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• How to Apply a Business Card Template to a Contact and Customize it in Outlook 2013

  - by Lori Kaufman

  If you want to add a business card template to an existing contact in Outlook, you can do so without having to enter all of the information again. We will also show you how to customize the layout and format of the text on the card. Microsoft provides a couple of business card templates you can use. We will use their Blue Sky template as an example. To open the archive file for the template you downloaded, double-click on the .cab file. NOTE: You can also use a tool like 7-Zip to open the archive. A new Extract tab becomes available under Compressed Folder Tools and the files in the archive are listed. Select the .vcf file in the list of files. This automatically activates the Extract tab. Click Extract To and select a location or select Choose location if the desired location is not on the drop-down menu. Select a folder in which you want to save the .vcf file on the Copy Items dialog box and click Copy. NOTE: Use the Make New Folder button to create a new folder for the location, if desired. Double-click on the .vcf file that you copied out of the .cab archive file. By default, .vcf files are associated with Outlook so, when you double-click on a .vcf file, it automatically opens in a Contact window in Outlook. Change the Full Name to match the existing contact to which you want to apply this template. Delete the other contact info from the template. If you want to add any additional information not in the existing contact, enter it. Click Save & Close to save the contact with the new template. The Duplicate Contact Detected dialog box displays. To update the existing contact, select the Update information of selected Contact option. Click Update. NOTE: If you want to create a new contact from this template, select the Add new contact option. With the Contacts folder open (the People link on the Navigation Bar), click Business Card in the Current View section of the Home tab. You may notice that not all the fields from your contact display on the business card you just updated. Double-click on the contact to update the contact and the business card. On the Contact window, right-click on the image of the business card and select Edit Business Card from the popup menu. The Edit Business Card dialog box displays. You can change the design of the card, including changing he background color or image. The Fields box allows you to specify which fields display on the business card and in what order. Notice, in our example, that Company is listed below the Full Name, but no text displays on the business card below the name. That’s because we did not enter any information for Company in the Contact. We have information in Job Title. So, we select Company and click Remove to remove that field. Now, we want to add Job Title. First, select the field below which you want to add the new field. We select Full Name to add the Job Title below that. Then, we click Add and select Organization | Job Title from the popup menu to insert the Job Title. To make the Job Title white like the name, we select Job Title in the list of Fields and click the Font Color button in the Edit section. On the Color dialog box, select the color you want to use for the text in the selected field. Click OK. You can also make text bold, italic, or underlined. We chose to make the Job Title bold and the Full Name bold and italic. We also need to remove the Business Phone because this contact only has a mobile phone number. So, we add a Mobile Phone from the Phone submenu. Then, we need to remove enough blank lines so the Mobile Phone is visible on the card. We also added a website and email address and removed more blank lines so they are visible. You can also move text to the right side of the card or make it centered on the card. We also changed the color of the bottom three lines to blue. Click OK to accept your changes and close the dialog box. Your new business card design displays on the Contact window. Click Save & Close to save the changes you made to the business card for this contact and close the Contact window. The final design of the business card displays in the Business Card view on the People screen. If you have a signature that contains the business card for the contact you just updated, you will also need to update the signature by removing the business card and adding it again using the Business Card button in the Signature editor. You can also add the updated Business Card to a signature without the image or without the vCard (.vcf) file.     

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• What Counts for a DBA: Humility

  - by drsql

  In football (the American sort, naturally,) there are a select group of players who really hope to never have their names called during the game. They are members of the offensive line, and their job is to protect other players so they can deliver the ball to the goal to score points. When you do hear their name called, it is usually because they made a mistake and the player that they were supposed to protect ended up flat on his back admiring the clouds in the sky instead of advancing towards the goal to scoring point. Even on the rare occasion their name is called for a good reason, it is usually because they were making up for a teammate who had made a mistake and they covered up for them. The role of offensive lineman is a very good analogy for the role of the admin DBA. As a DBA, you are called on to be barely visible and rarely heard, protecting the company data assets tenaciously, even though the enemies to our craft surround us on all sides:. Developers: Cries of ‘foul!’ often ensue when the DBA says that they want data integrity to be stringently enforced and that documentation is needed so they can support systems, mostly because every error occurrence in the enterprise will be initially blamed on the database and fall to the DBA to troubleshoot. Insisting too loudly may bring those cries of ‘foul’ that somewhat remind you of when your 2 year old daughter didn't want to go to bed. The result of this petulance is that the next "enemy" gets involved. Managers: The concerns that motivate DBAs to argue will not excite the kind of manager who gets his technical knowledge from a glossy magazine filled with buzzwords, charts, and pretty pictures. However, the other programmers in the organization will tickle the buzzword void with a stream of new-sounding ideas and technologies constantly, along with warnings that if we did care about data integrity and document things, the budget would explode! In contrast, the arguments for integrity of data and supportability tend to be about as exciting as watching grass grow, and far too many manager types seem to prefer to smoke it than watch it. Packaged Applications: The DBA is rarely given a chance to review a new application that is being demonstrated for the enterprise, and rarer still is the DBA that gets a veto of an application because the database it uses has clearly been created by an architect that won't read a data modeling book because he is already married. More often than not this leads to hours of work for the DBA trying to performance-tune a database with a menagerie of rules that must be followed to stay within the  application support agreement, such as no changing indexes on a third party schema even though there are 10 billion rows instead of the 10 thousand when the system was last optimized. Hardware Failures: Physical disks, networking devices, memory, and backup devices all come with a measure known as ‘mean time before failure’ and it is never listed in centuries or eons. More like years, and the term ‘mean’ indicates that half of the devices are expected to fail before that, which by my calendar means any hour of any day that it wants to fail it will. But the DBA sucks it up and does the task at hand with a humility that makes them nearly invisible to all but the most observant person in the organization. The best DBAs I know are so proactive in their relentless pursuit of perfection that they detect many of the bugs (which they seldom caused) in the system well before they become a problem. In the end the DBA gets noticed for one of same two reasons as the offensive lineman. You make a mistake, like dropping a critical production database that had never been backed up; or when a system crashes for any reason whatsoever and they are on the spot with troubleshooting and system restoration plans that have been well thought out, tested, and tested again. Not because there is any glory in it, but because it is what they do.   Note: The characteristics of the professions referred to in this blog are meant to be overstated stereotypes for humorous effect, and even some DBAs aren't quite this perfect. If you are reading this far and haven’t hand written a 10 page flaming comment about how you are a _______ and you aren’t like this, that is awesome. Not every situation applies to everyone, but if you have never worked with a bad packaged app, a magazine trained manager, programmers that aren’t team players, or hardware that occasionally failed, relax and go have a unicorn sandwich before you wake up.

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• Data Binding to Attached Properties

  - by Chris Gardner

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/freestylecoding/archive/2013/06/14/data-binding-to-attached-properties.aspx When I was working on my C#/XAML game framework, I discovered I wanted to try to data bind my sprites to background objects. That way, I could update my objects and the draw functionality would take care of the work for me. After a little experimenting and web searching, it appeared this concept was an impossible dream. Of course, when has that ever stopped me? In my typical way, I started to massively dive down the rabbit hole. I created a sprite on a canvas, and I bound it to a background object. <Canvas Name="GameField" Background="Black"> <Image Name="PlayerStrite" Source="Assets/Ship.png" Width="50" Height="50" Canvas.Left="{Binding X}" Canvas.Top="{Binding Y}"/> </Canvas> Now, we wire the UI item to the background item. public MainPage() { this.InitializeComponent(); this.Loaded += StartGame; }   void StartGame( object sender, RoutedEventArgs e ) { BindingPlayer _Player = new BindingPlayer(); _Player.X = Window.Current.Bounds.Height - PlayerSprite.Height; _Player.X = ( Window.Current.Bounds.Width - PlayerSprite.Width ) / 2.0; } Of course, now we need to actually have our background object. public class BindingPlayer : INotifyPropertyChanged { private double m_X; public double X { get { return m_X; } set { m_X = value; NotifyPropertyChanged(); } }   private double m_Y; public double Y { get { return m_Y; } set { m_Y = value; NotifyPropertyChanged(); } }   public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; protected void NotifyPropertyChanged( [CallerMemberName] string p_PropertyName = null ) { if( PropertyChanged != null ) PropertyChanged( this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs( p_PropertyName ) ); } } I fired this baby up, and my sprite was correctly positioned on the screen. Maybe the sky wasn't falling after all. Wouldn't it be great if that was the case? I created some code to allow me to move the sprite, but nothing happened. This seems odd. So, I start debugging the application and stepping through code. Everything appears to be working. Time to dig a little deeper. After much profanity was spewed, I stumbled upon a breakthrough. The code only looked like it was working. What was really happening is that there was an exception being thrown in the background thread that I never saw. Apparently, the key call was the one to PropertyChanged. If PropertyChanged is not called on the UI thread, the UI thread ignores the call. Actually, it throws an exception and the background thread silently crashes. Of course, you'll never see this unless you're looking REALLY carefully. This seemed to be a simple problem. I just need to marshal this to the UI thread. Unfortunately, this object has no knowledge of this mythical UI Thread in which we speak. So, I had to pull the UI Thread out of thin air. Let's change our PropertyChanged call to look this. public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged; protected void NotifyPropertyChanged( [CallerMemberName] string p_PropertyName = null ) { if( PropertyChanged != null ) Windows.ApplicationModel.Core.CoreApplication.MainView.CoreWindow.Dispatcher.RunAsync( Windows.UI.Core.CoreDispatcherPriority.Normal, new Windows.UI.Core.DispatchedHandler( () => { PropertyChanged( this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs( p_PropertyName ) ); } ) ); } Now, we raised our notification on the UI thread. Everything is fine, people are happy, and the world moves on. You may have noticed that I didn't await my call to the dispatcher. This was intentional. If I am trying to update a slew of sprites, I don't want thread being hung while I wait my turn. Thus, I send the message and move on. It is worth nothing that this is NOT the most efficient way to do this for game programming. We'll get to that in another blog post. However, it is perfectly acceptable for a business app that is running a background task that would like to notify the UI thread of progress on a periodic basis. It is worth noting that this code was written for a Windows Store App. You can do the same thing with WP8 and WPF. The call to the marshaler changes, but it is the same idea.

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• From the Classroom to the Boardroom

  - by Maria Sandu

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Pens and Paper...these are the only things being a student and being a graduate / professional have in common. Walking in to the offices of Oracle South Africa as a graduate the first thing you notice is how polished and sleek all the people who work here look. 80% of the ladies wear sky-scraper heels and walk with the greatest grace. This was the first of many rude awakenings to remind me that I am no longer a student but a graduate. My first struggle was having to wake up at wee hours of the morning to prepare for work. As a student going to class was almost an optional thing, if you missed a morning class you could always attend an evening class to make up for it or simply attend with another group. But in the workplace, you HAVE to show up every single morning at the same time, with no option of coming in when it suits you and there is definitely no coming in with the evening class/shift. As a student, the earliest hour I ever woke up was 7:00am, anything earlier than that was considered inhumane torture. My reason for waking up every morning as a student was “you have a degree to go get” but as a graduate having to go to work I have to say to myself “here’s to a new day of learning and growing”. My second struggle has come in having to change my beloved wardrobe. Everyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about fashion and shopping. For me Shopping is a BASIC HUMAN RIGHT, that should not be messed with. Therefore it was with great sadness that I swopped my rippled skinny jeans for pin-striped formal pants, my long chandelier earrings for simple studs, my flat shoes for heels, my sheer blouses for crisp white shirts, even my beloved wild hair had to make way for a simple ponytail. Our looks as ladies also came under great scrutiny, we had to acquaint ourselves with some serious grooming tools: the mascara, blush, lip-gloss, blush, a touch of lipstick and a manicure set. Language was a struggle of its own as well. Being a student you learn to relate to your peers in a informal way. In the workplace you have to address everyone with the same respect, including your peers. Words like “Hey buddy” had to make way for “good morning friend”. The month long winter school holiday was one of the things I looked forward to as a student. This was a time where we got to be at home and avoid the coldest month of the year, July. It was the most amazing thing ever, just sleeping and snuggling up to all sorts of warm things but sadly it is now a thing of the past. It is currently winter in South Africa and going to work has become the most unfashionable thing with all the jackets, boots, scarves and gloves. But summer is coming and I will miss those holidays too. As a student the school holidays were like a gift for us to catch a break and not think for a while which was why it was imaginable how someone would go on for the entire year without a break, with only the promise of a mere 21 days annual leave!! Right now I am sure we are all looking forward to taking that annual leave when the time is right. The worst rude awakening I must say, has to be presenting in front of clients and managers. As a student you have the same class mates for almost four years therefore presenting in front of them becomes the norm over the years and your lecturer will always go gently on you. What they don’t tell you at University is that in the real world, time is money and clients pay money to see you present therefore there is no room for error. Clients are not there to give you a score and boost your ego, they expect nothing less than 100% and they will let you know without a second thought. For a graduate this can feel like you are being fed to the sharks, you either get eaten or you swim for your life. At the end of the day, it is all an experience that is meant to groom us into better professional and make us a part of the Red Team. All the sacrifices are worth it and they lead us to being better and more polished professionals. So if you are interested in joining the ECEMEA Sales and Presales Internship Programme, please have a look at http://campus.oracle.com for more information and for our latest vacancies and internships. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

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• Moose and error messages, the sun and the moon [closed]

  - by xxxxxxx

  So again using Moose I write a role like this: package My::Role; use Moose::Role; use Some::Class::Consuming::My::Role; With the note that Some::Class::Consuming::My::Role consumes the role My::Role; And what do I get ? I get an error message like this: A role generator is required to generate roles at /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.0/MooseX/Role/Parameterized/Meta/Role/Parameterizable.pm line 79 MooseX::Role::Parameterized::Meta::Role::Parameterizable::generate_role('MooseX::Role::Parameterized::Meta::Role::Parameterizable=HASH...', 'consumer', 'Moose::Meta::Class=HASH(0x894e540)', 'parameters', 'HASH(0x86fc1e0)') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.0/MooseX/Role/Parameterized/Meta/Role/Parameterizable.pm line 116 MooseX::Role::Parameterized::Meta::Role::Parameterizable::apply('MooseX::Role::Parameterized::Meta::Role::Parameterizable=HASH...', 'Moose::Meta::Class=HASH(0x894e540)', 'element_type', 'Tuple') called at /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util.pm line 132 Moose::Util::_apply_all_roles('Moose::Meta::Class=HASH(0x894e540)', undef, 'Stuff', 'HASH(0x894e1d0)') called at /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0/Moose/Util.pm line 86 Moose::Util::apply_all_roles('Moose::Meta::Class=HASH(0x894e540)', 'Stuff', 'HASH(0x894e1d0)') called at /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0/Moose.pm line 57 Moose::with('Moose::Meta::Class=HASH(0x894e540)', 'Group', 'HASH(0x894e1d0)') called at /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0/Moose/Exporter.pm line 293 Moose::with('Group', 'HASH(0x894e1d0)') called at Some_path_on_disk line 6 require Some_other_path_on_disk called at Some_path_on_disk line 9 Group::BEGIN() called at Yet_another_path_on_disk line 0 eval {...} called at Yet_another_path_on_disk line 0 Compilation failed in require at some_path_on_disk line 9. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at some_path_on_disk line 9. What am I to make of this ? As Dijkstra would concisely describe, this looks like "just a meaningless concatenation of words"(which is exactly what it is). Would a more appropriate error message be "You cannot use a class consuming the role that you are currently defining " ? What does the error message try to convey ? Can the author make the error message meaningful ? Will he ever make it so ? maybe this can be planned for version 3.14159265358979323846 ? In actuality I get one and a half pages of error which is completely unreadable and devoid of any logic or sense of respect for the user that is using Moose (in terms of intuitive error messages) just like the one above. What's to be done in this case ? I mean I get on my screen these error messages that are sometimes completely unrelated to the problem that I'm having (which I can assess after solving the problems that probably caused them, I say probably becuase I have no idea where these error messages came from because they look like they fell from the sky as they have no relation to the actual situation). Is this: the inexplicable dramatic destiny of the Perl programmer using Moose ? someone being extremely lazy and sloppy at writing error messages ? maybe on heavy drugs ? me not understanding basic english ? Gentlemen, when writing software, please please please, take care of the poor programmer that will use it and respect him by writing relevant error messages. (Except for error messages Moose is a pretty good piece of software)

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• Square Peg Web: Gets you the traffic to where it matters most: Your Website!

  - by demetriusalwyn

  Have you decided to start your business online or is your business not reaching the targeted audience? Come to Square Peg Web; where you will find what you want to make your business reach new heights. The team at Square Peg Web is professionals who understand what you want and make sure you get it right. Our confidence stems from the fact of thousands of satisfied clients who keep referring friends and business associates to us and we do not let our clients down. Many companies promise the sky but how far is does their work live up to the promises? We do not know about the others however, we are sure that we strive to put together all our ideas and thoughts to make your website rank among the top. Web hosting is something that needs to have a personal touch; Square Peg Web customizes everything to suit your requirements so that you do not have to look further. With Square Peg Web you have a host of features to make your Business go viral. Some of the product details that are offered with Square Peg Web are unlimited product options/ variants/ properties giving you an option on price modifiers. You get unlimited customized input fields for your products and you can also Customer-define the prices. Square Peg Web provides you an option of using multiple product images with zoom features and one can also list a particular product in several categories. There are other aspects which make Square Peg Web the best choice for your website needs; every sale of yours’ is important to you and to us. We make sure that each sale is tracked by the product and also the list of bestsellers that appeal to the audience. Other comprehensive statistics of Square Peg Web includes searchable order data, an interface for shipments and order fulfillments, export sales & customer data for usage in a spreadsheet and the ability to export orders to QuickBooks format. With Square Peg Web; Admin Panel is a lot simpler. Administrative access is completely password protected and any changes done are all in real-time. You can have absolute control on the cart from anywhere around the world using your web browser and the topping on the cake is the unlimited amount of admin accounts that can be created for you. Square Peg Web offers you a world of experience with the options of choosing from marketing websites to e-commerce and from customized applications to community oriented sites. Some of the projects which appear in the portfolio of Square Peg Web are Online Marketing Web Sites, E-Commerce Web Sites, customized web applications, Blog designing and programming, video sharing and the option of downloading web sites, online advertisements, flash animation, customer and product support web sites, web site re-designing and planning and complete information architecture.

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• What would you suggest as a high school first language?

  - by ldigas

  Edit by OA: After reading some answers I'll just update the question a little. At first I put it a little bluntly, but some of those gave me some good arguments which have to be taken into consideration while making a stand on this one. (these are mostly picked up from comments and answers below). A few things to take into account: to many pupils this is a first programming language - at this stage most of them have trouble grasping a difference between data types, variable passing, ... and whatnot, less alone pointers and similar 'low level stuff' :) they will all have to pass this to get into next grade (well, big majority of them anyway) not all of them have computers at home, not all of them are willing to learn this, less alone interested in - so the concepts have to be taught on a finite time scale in school hours (as well as practice on computers) free literature is a bonus - the teacher will make some scripts and handaways, but still ... I wouldn't like to bear the parents with the burden of buying expensive literature (also, english is not a native language here ... and although they are all learning it, their ability to read it fluently is somewhat questionable) somebody gave an argument - "a language which does not get in the way of ideas" - good one accessibility on different platforms in not expecially important at this point - although most of the suggested ones are available on win as well as linux - not many macs in this part of europe (their prices are sky high for anything but specialised usage) I will check what are the licencing issues on ms express editions about using it massively in high schools for purposes like this - if someone has any info about this, please, do not be shy with it :) A friend of mine, informatics teacher - in EU it comes as something as junior cs teacher, in a local high school asked me what I thought about what should be the first language pupils should be taught? It is a technical school (a little more oriented towards mathematics than the gymnasium, but not computer oriented totally). So I'm asking you - what do you think should be the first language pupils are exposed to in highschool? They have been teaching Pascal so far, but she's not sure that's a good course. She thought about switching to C (which I resented; considering not all pupils have interests in programming, to start with, and should be taught something higher level since they are just gripping the idea of a loop and such ... for a start), I suggested python or ruby (preferably py since it handles all paradigms). What is your opinion on this one? I looked, but didn't find a similar question on SO, so if there is one, please just point me towards it. Edit: The assumption is that none of the pupils have been exposed to any programming in junior school. See also: What is the best way to teach young kids some basic programming concepts? Best ways to teach a beginner to program How and when do you teach a kid to code What is the easiest language to start with? High School Programming

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• iPhone Gps logging inaccurate

  - by Martijn

  I'm logging gps points during a walk. Below it shows the function that the coordinates are saved each 5 seconds. i Did several tests but i cannot get the right accuracy i want. (When testing the sky is clear also tests in google maps shows me that the gps signal is good). here is the code: -(void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated{ if (self.locationManager == nil){ self.locationManager = [[[CLLocationManager alloc] init] autorelease]; locationManager.delegate = self; // only notify under 100 m accuracy locationManager.distanceFilter = 100.0f; locationManager.desiredAccuracy= kCLLocationAccuracyBest; [locationManager startUpdatingLocation]; } } - start logging [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:5 target:self selector:@selector(getData) userInfo:nil repeats:YES]; </code> <code> -(void)getData{ int distance; // re-use location. if ([ [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%1.2f",previousLat] isEqualToString:@"0.00"]){ // if previous location is not available, do nothing distance = 0; }else{ CLLocation *loc1 = [[CLLocation alloc] initWithLatitude:previousLat longitude:previousLong]; CLLocation *loc2 = [[CLLocation alloc] initWithLatitude:latGlobal longitude:longGlobal]; distance = [loc1 getDistanceFrom: loc2]; } // overwrite latGlobal with new variable previousLat = latGlobal; previousLong = longGlobal; // store location and save data to database // this part goes ok } - (void)locationManager:(CLLocationManager *)manager didUpdateToLocation:(CLLocation *)newLocation fromLocation:(CLLocation *)oldLocation { // track the time to get a new gps result (for gps indicator orb) lastPointTimestamp = [newLocation.timestamp copy]; // test that the horizontal accuracy does not indicate an invalid measurement if (newLocation.horizontalAccuracy < 0) return; // test the age of the location measurement to determine if the measurement is cached // don't rely on cached measurements NSTimeInterval locationAge = -[newLocation.timestamp timeIntervalSinceNow]; if (locationAge > 5.0) return; latGlobal = fabs(newLocation.coordinate.latitude); longGlobal= fabs(newLocation.coordinate.longitude); } I have taken a screenshot of the plot results (the walk takes 30 minutes) and an example of what i'am trying to acomplish: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21258341@N07/4623969014/ i really hope someone can put me in the right direction.

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• After each command tmux prints: ps1_update: command not found

  - by B.I.

  On Linux Ubuntu 11.04, after each command (cd, ls, vim...) successful or not, tmux prints out as a last line ps1_update: command not found. Is there any config option I am missing? Thank you very much! tmux.conf # http://lukaszwrobel.pl/blog/tmux-tutorial-split-terminal-windows-easily # just remember that after every modification, tmux must be refreshed # to take new settings into account. # This can be achieved either by restarting it or by typing in: # tmux source-file .tmux.conf # Here is a list of a few basic tmux commands: # Ctrl+b " - split pane horizontally. # Ctrl+b % - split pane vertically. # Ctrl+b arrow key - switch pane. # Hold Ctrl+b, don't release it and hold one of the arrow keys - resize pane. # !Ctrl+b c - (c)reate a new window. # !Ctrl+b n - move to the (n)ext window. # Ctrl+b p - move to the (p)revious window. # Shift+LMB - select text. # ALT+Arrows to move among panes. # rebind default prefix to C-a unbind C-b set -g prefix C-a # use ALT+Arrows to move around panes bind -n M-Left select-pane -L bind -n M-Right select-pane -R bind -n M-Up select-pane -U bind -n M-Down select-pane -D # activity monitoring setw -g monitor-activity on set -g visual-activity on # highlight current pane set-window-option -g window-status-current-bg yellow # enable pane switching with mouse set-option -g mouse-select-pane on # read bashrc source ~/.bashrc # Sane scrolling set -g terminal-overrides 'xterm*:smcup@:rmcup@' commandline print out ($(cat)user@tiki:~/.vim$ ls autoload bash_profile bashrc bundle README.md tmux.conf vimrc xmonad xmonad-ubuntu-conf xsessionrc ps1_update: command not found ($(cat)user@tiki:~/.vim$ ll total 56 drwxrwxr-x 2 user user 4096 Mar 17 10:20 autoload/ -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 170 Mar 17 10:20 bash_profile -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 4004 Apr 2 11:37 bashrc drwxrwxr-x 20 user user 4096 Aug 20 10:55 bundle/ -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 11170 Aug 20 11:24 README.md -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 1243 Mar 17 10:20 tmux.conf ps1_update: command not found ($(cat)user@tiki:~/.vim$ And the following is plain terminal output, without tmux running user@tiki:~$ ls backup_list.md Documents Dropbox examples.desktop hakers_and_painters.md~ hyundai Music projects ror Ubuntu One Videos windows.sh Desktop Downloads elif.txt hakers_and_painters.md help.txt maqola.txt Pictures Public tmp update_background.sh VirtualBox VMs user@tiki:~$ ll total 116 -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 380 Aug 9 17:34 backup_list.md drwxr-xr-x 6 user user 4096 Jul 15 09:26 Desktop/ drwxr-xr-x 2 user user 4096 Jul 7 11:26 Documents/ drwxr-xr-x 11 user user 20480 Aug 20 13:53 Downloads/ -rwx------ 1 user user 729 May 7 14:45 update_background.sh* drwxr-xr-x 2 user user 4096 Dec 10 2013 Videos/ drwxrwxr-x 4 user user 4096 Sep 10 2013 VirtualBox VMs/ -rwxrwxr-x 1 user user 36 Jan 11 2014 windows.sh* user@tiki:~$ cd Desktop/ user@tiki:~/Desktop$ ll total 36 -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 3388 Jul 14 17:10 daily--report.md -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 71 Jan 28 2014 fernandez readme.md -rw-rw-r-- 1 user user 23 Jan 28 2014 fernandez readme.md~ drwx------ 4 user user 4096 Mar 23 14:02 my_docs/ drwx------ 2 user user 4096 Feb 3 2014 Origami/ drwx------ 7 user user 4096 Feb 1 2013 Plants_vs._Zombies_v1.2.0.1065/ -rwxr-xr-x 1 user user 301 Apr 15 11:28 Sky Fight.desktop* drwx------ 2 user user 4096 Feb 11 2014 webdesign/ -rwxrwxr-x 1 user user 26 Jan 11 2014 windows.sh~* user@tiki:~/Desktop$

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• Apache Getting Bogged Down By Certain Script (Wp-Cron.php) - How To Kill Process Automatically

  - by user50037

  I have a server that is running a number of wordpress blogs, and a number of them have several hundred/thousand posts. Every couple of days, the server slows to a crawl due to a file being run on Wordpress called WP-cron.php. My entire apache process log turns into this : http:// imgur.com/A7K9k.png Times that by quite a bit. And server no go. Each process takes up about 1.1% of ram. And when we have 50 of them on the go. It gets insane. Not all of them are coming from the same blog, they are pretty widespread. In the Apache process page of WHM, they are usually ALL set to the status of "C", which means closing. But they can sit there until they crash the server, and they still hold the memory. Just google "wp-cron.php load" and you will find plenty of people with similar issues. In anycase, we have think it is down to users adding a tonne of dead "pinglists" to their wordpress installation. Which in turn wordpress loops through them endlessly. Problem number 1. Does anyone have any other suggestions about what would cause the Wordpress file wp-cron.php to loop endlessly. I still think it is down to pings, because all of the people we have contacted about their account load going sky high, have had massive ping lists. Problem number 2. Even if it is down to excessive pinglists in wordpress. We cannot be babying every single account on the server waiting for it to start spawning the wp-cron processes. It often happens overnight, and I start getting SMS alerts at 2am about the load. I have CSF installed, which apparently would have ended the processes if they ran over XXX time. But I have been told that it won't catch the processes because they end up in this state of "closing" (They show up as "C" on the Apache page of WHM). Apparently CSF will only kill processes that are "running" which C does not count. I have seen various other scripts such as : http://dltj.org/article/die-apache-die/ . I took a look at the stat of /proc. But I was boggled at which delimited part was the time running. And if there was any way I could connect it back to an actual Apache process, so that I could see what file was running (So only close connections connected to wp-cron.php, with a state of "C"). Overall I know Problem 2 glosses over the real reason. But I do put the whole thing to excessive pinglists in Wordpress. But I just cannot sit there and babysit every single installation 24/7. So I need a way to save the server when I am not available. Any help would be much appreciated.

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• I have finally traded my Blackberry in for a Droid!

  - by Bob Porter

  Over the years I have used a number of different types of phones. Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Nokia, and now Android. Until the Blackberry, which was my last phone (and I still have one issued from my office) I had never found a phone that “just worked” especially with email and messaging. The Blackberry did, and does, excel at those functions. My last personal phone was a Storm 1 which was Blackberry’s first touch screen phone. The Storm 2 was an improved version that fixed some screen press detection issues from the first model and it added Wifi. Over the last few years I have watched others acquire and fall in love with their ‘Droid’s including a number of iPhone users which surprised me. Our office has until recently only supported Blackberry phones, adding iPhones within the last year or so. When I spoke with our internal telecom folks they confirmed they were evaluating Android phones, but felt they still were not secure enough out of the box for corporate use and SOX compliance. That being said, as a personal phone, the Droid Rocks! I am impressed with its speed, the number of apps available, and the overall design. It is not as “flashy” as an iPhone but it does everything that I care about and more. The model I bought is the Motorola Droid 2 Global from Verizon. It is currently running Android 2.2 for it’s OS, 2.3 is just around the corner. It has 8 gigs of internal flash memory and can handle up to a 32 gig SDCard. (I currently have 2 8 gig cards, one for backups, and have ordered a 16 gig card!) Being a geek at heart, I “rooted” the phone which means gained superuser access to the OS on the phone. And opens a number of doors for further modifications down the road. Also being a geek meant I have already setup a development environment and built and deployed the obligatory “Hello Droid” application. I will be writing of my development experiences with this new platform here often, to start off I thought I would share my current application list to give you an idea what I am using. Zedge: http://market.android.com/details?id=net.zedge.android XDA: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.quoord.tapatalkxda.activity WRAL.com: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.mylocaltv.wral Wireless Tether: http://market.android.com/details?id=android.tether Winamp: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.nullsoft.winamp Win7 Clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.toggles.win7 Wifi Analyzer: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer WeatherBug: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.aws.android Weather Widget Forecast Addon: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.weather.forecastaddon Weather & Toggle Widgets: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather2 Vlingo: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.vlingo.client VirtualTENHO-G: http://market.android.com/details?id=jp.bustercurry.virtualtenho_g Twitter: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.twitter.android TweetDeck: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.thedeck.android.app Tricorder: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.hermit.tricorder Titanium Backup PRO: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackupPro Titanium Backup: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.keramidas.TitaniumBackup Terminal Emulator: http://market.android.com/details?id=jackpal.androidterm Talking Tom Free: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.outfit7.talkingtom Stock Blue: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.adw.theme.stockblue ST: Red Alert Free: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.oldplanets.redalertwallpaper ST: Red Alert: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.oldplanets.redalertwallpaperplus Solitaire: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.kmagic.solitaire Skype: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.skype.raider Silent Time Lite: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.QuiteHypnotic.SilentTime ShopSavvy: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.biggu.shopsavvy Shopper: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.shopper Shiny clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.clock.shiny ShareMyApps: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.mattlary.shareMyApps Sense Glass ADW Theme: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dtanquary.senseglassadwtheme ROM Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.koushikdutta.rommanager Roboform Bookmarklet Installer: http://market.android.com/details?id=roboformBookmarkletInstaller.android.com RealCalc: http://market.android.com/details?id=uk.co.nickfines.RealCalc Package Buddy: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.psyrus.packagebuddy Overstock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.overstock OMGPOP Toggle: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.toggle.omgpop OI File Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.openintents.filemanager nook: http://market.android.com/details?id=bn.ereader MyAtlas-Google Maps Navigation ext: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adaptdroid.navbookfree3 MSN Droid: http://market.android.com/details?id=msn.droid.im Matrix Live Wallpaper: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.jarodyv.livewallpaper.matrix LogMeIn: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.logmein.ignitionpro.android Liveshare: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.cooliris.app.liveshare Kobo: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.kobobooks.android Instant Heart Rate: http://market.android.com/details?id=si.modula.android.instantheartrate IMDb: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.imdb.mobile Home Plus Weather: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.skin.weather.homeplus Handcent SMS: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.handcent.nextsms H7C Clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.clock.skin.h7c GTasks: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.dayup.gtask GPS Status: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.eclipsim.gpsstatus2 Google Voice: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.googlevoice Google Sky Map: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.stardroid Google Reader: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.reader GoMarks: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androappsdev.gomarks Goggles: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.unveil Glossy Black Weather: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather.skin.glossyblack Fox News: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.foxnews.android Foursquare: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.joelapenna.foursquared FBReader: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.geometerplus.zlibrary.ui.android Fandango: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.fandango Facebook: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.facebook.katana Extensive Notes Pro: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.flufflydelusions.app.extensive_notes_donate Expense Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.expensemanager Espresso UI (LightShow w/ Slide): http://market.android.com/details?id=com.jaguirre.slide.lightshow Engadget: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.aol.mobile.engadget Earth: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.earth Drudge: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.iavian.dreport Dropbox: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dropbox.android DroidForums: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.quoord.tapatalkdrodiforums.activity DroidArmor ADW: http://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.addesigns.droidarmorADW Droid Weather Icons: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather.skins.white Droid 2 Bootstrapper: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.koushikdutta.droid2.bootstrap doubleTwist: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.doubleTwist.androidPlayer Documents To Go: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dataviz.docstogo Digital Clock Widget: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.maize.digitalClock Desk Home: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.cowbellsoftware.deskdock Default Clock: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.clock.skins.defaultclock Daily Expense Manager: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.techahead.ExpenseManager ConnectBot: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.connectbot Colorized Weather Icons: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.widget.weather.colorized Chrome to Phone: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.chrometophone CardStar: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.cardstar.android Books: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.android.apps.books Black Ipad Toggle: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.androidapps.toggle.widget.skin.blackipad Black Glass ADW Theme: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.dtanquary.blackglassadwtheme Bing: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.microsoft.mobileexperiences.bing BeyondPod Unlock Key: http://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.beyondpod.unlockkey BeyondPod: http://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.beyondpod BeejiveIM: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.beejive.im Beautiful Widgets Animations Addon: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.bw.forecast Beautiful Widgets: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.beautifulwidgets Beautiful Live Weather: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.beautifullive BBC News: http://market.android.com/details?id=net.jimblackler.newswidget Barnacle Wifi Tether: http://market.android.com/details?id=net.szym.barnacle Barcode Scanner: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.google.zxing.client.android ASTRO SMB Module: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro.smb ASTRO Pro: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro.pro ASTRO Bluetooth Module: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro.network.bluetooth ASTRO: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.metago.astro AppBrain App Market: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.appspot.swisscodemonkeys.apps App Drawer Icon Pack: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adwtheme.appdrawericonpack androidVNC: http://market.android.com/details?id=android.androidVNC AndroidGuys: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.handmark.mpp.AndroidGuys Android System Info: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.electricsheep.asi AndFTP: http://market.android.com/details?id=lysesoft.andftp ADWTheme Red: http://market.android.com/details?id=adw.theme.red ADWLauncher EX: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.adwfreak.launcher ADW.Theme.One: http://market.android.com/details?id=org.adw.theme.one ADW.Faded theme: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.xrcore.adwtheme.faded ADW Gingerbread: http://market.android.com/details?id=me.robertburns.android.adwtheme.gingerbread Advanced Task Killer Free: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.rechild.advancedtaskkiller Adobe Reader: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.reader Adobe Flash Player 10.1: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.flashplayer Adobe AIR: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.air 3G Auto OnOff: http://market.android.com/details?id=com.yuantuo --- Generated by ShareMyApps http://market.android.com/details?id=com.mattlary.shareMyApps Sent from my Droid

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• Recover Deleted Files on an NTFS Hard Drive from a Ubuntu Live CD

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  Accidentally deleting a file is a terrible feeling. Not being able to boot into Windows and undelete that file makes that even worse. Fortunately, you can recover deleted files on NTFS hard drives from an Ubuntu Live CD. To show this process, we created four files on the desktop of a Windows XP machine, and then deleted them. We then booted up the same machine with the bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash Drive that we created last week. Once Ubuntu 9.10 boots up, open a terminal by clicking Applications in the top left of the screen, and then selecting Accessories > Terminal. To undelete our files, we first need to identify the hard drive that we want to undelete from. In the terminal window, type in: sudo fdisk –l and press enter. What you’re looking for is a line that ends with HPSF/NTFS (under the heading System). In our case, the device is “/dev/sda1”. This may be slightly different for you, but it will still begin with /dev/. Note this device name. If you have more than one hard drive partition formatted as NTFS, then you may be able to identify the correct partition by the size. If you look at the second line of text in the screenshot above, it reads “Disk /dev/sda: 136.4 GB, …” This means that the hard drive that Ubuntu has named /dev/sda is 136.4 GB large. If your hard drives are of different size, then this information can help you track down the right device name to use. Alternatively, you can just try them all, though this can be time consuming for large hard drives. Now that you know the name Ubuntu has assigned to your hard drive, we’ll scan it to see what files we can uncover. In the terminal window, type: sudo ntfsundelete <HD name> and hit enter. In our case, the command is: sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 The names of files that can recovered show up in the far right column. The percentage in the third column tells us how much of that file can be recovered. Three of the four files that we originally deleted are showing up in this list, even though we shut down the computer right after deleting the four files – so even in ideal cases, your files may not be recoverable. Nevertheless, we have three files that we can recover – two JPGs and an MPG. Note: ntfsundelete is immediately available in the Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD. If you are in a different version of Ubuntu, or for some other reason get an error when trying to use ntfsundelete, you can install it by entering “sudo apt-get install ntfsprogs” in a terminal window. To quickly recover the two JPGs, we will use the * wildcard to recover all of the files that end with .jpg. In the terminal window, enter sudo ntfsundelete <HD name> –u –m *.jpg which is, in our case, sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 –u –m *.jpg The two files are recovered from the NTFS hard drive and saved in the current working directory of the terminal. By default, this is the home directory of the current user, though we are working in the Desktop folder. Note that the ntfsundelete program does not make any changes to the original NTFS hard drive. If you want to take those files and put them back in the NTFS hard drive, you will have to move them there after they are undeleted with ntfsundelete. Of course, you can also put them on your flash drive or open Firefox and email them to yourself – the sky’s the limit! We have one more file to undelete – our MPG. Note the first column on the far left. It contains a number, its Inode. Think of this as the file’s unique identifier. Note this number. To undelete a file by its Inode, enter the following in the terminal: sudo ntfsundelete <HD name> –u –i <Inode> In our case, this is: sudo ntfsundelete /dev/sda1 –u –i 14159 This recovers the file, along with an identifier that we don’t really care about. All three of our recoverable files are now recovered. However, Ubuntu lets us know visually that we can’t use these files yet. That’s because the ntfsundelete program saves the files as the “root” user, not the “ubuntu” user. We can verify this by typing the following in our terminal window: ls –l We want these three files to be owned by ubuntu, not root. To do this, enter the following in the terminal window: sudo chown ubuntu <Files> If the current folder has other files in it, you may not want to change their owner to ubuntu. However, in our case, we only have these three files in this folder, so we will use the * wildcard to change the owner of all three files. sudo chown ubuntu * The files now look normal, and we can do whatever we want with them. Hopefully you won’t need to use this tip, but if you do, ntfsundelete is a nice command-line utility. It doesn’t have a fancy GUI like many of the similar Windows programs, but it is a powerful tool that can recover your files quickly. See ntfsundelete’s manual page for more detailed usage information Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Reset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CDUse Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows ComputerCreate a Bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash DriveCreate a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy WayGuide to Using Check Disk in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver Optimize your computer the Microsoft way Stormpulse provides slick, real time weather data Geek Parents – Did you try Parental Controls in Windows 7? Change DNS servers on the fly with DNS Jumper

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• I Hereby Resolve… (T-SQL Tuesday #14)

  - by smisner

  It’s time for another T-SQL Tuesday, hosted this month by Jen McCown (blog|twitter), on the topic of resolutions. Specifically, “what techie resolutions have you been pondering, and why?” I like that word – pondering – because I ponder a lot. And while there are many things that I do already because of my job, there are many more things that I ponder about doing…if only I had the time. Then I ponder about making time, but then it’s back to work! In 2010, I was moderately more successful in making time for things that I ponder about than I had been in years past, and I hope to continue that trend in 2011. If Jen hadn’t settled on this topic, I could keep my ponderings to myself and no one would ever know the outcome, but she’s egged me on (and everyone else that chooses to participate)! So here goes… For me, having resolve to do something means that I wouldn’t be doing that something as part of my ordinary routine. It takes extra effort to make time for it. It’s not something that I do once and check off a list, but something that I need to commit to over a period of time. So with that in mind, I hereby resolve… To Learn Something New… One of the things I love about my job is that I get to do a lot of things outside of my ordinary routine. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of opportunity! So what more could I possibly add to that list of things to do? Well, the more I learn, the more I realize I have so much more to learn. It would be much easier to remain in ignorant bliss, but I was born to learn. Constantly. (And apparently to teach, too– my father will tell you that as a small child, I had the neighborhood kids gathered together to play school – in the summer. I’m sure they loved that – but they did it!) These are some of things that I want to dedicate some time to learning this year: Spatial data. I have a good understanding of how maps in Reporting Services works, and I can cobble together a simple T-SQL spatial query, but I know I’m only scratching the surface here. Rob Farley (blog|twitter) posted interesting examples of combining maps and PivotViewer, and I think there’s so many more creative possibilities. I’ve always felt that pictures (including charts and maps) really help people get their minds wrapped around data better, and because a lot of data has a geographic aspect to it, I believe developing some expertise here will be beneficial to my work. PivotViewer. Not only is PivotViewer combined with maps a useful way to visualize data, but it’s an interesting way to work with data. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out this interactive demonstration using Netflx OData feed. According to Rob Farley, learning how to work with PivotViewer isn’t trivial. Just the type of challenge I like! Security. You’ve heard of the accidental DBA? Well, I am the accidental security person – is there a word for that role? My eyes used to glaze over when having to study about security, or  when reading anything about it. Then I had a problem long ago that no one could figure out – not even the vendor’s tech support – until I rolled up my sleeves and painstakingly worked through the myriad of potential problems to resolve a very thorny security issue. I learned a lot in the process, and have been able to share what I’ve learned with a lot of people. But I’m not convinced their eyes weren’t glazing over, too. I don’t take it personally – it’s just a very dry topic! So in addition to deepening my understanding about security, I want to find a way to make the subject as it relates to SQL Server and business intelligence more accessible and less boring. Well, there’s actually a lot more that I could put on this list, and a lot more things I have plans to do this coming year, but I run the risk of overcommitting myself. And then I wouldn’t have time… To Have Fun! My name is Stacia and I’m a workaholic. When I love what I do, it’s difficult to separate out the work time from the fun time. But there are some things that I’ve been meaning to do that aren’t related to business intelligence for which I really need to develop some resolve. And they are techie resolutions, too, in a roundabout sort of way! Photography. When my husband and I went on an extended camping trip in 2009 to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, I had a nice little digital camera that took decent pictures. But then I saw the gorgeous cameras that other tourists were toting around and decided I needed one too. So I bought a Nikon D90 and have started to learn to use it, but I’m definitely still in the beginning stages. I traveled so much in 2010 and worked on two book projects that I didn’t have a lot of free time to devote to it. I was very inspired by Kimberly Tripp’s (blog|twitter) and Paul Randal’s (blog|twitter) photo-adventure in Alaska, though, and plan to spend some dedicated time with my camera this year. (And hopefully before I move to Alaska – nothing set in stone yet, but we hope to move to a remote location – with Internet access – later this year!) Astronomy. I have this cool telescope, but it suffers the same fate as my camera. I have been gone too much and busy with other things that I haven’t had time to work with it. I’ll figure out how it works, and then so much time passes by that I forget how to use it. I have this crazy idea that I can actually put the camera and the telescope together for astrophotography, but I think I need to start simple by learning how to use each component individually. As long as I’m living in Las Vegas, I know I’ll have clear skies for nighttime viewing, but when we move to Alaska, we’ll be living in a rain forest. I have no idea what my opportunities will be like there – except I know that when the sky is clear, it will be far more amazing than anything I can see in Vegas – even out in the desert - because I’ll be so far away from city light pollution. I’ve been contemplating putting together a blog on these topics as I learn. As many of my fellow bloggers in the SQL Server community know, sometimes the best way to learn something is to sit down and write about it. I’m just stumped by coming up with a clever name for the new blog, which I was thinking about inaugurating with my move to Alaska. Except that I don’t know when that will be exactly, so we’ll just have to wait and see which comes first!

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• Robotic Arm &ndash; Hardware

  - by Szymon Kobalczyk

  This is first in series of articles about project I've been building  in my spare time since last Summer. Actually it all began when I was researching a topic of modeling human motion kinematics in order to create gesture recognition library for Kinect. This ties heavily into motion theory of robotic manipulators so I also glanced at some designs of robotic arms. Somehow I stumbled upon this cool looking open source robotic arm: It was featured on Thingiverse and published by user jjshortcut (Jan-Jaap). Since for some time I got hooked on toying with microcontrollers, robots and other electronics, I decided to give it a try and build it myself. In this post I will describe the hardware build of the arm and in later posts I will be writing about the software to control it. Another reason to build the arm myself was the cost factor. Even small commercial robotic arms are quite expensive – products from Lynxmotion and Dagu look great but both cost around USD $300 (actually there is one cheap arm available but it looks more like a toy to me). In comparison this design is quite cheap. It uses seven hobby grade servos and even the cheapest ones should work fine. The structure is build from a set of laser cut parts connected with few metal spacers (15mm and 47mm) and lots of M3 screws. Other than that you’d only need a microcontroller board to drive the servos. So in total it comes a lot cheaper to build it yourself than buy an of the shelf robotic arm. Oh, and if you don’t like this one there are few more robotic arm projects at Thingiverse (including one by oomlout). Laser cut parts Some time ago I’ve build another robot using laser cut parts so I knew the process already. You can grab the design files in both DXF and EPS format from Thingiverse, and there are also 3D models of each part in STL. Actually the design is split into a second project for the mini servo gripper (there is also a standard servo version available but it won’t fit this arm).  I wanted to make some small adjustments, layout, and add measurements to the parts before sending it for cutting. I’ve looked at some free 2D CAD programs, and finally did all this work using QCad 3 Beta with worked great for me (I also tried LibreCAD but it didn’t work that well). All parts are cut from 4 mm thick material. Because I was worried that acrylic is too fragile and might break, I also ordered another set cut from plywood. In the end I build it from plywood because it was easier to glue (I was told acrylic requires a special glue). Btw. I found a great laser cutter service in Kraków and highly recommend it (www.ebbox.com.pl). It cost me only USD $26 for both sets ($16 acrylic + $10 plywood). Metal parts I bought all the M3 screws and nuts at local hardware store. Make sure to look for nylon lock (nyloc) nuts for the gripper because otherwise it unscrews and comes apart quickly. I couldn’t find local store with metal spacers and had to order them online (you’d need 11 x 47mm and 3 x 15mm). I think I paid less than USD $10 for all metal parts. Servos This arm uses five standards size servos to drive the arm itself, and two micro servos are used on the gripper. Author of the project used Modelcraft RS-2 Servo and Modelcraft ES-05 HT Servo. I had two Futaba S3001 servos laying around, and ordered additional TowerPro SG-5010 standard size servos and TowerPro SG90 micro servos. However it turned out that the SG90 won’t fit in the gripper so I had to replace it with a slightly smaller E-Sky EK2-0508 micro servo. Later it also turned out that Futaba servos make some strange noise while working so I swapped one with TowerPro SG-5010 which has higher torque (8kg / cm). I’ve also bought three servo extension cables. All servos cost me USD $45. Assembly The build process is not difficult but you need to think carefully about order of assembling it. You can do the base and upper arm first. Because two servos in the base are close together you need to put first with one piece of lower arm already connected before you put the second servo. Then you connect the upper arm and finally put the second piece of lower arm to hold it together. Gripper and base require some gluing so think it through too. Make sure to look closely at all the photos on Thingiverse (also other people copies) and read additional posts on jjshortcust’s blog: My mini servo grippers and completed robotic arm  Multiply the robotic arm and electronics Here is also Rob’s copy cut from aluminum My assembled arm looks like this – I think it turned out really nice: Servo controller board The last piece of hardware I needed was an electronic board that would take command from PC and drive all seven servos. I could probably use Arduino for this task, and in fact there are several Arduino servo shields available (for example from Adafruit or Renbotics).  However one problem is that most support only up to six servos, and second that their accuracy is limited by Arduino’s timer frequency. So instead I looked for dedicated servo controller and found a series of Maestro boards from Pololu. I picked the Pololu Mini Maestro 12-Channel USB Servo Controller. It has many nice features including native USB connection, high resolution pulses (0.25µs) with no jitter, built-in speed and acceleration control, and even scripting capability. Another cool feature is that besides servo control, each channel can be configured as either general input or output. So far I’m using seven channels so I still have five available to connect some sensors (for example distance sensor mounted on gripper might be useful). And last but important factor was that they have SDK in .NET – what more I could wish for! The board itself is very small – half of the size of Tic-Tac box. I picked one for about USD $35 in this store. Perhaps another good alternative would be the Phidgets Advanced Servo 8-Motor – but it is significantly more expensive at USD $87.30. The Maestro Controller Driver and Software package includes Maestro Control Center program with lets you immediately configure the board. For each servo I first figured out their move range and set the min/max limits. I played with setting the speed an acceleration values as well. Big issue for me was that there are two servos that control position of lower arm (shoulder joint), and both have to be moved at the same time. This is where the scripting feature of Pololu board turned out very helpful. I wrote a script that synchronizes position of second servo with first one – so now I only need to move one servo and other will follow automatically. This turned out tricky because I couldn’t find simple offset mapping of the move range for each servo – I had to divide it into several sub-ranges and map each individually. The scripting language is bit assembler-like but gets the job done. And there is even a runtime debugging and stack view available. Altogether I’m very happy with the Pololu Mini Maestro Servo Controller, and with this final piece I completed the build and was able to move my arm from the Meastro Control program.   The total cost of my robotic arm was: $10 laser cut parts $10 metal parts $45 servos $35 servo controller ----------------------- $100 total So here you have all the information about the hardware. In next post I’ll start talking about the software that I wrote in Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4. Stay tuned!

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• Fixing a SkyDrive Sync Disaster

  - by Rick Strahl

  For a few months I've been using SkyDrive to handle some basic synching tasks for a number of folders of mine. Specifically I've been dumping a few of my development folders into sky drive so I have a live running backup. It had been working just fine until about a week ago when something went awry. Badly! The idea is that the SkyDrive should sync files, but somewhere in its sync relationship it appears that SkyDrive got confused and assumed it needed to sync back older files to my local machine from the SkyDrive server. So rather than syncing my newer files to the server SkyDrive was pushing older files back to me. Because SkyDrive is so slow actually updating data it's not unusual for SkyDrive to be far behind in syncing and apparently some files were out of date by several months. Of course this is insidious because I didn't notice it for quite some time. I'd been happily working away on my files when a few days ago I noted a bunch of files with -RasXps (my machine name) popping up in various folders. At first I thought my Git repository was giving me a fit, but eventually realized that SkyDrive was actually pushing old files into my monitored folders. To be fair SkyDrive did make backups of the existing files, but by the time I caught it there were literally a few thousand files scattered on my machine that were now updated with old files from online. Here's what some of this looks like: If you look at the directory list you see a bunch of files with a -RasXps postfix appended to them. Those are the files that SkyDrive replaced and backed up on my machine. As you can see the backed up files are actually newer than the ones it pulled from the online SkyDrive. Unless I modified the files after they were updated they all were older than the existing local files. Not exactly how I imagined my synching would work. At first I started cleaning up this mess manually. In most cases the obvious solution was to simply delete the original file and replace with the -RasXps file, but not in all files. Some scrutiny was required and besides being a pain in the ass to rename files, quite frequently I had to dig out Beyond Compare to compare a few files where it wasn't quite clear what's wrong. I quickly realized that doing this by hand would be too hard for the large number of files that got hosed. Hacking together a small .NET Utility So, I figured the easiest way to tackle this is to write a small utility app that shows me all the mangled files that have backups, allows me to compare them and then quickly select and update them, removing the -RasXps file after choosing one of the two files. What I ended up with was a quick and dirty WinForms app that allows me to pick a root folder, and then shows all the -MachineName files: I start by picking a base folder and a template to search for - typically the -MachineName. Clicking Go brings up a list of all files in that folder and its subdirectories.  The list also displays the dates for the saved (-MachineName) file and the current file on disk, along with highlighting for the newer of the two. I can right click on any file and get a context menu pop up to open the folder in Explorer, or open Beyond Compare and view the two files to compare differences which I found very helpful for a number of files where I had modified the files after SkyDrive had updated to an old one. Typically these would be the green files (of which there were thankfully few). To 'fix' files I can select any number of files in the list, then use one of the three buttons on the right to apply an operation. I can use the Saved files - that is the backup file that SkyDrive created with the -MachineName extension (-RasXps above). Or I can use the current file, which is the file with the right name on disk right now and delete the -MachineName file. Or on some occasions I can just opt to delete both of them. For some files like binaries it's often easier to just delete and them be rebuild than choosing. For the most part the process involves accepting the pink files, and checking the few green files and see if any modifications were made since the file was updated incorrectly by SkyDrive. For me luckily those are few in number. Anyways, I thought I share this utility in case anybody else runs into this issue. I've included the VS2012 solution and all the source code so you can see how it works and you can tweak it as needed. The .NET 4.5 binaries are also included if you can't compile. Be warned though!  This rough code is provided as is and makes no guarantees or claims about file safety. All three of the action buttons on the form will delete data. It's a very rough utility and there are no safeguards that ask nicely before deleting files. I highly recommend you make a backup before you have at it. This tools is very narrow in focus, but it might also work with other sync issues from other vendors. I seem to remember that I had similar issues with SugarSync at some point and it too created the -MachineName style files on sync conflicts. Hope this helps somebody out so you can avoid wasting the better part of a full work day on this… Resources Download the Source Code and Binaries for SkyDrive Rescue© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2013Posted 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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• The APEX of Business Value...or...the Business Value of APEX? Oracle Cloud Takes Oracle APEX to New Heights!

  - by Gene Eun

  The attraction of Oracle Application Express (APEX) has increased tremendously with the recent launch of the Oracle Cloud. APEX already supported departmental development and deployment of business applications with minimal involvement from the IT department. Positioned as the ideal replacement for MS Access, APEX probably has managed better to capture the eye of developers and was used for enterprise application development at least as much as for the kind of tactical applications that Oracle strategically positioned it for. With APEX as PaaS from the Oracle Cloud, a leap is made to a much higher level of business value. Now the IT department is not even needed to make infrastructure available with a database running  on it. All the business needs is a credit card. And the business application that is developed, managed and used from the cloud through a standard browser can now just as easily be accessed by users from around the world as by users from the business department itself. As a bonus – the development of the APEX application is also done in the cloud – with no special demands on the location or the enterprise access privileges of the developers. To sum it up: APEX from Oracle Cloud Database Service get the development environment up and running in minutes no involvement from the internal IT department required (not for infrastructure, platform, or development) superior availability and scalability is offered by Oracle users from anywhere in the world can be invited to access the application developers from anywhere in the world can participate in creating and maintaining the application In addition: because the Oracle Cloud platform is the same as the on-premise platform, you can still decide to move the APEX application between the cloud and the local environment – and back again. The REST-ful services that are available through APEX allow programmatic interaction with the database under the APEX application. That means that this database can be synchronized with on premise databases or data stores in (other) clouds. Through the Oracle Cloud Messaging Service, the APEX application can easily enter into asynchronous conversations with other APEX applications, Fusion Middleware applications (ADF, SOA, BPM) and any other type of REST-enabled application. In my opinion, now, for the first time perhaps, APEX offers the attraction to the business that has been suggested before: because of the cloud, all the business needs is  a credit card (a budget of $175 per month), an internet-connection and a browser. Not like before, with a PC hidden under a desk or a database running somewhere in the data center. No matter how unattended: equipment is needed, power is consumed, the database needs to be kept running and if Oracle Database XE does not suffice, software licenses are required as well. And this set up always has a security challenge associated with it. The cloud fee for the Oracle Cloud Database Service includes infrastructure, power, licenses, availability, platform upgrades, a collection of reusable application components and the development and runtime environments containing the APEX platform. Of course this not only means that business departments can move quickly without having to convince their IT colleagues to move along – it also means that small organizations that do not even have IT colleagues can do the same. Getting tailored applications or applications up and running to get in touch with users and customers all over the world is now within easy reach for small outfits – without any investment. My misunderstanding For a long time, I was under the impression that the essence of APEX was that the business could create applications themselves – meaning that business ‘people’ would actually go into APEX to create the application. To me APEX was too much of a developers’ tool to see that happen – apart from the odd business analyst who missed his or her calling as an IT developer. Having looked at various other cloud based development offerings – including Force.com, Mendix, WaveMaker, WorkXpress, OrangeScape, Caspio and Cordys- I have come to realize my mistake. All these platforms are positioned for 'the business' but require a fair amount of coding and technical expertise. However, they make the business happy nevertheless, because they allow the  business to completely circumvent the IT department. That is the essence. Not having to go through the red tape, not having to wait for IT staff who (justifiably) need weeks or months to provide an environment, not having to deal with administrators (again, justifiably) refusing to take on that 'strange environment'. Being able to think of an initiative and turn into action right away. The business does not have to build the application - it can easily hire some external developers or even that nerdy boy next door. They can get started, get an application up and running and invite users in – especially external users such as customers. They will worry later about upgrades and life cycle management and integration. To get applications up and running quickly and start turning ideas into action and results rightaway. That is the key selling point for all these cloud offerings, including APEX from the Cloud. And it is a compelling story. For APEX probably even more so than for the others. While I consider APEX a somewhat proprietary framework compared with ‘regular’ Java/JEE web development (or even .NET and PHP  development), it is still far more open than most cloud environments. APEX is SQL and PL/SQL based – nothing special about those languages – and can run just as easily on site as in the cloud. It has been around since 2004 (that is not including several predecessors that fed straight into APEX) so it can be considered pretty mature. Oracle as a company seems pretty stable – so investments in its technology are bound to last for some time to come. By the way: neither APEX nor the other Cloud DevaaS offerings are targeted at creating applications with enormous life times. They fit into a trend of agile development and rapid life cycle management, with fairly light weight user interfaces that quickly adapt to taste, technology trends and functional requirements and that are easily replaced. APEX and ADF – a match made in heaven?! (or at least in the sky) Note that using APEX only for cloud based database with REST-ful Services is also a perfectly viable scenario: any UI – mobile or browser based – capable of consuming REST-ful services can be created against such a business tier. Creating an ADF Mobile application for example that runs aginst REST-ful services is a best practice for mobile development. Such REST-ful services can be consumed from any service provider – including the Cloud based APEX powered REST-ful services running against the Oracle Cloud Database Service! The ADF Mobile architecture overview can easily be morphed to fit the APEX services in – allowing for a cloud based mobile app: Want to learn more about Oracle Database Cloud Service or Oracle Cloud, just visit cloud.oracle.com  or oracle.com/cloud. Repost of a blog entry by Rick Greenwald, Director of Product Management, Oracle Database Cloud Service.

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• Can Microsoft Build Appliances?

  - by andrewbrust

  Billy Hollis, my Visual Studio Live! colleague and fellow Microsoft Regional Director said recently, and I am paraphrasing, that the computing world, especially on the consumer side, has shifted from one of building hardware and software that makes things possible to do, to building products and technologies that make things easy to do.  Billy crystalized things perfectly, as he often does. In this new world of “easy to do,” Apple has done very well and Microsoft has struggled.  In the old world, customers wanted a Swiss Army Knife, with the most gimmicks and gadgets possible.  In the new world, people want elegantly cutlery.  They may want cake cutters and utility knives too, but they don’t want one device that works for all three tasks.  People don’t want tools, they want utensils.  People don’t want machines.  They want appliances. Microsoft Appliances: They Do Exist Microsoft has built a few appliance-like devices.  I would say XBox 360 is an appliance,  It’s versatile, mind you, but it’s the kind of thing you plug in, turn on and use, as opposed to set-up, tune, and open up to upgrade the internals.  Windows Phone 7 is an appliance too.  It’s a true smartphone, unlike Windows Mobile which was a handheld computer with a radio stack.  Zune is an appliance too, and a nice one.  It hasn’t attained much traction in the market, but that’s probably because the seminal consumer computing appliance -- the iPod – got there so much more quickly. In the embedded world, Mediaroom, Microsoft’s set-top product for the cable industry (used by AT&T U-Verse and others) is an appliance.  So is Microsoft’s Sync technology, used in Ford automobiles.  Even on the enterprise side, Microsoft has an appliance: SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse Edition (PDW) combines Microsoft software with select OEMs’ server, networking and storage hardware.  You buy the appliance units from the OEMs, plug them in, connect them and go. I would even say that Bing is an appliance.  Not in the hardware sense, mind you.  But from the software perspective, it’s a single-purpose product that you visit or run, use and then move on.  You don’t have to install it (except the iOS and Android native apps where it’s pretty straightforward), you don’t have to customize it, you don’t have to program it.  Basically, you just use it. Microsoft Appliances that Should Exist But Microsoft builds a bunch of things that are not appliances.  Media Center is not an appliance, and it most certainly should be.  Instead, it’s an app that runs on Windows 7.  It runs full-screen and you can use this configuration to conceal the fact that Windows is under it, but eventually something will cause you to abandon that masquerade (like Patch Tuesday). The next version of Windows Home Server won’t, in my opinion, be an appliance either.  Now that the Drive Extender technology is gone, and users can’t just add and remove drives into and from a single storage pool, the product is much more like a IT server and less like an appliance-premised one.  Much has been written about this decision by Microsoft.  I’ll just sum it up in one word: pity. Microsoft doesn’t have anything remotely appliance-like in the tablet category, either.  Until it does, it likely won’t have much market share in that space either.  And of course, the bulk of Microsoft’s product catalog on the business side is geared to enterprise machines and not personal appliances. Appliance DNA: They Gotta Have It. The consumerization of IT is real, because businesspeople are consumers too.  They appreciate the fit and finish of appliances at home, and they increasingly feel entitled to have it at work too.  Secure and reliable push email in a smartphone is necessary, but it isn’t enough.  People want great apps and a pleasurable user experience too.  The full Microsoft Office product is needed at work, but a PC with a keyboard and mouse, or maybe a touch screen that uses a stylus (or requires really small fingers), to run Office isn’t enough either.  People want a flawless touch experience available for the times they want to read and take quick notes.  Until Microsoft realizes this fully and internalizes it, it will suffer defeats in the consumer market and even setbacks in the business market.  Think about how slow the Office upgrade cycle is…now imagine if the next version of Office had a first-class alternate touch UI and consider the possible acceleration in adoption rates. Can Microsoft make the appliance switch?  Can the appliance mentality become pervasive at the company?  Can Microsoft hasten its release cycles dramatically and shed the “some assembly required” paradigm upon which many of its products are based?  Let’s face it, the chances that Microsoft won’t make this transition are significant. But there are also encouraging signs, and they should not be ignored.  The appliances we have already discussed, especially Xbox, Zune and Windows Phone 7, are the most obvious in this regard.  The fact that SQL Server has an appliance SKU now is a more subtle but perhaps also more significant outcome, because that product sits so smack in the middle of Microsoft’s enterprise stack.  Bing is encouraging too, especially given its integrated travel, maps and augmented reality capabilities.  As Bing gains market share, Microsoft has tangible proof that it can transform and win, even when everyone outside the company, and many within it, would bet otherwise. That Great Big Appliance in the Sky Perhaps the most promising (and evolving) proof points toward the appliance mentality, though, are Microsoft’s cloud offerings -- Azure and BPOS/Office 365.  While the cloud does not represent a physical appliance (quite the opposite in fact) its ability to make acquisition, deployment and use of technology simple for the user is absolutely an embodiment of the appliance mentality and spirit.  Azure is primarily a platform as a service offering; it doesn’t just provide infrastructure.  SQL Azure does likewise for databases.  And Office 365 does likewise for SharePoint, Exchange and Lync. You don’t administer, tune and manage servers; instead, you create databases or site collections or mailboxes and start using them. Upgrades come automatically, and it seems like releases will come more frequently.  Fault tolerance and content distribution is just there.  No muss.  No fuss.  You use these services; you don’t have to set them up and think about them.  That’s how appliances work.  To me, these signs point out that Microsoft has the full capability of transforming itself.  But there’s a lot of work ahead.  Microsoft may say they’re “all in” on the cloud, but the majority of the company is still oriented around its old products and models.  There needs to be a wholesale cultural transformation in Redmond.  It can happen, but product management, program management, the field and executive ranks must unify in the effort. So must partners, and even customers.  New leaders must rise up and Microsoft must be able to see itself as a winner.  If Microsoft does this, it could lock-in decades of new success, and be a standard business school case study for doing so.  If not, the company will have missed an opportunity, and may see its undoing.

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

  - by Phil Factor

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

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• XSL to show highest number of copies in catalog.xml file

  - by SANJAY RAO

  In this the catalog.xml file. I have two books who have the same inventory (i.e. 20). I want to write an XSL file that will display the highest number of copies of a book in a catalog. If there are two or more books of the same inventory then they have to be displayed. <catalog> <Book> <sku>12345</sku> <title>Beauty Secrets</title> <condition>New</condition> <current_inventory>20</current_inventory> <price>99.99</price> </Book> <Book> <sku>54321</sku> <title>Picturescapes</title> <current_inventory>20</current_inventory> <condition>New</condition> <price>50.00</price> </Book> <Book> <sku>33333</sku> <title>Tourist Perspectives</title> <condition>New</condition> <current_inventory>0</current_inventory> <price>75.00</price> </Book> <Book> <sku>10001</sku> <title>Fire in the Sky</title> <condition>Used</condition> <current_inventory>0</current_inventory> <price>10.00</price> </Book> </catalog> Below is my catalog3.xsl file which is able to display only one out of the two books: <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" > <xsl:variable name="max"/> <xsl:template match="/"> <html> <body> <h2>Titles of Books for which Most Copies are Available</h2> <table border="2"> <tr bgcolor="#9acd32"> <th>Title</th> <th>No of Copies</th> </tr> <xsl:apply-templates/> </table> </body> </html> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="catalog"> <xsl:for-each select="Book"> <xsl:sort select="current_inventory" data-type="number" order="descending"/> <tr> <xsl:if test="position()= 1"> <p><xsl:value-of select="$max = "/></p> <td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td> <td><xsl:value-of select="current_inventory"/></td> </xsl:if> </tr> </xsl:for-each> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> Could anybody correct me to achieve my goal of displaying all the copies having the same maximum inventory in the catalog. Thanks.

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• using JQuery and Ajax to post a form

  - by hopes

  Hi there, I want to use ajax to post my form I want radiobuttons to do this(there is no submit buton) so clicking a radiobutton will cause a form to be submitted or be post my php page needs to know the name of the radio button clicked is my code correct? cuz it doesn't work and I don't know why? <div id="Q1"> <form id="Question1" method='post'> <br /> <P> The sky color is.. </P><img border="0" src="images/wonder.png" width="94" height="134"/><br /><br /><br /> <input type="radio" id="option1" name="answer[1]" value="correct!"/> blue <br /> <input type="radio" id="option1" name="answer[1]" value="false!"/> red <br /> <input type="radio" id="option1" name="answer[1]" value="false!"/> green <br /> <input type="radio" id="option1" name="answer[1]" value="false!"/> white <br /> <br /> </Form> <!-- <p id="greatp" style="display: none;"> GREAT !!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> --> <img border="0" src="images/welldone3.png" width="230" height="182" id="greatp" style="display: none;"/> <!-- <p id="sorryp" style="display: none;"> Sorry !!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> --> <img border="0" src="images/failed3.png" width="230" height="182" id="sorryp" style="display: none;"/> <img src="images/false2.png"id="myImage1"style="display: none;"/> <img src="images/correct2.png"id="myImage2"style="display: none;"/> <!-- <input type= "submit" onclick="Next1()" value="Next"/> --> <input type="image" src="images/next.png" name="image" width="80" height="30" onclick="Next1()"> </div> jquery cod: <script> $(document).ready(function(){ $("#option1").click(function() { var answer= $("#option1").value; var fff= $("#option1").name; $.ajax({ type: "POST", url: "page2.php", data: fff, success: function(){ if(answer=='correct!') { $('#greatp').show(); $('#myImage2').show(); $('#Question1').hide(); } else { $('#sorryp').show(); $('#myImage1').show(); $('#Question1').hide(); } } }); return false; }); }); </script>

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• C# slowdown while creating a bitmap - calculating distances from a large List of places for each pixel

  - by user576849

  I'm creating a graphic of the glow of lights above a geographic location based upon Walkers Law: Skyglow=0.01*Population*DistanceFromCenter^-2.5 I have a CSV file of places with 66,000 records using 5 fields (id,name,population,latitude,longitude), parsed on the FormLoad event and stored it in: List<string[]> placeDataList Then I set up nested loops to fill in a bitmap using SetPixel. For each pixel on the bitmap, which represents a coordinate on a map (latitude and longitude), the program loops through placeDataList – calculating the distance from that coordinate (pixel) to each place record. The distance (along with population) is used in a calculation to find how much cumulative sky glow is contributed to the coordinate from each place record. So, for every pixel, 66,000 distance calculations must be made. The problem is, this is predictably EXTREMELY slow – on the order of one line of pixels per 30 seconds or so on a 320 pixel wide image. This is unrelated to SetPixel, which I know is also slow, because the speed is similarly slow when adding the distance calculation results to an array. I don’t actually need to test all 66,000 records for every pixel, only the records within 150 miles (i.e. no skyglow is contributed to a coordinate from a small town 3000 miles away). But to find which records are within 150 miles of my coordinate I would still need to loop through all the records for each pixel. I can't use a smaller number of records because all 66,000 places contribute to skyglow for SOME coordinate in my map as it loops. This seems like a Catch-22, so I know there must be a better method out there. Like I mentioned, the slowdown is related to how many calculations I’m making per pixel, not anything to do with the bitmap. Any suggestions? private void fillPixels(int width) { Color pixelColor; int pixel_w = width; int pixel_h = (int)Math.Floor((width * 0.424088664)); Bitmap bmp = new Bitmap(pixel_w, pixel_h); for (int i = 0; i < pixel_h; i++) for (int j = 0; j < pixel_w; j++) { pixelColor = getPixelColor(i, j); bmp.SetPixel(j, i, pixelColor); } bmp.Save("Nightfall", System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg); pictureBox1.Image = bmp; MessageBox.Show("Done"); } private Color getPixelColor(int height, int width) { int c; double glow,d,cityLat,cityLon,cityPop; double testLat, testLon; int size_h = (int)Math.Floor((size_w * 0.424088664)); ; testLat = (height * (24.443136 / size_h)) + 24.548874; testLon = (width * (57.636853 / size_w)) -124.640767; glow = 0; for (int i = 0; i < placeDataList.Count; i++) { cityPop=Convert.ToDouble(placeDataList[i][2]); cityLat=Convert.ToDouble(placeDataList[i][3]); cityLon=Convert.ToDouble(placeDataList[i][4]); d = distance(testLat, testLon, cityLat, cityLon,"M"); if(d<150) glow = glow+(0.01 * cityPop * Math.Pow(d, -2.5)); } if (glow >= 1) glow=1; c = (int)Math.Ceiling(glow * 255); return Color.FromArgb(c, c, c); }

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• xslt to show most number of copies in catalog.xml file

  - by SANJAY RAO

  In this catalog.xml file i have two books who have the same inventory i.e 20 . I want to write a xsl file that will display the most number of copies of a book in a catalog .if there are two or more books of the same inventory then they have to be displayed . <?xml version="1.0"?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="catalog3.xsl"?> <!DOCTYPE catalog SYSTEM "catalog.dtd"> <catalog> <Book> <sku>12345</sku> <title>Beauty Secrets</title> <condition>New</condition> <current_inventory>20</current_inventory> <price>99.99</price> </Book> <Book> <sku>54321</sku> <title>Picturescapes</title> <current_inventory>20</current_inventory> <condition>New</condition> <price>50.00</price> </Book> <Book> <sku>33333</sku> <title>Tourist Perspectives</title> <condition>New</condition> <current_inventory>0</current_inventory> <price>75.00</price> </Book> <Book> <sku>10001</sku> <title>Fire in the Sky</title> <condition>Used</condition> <current_inventory>0</current_inventory> <price>10.00</price> </Book> below is my catalog3.xsl file which is able to display only one out of the two books <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:variable name="max"/> <xsl:template match="/"> <html> <body> <h2>Titles of Books for which Most Copies are Available</h2> <table border="2"> <tr bgcolor="#9acd32"> <th>Title</th> <th>No of Copies</th> </tr> <xsl:apply-templates/> </table> </body> </html> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="catalog"> <xsl:for-each select="Book"> <xsl:sort select="current_inventory" data-type="number" order="descending"/> <tr> <xsl:if test="position()= 1"> <p><xsl:value-of select="$max = "/></p> <td><xsl:value-of select="title"/></td> <td><xsl:value-of select="current_inventory"/></td> </xsl:if> </tr> could anybody correct me to achieve my goal of displaying all the copies having the same maximum inventory in the catalog . Thanks .

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 14, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, May 14, 2010New ProjectsCampfire#: Campfire# is a campfire client written in .NET 4.0 using WPF, which uses the Campfire API.CHESS: Systematic Concurrency Testing: CHESS is a tool for systematic and disciplined concurrency testing. Given a concurrent test, CHESS systematically enumerates the possible thread sc...cmpp: cmppcycloid: Arcanoid gameDotNetNuke® C#: The DotNetNuke® project is developed and maintained on a Visual Basic codebase, however a C# version has always been a popular request. This is a ...EasyBuildingCMS.NET: EasyBuildingCMS is an easy use content management system.fluidCMS: Provide for flexible management of web content that is not tightly integrated with the layout and rendering of sites that consume the content.Golem: An automation tool oriented to localization engineering environmentHB Batch Encoder Mk 2: HandBrake Batch Encoder Mk II This Program was adapted from an original project downloaded from codeplex by the name of "Handbrake Batch Encoder"...Integrating Social Media Networks: This is part of my pos graduation project.Ketonic: The Ketonic project aims to improve development of websites based on the Kentico CMS. LinkSharp: LinkSharp is a short-URL provider that can be used to generate short static non changing URL's. The web interface allows you to easily add / edit /...PUC NET (C++ Network Library - PUC Minas): This is an Academic Library for an Easy Development of Applications and Games based on Network Communication.Regular Expression Tester: Small utility for testing regular expressionsSharePoint User Management WebPart: SharePoint User Management WebPartSharpBox: SharpBox makes it easier for .NET developers to interact with existing cloud storage service, e.g. DropBox or Amazon S3Snipivit: Snipivit is a snippet manager service and VS2010 plugin that allows small development teams to store all their code snippets on a central database,...Software Factories Applied: Software Factories Applied is a project collecting the companion bits for the eponymous book to be published by Wiley & Sons in 2011. The authors ...The Ping Master: A service that periodically pings network addresses and allows the running of command line type utilities in response to success or failure.Title Safe Region Checker: A simple utility for XNA developers to check screenshots from games intended for release on the LIVE Marketplace for "title safe" region compliance...Trial project: sky is blueUyghur Named Date: Generate Uyghur named date string. ئۇيغۇرچە ئاي ناملىق چىسلا ھاسىل قىلىشWildcard Search Web Part for SharePoint 2010: The Wildcard Search web part for MOSS 2007 was wildly successful. Although, SharePoint 2010 has built-in wildcard searching functionality, the out...在线Office控件 Online Offical Control: 在线Office控件软件作品发布平台: SoftwarePublishPlatform 软件作品发布平台New ReleasesDemina: Demina Binaries version 0.1: Demina binaries are now available. This release (version 0.1) is an alpha version. Please report any bugs for extermination.EasyTFS: EasyTfs 1.0 Beta 2: Added cache refreshing when contents are updated rather than just every 10 minutes. Added window title based on currently-open case. Added attachme...Extending C# editor - Outlining, classification: Initial release: Initial releaseHB Batch Encoder Mk 2: HB Batch Encoder Mk2 v1.01: Binary release files.HB Batch Encoder Mk 2: Source Code: Source CodeHobbyBrew Mobile: Beta 2: Corretti numerosi bug, data un implementazione "approssimativa" del riscaldamento per Infusione. Aggiornamento consigliato!HouseFly controls: HouseFly controls beta 1.0.2.0: HouseFly controls relase 1.0.2.0 betaHtml Reader: Beta 2: I fixed a bug in HtmlElementCollection, Which exposed an integer enumerator, instead of enumerating through HtmlElements. I added a WPF Window tha...Html to OpenXml: HtmlToOpenXml 1.2: Fix some reported bug. See change set for description. The dll library to include in your project. The dll is signed for GAC support. Compiled wi...Infection Protection: Infection Protection 0.1: This is the final version of Infection Protection that was entered into the 2010 OGPC game competition.Jobping Url Shortener: Deploy Code 0.5.1: Deployment code for Version 0.5 This version includes our Jobping style.Jobping Url Shortener: Source Code 0.5.1: Source code for the 0.5 release. This release includes our Jobping style skin.Kooboo HTML form: Kooboo HTML form module 2.1.0.1: HTML form module contributed by member aledelgo. Add SMTP user and password authentication.KooBoo Image Galery: Beta 2: This new version corrects some issues pointed by Guoqi Zheng Some schema and folders were renamed, so it's better to uninstall the module and remo...MFCMAPI: May 2010 Release: If you just want to run the tool, get the executable. If you want to debug it, get the symbol file and the source. Build: 6.0.0.1020 The 64 bit bu...MVC Turbine: Release 2.1 for MVC2: This RTM contains the same features as v2.0 RTM plus these features: Instance Registration to IServiceLocator You can now add an instance of a typ...NazTek.Extension.Clr4: NazTek.Extension.Clr4 Binary: Binary releaseNazTek.Extension.Clr4: NazTek.Extension.Clr4 Source: Cab with source codeNSIS Autorun: NSIS Autorun 0.1.8: This release includes source code, executable binaries and example materials.Ottawa IT Day: 2010 Source Code and Presentations: During the Ottawa IT Day 2010, some of the presenters shared their code (and some presentations). This release is the culmination of all those effo...PHPWord: PHPWord 0.6.1 Beta: Changelog: Fixed Error when adding a JPEG image and opening in office 2007 Issue #1 Fixed Already defined constant PHPWORD_BASE_PATH Issue #2 F...Rapid Dictionary: Rapid Dictionary Alpha 2.0: Release Notes * Try auto updatable version: http://install.rapiddict.com/index.html Rapid Dictionary Alpha 2.0 includes such functionality: ...Shake - C# Make: Shake v0.1.18: Core changes. Process wrapper class, console logger, etc.SharpBox: SharpBox-Trunk: This is the SharpBox build from the trunk source branch!SharpBox: SharpBox-Trunk-Initial-Source: The initial source code, will be updated from time to timeSpackle.NET: 4.0.0.0 Release: This new drop contains the following A CreateBigInteger() method on SecureRandom to create random BigInteger values. An extension method to prop...StreamInsight example queries, input adapters and output adapters: StreamInsight Examples for V1.0 RTM: Zipped source code.The Ping Master: v0.1.0.0: Early release of The Ping Master for test purposes. Configuration tool is unfinished and does not include an installer.Title Safe Region Checker: Title Safe Region Checker v1.0.0.1: Release 1.0 of Title Safe Region Checker. No known bugs or problems. File is a zipped directory containing the necessary installation files.TortoiseHg: TortoiseHg 1.0.3: This is a bug fix release, we recommend all users upgrade to 1.0.3Usa*Usa Libraly: Smart.Windows.Navigation 0.4: Smart.Windows.Navigation simple navigation library ver 0.4.0. Include Windows Forms & Compact Framework samples. Information - Smart.Windows.Mvc ...VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30513.0: Automatic drop of latest buildWabbitStudio Z80 Software Tools: Wabbitcode: Wabbitcode is an Z80 Assembly IDE for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Built to take full advantage of the features of SPASM and Wabbitemu, Wabbitcode has...white: Release 0.20: Source Code: https://white-project.googlecode.com/svn/tags/0.20 Add few more keyboard keys like windows button and F13-F24. Fixed bugs for keyboar...Wildcard Search Web Part for SharePoint 2010: Version 1.0 Release 1: This is the initial release of the Wildcard Search Web Part for SharePoint 2010. All queries will be issued as wildcards unless disabled with the ...Windows Azure Command-line Tools for PHP Developers: Windows Azure Command-line Tools May 2010 Update: May 2010 Update – May 13, 2010 We are pleased to announced the May 2010 update of Windows Azure Command-Line Tools. In addition to bug fixes and i...WinXmlCook: WinXmlCook 2.1: Version 2.1 released!Xrns2XMod: Xrns2XMod 1.1: some source code optimization在线Office控件 Online Offical Control: SPOffice2.0Release: 该版本在MS Office2003/2007，WPS2009，WPS2010下测试通过Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseSilverlight ToolkitWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)patterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelASP.NETMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMirror Testing SystemRawrBlogEngine.NETPHPExcelMicrosoft Biology FoundationwhiteWindows Azure Command-line Tools for PHP DevelopersStyleCopShake - C# Make

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• Building Awesome WM

  - by Dragan Chupacabrovic

  Hello, I am following these steps in order to build Awesome window manager on 10.04 I am building 3.4 while the tutorial is for 3.1 I installed all of the specified dependencies including cairo. After running cd awesome-3.4 && make I get the following missing dependencies error: Running cmake… -- cat - /bin/cat -- ln - /bin/ln -- grep - /bin/grep -- git - /usr/bin/git -- hostname - /bin/hostname -- gperf - /usr/bin/gperf -- asciidoc - /usr/bin/asciidoc -- xmlto - /usr/bin/xmlto -- gzip - /bin/gzip -- lua - /usr/bin/lua -- luadoc - /usr/bin/luadoc -- convert - /usr/bin/convert -- checking for modules 'glib-2.0;cairo;x11;pango=1.19.3;pangocairo=1.19.3;xcb-randr;xcb-xtest;xcb-xinerama;xcb-shape;xcb-event=0.3.6;xcb-aux=0.3.0;xcb-atom=0.3.0;xcb-keysyms=0.3.4;xcb-icccm=0.3.6;xcb-image=0.3.0;xcb-property=0.3.0;cairo-xcb;libstartup-notification-1.0=0.10;xproto=7.0.15;imlib2;libxdg-basedir=1.0.0' -- package 'xcb-xtest' not found -- package 'xcb-property=0.3.0' not found -- package 'libstartup-notification-1.0=0.10' not found -- package 'libxdg-basedir=1.0.0' not found CMake Error at /usr/share/cmake-2.8/Modules/FindPkgConfig.cmake:259 (message): A required package was not found Call Stack (most recent call first): /usr/share/cmake-2.8/Modules/FindPkgConfig.cmake:311 (_pkg_check_modules_internal) awesomeConfig.cmake:133 (pkg_check_modules) CMakeLists.txt:15 (include) CMake Error at awesomeConfig.cmake:157 (message): Call Stack (most recent call first): CMakeLists.txt:15 (include) -- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred! make: * [cmake] Error 1 I ran sudo apt-get install libxcb-xtest0 libxcb-property1 libxdg-basedir1 libstartup-notification0 but the problem is still there. It is probably because apt-get uses different names for these libraries. Please advise EDIT following enzotib's suggestion, I ran: sudo apt-get install libxcb-xtest0-dev libxcb-property1-dev libxdg-basedir-dev libstartup-notification0-dev and now it looks like I'm missing a library: awesome-3.4$ make Running cmake… -- cat - /bin/cat -- ln - /bin/ln -- grep - /bin/grep -- git - /usr/bin/git -- hostname - /bin/hostname -- gperf - /usr/bin/gperf -- asciidoc - /usr/bin/asciidoc -- xmlto - /usr/bin/xmlto -- gzip - /bin/gzip -- lua - /usr/bin/lua -- luadoc - /usr/bin/luadoc -- convert - /usr/bin/convert -- Configuring lib/naughty.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/tooltip.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/init.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/titlebar.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/key.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/mouse/init.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/mouse/finder.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/autofocus.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/screen.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/rules.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/init.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/taglist.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/graph.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/tasklist.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/common.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/prompt.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/launcher.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/button.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/layoutbox.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/layout/init.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/layout/vertical.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/layout/horizontal.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/layout/default.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/progressbar.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/widget/textclock.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/dbus.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/remote.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/client.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/prompt.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/completion.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/tag.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/util.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/button.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/menu.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/hooks.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/wibox.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/layout/init.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/layout/suit/init.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/layout/suit/floating.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/layout/suit/fair.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/layout/suit/spiral.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/layout/suit/magnifier.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/layout/suit/tile.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/layout/suit/max.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/placement.lua -- Configuring lib/awful/startup_notification.lua -- Configuring lib/beautiful.lua -- Configuring themes/zenburn//theme.lua -- Configuring themes/default//theme.lua -- Configuring themes/sky//theme.lua -- Configuring config.h -- Configuring awesomerc.lua -- Configuring awesome-version-internal.h -- Configuring awesome.doxygen -- Configuring done -- Generating done -- Build files have been written to: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/.build-vedroid-i486-linux-gnu-4.4.3 Running make Makefile… Building… [ 4%] Built target generated_sources [ 5%] Building C object CMakeFiles/awesome.dir/awesome.c.o In file included from /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/spawn.h:25, from /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:33: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/globalconf.h:57: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before ‘xcb_event_handlers_t’ In file included from /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:34: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/client.h: In function ‘client_stack’: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/client.h:212: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘client_need_stack_refresh’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/client.h: In function ‘client_raise’: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/client.h:227: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘stack’ In file included from /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:42: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/titlebar.h: In function ‘titlebar_update_geometry’: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/titlebar.h:150: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘L’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/titlebar.h:151: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘L’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/titlebar.h:152: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘L’ In file included from /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:47: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/common/xutil.h: In function ‘xutil_get_text_property_from_reply’: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/common/xutil.h:39: warning: ‘STRING’ is deprecated (declared at /usr/local/include/xcb/xcb_atom.h:83) /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/common/xutil.h: At top level: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/common/xutil.h:60: error: expected ‘)’ before ‘*’ token /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c: In function ‘awesome_atexit’: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:65: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘hooks’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:66: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘L’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:66: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘hooks’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:68: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘L’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:73: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘embedded’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:76: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘embedded’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:77: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘embedded’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:89: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘clients’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:89: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘clients’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:89: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘clients’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:89: warning: type defaults to ‘int’ in declaration of ‘c’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:89: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘clients’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:89: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘clients’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:89: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘clients’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:91: error: invalid type argument of ‘unary *’ (have ‘int’) /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:92: error: invalid type argument of ‘unary *’ (have ‘int’) /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:96: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘L’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c: In function ‘a_xcb_check_cb’: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:223: warning: implicit declaration of function ‘xcb_event_handle’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:223: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘evenths’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:230: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘evenths’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c: In function ‘awesome_restart’: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:277: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘argv’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c: In function ‘xerror’: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:305: error: ‘XCB_EVENT_ERROR_BAD_WINDOW’ undeclared (first use in this function) /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:305: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:305: error: for each function it appears in.) /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:306: error: ‘XCB_EVENT_ERROR_BAD_MATCH’ undeclared (first use in this function) /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:308: error: ‘XCB_EVENT_ERROR_BAD_VALUE’ undeclared (first use in this function) /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c: In function ‘main’: /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:369: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘keygrabber’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:370: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘mousegrabber’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:376: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘argv’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:377: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘argv’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:381: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘argv’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:382: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘argv’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:424: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:425: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘timer’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:425: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘timer’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:425: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘timer’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:425: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘timer’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:425: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘timer’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:425: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘timer’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:431: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:432: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:433: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:434: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:435: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:436: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:443: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘default_screen’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:450: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘have_xtest’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:462: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:464: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:465: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:467: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:468: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:471: warning: implicit declaration of function ‘xcb_event_handlers_init’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:471: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘evenths’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:472: warning: implicit declaration of function ‘xutil_error_handler_catch_all_set’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:472: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘evenths’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:490: warning: implicit declaration of function ‘xcb_event_poll_for_event_loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:490: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘evenths’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:493: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘evenths’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:496: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘keysyms’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:507: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘colors’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:510: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘colors’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:513: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘font’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:519: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘keysyms’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:519: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘numlockmask’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:520: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘shiftlockmask’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:520: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘capslockmask’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:521: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘modeswitchmask’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:563: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘evenths’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:572: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:575: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:576: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:577: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:578: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:579: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ /home/druden/util/awesome-3.4/awesome.c:580: error: ‘awesome_t’ has no member named ‘loop’ make[3]: * [CMakeFiles/awesome.dir/awesome.c.o] Error 1 make[2]: [CMakeFiles/awesome.dir/all] Error 2 make[1]: [all] Error 2 make: * [cmake-build] Error 2

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• Begin the Clone Wars Have!

  - by Antony Reynolds

  Creating a New Virtual Machine from an Existing Virtual Disk In previous posts I described how I set up an OEL6 machine under VirtualBox that can run an 11gR2 database and FMW 11.1.1.5.  That is great if you want the DB and FMW running in the same virtual image and it has served me well for some proof of concepts and also for some testing of different JVMs.  However I also wanted to run some testing of FMW with the database running on a separate physical machine.  So in this post I will show how to take a VirtualBox image and create a new image based on the disks from that original image. What are my Options? There is more than one way to skin a cat, or in this case to create two separate VMs that can run on different hardware.  Some of the options include: Create new virtual disk images for each new VM. Clone the existing disk images and point the new VM at the cloned images. Point the new VM at the existing snapshots. #1 is too much like hard work, install OEL twice, install a database again, install FMW again, run RCU again!  Life is too short! #2 is probably the safest way of doing things.  VirtualBox allows you to clone a disk image for use in a separate machine.  However this of course duplicates the disk and means that it is now occupying 3 times the space, once for the original disk and twice more for the two clones I would need. #3 is the most space efficient way of doing things.  It does mean however that I can only run the new “cloned” images if I have access to the original image because that is where the base snapshots reside.  However this is not a problem for me as long as I remember to keep all threee images together.  So this is the approach we will follow. Snapshot, What Snapshot? As we are going to create new virtual machines based on existing snapshots we need to figure out which snapshot to use.  We do this by opening the “Media Manager” from within VirtualBox and moving the mouse over the snapshot images until we find the snapshots we want – the snapshot name is identified in the “Attached to:” comment.  In my case I wanted the FMW installed snapshot because that had a database configured for FMW alongside the FMW software.  I made a note of the filename of that snapshot (actually I just noted the first 5 characters as that was all that was needed to uniquely identify the snapshot file). When we create the new machines we will point them at the snapshot filename we have just checked. Network or NotWork? Because we want the two new machines to communicate with each other when hosted in different physical machines we can’t use the default NAT networking mode without a lot of hassle.  But at the same time we need them to have fixed IP addresses relative to each other so that they can see each other whilst also being able to see the outside world. To achieve all these requirements I created two network adapters for each machine.  Adapter 1 was a standard NAT mapping.  This will allow each machine to get a dynamic IP address (10.0.2.15 by default) that can be used to access the external world through the VBox provided NAT gateway.  This is the same as the existing configuration. The second adapter I created as a bridged adapter.  This gives the virtual machine direct access to the host network card and by using fixed IP addresses each machine can see the other.  It is important to choose fixed IP addresses that are not routable across your internal network so you don’t get any clashes with other machines on your network.  Of course you could always get proper fixed IP addresses from your network people, but I have serveral people using my images and as long as I don’t have two instances of the same VM on the same network segment this is easier and avoids reconfiguring the network every time someone wants a copy of my VM.  If it is available I would suggest using the 10.0.3.* network as 10.0.2.* is the default NAT network.  You can check availability by pinging 10.0.3.1 and 10.0.3.2 from your host machine.  If it times out then you are probably safe to use that. Creating the New VMs Now that I had collected the data that I needed I went ahead and created the new VMs. When asked for a “Boot Hard Disk” I used the “Choose a virtual hard disk file…” link to find the snapshot I had previously selected and set that to be the existing hard disk.  I chose the previously existing SOA 11.1.1.5 install for both the new DB and FMW machines because that snapshot had the database with the RCU completed that I wanted for my DB machine and it had the SOA software installed which I wanted for my FMW machine. After the initial creation of the virtual machine go into the network setting section and enable a second adapter which will be bridged.  Make a note of the MAC addresses (the last four digits should be sufficient) of the two adapters so that you can later set the bridged adapter to use fixed IP and the NAT adapter to use DHCP. We are now ready to start the VMs and reconfigure Linux. Reconfiguring Linux Because I now have two new machines I need to change their network configuration.  In particular I need to change the hostname, update the hosts file and change the network settings. Changing the Hostname I renamed both hosts by running the hostname command as root: hostname vboxfmw.oracle.com I also edited the /etc/sysconfig file and set the correct hostname in there. HOSTNAME=vboxfmw.oracle.com Changing the Network Settings I needed to change the network configuration to give the bridged network a fixed IP address.  I first explicitly set the MAC addresses of the two adapters, because the order of the virtual adapters in the VirtualBox Manager is not necessarily the same as the order of the adapters in the guest OS.  So I went in to the System->Preferences->Network Connections screen and explicitly set the “Device MAC address” for the two adapters. Having correctly mapped the Linux adapters to the VirtualBox adapters I then set the Bridged adapter to use fixed IP addressing rather than DHCP.  There is no need for additional routing or default gateways because we expect the two machine to be on the same LAN segment. Updating the Hosts File Having renamed the machines and reconfigured the network I then updated the /etc/hosts file to refer to the new machine name add a new line to the hosts file to provide an additional IP address for my server (the new fixed IP address) add a new line for the fixed IP address of the other virtual machine 10.0.3.101      vboxdb.oracle.com       vboxdb  # Added by NetworkManager 10.0.2.15       vboxdb.oracle.com       vboxdb  # Added by NetworkManager 10.0.3.102      vboxfmw.oracle.com      vboxfmw # Added by NetworkManager 127.0.0.1       localhost.localdomain   localhost ::1     vboxdb.oracle.com       vboxdb  localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6 To make sure everything takes effect I restarted the server. Reconfiguring the Database on the DB Machine Because we changed the hostname the listener and the EM console no longer start so I need to modify the listener.ora to use the new hostname and I also need to rebuild the EM configuration because it also relies on the hostname. I edited the $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin/listener.ora and changed the listening address to the new hostname:       (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = vboxdb.oracle.com)(PORT = 1521)) After changing the listener.ora I was able to start the listener using: lsnrctl start I also had to reconfigure the EM database control.  I first deconfigured it using the command: emca -deconfig dbcontrol db -repos drop This drops the repository and removes any existing registered dbcontrols. I then re-configured it using the following command: emca -config dbcontrol db -repos create This creates the EM repository and then configures and starts dbcontrol. Now my database machine is ready so I can close it down and take a snapshot. Disabling the Database on the FMW Machine I set up the database to start automatically by creating a service called “dbora”.  On the FMW machine I do not need the database running so I can prevent it auto-starting by running the following command: chkconfig –del dbora Note that because I am using a snapshot it is not a waste of disk space to have the DB installed but not used.  As long as I don’t run it, it won’t cost me anything. I can now close the FMW machine down and take a snapshot. Creating a New Domain The FMW machine is now ready to create a new domain.  When creating the domain I can point it at the second machine which is running the database.  I can potentially run these machines on two separate physical machines as long as I have the original virtual machine available to both of the physical machines. Gotchas in Snapshotting VirtualBox does not support the concept of linked machines in a network like some virtualization technologies so when creating a snapshot it is a good idea to shut both VMs down and then take a snapshot on both of them.  This is because we want to keep the database in sync with the middleware.  One way to make sure that this happens would be to place all the domain configuration files on the database server via an NFS share, this would mean that all we would need to snapshot would be the database machine because that would hold all the state and configuration. The Sky’s the Limit We have covered a simple case of having just two machines.  I have a more complicated configuration in which two machine run a RAC database off the same base OS image, and two more machines run a SOA cluster based on the same OS image.  Just remember what machine holds state and what are the consequences of taking a snapshot.

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