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• Can someone explain an Enterprise Service Bus to me in non-buzzspeak?

  - by Jason Baker

  Some of our partners are telling us that our software needs to interact with an Enterprise Service Bus. After researching this a bit, my instinct is to say that this is just buzz speak for saying that we need to have a platform-indpendent way to pass messages back and forth. I'm just trying to get a feel for what our partners are telling us. Am I correct in dismissing our partners' request as just trying to get our software to be more buzzword-compliant, or are they telling us something we should listen to (even if encoded in buzzspeak)?

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• Detect if PCRE was built without the --enable-unicode-properties or --enable-utf8 configuration switches

  - by Mark Baker

  I've a PHP library that uses a number of regular expressions featuring the \P expressions for multibyte strings, e.g. ((((?:\P{M}\p{M}*)+?)|(\'[^\']*\')|(\"[^\"]*\"))!)?\$?([a-z]{1,3})\$?(\d+) While this works on most builds, I've had a few reports of the regexp returning an error. Depending on Operating platform, the error messages from PCRE are: Compilation failed: PCRE does not support \L, \l, \N, \P, \p, \U, \u, or \X at offset n or Compilation failed: support for \\P, \\p, and \\X has not been compiled at offset n I know that I can probably test a regexp at the beginning of my code that uses \P, and trap for a returned error, then use that response to set a compatibility flag and provide a degraded (non UTF-8) regexp without the \P within the main body of my code based on that compatibility flag; but I was wondering if there was any simpler way to identify whether PCRE had been built without the --enable-unicode-properties or --enable-utf8 configuration switches. PHP provides access to PCRE_VERSION constant, but that won't help identify whether \P support is enabled or not.

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• How do I make a symlink to every directory in the current directory that has the same name but has u

  - by Jason Baker

  For instance, I suppose I have a directory that contains the following folders foo_bar baz What I would like to have is a bash command that will make a symlink foo-bar to foo_bar so it would look like this: foo-bar foo_bar baz I'm pretty sure I can write a Python script to do this, but I'm curious if there's a way to do this with bash. Here's where I'm stuck: ls -1 | grep _ | xargs -I {} ln -s {} `{} | sed 's/_/-/'` What I'm trying to do is run the command ln -s with the first argument being the directory name and the second argument being that name passed through sed s/_/-/. Is there another way to do this?

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• What is Restful Routing?

  - by John Baker

  I have been searching pretty hard for info out on the net to explain exactly what Restful routing is but I haven't had any success. There are a lot of resources but not a who lot make sense to me. I'm familiar with Ruby On Rails's routing system and well as how Code Igniter and PhpCake route things but is there more to it than having a centralized location where you give out routes based on a directory structure? Like this: controller/action/id/ Admin/editUser/22 I'd appreciate any help with this, it's had me baffled for months. I just thought of putting it on SO. Thanks

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• How do I do a semijoin using SQLAlchemy?

  - by Jason Baker

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_algebra#Semijoin Let's say that I have two tables: A and B. I want to make a query that would work similarly to the following SQL statement using the SQLAlchemy orm: SELECT A.* FROM A, B WHERE A.id = B.id AND B.type = 'some type'; The thing is that I'm trying to separate out A and B's logic into different places. So I'd like to make two queries that I can define in separate places: one where A uses B as a subquery, but only returns rows from A. I'm sure this is fairly easy to do, but an example would be nice if someone could show me.

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• MySQL on Windows-7 (64-bit) on 0.0.0.0:3306 rather than 127.0.0.1:3306

  - by Mark Baker

  I've just installed the latest production release of MySQL (64-bit) on my Windows 7 box. It was a straight vanilla install, using all defaults; but phpmyadmin can't see it at all. MySQL is configured as a service to start automatically, and I know it's running because the MySQL GUI tools work correctly. Doing a netstat -a, I see TCP 0.0.0.0:3306 Marks-Netbook:0 LISTENING when I'd expect to see TCP 127.0.0.1:3306 Marks-Netbook:0 LISTENING I don't know if this is the reason phpmyadmin can't connect, but suspect that it is probably the case. Can anybody confirm whether this is the likely cause, and/or suggest how I can reso;lve this?

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• How do I get the set of all letters in Java/Clojure?

  - by Jason Baker

  In Python, I can do this: >>> import string >>> string.letters 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ' Is there any way to do something similar in Clojure (apart from copying and pasting the above characters somewhere)? I looked through both the Clojure standard library and the java standard library and couldn't find it.

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• Why doesn't C++ have a garbage collector?

  - by Jason Baker

  I'm not asking this question because of the merits of garbage collection first of all. My main reason for asking this is that I do know that Bjarne Stroustrup has said that C++ will have a garbage collector at some point in time. With that said, why hasn't it been added? There are already some garbage collectors for C++. Is this just one of those "easier said than done" type things? Or are there other reasons it hasn't been added (and won't be added in C++0x)? Cross links: Garbage collectors for C++ EDIT: Just to clarify, I understand the reasons why C++ didn't have a garbage collector when it was first created. I'm wondering why the collector can't be added in.

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• What is __path__ useful for?

  - by Jason Baker

  I had never noticed the __path__ attribute that gets defined on some of my packages before today. According to the documentation: Packages support one more special attribute, __path__. This is initialized to be a list containing the name of the directory holding the package’s __init__.py before the code in that file is executed. This variable can be modified; doing so affects future searches for modules and subpackages contained in the package. While this feature is not often needed, it can be used to extend the set of modules found in a package. Could somebody explain to me what exactly this means and why I would ever want to use it?

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• Enumerating large (20-digit) [probable] prime numbers

  - by Paul Baker

  Given A, on the order of 10^20, I'd like to quickly obtain a list of the first few prime numbers greater than A. OK, my needs aren't quite that exact - it's alright if occasionally a composite number ends up on the list. What's the fastest way to enumerate the (probable) primes greater than A? Is there a quicker way than stepping through all of the integers greater than A (other than obvious multiples of say, 2 and 3) and performing a primality test for each of them? If not, and the only method is to test each integer, what primality test should I be using?

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• Free NHibernate helper tools?

  - by Jason Baker

  Are there any free tools to help simplify working with an NHibernate project in .NET 3.5? Primarily, I'm looking for some kind of code and config file generator to automate some of the more tedious parts of working with NHibernate.

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• How can I make Church numerals more human readable in lisp?

  - by Jason Baker

  I can define church numerals fairly easy using scheme: > (define f (lambda (x) x)) > (f f) ;0 #<procedure:f> > (f (f f)) ;1 #<procedure:f> However, this doesn't make it very easy to recognize that (f f) is 0 and (f (f f)) is 1. Is there a way that I can make these numerals more readable? What would be ideal is this: > (f f) 0 > (f (f f)) 1 The example is in scheme, but I'll take an answer in any lisp.

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• Can you call compiled JRuby classes from java?

  - by John Baker

  So I came up with the general idea to write some code in JRuby, then access all the classes via Java. I have no idea if this is at all possible but I wanted to ask anyway. Lets say I have some JRuby code: class adder def addme return 22 end end If I compiled this with jrubyc is there any way I could then possibly do something like this in java: import adder; class anything { void testMethod() { adder a = new adder(); int x = a.addme(); } } After looking at it now it sort of makes me think that Java will have zero idea what sort of item test addme is going to return so that might not work. I don't know but I wanted to throw it out there anyway. Thanks

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• How to add multiple link styles on the same page?

  - by Darren Baker

  I have two hyperlinks on a page. I'm happy with the css on 'link1' (white text / red rollover) however I want to have a different styling for 'link2'. I've created a seperate css for this section and have managed to colour it green but I can't get rid of the red rollover effect? Does anyone know how to override the red rollover effect just on 'link2'? http://www.signport.co.uk/test/testsize3.html Thanks!

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• In PLT scheme, can I export functions after another function has been called?

  - by Jason Baker

  I'm trying to create a binding to libpython using scheme's FFI. To do this, I have to get the location of python, create the ffi-lib, and then create functions from it. So for instance I could do this: (module pyscheme scheme (require foreign) (unsafe!) (define (link-python [lib "/usr/lib/libpython2.6.so"]) (ffi-lib lib)) This is all well and good, but I can't think of a way to export functions. For instance, I could do something like this: (define Py_Initialize (get-ffi-obj "Py_Initialize" libpython (_fun -> _void))) ...but then I'd have to store a reference to libpython (created by link-python) globally somehow. Is there any way to export these functions once link-python is called? In other words, I'd like someone using the module to be able to do this: (require pyscheme) (link-python) (Py_Initialize) ...or this: (require pyscheme) (link-python "/weird/location/for/libpython.so") (Py_Initialize) ...but have this give an error: (require pyscheme) (Py_Initialize) How can I do this?

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• What is the difference between 1 and '1 in Lisp?

  - by Jason Baker

  I had never really thought about whether a symbol could be a number in Lisp, so I played around with it today: > '1 1 > (+ '1 '1) 2 > (+ '1 1) 2 > (define a '1) > (+ a 1) 2 The above code is scheme, but it seems to be roughly the same in Common Lisp and Clojure as well. Is there any difference between 1 and quoted 1?

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• Population count of rightmost n integers

  - by Jason Baker

  I'm implementing Bagwell's Ideal Hash Trie in Haskell. To find an element in a sub-trie, he says to do the following: Finding the arc for a symbol s, requires ?nding its corresponding bit in the bit map and then counting the one bits below it in the map to compute an index into the ordered sub-trie. What is the best way to do this? It sounds like the most straightforward way of doing this is to select the bits below that bit and do a population count on the resulting number. Is there a faster or better way to do this?

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• The shell dotfile cookbook

  - by Jason Baker

  I constantly hear from other people about how much of the stuff they've used to customize their *nix setup they've shamelessly stolen from other people. So in that spirit, I'd like to start a place to share that stuff here on SO. Here are the rules: DON'T POST YOUR ENTIRE DOTFILE. Instead, just show us the cool stuff. One recipe per answer You may, however, post multiple versions of your recipe in the same answer. For example, you may post a version that works for bash, a version that works for zsh, and a version that works for csh in the same answer. State what shells you know your recipe will work with in the answer. Let's build this cookbook as a team. If you find out that an answer works with other shells other than the one the author posted, edit it in. If you like an idea and rewrite it to work with another shell, edit the modified version in to the original post. Give credit where credit is due. If you got your idea from someone else, give them credit if possible. And for those of you (justifiably) asking "Why do we need another one of these threads?": Most of what I've seen is along the lines of "post your entire dotfile." Personally, I don't want to try to parse through a person's entire dotfile to figure out what I want. I just want to know about all the cool parts of it. It's helpful to have a single dotfile thread. I think most of the stuff that works in bash will work in zsh and it may be adapted to work with csh fairly easily.

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• Will a source-removal sort always return a maximal cycle?

  - by Jason Baker

  I wrote a source-removal algorithm to sort some dependencies between tables in our database, and it turns out we have a cycle. For simplicity, let's say we have tables A, B, C, and D. The edges are like this: (A, B) (B, A) (B, C) (C, D) (D, A) As you can see, there are two cycles here. One is between A and B and another is between all four of them. Will this type of sort always choke on the largest cycle? Or is that not necessarily the case?

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• Issue 15: SVP Focus

  - by rituchhibber

       SVP FOCUS FOCUS -- Chris Baker SVP Oracle Worldwide ISV-OEM-Java Sales Chris Baker is the Global Head of ISV/OEM Sales responsible for working with ISV/OEM partners to maximise Oracle's business through those partners, whilst maximising those partners’ business to their end users. Chris works with partners, customers, innovators, investors and employees to develop innovative business solutions using Oracle products, services and skills. RESOURCES -- Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) OPN Solutions Catalog Oracle Exastack Program Oracle Exastack Optimized Oracle Cloud Computing Oracle Engineered Systems Oracle and Java SUBSCRIBE FEEDBACK PREVIOUS ISSUES "By taking part in marketing activities, our partners accelerate their sales cycles." -- Firstly, could you please explain Oracle's current strategy for ISV partners, globally and in EMEA? Oracle customers use independent software vendor (ISV) applications to run their businesses. They use them to generate revenue and to fulfil obligations to their own customers. Our strategy is very straight-forward. We want all of our ISV partners and OEMs to concentrate on the things that they do the best—building applications to meet the unique industry and functional requirements of their customer. We want to ensure that we deliver a best-in-class application platform so ISVs are free to concentrate their effort on their application functionality and user experience We invest over four billion dollars in research and development every year, and we want our ISVs to benefit from all of that investment in operating systems, virtualisation, databases, middleware, engineered systems, and other hardware. By doing this, we help them to reduce their costs, gain more consistency and agility for quicker implementations, and also rapidly differentiate themselves from other application vendors. It's all about simplification because we believe that around 25 to 30 percent of the development costs incurred by many ISVs are caused by customising infrastructure and have nothing to do with their applications. Our strategy is to enable our ISV partners to standardise their application platform using engineered architecture, so they can write once to the Oracle stack and deploy seamlessly in the cloud, on-premise, or in hybrid deployments. It's really important that architecture is the same in order to keep cost and time overheads at a minimum, so we provide standardisation and an environment that enables our ISVs to concentrate on the core business that makes them the most money and brings them success. How do you believe this strategy is helping the ISVs to work hand-in-hand with Oracle to ensure that end customers get the industry-leading solutions that they need? We work with our ISVs not just to help them be successful, but also to help them market themselves. We have something called the 'Oracle Exastack Ready Program', which enables ISVs to publicise themselves as 'Ready' to run the core software platforms that run on Oracle's engineered systems including Exadata and Exalogic. So, for example, they can become 'Database Ready' which means that they use the latest version of Oracle Database and therefore can run their application without modification on Exadata or the Oracle Database Appliance. Alternatively, they can become WebLogic Ready, Oracle Linux Ready and Oracle Solaris Ready which means they run on the latest release and therefore can run their application, with no new porting work, on Oracle Exalogic. Those 'Ready' logos are important in helping ISVs advertise to their customers that they are using the latest technologies which have been fully tested. We now also have Exadata Ready and Exalogic Ready programmes which allow ISVs to promote the certification of their applications on these platforms. This highlights these partners to Oracle customers as having solutions that run fluently on the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud or one of our other engineered systems. This makes it easy for customers to identify solutions and provides ISVs with an avenue to connect with Oracle customers who are rapidly adopting engineered systems. We have also taken this programme to the next level in the shape of 'Oracle Exastack Optimized' for partners whose applications run best on the Oracle stack and have invested the time to fully optimise application performance. We ensure that Exastack Optimized partner status is promoted and supported by press releases, and we help our ISVs go to market and differentiate themselves through the use of our technology and the standardisation it delivers. To date we have had several hundred organisations successfully work through our Exastack Optimized programme. How does Oracle's strategy of offering pre-integrated open platform software and hardware allow ISVs to bring their products to market more quickly? One of the problems for many ISVs is that they have to think very carefully about the technology on which their solutions will be deployed, particularly in the cloud or hosted environments. They have to think hard about how they secure these environments, whether the concern is, for example, middleware, identity management, or securing personal data. If they don't use the technology that we build-in to our products to help them to fulfil these roles, they then have to build it themselves. This takes time, requires testing, and must be maintained. By taking advantage of our technology, partners will now know that they have a standard platform. They will know that they can confidently talk about implementation being the same every time they do it. Very large ISV applications could once take a year or two to be implemented at an on-premise environment. But it wasn't just the configuration of the application that took the time, it was actually the infrastructure - the different hardware configurations, operating systems and configurations of databases and middleware. Now we strongly believe that it's all about standardisation and repeatability. It's about making sure that our partners can do it once and are then able to roll it out many different times using standard componentry. What actions would you recommend for existing ISV partners that are looking to do more business with Oracle and its customer base, not only to maximise benefits, but also to maximise partner relationships? My team, around the world and in the EMEA region, is available and ready to talk to any of our ISVs and to explore the possibilities together. We run programmes like 'Excite' and 'Insight' to help us to understand how we can help ISVs with architecture and widen their environments. But we also want to work with, and look at, new opportunities - for example, the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) market or 'The Internet of Things'. Over the next few years, many millions, indeed billions of devices will be collecting massive amounts of data and communicating it back to the central systems where ISVs will be running their applications. The only way that our partners will be able to provide a single vendor 'end-to-end' solution is to use Oracle integrated systems at the back end and Java on the 'smart' devices collecting the data—a complete solution from device to data centre. So there are huge opportunities to work closely with our ISVs, using Oracle's complete M2M platform, to provide the infrastructure that enables them to extract maximum value from the data collected. If any partners don't know where to start or who to contact, then they can contact me directly at [email protected] or indeed any of our teams across the EMEA region. We want to work with ISVs to help them to be as successful as they possibly can through simplification and speed to market, and we also want all of the top ISVs in the world based on Oracle. What opportunities are immediately opened to new ISV partners joining the OPN? As you know OPN is very, very important. New members will discover a huge amount of content that instantly becomes accessible to them. They can access a wealth of no-cost training and enablement materials to build their expertise in Oracle technology. They can download Oracle software and use it for development projects. They can help themselves become more competent by becoming part of a true community and uncovering new opportunities by working with Oracle and their peers in the Oracle Partner Network. As well as publishing massive amounts of information on OPN, we also hold our global Oracle OpenWorld event, at which partners play a huge role. This takes place at the end of September and the beginning of October in San Francisco. Attending ISV partners have an unrivalled opportunity to contribute to elements such as the OpenWorld / OPN Exchange, at which they can talk to other partners and really begin thinking about how they can move their businesses on and play key roles in a very large ecosystem which revolves around technology and standardisation. Finally, are there any other messages that you would like to share with the Oracle ISV community? The crucial message that I always like to reinforce is architecture, architecture and architecture! The key opportunities that ISVs have today revolve around standardising their architectures so that they can confidently think: "I will I be able to do exactly the same thing whenever a customer is looking to deploy on-premise, hosted or in the cloud". The right architecture is critical to being competitive and to really start changing the game. We want to help our ISV partners to do just that; to establish standard architecture and to seize the opportunities it opens up for them. New market opportunities like M2M are enormous - just look at how many devices are all around you right now. We can help our partners to interface with these devices more effectively while thinking about their entire ecosystem, rather than just the piece that they have traditionally focused upon. With standardised architecture, we can help people dramatically improve their speed, reach, agility and delivery of enhanced customer satisfaction and value all the way from the Java side to their centralised systems. All Oracle ISV partners must take advantage of these opportunities, which is why Oracle will continue to invest in and support them. Oracle OpenWorld 2010 Whether you attended Oracle OpenWorld 2009 or not, don't forget to save the date now for Oracle OpenWorld 2010. The event will be held a little earlier next year, from 19th-23rd September, so please don't miss out. With thousands of sessions and hundreds of exhibits and demos already lined up, there's no better place to learn how to optimise your existing systems, get an inside line on upcoming technology breakthroughs, and meet with your partner peers, Oracle strategists and even the developers responsible for the products and services that help you get better results for your end customers. Register Now for Oracle OpenWorld 2010! Perhaps you are interested in learning more about Oracle OpenWorld 2010, but don't wish to register at this time? Great! Please just enter your contact information here and we will contact you at a later date. How to Exhibit at Oracle OpenWorld 2010 Sponsorship Opportunities at Oracle OpenWorld 2010 Advertising Opportunities at Oracle OpenWorld 2010 -- Back to the welcome page

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• LEGO Lord of the Rings Cut Scenes Spliced into a Full Length Movie [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you take all the cut scenes from the LEGO Lord of the Rings video game and splice them end-to-end, the result is an hour and a half LEGO Lord of the Rings movie. Check out the full video here. Courtesy of SpaceTopGames, this mega splice includes every cut scene from the video game, weighs in at one hour and thirty one minutes, and actually works really well as a movie when strung all together. LEGO Lord of the Rings – All Cutscenes [via Freeware Genius] HTG Explains: Does Your Android Phone Need an Antivirus? How To Use USB Drives With the Nexus 7 and Other Android Devices Why Does 64-Bit Windows Need a Separate “Program Files (x86)” Folder?

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• HTG Reviews the CODE Keyboard: Old School Construction Meets Modern Amenities

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  There’s nothing quite as satisfying as the smooth and crisp action of a well built keyboard. If you’re tired of  mushy keys and cheap feeling keyboards, a well-constructed mechanical keyboard is a welcome respite from the $10 keyboard that came with your computer. Read on as we put the CODE mechanical keyboard through the paces. What is the CODE Keyboard? The CODE keyboard is a collaboration between manufacturer WASD Keyboards and Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror (the guy behind the Stack Exchange network and Discourse forum software). Atwood’s focus was incorporating the best of traditional mechanical keyboards and the best of modern keyboard usability improvements. In his own words: The world is awash in terrible, crappy, no name how-cheap-can-we-make-it keyboards. There are a few dozen better mechanical keyboard options out there. I’ve owned and used at least six different expensive mechanical keyboards, but I wasn’t satisfied with any of them, either: they didn’t have backlighting, were ugly, had terrible design, or were missing basic functions like media keys. That’s why I originally contacted Weyman Kwong of WASD Keyboards way back in early 2012. I told him that the state of keyboards was unacceptable to me as a geek, and I proposed a partnership wherein I was willing to work with him to do whatever it takes to produce a truly great mechanical keyboard. Even the ardent skeptic who questions whether Atwood has indeed created a truly great mechanical keyboard certainly can’t argue with the position he starts from: there are so many agonizingly crappy keyboards out there. Even worse, in our opinion, is that unless you’re a typist of a certain vintage there’s a good chance you’ve never actually typed on a really nice keyboard. Those that didn’t start using computers until the mid-to-late 1990s most likely have always typed on modern mushy-key keyboards and never known the joy of typing on a really responsive and crisp mechanical keyboard. Is our preference for and love of mechanical keyboards shining through here? Good. We’re not even going to try and hide it. So where does the CODE keyboard stack up in pantheon of keyboards? Read on as we walk you through the simple setup and our experience using the CODE. Setting Up the CODE Keyboard Although the setup of the CODE keyboard is essentially plug and play, there are two distinct setup steps that you likely haven’t had to perform on a previous keyboard. Both highlight the degree of care put into the keyboard and the amount of customization available. Inside the box you’ll find the keyboard, a micro USB cable, a USB-to-PS2 adapter, and a tool which you may be unfamiliar with: a key puller. We’ll return to the key puller in a moment. Unlike the majority of keyboards on the market, the cord isn’t permanently affixed to the keyboard. What does this mean for you? Aside from the obvious need to plug it in yourself, it makes it dead simple to repair your own keyboard cord if it gets attacked by a pet, mangled in a mechanism on your desk, or otherwise damaged. It also makes it easy to take advantage of the cable routing channels in on the underside of the keyboard to  route your cable exactly where you want it. While we’re staring at the underside of the keyboard, check out those beefy rubber feet. By peripherals standards they’re huge (and there is six instead of the usual four). Once you plunk the keyboard down where you want it, it might as well be glued down the rubber feet work so well. After you’ve secured the cable and adjusted it to your liking, there is one more task  before plug the keyboard into the computer. On the bottom left-hand side of the keyboard, you’ll find a small recess in the plastic with some dip switches inside: The dip switches are there to switch hardware functions for various operating systems, keyboard layouts, and to enable/disable function keys. By toggling the dip switches you can change the keyboard from QWERTY mode to Dvorak mode and Colemak mode, the two most popular alternative keyboard configurations. You can also use the switches to enable Mac-functionality (for Command/Option keys). One of our favorite little toggles is the SW3 dip switch: you can disable the Caps Lock key; goodbye accidentally pressing Caps when you mean to press Shift. You can review the entire dip switch configuration chart here. The quick-start for Windows users is simple: double check that all the switches are in the off position (as seen in the photo above) and then simply toggle SW6 on to enable the media and backlighting function keys (this turns the menu key on the keyboard into a function key as typically found on laptop keyboards). After adjusting the dip switches to your liking, plug the keyboard into an open USB port on your computer (or into your PS/2 port using the included adapter). Design, Layout, and Backlighting The CODE keyboard comes in two flavors, a traditional 87-key layout (no number pad) and a traditional 104-key layout (number pad on the right hand side). We identify the layout as traditional because, despite some modern trapping and sneaky shortcuts, the actual form factor of the keyboard from the shape of the keys to the spacing and position is as classic as it comes. You won’t have to learn a new keyboard layout and spend weeks conditioning yourself to a smaller than normal backspace key or a PgUp/PgDn pair in an unconventional location. Just because the keyboard is very conventional in layout, however, doesn’t mean you’ll be missing modern amenities like media-control keys. The following additional functions are hidden in the F11, F12, Pause button, and the 2×6 grid formed by the Insert and Delete rows: keyboard illumination brightness, keyboard illumination on/off, mute, and then the typical play/pause, forward/backward, stop, and volume +/- in Insert and Delete rows, respectively. While we weren’t sure what we’d think of the function-key system at first (especially after retiring a Microsoft Sidewinder keyboard with a huge and easily accessible volume knob on it), it took less than a day for us to adapt to using the Fn key, located next to the right Ctrl key, to adjust our media playback on the fly. Keyboard backlighting is a largely hit-or-miss undertaking but the CODE keyboard nails it. Not only does it have pleasant and easily adjustable through-the-keys lighting but the key switches the keys themselves are attached to are mounted to a steel plate with white paint. Enough of the light reflects off the interior cavity of the keys and then diffuses across the white plate to provide nice even illumination in between the keys. Highlighting the steel plate beneath the keys brings us to the actual construction of the keyboard. It’s rock solid. The 87-key model, the one we tested, is 2.0 pounds. The 104-key is nearly a half pound heavier at 2.42 pounds. Between the steel plate, the extra-thick PCB board beneath the steel plate, and the thick ABS plastic housing, the keyboard has very solid feel to it. Combine that heft with the previously mentioned thick rubber feet and you have a tank-like keyboard that won’t budge a millimeter during normal use. Examining The Keys This is the section of the review the hardcore typists and keyboard ninjas have been waiting for. We’ve looked at the layout of the keyboard, we’ve looked at the general construction of it, but what about the actual keys? There are a wide variety of keyboard construction techniques but the vast majority of modern keyboards use a rubber-dome construction. The key is floated in a plastic frame over a rubber membrane that has a little rubber dome for each key. The press of the physical key compresses the rubber dome downwards and a little bit of conductive material on the inside of the dome’s apex connects with the circuit board. Despite the near ubiquity of the design, many people dislike it. The principal complaint is that dome keyboards require a complete compression to register a keystroke; keyboard designers and enthusiasts refer to this as “bottoming out”. In other words, the register the “b” key, you need to completely press that key down. As such it slows you down and requires additional pressure and movement that, over the course of tens of thousands of keystrokes, adds up to a whole lot of wasted time and fatigue. The CODE keyboard features key switches manufactured by Cherry, a company that has manufactured key switches since the 1960s. Specifically the CODE features Cherry MX Clear switches. These switches feature the same classic design of the other Cherry switches (such as the MX Blue and Brown switch lineups) but they are significantly quieter (yes this is a mechanical keyboard, but no, your neighbors won’t think you’re firing off a machine gun) as they lack the audible click found in most Cherry switches. This isn’t to say that they keyboard doesn’t have a nice audible key press sound when the key is fully depressed, but that the key mechanism isn’t doesn’t create a loud click sound when triggered. One of the great features of the Cherry MX clear is a tactile “bump” that indicates the key has been compressed enough to register the stroke. For touch typists the very subtle tactile feedback is a great indicator that you can move on to the next stroke and provides a welcome speed boost. Even if you’re not trying to break any word-per-minute records, that little bump when pressing the key is satisfying. The Cherry key switches, in addition to providing a much more pleasant typing experience, are also significantly more durable than dome-style key switch. Rubber dome switch membrane keyboards are typically rated for 5-10 million contacts whereas the Cherry mechanical switches are rated for 50 million contacts. You’d have to write the next War and Peace  and follow that up with A Tale of Two Cities: Zombie Edition, and then turn around and transcribe them both into a dozen different languages to even begin putting a tiny dent in the lifecycle of this keyboard. So what do the switches look like under the classicly styled keys? You can take a look yourself with the included key puller. Slide the loop between the keys and then gently beneath the key you wish to remove: Wiggle the key puller gently back and forth while exerting a gentle upward pressure to pop the key off; You can repeat the process for every key, if you ever find yourself needing to extract piles of cat hair, Cheeto dust, or other foreign objects from your keyboard. There it is, the naked switch, the source of that wonderful crisp action with the tactile bump on each keystroke. The last feature worthy of a mention is the N-key rollover functionality of the keyboard. This is a feature you simply won’t find on non-mechanical keyboards and even gaming keyboards typically only have any sort of key roller on the high-frequency keys like WASD. So what is N-key rollover and why do you care? On a typical mass-produced rubber-dome keyboard you cannot simultaneously press more than two keys as the third one doesn’t register. PS/2 keyboards allow for unlimited rollover (in other words you can’t out type the keyboard as all of your keystrokes, no matter how fast, will register); if you use the CODE keyboard with the PS/2 adapter you gain this ability. If you don’t use the PS/2 adapter and use the native USB, you still get 6-key rollover (and the CTRL, ALT, and SHIFT don’t count towards the 6) so realistically you still won’t be able to out type the computer as even the more finger twisting keyboard combos and high speed typing will still fall well within the 6-key rollover. The rollover absolutely doesn’t matter if you’re a slow hunt-and-peck typist, but if you’ve read this far into a keyboard review there’s a good chance that you’re a serious typist and that kind of quality construction and high-number key rollover is a fantastic feature.  The Good, The Bad, and the Verdict We’ve put the CODE keyboard through the paces, we’ve played games with it, typed articles with it, left lengthy comments on Reddit, and otherwise used and abused it like we would any other keyboard. The Good: The construction is rock solid. In an emergency, we’re confident we could use the keyboard as a blunt weapon (and then resume using it later in the day with no ill effect on the keyboard). The Cherry switches are an absolute pleasure to type on; the Clear variety found in the CODE keyboard offer a really nice middle-ground between the gun-shot clack of a louder mechanical switch and the quietness of a lesser-quality dome keyboard without sacrificing quality. Touch typists will love the subtle tactile bump feedback. Dip switch system makes it very easy for users on different systems and with different keyboard layout needs to switch between operating system and keyboard layouts. If you’re investing a chunk of change in a keyboard it’s nice to know you can take it with you to a different operating system or “upgrade” it to a new layout if you decide to take up Dvorak-style typing. The backlighting is perfect. You can adjust it from a barely-visible glow to a blazing light-up-the-room brightness. Whatever your intesity preference, the white-coated steel backplate does a great job diffusing the light between the keys. You can easily remove the keys for cleaning (or to rearrange the letters to support a new keyboard layout). The weight of the unit combined with the extra thick rubber feet keep it planted exactly where you place it on the desk. The Bad: While you’re getting your money’s worth, the $150 price tag is a shock when compared to the $20-60 price tags you find on lower-end keyboards. People used to large dedicated media keys independent of the traditional key layout (such as the large buttons and volume controls found on many modern keyboards) might be off put by the Fn-key style media controls on the CODE. The Verdict: The keyboard is clearly and heavily influenced by the needs of serious typists. Whether you’re a programmer, transcriptionist, or just somebody that wants to leave the lengthiest article comments the Internet has ever seen, the CODE keyboard offers a rock solid typing experience. Yes, $150 isn’t pocket change, but the quality of the CODE keyboard is so high and the typing experience is so enjoyable, you’re easily getting ten times the value you’d get out of purchasing a lesser keyboard. Even compared to other mechanical keyboards on the market, like the Das Keyboard, you’re still getting more for your money as other mechanical keyboards don’t come with the lovely-to-type-on Cherry MX Clear switches, back lighting, and hardware-based operating system keyboard layout switching. If it’s in your budget to upgrade your keyboard (especially if you’ve been slogging along with a low-end rubber-dome keyboard) there’s no good reason to not pickup a CODE keyboard. Key animation courtesy of Geekhack.org user Lethal Squirrel.       

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• Ask How-To Geek: Learning the Office Ribbon, Booting to USB with an Old BIOS, and Snapping Windows

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  You’ve got questions and we’ve got answers. Today we highlight how to master the new Office interface, USB boot a computer with outdated BIOS, and snap windows to preset locations. Learning the New Office Ribbon Dear How-To Geek, I feel silly asking this (in light of how long the new Office interface has been out) but my company finally got around to upgrading from Windows XP and Office 2000 so the new interface it totally new to me. Can you recommend any resources for quickly learning the Office ribbon and the new changes? I feel completely lost after two decades of the old Office interface. Help! Sincerely, Where the Hell is Everything? Dear Where the Hell, We think most people were with you at some point in the last few years. “Where the hell is…” could possibly be the slogan for the new ribbon interface. You could browse through some of the dry tutorials online or even get a weighty book on the topic but the best way to learn something new is to get hands on. Ribbon Hero turns learning the new Office features and ribbon layout into a game. It’s no vigorous round of Team Fortress mind you, but it’s significantly more fun than reading a training document. Check out how to install and configure Ribbon Hero here. You’ll be teaching your coworkers new tricks in no time. Boot via USB with an Old BIOS Dear How-To Geek, I’m trying to repurpose some old computers by updating them with lightweight Linux distros but the BIOS on most of the machines is ancient and creaky. How ancient? It doesn’t even support booting from a USB device! I have a large flash drive that I’ve turned into a master installation tool for jobs like this but I can’t use it. The computers in question have USB ports; they just aren’t recognized during the boot process. What can I do? USB Bootin’ in Boise Dear USB Bootin’, It’s great you’re working to breathe life into old hardware! You’ve run into one of the limitations of older BIOSes, USB was around but nobody was thinking about booting off of it. Fortunately if you have a computer old enough to have that kind of BIOS it’s likely to also has a floppy drive or a CDROM drive. While you could make a bootable CDROM for your application we understand that you want to keep using the master USB installer you’ve made. In light of that we recommend PLoP Boot Manager. Think of it like a boot manager for your boot manager. Using it you can create a bootable floppy or CDROM that will enable USB booting of your master USB drive. Make a CD and a floppy version and you’ll have everything in your toolkit you need for future computer refurbishing projects. Read up on creating bootable media with PLoP Boot Manager here. Snapping Windows to Preset Coordinates Dear How-To Geek, Once upon a time I had a company laptop that came with a little utility that snapped windows to preset areas of the screen. This was long before the snap-to-side features in Windows 7. You could essentially configure your screen into a grid pattern of your choosing and then windows would neatly snap into those grids. I have no idea what it was called or if was anymore than a gimmick from the computer manufacturer, but I’d really like to have it on my new computer! Bend and Snap in San Francisco, Dear Bend and Snap, If we had to guess, we’d guess your company must have had a set of laptops from Acer as the program you’re describing sounds exactly like Acer GridVista. Fortunately for you the application was extremely popular and Acer released it independently of their hardware. If, by chance, you’ve since upgraded to a multiple monitor setup the app even supports multiple monitors—many of the configurations are handy for arranging IM windows and other auxiliary communication tools. Check out our guide to installing and configuring Acer GridVista here for more information. Have a question you want to put before the How-To Geek staff? Shoot us an email at [email protected] and then keep an eye out for a solution in the Ask How-To Geek column. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Upgrade Windows 7 Easily (And Understand Whether You Should) The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: Basic Noise Removal Install a Wii Game Loader for Easy Backups and Fast Load Times The Best of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 The Worst of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy Download the New Year in Japan Windows 7 Theme from Microsoft Once More Unto the Breach – Facebook Apps Can Now Access Your Address and Phone Number Dial Zero Speeds You Through Annoying Customer Service Menus Complete Dropquest 2011 and Receive Free Dropbox Storage Desktop Computer versus Laptop Wallpaper The Kids Have No Idea What Old Tech Is [Video]

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• Video Games from the Bad Guys’ Perspective [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  We’re so used to seeing video games from our perspective–the hero with the endless power ups and do-overs–but how does the video game world look from the perspective of the bad guys? Rather grim and confusing, as the video above highlights. [via Geekosystem] How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It?

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• Ask How-To Geek: Dropbox in the Start Menu, Understanding Symlinks, and Ripping TV Series DVDs

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  This week we take a look at how to incorporate Dropbox into your Windows Start Menu, understanding and using symbolic links, and how to rip your TV series DVDs right to unique and high-quality episode files. Once a week we dip into our reader mailbag and help readers solve their problems, sharing the useful solutions with you in the process. Read on to see our fixes for this week’s reader dilemmas. Add Drobox to Your Start Menu Dear How-To Geek, I use Dropbox all the time and would like to add it right onto my start menu along side the other major shortcuts like Documents, Pictures, etc. It seems like adding Dropbox into the menu should be part of the Dropbox installation package! Sincerely, Dropboxing in Des Moines Dear Dropboxing, We agree, it would be a nice installation option. As it stands you’re going to have to do a little simple hacking to get Dropbox nestled neatly into your start menu. The hack isn’t super elegant but when you’re done you’ll have the link you want and it’ll look like it was there all along. Check out this step-by-step guide here in order to take an existing Library shortcut and rework it to be a Dropbox link. Understanding and Using Symbolic Links Dear How-To Geek, I was talking to a coworker the other day about an issue I’d been having with a media center application I’m running. He suggested using symbolic links to better organize my media and make it easier for the application to access my collection. I had no idea what he was talking about and never got a chance to bug him about it later. Can you clear up this whole symbolic links business for me? I’ve been using computers for years and I’ve never even heard of it! Sincerely, Symbolic Who? Dear Symbolic, Symbolic links aren’t commonly used by many Windows users which is why you likely haven’t run into the concept. Symbolic links are essentially supercharged shortcuts—the newly introduced Windows library system is really just a type of symbolic link system. You can use symbolic links to do all sorts of neat stuff like link folders to your Dropbox folder, organize media, and more. The concept of symbolic links is pretty simple but the execution can be really tricky. We’d suggest reading over our guide to creating symbolic links in Windows 7, Windows XP, and Ubunutu to get a clearer idea what you’re getting into. Rip Your TV DVDs into Handy Episode Files Dear How-To Geek, My wife got me an iPod for Christmas and I still haven’t got around to filling it up. I have tons of entire TV show seasons on DVD and would like to get them on the iPod but I have absolutely no idea where to start. How do I get the shows off the discs? I thought it would be as easy to import the TV shows into iTunes as it is to import tracks off a CD but I was totally wrong. I tried downloading some applications to rip them but those didn’t work at all. Very frustrating! Surely there is an easy and/or automated way to do this, right? Sincerely, Free My DVDs Dear DVDs, Oh man is this a frustration we can relate to. It’s inordinately difficult to get movies and TV shows off physical media and into digital (and portable media player-friendly) formats. There are a multitude of ways to rip DVDs and quite a few applications out there (some good, some mediocre, and some outright malware). We’d recommend a two-part punch to solve your ripping woes. You’ll need a copy of DVDFab to strip away the protections on the discs and rip the disc and Handbrake to load the disc image and convert the files. It’s not quite as smooth as the CD-to-iTunes workflow but it’s still pretty easy. Check out all the steps and settings you’ll want to toggle here. Have a question you want to put before the How-To Geek staff? Shoot us an email at [email protected] and then keep an eye out for a solution in the Ask How-To Geek column. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines Google’s New Personal Blocklist Extension Kills Search Engine Spam KeyCounter Tracks Your Keystrokes and Mouse Clicks Add Custom LED Ambient Lighting to Your PC or Media Center The Trackor Monitors Amazon Prices; Integrates with Chrome, Firefox, and Safari Four Awesome TRON Legacy Themes for Chrome and Iron Anger is Illogical – Old School Style Instructional Video [Star Trek Mashup]

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