends on it and won't install without it. Enabling .NET 3.5 in Windows 8 If you want to run .NET 3.5 on Windows 8, don't download an installer - those installers don't work on Windows 8, and you don't need to do this because you can use the Windows Features dialog to enable .NET 3.5: And that *should* do the trick. If you do this before you install other apps that require .NET 3.5 and install a non-SP1 one version of it, you are going to have no problems. Unfortunately for me, even after I've installed the above, when I run the CodeRush installer I still get this lovely dialog: Now I double checked to see if .NET 3.5 is installed - it is, both for 32 bit and 64 bit. I went as far as creating a small .NET Console app and running it to verify that it actually runs. And it does… So naturally I thought the CodeRush installer is a little whacky. After some back and forth Alex Skorkin on Twitter pointed me in the right direction: He asked me to look in the registry for exact info on which version of .NET 3.5 is installed here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP where I found that .NET 3.5 SP1 was installed. This is the 64 bit key which looks all correct. However, when I looked under the 32 bit node I found: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v3.5 Notice that the service pack number is set to 0, rather than 1 (which it was for the 64 bit install), which is what the installer requires. So to summarize: the 64 bit version is installed with SP1, the 32 bit version is not. Uhm, Ok… thanks for that! Easy to fix, you say - just install SP1. Nope, not so easy because the standalone installer doesn't work on Windows 8. I can't get either .NET 3.5 installer or the SP 1 installer to even launch. They simply start and hang (or exit immediately) without messages. I also tried to get Windows to update .NET 3.5 by checking for Windows Updates, which should pick up on the dated version of .NET 3.5 and pull down SP1, but that's also no go. Check for Updates doesn't bring down any updates for me yet. I'm sure at some random point in the future Windows will deem it necessary to update .NET 3.5 to SP1, but at this point it's not letting me coerce it to do it explicitly. How did this happen I'm not sure exactly whether this is the cause and effect, but I suspect the story goes like this: Installed Windows 8 without support for .NET 3.5 Installed Visual Studio 2010 which installs .NET 3.5 (no SP) I now had .NET 3.5 installed but without SP1. I then: Tried to install CodeRush - Error: .NET 3.5 SP1 required Enabled .NET 3.5 in Windows Features I figured enabling the .NET 3.5 Windows Features would do the trick. But still no go. Now I suspect Visual Studio installed the 32 bit version of .NET 3.5 on my machine and Windows Features detected the previous install and didn't reinstall it. This left the 32 bit install at least with no SP1 installed. How to Fix it My final solution was to completely uninstall .NET 3.5 *and* to reboot: Go to Windows Features Uncheck the .NET Framework 3.5 Restart Windows Go to Windows Features Check .NET Framework 3.5 and voila, I now have a proper installation of .NET 3.5. I tried this before but without the reboot step in between which did not work. Make sure you reboot between uninstalling and reinstalling .NET 3.5! More Problems The above fixed me right up, but in looking for a solution it seems that a lot of people are also having problems with .NET 3.5 installing properly from the Windows Features dialog. The problem there is that the feature wasn't properly loading from the installer disks or not downloading the proper components for updates. It turns out you can explicitly install Windows features using the DISM tool in Windows.dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /Source:f:\sources\sxs You can try this without the /Source flag first - which uses the hidden Windows installer files if you kept those. Otherwise insert the DVD or ISO and point at the path \sources\sxs path where the installer lives. This also gives you a little more information if something does go wrong.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Windows  .NET   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Create a Slide Show in Windows 7 Media Center

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you looking for a nice way to create and display a slide show from your photo collection? Today we’ll show you how to create a slide show, how to add music to it, and watch it from the comfort of your couch in Windows 7 Media Center. Create Slide Show Launch Windows 7 Media Center and click on the Picture Library tile found under Pictures and Videos.   In the Pictures Library, scroll across to slide shows and click on Create Slide show.   Enter a name for the slide show and click Next.   If you are using a Windows Media Center remote, click on the OK button to bring up the onscreen keyboard. Use the directional buttons to navigate across the keyboard and press OK to select each letter. Click Done when finished. Select Picture Library and click Next. Select the pictures to include in your slide show. If using a remote, navigate through the images and press OK to select. If you are using a mouse, simply click on the selections. When you are finished, click Next.    Now, we can review and edit the slide show. Click the up or down pointing arrows to move pictures up and down in the order.  (more intuitive titles would be helpful in this case as opposed to the randomly generated titles in the example below) If you are finished, click Create. You can also choose to go back and add music to your slide show. (or even more pictures) We’ll take a look at adding some music in our example. Click on the Add More button.   Add Music to Your Slide Show Here we’ll select Music Library to add a song. Click Next.   You’ll now be able to browse your Music Library to select songs for your slide show. Select your songs and click Next.   When you are finished adding Music and Pictures click Create.   Once your slide show is saved, you can play it any time by going to clicking on slide shows in the Picture Library, then selecting the slide show title. Select play slide show when you’re ready to enjoy your new production.   If you ever want to edit or delete the slide show, select it in the Picture Library, and scroll to Actions. You’ll see those option under additional commands. You have the option to Edit Slide Show, Burn a CD/DVD, or Delete. Editing Slide Show Settings Within Media Center, go to Tasks… Click on Pictures…   Then choose Slide Shows. From the Slide Show settings you have the option to Show pictures in random order, Show picture information, Show song information, and Use Pan and zoom effect. You can also adjust the length of time to display each picture, and change the background color. Be sure to click Save to apply and changes before exiting. If you choose to show picture information, the picture title, date, and star rating will be displayed in the top right.   If your slide show is accompanied by music and you choose to show song information, you will get a translucent overlay for a few seconds at the beginning of each song to indicate the song, album, and artist. One of the really cool things about creating a slide show in Windows 7 Media Center is you can complete the entire process using just a Media Center remote. Can’t get enough slide shows? Check out how to turn your desktop into a picture slide show in Windows 7. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Add Color Coding to Windows 7 Media Center Program GuideIntegrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7Schedule Updates for Windows Media CenterTurn Your Desktop into a Picture Slideshow in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job? Find Downloads and Add-ins for Outlook Recycle ! Find That Elusive Icon with FindIcons

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, February 15, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, February 15, 2011Popular ReleasesAllNewsManager.NET: AllNewsManager.NET 1.3: AllNewsManager.NET 1.3. This new version provide several new features, improvements and bug fixes. Some new features: Online Users. Avatars. Copy function (to create a new article from another one). SEO improvements (friendly urls). New admin buttons. And more...Comet - Visual Studio 2010 Addin: Installers: Offers the basic functionality of generating constructors from data members or from superclass. The current release does not respect the user's indentation preferences.Facebook Graph Toolkit: Facebook Graph Toolkit 0.8: Version 0.8 (15 Feb 2011)moved to Beta stage publish photo feature "email" field of User object added new Graph Api object: Group, Event new Graph Api connection: likes, groups, eventsDJME - The jQuery extensions for ASP.NET MVC: DJME2 -The jQuery extensions for ASP.NET MVC beta2: The source code and runtime library for DJME2. For more product info you can goto http://www.dotnetage.com/djme.html What is new ?The Grid extension added The ModelBinder added which helping you create Bindable data Action. The DnaFor() control factory added that enabled Model bindable extensions. Enhance the ListBox , ComboBox data binding.Jint - Javascript Interpreter for .NET: Jint - 0.9.0: New CLR interoperability features Many bugfixesBuild Version Increment Add-In Visual Studio: Build Version Increment v2.4.11046.2045: v2.4.11046.2045 Fixes and/or Improvements:Major: Added complete support for VC projects including .vcxproj & .vcproj. All padding issues fixed. A project's assembly versions are only changed if the project has been modified. Minor Order of versioning style values is now according to their respective positions in the attributes i.e. Major, Minor, Build, Revision. Fixed issue with global variable storage with some projects. Fixed issue where if a project item's file does not exist, a ...Document.Editor: 2011.4: Whats new for Document.Editor 2011.4: New Subscript support New Superscript support New column display in statusbar Improved dialogs Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsCoding4Fun Tools: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.1: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.1 release. Bug fixes and minor feature requests addedTV4Home - The all-in-one TV solution!: 0.1.0.0 Preview: This is the beta preview release of the TV4Home software.Finestra Virtual Desktops: 1.2: Fixes a few minor issues with 1.1 including the broken per-desktop backgrounds Further improves the speed of switching desktops A few UI performance improvements Added donations linksNuGet: NuGet 1.1: NuGet is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third party libraries into a .NET application during development. This release is a Visual Studio 2010 extension and contains the the Package Manager Console and the Add Package Dialog. The URL to the package OData feed is: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=206669 To see the list of issues fixed in this release, visit this our issues listEnhSim: EnhSim 2.4.0: 2.4.0This release supports WoW patch 4.06 at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 Changes since 2.3.0 - Upd...Sterling Isolated Storage Database with LINQ for Silverlight and Windows Phone 7: Sterling OODB v1.0: Note: use this changeset to download the source example that has been extended to show database generation, backup, and restore in the desktop example. Welcome to the Sterling 1.0 RTM. This version is not backwards-compatible with previous versions of Sterling. Sterling is also available via NuGet. This product has been used and tested in many applications and contains a full suite of unit tests. You can refer to the User's Guide for complete documentation, and use the unit tests as guide...PDF Rider: PDF Rider 0.5.1: Changes from the previous version * Use dynamic layout to better fit text in other languages * Includes French and Spanish localizations Prerequisites * Microsoft Windows Operating Systems (XP - Vista - 7) * Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 runtime * A PDF rendering software (i.e. Adobe Reader) that can be opened inside Internet Explorer. Installation instructionsChoose one of the following methods: 1. Download and run the "pdfRider0.5.1-setup.exe" (reccomended) 2. Down...Snoop, the WPF Spy Utility: Snoop 2.6.1: This release is a bug fixing release. Most importantly, issues have been seen around WPF 4.0 applications not always showing up in the app chooser. Hopefully, they are fixed now. I thought this issue warranted a minor release since more and more people are going WPF 4.0 and I don't want anyone to have any problems. Dan Hanan also contributes again with several usability features. Thanks Dan! Happy Snooping! p.s. By request, I am also attaching a .zip file ... so that people can install it ...RIBA - Rich Internet Business Application for Silverlight: Preview of MVVM Framework Source + Tutorials: This is a first public release of the MVVM Framework which is part of the final RIBA application. The complete RIBA example LOB application has yet to be published. Further Documentation on the MVVM part can be found on the Blog, http://www.SilverlightBlog.Net and in the downloadable source ( mvvm/doc/ ). Please post all issues and suggestions in the issue tracker.SharePoint Learning Kit: 1.5: SharePoint Learning Kit 1.5 has the following new functionality: *Support for SharePoint 2010 *E-Learning Actions can be localised *Two New Document Library Edit Options *Automatically add the Assignment List Web Part to the Web Part Gallery *Various Bug Fixes for the Drop Box There are 2 downloads for this release SLK-1.5-2010.zip for SharePoint 2010 SLK-1.5-2007.zip for SharePoint 2007 (WSS3 & MOSS 2007)GMare: GMare Alpha 02: Alpha version 2. With fixes detailed in the issue tracker.Facebook C# SDK: 5.0.3 (BETA): This is fourth BETA release of the version 5 branch of the Facebook C# SDK. Remember this is a BETA build. Some things may change or not work exactly as planned. We are absolutely looking for feedback on this release to help us improve the final 5.X.X release. For more information about this release see the following blog posts: Facebook C# SDK - Writing your first Facebook Application Facebook C# SDK v5 Beta Internals Facebook C# SDK V5.0.0 (BETA) Released We have spend time trying ...NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel Template, version 1.0.1.161: The NodeXL Excel template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 workbook. What's NewThis release adds a new Twitter List network importer, makes some minor feature improvements, and fixes a few bugs. See the Complete NodeXL Release History for details. Installation StepsFollow these steps to install and use the template: Download the Zip file. Unzip it into any folder. Use WinZip or a similar program, or just right-click the Zip file...New Projects.NET JSON parser & deserializer: JSON.net makes it easy to consume JSON encoded objects in your application. It features a fast parser and deserializer written in C# 2.0 with a simple and intuitive API making integration in your application a breeze Actor Look: Single screen Actor Outlook(ActorLook) for Skelta.Its skelta based work item component.Its providing outlook features like Compose, Inbox,Outbox(which acted by me), My Requests (wf created by me) and generic custom request history tracking.AJAX Mapping Performance Tests: This project contains simple test html pages that compare the performance of Bing Maps V6.3, Bing Maps V7 and Google Maps V3 when displaying increasing numbers of pushpins on a map.Author-it DITA Project: The Author-it DITA Project contains components that enable importing, authoring, and publishing DITA content using Author-it software.Author-it PowerShell Project: The Author-it PowerShell Project provides cmdlets that allow you to interact with Author-it objects using PowerShell scripts.BizTalk Message Decompressor: This tool, written in C#, enables you to decompress BizTalk messages/context from a screen that looks like SQL Query Analyzer. By simple entering a SQL query and some custom functions, you can retrieve (partial) message content and/or context. Handy for administrators/engineers!CavemanTools Mvc: Asp.Net Mvc 3 toolkit for faster development with less code. Features theming support for both Razor and WebForm engines and easy to use helpers. It's developed in C#, .Net 4 .CityLizard XML Schema Pack: The project is for contribution of XML Schemas to CityLizard Framework.crazyKTV: this is a KTV system from TaiwanException Catcher: Exception catcher is a tool, it can attach to any .net process in the system and record all exceptions(including 1st chance exception) thrown in the process.Export Test Cases From TFS: This project lets the users to export the test cases present in form Work items in TFS 2010 to MS Excel.Extended Text Library for Small Basic: This library extend "Text" class of Microsoft Small Basic to append custom methods, such as Split, Replace, and so on. Small Basic ? Text ???? Split ? Replace ????????????、?????????。fossilGui: Gui for fossil (http://www.fossil-scm.org)Gamoliyas: Gamoliyas is an open source John Conway's Game of Life game totally written in DHTML (JavaScript, CSS and HTML). Uses mouse and keyboard. Very configurable. This cross-platform and cross-browser game was tested under BeOS, Linux, *BSD, Windows and others.Gilly Messenger - MSN clone written in VB6: Gilly Messenger is a MSN client built in Visual Basic 6 in 2002-2004 by CrackSoft. It is now open sourced.jetzt liveticker: A desktop version of the liveticker for "jetzt.de", a german online communityLMKTool: LMKTool is a small project that helps users to migrate Thales cryptographic keys from the old LMK to the new LMK set.LocalAdmins WMI Provider: WMI Provider to report all members of the local Administrators group in the WMI Class root\cimv2\Win32_LocalAdminsMarbles CMS: Marbles aims to be a simple Content Management Server for hosting multiple websites.MediaElement Extensions: MediaElement Extensions makes it easier for WPF/SilverLight Developers to interact with MediaElement. You will no longer have to handle media and user events... Controls: ProgressSlider / VolumeSlider / Buttons (Play, Pause, Stop, FullScreen..) Features: PlaylistManagementMessage Router: MessageRouter enables routing of messages in a heterogeneous environment: - ServiceBroker queue - MSMQ - FTP - othersMultiUp: Silverlight application for multiple files upload and recoverymuzoblog: muzoblogMVC 3 con Razor - Mercurial: Proyecto MVC 3 con Razor para trabajar en un proyecto desde cero, con control de código en Mercurial.Opalis Exchange Calendaring Integration Pack: An integration pack for Opalis extending functionality to exchange calendaring features.OpenEMIS: OpenEMIS is a generic open source Education Management Information System (EMIS) developped by UNESCO.PFC2011: My PFC ^^Proyecto español. Aplicacion tpv para bar pub , gestion ... opensource: España Aplicacion tpv para bar pub , gestion ... opensource Datos con XML y resportes con Crystal Reports. Imagen: http://img375.imageshack.us/i/proba1xml.jpg/Realtime C# Pitch Tracker: Use the PitchTracker class to easily track the pitch of a waveform (typically from vocals). It is fast (~3000 detections/sec) and accurate (within 0.02% of the actual frequency). It is written in C#. A sample app is included.SCOM Maintenance Mode Tool: A maintenance mode tool for System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)scooby: This is a scooby dooby doo projectSDSConsulting: Samples, resources, and solutions provided by SDS Consulting.SilverPop: Silverpop is a Silverlight 4, PRISM, MVVM demonstration application that demonstrates basic use of these concepts plus how to visualise data in a diagram. It is an accompaniment to a series of blog posts.Skywave Class Library: Skywave Class Library will contain multiple projects (one at start) targeting classes, interfaces, controls and ... for different .Net technologies like ASP.Net, WPF, Windows Forms, ... and one Core Project including shared classes. It's my shared library of 10 years development.Sofire FX: .NET ???????????，?????????????????，??? Sofire ????????！SQL Server Process Info Log: The SQL Server Process Info Log makes it easier to identify the cause of CPU & Physical Disk resource consumption by facilitating the production of visualizations that help pinpoint the smoking gun.Sup!: IIS7.5 + .NET4 + DLR + JSON.NET = Sup! Replacement for ASP.NET web services. Makes interacting with clients of all types pretty and easy. Right now it's like: "What? I can't hear you. My iPhone sucks." With Sup! it's like: "Sup."sven's msvs addons: A couple quick Visual Studio addons implementing features I missed from other IDEs. The first, MultiLineComments, implements inline comment wrapping as per Matlab. The second, FunctionBar, is a function-list C/C++ file navigation bar inspired by XCode. Both are written in C#.UHEMS: This Web Based Employee Management System With the following modules. 1. Employee Registration 2. Attendance Module 3. Leave Module 4. Payroll Processing 5. Reports 6. Independent User and Admin Registration Module 7. ResignationWebsite Monitor: Website monitorWMI Performance Counter Logging Console App: A demonstration how to create and populate a datawarehouse of WMI counters which can be used to diagnose performance problems. A presentation provided demonstrates how to detect IIS/ASP.NET thread starvation.YuxinProjs: YuxinProjs Hello World

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, June 14, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, June 14, 2011Popular ReleasesSizeOnDisk: 1.0.9.0: Can handle Right-To-Left languages (issue 316) About box (issue 310) New language: Deutsch (thanks to kyoka) Fix: file and folder context menuTerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v2.6: This is a temporary release so that people can edit their characters for the newest version of Terraria. It does not include the newest items or the ability to add social slot items. Those will come in TerrariViewer v3.0, which I am currently working on.DropBox Linker: DropBox Linker 1.1: Added different popup descriptions for actions (copy/append/update/remove) Added popup timeout control (with live preview) Added option to overwrite clipboard with the last link only Notification popup closes on user click Notification popup default timeout increased to 3 sec. Added codeplex link to about .NET Framework 4.0 Client Profile requiredMobile Device Detection and Redirection: 1.0.4.1: Stable Release 51 Degrees.mobi Foundation is the best way to detect and redirect mobile devices and their capabilities on ASP.NET and is being used on thousands of websites worldwide. We’re highly confident in our software and we recommend all users update to this version. Changes to Version 1.0.4.1Changed the BlackberryHandler and BlackberryVersion6Handler to have equal CONFIDENCE values to ensure they both get a chance at detecting BlackBerry version 4&5 and version 6 devices. Prior to thi...Kouak - HTTP File Share Server: Kouak Beta 3 - Clean: Some critical bug solved and dependecy problems There's 3 package : - The first, contains the cli server and the graphical server. - The second, only the cli server - The third, only the graphical client. It's a beta release, so don't hesitate to emmit issue ;pRawr: Rawr 4.1.06: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr AddonWe now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including bag and bank items) like Char...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta6: ??AcDown?????????????，?????????????，????、????。?????Acfun????? ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??v3.0 Beta6 ?????(imanhua.com)????? ???? ?? ??"????","?????","?????","????"?????? "????"?????"????????"?? ??????????? ?????????????? ?????????????/???? ?? ????Windows 7???????????? ????????? ?? ????????????? ???????/??????????? ???????????? ?? ?? ?????(imanh...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.22: Added lots of optimizations related to expression optimization. Combining adjacent expression statements into a single statement means more if-, for-, and while-statements can get rid of the curly-braces. Then more if-statements can be converted to expressions, and more expressions can be combined with return- and for-statements. Moving functions to the top of their scopes, followed by var-statements, provides more opportunities for expression-combination. Added command-line option to remove ...Pulse: Pulse Beta 2: - Added new wallpapers provider http://wallbase.cc. Supports english search, multiple keywords* - Improved font rendering in Options window - Added "Set wallpaper as logon background" option* - Fixed crashes if there is no internet connection - Fixed: Rewalls downloads empty images sometimes - Added filters* Note 1: wallbase provider supports only english search. Rewalls provider supports only russian search but Pulse automatically translates your english keyword into russian using Google Tr...???? (Internet Go Game for Android): goapp.3.0.apk: Refresh UI and bugfixPhalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 2.1 (June 2011) for .NET 4.0: Release of Phalanger 2.1 - the opensource PHP compiler for .NET framework 4.0. Installation package also includes basic version of Phalanger Tools for Visual Studio 2010. This allows you to easily create, build and debug Phalanger web or application inside this ultimate integrated development environment. You can even install the tools into the free Visual Studio 2010 Shell (Integrated). To improve the performance of your application using MySQL, please use Managed MySQL Extension for Phala...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.7: Version: 2.0.0.7 (Milestone 7): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Remark The sample applications are using Microsoft’s IoC container MEF. However, the WPF Application Framework (WAF) doesn’t force you to use the same IoC container in your application. You can use ...SimplePlanner: v2.0b: For 2011-2012 Sem 1 ???2011-2012 ????Visual Studio 2010 Help Downloader: 1.0.0.3: Domain name support for proxy Cleanup old packages bug Writing to EventLog with UAC enabled bug Small fixes & Refactoring32feet.NET: 3.2: 32feet.NET v3.2 - Personal Area Networking for .NET Build 3.2.0609.0 9th June 2011 This library provides a .NET networking API for devices and desktop computers running the Microsoft or Broadcom/Widcomm Bluetooth stacks, Microsoft Windows supported IrDA devices and associated Object Exchange (OBEX) services for both these mediums. Online documentation is integrated into your Visual Studio help. The object model has been designed to promote consistency between Bluetooth, IrDA and traditional ...Media Companion: MC 3.406b weekly: With this version change a movie rebuild is required when first run -else MC will lock up on exit. Extract the entire archive to a folder which has user access rights, eg desktop, documents etc. Refer to the documentation on this site for the Installation & Setup Guide Important! If you find MC not displaying movie data properly, please try a 'movie rebuild' to reload the data from the nfo's into MC's cache. Fixes Movies Readded movie preference to rename invalid or scene nfo's to info ext...Windows Azure VM Assistant: AzureVMAssist V1.0.0.5: AzureVMAssist V1.0.0.5 (Debug) - Test Release VersionNetOffice - The easiest way to use Office in .NET: NetOffice Release 0.9: Changes: - fix examples (include issue 16026) - add new examples - 32Bit/64Bit Walkthrough is now available in technical Documentation. Includes: - Runtime Binaries and Source Code for .NET Framework:......v2.0, v3.0, v3.5, v4.0 - Tutorials in C# and VB.Net:..............................................................COM Proxy Management, Events, etc. - Examples in C# and VB.Net:............................................................Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access - COMAddi...Reusable Library: V1.1.3: A collection of reusable abstractions for enterprise application developerVidCoder: 0.9.2: Updated to HandBrake 4024svn. This fixes problems with mpeg2 sources: corrupted previews, incorrect progress indicators and encodes that incorrectly report as failed. Fixed a problem that prevented target sizes above 2048 MB.New ProjectsASP.NET MVC / Windows Workflow Foundation Integration: This project will product libraries, activities and examples that demonstrate how you can use Windows Workflow Foundation with ASP.NET MVCBing Maps Spatial Data Service Loader: Bing Maps Spatial Data Service Loader is a simple tool that helps you to load your set of data (CSV) into the Spatial Data Service included in Bing Maps licensing.Blend filter and Pencil sketch effect in C#: This project contains a filter for blending one image over an other using effects like Color Dodge, Lighten, Darken, Difference, etc. And an example of how to use that to do a Pencil Sketch effect in C# using AForge frameworkBugStoryV2: student project !CAIXA LOTERIAS: Projeto destinado a integrar resultado dos sorteios da Caixa em VB.NET, C#, ASP.NETCSReports: Report authoring tool. It supports dinamyc grouping, scripting formulas in vbscript, images from db and sub-sections. The report definition is saved to file in xml format and can be exported to pdf, doc and xls format.EasyLibrary: EasyLibraryFreetime Development Platform: Freetime Development Platform is a set of reusable design used to develop Web and Desktop based applications. IISProcessScheduler: Schedule processes from within IIS.LitleChef: LitleChefLLBLGen ANGTE (ASP.Net GUI Templates Extended): LLBLGen ANGTE (ASP.Net GUI Templates Extended) makes possible to use LLBLGen template system to generate a reasonable ASP.Net GUI that you can use as the base of your project or just as a prototyping tool. It generates APS.Net code with C# as code behind using .Net 2.0Memory: Memory Game for AndroidNCU - Book store: Educational project for a software engineering bootcamp at Northern Caribbean UniversityOrderToList Extension for IEnumerable: An extension method for IEnumerable<T> that will sort the IEnumerable based on a list of keys. Suppose you have a list of IDs {10, 5, 12} and want to use LINQ to retrieve all People from the DB with those IDs in that order, you want this extension. Sort is binary so it's fastp301: Old project.Pang: A new pong rip off; including some power ups. Will be written in C# using XNA.Ring2Park Online: Ring2Park is a fully working ASP.NET reference application that simulates the online purchase and management of Vehicle Parking sessions. It is developed using the latest ASP.NET MVC 3 patterns and capabilities. It includes a complete set of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) assets, including requirements, test and deployment.rITIko: Questo progetto è stato creato come esperimento dalla classe 4G dell'ITIS B. Pascal di Cesena. Serve (per ora) solo per testate il funzionamento di CodePlex e del sistema SVN. Forse un giorno conterrà qualcosa di buono, rimanete aggiornati.Rug.Cmd - Command Line Parser and Console Application Framework: Rugland Console Framework is a collection of classes to enable the fast and consistent development of .NET console applications. Parse command line arguments and write your applications usage. If you are developing command line or build process tools in .NET then this maybe the lightweight framework for you. It is developed in C#.SamaToursUSA: sama tours usaSamcrypt: .Security System: With this program you will be able to secure your screen from prying eyes. In fact as soon as the block will not be unlocked only with your password. Perfect for when you go to have a coffee in the break. :)Sharp Temperature Conversor: Sharp Temperature Conversor has the objective of providing a easy, fast and a direct way to convert temperatures from one type to another. The project is small, uses C#, Visual Studio 2010. The project is small. However, the growth is possible. Silverlight Star Rating Control: A simple star rating control for editing or displaying ratings in Silverlight. Supports half-filled stars. Includes the star shape as a separate control.Silverware: Silverware is a set of libraries to enhance and make application development in Silverlight easier.Simple & lightweight fluent interface for Design by Contract: This project try to focus on make a good quality code for your project. It try to make sure all instance and variables must be satisfy some conditions in Design by Contract.SimpleAspect: A simple Aspect library for PostSharpTespih: Basit tespih uygulamasi. Kendi evrad u ezkar listenizi olusturup seçtiginiz bir evrat üzerinden tespih çekebilirsiniz.Texticize: Texticize is a fast, extensible, and intuitive object-to-text template engine for .NET. You can use Texticize to quickly create dynamic e-mails, letters, source code, or any other text documents using predefined text templates substituting placeholders with properties of CLR objects in realtime.The Dragon riders: a mmorgh game with free play in creaction. FantasyWPF ObservableCollection: WPF ObservableCollection Idle use.X9.37 Image Cash Letter file viewer: x9.37 Image Cash Letter viewer. Developed using VB.Net. Currently allows viewing and searching of X9 files. The code also has image manipulation code, specifically multi page TIF file handling that you might find useful,

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• Searching for the Perfect Developer&rsquo;s Laptop.

  - by mbcrump

  I have been in the market for a new computer for several months. I set out with a budget of around $1200. I knew up front that the machine would be used for developing applications and maybe some light gaming. I kept switching between buying a laptop or a desktop but the laptop won because: With a Laptop, I can carry it everywhere and with a desktop I can’t. I searched for about 2 weeks and narrowed it down to a list of must-have’s : i7 Processor (I wasn’t going to settle for an i5 or AMD. I wanted a true Quad-core machine, not 2 dual-core fused together). 15.6” monitor SSD 128GB or Larger. – It’s almost 2011 and I don’t want an old standard HDD in this machine. 8GB of DDR3 Ram. – The more the better, right? 1GB Video Card (Prefer NVidia) – I might want to play games with this. HDMI Port – Almost a standard on new Machines. This would be used when I am on the road and want to stream Netflix to the HDTV in the Hotel room. Webcam Built-in – This would be to video chat with the wife and kids if I am on the road. 6-Cell Battery. – I’ve read that an i7 in a laptop really kills the battery. A 6-cell or 9-cell is even better. That is a pretty long list for a budget of around $1200. I searched around the internet and could not buy this machine prebuilt for under $1200. That was even with coupons and my company’s 10% Dell discount. The only way that I would get a machine like this was to buy a prebuilt and replace parts. I chose the  Lenovo Y560 on Newegg to start as my base. Below is a top-down picture of it.   Part 1: The Hardware The Specs for this machine: Color :  GrayOperating System : Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bitCPU Type : Intel Core i7-740QM(1.73GHz)Screen : 15.6" WXGAMemory Size : 4GB DDR3Hard Disk : 500GBOptical Drive : DVD±R/RWGraphics Card : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730Video Memory : 1GBCommunication : Gigabit LAN and WLANCard slot : 1 x Express Card/34Battery Life : Up to 3.5 hoursDimensions : 15.20" x 10.00" x 0.80" - 1.30"Weight : 5.95 lbs. This computer met most of the requirements above except that it didn’t come with an SSD or have 8GB of DDR3 Memory. So, I needed to start shopping except this time for an SSD. I asked around on twitter and other hardware forums and everyone pointed me to the Crucial C300 SSD. After checking prices of the drive, it was going to cost an extra $275 bucks and I was going from a spacious 500GB drive to 128GB. After watching some of the SSD videos on YouTube I started feeling better. Below is a pic of the Crucial C300 SSD. The second thing that I needed to upgrade was the RAM. It came with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, but it was slow. I decided to buy the Crucial 8GB (4GB x 2) Kit from Newegg. This RAM cost an extra $120 and had a CAS Latency of 7. In the end this machine delivered everything that I wanted and it cost around $1300. You are probably saying, well your budget was $1200. I have spare parts that I’m planning on selling on eBay or Anandtech.  =) If you are interested then shoot me an email and I will give you a great deal mbcrump[at]gmail[dot]com. 500GB Laptop 7200RPM HDD 4GB of DDR3 RAM (2GB x 2) faceVision HD 720p Camera – Unopened In the end my Windows Experience Rating of the SSD was 7.7 and the CPU 7.1. The max that you can get is a 7.9. Part 2: The Software I’m very lucky that I get a lot of software for free. When choosing a laptop, the OS really doesn’t matter because I would never keep the bloatware pre-installed or Windows 7 Home Premium on my main development machine. Matter of fact, as soon as I got the laptop, I immediately took out the old HDD without booting into it. After I got the SSD into the machine, I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit. The BIOS was out of date, so I updated that to the latest version and started downloading drivers off of Lenovo’s site. I had to download the Wireless Networking Drivers to a USB-Key before I could get my machine on my wireless network. I also discovered that if the date on your computer is off then you cannot join the Windows 7 Homegroup until you fix it. I’m aware that most people like peeking into what programs other software developers use and I went ahead and listed my “essentials” of a fresh build. I am a big Silverlight guy, so naturally some of the software listed below is specific to Silverlight. You should also check out my master list of Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer. See a killer app that I’m missing? Feel free to leave it in the comments below. My Software Essential List. CPU-Z Dropbox Everything Search Tool Expression Encoder Update Expression Studio 4 Ultimate Foxit Reader Google Chrome Infragistics NetAdvantage Ultimate Edition Keepass Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Microsoft Security Essentials 2  Mindscape Silverlight Elements Notepad 2 (with shell extension) Precode Code Snippet Manager RealVNC Reflector ReSharper v5.1.1753.4 Silverlight 4 Toolkit Silverlight Spy Snagit 10 SyncFusion Reporting Controls for Silverlight Telerik Silverlight RadControls TweetDeck Virtual Clone Drive Visual Studio 2010 Feature Pack 2 Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate VS KB2403277 Update to get Feature Pack 2 to work. Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit Windows Live Essentials 2011 Windows Live Writer Backup. Windows Phone Development Tools That is pretty much it, I have a new laptop and am happy with the purchase. If you have any questions then feel free to leave a comment below.  Subscribe to my feed

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• Record Screen Activity with CamStudio

  - by Asian Angel

  Sometimes a visual demonstration works much better than a list of instructions. If you need to make a demo video for family and/or friends then you might want to have a look at CamStudio. Using CamStudio To get properly set up you will need to install two different files (the main program followed by the codec). Once that is done you are ready to get started. When you start the program you will see a surprisingly small window. Notice the highlighted Record to text…it serves as a visual indicator for the video type selected for recording. Before you start creating a video it would be a good idea to look through some of the settings. The first one to look at is the region or area that you want to record. Next you will want to look through the video options since these will affect the quality and final size of your video files. The default setting for quality is 70…adjust that to the level that best suits your needs. Note: For our example we maxed out the various video settings for best quality. On our system Microsoft Video 1 was listed as the default compressor but as you can see there were other options available. You can configure the settings for the compressor you want to use if desired. Keep in mind that each compressor will have unique settings of their own, so if you change it, be certain to go back and check. We decided to use the CamStudio Lossless Codec for our example (it gave the best results while trying the software). Going back to the main window you can toggle back and forth between .avi and .swf output using the last button. Once you are satisfied with the settings click on the red record button to start. If you need to pause while recording or stop recording click on the system tray icon and select the appropriate command. When you are finished recording, you will be presented with the save file window. Browse for the desired save location and name your new file. Once you have saved the file the movie player window will automatically open so that you view your new video. Our sample video shown here is at 50% of original size so may look slightly “gritty”. The detail was much better at 100%. If you decide to record and save as .swf the process will be identical to recording in .avi format until the movie player window opens. At that time the conversion process from .avi to .swf will begin. When complete you will have a new flash video and html file that goes with it. Depending on which browser you have set as default, you may run into a small problem when the preview for your new .swf file tries to open. There is a small bug in the generated html file. You can use this work-around or… Just open the .swf file directly in your favorite browser. Conclusion CamStudio may not produce the highest quality videos, but it’s free and does a very nice job nonetheless. If you are working on a tight budget or only need to make an occasional video then CamStudio is a very sensible choice. Links Download CamStudio Stable Version & CamStudio Codec *Download links are approximately half-way down the page. Download CamStudio Stable Version & CamStudio Codec at SourceForge *Beta version also available here. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Get the Classic Style Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7How To Copy a DVD with VLC 1.0ALLCapture 3.0 [Review]Listen and Record Over 12,000 Online Radio Stations with RadioSureGeek Reviews: Play And Record Internet Radio With Screamer Radio TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 TimeToMeet is a Simple Online Meeting Planning Tool Easily Create More Bookmark Toolbars in Firefox Filevo is a Cool File Hosting & Sharing Site Get a free copy of WinUtilities Pro 2010 World Cup Schedule Boot Snooze – Reboot and then Standby or Hibernate

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• R Package Installation with Oracle R Enterprise

  - by Sherry LaMonica-Oracle

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Programming languages give developers the opportunity to write reusable functions and to bundle those functions into logical deployable entities. In R, these are called packages. R has thousands of such packages provided by an almost equally large group of third-party contributors. To allow others to benefit from these packages, users can share packages on the CRAN system for use by the vast R development community worldwide. R's package system along with the CRAN framework provides a process for authoring, documenting and distributing packages to millions of users. In this post, we'll illustrate the various ways in which such R packages can be installed for use with R and together with Oracle R Enterprise. In the following, the same instructions apply when using either open source R or Oracle R Distribution. In this post, we cover the following package installation scenarios for: R command line Linux shell command line Use with Oracle R Enterprise Installation on Exadata or RAC Installing all packages in a CRAN Task View Troubleshooting common errors 1. R Package Installation BasicsR package installation basics are outlined in Chapter 6 of the R Installation and Administration Guide. There are two ways to install packages from the command line: from the R command line and from the shell command line. For this first example on Oracle Linux using Oracle R Distribution, we’ll install the arules package as root so that packages will be installed in the default R system-wide location where all users can access it, /usr/lib64/R/library.Within R, using the install.packages function always attempts to install the latest version of the requested package available on CRAN:R> install.packages("arules")If the arules package depends upon other packages that are not already installed locally, the R installer automatically downloads and installs those required packages. This is a huge benefit that frees users from the task of identifying and resolving those dependencies.You can also install R from the shell command line. This is useful for some packages when an internet connection is not available or for installing packages not uploaded to CRAN. To install packages this way, first locate the package on CRAN and then download the package source to your local machine. For example:$ wget http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/arules_1.1-2.tar.gz Then, install the package using the command R CMD INSTALL:$ R CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-2.tar.gzA major difference between installing R packages using the R package installer at the R command line and shell command line is that package dependencies must be resolved manually at the shell command line. Package dependencies are listed in the Depends section of the package’s CRAN site. If dependencies are not identified and installed prior to the package’s installation, you will see an error similar to:ERROR: dependency ‘xxx’ is not available for package ‘yyy’As a best practice and to save time, always refer to the package’s CRAN site to understand the package dependencies prior to attempting an installation. If you don’t run R as root, you won’t have permission to write packages into the default system-wide location and you will be prompted to create a personal library accessible by your userid. You can accept the personal library path chosen by R, or specify the library location by passing parameters to the install.packages function. For example, to create an R package repository in your home directory: R> install.packages("arules", lib="/home/username/Rpackages")or$ R CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-2.tar.gz --library=/home/username/RpackagesRefer to the install.packages help file in R or execute R CMD INSTALL --help at the shell command line for a full list of command line options.To set the library location and avoid having to specify this at every package install, simply create the R startup environment file .Renviron in your home area if it does not already exist, and add the following piece of code to it:R_LIBS_USER = "/home/username/Rpackages" 2. Setting the RepositoryEach time you install an R package from the R command line, you are asked which CRAN mirror, or server, R should use. To set the repository and avoid having to specify this during every package installation, create the R startup command file .Rprofile in your home directory and add the following R code to it:cat("Setting Seattle repository")r = getOption("repos") r["CRAN"] = "http://cran.fhcrc.org/"options(repos = r)rm(r) This code snippet sets the R package repository to the Seattle CRAN mirror at the start of each R session. 3. Installing R Packages for use with Oracle R EnterpriseEmbedded R execution with Oracle R Enterprise allows the use of CRAN or other third-party R packages in user-defined R functions executed on the Oracle Database server. The steps for installing and configuring packages for use with Oracle R Enterprise are the same as for open source R. The database-side R engine just needs to know where to find the R packages.The Oracle R Enterprise installation is performed by user oracle, which typically does not have write permission to the default site-wide library, /usr/lib64/R/library. On Linux and UNIX platforms, the Oracle R Enterprise Server installation provides the ORE script, which is executed from the operating system shell to install R packages and to start R. The ORE script is a wrapper for the default R script, a shell wrapper for the R executable. It can be used to start R, run batch scripts, and build or install R packages. Unlike the default R script, the ORE script installs packages to a location writable by user oracle and accessible by all ORE users - $ORACLE_HOME/R/library.To install a package on the database server so that it can be used by any R user and for use in embedded R execution, an Oracle DBA would typically download the package source from CRAN using wget. If the package depends on any packages that are not in the R distribution in use, download the sources for those packages, also.  For a single Oracle Database instance, replace the R script with ORE to install the packages in the same location as the Oracle R Enterprise packages. $ wget http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/arules_1.1-2.tar.gz$ ORE CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-2.tar.gzBehind the scenes, the ORE script performs the equivalent of setting R_LIBS_USER to the value of $ORACLE_HOME/R/library, and all R packages installed with the ORE script are installed to this location. For installing a package on multiple database servers, such as those in an Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) or a multinode Oracle Exadata Database Machine environment, use the ORE script in conjunction with the Exadata Distributed Command Line Interface (DCLI) utility.$ dcli -g nodes -l oracle ORE CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-1.tar.gz The DCLI -g flag designates a file containing a list of nodes to install on, and the -l flag specifies the user id to use when executing the commands. For more information on using DCLI with Oracle R Enterprise, see Chapter 5 in the Oracle R Enterprise Installation Guide.If you are using an Oracle R Enterprise client, install the package the same as any R package, bearing in mind that you must install the same version of the package on both the client and server machines to avoid incompatibilities. 4. CRAN Task ViewsCRAN also maintains a set of Task Views that identify packages associated with a particular task or methodology. Task Views are helpful in guiding users through the huge set of available R packages. They are actively maintained by volunteers who include detailed annotations for routines and packages. If you find one of the task views is a perfect match, you can install every package in that view using the ctv package - an R package for automating package installation. To use the ctv package to install a task view, first, install and load the ctv package.R> install.packages("ctv")R> library(ctv)Then query the names of the available task views and install the view you choose.R> available.views() R> install.views("TimeSeries") 5. Using and Managing R packages To use a package, start up R and load packages one at a time with the library command.Load the arules package in your R session. R> library(arules)Verify the version of arules installed.R> packageVersion("arules")[1] '1.1.2'Verify the version of arules installed on the database server using embedded R execution.R> ore.doEval(function() packageVersion("arules"))View the help file for the apropos function in the arules packageR> ?aproposOver time, your package repository will contain more and more packages, especially if you are using the system-wide repository where others are adding additional packages. It’s good to know the entire set of R packages accessible in your environment. To list all available packages in your local R session, use the installed.packages command:R> myLocalPackages <- row.names(installed.packages())R> myLocalPackagesTo access the list of available packages on the ORE database server from the ORE client, use the following embedded R syntax: R> myServerPackages <- ore.doEval(function() row.names(installed.packages()) R> myServerPackages 6. Troubleshooting Common ProblemsInstalling Older Versions of R packagesIf you immediately upgrade to the latest version of R, you will have no problem installing the most recent versions of R packages. However, if your version of R is older, some of the more recent package releases will not work and install.packages will generate a message such as: Warning message: In install.packages("arules") : package ‘arules’ is not availableThis is when you have to go to the Old sources link on the CRAN page for the arules package and determine which version is compatible with your version of R.Begin by determining what version of R you are using:$ R --versionOracle Distribution of R version 3.0.1 (--) -- "Good Sport" Copyright (C) The R Foundation for Statistical Computing Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)Given that R-3.0.1 was released May 16, 2013, any version of the arules package released after this date may work. Scanning the arules archive, we might try installing version 0.1.1-1, released in January of 2014:$ wget http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/arules/arules_1.1-1.tar.gz$ R CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-1.tar.gzFor use with ORE:$ ORE CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-1.tar.gzThe "package not available" error can also be thrown if the package you’re trying to install lives elsewhere, either another R package site, or it’s been removed from CRAN. A quick Google search usually leads to more information on the package’s location and status.Oracle R Enterprise is not in the R library pathOn Linux hosts, after installing the ORE server components, starting R, and attempting to load the ORE packages, you may receive the error:R> library(ORE)Error in library(ORE) : there is no package called ‘ORE’If you know the ORE packages have been installed and you receive this error, this is the result of not starting R with the ORE script. To resolve this problem, exit R and restart using the ORE script. After restarting R and ">running the command to load the ORE packages, you should not receive any errors.$ ORER> library(ORE)On Windows servers, the solution is to make the location of the ORE packages visible to R by adding them to the R library paths. To accomplish this, exit R, then add the following lines to the .Rprofile file. On Windows, the .Rprofile file is located in R\etc directory C:\Program Files\R\R-<version>\etc. Add the following lines:.libPaths("<path to $ORACLE_HOME>/R/library")The above line will tell R to include the R directory in the Oracle home as part of its search path. When you start R, the path above will be included, and future R package installations will also be saved to $ORACLE_HOME/R/library. This path should be writable by the user oracle, or the userid for the DBA tasked with installing R packages.Binary package compiled with different version of RBy default, R will install pre-compiled versions of packages if they are found. If the version of R under which the package was compiled does not match your installed version of R you will get an error message:Warning message: package ‘xxx’ was built under R version 3.0.0The solution is to download the package source and build it for your version of R.$ wget http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/arules/arules_1.1-1.tar.gz$ R CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-1.tar.gzFor use with ORE:$ ORE CMD INSTALL arules_1.1-1.tar.gzUnable to execute files in /tmp directoryBy default, R uses the /tmp directory to install packages. On security conscious machines, the /tmp directory is often marked as "noexec" in the /etc/fstab file. This means that no file under /tmp can ever be executed, and users who attempt to install R package will receive an error:ERROR: 'configure' exists but is not executable -- see the 'R Installation and Administration Manual’The solution is to set the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables to a location which R will use as the compilation directory. For example:$ mkdir <some path>/tmp$ export TMPDIR= <some path>/tmp$ export TMP= <some path>/tmpThis error typically appears on Linux client machines and not database servers, as Oracle Database writes to the value of the TMP environment variable for several tasks, including holding temporary files during database installation. 7. Creating your own R packageCreating your own package and submitting to CRAN is for advanced users, but it is not difficult. The procedure to follow, along with details of R's package system, is detailed in the Writing R Extensions manual.

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• Laissez les bon temps rouler! (Microsoft BI Conference 2010)

  - by smisner

  Laissez les bons temps rouler" is a Cajun phrase that I heard frequently when I lived in New Orleans in the mid-1990s. It means "Let the good times roll!" and encapsulates a feeling of happy expectation. As I met with many of my peers and new acquaintances at the Microsoft BI Conference last week, this phrase kept running through my mind as people spoke about their plans in their respective businesses, the benefits and opportunities that the recent releases in the BI stack are providing, and their expectations about the future of the BI stack.Notwithstanding some jabs here and there to point out the platform is neither perfect now nor will be anytime soon (along with admissions that the competitors are also not perfect), and notwithstanding several missteps by the event organizers (which I don't care to enumerate), the overarching mood at the conference was positive. It was a refreshing change from the doom and gloom hovering over several conferences that I attended in 2009. Although many people expect economic hardships to continue over the coming year or so, everyone I know in the BI field is busier than ever and expects to stay busy for quite a while.Self-Service BISelf-service was definitely a theme of the BI conference. In the keynote, Ted Kummert opened with a look back to a fairy tale vision of self-service BI that he told in 2008. At that time, the fairy tale future was a time when "every end user was able to use BI technologies within their job in order to move forward more effectively" and transitioned to the present time in which SQL Server 2008 R2, Office 2010, and SharePoint 2010 are available to deliver managed self-service BI.This set of technologies is presumably poised to address the needs of the 80% of users that Kummert said do not use BI today. He proceeded to outline a series of activities that users ought to be able to do themselves--from simple changes to a report like formatting or an addtional data visualization to integration of an additional data source. The keynote then continued with a series of demonstrations of both current and future technology in support of self-service BI. Some highlights that interested me:PowerPivot, of course, is the flagship product for self-service BI in the Microsoft BI stack. In the TechEd keynote, which was open to the BI conference attendees, Amir Netz (twitter) impressed the audience by demonstrating interactivity with a workbook containing 100 million rows. He upped the ante at the BI keynote with his demonstration of a future-state PowerPivot workbook containing over 2 billion records. It's important to note that this volume of data is being processed by a server engine, and not in the PowerPivot client engine. (Yes, I think it's impressive, but none of my clients are typically wrangling with 2 billion records at a time. Maybe they're thinking too small. This ability to work quickly with large data sets has greater implications for BI solutions than for self-service BI, in my opinion.)Amir also demonstrated KPIs for the future PowerPivot, which appeared to be easier to implement than in any other Microsoft product that supports KPIs, apart from simple KPIs in SharePoint. (My initial reaction is that we have one more place to build KPIs. Great. It's confusing enough. I haven't seen how well those KPIs integrate with other BI tools, which will be important for adoption.)One more PowerPivot feature that Amir showed was a graphical display of the lineage for calculations. (This is hugely practical, especially if you build up calculations incrementally. You can more easily follow the logic from calculation to calculation. Furthermore, if you need to make a change to one calculation, you can assess the impact on other calculations.)Another product demonstration will be available within the next 30 days--Pivot for Reporting Services. If you haven't seen this technology yet, check it out at www.getpivot.com. (It definitely has a wow factor, but I'm skeptical about its practicality. However, I'm looking forward to trying it out with data that I understand.)Michael Tejedor (twitter) demonstrated a feature that I think is really interesting and not emphasized nearly enough--overshadowed by PowerPivot, no doubt. That feature is the Microsoft Business Intelligence Indexing Connector, which enables search of the content of Excel workbooks and Reporting Services reports. (This capability existed in MOSS 2007, but was more cumbersome to implement. The search results in SharePoint 2010 are not only cooler, but more useful by describing whether the content is found in a table or a chart, for example.)This may yet be the dawning of the age of self-service BI - a phrase I've heard repeated from time to time over the last decade - but I think BI professionals are likely to stay busy for a long while, and need not start looking for a new line of work. Kummert repeatedly referenced strategic BI solutions in contrast to self-service BI to emphasize that self-service BI is not a replacement for the services that BI professionals provide. After all, self-service BI does not appear magically on user desktops (or whatever device they want to use). A supporting infrastructure is necessary, and grows in complexity in proportion to the need to simplify BI for users.It's one thing to hear the party line touted by Microsoft employees at the BI keynote, but it's another to hear from the people who are responsible for implementing and supporting it within an organization. Rob Collie (blog | twitter), Kasper de Jonge (blog | twitter), Vidas Matelis (site | twitter), and I were invited to join Andrew Brust (blog | twitter) as he led a Birds of a Feather session at TechEd entitled "PowerPivot: Is It the BI Deal-Changer for Developers and IT Pros?" I would single out the prevailing concern in this session as the issue of control. On one side of this issue were those who were concerned that they would lose control once PowerPivot is implemented. On the other side were those who believed that data should be freely accessible to users in PowerPivot, and even acknowledgment that users would get the data they want even if it meant they would have to manually enter into a workbook to have it ready for analysis. For another viewpoint on how PowerPivot played out at the conference, see Rob Collie's observations.Collaborative BII have been intrigued by the notion of collaborative BI for a very long time. Before I discovered BI, I was a Lotus Notes developer and later a manager of developers, working in a software company that enabled collaboration in the legal industry. Not only did I help create collaborative systems for our clients, I created a complete project management from the ground up to collaboratively manage our custom development work. In that case, collaboration involved my team, my client contacts, and me. I was also able to produce my own BI from that system as well, but didn't know that's what I was doing at the time. Only in recent years has SharePoint begun to catch up with the capabilities that I had with Lotus Notes more than a decade ago. Eventually, I had the opportunity at that job to formally investigate BI as another product offering for our software, and the rest - as they say - is history. I built my first data warehouse with Scott Cameron (who has also ventured into the authoring world by writing Analysis Services 2008 Step by Step and was at the BI Conference last week where I got to reminisce with him for a bit) and that began a career that I never imagined at the time.Fast forward to 2010, and I'm still lauding the virtues of collaborative BI, if only the tools will catch up to my vision! Thus, I was anxious to see what Donald Farmer (blog | twitter) and Rita Sallam of Gartner had to say on the subject in their session "Collaborative Decision Making." As I suspected, the tools aren't quite there yet, but the vendors are moving in the right direction. One thing I liked about this session was a non-Microsoft perspective of the state of the industry with regard to collaborative BI. In addition, this session included a better demonstration of SharePoint collaborative BI capabilities than appeared in the BI keynote. Check out the video in the link to the session to see the demonstration. One of the use cases that was demonstrated was linking from information to a person, because, as Donald put it, "People don't trust data, they trust people."The Microsoft BI Stack in GeneralA question I hear all the time from students when I'm teaching is how to know what tools to use when there is overlap between products in the BI stack. I've never taken the time to codify my thoughts on the subject, but saw that my friend Dan Bulos provided good insight on this topic from a variety of perspectives in his session, "So Many BI Tools, So Little Time." I thought one of his best points was that ideally you should be able to design in your tool of choice, and then deploy to your tool of choice. Unfortunately, the ideal is yet to become real across the platform. The closest we come is with the RDL in Reporting Services which can be produced from two different tools (Report Builder or Business Intelligence Development Studio's Report Designer), manually, or by a third-party or custom application. I have touted the idea for years (and publicly said so about 5 years ago) that eventually more products would be RDL producers or consumers, but we aren't there yet. Maybe in another 5 years.Another interesting session that covered the BI stack against a backdrop of competitive products was delivered by Andrew Brust. Andrew did a marvelous job of consolidating a lot of information in a way that clearly communicated how various vendors' offerings compared to the Microsoft BI stack. He also made a particularly compelling argument about how the existence of an ecosystem around the Microsoft BI stack provided innovation and opportunities lacking for other vendors. Check out his presentation, "How Does the Microsoft BI Stack...Stack Up?"Expo HallI had planned to spend more time in the Expo Hall to see who was doing new things with the BI stack, but didn't manage to get very far. Each time I set out on an exploratory mission, I got caught up in some fascinating conversations with one or more of my peers. I find interacting with people that I meet at conferences just as important as attending sessions to learn something new. There were a couple of items that really caught me eye, however, that I'll share here.Pragmatic Works. Whether you develop SSIS packages, build SSAS cubes, or author SSRS reports (or all of the above), you really must take a look at BI Documenter. Brian Knight (twitter) walked me through the key features, and I must say I was impressed. Once you've seen what this product can do, you won't want to document your BI projects any other way. You can download a free single-user database edition, or choose from more feature-rich standard or professional editions.Microsoft Press ebooks. I also stopped by the O'Reilly Media booth to meet some folks that one of my acquisitions editors at Microsoft Press recommended. In case you haven't heard, Microsoft Press has partnered with O'Reilly Media for distribution and publishing. Apart from my interest in learning more about O'Reilly Media as an author, an advertisement in their booth caught me eye which I think is a really great move. When you buy Microsoft Press ebooks through the O'Reilly web site, you can receive it in any (or all) of the following formats where possible: PDF, epub, .mobi for Kindle and .apk for Android. You also have lifetime DRM-free access to the ebooks. As someone who is an avid collector of books, I fnd myself running out of room for storage. In addition, I travel a lot, and it's hard to lug my reference library with me. Today's e-reader options make the move to digital books a more viable way to grow my library. Having a variety of formats means I am not limited to a single device, and lifetime access means I don't have to worry about keeping track of where I've stored my files. Because the e-books are DRM-free, I can copy and paste when I'm compiling notes, and I can print pages when necessary. That's a winning combination in my mind!Overall, I was pleased with the BI conference. There were many more sessions that I couldn't attend, either because the room was full when I got there or there were multiple sessions running concurrently that I wanted to see. Fortunately, many of the sessions are accessible for viewing online at http://www.msteched.com/2010/NorthAmerica along with the TechEd sessions. You can spot the BI sessions by the yellow skyline on the title slide of the presentation as shown below. 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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 20, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 20, 2012Popular ReleasesApex: Apex 1.4: Apex 1.4Apex 1.4 provides a framework for rapid MVVM development. Download Apex 1.4 to get the core binaries, Visual Studio Extensions, Project Templates, Samples and Documentation. The 1.4 Release provides a vast number of enhancements via the Apex Broker. The Apex Broker is an object that can be used to retrieve models, get the view for a view model and more, much like an IoC container. The new Zune Style application templates for WPF and Silverlight give a great starting point for makin...Auto Proxy Configuration: V 1.0: This tool consists of a windows application that allows you to define a proxy server for each DNSDomain and a windows service that matches the DNSDomain to the database and set the proxy accordingly.51Degrees.mobi - Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 2.1.6.11: One Click Install from NuGet Changes to Version 2.1.6.111. Altered the GetIsCrawler method in MobileCapabilities.cs to return null if no value for IsCrawler is provided. Previously the method returned false breaking values provided via the BrowserCap file. 2. Enhanced Xml/Reader.cs to reduce the number of byte objects created when decompressing zipped XML files. 3. Altered Location.cs GetUrl method to remove replacement string tags {0} from the new url if no values were found to replace them...NShader - HLSL - GLSL - CG - Shader Syntax Highlighter AddIn for Visual Studio: NShader 1.3 - VS2010 + VS2012: This is a small maintenance release to support new VS2012 as well as VS2010. This release is also fixing the issue The "Comment Selection" include the first line after the selection If the new NShader version doesn't highlight your shader, you can try to: Remove the registry entry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\FontAndColors\Cache Remove all lines using "fx" or "hlsl" in file C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Micr...asp.net membership: v1.0 Membership Management: Abmemunit is a Membership Management Project where developer can use their learning purposes of various issues related to ASP.NET, MVC, ASP.NET membership, Entity Framework, Code First, Ajax, Unit Test, IOC Container, Repository, and Service etc. Though it is a very simple project and all of these topics are used in an easy manner gathering from various big projects, it can easily understand. User End Functional Specification The functionalities of this project are very simple and straight...JSON Toolkit: JSON Toolkit 4.0: Up to 2.5x performance improvement in stringify operations Up to 1.7x performance improvement in parse operations Improved error messages when parsing invalid JSON strings Extended support to .Net 2.0, .Net 3.5, .Net 4.0, Silverlight 4, Windows Phone, Windows 8 metro apps and Xbox JSON namespace changed to ComputerBeacon.Json namespaceXenta Framework - extensible enterprise n-tier application framework: Xenta Framework 1.8.0: System Requirements OS Windows 7 Windows Vista Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008 R2 Web Server Internet Information Service 7.0 or above .NET Framework .NET Framework 4.0 WCF Activation feature HTTP Activation Non-HTTP Activation for net.pipe/net.tcp WCF bindings ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET MVC 3.0 Database Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Additional Deployment Configuration Started Windows Process Activation service Start...ASP.NET REST Services Framework: Release 1.3 - Standard version: The REST-services Framework v1.3 has important functional changes allowing to use complex data types as service call parameters. Such can be mapped to form or query string variables or the HTTP Message Body. This is especially useful when REST-style service URLs with POST or PUT HTTP method is used. Beginning from v1.1 the REST-services Framework is compatible with ASP.NET Routing model as well with CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) principle. These two are often important when buildin...NanoMVVM: a lightweight wpf MVVM framework: v0.10 stable beta: v0.10 Minor fixes to ui and code, added error example to async commands, separated project into various releases (mainly into logical wholes), removed expression blend satellite assembliesCrashReporter.NET : Exception reporting library for C# and VB.NET: CrashReporter.NET 1.1: Added screenshot support that takes screenshot of user's desktop on application crash and provides option to include screenshot with crash report. Added Windows version in crash reports. Added email field and exception type field in crash report dialog. Added exception type in crash reports. Added screenshot tab that shows crash screenshot.MFCMAPI: June 2012 Release: Build: 15.0.0.1034 Full release notes at SGriffin's blog. If you just want to run the MFCMAPI or MrMAPI, get the executables. If you want to debug them, get the symbol files and the source. The 64 bit builds will only work on a machine with Outlook 2010 64 bit installed. All other machines should use the 32 bit builds, regardless of the operating system. Facebook BadgeMonoGame - Write Once, Play Everywhere: MonoGame 2.5.1: Release Notes The MonoGame team are pleased to announce that MonoGame v2.5.1 has been released. This release contains important bug fixes and minor updates. Recent additions include project templates for iOS and MacOS. The MonoDevelop.MonoGame AddIn also works on Linux. We have removed the dependency on the thirdparty GamePad library to allow MonoGame to be included in the debian/ubuntu repositories. There have been a major bug fix to ensure textures are disposed of correctly as well as some ...????: ????2.0.2: 1、???????????。 2、DJ???????10?，?????????10?。 3、??.NET 4.5(Windows 8)????????????。 4、???????????。 5、??????????????。 6、???Windows 8????。 7、?????2.0.1???????????????。 8、??DJ?????????。Azure Storage Explorer: Azure Storage Explorer 5 Preview 1 (6.17.2012): Azure Storage Explorer verison 5 is in development, and Preview 1 provides an early look at the new user interface and some of the new features. Here's what's new in v5 Preview 1: New UI, similar to the new Windows Azure HTML5 portal Support for configuring and viewing storage account logging Support for configuring and viewing storage account monitoring Uses the Windows Azure 1.7 SDK libraries Bug fixesCodename 'Chrometro': Developer Preview: Welcome to the Codename 'Chrometro' Developer Preview! This is the very first public preview of the app. Please note that this is a highly primitive build and the app is not even half of what it is meant to be. The Developer Preview sports the following: 1) An easy to use application setup. 2) The Assistant which simplifies your task of customization. 3) The partially complete Metro UI. 4) A variety of settings 5) A partially complete web browsing experience To get started, download the Ins...Cosmos (C# Open Source Managed Operating System): Release 92560: Prerequisites Visual Studio 2010 - Any version including Express. Express users must also install Visual Studio 2010 Integrated Shell runtime VMWare - Cosmos can run on real hardware as well as other virtualization environments but our default debug setup is configured for VMWare. VMWare Player (Free). or Workstation VMWare VIX API 1.11AutoUpdaterdotNET : Autoupdate for VB.NET and C# Developer: AutoUpdater.NET 1.1: Release Notes New feature added that allows user to select remind later interval.Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: AdventureWorks 2008 OLTP Script: Install AdventureWorks2008 OLTP database from script The AdventureWorks database can be created by running the instawdb.sql DDL script contained in the AdventureWorks 2008 OLTP Script.zip file. The instawdb.sql script depends on two path environment variables: SqlSamplesDatabasePath and SqlSamplesSourceDataPath. The SqlSamplesDatabasePath environment variable is set to the default Microsoft ® SQL Server 2008 path. You will need to change the SqlSamplesSourceDataPath environment variable to th...WipeTouch, a jQuery touch plugin: 1.2.0: Changes since 1.1.0: New: wipeMove event, triggered while moving the mouse/finger. New: added "source" to the result object. Bug fix: sometimes vertical wipe events would not trigger correctly. Bug fix: improved tapToClick handler. General code refactoring. Windows Phone 7 is not supported, yet! Its behaviour is completely broken and would require some special tricks to make it work. Maybe in the future...Phalanger - The PHP Language Compiler for the .NET Framework: 3.0.0.3026 (June 2012): Fixes: round( 0.0 ) local TimeZone name TimeZone search compiling multi-script-assemblies PhpString serialization DocDocument::loadHTMLFile() token_get_all() parse_url()New ProjectsAMPlebrot: Sample code for Microsoft AMP including a auto-zooming Mandlebrot set browser and various random number generator implementations.Aquasoft ISZR web services Proxy: Knihovna pro pripojení k Informacnímu Systému Základních Registru (ISZR).Article Authoring Add-in for Word (NLM JATS): Use Microsoft Word to create, edit, save, and upload journal articles in the NLM Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) DTDBetter Calculator: Scientific calculator with support for user variables and full expression evaluation.Cosmos Image Converter (CIC) GUI: CIC Gui is a program developed for COSMOS (http://cosmos.codeplex.com/) that processes an image and creates code compatible with COSMOS for you.CSNN: ?????? ?????? ????????? ???????????? ???????????? ????????? ????, ??????????? ????????? ????????? ? ??????????? ???????? ?? ????????.Cuddy Chat Server Client: Small Chat Server & Client - basierend auf C# mit SocketsdemoASP: asp.net mvcEspera: Espera is a portable music player, specialized for partys. It is written in C# with WPF as frontend technology.ExamEvaluator: Utility to create excelspreadsheets that can be used to evaluate the results of an exam. (Dutch only for now)FTToolkit for WinRT: FTToolkit for WinRT is the Windows RT Version of FTToolkit. The framework is designed for using in Metro Style Apps on Windows 8HydroServer Lite: HydroServer Lite is a lightweight version of the CUAHSI HydroServer written in PHP. It can be run on any webhosting service that supports PHP and MySQL. ImmunityBusterWP7: We will let you know about this soon...JavaVM for small microcontrollers: uJavaVM is a Java virtual machine for small microcontrollers written in portable C. The project is organized to support multiple microcontroller platforms. Jaw-Breaker: Hello,JIMS: Jangids Inventory Management SystemLee's Simple HTA Template: A SIMPLE HTA that can be used in various scripts and OSD. Very Minimal, intended to be used a starting template.Log4netExtensions: Log4net extensions for none static classMedical information Management System: The Medical Information Management System (MIMS) is a comprehensive solution for the various stakeholders in Medical Industry in the Nigeria.Minimap XNA game component for TemporalWars Indie Game Engine: This Minimap XNA Component is designed to show unit movement, structures placed in the game world, and take direct orders (Windows Platform). MusicCreator: This is a program that make sounds. Just open a sound and add into the program. then press the record button and the sound will be recorded.Osnova CMS: Osnova CMS, content management frameworkPicBin: PicBin is like PasteBin only that it is for pics. The Project uses .NET 4.5, ASP.NET MVC 4 and HTML5.PowerShell scripts to enable and disable tracing for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: These are PowerShell scripts (files). There are 2 scripts in the zip file "CRM2011EnableDisableTrace.zip".PrepareQuery for MVC: ??????????? ??? ASP.NET MVC. Central.Linq.Mvc ?????? ?????????? ??? Central.Linq, ??????? ????????? ??????????? ???????????? ??????? ?? ?????? ?? ??????.Proggy: This will be a code-driven CMS for .NET developers. If I ever get the time to finish it.QuickSL: SL????， ??：??????、??????。 ?UI???????Temporal-Wars XNA Indie Game Engine: Temporal Wars 3D Engine includes a full suite of WYSIWG tools designed for rapid creation of your game world. Created for myself (Ben), now available for FREE.VIPER: VIPER RuntimeWeibo API library: Sina Weibo API library is NOT based on OAuth, but it is much more powerful in operating weibo activities via program. Major usage: 1. Rebot 2. Archive content

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• How Can I Safely Destroy Sensitive Data CDs/DVDs?

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  You have a pile of DVDs with sensitive information on them and you need to safely and effectively dispose of them so no data recovery is possible. What’s the most safe and efficient way to get the job done? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader HaLaBi wants to know how he can safely destroy CDs and DVDs with personal data on them: I have old CDs/DVDs which have some backups, these backups have some work and personal files. I always had problems when I needed to physically destroy them to make sure no one will reuse them. Breaking them is dangerous, pieces could fly fast and may cause harm. Scratching them badly is what I always do but it takes long time and I managed to read some of the data in the scratched CDs/DVDs. What’s the way to physically destroy a CD/DVD safely? How should he approach the problem? The Answer SuperUser contributor Journeyman Geek offers a practical solution coupled with a slightly mad-scientist solution: The proper way is to get yourself a shredder that also handles cds – look online for cd shredders. This is the right option if you end up doing this routinely. I don’t do this very often – For small scale destruction I favour a pair of tin snips – they have enough force to cut through a cd, yet are blunt enough to cause small cracks along the sheer line. Kitchen shears with one serrated side work well too. You want to damage the data layer along with shearing along the plastic, and these work magnificently. Do it in a bag, cause this generates sparkly bits. There’s also the fun, and probably dangerous way – find yourself an old microwave, and microwave them. I would suggest doing this in a well ventilated area of course, and not using your mother’s good microwave. There’s a lot of videos of this on YouTube – such as this (who’s done this in a kitchen… and using his mom’s microwave). This results in a very much destroyed cd in every respect. If I was an evil hacker mastermind, this is what I’d do. The other options are better for the rest of us. Another contributor, Keltari, notes that the only safe (and DoD approved) way to dispose of data is total destruction: The answer by Journeyman Geek is good enough for almost everything. But oddly, that common phrase “Good enough for government work” does not apply – depending on which part of the government. It is technically possible to recover data from shredded/broken/etc CDs and DVDs. If you have a microscope handy, put the disc in it and you can see the pits. The disc can be reassembled and the data can be reconstructed — minus the data that was physically destroyed. So why not just pulverize the disc into dust? Or burn it to a crisp? While technically, that would completely eliminate the data, it leaves no record of the disc having existed. And in some places, like DoD and other secure facilities, the data needs to be destroyed, but the disc needs to exist. If there is a security audit, the disc can be pulled to show it has been destroyed. So how can a disc exist, yet be destroyed? Well, the most common method is grinding the disc down to destroy the data, yet keep the label surface of the disc intact. Basically, it’s no different than using sandpaper on the writable side, till the data is gone. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.     

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• Extra Life 2012 - The Final Plea ... Until the Next One

  - by Chris Gardner

  I thought I'd share the email stream that my friends and family get about the event.So, here we are again. We scream closer to the event, and the goal is not met.I was approached by the ghost of feral platypii past last night. Well, approached is putting it lightly. I was mugged by the ghost of platypii past last night. He reminded me, in no uncertain terms that I have only reached the midway point of my fundraising goal. He then reminded me, in even less uncertain terms, that we are one week away from the event. There were other reminders past that, but this is a family broadcast. *shudder*Now, let us be serious for a moment. The event organizers claim a personal story helps to tug heart strings, whatever those are...I've been to Children's Hospital of Birmingham. I had to take Spawn, the Latter, there to verify she was not going to die. Instead, she's just a ticking time bomb for the next generation, but I digress.While I was there, I saw things. I saw child after child after child waiting for their appointment. I saw the most sublime displays of children's art juxtaposed with hospital sterilization that I could ever possibly imagine. I saw and heard things that only occur in the nightmares of parents, and I was only in the waiting rooms.But I will never forget the 10-ish year old girl that came in for her regularly scheduled dialysis appointment ... as if it was just another Friday afternoon. She had her school books, a little snack, a book to read for pleasure, and a DVD, in case she finished her homework a little early. You know, everything you'd need for an afternoon hooked up to a huge medical machine that going to clean out all the toxins in your blood. As she entered the secured area, she warmly greeted all the doctors and nurses with the same familiarity that I would greet the staff of my favorite coffee shop as I stopped in for my morning cup of coffee.I don't know the status of that little girl. I don't know if she's healthy or, quite frankly, alive. I don't even know her name, as I only heard it in passing for the 37 seconds our paths crossed. However, I do remember being incredibly moved and touched by her upbeat attitude about the situations, and I hope that my efforts last two Octobers got her, in some way, a little comfort.And, if she is still with us, I hope we can get her a little more.=== PREVIOUS MESSAGE FOLLOWS ===Greetings (Again),If you are receiving this updated message, then you didn't feel generous the first time. Now, I tried to be nice the first time. I tried to send a simple, unobtrusive email message to get you into the spirit. Well, much like the bell ringers that I ignore in front of the Wal-Mart, you ignored me.I probably should have seen that coming...However, unlike those poor souls, I know how to contact you. And I can find out where you live. So, so, so, you better feel lucky that I'm too lazy to terrorize you people, but cause I could do it.Remember, it's not for me, it's for those poor kids... and the feral platypii.  Because, we can make more children, but platypii are hard to come by.=== ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS ===It's that time of year again. The time when I beg you for money for charity. See, unlike those bell ringers outside Wal-Mart, I don't do it when you have ten bazillion holiday obligations...Once again, I will be enduring a 24-hour marathon of gaming to raise money for Children Hospital in Birmingham. All the money goes straight to them, and you get to tell Uncie Samuel that you're good for that money. I'd REALLY like to break $1000 this year, as I have come REALLY close for the past 2 year to doing so.This year, the event will take place on October 20th, beginning at 8 A.M. Once again, I will try to provide some web streams, etc, if you want to point and laugh (especially if I have to result to playing Dance Central at 4 AM to stay awake for the last part.)Look at it this way, I'm going to badger you about this for the next month. You might as well donate some money so you can righteously tell me to shut the Smurf up.You can place your bid at the link below. Feel free to spread the word to anyone and everyone.I thank you. The children thank you. Several breeds of feral platypus thank you. Maybe, just maybe, doing so will help you feel the love felt by re-fried beans when lovingly hugged in a warm tortilla.Enjoy your burrito.http://www.extra-life.org/participant/cgardner

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• Yes, I did it - Skydiving in Mauritius

  Finally, I did it or better said we did it. Already back in November last year I saw the big billboard advertisement of Skydive Austral Mauritius near Caudan Waterfront in Port Louis and decided for myself that this is going to be the perfect birthday gift for my wife. Simply out of curiosity I would join her tandem jump with a second instructor. Due to her pregnancy of our son I had to be patient... But then finally, her birthday had arrived and on our midnight celebration session I showed her her netbook with the website preloaded. Actually, it was the "perfect" timing... Recovery from her cesarean is fine, local weather conditions are gorgious and the children were under surveillance of my mum - spending her annual holidays on the island. So, after late wake-up in the morning, we packed our stuff and off we went. According to Google Maps direction indication we had to drive for roughly 50km (only) but traffic here in Mauritius is always challenging. The dropzone is at the Zone Industrielle Mon Loisir Sugar Estate near Riviere du Rempart at the northern east coast. Anyways, we were not in a hurry and arrived there shortly after noon. The access road to the airfield are just small down-driven paths through sugar cane fields and according to our daughter "it's bumpy!". True true true... The facilities at Skydive Austral Mauritius are complete except for food. Enough space for parking, easy handling at the reception and a lot to see for the kids. There's even a big terrace with several sets of tables and chairs, small bar for soft drinks, strictly non-alcoholic. The team over there is all welcoming and warm-hearthy! Having the kids with us was no issue at all. Quite the opposite, our daugther was allowed to discover a lot of things than we adults did. Even visiting the small air plane was on the menu for her. Really great stuff! While waiting for our turn we enjoyed watching other people getting ready in the jump gear, taking off with the Cessna, and finally coming back down on the tandem parachute. Actually, the different expressions on their faces was one of the best parts while waiting. Great mental preparation as my wife was getting more anxious about her first jump... {loadposition content_adsense} First, we got some information about the procedures on the plane about how to get seated, tight up with our instructors and how to get ready for the jump off the plane as soon as we arrive the height of 10.000 ft. All well explained and easy to understand after all.Next, we met with our jumpers Chris and Lee aka "Rasta" to get dressed and ready for take-off. Those guys are really cool and relaxed for their job. From that point on, the DVD session / recording for my wife's birthday started and we really had a lot of fun... The difference between that small Cessna and a commercial flight with an Airbus or a Boeing is astronomic! The climb up to 10.000 ft took us roughly 25 minutes and we enjoyed the magnificent view over the turquoise lagunes near Poste de Flacq, Lafayette and Isle d'Ambre on the north-east coast. After flying through the clouds we sun-bathed and looked over "iced-sugar covered" Mauritius. You might have a look at the picture gallery of Skydive Mauritius for better imagination. The moment of truth, or better said, point of no return came after approximately 25 minutes. The door opens, moving into position on the side on top of the wheel and... out! Back flip and free fall! Slight turns and Wooooohooooo! through the clouds... It so amazing and breath-taking! So undescribable! You have to experience this yourself! Some seconds later the parachute opened and we glided smoothly with some turns and spins back down to the dropzone. The rest of the family could hear and see us soon and the landing was easy going. We never had any doubts or fear about our instructors. They did a great job and we are looking forward to book our next job. I might even consider to follow educational classes on skydiving and earn a license. By the way, feel free to get in touch with Skydive Austral Mauritius. Either via contact details on their website or tweeting a little bit with them. Follow the tweets of Chris and fellows on SkydiveAustral.

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• Soft lockup after upgrade - cannot install from live CD

  - by nbm

  I dual-boot MacIntel Core 2 duo. nVidia graphics. Ran upgrade from ubuntu 13.10 to 14.04 (64 bit). On restart ran into {numbers} Bug: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 22s! [swapper/0:1] Tried loading earlier kernel: same problem Tried re-installing ubuntu from a liveCD that has worked in the past: version 13.04. Same problem. Tried re-partitioning hard drive using Mac OS X disk utility and then installing ubuntu 14.04LTS from liveCD. Same problem. Not possible to verify liveCD disk (creates same "soft lockup" bug.) Tried installing from the liveCD with version 13.04 that I know works (that's how I got Ubuntu on this machine in the first place.) Same problem. I know this is not a hardware problem as OS X works just fine, I am using it right now on the same machine. I have been using various versions of Ubuntu for 2 years. Things I cannot do: Open a terminal Verify CD image Start ubuntu from CD (same soft lockup problem) This problem is similar to some other questions, none of which have been satisfactorily answered: Ubuntu 14.04 soft lockup on Vostro 3500 Cannot do fresh install of Ubuntu 13.04 while booting from DVD: "soft lockup" bug Live CD stalls when installing Ubuntu 13.10 UPDATE 6/11/14: Following some much-appreciated advice from bain (see below) I burned a 12.04LTS disk and started with kernel parameters: noapic, no1apic, acpi=off, nomodeset, elevator=deadline, and clocksource=jiffies. With all of these parameters I was able to load the 12.04LTS CD ("Try without installing"). It worked fine. However, as soon as I tried to install Ubuntu from the CD, my wired ethernet (eth0) connection would hang. There are already various askubuntu questions and bug reports about this problem, none of which had answers for me. (E.g., dhclient eth0 does nothing, none of the various reset commands does anything, manually setting IP &etc does nothing. I could reliably kill the ethernet connection by clicking "install ubuntu" every single time.) I could go ahead and install 12.04 without an internet connection, but the install would freeze after mostly completing (I tried several times.) There were some relevant error messages in the details of the install output script that, IIRC, had to do with searching for missing files and not being able to access eth0 (internet) to get them. To be honest I gave up at that point and I'm not sure I wrote those down. If I find some notes I will post them. At this point I no longer have Ubuntu on my system. I wiped the partitions and am using exclusively OS X. I am leaving this question in case it helps anyone else with similar problems. I love open source and I love Linux, and the next machine I get I will probably just build from Arch. At the moment I miss repositories and a lot of other things about Ubuntu, but the OS X terminal is 'nix, I can pretty much use all the open source apps I like, and while I am not a fan of the Apple software it gets the job done for me. Unlike Ubuntu, which can't even install. I realize this isn't necessarily a place for a soapbox speech, but when I first installed 12.04 several years ago there were already people in the community complaining that Canonical was going too "commercial". But I loved it. Several years later and all I've seen is Canonical adding more not-so-useful bells and whistles to Ubuntu while continually failing to fix basic problems on upgrades. With a dual-boot (and sometimes triple-boot) system it always took me some tweaking to get an upgrade to work, and to some extent that is okay. But at this point I feel like Canonical ought to just put a price tag on Ubuntu. All I see is more commercialism and advertising and product tie-ins, and ongoing problems do not get fixed. I am a big fan of open-source, not-for profit enterprise. I am also a big fan of for-profit enterprise, which certainly has its place and usefulness. I am not a fan of companies who pretend to be in favor of open source but really are just out to make a buck, and IMNSHO that is what Canonical has become. This is a great community and I wish you all the best, but my next install of Linux will not be Ubuntu.

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• How to fix Ubuntu 12.04.3 boot to black screen full of errors in white text, after upgrading on dell inspiron 1501

  - by Ibuntu

  I am running a Dell Inspiron 1501 I use Linux only. No Microsoft or Apple operating systems (or really anything closed-source). I've only been using Linux for a little over a year but I'm starting to gain a comfortable level of familiarity with the system and terminology. I've been having some issues with Quantel Quetzal and Raring Ringtail, especially with older hardware, so I opted to install Ubuntu 12.04.3 Precise Pangolin on the Inspiron 1501. I checked my MD5 sum after downloading my ISO and all was good. I have in fact used this iso/dvd to install Precise Pangolin successfully on a few other systems (some of which are even older than this laptop). Install goes fine. The wireless card doesn't work out of the box but this is a known issue which is fairly easy to fix. So, first thing I did was open up a terminal and run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade which, part way through, crashed (I assume lightdm and possibly X) and took me to a black screen filled with white lines of text that were either errors or just the ouputs of commands. The reason I say that is because I was unable to gleam any useful information from the output on the screen. I did take a picture however and will post a link. After that, every time I boot the system it goes right to that black screen posting all the error messages or output in white text. I never get a purple Ubuntu splash, so from what I can tell after reading this wiki article: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/BlankScreen That means that after the kernel is selected, it is unable to correctly implement the settings it needs. If the purple splash never shows, the frame buffer was never set correctly right? This leads me to believe that it could be a kernel issue? The wiki suggested to try and pinpoint the issue by rolling back kernels until I find one that works. Is this my best option? I think I'm going to give it a try anyways and will let everyone know if I am able to solve the issue this way. I have since done a few reinstalls and some trouble-shooting including a couple hours scouring the net for anyone with any kind of similar issue. Most of the issues I could find involved getting a black screen after login and none of them said anything about any information output on this black screen. My reinstalls have taught me that there is no issue updating, but as soon as I run sudo apt-get upgrade my system goes to the black screen and every time I boot it up it does the same thing. The only way to fix is by reinstall. I never get any ability to log in. After a hard power off to the laptop (because I cannot use ctrl+alt+del to reboot) when it boots again it goes to the grub boot menu and I can select between regular boot, recovery mode and the two memtest options. I never tried the memtest options but the other two both lead to the same black screen. Some people having a black/blank screen issue claim to have fixed it by using 12.10 or 13.04 but I believe they were having a different issue where they got a black/blank screen after logging in. I think I will still give these images a try, but mostly figured I would just wait another day or two for 13.10. Other things I figured I would try from the following three articles: After logging in, there's a black screen and my cursor, nothing else! in Ubuntu 12.10 Black Screen on Login After Upgrading to 12.04 I can't get to the login screen include opening a terminal using ctrl+alt+f1 and trying a variety of reseting unity, x settings, lightdm (or switching to gdm); but I doubt this will work or that I will even be able to access a terminal. I'm pretty sure the whole system is stuck after it loads the last line on the black screen. I will try these things and post more information when I have. Hopefully someone has an idea in the meantime and I will keep checking back trying to find a solution. Thank you. Here are 3 different pictures of the error message. I had to take with my phone: http://ubuntuone.com/album/0TBBkxmVajJIQQtoN9mVdN

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• iPhone reachability checking

  - by Sneakyness

  I've found several examples of code to do what I want (check for reachability), but none of it seems to be exact enough to be of use to me. I can't figure out why this doesn't want to play nice. I have the reachability.h/m in my project, I'm doing #import <SystemConfiguration/SystemConfiguration.h> And I have the framework added. I also have: #import "Reachability.h" at the top of the .m in which I'm trying to use the reachability. Reachability* reachability = [Reachability sharedReachability]; [reachability setHostName:@"http://www.google.com"]; // set your host name here NetworkStatus remoteHostStatus = [reachability remoteHostStatus]; if(remoteHostStatus == NotReachable) {NSLog(@"no");} else if (remoteHostStatus == ReachableViaWiFiNetwork) {NSLog(@"wifi"); } else if (remoteHostStatus == ReachableViaCarrierDataNetwork) {NSLog(@"cell"); } This is giving me all sorts of problems. What am I doing wrong? I'm an alright coder, I just have a hard time when it comes time to figure out what needs to be put where to enable what I want to do, regardless if I want to know what I want to do or not. (So frustrating) Update: This is what's going on. This is in my viewcontroller, which I have the #import <SystemConfiguration/SystemConfiguration.h> and #import "Reachability.h" set up with. This is my least favorite part of programming by far. FWIW, we never ended up implementing this in our code. The two features that required internet access (entering the sweepstakes, and buying the dvd), were not main features. Nothing else required internet access. Instead of adding more code, we just set the background of both internet views to a notice telling the users they must be connected to the internet to use this feature. It was in theme with the rest of the application's interface, and was done well/tastefully. They said nothing about it during the approval process, however we did get a personal phone call to verify that we were giving away items that actually pertained to the movie. According to their usually vague agreement, you aren't allowed to have sweepstakes otherwise. I would also think this adheres more strictly to their "only use things if you absolutely need them" ideaology as well. Here's the iTunes link to the application, EvoScanner.

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• Audio/video streaming on Windows platform

  - by bushtucker

  I'm building an interactive language learning application to be used in a classroom environment. The idea is that a teacher should be able to talk to the students (=audio stream to all students), let students talk to each other (= audio P2P) in groups of two or more, let students watch a video coming from a the DVD player or coming from a media server. It should be possible to save the audio/video streams. The teacher should also be able to monitor, take-over or block the desktop of the students. The platform is Windows and it's a desktop application, no web application. The audio delay should be as minimal as poosible. Optionally a student sitting at home should be supported, but it's not a high priority. I am now finished with the classroom control part of the application (login, monitor, block, ...) and want to start the audio and video part. I've been evaluating several options like DirectX, GStreamer and SIP but now I have to make a decision. DirectX seems an obvious choice for the Windows platform, but it only lets me capture and playback audio and video. The encoding/decoding/network part I should do myself. GStreamer contains all kinds of options to capture/encode/stream/save audio and video streams. I've experimented a bit with it (ossbuild) and it does seem to involve a lot of trial and error to make something work: - microphone capture (via directsoundsrc) produces cracking noises on some computers - rtpL16 payloader didn't work well - streaming raw audio over the network only working at a sampling rate of 8000, no higher - there are a lot of errors when receiving mpeg4 video (bad I-frame), on some computers worse than others It is my impression that gstreamer is primary targetted at linux platforms. Development and support for the Windows platform seems to be a little behind. Nevertheless it's a powerful framework that could save me months and years of work. SIP seems to be able to do everything I want, but it is targeted towards telephony and IM. I don't know how flexible SIP is. It seems to me that the SIP layer would just be overhead as I already have a central (teacher) application that can control and setup all the streams. The interesting parts of frameworks like opalvoip and freeswitch are the actual audio/video capture, the encoding and transmission. Does anyone know how these interesting parts relate a framework like gstreamer? Are they easy to integrate into a custom application? Are they flexible enough? Does anyone have experience with all or one of these technologies? Maybe there are even other options I can look at? Many thanks for your advice

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• WDS 2008 R2 DHCP Error

  - by scampbell

  Im having a problem where I get the error 'An error occurred while obtaining an IP address from the DHCP server. Please check to ensure that there is an operational DHCP server on this network segment' when booting from a standard WDS boot.wim image taken from a Windows 7 DVD. I am using Server 2008 R2 and am adding the drivers to the boot using WDS, but also have the problem if the drivers are injected beforehand using DISM. When the error occurs I can shift + F10 and IPCONFIG and see it HAS picked up an internal IP from DHCP. Seems maybe it is timing out before it gets the IP? DHCP server is not on the WDS box but is in the same subnet. As per some fixes I have read I enabled RSTP on my switches but that didnt help. I have included the end of setupact.log to see if any of you have any ideas. Seems to be failing but as I say, the network IS initialized as I can see the internal IP assigned by DHCP when running IPCONFIG. I dont suppose theres any way of increasing the timeout? Thanks. 2011-04-11 17:26:31, Info [0x0b0022] WDS StartNetworking: Trying to start networking. 2011-04-11 17:26:31, Info WDS Network service dhcp not running or could not be queried: 264d00 1 1 2011-04-11 17:26:31, Info WDS Network service lmhosts not running or could not be queried: 264e18 1 1 2011-04-11 17:26:31, Info WDS Network service lanmanworkstation not running or could not be queried: 264d00 1 1 2011-04-11 17:26:31, Info WDS Network service bfe not running or could not be queried: 264e18 1 1 2011-04-11 17:26:31, Info WDS Network service ikeext not running or could not be queried: 264d00 1 1 2011-04-11 17:26:31, Info WDS Network service mpssvc not running or could not be queried: 264e18 1 1 2011-04-11 17:27:24, Info WDS Installing device pci\ven_14e4&dev_1691&subsys_04aa1028 X:\WINDOWS\INF\oem37.inf succeeded 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS No computer name specified, generating a random name. 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS Renaming computer to MININT-VN2P876. 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS Acquired profiling mutex 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS Service winmgmt disable: 0x00000000 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS Service winmgmt stop: 0x00000000 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS Service winmgmt enable: 0x00000000 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS Released profiling mutex 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS Acquired profiling mutex 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS Install MS_MSCLIENT: 0x0004a020 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS Install MS_NETBIOS: 0x0004a020 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS Install MS_SMB: 0x0004a020 2011-04-11 17:27:25, Info WDS Install MS_TCPIP6: 0x0004a020 2011-04-11 17:27:26, Info WDS Install MS_TCPIP: 0x0004a020 2011-04-11 17:27:26, Info WDS Service dhcp start: 0x00000000 2011-04-11 17:27:26, Info WDS Service lmhosts start: 0x00000000 2011-04-11 17:27:26, Info WDS Service ikeext start: 0x00000000 2011-04-11 17:27:26, Info WDS Service mpssvc start: 0x00000000 2011-04-11 17:27:26, Info WDS Released profiling mutex 2011-04-11 17:27:26, Info WDS Spent 967ms installing network components 2011-04-11 17:27:28, Info WDS Spent 2247ms installing network drivers 2011-04-11 17:27:38, Info WDS QueryAdapterStatus: no operational adapters found. 2011-04-11 17:27:38, Info WDS Spent 10140ms confirming network initialization; status 0x80004005 2011-04-11 17:27:38, Info WDS WaitForNetworkToInitialize failed; ignoring error 2011-04-11 17:27:38, Info WDS GetNetworkingInfo: WpeNetworkStatus returned [0x0]. Flags set: 2011-04-11 17:27:38, Error [0x0b003f] WDS StartNetworking: Failed to start networking. Error code [0x800704C6].[gle=0x000000cb] 2011-04-11 17:27:38, Info [0x0640ae] IBSLIB PublishMessage: Publishing message [WdsClient: An error occurred while obtaining an IP address from the DHCP server. Please check to ensure that there is an operational DHCP server on this network segment.]

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• Why do GPUs overheat?

  - by JAD

  About a year ago, I added a 9800GT (1 GB version) and a Corsair CX500 PSU to an HP M8000N computer. A few weeks ago, the HDD overheated and I decided to transfer the GPU & PSU to a new build, which consists of: i3 @ 3.3Ghz Gigabyte H61 Micro ATX Mobo 4GB RAM 500GB WD HDD DVD RW Drive Cooler Master Elite 430 Tower Once I had Win7 up and running, I installed all the essential drivers that came with the Gigabyte Mobo CD. However, whenever I tried installing the Graphics Media Accelerator driver, the computer would crash and enter an endless boot sequence on the next startup. I skipped installing this driver and installed the CD driver for the 9800GT, which by now is a year old. Everything was working fine, WEI rated my GPU at 6.6 graphics & aero performance. However, after updating my Nvidia drivers to the latest, the WEI dropped my rating to 3.3 for Aero, and 4.7 for graphics performance. Just to make sure that everything was ok, I ran Bad Company 2 on medium settings. The first few minutes ran just fine at a smooth framerate, so I dismissed this as Windows being Windows. About 6 hours later, I ran BC2 again. This time I averaged anywhere from 2-5 FPS. I checked the GPU temperature through GPU-Z, and it came back as 120C. The problem with this, is that the computer was on for six hours up to that point. Wouldn't the card have experienced a reactor core meltdown a lot sooner than that? Granted, the computer was "sleeping" some of the time, but still... The next day I took out a temperature gun and ran some tests. I would point the laser at a very specific area on the reverse side of the card (not the fan or "front"), and compare the temp reading with GPU-Z. After leaving the system on idle on idle for a few minutes, I ran BC2 twice. Here are the results: GPU-Z Reading / Temp Gun Reading / Time Null / 22.3°C / Comp is Off 53°C / 33.5°C / 1:49 78°C / 46°C / 1:53 - (First BC2 run; good framerate) 102°C / 64.6°C / 2:01 - (System is again on idle) 113°C / 64.8°C / 2:10 119°C / 71.8°C / 2:17 - (Second BC2 run; poor framerate) I should also mention that I also took a temp recording of another part of the GPU from 2:01-2:17. The temp in this area jumped from 75°C to 82.9°C in that time frame. This pretty much confirms that GPU-Z is reporting the temperature accurately, and the card is overheating. But I'd like to know why; the cars is doing nothing and still the temperature climbs at a steady rate. I thoroughly cleaned the GPU and PSU when I salvaged them from the old HP M8000N computer with a can of compressed air, dust cant be the issue. Similarly, the rest of the computer is brand new. I installed various Nvidia drivers, but no luck. It seems strange to me that a year-old card is suddenly failing on me; aren't they supposed to last at least two years? Could this be a driver issue? Is the motherboard faulty? Could the PSU be overfeeding the card on voltage? Neither case seems likely, as the CPU, RAM and otherwise the rest of the comp has worked flawlessly and has stayed well within respectable temp ranges (the i3 lingers around 50C, the HDD stays at 30C, so does the PSU). How can I pinpoint the issue?

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• Performing mechanical movements using computer

  - by Vi

  How to make a computer (in particular, my laptop) to perform some mechanical movements without buying anything $5, soldering things inside computer or creating big sophisticated circuits? Traditionally CD-ROM tray is used to make computer do some movement IRL by, for example, SSH command, but in laptop tray is one-shot (unless manually reloaded) and also not very comfortable [mis]usage. Some assistance circuits can be in use too, but not complex. For example, there is a little motor that can work on USB power. Devices in my computer: DVD-ROM tray: one-time push. USB power: continuous power to the motor or LEDS or relay that turns on something powerful. Audio card. 3 outputs (modprobe alsa model=test can set Mic and Line-in as additional output). One controllable DC output (microphone) that can power up LED and some electronic (may be even mechanic?) relay. Also with sophisticated additional circuiting can control a lot of devices with a good precision. Both input and output support. Probably the most useful object in computer for radio ham. Modem. Don't know about this much, it doesn't work because of hsfmodem crashes kernel if memory is = 1GB. May be it's "pick up" and "hang up" can turn on and off power taken from USB port? Video card. VGA port? S-Video port? Will them be useful? Backlight. Tunable, but probably unuseful. CardBus (or some) slot. Nothing interesting for the task probably (is it?). AC adapter and battery. Probably nothing programmable here. /* My AC adapter already have additional jacks to connect extra devics */ Keyboard. No use. Touchpad. Good sensor (synclient -m 1), but no output. Various LEDs inside laptop. Probably too weak and requires soldering. Fans inside laptop. Poor control over them, requires soldering and dangerous to tinker. HDD (internal and external) that can be spin down and up (hdparm -Y, cat /dev/ubb). But connecting anything serially with it's power line makes HDD underpowered... And too complex. Is something are missed? Any ideas how to use described components? Any other ideas? May be there are easily available /* in developing countries */ cheap devices like "enhanced multimeters" that are controllable from computer and can provide configurable output and measure current and other things? Things to aid pushing many physical buttons with computer. Isn't this a simple idea and implementation and a lot of use in good hands?

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• Set up lnux box for hosting a-z

  - by microchasm

  I am in the process of reinstalling the OS on a machine that will be used to host a couple of apps for our business. The apps will be local only; access from external clients will be via vpn only. The prior setup used a hosting control panel (Plesk) for most of the admin, and I was looking at using another similar piece of software for the reinstall - but I figured I should finally learn how it all works. I can do most of the things the software would do for me, but am unclear on the symbiosis of it all. This is all an attempt to further distance myself from the land of Configuration Programmer/Programmer, if at all possible. I can't find a full walkthrough anywhere for what I'm looking for, so I thought I'd put up this question, and if people can help me on the way I will edit this with the answers, and document my progress/pitfalls. Hopefully someday this will help someone down the line. The details: CentOS 5.5 x86_64 httpd: Apache/2.2.3 mysql: 5.0.77 (to be upgraded) php: 5.1 (to be upgraded) The requirements: SECURITY!! Secure file transfer Secure client access (SSL Certs and CA) Secure data storage Virtualhosts/multiple subdomains Local email would be nice, but not critical The Steps: Download latest CentOS DVD-iso (torrent worked great for me). Install CentOS: While going through the install, I checked the Server Components option thinking I was going to be using another Plesk-like admin. In hindsight, considering I've decided to try to go my own way, this probably wasn't the best idea. Basic config: Setup users, networking/ip address etc. Yum update/upgrade. Upgrade PHP: To upgrade PHP to the latest version, I had to look to another repo outside CentOS. IUS looks great and I'm happy I found it! cd /tmp #wget http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/Redhat/5/x86_64/epel-release-1-1.ius.el5.noarch.rpm #rpm -Uvh epel-release-1-1.ius.el5.noarch.rpm #wget http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/Redhat/5/x86_64/ius-release-1-4.ius.el5.noarch.rpm #rpm -Uvh ius-release-1-4.ius.el5.noarch.rpm yum list | grep -w \.ius\. [will list all packages available in the IUS repo] rpm -qa | grep php [will list installed packages needed to be removed. the installed packages need to be removed before you can install the IUS packages otherwise there will be conflicts] #yum shell >remove php-gd php-cli php-odbc php-mbstring php-pdo php php-xml php-common php-ldap php-mysql php-imap Setting up Remove Process >install php53 php53-mcrypt php53-mysql php53-cli php53-common php53-ldap php53-imap php53-devel >transaction solve >transaction run Leaving Shell #php -v PHP 5.3.2 (cli) (built: Apr 6 2010 18:13:45) This process removes the old version of PHP and installs the latest. To upgrade mysql: Pretty much the same process as above with PHP #/etc/init.d/mysqld stop [OK] rpm -qa | grep mysql [installed mysql packages] #yum shell >remove mysql mysql-server Setting up Remove Process >install mysql51 mysql51-server mysql51-devel >transaction solve >transaction run Leaving Shell #service mysqld start [OK] #mysql -v Server version: 5.1.42-ius Distributed by The IUS Community Project The above upgrade instructions courtesy of IUS wiki: http://wiki.iuscommunity.org/Doc/ClientUsageGuide Create a chroot jail to hold sftp user via rssh. This will force SCP/SFTP and will circumvent traditional FTP server setup. #cd /tmp #wget http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/rssh/rssh-2.3.2-1.2.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm #rpm -ivh rssh-2.3.2-1.2.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm #useradd -m -d /home/dev -s /usr/bin/rssh dev #passwd dev Edit /etc/rssh.conf to grant access to SFTP to rssh users. #vi /etc/rssh.conf Uncomment line allowscp This allows me to connect to the machine via SFTP protocol in Transmit (my FTP program of choice; I'm sure it's similar with other FTP apps). Above instructions for SFTP appropriated (with appreciation!) from http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-unix-restrict-shell-access-with-rssh.html And this is where I'm at. I will keep editing this as I make progress. Any tips on how to Configure virtual interfaces/ip based virtual hosts for SSL, setting up a CA, or anything else would be appreciated.

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• Computer makes hissing noise, turns off after few seconds

  - by Kaustubh P

  I have a problem similar to the questions posted here and here. This is my config: Asus M3N78-EM, with AMD Phenom X3 720 2800 Black Edition, 4GB Transcend DDR2 RAM, Nvidia 9400GT. HD is a 160 GB IDE, and a LG IDE DVD-ROM. The power button is a bit off, I have removed the cover of the switch, and the only way it turns on is just giving the "stick" under the cover a gentle press. It turns on sometimes, and at other times, I have to cut-off the power from the PSU, and try again. I will describe my problem in as detail as possible, please bear with me: The problem has started in the last week, a few months after I changed the to the powerswitch arrangement as described above. The PC makes a hissing noise, and I wasn't able to pin-point the noise source, because of the various other fans. At first, removing the HD, rebooting w/o the HD, turning it off, reconnecting and booting made the problem go away. But of late, it doesn't happen. As suggested in the other questions, I tried reducing the load by disconnecting both the IDE drives, and the problem (noise + turn-off) still occurs. I also connected another 80G IDE HD,today morning, adn it still made that noise, and turned off. I also opened up the PSU, but I couldn't see any fault in that, I tried rotating the fan by blowing into the blades, and with my fingers, but the hissing noise didn't come from there. Or maybe the speed wasn't enough to evoke that noise. A few weeks ago: I had cleaned the Cabinet and had repasted the processor and its fan using some thermal paste. Could that be at fault? I also used a vacuum to blow the dust out of the PSU, could the power have been too much, to maybe offset the fan or something? A label on the PSU says it uses a ball-bearing fan. That only leaves me with the Processor fan and the processor itself. I didn't try removing the processor fan and processor from the motherboard, and then turning the PC on, fearing damage. Will doing so cause any damage? What can I do to localize and pin-point the problem? Also, after a few tries, the Computer starts up. Sometimes it turns of within 2 seconds, sometimes after the POST. Once it turned off at the grub. Another time it booted completely and then turned off. The only way to ensure that the PC wont turn off, is if the hissing noise stops. EDIT: I suspect it to be the Processor/Processor fan, owing to the source of noise. All the config, except for the Cabinet, is just over a year old. EDIT2: I also just remembered, that I had set the "On-power resume" to turn on, i.e. If I supply he PC with power, it will turn itself on, w/o me needing to press the switch. I had done that to workaround the faulty power-switch, as noted above. EDIT3: I calculated the power my system needs, from the antec site, and I just arrived at 292W

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• IP Micro-outages, telephone micro-outages, and CATV micro-outages

  - by Michael Graff

  This is a long and complicated question, mostly because it has been going on for 2.5 years without a solution in sight. It also is only one-third computer related, the other two-thirds are cable TV and cable-phone related. Background I have COX Communications for a cable provider, and we get Internet, digital cable TV, and digital phone service through them. The Internet is a SB5101 right now, and has been a DPC2100 and SB5120 in the past. Same results. The phone service is provided through a telephone interface mounted on the outside of the house (not classic VoIP) and the CATV is through a Scientific Atlanta receiver without DVR. I do have a TiVo connected to the CATV box. Symptoms The CATV shows "blocking" -- sometimes very very short duration where a few blocks appear on the screen. Sometimes it lasts long enough that the video "pauses" for 2-5 seconds, and rarely but not unseen the audio also fails. The CATV decoder box shows no correctable (FEC) or uncorrectable errors. That is, all BER counters are zero for the video stream. The Internet shows "micro-outages" where it appears that sent packets are not making it out, but I continue to receive packets from local modems. That is, pings stop coming back, but I continue to see modems broadcast for DHCP, and sometimes they ask more than once. The cable modem shows no errors during this time, but cable modems lie like you would not believe. It is actually possible to unplug the coax from the modem for 20 seconds and it reports NO ERRORS to the provider's tools. The phone service cuts out for 1-3 seconds, infrequently. When this happens, I hear NOTHING (not even comfort noise) and the remote side hears a "click" as if I were getting a call waiting message. However, there is no call incoming, other than the one I'm currently on of course. Things SEEM to happen more frequently when the temperature outside swings from cold to warm, so fall/spring seems worse than summer/winter. All micro-outages occur between once or twice a day (which I could ignore) to 10 times per hour. All SNR, signal levels, noise levels, etc. show very close to optimal when measured. COX's diagnosis This is a continual pain for me. Over the last 2.5 years, they have opened, "fixed" something, and closed the tickets. They close it without confirming that it is indeed better, and when I reopen they cannot do that, but instead they open a new ticket and send yet another low-level tech out to do the same signal tests and report that all is OK. I've finally gotten a line tech who has a clue and is motivated enough to pursue this with me. We have tried things like switching the local nodes over to UPS and generator power, but this does not trigger the noise. We have tried replacing all cabling, the tap outside my house, the modem, the CATV decoder -- all without resolution. Recently they have decided it is both my computer or switch, my TiVo, and my phone that are all broken and causing this issue. My debugging steps I spent the worse day of my TV-watching life yesterday and part of today. I watched live TV without the TiVo. I witnessed blocking, but it did "feel different." and was actually more severe. Some days it is better, some days it is worse, so perhaps this was just a very bad day. Today, I connected the TiVo to my DVD player, and ran two very long movies through it. I saw no blocking at all during nearly 6 hours of video. Suggestions? Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do next? I understand perhaps only the IP side can be addressed here, but it is one of the more limiting debugging options.

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