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• Query string problem if we use header

  - by avani-nature

  Hai frnds i am new to php actually i am facing following problems in coding please can anyone give the solution? Actually i am having one audio player and i am displaying some word dcoument if i click word document corresponding audio file should play actually when i click doc file it should pop ip with save as and open with for that i am using some header code also i am passing query string in the browser query string is not working if i use header can anyone give me a solution for it below is my code i am attaching <?php $f_name = $_POST["fn"]; $id = $_POST["id1"]; echo $id; //echo "../public_html/sites/default/files/ourfiles/$f_name"; $res2=db_query("select * from mt_files where id='".$id."' "); $row2=db_fetch_array($res2); $job_audio=$row2["audio_name"]; //echo $job_audio; //$job_audi=explode("/",$job_audio); //$job_audio=$job_audi[8]; $job_audio= "C:/xampp/htdocs/med/sites/default/files/audio/$job_audio"; //$job_audio= "C:/Documents and Settings/swuser/My Documents/$job_audio"; //echo $job_audio; echo "<object data='$job_audio' type='application/x-mplayer2' width='150' height='45'> <param name='src' value='$job_audio'> <param name='autoplay' value='true'> <param name='autoStart' value='1'> </object> "; $file = "../mts/sites/default/files/docs/$f_name"; if (file_exists($file)) { header('Content-Description: File Transfer'); header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream'); header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.basename($file)); header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary'); header('Expires: 0'); header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0'); header('Pragma: public'); header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($file)); ob_clean(); flush(); readfile($file); exit; } //The download table query goes here put the $f_name in insert into with the //time varible ?>

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• iptables not allowing mysql connections to aliased ips?

  - by Curtis

  I have a fairly simple iptables firewall on a server that provides MySQL services, but iptables seems to be giving me very inconsistent results. The default policy on the script is as follows: iptables -P INPUT DROP I can then make MySQL public with the following rule: iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3306 -j ACCEPT With this rule in place, I can connect to MySQL from any source IP to any destination IP on the server without a problem. However, when I try to restrict access to just three IPs by replacing the above line with the following, I run into trouble (xxx=masked octect): iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3306 -m state --state NEW -s 208.XXX.XXX.184 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3306 -m state --state NEW -s 208.XXX.XXX.196 -j ACCEPT iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3306 -m state --state NEW -s 208.XXX.XXX.251 -j ACCEPT Once the above rules are in place, the following happens: I can connect to the MySQL server from the .184, .196 and .251 hosts just fine as long as am connecting to the MySQL server using it's default IP address or an IP alias in the same subnet as the default IP address. I am unable to connect to MySQL using IP aliases that are assigned to the server from a different subnet than the server's default IP when I'm coming from the .184 or .196 hosts, but .251 works just fine. From the .184 or .196 hosts, a telnet attempt just hangs... # telnet 209.xxx.xxx.22 3306 Trying 209.xxx.xxx.22... If I remove the .251 line (making .196 the last rule added), the .196 host still can not connect to MySQL using IP aliases (so it's not the order of the rules that is causing the inconsistent behavior). I know, this particular test was silly as it shouldn't matter what order these three rules are added in, but I figured someone might ask. If I switch back to the "public" rule, all hosts can connect to the MySQL server using either the default or aliased IPs (in either subnet): iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3306 -j ACCEPT The server is running in a CentOS 5.4 OpenVZ/Proxmox container (2.6.32-4-pve). And, just in case you prefer to see the problem rules in the context of the iptables script, here it is (xxx=masked octect): # Flush old rules, old custom tables /sbin/iptables --flush /sbin/iptables --delete-chain # Set default policies for all three default chains /sbin/iptables -P INPUT DROP /sbin/iptables -P FORWARD DROP /sbin/iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT # Enable free use of loopback interfaces /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT /sbin/iptables -A OUTPUT -o lo -j ACCEPT # All TCP sessions should begin with SYN /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp ! --syn -m state --state NEW -j DROP # Accept inbound TCP packets (Do this *before* adding the 'blocked' chain) /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT # Allow the server's own IP to connect to itself /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -s 208.xxx.xxx.178 -j ACCEPT # Add the 'blocked' chain *after* we've accepted established/related connections # so we remain efficient and only evaluate new/inbound connections /sbin/iptables -N BLOCKED /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -j BLOCKED # Accept inbound ICMP messages /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p ICMP --icmp-type 8 -j ACCEPT /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p ICMP --icmp-type 11 -j ACCEPT # ssh (private) /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -s xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -j ACCEPT # ftp (private) /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 21 -m state --state NEW -s xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -j ACCEPT # www (public) /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT # smtp (public) /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 25 -j ACCEPT /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 2525 -j ACCEPT # pop (public) /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 110 -j ACCEPT # mysql (private) /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3306 -m state --state NEW -s 208.xxx.xxx.184 -j ACCEPT /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3306 -m state --state NEW -s 208.xxx.xxx.196 -j ACCEPT /sbin/iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3306 -m state --state NEW -s 208.xxx.xxx.251 -j ACCEPT Any ideas? Thanks in advance. :-)

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• ubuntu wifi disconnection & frustratingly connects to unavailable wifi

  - by ashishsony

  Hi, i have already posted this here: here This has happened before with ubuntu 9.1 Beta2 build too that my wifi disconnects if im idle for 5 minutes... so i cant leave my lappy to download anything... i have to keep on continuously using it.. as soon i leave it idle for abt 5 minutes... wifi disconnects... and the pop up asking for password for wifi pops up...with the password already filled in... i just click on connect and it connects again... so whats the use of asking the password if the pre filled in pass works correctly... and this is happening on ubuntu 10.04 Beta2 too... and the workaround is that just open any menu like the applications menu in the taskbar and keep it open... under this state the ubuntu idleness never activates and so the wifi gets never disconnected... this has been confirmed by me many times.. this seems to be repeating again and again... i dont know why... and the second thing i want to report is that there is no way to report this bug from ubuntu... the launchpad.net talks of going through bug reporting process which is done against a definite package... now how does a user know which package would be causing this error?? there should be a more clear process of reporting such bugs to ubuntu team... thirdly the apport utility that reports crashing apps is totally uselss on 10.04 beta 2... as it collests information and reports that i cant submit the report because i dont have 100 other packages... without updating which i cant submit the report.... surely on a beta build there would be packages continuously being updated... so no system would be reported as fully updated... and so no practical apport reporting is possible?? please address these issues... really frustrating all this ... im a big fan of ubuntu but these things really bug me... and just to add fourthly... the suspend/hibernate feature has never ever worked on my toshiba m70-113 laptop... on any ubuntu version... always have to hard reboot after putting into suspend/hibernate mode.. on windows this has never been the case... why cant ubuntu beat windows in such cases too?? i would really like to see this soon... most importantly, when the router switches off... the wifi signals go off... then why the hell ubuntu keeps on connecting to that very wifi like hell and when doesnt connect shows the prompt to manually connect... with the wifi key already filled in... whats the use of saving the key when it has to ask the question from me either to connect or not?? and if its isnt available... just wait when its available.. i have only option to cancel and if i cancel it wont auto-connect!! what the heck?? one can see in the image that it says "authentication required by wireless network" when there isnt any.. as router has gone down!!

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• Hosting a subversion working copy in an remote WebDAV folder

  - by Daniel Baulig

  This might be a bit awkward, but I'll try to explain what I am trying to achieve and what problems I encountered. First of all: whats this about? I am currently trying to set up a distributed working enviroment for developing a web page. My plan was to setup a SVN repository for version control, a live server where the actual live page ist hosted and a development server where I can work on the page. To ease things I intended to not have a local copy of the project on my disk, but to actually work directy on the files, that the development server hosts. For that I setup a WebDAV directory, under devserver.com/workspace, that actually mapped to files served under devserver.com/. So I could connect to devserver.com/workspace, change something and view the results live at devserver.com/. So far this worked perfectly. The next step was to create a SVN repository that would take care of my version control. I intended to be able to checkin to the reposiroty from my development server and at any time, with a small shell script, deploy any revision from the svn to the live server by checking out a copy of the revision into the live server directories. The second part, checking out into the live server, also worked perfectly. The first part though is where problems arose: My workstation is a Windows 7 machine. I connected to the WebDAV share using Windows built-in WebDAV support, which worked quite well. I can create, move, delete, edit, whatever files on my WebDAV share from my Windows machine perfectly. The next step was to checkout a working copy from the SVN (actually hosted at devserver.com/subversion/) into the WebDAV share. In the first try I used the Eclipse plugin subversive. The actual checkout worked fine and I can update and commit stuff to the repository, however, I cannot add any files to the ignore list. It always brings me an error. So I tried the same thing with a complete fresh repository using TortoiseSVN - and again it failed with the same errors. Here is what it says when trying to add files to svnignore: Some of selected resources were not added to ignore. svn: Cannot rename file '\\devserver.com@SSL\DavWWWRoot\workspace\.svn\tmp\dir-props.66fd8936-2701-0010-bb76-472f0b56a5d1.tmp' to '\\devserver.com@SSL\DavWWWRoot\workspace\.svn\tmp\dir-props' This is what apache2 tells me, when I try to add a file to svnignore: [Sun Mar 07 03:54:19 2010] [error] [client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Negotiation: discovered file(s) matching request: /var/www/devserver.com/.svn/tmp/dir-props (None could be negotiated). [Sun Mar 07 03:54:31 2010] [error] [client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] (20)Not a directory: The URL contains extraneous path components. The resource could not be identified. [400, #0] Actually both messages are repeated several times. The first one occurs first and is repeated about 5 times and the second comes there after and is repeated propably more than 20 times. If I create a regular file, delete, rename or modify it none of those messages appear in my error.log While writing this question now I was able to add fils to svnignore using TortoiseSVN. However, after that, Eclipse would not let me commit anymore. The error that used to pop up when adding files to svnignore now also shows up while commiting. While searching the web I found some people having this same message appearing because they had files only different in upper- / lower-case naming. I checked my repository and did not find such files. I also read somewhere about people having troubles with WebDAV and file locking, because WebDAV's file locking capabilities seem to be very limited. At some stage I got errors telling me my repository was locked and thus the operations could not be completed. This error though did not appear anymore, since I setup a completely fresh repository and working copy. I would really appreciate any help anyone can provide me in fixing this problem! If there are any more questions feel free to ask. I know this is a somewhat unusual setup. Best regards, Daniel

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• Postfix certificate verification failed for smtp.gmail.com

  - by Andi Unpam

  I have problem, my email server using postfix with gmail smtp, i use account google apps, but always ask for SASL authentication failed, I sent an email using php script, after I see the error logs in the wrong password, after I open the URL from the browser and no verification postfixnya captcha and could return, but after 2-3 days later happen like that again. This my config postfix #myorigin = /etc/mailname smtpd_banner = Hostingbitnet Mail Server biff = no append_dot_mydomain = no readme_directory = no myhostname = webmaster.hostingbitnet.com alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases myorigin = /etc/mailname mydestination = localhost, webmaster.hostingbitnet.com, localhost.localdomain, 103.9.126.163 relayhost = [smtp.googlemail.com]:587 relay_transport = relay relay_destination_concurrency_limit = 1 mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8, 192.168.0.0/16, 172.16.0.0/16, 10.0.0.0/8, 103.9.126.0/24 mailbox_size_limit = 0 recipient_delimiter = + inet_interfaces = all default_transport = smtp relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:587 smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/google-apps smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous smtp_use_tls = yes smtp_sender_dependent_authentication = yes tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom default_destination_concurrency_limit = 1 smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/postfix/tls/root.crt smtp_tls_cert_file = /etc/postfix/tls/cert.pem smtp_tls_key_file = /etc/postfix/tls/privatekey.pem smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:$data_directory/smtp_tls_session_cache smtp_tls_security_level = may smtp_tls_loglevel = 1 smtpd_tls_CAfile = /etc/postfix/tls/root.crt smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/postfix/tls/cert.pem smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/postfix/tls/privatekey.pem smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:$data_directory/smtpd_tls_session_cache smtpd_tls_security_level = may smtpd_tls_loglevel = 1 #secure smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks,permit_sasl_authenticated,check_client_access hash:/var/lib/pop-before-smtp/hosts,reject_unauth_destination Log from mail.log Oct 30 14:51:13 webmaster postfix/smtp[9506]: Untrusted TLS connection established to smtp.gmail.com[74.125.25.109]:587: TLSv1 with cipher RC4-SHA (128/128 bits) Oct 30 14:51:15 webmaster postfix/smtp[9506]: 87E2739400B1: SASL authentication failed; server smtp.gmail.com[74.125.25.109] said: 535-5.7.1 Please log in with your web browser and then try again. Learn more at?535 5.7.1 https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?answer=78754 ix9sm156630pbc.7 Oct 30 14:51:15 webmaster postfix/smtp[9506]: setting up TLS connection to smtp.gmail.com[74.125.25.108]:587 Oct 30 14:51:15 webmaster postfix/smtp[9506]: certificate verification failed for smtp.gmail.com[74.125.25.108]:587: untrusted issuer /C=US/O=Equifax/OU=Equifax Secure Certificate Authority Oct 30 14:51:16 webmaster postfix/smtp[9506]: Untrusted TLS connection established to smtp.gmail.com[74.125.25.108]:587: TLSv1 with cipher RC4-SHA (128/128 bits) Oct 30 14:51:17 webmaster postfix/smtp[9506]: 87E2739400B1: to=<[email protected]>, relay=smtp.gmail.com[74.125.25.108]:587, delay=972, delays=967/0.03/5.5/0, dsn=4.7.1, status=deferred (SASL authentication failed; server smtp.gmail.com[74.125.25.108] said: 535-5.7.1 Please log in with your web browser and then try again. Learn more at?535 5.7.1 https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?answer=78754 s1sm3850paz.0) Oct 30 14:51:17 webmaster postfix/error[9508]: B3960394009D: to=<[email protected]>, orig_to=<root>, relay=none, delay=29992, delays=29986/5.6/0/0.07, dsn=4.7.1, status=deferred (delivery temporarily suspended: SASL authentication failed; server smtp.gmail.com[74.125.25.108] said: 535-5.7.1 Please log in with your web browser and then try again. Learn more at?535 5.7.1 https://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?answer=78754 s1sm3850paz.0) BTW I made cert follow the link here http://koti.kapsi.fi/ptk/postfix/postfix-tls-cacert.shtml and it worked, but after 2/3 days my email back to problem invalid SASL, and then i'm required to log in use a browser and enter the captcha there but success log in after input captcha, and my email server can send emails from telnet or php script. but it will be back in trouble after 2/3days later. My question is how to make it permanent certificate? Thanks n greeting.

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• what's wrong with my Ubuntu 11.10 bind9 configuration?

  - by John Bowlinger

  I've followed several tutorials on installing your own nameservers and I'm pretty much at my wit's end, because I cannot get them to resolve. Note, the actual domain and ip address has been changed for privacy to example.com and 192.168.0.1. My named.conf.local file: zone "example.com" { type master; file "/var/cache/bind/example.com.db"; }; zone "0.168.192.in_addr.arpa" { type master; file "/var/cache/bind/192.168.0.db"; }; My named.conf.options file: options { forwarders { 192.168.0.1; }; auth-nxdomain no; # conform to RFC1035 listen-on-v6 { any; }; }; My resolv.conf file: search example.com. nameserver 192.168.0.1 My Forward DNS file: ORIGIN example.com. $TTL 86400 @ IN SOA ns1.example.com. root.example.com. ( 2012083101 ; Serial 604800 ; Refresh 86400 ; Retry 2419200 ; Expire 3600 ) ; Negative Cache TTL example.com. NS ns1.example.com. example.com. NS ns2.example.com. example.com. MX 10 mail.example.com. @ IN A 192.168.0.1 ns1.example.com IN A 192.168.0.1 ns2.example.com IN A 192.168.0.2 mail IN A 192.168.0.1 server1 IN A 192.168.0.1 gateway IN CNAME ns1.example.com. headoffice IN CNAME server1.example.com. smtp IN CNAME mail.example.com. pop IN CNAME mail.example.com. imap IN CNAME mail.example.com. www IN CNAME server1.example.com. sql IN CNAME server1.example.com. And my reverse DNS: $ORIGIN 0.168.192.in-addr.arpa. $TTL 86400 @ IN SOA ns1.example.com. root.example.com. ( 2009013101 ; Serial 604800 ; Refresh 86400 ; Retry 2419200 ; Expire 3600 ) ; Negative Cache TTL 1 PTR mail.example.com. 1 PTR server1.example.com. 2 PTR ns1.example.com. Yet, when I restart bind9 and do: host ns1.example.com localhost I get: Using domain server: Name: localhost Address: 127.0.0.1#53 Aliases: Host ns1.example.com.example.com not found: 2(SERVFAIL) Similarly, for: host 192.168.0.1 localhost I get: ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached Anybody know what's going on? Btw, my domain name "www.example.com" that I've used in this question is being forwarded to my ISP's nameservers. Would that affect my bind9 configuration? I want to learn how to do set up nameservers on my own for learning, so that is why I'm going through all this trouble.

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• PC runs very slowly for no apparent reason

  - by GalacticCowboy

  I have a Dell Latitude D820 that I've owned for about 2.5 years. It is a Core 2 Duo T7200 2.0GHz, with 2 GB of RAM, an 80 GB hard drive and an NVidia Quadro 120M video card. The computer was purchased in late November of 2006 with XP Pro, and included a free upgrade to Vista Business. (Vista was available on MSDN but not yet via retail, so the Vista Business upgrades weren't shipped until March of '07.) Since we had an MSDN subscription at the time, I installed Vista Ultimate on it pretty much as soon as I got it. It ran happily until sometime in the spring of 2007 when Media Center (which I had never used except to watch DVDs) started throwing some kind of bizarre SQL (CE?) error. This error would pop up at random times just while using the computer. Furthermore, Media Center would no longer start. I never identified the cause of this error. I had the Vista Business upgrade by this time, so I nuked the machine, installed XP and all the drivers, and then the Vista Business upgrade. Again, it ran happily for a few months and then started behaving badly once again. Vista Business doesn't have Media Center, so this exhibited completely unrelated symptoms. For no apparent reason and at fairly random times, the machine would suddenly appear to freeze up or run very slowly. For example, launching a new application window (any app) might take 30-45 seconds to paint fully. However, Task Manager showed very low CPU load, memory, etc. I tried all the normal stuff (chkdsk, defrag, etc.) and ran several diagnostic programs to try to identify any problems, but none found anything. It eventually reached the point that the computer was all but unusable, so I nuked it again and installed XP. This time I decided to stick with XP instead of going to Vista. However, within the past couple of months it has started to exhibit the same symptoms in XP that I used to see in Vista. The computer is still under Dell warranty until December, but so far they aren't any help unless I can identify a specific problem. A friend (partner in a now-dead business) has an identical machine that was purchased at the same time. His machine exhibits none of these symptoms, which leads me to believe it is a hardware issue, but I can't figure out how to identify it. Any ideas? Utilities? Seen something similar? At this point I can't even identify any pattern to the behavior, but would be willing to run a "stress test"-style app for as long as a couple days if I had any hope that it would find something. EDIT July 17 I'm testing jerryjvl's answer regarding the video card, though I'm not sure it fully explains the symptoms yet. This morning I ran a video stress test. The test itself ran fine, but immediately afterward the PC started acting up again. I left ProcExp open and various system processes were consuming 50-60% of the CPU but with no apparent reason. For example, "services.exe" was eating about 40%, but the sum of its child processes wasn't higher than about 5%. I left it alone for several minutes to settle down, and then it was fine again. I used the "video card stability test" from firestone-group.com. Its output isn't very detailed, but it at least exercises the hardware pretty hard. EDIT July 22 Thanks for your excellent suggestions. Here is an update on what I have tried so far. Ran memtest86, SeaTools (Seagate), Hitachi drive fitness test, video card stability test (mentioned above). The video card test was the only one that seemed to produce any results, though it didn't occur during the actual test. I defragged the drive (again...) with JkDefrag I dropped the video card

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• Our Look at Opera 10.50 Web Browser

  - by Asian Angel

  Everyone has been talking about the newest version of Opera recently but perhaps you have not looked at it too closely yet. Today we will take a look at 10.50 and let you see what this “new browser” is all about. The New Engines Carakan JavaScript Engine: Runs web applications up to 7 times faster than its predecessor Futhark Vega Graphics Library: Enables super fast and smooth graphics on everything from tab switching to webpage animation Presto 2.5: Provides support for HTML5, CSS2.1 and the latest CSS3 standards A Look at the Features Available If you have installed or used older versions of Opera before then the default look after a clean install will probably seem rather different. The main differences in appearance are mainly located within the “glass border” areas of the browser. The “Speed Dial” setup looks and works just as well as in previous versions. You can set a favorite wallpaper or image as your background and choose the number of “dials” using the “Configure Speed Dial Command”. One of the “standout” differences is the “O Button”. All of the menus have been condensed into this single access point but it only takes a few moments to find what you are looking for. If you have used the style before in earlier versions of Opera some of the items have been moved around. For those who prefer the “Menu Bar” that can be easily restored using the “Show Menu Bar Command”. If desired you can actually “extend” the “Tab Bar” downwards to display thumbnails of your open tabs. Just use your mouse to grab the bottom of the “Tab Bar” and adjust it to suit your personal needs. The only problem with this feature is that it will quickly use up a good sized portion of your available UI and browser window space. The “Password Manager” is ready to access when needed…the background for the button will turn a shiny metallic blue when you open a webpage that you have “Login Information” saved for. One of the new features is a small “Recycle Bin Button” in the upper right corner. Clicking on this will display a list of recently closed tabs letting you have easy access to any tabs that you may have accidentally closed. This is definitely a great feature to have as an easy access button. For those who were used to how the “Zoom Feature” looked before it has a new “look” to it. Instead of the pop-up menu-type listing of “view sizes” present before you now have a slider button that you can use to adjust the zooming level. For our default setup here the “Sidebar Panels” available were: “Bookmarks, Widgets, Unite, Notes, Downloads, History, & Panels”. Additional panels such as “Links, Windows, Search, Info, etc.” are available if you want and/or need them (accessible using the “Panels Plus Sign Button”). The “Opera Link Button” makes it easy for you to synchronize your “Speed Dial, Bookmarks, Personal Bar, Custom Searches, History & Notes”. Note: “Opera Link” requires an account and can be signed up for using the link provided below. Want to share files with your family and friends? “Unite” allows you to do that and more. With “Unite” you can: “Stream Music, Show Photo Galleries, Share Files and/or Folders, & host webpages directly from your browser”. We have a more in-depth look at “Unite” in our article here. Note: Use of “Unite” requires an Opera account. Got a slow internet connection? “Opera Turbo” can help with that by running the web traffic through their “compression servers” to speed up your web browsing. Keep in mind that “Opera Turbo” will not engage if you are accessing a secure website (i.e. your bank’s website) thus preserving your security. Note: “Opera Turbo” can be set up to automatically detect slow internet connections (i.e. crowded Wi-Fi in a cafe). Opera has a built-in “Private Browsing Mode” now for those who prefer anonymous browsing and want to keep the “history records clean” on their computer. To access it go to “Tabs and windows” and select “New private tab” or “New private window” as desired. When you open your new “Private Tab or Window” you will see the following message with details on how Opera will handle browsing information and a large “door hanger symbol”. Notice that the one tab is locked into “Private Browsing Mode” while the others are still working in “Regular Browsing Mode”. Very nice! A miniature version of the “door hanger symbol” will be present on any tab that is locked into “Private Browsing Mode”. If you are using Windows 7 then you will love how things look from your “Taskbar”. Here you can see four very nice looking thumbnails for the tabs that we had open. All that you have to do is click on the desired thumbnail… The “Context Menu” looks just as lovely as the thumbnails and definitely has some terrific functionality built into it. Add Enhanced Aero Capability If you love “Aero” and want more for your new Opera install then we have the perfect theme for you. The theme’s name is Z1-AV69 and once you have downloaded it you will need to place it in the “Skins Subfolder” in Opera’s “Program Files Folder”. Note: For our example we used version 1.10 but version 2.00 is now available (link provided below). Once you have restarted Opera, go to the “O Menu” and select “Appearance”. When the “Appearance Window” opens click on “Z1-Glass Skin” and then click “OK”. All of a sudden you will have more “Aero Goodness” to enjoy. Compare this screenshot with the one at the top of this article…the only part that is not transparent now is the browser window area itself. Want even more “Aero Goodness”? Right click on the “Tab Bar” and set “Tab Bar Placement” to “Left”. Note: You can achieve the same effect by setting the “Tab Bar Placement” to “Right”. With the “Speed Dial” visible you will be able to see your wallpaper with ease. While this is obviously not for everyone it does make for a great visual trick. Portable Versions Perhaps you need this wonderful new version of Opera to go with you wherever you do during the day. Not a problem…just visit the Opera USB website to choose a version that works best for you. You can select from “Zip or Exe” setup files and if needed update an older portable version using a “Zipped Update Files Package”. If you are updating an older version keep in mind that you will need to delete the old “OperaUSB.exe. File” due to changes with the new setup files. During our tests updating older portable versions went well for the most part but we did experience a few “odd UI quirks” here and there…so we recommend setting up a clean install if possible. Conclusion The new 10.50 release is a pleasure to use and is a recommended install for your system. Whether you are considering trying Opera for the first time or have been using it for a bit we think that you will pleased with everything that the 10.50 release has to offer. For those who would like to add User Scripts to Opera be certain to look at our how-to article here. Links Download Opera 10.50 for your location (Windows) Get the latest Snapshot versions for Linux & Mac Sign up for an Opera Link account View In-Depth detail on Opera 10.50’s features Download the Z1-AV69 Aero Theme Download Portable Opera 10.50 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Set the Speed Dial as the Opera Startup PageSet Up User Scripts in Opera BrowserScan Files for Viruses Before You Download With Dr.WebTurn Your Computer into a File, Music, and Web Server with Opera UniteSet the Default Browser on Ubuntu From the Command Line 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 Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

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

  - by Asian Angel

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

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• WinInet Apps failing when Internet Explorer is set to Offline Mode

  - by Rick Strahl

  Ran into a nasty issue last week when all of a sudden many of my old applications that are using WinInet for HTTP access started failing. Specifically, the WinInet HttpSendRequest() call started failing with an error of 2, which when retrieving the error boils down to: WinInet Error 2: The system cannot find the file specified Now this error can pop up in many legitimate scenarios with WinInet such as when no Internet connection is available or the HTTP configuration (usually configured in Internet Explorer’s options) is misconfigured. The error typically means that the server in question cannot be found or more specifically an Internet connection can’t be established. In this case the problem started suddenly and was causing some of my own applications (old Visual FoxPro apps using my own wwHttp library) and all Adobe Air applications (which apparently uses WinInet for its basic HTTP stack) along with a few more oddball applications to fail instantly when trying to connect via HTTP. Most other applications – all of my installed browsers, email clients, various social network updaters all worked just fine. It seems it was only WinInet apps that were failing. Yet oddly Internet Explorer appeared to be working. So the problem seemed to be isolated to those ‘classic’ applications using WinInet. WinInet’s base configuration uses the Internet Explorer options dialog. To check this out I typically go to the Internet Explorer options and find the Connection tab, and check out the LAN Setup. Make sure there are no rogue proxy settings or configuration scripts that are invalid. Trying with Auto-configuration on and off also can often fix ‘real’ configuration errors. This time however this wasn’t a problem – nothing in the LAN configuration was set (all default). I also played with the Automatic detection of settings which also had no effect. I also tried to use Fiddler to see if that would tell me something. Fiddler has a few additional WinInet configuration options in its configuration. Running Fiddler and hitting an HTTP request using WinInet would never actually hit Fiddler – the failure would occur before WinInet ever fired up the HTTP connection to go through the Fiddler HTTP proxy. And the Culprit is: Internet Explorer’s Work Offline Option The culprit in this situation was Internet Explorer which at some point, unknown to me switched into Offline Mode and was then shut down: When this Offline mode is checked when IE is running *or* if IE gets shut down with this flag set, all applications using WinInet by default assume that it’s running in offline mode. Depending on your caching HTTP headers and whether the page was cached previously you may or may not get a response or an error. For an independent non-browser application this will be highly unpredictable and likely result in failures getting online – especially if the application forces requests to always reload by disabling HTTP caching (as I do on most of my dynamic HTTP clients). What makes this especially tricky is that even when IE is in offline mode in the browser, you can still browse around the Web *if* you have a connection. IE will try to load anything it has cached from the local cache, but as soon as you hit a URL that isn’t cached it will automatically try to access that URL and uncheck the Work Offline option. Conversely if you get knocked off the Internet and browse in IE 9, IE will automatically go into offline mode. I never explicitly set offline mode – it just automatically sets itself on and off depending on the connection. Problem is if you’re not using IE all the time (as I do – rarely and just for testing so usually a few commonly used URLs) and you left it in offline mode when you exit, offline mode stays set which results in the above head scratcher. Ack. This isn’t new behavior in IE 9 BTW – this behavior has always been there, but I think what’s different is that IE now automatically switches between online and offline modes without notifying you at all, so it’s hard to tell when you are offline. Fixing the Issue in your Code If you have an application that is using WinInet, there’s a WinInet option called INTERNET_OPTION_IGNORE_OFFLINE. I just checked this out in my own applications and Internet Explorer 9 and it works, but apparently it’s been broken for some older releases (I can’t confirm how far back though) – lots of posts seem to suggest the flag doesn’t work. However, in IE 9 at least it does seem to work if you call InternetSetOption before you call HttpOpenRequest with the Http Session handle. In FoxPro code I use: DECLARE INTEGER InternetSetOption ;    IN WININET.DLL ;    INTEGER HINTERNET,;    INTEGER dwFlags,;    INTEGER @dwValue,;    INTEGER cbSize lnOptionValue = 1   && BOOL TRUE pass by reference   *** Set needed SSL flags lnResult=InternetSetOption(this.hHttpSession,;    INTERNET_OPTION_IGNORE_OFFLINE ,;  && 77    @lnOptionValue ,4)   DECLARE INTEGER HttpOpenRequest ;    IN WININET.DLL ;    INTEGER hHTTPHandle,;    STRING lpzReqMethod,;    STRING lpzPage,;    STRING lpzVersion,;    STRING lpzReferer,;    STRING lpzAcceptTypes,;    INTEGER dwFlags,;    INTEGER dwContextw     hHTTPResult=HttpOpenRequest(THIS.hHttpsession,;    lcVerb,;    tcPage,;    NULL,NULL,NULL,;    INTERNET_FLAG_RELOAD + ;    IIF(THIS.lsecurelink,INTERNET_FLAG_SECURE,0) + ;    this.nHTTPServiceFlags,0) …  And this fixes the issue at least for IE 9… In my FoxPro wwHttp class I now call this by default to never get bitten by this again… This solves the problem permanently for my HTTP client. I never want to see offline operation in an HTTP client API – it’s just too unpredictable in handling errors and the last thing you want is getting unpredictably stale data. Problem solved but this behavior is – well ugly. But then that’s to be expected from an API that’s based on Internet Explorer, eh?© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in HTTP  Windows  

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• Getting Started with Media Browser for Windows Media Center

  - by DigitalGeekery

  If you are a Windows Media Center user, you’ll really want to check out Media Browser. The Media Browser plug-in for Windows Media Center takes your digital media files and displays them in a visually appealing, user friendly interface, complete with images and metadata. Requirements Windows 7 or Vista Microsoft .Net 3.5 Framework  Preparing your Media Files For Media Browser to be able to automatically download images and metadata for your media libraries, your files will have to be correctly named. For example, if you have an mp4 file of the movie Batman Begins, it needs to be named Batman Begins.mp4. It cannot be Batmanbegins.mp4 or Batman-begins.mp4. Otherwise, it’s unlikely that Media Browser will display images and metadata. If you find some of your files aren’t pulling cover art or metadata, double-check the official title of the media on a site like IMBD.com. TV Show files TV show files are handled a bit differently. Every TV series in your collection must have a main folder with the show’s name and individual subfolders for each season. Here is an example of folder structure and supported naming conventions. TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\s01e01 – episode 1.mp4 TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\South Park 1×01 – episode 1.mp4 TV Shows\South Park\Season 1\101 – episode 1.mp4  Note: You need to always have a Season 1 folder even if the show only has only one season. If you have several seasons of a particular show, but don’t happen to have Season 1, simply create a blank season 1 folder. Without a season 1 folder, other seasons will not display properly. Installation and Configuration Download and run the latest Media Browser .msi file by taking the defaults. (Download link below) When you reach the final window, leave the “Configure initial settings” box checked, and click “Finish.” You may get a pop up window informing you that folder permissions are not set correctly for Media Browser. Click “Yes.” Adding Your Media The Browser Configuration Tool should have opened automatically. If not, you can open it by going to Start > All Programs > Media Browser > Media Browser Configuration Wizard. To begin adding media files, click “Add.” Browse for a folder that contains media files and click “OK.” Here we are adding a folder with a group of movie files. You can add multiple folders to each media library. For example, if you have movie files stored in 4 or 5 different folders, you can add them all under a single library in Media Browser.  To add additional folders, click the “Add” button on the right side under your currently added folder. The “Add” button to the left will add an additional Media Library, such as one for TV Shows. When you are finished, close out of the Media Browser Configuration Tool. Open Windows Media Center. You will see Media Browser tile on the main interface. Click to open it. When you initially open Media Browser, you will be prompted to run the initial configuration. Click “OK.” You will see a few general configuration options. The important option is the Metadata. Leave this option checked (it is by default) if you wish to pull images & other metadata for your media. When finished, click “Continue,” and then “OK” to restart Media Browser. When you re-enter Media Browser you’ll see your Media Categories listed below, and recently added files in the main display. Click on a Media Library to view the files.   Click “View” at the top to check out some of the different display options to choose from. Below you see can “Detail.” This presents your videos in a list to the left. When you hover over a title, the synopsis and cover art is displayed to the right. “Cover Flow” displays your titles in a right to left format with mirror cover art. “Thumb Strip” displays your titles in a strip along the bottom with a synopsis, image, and movie data above. Configurations Settings and options can be changed through the Media Browser Configuration Tool, or directly in Media Browser by clicking on the “Wrench” at the bottom right of the main Media Browser page. Certain settings may only be available in one location or the other. Some will be available in both places.   Plug-ins and Themes Media Browser features a variety of Plug-ins and Themes that can add optional customization and slick visual appeal. To install plug-ins or themes, open the Media Browser Configuration Tool. Click on the “plug-ins” tab, and then the “More Plug-ins…” button. Note: Clicking on “Advanced” at the top will reveal several additional configuration tabs. Browse the list of plug-ins on the left. When you find want you like, select it and then click “Install.” When the install is complete, you’ll see them listed under “Installed Plug-ins.” To activate any installed theme, click on the “Display” tab. Select it from the Visual Theme drop down list. Close out of the Media Browser Configuration Tool when finished. Some themes, such as the “Diamond” theme shown below, include optional views and settings which can be accessed through a configuration button at the top of the screen. Clicking on the movie gives you additional images and information such as a synopsis, runtime, IMDB rating…   … and even actors and character names.   All that’s left is to hit “Play” when you’re ready to watch.   Conclusion Media Browser is a fantastic plug-in that brings an entirely different level of media management and aesthetics to Windows Media Center. There are numerous additional customizations and configurations we have not covered here such as adding film trailers, music support, and integrating Recorded TV. Media Browser will run on both Windows 7 and Vista. Extenders are also supported but may require additional configuration. Download Media Browser Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Netflix Watchnow in Windows Vista Media Center (Gmedia)Schedule Updates for Windows Media CenterIntegrate Hulu Desktop and Windows Media Center in Windows 7Add Color Coding to Windows 7 Media Center Program GuideIntegrate Boxee with Media Center in Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 If it were only this easy SyncToy syncs Files and Folders across Computers on a Network (or partitions on the same drive) Classic Cinema Online offers 100’s of OnDemand Movies OutSync will Sync Photos of your Friends on Facebook and Outlook Windows 7 Easter Theme YoWindoW, a real time weather screensaver

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• Find More Streaming TV Online with Clicker.tv

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Looking for a way to access more of your favorite TV Shows and other online entertainment? Today we’ll take a look at Clicker.tv which offers an awesome way to find tons of TV programs and movies. Clicker.tv Clicker.tv is an HTML5 web application that indexes both free and premium content from sources like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, and more. Some movies or episodes, such as those from Netflix and Amazon.com’s Video on Demand, will require viewers to have a membership, or pay a fee to access content. There is also a Clicker.tv app for Boxee.   Navigation Navigating in Clicker.tv is rather easy with your keyboard. Directional Keys: navigate up, down, left, and right. Enter: make a selection Backspace: return to previous screen Escape: return to the Clicker.tv home screen. Note: You can also navigate through Clicker.tv with your PC remote. Recommended Browsers Firefox 3.6 + Safari 4.0 + Internet Explorer 8 + Google Chrome Note: You’ll need the latest version of Flash installed to play the majority of content. Earlier versions of the above browsers may work, but for full keyboard functionality, stick with the recommendations. Using Clicker.tv The first time you go to Clicker.tv, (link below) you’ll be met with a welcome screen and some helpful hints. Click Enter when finished.   The Home screen feature Headliners, Trending Shows, and Trending Episodes. You can scroll through the different options and category links along the left side.   The Search link pulls up an onscreen keyboard so you can enter search terms with a remote as well as a keyboard. Type in your search terms and matching items are displayed on the screen.   You can also browse by a wide variety of categories. Select TV to browse only available TV programs. Or, browse only Movies in the movie category. There are also links for Web content and Music.   Creating an Account You can access all Clicker.tv content without an account, but a Clicker account allows users to create playlists and subscribe to shows and have them automatically added to their playlist. You’ll need to go to Clicker.com and create an account. You’ll find the link at the upper right of the page. Enter a username, password and email address. There also an option to link with Facebook, or you can simply Skip this step.   Go to Clicker.tv and sign in. You can manually type in your credentials or use the onscreen keyboard with your remote.   Settings If you’d prefer not to display content from premium sites or Netflix, you can remove them through the Settings. Toggle Amazon, iTunes and Netflix on or off.   Watching Episodes To watch an episode, select the image to begin playing from the default source, or select one of the other options. You can see in the example below that you can choose to watch the episode from Fox, Hulu, or Amazon Video on Demand.   Your episode will then launch and begin playing from your chosen source. If you choose a premium content source such as iTunes or Amazon’s VOD, you’ll be taken to the Amazon’s website or iTunes and prompted to purchase the content.   Playlists Once you’ve created an account and signed in, you can begin adding Shows to your playlist. Choose a series and select Add to Playlist.   You’ll see in the example below that Family Guy has been Added and the number 142 is shown next to the playlist icon to indicate that 142 episodes has been added to your playlist. Underneath the listings for each episode in your playlist you can mark as Watched, or Remove individual episodes.   You can also view the playlist or make any changes from the Clicker.com website. Click on “Playlist” on the top right of the Clicker.com site to access your playlists. You can select individual episodes from your playlists, remove them, or mark them as watched or unwatched. Clicker.TV and Boxee Boxee offers a Clicker.TV app that features a limited amount of the Clicker.TV content. You’ll find Clicker.TV located in the Boxee Apps Library. Select the Clicker App and then choose Start. From the Clicker App interface you can search or browse for available content. Select an episode you’d like to view… Then select play in the pop up window. You can also add it to your Boxee queue, share it, or add a shortcut, just as you can from other Boxee apps. When you click play your episode will launch and begin playing in Boxee. Conclusion Clicker.TV is currently still in Beta and has some limitations. Typical remotes won’t work completely in all external websites. So, you’ll still need a keyboard to be able to perform some operations such as switching to full screen mode. The Boxee app offers a more fully remote friendly environment, but unfortunately lacks a good portion of the Clicker.tv content. As with many content sites, availability of certain programming may be limited by your geographic location. Want to add Clicker.TV functionality to Windows Media Center? You can do so through the Boxee Integration for Windows 7 Media Center plug-in. Clicker.tv Clicker.com Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Share Digital Media With Other Computers on a Home Network with Windows 7Stream Music and Video Over the Internet with Windows Media Player 12Listen to Online Radio with AntennaEnable Media Streaming in Windows Home Server to Windows Media PlayerNorton Internet Security 2010 [Review] 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 HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Nice Websites To Watch TV Shows Online 24 Million Sites Windows Media Player Glass Icons (icons we like) How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos

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• Convert a DVD Movie Directly to AVI with FairUse Wizard 2.9

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you looking for a way to backup your DVD movie collection to AVI?  Today we’ll show you how to rip a DVD movie directly to AVI with FairUse Wizard. About FairUse Wizard FairUse Wizard 2.9 uses the DivX, Xvid, or h.264 codec to convert DVD to an AVI file. It comes in both a free version and commercial version. The free, or “Light” version, can create files up 700MB while the commercial version can output a 1400MB file. This will allow you to back up your movies to CD, or even multiple movies on a single DVD. FairUse Wizard states that it does not work on copy protected discs, but we’ve seen it work on all but some of the most recent copy protection. For this tutorial we’re using the free Light Edition to convert a DVD to AVI. They also offer a commercial version that you can get for $29.99 and it offers even more encoding possibilities for converting video to you portable digital devices. Installation and Configuration Download and install FairUse Wizard. (Download link below). Once the install is complete, open FairUse Wizard by going to Start > All Programs >  FairUse Wizard 2 >  FairUse Wizard 2.   FairUse Wizard will open on the new project screen. Select “Create a new project” and type a project name into the text box. This will be used as the file output name.  Ex: A project name of Simpsons Movie will give you an output file of Simpsons Movie.avi.   Next, browse for a destination folder for the output file and temp files. Note that you will need a minimum of 6 GB of free disk space for the conversion process. Note: Much of that 6 GB will be used for temporary files that we will delete after the conversion process.   Click on the Options button at the bottom.   Under Preferences, choose your preferred video codec and file output size. XviD and x264 are installed by default. If you prefer to use DivX, you will have to install it separately. Also note the “Two pass” option. Checking the “Two pass” box will encode your video twice for higher quality, but will take more time. Un-checking the box will speed up the conversion process.   Under Audio track, note that English subtitles are enabled by default, so to remove the subtitles, you will need to change the dropdown list so it shows only a dash (-). You can also select “Use TV Mode” if your primary playback will be on a 4:3 TV screen. Click “Next.” Full Auto Mode vs. Manual Mode You should now be back to the initial screen. Next, we’ll need to determine whether or not we can use “Full Auto Mode” to convert the movie. The difference is that “Full Auto Mode” will automatically perform a few steps that you will otherwise have to do manually. If you choose the “Full Auto Mode” option, FairUse Wizard will look for the video on the DVD with the longest duration and assume it is the chain that it should convert to AVI. It’s possible, however, your disc may contain a few chains of similar size, such as a theatrical cut and director’s cut, and the longest chain may not be the one you wish to convert. Make sure that “Full auto mode” is not checked yet, and click “Next.”   FairUse Wizard will parse the IFO files and display all video chains longer than 60  seconds. In most cases, you will only find that the largest chain is the one closely matching the duration of the movie. In these instances, you can use “Full Auto Mode.” If you find more than one chain that are close in duration to the length of the movie, consult the literature on the DVD case, or search online, to find the actual running time of the movie. If the proper file chain is not the longest chain, you won’t be able to use “Full Auto Mode.”   Full Auto Mode To use “Full Auto Mode,” simply click the “Back” button to return to the initial screen Now, place a check in the “Full auto mode” check box. Click “Next.” You will then be prompted to chose your DVD drive, then click “OK.” FairUse Wizard will parse the IFO files… … and then prompt you to Select your drive that contains the DVD one more time before beginning the conversion process. Click “OK.”   Manual Mode If you cannot (or don’t wish to) use Full Auto Mode, choose the appropriate video chain and click “Next.” FairUse Wizard will first go through the process of indexing the video. Note: If you get a runtime error during this portion of the process, it likely means that FairUse Wizard cannot handle the copy protection, and thus cannot convert the DVD. FairUse Wizard will automatically detect a cropping region. If necessary, you can edit the cropping region by adjusting the cropping region settings to the left. Click “Next.” Next, click “Auto Detect” to choose the proper field combination. Click “OK” on the pop up window that displays your Field Mode. Then click “Next.” This next screen is mainly comprised of settings from the Options screen. You can make changes at this point such as codec or output size. Click “Next” when ready.   Video Conversion Now the video conversion process will begin. This may take a few hours depending on your system’s hardware. Note: There is a check box to “Shutdown computer when done” if you choose to run the conversion overnight or before leaving for work. The first phase will be video encoding… Then the audio… If you chose the “Two Pass” option, your video video will be encoded again on 2nd pass. Then you’re finished. Unfortunately, FairUse Wizard doesn’t clean up after itself very well. After the process is complete, you’ll want to browse to your output directory and delete all the temporary files as they take up a considerable amount of hard drive space. Now you’re ready to enjoy your movie. Conclusion FairUse Wizard is a nice way to backup your DVD movies to good quality .avi files. You can store them on your hard drive, watch them on a media PC, or burn them to disc. Many DVD players even allow for playback of DivX or XviD encoded video from a CD or DVD. For those of you with children, you can burn that AVI file to CD for your kids, and keep your original DVDs stored safely out of harms way. Download Download FairUse Wizard 2.9 LE Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Kantaris is a Unique Media Player Based on VLCHow to Make/Edit a movie with Windows Movie Maker in Windows VistaAutomatically Mount and View ISO files in Windows 7 Media CenterTune Your ClearType Font Settings in Windows VistaAdd Images and Metadata to Windows 7 Media Center Movie Library 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 Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

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• On Her Majesty's Secret Source Code: .NET Reflector 7 Early Access Builds Now Available

  - by Bart Read

  Dodgy Bond references aside, I'm extremely happy to be able to tell you that we've just released our first .NET Reflector 7 Early Access build. We're going to make these available over the coming weeks via the main .NET Reflector download page at: http://reflector.red-gate.com/Download.aspx Please have a play and tell us what you think in the forum we've set up. Also, please let us know if you run into any problems in the same place. The new version so far comes with numerous decompilation improvements including (after 5 years!) support for iterator blocks - i.e., the yield statement first seen in .NET 2.0. We've also done a lot of work to solidify the support for .NET 4.0. Clive's written about the work he's done to support iterator blocks in much more detail here, along with the odd problem he's encountered when dealing with compiler generated code: http://www.simple-talk.com/community/blogs/clivet/96199.aspx. On the UI front we've started what will ultimately be a rewrite of the entire front-end, albeit broken into stages over two or three major releases. The most obvious addition at the moment is tabbed browsing, which you can see in Figure 1. Figure 1. .NET Reflector's new tabbed decompilation feature. Use CTRL+Click on any item in the assembly browser tree, or any link in the source code view, to open it in a new tab. This isn't by any means finished. I'll be tying up loose ends for the next few weeks, with a major focus on performance and resource usage. .NET Reflector has historically been a largely single-threaded application which has been fine up until now but, as you might expect, the addition of browser-style tabbing has pushed this approach somewhat beyond its limit. You can see this if you refresh the assemblies list by hitting F5. This shows up another problem: we really need to make Reflector remember everything you had open before you refreshed the list, rather than just the last item you viewed - I discovered that it's always done the latter, but it used to hide all panes apart from the treeview after a Refresh, including the decompiler/disassembler window. Ultimately I've got plans to add the whole VS/Chrome/Firefox style ability to drag a tab into the middle of nowhere to spawn a new window, but I need to be mindful of the add-ins, amongst other things, so it's possible that might slip to a 7.5 or 8.0 release. You'll also notice that .NET Reflector 7 now needs .NET 3.5 or later to run. We made this jump because we wanted to offer ourselves a much better chance of adding some really cool functionality to support newer technologies, such as Silverlight and Windows Phone 7. We've also taken the opportunity to start using WPF for UI development, which has frankly been a godsend. The learning curve is practically vertical but, I kid you not, it's just a far better world. Really. Stop using WinForms. Now. Why are you still using it? I had to go back and work on an old WinForms dialog for an hour or two yesterday and it really made me wince. The point is we'll be able to move the UI in some exciting new directions that will make Reflector easier to use whilst continuing to develop its functionality without (and this is key) cluttering the interface. The 3.5 language enhancements should also enable us to be much more productive over the longer term. I know most of you have .NET Fx 3.5 or 4.0 already but, if you do need to install a new version, I'd recommend you jump straight to 4.0 because, for one thing, it's faster, and if you're starting afresh there's really no reason not to. Despite the Fx version jump the Visual Studio add-in should still work fine in Visual Studio 2005, and obviously will continue to work in Visual Studio 2008 and 2010. If you do run into problems, again, please let us know here. As before, we continue to support every edition of Visual Studio exception the Express Editions. Speaking of Visual Studio, we've also been improving the add-in. You can now open and explore decompiled code for any referenced assembly in any project in your solution. Just right-click on the reference, then click Decompile and Explore on the context menu. Reflector will pop up a progress box whilst it decompiles your assembly (Figure 2) - you can move this out of the way whilst you carry on working. Figure 2. Decompilation progress. This isn't modal so you can just move it out of the way and carry on working. Once it's done you can explore your assembly in the Reflector treeview (Figure 3), also accessible via the .NET Reflector Explore Decompiled Assemblies main menu item. Double-click on any item to open decompiled source in the Visual Studio source code view. Use right-click and Go To Definition on the source view context menu to navigate through the code. Figure 3. Using the .NET Reflector treeview within Visual Studio. Double-click on any item to open decompiled source in the source code view. There are loads of other changes and fixes that have gone in, often under the hood, which I don't have room to talk about here, and plenty more to come over the next few weeks. I'll try to keep you abreast of new functionality and changes as they go in. There are a couple of smaller things worth mentioning now though. Firstly, we've reorganised the menus and toolbar in Reflector itself to more closely mirror what you might be used to in other applications. Secondly, we've tried to make some of the functionality more discoverable. For example, you can now switch decompilation target framework version directly from the toolbar - and the default is now .NET 4.0. I think that about covers it for the moment. As I said, please use the new version, and send us your feedback. Here's that download URL again: http://reflector.red-gate.com/Download.aspx. Until next time! Technorati Tags: .net reflector,7,early access,new version,decompilation,tabbing,visual studio,software development,.net,c#,vb

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• How to pass XML to DB using XMLTYPE

  - by James Taylor

  Probably not a common use case but I have seen it pop up from time to time. The question how do I pass XML from a queue or web service and insert it into a DB table using XMLTYPE.In this example I create a basic table with the field PAYLOAD of type XMLTYPE. I then take the full XML payload of the web service and insert it into that database for auditing purposes.I use SOA Suite 11.1.1.2 using composite and mediator to link the web service with the DB adapter.1. Insert Database Objects Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} --Create XML_EXAMPLE_TBL Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} CREATE TABLE XML_EXAMPLE_TBL (PAYLOAD XMLTYPE); Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} --Create procedure LOAD_TEST_XML Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} CREATE or REPLACE PROCEDURE load_test_xml (xmlFile in CLOB) IS   BEGIN     INSERT INTO xml_example_tbl (payload) VALUES (XMLTYPE(xmlFile));   --Handle the exceptions EXCEPTION   WHEN OTHERS THEN     raise_application_error(-20101, 'Exception occurred in loadPurchaseOrder procedure :'||SQLERRM || ' **** ' || xmlFile ); END load_test_xml; / 2. Creating New SOA Project TestXMLTYPE in JDeveloperIn JDeveloper either create a new Application or open an existing Application you want to put this work.Under File -> New -> SOA Tier -> SOA Project   Provide a name for the Project, e.g. TestXMLType Choose Empty Composite When selected Empty Composite click Finish.3. Create Database Connection to Stored ProcedureA Blank composite will be displayed. From the Component Palette drag a Database Adapter to the  External References panel. and configure the Database Adapter Wizard to connect to the DB procedure created above.Provide a service name InsertXML Select a Database connection where you installed the table and procedure above. If it doesn't exist create a new one. Select Call a Stored Procedure or Function then click NextChoose the schema you installed your Procedure in step 1 and query for the LOAD_TEST_XML procedure.Click Next for the remaining screens until you get to the end, then click Finish to complete the database adapter wizard.4. Create the Web Service InterfaceDownload this sample schema that will be used as the input for the web service. It does not matter what schema you use this solution will work with any. Feel free to use your own if required. singleString.xsd Drag from the component palette the Web Service to the Exposed Services panel on the component.Provide a name InvokeXMLLoad for the service, and click the cog icon.Click the magnify glass for the URL to browse to the location where you downloaded the xml schema above.  Import the schema file by selecting the import schema iconBrowse to the location to where you downloaded the singleString.xsd above.Click OK for the Import Schema File, then select the singleString node of the imported schema.Accept all the defaults until you get back to the Web Service wizard screen. The click OK. This step has created a WSDL based on the schema we downloaded earlier.Your composite should now look something like this now.5. Create the Mediator Routing Rules Drag a Mediator component into the middle of the Composite called ComponentsGive the name of Route, and accept the defaultsLink the services up to the Mediator by connecting the reference points so your Composite looks like this.6. Perform Translations between Web Service and the Database Adapter.From the Composite double click the Route Mediator to show the Map Plan. Select the transformation icon to create the XSLT translation file.Choose Create New Mapper File and accept the defaults.From the Component Palette drag the get-content-as-string component into the middle of the translation file.Your translation file should look something like thisNow we need to map the root element of the source 'singleString' to the XMLTYPE of the database adapter, applying the function get-content-as-string.To do this drag the element singleString to the left side of the function get-content-as-string and drag the right side of the get-content-as-string to the XMLFILE element of the database adapter so the mapping looks like this. You have now completed the SOA Component you can now save your work, deploy and test.When you deploy I have assumed that you have the correct database configurations in the WebLogic Console based on the connection you setup connecting to the Stored Procedure. 7. Testing the ApplicationOpen Enterprise Manager and navigate to the TestXMLTYPE Composite and click the Test button. Load some dummy variables in the Input Arguments and click the 'Test Web Service' buttonOnce completed you can run a SQL statement to check the install. In this instance I have just used JDeveloper and opened a SQL WorksheetSQL Statement Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* 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-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} select * from xml_example_tbl; Result, you should see the full payload in the result.

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• Use Those Extra Mouse Buttons to Increase Efficiency

  - by Mark Virtue

  Did you know that the most commonly used mouse actions are clicking a window’s “Close” button (the X in the top-right corner), and clicking the “Back” button (in a browser and various other programs)?  How much time do you spend every day locating the Close button or the Back button with your mouse so that you can click on them?  And what about that mouse you’re using – how many buttons does it have, besides the two main ones?  Most mouses these days have at least four (including the scroll-wheel, which a lot of people don’t realize is also a button as well).  Why not assign those extra buttons to your most common mouse actions, and save yourself a bundle of mousing-around time every day? If your mouse was manufactured by one of the “premium” mouse manufacturers (Microsoft, Logitech, etc), it almost certain came with driver software to allow you to customize your mouse’s controls and take advantage of your mouse’s special features.  Microsoft, for example, provides driver software called IntelliPoint (link below), while Logitech provides SetPoint.  It’s possible that your mouse has some extra buttons but doesn’t come with its own driver software (the author is using a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000, which amazingly is not supported by the Microsoft IntelliPoint software!).  If your mouse falls into this category, you can use a marvelous free product called X-Mouse Button Control, from Highresolution Enterprises (link below).  It provides a truly amazing array of mouse configuration options, including assigning actions to buttons on a per-application basis. Once X-Mouse Button Control is downloaded, its setup process is quite straightforward. Once downloaded, you can start the program via Start / Highresolution Enterprises / X-Mouse Button Control.  You will find the program’s icon in the system tray: Right-click on the icon and select Setup from the pop-up menu.  The program’s configuration window appears: It’s extremely unlikely that we will want to change the functionality of our mouse’s two main buttons (left and right), so instead we’ll look at the rest of the options on the right side of the window.  The Middle Button refers to either the third, middle button (found on some old mouses), or the pressing of the wheel itself, as a button (if you didn’t know you could press your wheel like a button, try it out now).  Mouse Button 4 and Mouse Button 5 usually refer to the extra buttons found on the side of the mouse, often near your thumb. So what can we use these extra mouse buttons for?  Well, clearly Close and Back are two obvious candidates.  Each of these can be found by selecting them from the drop-down menu next to each button field: Once the two options are chosen, the window will look something like this: If you’re not interested in choosing Back or Close, you may like to try some of the other options in the list, including: Cut, Copy and Paste Undo Show the Desktop Next/Previous track (for media playback) Open any program Simulate any keystroke or combination of keystrokes ….and many other options.  Explore the drop-down list to see them all. You may decide, for example, that closing the current document (as opposed to the current program) would be a good use for Mouse Button 5.  In other words, we need to simulate the keypress of Ctrl-F4.  Let’s see how we achieve this. First we select Simulated Keystrokes from the drop-down list: The Simulated Keystrokes window opens: The instructions on the page are pretty comprehensive.  If you want to simulate the Ctrl-F4 keystroke, you need to type {CTRL}{F4} into the box: …and then click OK. Assigning Actions to Buttons on a Per-Application Basis One of the most powerful features of X-Mouse Button Control is the ability to assign actions to buttons on a per-application basis.  This means that if we have a particular program open, then our mouse will behave differently – our buttons will do different things. For example, when we have Windows Media Player open, for example, we may wish to have buttons assigned to Play/Pause, Next track and Previous track, as well as changing the volume with the mouse!  This is easy with X-Mouse Button Control.  We start by opening Windows Media Player.  This makes the next step easier.  Then we return to X-Mouse Button Control and add a new “configuration”.  This is done by clicking the Add button: A window opens containing a list of all running programs, including our recently opened Windows Media Player: We select Windows Media Player and click OK.  A new, blank “configuration” is created: We repeat the earlier steps to assign buttons to Play/Pause, Next track and Previous track, and assign scrolling the wheel to alter the volume:   To save all our changes and close the window, we click Apply. Now spend a few minutes thinking of all the applications you use the most, and what are the most common simple tasks you perform in each of those applications.  Those tasks are then perfect candidates for per-application button assignments. There are many more configuration options and capabilities of X-Mouse Button Control – too many to list here.  We encourage you to spend a bit of time exploring the Setup window.  Then, most important of all, don’t forget to use your new mouse buttons!  Get into the habit of using them, and then after a while you’ll start to wonder how you ever tolerated the laborious, tedious, time-consuming process of actually locating each window’s Close button… Download X-Mouse Button Control Highresolution Enterprise Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add Specialized Toolbar Buttons to Firefox the Easy WayBoost Your Mouse Pointing Accuracy in WindowsMake Mouse Navigation Faster in WindowsVista Style Popup Previews for Firefox TabsStupid Geek Tricks: Using the Quick Zoom Feature in Outlook TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Download Videos from Hulu Pixels invade Manhattan Convert PDF files to ePub to read on your iPad Hide Your Confidential Files Inside Images Get Wildlife Photography Tips at BBC’s PhotoMasterClasses Mashpedia is a Real-time Encyclopedia

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• LLBLGen Pro v3.1 released!

  - by FransBouma

  Yesterday we released LLBLGen Pro v3.1! Version 3.1 comes with new features and enhancements, which I'll describe briefly below. v3.1 is a free upgrade for v3.x licensees. What's new / changed? Designer Extensible Import system. An extensible import system has been added to the designer to import project data from external sources. Importers are plug-ins which import project meta-data (like entity definitions, mappings and relational model data) from an external source into the loaded project. In v3.1, an importer plug-in for importing project elements from existing LLBLGen Pro v3.x project files has been included. You can use this importer to create source projects from which you import parts of models to build your actual project with. Model-only relationships. In v3.1, relationships of the type 1:1, m:1 and 1:n can be marked as model-only. A model-only relationship isn't required to have a backing foreign key constraint in the relational model data. They're ideal for projects which have to work with relational databases where changes can't always be made or some relationships can't be added to (e.g. the ones which are important for the entity model, but are not allowed to be added to the relational model for some reason). Custom field ordering. Although fields in an entity definition don't really have an ordering, it can be important for some situations to have the entity fields in a given order, e.g. when you use compound primary keys. Field ordering can be defined using a pop-up dialog which can be opened through various ways, e.g. inside the project explorer, model view and entity editor. It can also be set automatically during refreshes based on new settings. Command line relational model data refresher tool, CliRefresher.exe. The command line refresh tool shipped with v2.6 is now available for v3.1 as well Navigation enhancements in various designer elements. It's now easier to find elements like entities, typed views etc. in the project explorer from editors, to navigate to related entities in the project explorer by right clicking a relationship, navigate to the super-type in the project explorer when right-clicking an entity and navigate to the sub-type in the project explorer when right-clicking a sub-type node in the project explorer. Minor visual enhancements / tweaks LLBLGen Pro Runtime Framework Entity creation is now up to 30% faster and takes 5% less memory. Creating an entity object has been optimized further by tweaks inside the framework to make instantiating an entity object up to 30% faster. It now also takes up to 5% less memory than in v3.0 Prefetch Path node merging is now up to 20-25% faster. Setting entity references required the creation of a new relationship object. As this relationship object is always used internally it could be cached (as it's used for syncing only). This increases performance by 20-25% in the merging functionality. Entity fetches are now up to 20% faster. A large number of tweaks have been applied to make entity fetches up to 20% faster than in v3.0. Full WCF RIA support. It's now possible to use your LLBLGen Pro runtime framework powered domain layer in a WCF RIA application using the VS.NET tools for WCF RIA services. WCF RIA services is a Microsoft technology for .NET 4 and typically used within silverlight applications. SQL Server DQE compatibility level is now per instance. (Usable in Adapter). It's now possible to set the compatibility level of the SQL Server Dynamic Query Engine (DQE) per instance of the DQE instead of the global setting it was before. The global setting is still available and is used as the default value for the compatibility level per-instance. You can use this to switch between CE Desktop and normal SQL Server compatibility per DataAccessAdapter instance. Support for COUNT_BIG aggregate function (SQL Server specific). The aggregate function COUNT_BIG has been added to the list of available aggregate functions to be used in the framework. Minor changes / tweaks I'm especially pleased with the import system, as that makes working with entity models a lot easier. The import system lets you import from another LLBLGen Pro v3 project any entity definition, mapping and / or meta-data like table definitions. This way you can build repository projects where you store model fragments, e.g. the building blocks for a customer-order system, a user credential model etc., any model you can think of. In most projects, you'll recognize that some parts of your new model look familiar. In these cases it would have been easier if you would have been able to import these parts from projects you had pre-created. With LLBLGen Pro v3.1 you can. For example, say you have an Oracle schema called CRM which contains the bread 'n' butter customer-order-product kind of model. You create an entity model from that schema and save it in a project file. Now you start working on another project for another customer and you have to use SQL Server. You also start using model-first development, so develop the entity model from scratch as there's no existing database. As this customer also requires some CRM like entity model, you import the entities from your saved Oracle project into this new SQL Server targeting project. Because you don't work with Oracle this time, you don't import the relational meta-data, just the entities, their relationships and possibly their inheritance hierarchies, if any. As they're now entities in your project you can change them a bit to match the new customer's requirements. This can save you a lot of time, because you can re-use pre-fab model fragments for new projects. In the example above there are no tables yet (as you work model first) so using the forward mapping capabilities of LLBLGen Pro v3 creates the tables, PK constraints, Unique Constraints and FK constraints for you. This way you can build a nice repository of model fragments which you can re-use in new projects.

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• Convert DVD to MP4 / H.264 with HD Decrypter and Handbrake

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Are you looking for a way to convert your DVD collection to high quality MP4 files? Today we are going to take a look at using DVDFab HD Decrypter along with Handbrake to convert DVDs to MP4 using the H.264 codec.  Process Overview Handbrake is a great file conversion application, but it unfortunately can’t handle DVD copy protection. For that we will use DVDFab’s HD Decrypter. HD Decrypter is the always free portion of the DVDFab application. What HD Decrypter will do, is remove the copy protection from your DVD, and copy the Video-TS and Audio-TS folders to your hard drive. Once the copy protection is gone, we will use Handbrake to convert the files to MP4 format with H.264 compression. Note: You’ll get full access to all the options in DVDFab  during the 30 trial period. However, the HD Decrypter is free and will continue to work. Ripping the DVD Install both Handbrake and DVDFab HD Decrypter. (Download links below) Once the applications are installed, place your DVD into your DVD drive and open DVDFab. On the welcome screen, click “Start DVDFab.”   You’ll be prompted to choose your region. Click “OK.” The disc is analyzed and opened… You’ll be brought to the main interface. Make sure you have the Full Disc option selected at the left panel and “Copy DVD-Video (VIDEO_TS folder) is selected. Click “Start.” Don’t be confused by the “DVD to DVD” option pop up. We won’t actually be burning to DVD. The HD Decrypter portion of the DVDFab suite is part of the DVD to DVD option. Click “OK.” The DVD will be ripped to your hard drive. When the copy process is complete, you’ll be prompted to insert media to start the write process. We aren’t going to be burning to disc, so just click Cancel then close out of DVDFab.   Converting to MP4 Now we are ready to convert Open Handbrake and click on the “Source” button at the top left. Select DVD / VIDEO_TS folder from the drop down list. Now we need to browse for the location where DVDFab HD Decrypter copied your movie. By default, that location will be the \DVDFab\Temp\FullDisc directory in your Documents folder. For example, in Windows 7, it would be: C:\Users\%username%\Documents\DVDFab\Temp\FullDisc\[Name of Your DVD] Select the folder, and click “OK.” You may be prompted to set a default path in Handbrake. This is an optional step. Click “OK.” If you’d like to set a default destination folder, Go to Tools on the top menu, select Options. On the General tab, click “Browse” to select a destination output folder. Click “Close” when Finished.   Next, click the dropdown list next to “Title.” Select the title that matches the length of the movie. It’s possible you may have see more than one title with a similar length. If so, consult the DVD information, or a site like IMDB.com, to find the proper movie title length. Select your container under Output Settings. This will be your final output file extension. We will be using MP4 for this example. You also have the option of MKV.   If you didn’t set up a default destination folder, you’ll need to select one by clicking the “Browse” button. You can manually customize the output file name and change the output file extension to .mp4 (Unless you prefer the iPod friendly .m4v extension). Settings There are a variety of custom settings that can be changed either through the tabs listed under Output Settings, or by selecting one of the Presets to the right. If converting exclusively for any of the devices listed in the preset list, simply click on that device and the settings will be automatically applied in the Output Settings tabs. For more Universal (non-Apple) devices or output, select the Normal profile.   For the most part, the presets will suit quite nicely. However, you can further customize settings if you’d like. The Picture tab allows you to tweak the size or cropping region. You must change Anamorphic to Loose or Custom to change the size.   The Video tab allows you to choose your codec. H.264 is the default. You also have the option to choose a target (output) size. The Constant Quality is recommended to be set between 59% – 63%. Anything over 70% will likely result in an output file larger than the input without any improved quality. On the Subtitles tab, you can select an available subtitle from the dropdown list and click “Add” to add it to the output file. When you’ve finished any customizations you are ready to begin the conversion process. Click “Start.” A Command window will open and you can follow the process. You’ll probably want to find something to do in the meantime as the process could take a couple of hours. When the process completes, you’re ready to watch your video.   Although it’s a time consuming process that involves a couple steps, this method will give you high quality H.264 video files. If you want to rip and burn your DVD’s to ISO check out our article on how to rip and convert DVD’s to an ISO image. Links Download DVDFab HD Decrypter (Part of the DVDFab suite) Download Handbrake Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Enjoy Quick & Easy Unit Conversion with Convert for WindowsConvert Older Excel Documents to Excel 2007 FormatCalculate with Qalculate on LinuxHow To Convert Video Files to MP3 with VLCConvert a Row to a Column in Excel the Easy Way 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 Use Quick Translator to Translate Text in 50 Languages (Firefox) Get Better Windows Search With UltraSearch Scan News With NY Times Article Skimmer SpeedyFox Claims to Speed up your Firefox Beware Hover Kitties Test Drive Mobile Phones Online With TryPhone

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• 24+ Coda Alternatives for Windows and Linux

  - by Matt

  Coda plays an important role in designing layout on Mac. There are numerous coda alternatives for windows and Linux too. It is not possible to describe each and everyone so some of the coda alternatives, which work on both windows and Linux platforms, are discussed below. EditPlus $35.00 Good thing about EditPlus is that it highlights URLs and email addresses, activating them when you ‘crtl + double-click’. It also has a built in browser for previewing HTML, and FTP and SFTP support. Also supports Macros and RegEx find and replace. UltraEdit $49.99 It is another good coda alternative for windows and Linux. It is the best suited editor for text, HTML and HEX. It also plays an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers. It supports disk-based 64-bit or standard file handling on 32-bit Windows platforms or window 2000 and later versions. HippoEdit $39.95 HippoEDIT has the best autocomplete it gives pop a ‘tooltip’ above your cursor as you type, suggesting words you’ve already typed. It does syntax highlighting for over 2 dozen language. Sublime Text $59.00 Sublime Text awesome ‘zoomed out’ view of the file lets you focus on the area you want. It lets you open a local file when you right-click on its link, and there are a few automation features, so this would make a solid choice of a text editor. Textpad $24.70 TextPad is simple editor with nifty features such as column select, drag-and-drop text between files, and hyperlink support. It also supports large files. Aptana Free Aptana Studio is one of the best editors working on both windows and Linux. It is a complete web development setting that has a nice blend of powerful authoring tools with a collection of online hosting and collaboration services. It is quite helpful as it support for PHP, CSS, FTP, and more. SciTE Free It is a SCIntilla based Text Editor. It has gradually developed as a generally useful editor. It provides for building and running programs. It is best to be used for jobs with simple configurations. SciTE is currently available for Intel Win32 and Linux compatible operating systems with GTK+. It has been run on Windows XP and on Fedora 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 with GTK+ 2.12 E Text Editor $34.96 E Text Editor is a new text editor for Windows, which also works on Linux as well. It has powerful editing features and also some unique abilities. It makes text manipulation quite fast and easy, and makes user focus on his writing as it automatically does all the manual work. It can be extend it in any language. It supports Text Mate bundles, thus allows the user to tap into a huge and active community. Editra Free Editra is an upcoming editor, with some fantastic features such as user profiles, auto-completion, session saving, and syntax highlighing for 60+ languages. Plugins can extend the feature set, offering an integrated python console, FTP client, file browser, and calculator, among others. PSPad Free PSPad is a good Template for writing CSS, as it an internal web browser, and a macro recorder to the table. It also supports hex editing, and some degree of code compiling. JEdit Free It is a mature programmer’s text editor and has taken a good deal of time to be developed as it is today. It is better than many costlier development tools due to its features and simplicity of use. It has been released as free software with full source code, provided under the terms of the GPL 2.0. Which also adds to its attractiveness. NEdit Free It is a multi-purpose text editor for the X Window System, which also works on Linux. It combines a standard, easy to use, graphical user interface with the full functionality and stability required by users who edit text for long period a day. It also provides for thorough support for development in various languages. It also facilitates the use of text processors, and other tools at the same time. It can be used productively by anyone who needs to edit text. It is quite a user-friendly tool. Its salient features include syntax highlighting with built in pattern, auto indent, tab emulation, block indentation adjustment etc. As of version 5.1, NEdit may be freely distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. MadEdit Free Mad Edit is an Open-Source and Cross-Platform Text/Hex Editor. It is written in C++ and wxWidgets. MadEdit can edit files in Text/Column/Hex modes. It also supports many useful functions, such as Syntax Highlighting, Word Wrap, Encoding for UTF8/16/32,and others. It also supports word count, which makes it quite a useful text editor for both windows and Linux. It has been recently modified on 10/09/2010. KompoZer Free Kompozer is a complete web authoring system that has a combination of web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing. KompoZer has been designed to be completely and extensively easy to use. It is thus an ideal tool for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without knowing HTML or web coding. It is based on the NVU source code. Vim Free Vim or “Vi IMproved” is an advanced text editor. Its salient features are syntax highlighting, word completion and it also has a huge amount of contributed content. Vim has several “modes” on offer for editing, which adds to the efficiency in editing. Thus it becomes a non-user-friendly application but it is also strength for its users. The normal mode binds alphanumeric keys to task-oriented commands. The visual mode highlights text. More tools for search & replace, defining functions, etc. are offered through command line mode. Vim comes with complete help. NotePad ++ Free One of the the best free text editor for Windows out there; with support for simple things—like syntax highlighting and folding—all the way up to FTP, Notepad++ should tick most of the boxes Notepad2 Free Notepad2 is also based on the Scintilla editing engine, but it’s much simpler than Notepad++. It bills itself as being fast, light-weight, and Notepad-like. Crimson Editor Free Crimson Editor has the ability to edit remote files, using a built-in FTP client; there’s also a spell checker. TotalEdit Free TotalEdit allows file comparison, RegEx search and replace, and has multiple options for file backup / versioning. For cleanup, it offers (X)HTML and XML customizable formatting, and a spell checker. In-Type Free ConTEXT Free SourceEdit Free SourceEdit includes features such as clipboard history, syntax highlighting and autocompletion for a decent set of languages. A hex editor and FTP client. RJ TextED Free RJ TextED supports integration with TopStyle Lite. Provides HTML validation and formatting. It includes an FTP client, a file browser, and a code browser, as well as a character map and support for email. GEDIT Free It is one of the best coda alternatives for windows and Linux. It has syntax highlighting and is best suitable for programming. It has many attractive features such as full support for UTF-8, undo/redo, and clipboard support, search and replace, configurable syntax highlighting for various languages and many more supportive features. It is extensible with plug ins. Other important coda alternatives for windows and Linux are Redcar, Bluefish Editor, NVU, Ruby Mine, Slick Edit, Geany, Editra, txt2html and CSSED. There are many more. Its up to user to decide which one suits best to his requirements. Related posts:10 Useful Text Editor For Developer Applications to Install & Run Windows on Linux Open Source WYSIWYG Text Editors

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• How To - Guide to Importing Data from a MySQL Database to Excel using MySQL for Excel

  - by Javier Treviño

  Fetching data from a database to then get it into an Excel spreadsheet to do analysis, reporting, transforming, sharing, etc. is a very common task among users. There are several ways to extract data from a MySQL database to then import it to Excel; for example you can use the MySQL Connector/ODBC to configure an ODBC connection to a MySQL database, then in Excel use the Data Connection Wizard to select the database and table from which you want to extract data from, then specify what worksheet you want to put the data into.  Another way is to somehow dump a comma delimited text file with the data from a MySQL table (using the MySQL Command Line Client, MySQL Workbench, etc.) to then in Excel open the file using the Text Import Wizard to attempt to correctly split the data in columns. These methods are fine, but involve some degree of technical knowledge to make the magic happen and involve repeating several steps each time data needs to be imported from a MySQL table to an Excel spreadsheet. So, can this be done in an easier and faster way? With MySQL for Excel you can. MySQL for Excel features an Import MySQL Data action where you can import data from a MySQL Table, View or Stored Procedure literally with a few clicks within Excel.  Following is a quick guide describing how to import data using MySQL for Excel. This guide assumes you already have a working MySQL Server instance, Microsoft Office Excel 2007 or 2010 and MySQL for Excel installed. 1. Opening MySQL for Excel Being an Excel Add-In, MySQL for Excel is opened from within Excel, so to use it open Excel, go to the Data tab located in the Ribbon and click MySQL for Excel at the far right of the Ribbon. 2. Creating a MySQL Connection (may be optional) If you have MySQL Workbench installed you will automatically see the same connections that you can see in MySQL Workbench, so you can use any of those and there may be no need to create a new connection. If you want to create a new connection (which normally you will do only once), in the Welcome Panel click New Connection, which opens the Setup New Connection dialog. Here you only need to give your new connection a distinctive Connection Name, specify the Hostname (or IP address) where the MySQL Server instance is running on (if different than localhost), the Port to connect to and the Username for the login. If you wish to test if your setup is good to go, click Test Connection and an information dialog will pop-up stating if the connection is successful or errors were found. 3.Opening a connection to a MySQL Server To open a pre-configured connection to a MySQL Server you just need to double-click it, so the Connection Password dialog is displayed where you enter the password for the login. 4. Selecting a MySQL Schema After opening a connection to a MySQL Server, the Schema Selection Panel is shown, where you can select the Schema that contains the Tables, Views and Stored Procedures you want to work with. To do so, you just need to either double-click the desired Schema or select it and click Next >. 5. Importing data… All previous steps were really the basic minimum needed to drill-down to the DB Object Selection Panel  where you can see the Database Objects (grouped by type: Tables, Views and Procedures in that order) that you want to perform actions against; in the case of this guide, the action of importing data from them. a. From a MySQL Table To import from a Table you just need to select it from the list of Database Objects’ Tables group, after selecting it you will note actions below the list become available; then click Import MySQL Data. The Import Data dialog is displayed; you can see some basic information here like the name of the Excel worksheet the data will be imported to (in the window title), the Table Name, the total Row Count and a 10 row preview of the data meant for the user to see the columns that the table contains and to provide a way to select which columns to import. The Import Data dialog is designed with defaults in place so all data is imported (all rows and all columns) by just clicking Import; this is important to minimize the number of clicks needed to get the job done. After the import is performed you will have the data in the Excel worksheet formatted automatically. If you need to override the defaults in the Import Data dialog to change the columns selected for import or to change the number of imported rows you can easily do so before clicking Import. In the screenshot below the defaults are overridden to import only the first 3 columns and rows 10 – 60 (Limit to 50 Rows and Start with Row 10). If the number of rows to be imported exceeds the maximum number of rows Excel can hold in its worksheet, a warning will be displayed in the dialog, meaning the imported number of rows will be limited by that maximum number (65,535 rows if the worksheet is in Compatibility Mode).  In the screenshot below you can see the Table contains 80,559 rows, but only 65,534 rows will be imported since the first row is used for the column names if the Include Column Names as Headers checkbox is checked. b. From a MySQL View Similar to the way of importing from a Table, to import from a View you just need to select it from the list of Database Objects’ Views group, then click Import MySQL Data. The Import Data dialog is displayed; identically to the way everything looks when importing from a table, the dialog displays the View Name, the total Row Count and the data preview grid. Since Views are really a filtered way to display data from Tables, it is actually as if we are extracting data from a Table; so the Import Data dialog is actually identical for those 2 Database Objects. After the import is performed, the data in the Excel spreadsheet looks like the following screenshot. Note that you can override the defaults in the Import Data dialog in the same way described above for importing data from Tables. Also the Compatibility Mode warning will be displayed if data exceeds the maximum number of rows explained before. c. From a MySQL Procedure Too import from a Procedure you just need to select it from the list of Database Objects’ Procedures group (note you can see Procedures here but not Functions since these return a single value, so by design they are filtered out). After the selection is made, click Import MySQL Data. The Import Data dialog is displayed, but this time you can see it looks different to the one used for Tables and Views.  Given the nature of Store Procedures, they require first that values are supplied for its Parameters and also Procedures can return multiple Result Sets; so the Import Data dialog shows the Procedure Name and the Procedure Parameters in a grid where their values are input. After you supply the Parameter Values click Call. After calling the Procedure, the Result Sets returned by it are displayed at the bottom of the dialog; output parameters and the return value of the Procedure are appended as the last Result Set of the group. You can see each Result Set is displayed as a tab so you can see a preview of the returned data.  You can specify if you want to import the Selected Result Set (default), All Result Sets – Arranged Horizontally or All Result Sets – Arranged Vertically using the Import drop-down list; then click Import. After the import is performed, the data in the Excel spreadsheet looks like the following screenshot.  Note in this example all Result Sets were imported and arranged vertically. As you can see using MySQL for Excel importing data from a MySQL database becomes an easy task that requires very little technical knowledge, so it can be done by any type of user. Hope you enjoyed this guide! Remember that your feedback is very important for us, so drop us a message: MySQL on Windows (this) Blog - https://blogs.oracle.com/MySqlOnWindows/ Forum - http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?172 Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/mysql Cheers!

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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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• Product Development Investment: A Measure of Vendor Performance

  - by Jim Mcglothlin

  The relationship between a large, complex organization and its key suppliers of information technology is normally more than just "strategic". Expectations about the duration of the relationship typically exceed 20 years. Enterprise applications and technology infrastructure are not expected to be changed out like petunias. So how would you rate the due diligence processes as performed in Higher Education when selecting critical, transformational information technology? My observation: I see a lot of effort put into elaborate demonstration of basic software functionality. I see a lot of attention paid to the cost element of technology acquisition, including the contracted cost of implementation consulting services. But the factor that receives only cursory analysis and due diligence is long-term performance--the ability of a vendor to grow, expand, and develop, and bring its customers along with it. So what should you look for in a long-term IT supplier? Oracle has a public track record for product development. The annual investment has been on a run rate of almost $3 Billion organic product development. Oracle's well-publicized acquisitions and mergers have been supplemental to its R&D. This is important for Higher Education. Another meaningful way to evaluate a company is to look at the tangible track record of enhancement. Consider the Oracle-PeopleSoft enterprise business platform since acquired by Oracle 6 years ago: Product or Technology Enhancement Customer or User Impact Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) 300+ new web services delivered in versions 9.0 & 9.1 provide flexibility, so that customers can integrate PeopleSoft with other applications. Campus Solutions has added Admissions and Constituent Web Services. Constituent Relationship Management PeopleSoft CRM 9.1 for Higher Education introduced new process flows for student recruiting and retention to support "Student Success" initiatives. A 360 view of the constituent is now delivered, and the concept of a single-stop Student Services Center is now in CRM 9.1 with tight integration to PeopleSoft Campus Solutions. Human Capital Management Contract Pay for Education, with flexibility for configuration and calculation, has been extended in HCM 9.1. New chartfield integration among Project Costing - Time & Labor - Payroll to serve the labor distribution requirements for Grants / Sponsored Research. Talent Management PeopleSoft 9.0 and 9.1 feature an integrated talent management approach centered on definitions in "Profile Manager", with all new usability improvements. Internal and external candidate pools, and the entire recruitment process, are driven by delivered configurable selection and on-boarding processes. Interview scheduling, and online job offers are newly delivered processes. Performance Management PeopleSoft HCM ePerformance 9.1 will include significant new functionality designed to help organizations more effectively align business objectives with employee goals. Using an Organization Chart view, your business goals can flow down to become tangible objectives per employee. Succession Planning / Workforce Development New in HCM 9.0, enhanced in 9.1, is a planning capability for regular or unusual (major organizational change) succession of internal or external candidates. PeopleSoft supports employee-based career planning, which ultimately increases the integrity of the succession planning process (identify their career needs, plans, preferences, and interests). Dashboards / Oracle Business Intelligence Application Suite Oracle Human Resources Analytics provides the workforce information foundation that integrates data from HR functional areas and Finance. Oracle Human Resources Analytics delivers 9 dashboards and over 200 reports. Provide your HR professionals and front-line managers the tools to analyze workforce staffing, retention, productivity, to better source high-quality applicants, and to reduce absence costs. Multi-year Planning and Commitment Control External funding sources, especially Grants, require a multi-year encumbrance business process. PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 adds multi-year funding and commitment control, including budget checking. The newly designed Real Time Budget Checking will provide the customer with an updated snapshot of their budget and encumbrances at any given time. Position Budgeting with Hyperion Hyperion Planning world-class products now include delivered integration to PeopleSoft HCM. Position Budgeting is available in the new Public Sector Planning module of Hyperion. Web 2.0 features for the latest in usability PeopleSoft 9.1 features a contemporary internet user experience: Partial-page refreshing Drag and drop pagelets New menu structure Navigation pagelets Modal popup message windows Favorites & recently used links Type-ahead Drag and drop grid columns, pop-out grids Portal Workspaces Enterprise 2.0 for your collaborative web communities, using new content management, along with Wikis, blogs, and discussion forums in PeopleSoft Portal 9.1. PeopleTools enhanced by Oracle Fusion Middleware Standards-based tools have been added to the PeopleTools application infrastructure: BI (XML) Publisher, Java tools. Certified for use with PeopleSoft: Oracle Business Intelligence (OBIEE), Oracle Enterprise Manager, Oracle Weblogic Server, Oracle SOA Suite. Hosting for PeopleSoft applications A solid new deployment option: Oracle On Demand remote hosting center for high scalability, security, and continuity of operations. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) for HCM / Payroll functions Partnership with AT&T provides hosting of HR/Payroll application along with payroll business process operations, and subscription-based service fees (SaaS). AT&T BPO full service includes pay sheet processing, bank and 3rd party file transfer, payroll tax handling, etc. Continuous Delivery Model Feature Packs provide faster time-to-benefit; new features become available in PeopleSoft 9.1 (or Campus Solutions 9.0) without need to perform upgrade. Golden person data model across all campus applications Oracle Higher Education Constituent Hub provides synchronization and data governance of person data across any application, e.g. HR/ Payroll, Student Information System, Housing, Emergency Contact, LMS, CRM. Oracle's aggressive enhancement plans within the "Applications Unlimited" program continue, as new functionality is under development for a new version of a PeopleSoft release planned for 2012. Meanwhile, new capabilities are planned on an annual basis in Feature Packs. PeopleSoft just delivered the HCM 2010 Feature Pack and another is planned for 2011. In February we plan to have over 100 customers from our Customer Advisory Boards at our PeopleSoft Development Center in California to review designs for all of these releases. For those of you near New York City The investment and progressive development story described above is the subject of an Oracle road show event on February 9, 2011. Charting Your Course with Oracle Applications is a global event series designed to help business and IT executives assess the impact of new inflection points on their business and applications roadmap: changing workforces, shifting customer and constituent bases, and increased volatility. Learn how innovations ranging from new deployment models like cloud computing to the introduction of social applications and smart devices are delivering results across all areas of business and industry. THIS DOCUMENT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND MAY NOT BE INCORPORATED INTO A CONTRACT OR AGREEMENT.

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• Gnome Do not Launching

  - by PyRulez

  When I try running gnome do, I get this. chris@Chris-Ubuntu-Laptop:~$ gnome-do pgrep: invalid user name: -u and it is not writable Trying sudo: chris@Chris-Ubuntu-Laptop:~$ sudo gnome-do [NetworkService] Could not initialize Network Manager dbus: Unable to open the session message bus. [Error 17:54:30.122] [SystemService] Could not initialize dbus: Unable to open the session message bus. (Do:2401): Wnck-CRITICAL **: wnck_set_client_type got called multiple times. (Do:2401): libdo-WARNING **: Binding '<Super>space' failed! [Error 17:54:30.649] [AbstractKeyBindingService] Key "" is already mapped. Tomboy.NotesItemSource "Tomboy Notes" encountered an error in UpdateItems: System.TypeInitializationException: An exception was thrown by the type initializer for Tomboy.TomboyDBus ---> System.Exception: Unable to open the session message bus. ---> System.ArgumentNullException: Argument cannot be null. Parameter name: address at NDesk.DBus.Bus.Open (System.String address) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at NDesk.DBus.Bus.get_Session () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at NDesk.DBus.Bus.get_Session () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Tomboy.TomboyDBus..cctor () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at Tomboy.NotesItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Do.Universe.Safe.SafeItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 . Firefox.PlacesItemSource "Firefox Places" encountered an error in UpdateItems: System.InvalidCastException: Cannot cast from source type to destination type. at Mono.Data.Sqlite.SqliteDataReader.VerifyType (Int32 i, DbType typ) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Mono.Data.Sqlite.SqliteDataReader.GetString (Int32 i) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Firefox.PlacesItemSource+<LoadPlaceItems>c__Iterator3.MoveNext () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.Collections.Generic.List`1[Firefox.PlaceItem].AddEnumerable (IEnumerable`1 enumerable) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.Collections.Generic.List`1[Firefox.PlaceItem]..ctor (IEnumerable`1 collection) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToArray[PlaceItem] (IEnumerable`1 source) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Firefox.PlacesItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Do.Universe.Safe.SafeItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 . Do.Universe.Linux.GNOMESpecialLocationsItemSource "GNOME Special Locations" encountered an error in UpdateItems: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not find file "/root/.gtk-bookmarks". File name: '/root/.gtk-bookmarks' at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean anonymous, FileOptions options) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.IO.FileStream:.ctor (string,System.IO.FileMode,System.IO.FileAccess,System.IO.FileShare) at System.IO.File.OpenRead (System.String path) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.IO.StreamReader..ctor (System.String path, System.Text.Encoding encoding, Boolean detectEncodingFromByteOrderMarks, Int32 bufferSize) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.IO.StreamReader..ctor (System.String path) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.IO.StreamReader:.ctor (string) at Do.Universe.Linux.GNOMESpecialLocationsItemSource+<ReadBookmarkItems>c__Iterator3.MoveNext () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Do.Universe.Linux.GNOMESpecialLocationsItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Do.Universe.Safe.SafeItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 . ^[^\Full thread dump: "<unnamed thread>" tid=0x0xb7570700 this=0x0x56f18 thread handle 0x403 state : not waiting owns () at (wrapper managed-to-native) Mono.Unix.Native.Syscall.read (int,intptr,ulong) <0xffffffff> at Mono.Unix.Native.Syscall.read (int,void*,ulong) <0x00023> at Mono.Unix.UnixStream.Read (byte[],int,int) <0x0008b> at NDesk.DBus.Connection.ReadMessage () <0x0003c> at NDesk.DBus.Connection.Iterate () <0x0001b> at NDesk.DBus.BusG/<Init>c__AnonStorey0.<>m__0 (intptr,NDesk.GLib.IOCondition,intptr) <0x00033> at (wrapper native-to-managed) NDesk.DBus.BusG/<Init>c__AnonStorey0.<>m__0 (intptr,NDesk.GLib.IOCondition,intptr) <0xffffffff> at (wrapper managed-to-native) Gtk.Clipboard.gtk_clipboard_wait_is_text_available (intptr) <0xffffffff> at Gtk.Clipboard.WaitIsTextAvailable () <0x00017> at Do.Universe.SelectedTextItem.UpdateSelection (object,System.EventArgs) <0x00027> at Do.Platform.AbstractApplicationService.OnSummoned () <0x00025> at Do.Platform.ApplicationService.<ApplicationService>m__31 (object,System.EventArgs) <0x00013> at Do.Core.Controller.OnSummoned () <0x00025> at Do.Core.Controller.Summon () <0x00027> at Do.Do.Main (string[]) <0x001eb> at (wrapper runtime-invoke) <Module>.runtime_invoke_void_object (object,intptr,intptr,intptr) <0xffffffff> "<unnamed thread>" tid=0x0xb2c81b40 this=0x0x194150 thread handle 0x412 state : interrupted state owns () at (wrapper managed-to-native) System.IO.InotifyWatcher.ReadFromFD (intptr,byte[],intptr) <0xffffffff> at System.IO.InotifyWatcher.Monitor () <0x0005f> at System.Threading.Thread.StartInternal () <0x00057> at (wrapper runtime-invoke) object.runtime_invoke_void__this__ (object,intptr,intptr,intptr) <0xffffffff> "Universe Update Dispatcher" tid=0x0xb29ffb40 this=0x0x569d8 thread handle 0x41b state : interrupted state owns () at (wrapper managed-to-native) System.Threading.WaitHandle.WaitOne_internal (System.Threading.WaitHandle,intptr,int,bool) <0xffffffff> at System.Threading.WaitHandle.WaitOne (System.TimeSpan,bool) <0x00133> at System.Threading.WaitHandle.WaitOne (System.TimeSpan) <0x00022> at Do.Core.UniverseManager.UniverseUpdateLoop () <0x0007a> at System.Threading.Thread.StartInternal () <0x00057> at (wrapper runtime-invoke) object.runtime_invoke_void__this__ (object,intptr,intptr,intptr) <0xffffffff> Tomboy.NotesItemSource "Tomboy Notes" encountered an error in UpdateItems: System.TypeInitializationException: An exception was thrown by the type initializer for Tomboy.TomboyDBus ---> System.Exception: Unable to open the session message bus. ---> System.ArgumentNullException: Argument cannot be null. Parameter name: address at NDesk.DBus.Bus.Open (System.String address) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at NDesk.DBus.Bus.get_Session () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at NDesk.DBus.Bus.get_Session () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Tomboy.TomboyDBus..cctor () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at Tomboy.NotesItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Do.Universe.Safe.SafeItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 . Firefox.PlacesItemSource "Firefox Places" encountered an error in UpdateItems: System.InvalidCastException: Cannot cast from source type to destination type. at Mono.Data.Sqlite.SqliteDataReader.VerifyType (Int32 i, DbType typ) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Mono.Data.Sqlite.SqliteDataReader.GetString (Int32 i) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Firefox.PlacesItemSource+<LoadPlaceItems>c__Iterator3.MoveNext () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.Collections.Generic.List`1[Firefox.PlaceItem].AddEnumerable (IEnumerable`1 enumerable) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.Collections.Generic.List`1[Firefox.PlaceItem]..ctor (IEnumerable`1 collection) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToArray[PlaceItem] (IEnumerable`1 source) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Firefox.PlacesItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Do.Universe.Safe.SafeItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 . Do.Universe.Linux.GNOMESpecialLocationsItemSource "GNOME Special Locations" encountered an error in UpdateItems: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not find file "/root/.gtk-bookmarks". File name: '/root/.gtk-bookmarks' at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean anonymous, FileOptions options) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.IO.FileStream:.ctor (string,System.IO.FileMode,System.IO.FileAccess,System.IO.FileShare) at System.IO.File.OpenRead (System.String path) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.IO.StreamReader..ctor (System.String path, System.Text.Encoding encoding, Boolean detectEncodingFromByteOrderMarks, Int32 bufferSize) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at System.IO.StreamReader..ctor (System.String path) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.IO.StreamReader:.ctor (string) at Do.Universe.Linux.GNOMESpecialLocationsItemSource+<ReadBookmarkItems>c__Iterator3.MoveNext () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Do.Universe.Linux.GNOMESpecialLocationsItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Do.Universe.Safe.SafeItemSource.UpdateItems () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 . It stops when I try my key combination, ctrl-alt-. It does not pop up though.

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• ASP.NET MVC JavaScript Routing

  - by zowens

  Have you ever done this sort of thing in your ASP.NET MVC view? The weird thing about this isn’t the alert function, it’s the code block containing the Url formation using the ASP.NET MVC UrlHelper. The terrible thing about this experience is the obvious lack of IntelliSense and this ugly inline JavaScript code. Inline JavaScript isn’t portable to other pages beyond the current page of execution. It is generally considered bad practice to use inline JavaScript in your public-facing pages. How ludicrous would it be to copy and paste the entire jQuery code base into your pages…? Not something you’d ever consider doing. The problem is that your URLs have to be generated by ASP.NET at runtime and really can’t be copied to your JavaScript code without some trickery. How about this? Does the hard-coded URL bother you? It really bothers me. The typical solution to this whole routing in JavaScript issue is to just hard-code your URLs into your JavaScript files and call it done. But what if your URLs change? You have to now go an track down the places in JavaScript and manually replace them. What if you get the pattern wrong? Do you have tests around it? This isn’t something you should have to worry about.   The Solution To Our Problems The solution is to port routing over to JavaScript. Does that sound daunting to you? It’s actually not very hard, but I decided to create my own generator that will do all the work for you. What I have created is a very basic port of the route formation feature of ASP.NET routing. It will generate the formatted URLs based on your routing patterns. Here’s how you’d do this: Does that feel familiar? It looks a lot like something you’d do inside of your ASP.NET MVC views… but this is inside of a JavaScript file… just a plain ol’ .js file.  Your first question might be why do you have to have that “.toUrl()” thing. The reason is that I wanted to make POST and GET requests dead simple. Here’s how you’d do a POST request (and the same would work with a GET request):   The first parameter is extra data passed to the post request and the second parameter is a function that handles the success of the POST request. If you’re familiar with jQuery’s Ajax goodness, you’ll know how to use it. (if not, check out http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.Post/ and the parameters are essentially the same). But we still haven’t gotten rid of the magic strings. We still have controller names and action names represented as strings. This is going to blow your mind… If you’ve seen T4MVC, this will look familiar. We’re essentially doing the same sort of thing with my JavaScript router, but we’re porting the concept to JavaScript. The good news is that parameters to the controllers are directly reflected in the action function, just like T4MVC. And the even better news… IntlliSense is easily transferred to the JavaScript version if you’re using Visual Studio as your JavaScript editor. The additional data parameter gives you the ability to pass extra routing data to the URL formatter.   About the Magic You may be wondering how this all work. It’s actually quite simple. I’ve built a simple jQuery pluggin (called routeManager) that hangs off the main jQuery namespace and routes all the URLs. Every time your solution builds, a routing file will be generated with this pluggin, all your route and controller definitions along with your documentation. Then by the power of Visual Studio, you get some really slick IntelliSense that is hard to live without. But there are a few steps you have to take before this whole thing is going to work. First and foremost, you need a reference to the JsRouting.Core.dll to your projects containing controllers or routes. Second, you have to specify your routes in a bit of a non-standard way. See, we can’t just pull routes out of your App_Start in your Global.asax. We force you to build a route source like this: The way we determine the routes is by pulling in all RouteSources and generating routes based upon the mapped routes. There are various reasons why we can’t use RouteCollection (different post for another day)… but in this case, you get the same route mapping experience. Converting the RouteSource to a RouteCollection is trivial (there’s an extension method for that). Next thing you have to do is generate a documentation XML file. This is done by going to the project settings, going to the build tab and clicking the checkbox. (this isn’t required, but nice to have). The final thing you need to do is hook up the generation mechanism. Pop open your project file and look for the AfterBuild step. Now change the build step task to look like this: The “PathToOutputExe” is the path to the JsRouting.Output.exe file. This will change based on where you put the EXE. The “PathToOutputJs” is a path to the output JavaScript file. The “DicrectoryOfAssemblies” is a path to the directory containing controller and routing DLLs. The JsRouting.Output.exe executable pulls in all these assemblies and scans them for controllers and route sources.   Now that wasn’t too bad, was it :)   The State of the Project This is definitely not complete… I have a lot of plans for this little project of mine. For starters, I need to look at the generation mechanism. Either I will be creating a utility that will do the project file manipulation or I will go a different direction. I’d like some feedback on this if you feel partial either way. Another thing I don’t support currently is areas. While this wouldn’t be too hard to support, I just don’t use areas and I wanted something up quickly (this is, after all, for a current project of mine). I’ll be adding support shortly. There are a few things that I haven’t covered in this post that I will most certainly be covering in another post, such as routing constraints and how these will be translated to JavaScript. I decided to open source this whole thing, since it’s a nice little utility I think others should really be using. Currently we’re using ASP.NET MVC 2, but it should work with MVC 3 as well. I’ll upgrade it as soon as MVC 3 is released. Along those same lines, I’m investigating how this could be put on the NuGet feed. Show me the Bits! OK, OK! The code is posted on my GitHub account. Go nuts. Tell me what you think. Tell me what you want. Tell me that you hate it. All feedback is welcome! https://github.com/zowens/ASP.NET-MVC-JavaScript-Routing

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• C# Extension Methods - To Extend or Not To Extend...

  - by James Michael Hare

  I've been thinking a lot about extension methods lately, and I must admit I both love them and hate them. They are a lot like sugar, they taste so nice and sweet, but they'll rot your teeth if you eat them too much.   I can't deny that they aren't useful and very handy. One of the major components of the Shared Component library where I work is a set of useful extension methods. But, I also can't deny that they tend to be overused and abused to willy-nilly extend every living type.   So what constitutes a good extension method? Obviously, you can write an extension method for nearly anything whether it is a good idea or not. Many times, in fact, an idea seems like a good extension method but in retrospect really doesn't fit.   So what's the litmus test? To me, an extension method should be like in the movies when a person runs into their twin, separated at birth. You just know you're related. Obviously, that's hard to quantify, so let's try to put a few rules-of-thumb around them.   A good extension method should:     Apply to any possible instance of the type it extends.     Simplify logic and improve readability/maintainability.     Apply to the most specific type or interface applicable.     Be isolated in a namespace so that it does not pollute IntelliSense.     So let's look at a few examples in relation to these rules.   The first rule, to me, is the most important of all. Once again, it bears repeating, a good extension method should apply to all possible instances of the type it extends. It should feel like the long lost relative that should have been included in the original class but somehow was missing from the family tree.    Take this nifty little int extension, I saw this once in a blog and at first I really thought it was pretty cool, but then I started noticing a code smell I couldn't quite put my finger on. So let's look:       public static class IntExtensinos     {         public static int Seconds(int num)         {             return num * 1000;         }           public static int Minutes(int num)         {             return num * 60000;         }     }     This is so you could do things like:       ...     Thread.Sleep(5.Seconds());     ...     proxy.Timeout = 1.Minutes();     ...     Awww, you say, that's cute! Well, that's the problem, it's kitschy and it doesn't always apply (and incidentally you could achieve the same thing with TimeStamp.FromSeconds(5)). It's syntactical candy that looks cool, but tends to rot and pollute the code. It would allow things like:       total += numberOfTodaysOrders.Seconds();     which makes no sense and should never be allowed. The problem is you're applying an extension method to a logical domain, not a type domain. That is, the extension method Seconds() doesn't really apply to ALL ints, it applies to ints that are representative of time that you want to convert to milliseconds.    Do you see what I mean? The two problems, in a nutshell, are that a) Seconds() called off a non-time value makes no sense and b) calling Seconds() off something to pass to something that does not take milliseconds will be off by a factor of 1000 or worse.   Thus, in my mind, you should only ever have an extension method that applies to the whole domain of that type.   For example, this is one of my personal favorites:       public static bool IsBetween<T>(this T value, T low, T high)         where T : IComparable<T>     {         return value.CompareTo(low) >= 0 && value.CompareTo(high) <= 0;     }   This allows you to check if any IComparable<T> is within an upper and lower bound. Think of how many times you type something like:       if (response.Employee.Address.YearsAt >= 2         && response.Employee.Address.YearsAt <= 10)     {     ...     }     Now, you can instead type:       if(response.Employee.Address.YearsAt.IsBetween(2, 10))     {     ...     }     Note that this applies to all IComparable<T> -- that's ints, chars, strings, DateTime, etc -- and does not depend on any logical domain. In addition, it satisfies the second point and actually makes the code more readable and maintainable.   Let's look at the third point. In it we said that an extension method should fit the most specific interface or type possible. Now, I'm not saying if you have something that applies to enumerables, you create an extension for List, Array, Dictionary, etc (though you may have reasons for doing so), but that you should beware of making things TOO general.   For example, let's say we had an extension method like this:       public static T ConvertTo<T>(this object value)     {         return (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T));     }         This lets you do more fluent conversions like:       double d = "5.0".ConvertTo<double>();     However, if you dig into Reflector (LOVE that tool) you will see that if the type you are calling on does not implement IConvertible, what you convert to MUST be the exact type or it will throw an InvalidCastException. Now this may or may not be what you want in this situation, and I leave that up to you. Things like this would fail:       object value = new Employee();     ...     // class cast exception because typeof(IEmployee) != typeof(Employee)     IEmployee emp = value.ConvertTo<IEmployee>();       Yes, that's a downfall of working with Convertible in general, but if you wanted your fluent interface to be more type-safe so that ConvertTo were only callable on IConvertibles (and let casting be a manual task), you could easily make it:         public static T ConvertTo<T>(this IConvertible value)     {         return (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T));     }         This is what I mean by choosing the best type to extend. Consider that if we used the previous (object) version, every time we typed a dot ('.') on an instance we'd pull up ConvertTo() whether it was applicable or not. By filtering our extension method down to only valid types (those that implement IConvertible) we greatly reduce our IntelliSense pollution and apply a good level of compile-time correctness.   Now my fourth rule is just my general rule-of-thumb. Obviously, you can make extension methods as in-your-face as you want. I included all mine in my work libraries in its own sub-namespace, something akin to:       namespace Shared.Core.Extensions { ... }     This is in a library called Shared.Core, so just referencing the Core library doesn't pollute your IntelliSense, you have to actually do a using on Shared.Core.Extensions to bring the methods in. This is very similar to the way Microsoft puts its extension methods in System.Linq. This way, if you want 'em, you use the appropriate namespace. If you don't want 'em, they won't pollute your namespace.   To really make this work, however, that namespace should only include extension methods and subordinate types those extensions themselves may use. If you plant other useful classes in those namespaces, once a user includes it, they get all the extensions too.   Also, just as a personal preference, extension methods that aren't simply syntactical shortcuts, I like to put in a static utility class and then have extension methods for syntactical candy. For instance, I think it imaginable that any object could be converted to XML:       namespace Shared.Core     {         // A collection of XML Utility classes         public static class XmlUtility         {             ...             // Serialize an object into an xml string             public static string ToXml(object input)             {                 var xs = new XmlSerializer(input.GetType());                   // use new UTF8Encoding here, not Encoding.UTF8. The later includes                 // the BOM which screws up subsequent reads, the former does not.                 using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())                 using (var xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(memoryStream, new UTF8Encoding()))                 {                     xs.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, input);                     return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(memoryStream.ToArray());                 }             }             ...         }     }   I also wanted to be able to call this from an object like:       value.ToXml();     But here's the problem, if i made this an extension method from the start with that one little keyword "this", it would pop into IntelliSense for all objects which could be very polluting. Instead, I put the logic into a utility class so that users have the choice of whether or not they want to use it as just a class and not pollute IntelliSense, then in my extensions namespace, I add the syntactical candy:       namespace Shared.Core.Extensions     {         public static class XmlExtensions         {             public static string ToXml(this object value)             {                 return XmlUtility.ToXml(value);             }         }     }   So now it's the best of both worlds. On one hand, they can use the utility class if they don't want to pollute IntelliSense, and on the other hand they can include the Extensions namespace and use as an extension if they want. The neat thing is it also adheres to the Single Responsibility Principle. The XmlUtility is responsible for converting objects to XML, and the XmlExtensions is responsible for extending object's interface for ToXml().

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