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  • How to adjust a single side of rectangular selection made with Marquee Tool?

    - by Alex
    I am struggling to make a selection made of different layers. For example, a button with text and shadow (each in its own layer). I would like to copy it to a image file but it is really hard to select the shadow with a pixel precision. I do not know how to perform such task properly so I use Marquee Tool. However, it is hard to get all 4 sides right from the first attempt. What's worse, I could not find a method to adjust a single side of a selection made by Marquee Tool. Anyone may help what I am doing wrong?

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  • virutalbox always get back the same ip

    - by user1012451
    I exported a virtual machine from my work station, and I am trying to renew the ip-address at home. I put one copy on my laptop and one copy on my PC. I've done this sudo rm /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules and changed the MAC address, but they keep coming back as 192.168.1.165. I need them to be different because I need to run two of these exports at the same time, so I cannot afford to have the same IP. What can I do? Thanks.

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  • What is meant by "no password set" for root account (and otthers)?

    - by MMA
    Several years back, we were more accustomed to changing to the root account using the su command. First, we switched to the root account, and then executed those root commands. Now we are more accustomed to using the sudo command. But we know that the root account is there. We can readily find the home directory of user root. $ ls -ld /root/ drwx------ 18 root root 4096 Oct 22 17:21 /root/ Now my point is, it is stated that "the root password in Ubuntu is left unset". Please see the answers to this question. Most of the answers have something to this effect in the first paragraph. One or two answers further state that "the account is left disabled". Now my (primary) questions are, What is meant by an unset password? Is it blank? Is it null? Or something else more cryptic? How does the account becomes enabled once I set password for it? (sudo password root) In order get a better understanding, I checked the /etc/shadow file. Since I have already set a password for the root account, I can no longer see what is there (encrypted password). So, I created another account and left it disabled. The corresponding entry in the /etc/shadow file is, testpassword:!:16020:0:99999:7::: Now perhaps my above queries need to be changed to, what does an ! in password field mean? Other encrypted passwords are those very long cryptic strings. How come this encrypted form is only one character long? And does an account become disabled if I put an ! in the (encrypted) password field?

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  • Copying specific subfolders with directory structure to a new folder

    - by Shan
    I have the following directory structure: Main_Dir | ------------------------------ Subdir1 Subdir2 Subdir3 | | | ----------- ---------- --------- | | | | | | | | | fo1 fo2 f03 fo1 fo2 f03 fo1 fo2 f03 I want to copy all the subdirectories (Subdir1, Subdir2, Subdir3) to a new folder. But how would I only copy fo1 and fo2 folders to the new place?

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  • What Does Your Website Say About You?

    I'll admit that, no matter how careful we are, there will be mistakes that will slip onto our websites. Personally, although years and years ago I taught copy editing courses at Temple University in Center City Philadelphia, I'm sure there are a few errors on this website that have gotten past my copy editing.

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  • Objective-J Cappuccino want a list of buttons on main menu, when I click the panel refreshes with UI

    - by Setori
    Dear all, I am new to objective-j/c and cappuccino not really sure how this all fits together. The code below is taken from http://github.com/jfahrenkrug/CappuccinoLocations1 What I need to do is: I need a landing main menu which is a CPView called ie MainView with five or so buttons, when you click on the LocationButton on MainView is replaces MainView by with LocationView, which displays the contents of jfahrenkrug's work. A similar effect will happen with each other button. What is the correct Objective-c/j way of handling this approach? @import <Foundation/CPObject.j> @import "src/Location/LocationView.j" @implementation AppController : CPObject { LocationView locationView; } - (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(CPNotification)aNotification { var theWindow = [[CPWindow alloc] initWithContentRect:CGRectMakeZero() styleMask:CPBorderlessBridgeWindowMask], mainContentView = [theWindow locationView], bounds = [locationView bounds]; [mainContentView setBackgroundColor:[CPColor colorWithRed:212.0 /255.0 green:221.0/ 255.0 blue:230.0/255.0 alpha:1.0]]; locationView = [[LocationView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0,0,920.0,590.0)]; [locationView setCenter:[mainContentView center]]; [locationView setBackgroundColor:[CPColor whiteColor]] [locationView setAutoresizingMask:CPViewMinXMargin | CPViewMaxXMargin | CPViewMinYMargin | CPViewMaxYMargin]; var shadow = [[CPShadowView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMakeZero()]; [shadow setFrameForContentFrame:[locationView frame]]; [shadow setAutoresizingMask:CPViewMinXMargin | CPViewMaxXMargin | CPViewMinYMargin | CPViewMaxYMargin]; [mainContentView addSubview:shadow]; [mainContentView addSubview:locationView]; [theWindow orderFront:self]; } Now we have the locationView.j @import "LocationsController.j" @import "LocationListView.j" @import "MapController.j" @import "LocationsToolbar.j" @import "LocationDetailView.j" @import "LocationDetailController.j" @implementation LocationView : CPView { LocationsController locationsController; LocationListView locationListView; MapController mapController; MKMapView mapView; CPTextField coordinatesLabel; LocationsToolbar locationsToolbar; LocationDetailView locationDetailView; LocationDetailController locationDetailController; CPTextField searchField; // id delegate @accessors; } - (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)aFrame { self = [super initWithFrame:aFrame]; if(self){ locationsController = [[LocationsController alloc] init]; [locationsController loadExampleLocations]; locationListView = [[LocationListView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0.0,0.0,226.0,400.0)]; [locationListView setContent:[locationsController locations]]; [locationListView setDelegate:locationsController]; [locationsController setLocationListView:locationListView]; var locationScrollView = [[CPScrollView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(10.0,65.0,243.0,400.0)]; [locationScrollView setDocumentView:locationListView]; [locationScrollView setAutohidesScrollers:YES]; [[locationScrollView self] setBackgroundColor:[CPColor whiteColor]]; [self addSubview:locationScrollView]; mapController = [[MapController alloc] init]; mapView = [[MKMapView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(510,65,400,400) apiKey:'' ]; [mapView setDelegate:self]; mapController.mapView = mapView; [self addSubview:mapView]; coordinatesLabel = [[CPTextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(510,465,200,35)]; [coordinatesLabel setTextColor:[CPColor colorWithHexString:@"009900"]]; [coordinatesLabel setFont:[CPFont systemFontOfSize:14.0]]; [coordinatesLabel setEditable:NO]; [coordinatesLabel setStringValue:@"-/-"]; [mapController setCoordinatesLabel:coordinatesLabel]; [self addSubview:coordinatesLabel]; locationsToolbar = [[LocationsToolbar alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(10.0,467.0,226.0,25.0)]; [locationsToolbar setDelegate:locationsController]; [self addSubview:locationsToolbar]; locationDetailController = [[LocationDetailController alloc] init]; locationDetailController.mapController = mapController; locationsController.locationDetailController = locationDetailController; [mapController setDelegate:locationDetailController]; locationDetailView = [[LocationDetailView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(510,490,400,90)]; [locationDetailView setDelegate:locationDetailController]; [locationDetailController setLocationDetailView:locationDetailView]; [self addSubview:locationDetailView]; searchField = [CPTextField roundedTextFieldWithStringValue:@"" placeholder:@"Location" width:200.0]; [searchField setFrameOrigin:CGPointMake(510.0,35.0)]; [searchField setDelegate:self]; [self addSubview:searchField]; var searchButton = [[CPButton alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(710.0,37.0,60.0,24.0)]; [searchButton setTitle:"Search"]; [searchButton setTarget:self]; [searchButton setAction:@selector(searchLocation)]; [self addSubview:searchButton]; } return self; }

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  • adding onTap method on path direction between 2 point

    - by idham
    I have a problem in my Android application I have a path direction on my application and I want to add an onTap method for the path, so if I touch that path my application will display information with alert dialog. This my activity code: hasilrute hr = new hasilrute(); for (int k = 0;k < hr.r2.size(); k++){ String angkot = hr.r2.get(i).angkot; Cursor c = db.getLatLong(hasilrute.a); Cursor cc = db.getLatLong(hasilrute.b); String x = (c.getString(3)+","+c.getString(2)); String xx = (cc.getString(3)+","+cc.getString(2)); String pairs[] = getDirectionData(x, xx); String[] lnglat = pairs[0].split(","); GeoPoint point = new GeoPoint((int) (Double.parseDouble(lnglat[1]) *1E6),(int)(Double.parseDouble(lnglat[0]) * 1E6)); GeoPoint gp1; GeoPoint gp2 = point; for (int j = 1;j < pairs.length; j++){ lnglat = pairs[j].split(","); gp1 = gp2; gp2 = new GeoPoint((int) (Double.parseDouble(lnglat[1]) *1E6),(int) (Double.parseDouble(lnglat[0]) * 1E6)); mapView.getOverlays().add(new jalur(gp1, gp2,angkot)); } } and it's my jalur.java code public class jalur extends Overlay { private GeoPoint gp1; private GeoPoint gp2; private String angkot; private Context mContext; public jalur(GeoPoint gp1, GeoPoint gp2, String angkot){ this.gp1 = gp1; this.gp2 = gp2; this.angkot = angkot; } @Override public boolean draw(Canvas canvas, MapView mapView, boolean shadow, long when){ Projection projection = mapView.getProjection(); if (shadow == false){ if (angkot.equals("Cimahi-Leuwipanjang")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(118,171,127)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); }if (angkot.equals("Cimahi-Cangkorah")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(67,204,255)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); }if (angkot.equals("Cimindi-Cipatik")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(42,82,0)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); }if (angkot.equals("Jalan Kaki")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(0,0,0)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); }if (angkot.equals("Cimahi-Padalarang")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(229,66,66)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); } if (angkot.equals("Pasantren-Sarijadi")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(4,39,255)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); }if (angkot.equals("Cimahi-Parongpong")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(141,0,200)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); }if (angkot.equals("Cimahi-Cibeber")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(255,246,0)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); }if (angkot.equals("Cimahi-Cimindi")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(220,145,251)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); }if (angkot.equals("Cimahi-Contong")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(242,138,138)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); }if (angkot.equals("Cimahi-Soreang")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(0,255,78)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); }if (angkot.equals("Cimahi-Batujajar")){ Paint paint = new Paint(); paint.setAntiAlias(true); Point point = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp1,point); Point point2 = new Point(); projection.toPixels(gp2, point2); paint.setColor(Color.rgb(137,217,51)); paint.setStrokeWidth(2); canvas.drawLine((float) point.x, (float) point.y, (float) point2.x, (float) point2.y, paint); } } return super.draw(canvas, mapView, shadow, when); } @Override public void draw(Canvas canvas, MapView mapView, boolean shadow){ super.draw(canvas, mapView, shadow); } } thanks for your attention :)

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  • Scripting an automated SQLServer 2008 DR move

    - by ItsAMystery
    Hi All We use the built in logshipping in SQLServer to logship to our DR site but once in a month do a DR test which requires us to move back and forth between our Live and BAckup servers. We run multiple (30) databases on the system so manually backing up the final logs and disabling the jobs is too much work and takes too long. I though no problem, I will script it but have run into trouble with it always complaninig that the final logship is too early to apply even though I dont export the final log until putting the database into norecovery mode. Firstly, does any one no a simple and reliable way of doing this? I have lokoed at some 3rd party software (redgate sqlbackup I think it was) but that didnt make it easy in this situation either. What I want to be able to do is basically run a script (a series of stored procedures) to get me to DR and run another to get me back with no dataloss. My scripts are very simplistic at the moment but here they are: 2 servers Primary Paris Secondary ParisT The StartAgentJobAndWait is a script written by someone else (ta) and just checks the jobs have finished or quits it if it never ends. At the moment I am just using a test database called BOB2 but if I can get it working will pass in the database and job names. from PARIS: /* Disable backup job */ exec msdb..sp_update_job @job_name = 'LSBackup_BOB2', @enabled = 0 exec PARIST.msdb..sp_update_job @job_name = 'LSCopy_PARIS_BOB2', @enabled = 0 exec PARIST.msdb..sp_update_job @job_name = 'LSRestore_PARIS_BOB2', @enabled = 0 exec PARIST.master.dbo.DRStage2 ParisT DRStage2 DECLARE @RetValue varchar (10) EXEC @RetValue = StartAgentJobAndWait LSCopy_PARIS_BOB2 , 2 SELECT ReturnValue=@RetValue if @RetValue = 1 begin print 'The Copy Task completed Succesffuly' END ELSE print 'The Copy task failed, This may or may not be a problem, check restore state of database' SELECT @RetValue = 0 EXEC @RetValue = StartAgentJobAndWait LSRestore_PARIS_BOB2 , 2 SELECT ReturnValue=@RetValue if @RetValue = 1 begin print 'The Restore Task completed Succesffuly' END ELSE print 'The Copy task failed, This may or may not be a problem, check restore state of database' exec PARIS.master.dbo.DRStage3 /* Do the last logship and move it to Trumpington */ BACKUP log "BOB2" to disk='c:\drlogshipping\BOB2.bak' with compression, norecovery EXEC xp_cmdshell 'copy c:\drlogshipping \\192.168.7.11\drlogshipping' EXEC PARIST.master.dbo.DRTransferFinish AS BEGIN restore database "BOB2" from disk='c:\drlogshipping\bob2.bak' with recovery

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  • Move database from SQL Server 2012 to 2008

    - by Rich
    I have a database on a SQL Sever 2012 instance which I would like to copy to a 2008 server. The 2008 server cannot restore backups created by a 2012 server (I have tried). I cannot find any options in 2012 to create a 2008 compatible backup. Am I missing something? Is there an easy way to export the schema and data to a version-agnostic format which I can then import into 2008? The database does not use any 2012 specific features. It contains tables, data and stored procedures. Here is what I have tried so far: I tried "tasks" - "generate scripts" on the 2012 server, and I was able to generate the schema (including stored procedures) as a sql script. This didn't include any of the data, though. After creating that schema on my 2008 machine, I was able to open the "Export Data" wizard on the 2012 machine, and after configuring the 2012 as source machine and the 2008 as target machine, I was presented with a list of tables which I could copy. I selected all my tables (300+), and clicked through the wizard. Unfortunately it spends ages generating its scripts, then fails with errors like "Failure inserting into the read-only column 'FOO_ID'". I also tried the "Copy Database Wizard", which claimed to be able to copy "from 2000 or later to 2005 or later". It has two modes: 1) "detach and attach", which failed with error: Message: Index was outside the bounds of the array. StackTrace: at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.PropertyBag.SetValue(Int32 index, Object value) ... at Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.DataFile.get_FileName() 2) SQL Management Object Method which failed with error "Cannot read property IsFileStream.This property is not available on SQL Server 7.0."

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  • Why does RoboCopy create a hidden system folder?

    - by Svish
    I thought I would try out RoboCopy for mirroring the contents of a folder to another harddrive. And seems like it worked. But, for some reason, to see the destination folder I have to both enable Show hidden files, folders and drives and disable Hide protected operating system files. Why is this? Both the source and destination folder was initially both visible and normal directories. When I open up the properties for that destination folder, the Hidden attribute is even disabled. What is going on here? Is it because I ran it in an administrator command prompt? Or is it an issue with my choice of modifiers? Or does robocopy really just work this way? robocopy E: I:\E /COPYALL /E /R:0 /MIR /B /ETA Update: Tried to copy another drive to another folder, and I got the same thing happening there. But when I try to just copy a folder to a different folder, then the destination folder stays normal. Could it be because I copy a drive? If so, how can I prevent this from happening? Cause I really do want to copy the whole drive...

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  • cfengine3 file_copy only on source side change

    - by megamic
    I am using the 'digest' copy method for all file copy promises, because of the way we package and deploy software, I cant rely on mtime for the criteria for updating files. For various reasons, I am not employing the client-server approach with a central configuration server: rather we package and deploy our entire configuration module to each server, so from cf-engine's perspective, the source and target are local on the server it is running. The problem I am having with this approach is that the source will always update the target when they differ - which is what I want most of the time, usually because the source has been updated. However, like many other cfengine users, we are running an operational environment, where occasionally emergency fixes have to be applied immediately - meaning we don't have time to rebuild and redeploy a configuration module, and the fix will often be applied by deploying a tarball with specific changes. Of course this is problematic if cf-engine comes along 5 mintues later and reverts the changes. What we would like is to be able to make small, incremental changes to our servers, without them being reverted, until the next deployment cycle at which time the new source files would be copied. We do not consider random file corruption or mistaken changes to involve enough risk to warrant having cfengine constantly revert deployments to their source copy - the ability to deploy emergency fixes and have them stay that way until the next deployment would be of much greater value and utility. So, after all that, my question is this: is cf-engine capable of detecting whether it was the source or target that changed when the files differ, and if so, is their a way to use the 'digest' copy method but only if the source side changed? I am very open to other ideas and approaches as-well, as I am still quite new to this whole configuration management thing.

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  • Safe place to put an executable file on Windows 7 (and Windows XP)

    - by Ricket
    I'm working on a tweak to our logon script which will copy an executable file to the local hard drive and then, using the schtasks command, schedule a task to run that executable daily. It's a standalone executable file, and when run it creates a folder in the working directory (which would be the same directory as the executable in this case). In Windows XP, of course, it can be put anywhere - I'd probably just throw it in C:\SomeRandomFolder and let it be. But this logon script also runs on Windows 7 64-bit machines, and those are trickier with UAC and all that. The user is a local administrator but UAC is enabled, so I'm pretty sure that the executable would be blocked from copying to a location like C:\ or C:\Program Files (since those seem to be at least mildly protected by UAC). The scheduled task needs to run under the user's profile, so I can't just run it with SYSTEM and ignore the UAC boundaries; I need to find a path which the user can copy into. Where can I copy this standalone executable file, so that the copy operation succeeds without a UAC prompt on Windows 7, the path is either common to both WinXP and Win7 or uses environment variables, and the scheduled task running with user permissions is able to launch the executable?

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  • nconf deployment.ini configuration for a basic Nagios server on CentOS 6.2

    - by jshin47
    I have set up nconf and Nagios but I cannot figure out how to configure deployment.ini to properly deploy the generated configuration to /usr/local/nagios/etc. Here are the directory listings of interest: [jshin@nag0 tmp]$ ls Default_collector global [jshin@nag0 tmp]$ cd Default_collector/ [jshin@nag0 Default_collector]$ ls advanced_services.cfg hostgroups.cfg service_dependencies.cfg services.cfg host_dependencies.cfg hosts.cfg servicegroups.cfg [jshin@nag0 Default_collector]$ cd .. [jshin@nag0 tmp]$ cd global/ [jshin@nag0 global]$ ls checkcommands.cfg contacts.cfg misccommands.cfg timeperiods.cfg contactgroups.cfg host_templates.cfg service_templates.cfg [jshin@nag0 global]$ cd .. [jshin@nag0 tmp]$ cd /usr/local/nagios/etc/ [jshin@nag0 etc]$ ls cgi.cfg htpasswd.users nagios.cfg objects resource.cfg [jshin@nag0 etc]$ cd objects/ [jshin@nag0 objects]$ ls commands.cfg localhost.cfg switch.cfg timeperiods.cfg contacts.cfg printer.cfg templates.cfg windows.cfg Here is my deployment.ini (pretty much the default setting) ;; LOCAL deployment ;; [extract config] type = local source_file = "/var/www/html/nconf/output/NagiosConfig.tgz" target_file = "/tmp/" action = extract [copy collector config] type = local source_file = "/tmp/Default_collector/" target_file = "/usr/local/nagios/etc/Default_collector/" action = copy [copy global config] type = local source_file = "/tmp/global/" target_file = "/usr/local/nagios/etc/global" action = copy reload_command = "service nagios restart" What I am wondering is why the directory structure that the default deployment.ini seems to suggest, with Default_collector and global, is different from the one that Nagios has by default, with only a folder called objects. What am I missing? Or more importantly, how does your deployment.ini look?

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  • Server 2003 Remote Desktop loses its virtual printer image of the local printer

    - by Charles Hart
    Server 2003 Remote Desktop provides service to stores served by several ISPs. The server loses its virtual printer image of the local printer (as seen from the remote store site) and a copy of the original local printer appears on the local computer with a different driver without notice. Specifically: A remote desktop session is opened on a local computer that has a Brother HL2140 USB printer connected and the associated software installed with a correct driver shown under the “advanced” button. The server has the same Brother software and driver. An application that is running on the server attempts to print on the local printer connected to the local computer running Vista Pro or XP Pro. Either it works correctly (Good) or it does not print (Bad) or it prints on another Local Printer connected to another local computer logged into the server (Bad and Odd). When it doesn’t print (or prints somewhere else) we ask the customer to look for the (virtual) printer using the Remote desktop view of the server and the printer is gone. Then we ask the customer to look at the printers folder in the local computer. There are several possibilities: The printer is there, but the driver is mysteriously changed in the drop down to MDX something; we have the customer select the other (proper) Brother driver, and all is well again, as now after the change, the virtual printer in the server (which now matches the local printer) appears again, and so printing can resume. A “copy” of the printer mysteriously appears in the local printer’s folder and after we delete it the virtual printer in the server appears again and so printing can resume. Note that in both case 1 and 2, the server sometimes sends the print job elsewhere, to some other local computer. Meanwhile in the log file, endless errors are reported and the server eventually crashes, sometimes twice a day. I’m puzzled what changes the local printer driver and I’m puzzled what loads the copy 2 or copy 3 of the printer in the local printer folder. This entire description randomly occurs on any of 40+ local computers in eight different locations in different ISPs, all sharing one Domain.

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  • How to increase the speed between two external hard drives on my laptop?

    - by Roman
    Hello, I own Sony Vaio Z laptop with two external USB ports. It's quite new and has USB 2.0 support. I'm using Vista x64 on it. I also have two external usb hard drives, Iomega 500GB and WD for 1TB. Every hard drive has USB 2.0 support. I connect two devices to my laptop and trying to copy date from one hard drive to another. But it takes a lot of time! The speed is about 15 Megabytes per second. I have to wait toooooo long to copy all the information from one hard drive to another. When I try to copy information from my internal (SSD) hard drive, it works fine for both external drives. The speed is very high and it shows me something about 100 Megabytes per second. It makes me feel that USB 2.0 is OK on both drives. But when I'm trying to copy from one external drive to another external, I still get very low speed. I checked out Device Manager and here is the settings I have: (sorry, can't upload image because of my rating, check this url: http://picbite.com/image/122073daljo/ ) I think it's because two of my external drives use the same USB 2.0 controller. Is there any way to make it work faster? Is it possible to move one of my USB ports to other USB 2.0 controller? Or is there any software which can help me to automate copying all the files thru my internal drive? I have only about 3 gigabytes free space on internal drive and it's quite difficult to move manually every file from one hard drive to internal and then again to another internal.

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  • How to increase the speed between two external hard drives on my laptop?

    - by Roman
    Hello, I own Sony Vaio Z laptop with two external USB ports. It's quite new and has USB 2.0 support. I'm using Vista x64 on it. I also have two external usb hard drives, Iomega 500GB and WD for 1TB. Every hard drive has USB 2.0 support. I connect two devices to my laptop and trying to copy date from one hard drive to another. But it takes a lot of time! The speed is about 15 Megabytes per second. I have to wait toooooo long to copy all the information from one hard drive to another. When I try to copy information from my internal (SSD) hard drive, it works fine for both external drives. The speed is very high and it shows me something about 100 Megabytes per second. It makes me feel that USB 2.0 is OK on both drives. But when I'm trying to copy from one external drive to another external, I still get very low speed. I checked out Device Manager and here is the settings I have: (sorry, can't upload image because of my rating, check this url: http://picbite.com/image/122073daljo/ ) I think it's because two of my external drives use the same USB 2.0 controller. Is there any way to make it work faster? Is it possible to move one of my USB ports to other USB 2.0 controller? Or is there any software which can help me to automate copying all the files thru my internal drive? I have only about 3 gigabytes free space on internal drive and it's quite difficult to move manually every file from one hard drive to internal and then again to another internal.

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  • Cut (smart edit) .mts (AVCHD Progressive) files un Ubuntu Lucid

    - by pts
    I have a bunch of .mts files containing AVCHD Progressive video recorded by a Panasonic camera, and I need software on Ubuntu Lucid with which I can remove the boring parts, and concatenate the interesting parts, all this without reencoding the video stream. It's OK for me to cut at keyframe boundary. If Avidemux was able to open the files, it would take about 60 hours of work for me to cut the files. (At least that was it last time I tried with similar videos, but of a file format supported by Avidemux.) So I need a fast, powerful and stable video editor, because I don't want that 60 hours of work go up to 240 or even 480 hours just because the tool is too slow or unstable or has a terrible UI. I've tried Avidemux 2.5.5 and 2.5.6, but they crash trying to open such a file, even if I convert the file to .avi first using mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy. mplayer can play the files. I've tried Avidemux 2.6.0, which can open the file, but it cannot jump to the previous or next keyframe etc. (if I make it jump to the next keyframe, and then to the previous keyframe, it doesn't end up at the original keyframe, sometimes displays an error etc.). Also I'm not sure if Avidemux 2.6.x would let me save the result without reencoding. I've tried Kdenlive 0.7.7.1, but playback is very choppy, and it cannot play audio at all (complaining that SDL cannot find the device; but many other programs on the system can play audio). It would be a pain to work with. I've tried converting the .mts file to .mkv using ffmpeg -i input.mts -vcodec copy -sameq -acodec copy -f matroska output.mkv, but that caused too much visible distortions in the video in both mplayer and Avidemux. I've tried converting the .mts file with TsRemux.exe, but Avidemux 2.5.x still can't open that file. Is there another program to cut and concatenate the files? Is there a preprocessor which would create a file (without reencoding the video) on which Avidemux wouldn't crash?

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  • Exchange 2010 Transport rules stepping on each other

    - by TopHat
    I have a group of users that I have to restrict email access for and so far using Exchange Transport Rules has worked very well. The problem I am having is that Rule 0 is supposed to bcc the email to a review mailbox but otherwise not change anything and Rule 9 is supposed to block the email and throw a custom NDR to tell the user why they were blocked. Here are my results in practice however. If Rule 0 is enabled and Rule 9 is enabled then only Rule 9 functions If Rule 0 is disabled and Rule 9 is enabled then Rule 9 functions If Rule 0 is enabled and Rule 9 is disabled then Rule 0 functions This is after the Transport Service has been restarted (multiple times actually). I have other rule pairs that work correctly. None of these are overlapping rulesets however. - copy email going to address outside domain and then block - copy email coming in from outside and then block Here is the rule for copying internal emails (Rule 0): Apply rule to messages from a member of Blind carbon copy (Bcc) the message to except when the message is sent to a member of or [email protected] Here is the rule to block the same email (rule 9): Apply rule to messages from a member of send 'Email to non-supervisors or managers has been prohibited. Please contact your supervisor for more information.' to sender with 5.7.420 except when the message is sent to , [email protected], The distribution group used for membership in these rules is used for the other blocking and copying rules and works as expected. Is there something I missed in this setup? All of the copy rules are at the front of the transport rule group and all the actual copies at at the end of the queue if that makes a difference. Any thoughts as to why the email doesn't get copied when it gets blocked?

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  • How to repair damaged repository (which has a centralized .svn directory)?

    - by Heinrich Ulbricht
    I recently upgraded my TortoiseSVN installation to version 1.7.1. This forced me to upgrade my working copy as well. The upgrade removed all (but one) of the .svn directories from all subdirectories leaving only one in the root. Now out of the blue (of course; I suspect my antivirus software) there is an error when I for example try to clean up the working copy. I am also not able to commit anything. The error message when cleaning up is: Cleanup failed to process the following paths: C:\svn Can't open file 'C:\svn.svn\pristine\73\73bcc5fa7819f84f56b81dfa0236f0aac7b7d404.svn-base': The system cannot find the file specified. I traced the error to be related to the presence of one directory within the working copy. If I rename it then everything works. When it is present I get the error. I also deleted it and checked it out again. No change, the error persists. With previous versions I could repair damages in the .svn easily: just delete the offending folder and check out again. I cannot do this anymore because now the .svn dir is centralized. What could I do to repair my working copy?

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  • External-Harddisk drive couldn't run unless in safe mode

    - by zfm
    This is the strangest thing ever happened to me... I have an external harddisk drive (ext-HDD), bought around 2 years ago (don't know whether this is an important issue or not). Here, I have a video file (.avi) in my internal harddisk dive (HDD), it worked very well, then I copy it to my ext-HDD, but I couldn't run the file directly from my ext-HDD! I tried to copy it back to my HDD (from the ext-HDD), and now the copy couldn't be run on my HDD too. Remember that I copy the file, so the original one was still there. I tried to go to safe mode (forget to mention, I use Windows 7 Pro), and this is where the strange thing happened, the copied files (both in ext-HDD and HDD) can be run in this safe mode. So, my question is, what could actually be happened there? PS: My ext-HDD is Axioo, 250 GB, exFAT... Edited: Currently I used MacOSX, and the file in the harddisk still can't be run. I haven't tried safe mode for Mac (is there one?), but will try later (if there is)

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  • Can a OS be copied from one hard drive to another and still boot?

    - by AlexMorley-Finch
    Background My computer gets stuck on the make and model screen after the BIOS screen, aka the Toshiba screen. After some research I've realized that the problem is the hard drive. I'm using an old 250gb model that USED to be used for backup purposes, however I loaded windows 7 ultimate onto it This hard drive has trouble getting up to full RPM therefore cannot boot correctly until its warmed up. meaning that my pc needs to be restarted several times before it boots (once it took my 13 reboots to get my pc on!) From my research its either that, or lack of power supply, and I've tried multiple PSUs. Question I have my OS and all my files on this 250gb HDD... If I were to literally open the explorer, and copy EVERYTHING (including hidden files obviously) from this 250gb, to a spare 500gb I've got knocking about... Will it boot if I just copy everything? I cannot be bothered to load another OS onto my PC so if there is a way I can just copy the existing one over from one HDD to another and have it boot normally. This would be epic! I've heard about HDD cloning software. But before I purchase and/or download this software, I need to know if i can just copy the OS over through the windows explorer

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  • Formatting pwd/ls for use with scp

    - by eumiro
    I have two terminal windows with bash. One is local on the client computer, another one has an SSH-session on the server. On the server, I am in a directory and seeing a file I would like to copy to my client using scp from the client. On the server I see: user@server:/path$ ls filename filename I can now type scp in the client shell, select and copy the user@server:/path from the server shell and paste to the client shell, then type slash and copy and paste the filename and append a dot to get: user@client:~$ scp user@server:/path/filename . to scp a file from the server to the client. Now I am searching for a command on the server, that would work like this: user@server:/path$ special_ls filename user@server:/path/filename which would give me the complete scp-ready string to copy&paste to the client shell. Something in the form echo $USER@$HOSTNAME:${pwd}/$filename working with relative/absolute paths. Is there any such command/switch combination or do I have to hack it myself? Thank you very much.

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  • Zen and the Art of File and Folder Organization

    - by Mark Virtue
    Is your desk a paragon of neatness, or does it look like a paper-bomb has gone off? If you’ve been putting off getting organized because the task is too huge or daunting, or you don’t know where to start, we’ve got 40 tips to get you on the path to zen mastery of your filing system. For all those readers who would like to get their files and folders organized, or, if they’re already organized, better organized—we have compiled a complete guide to getting organized and staying organized, a comprehensive article that will hopefully cover every possible tip you could want. Signs that Your Computer is Poorly Organized If your computer is a mess, you’re probably already aware of it.  But just in case you’re not, here are some tell-tale signs: Your Desktop has over 40 icons on it “My Documents” contains over 300 files and 60 folders, including MP3s and digital photos You use the Windows’ built-in search facility whenever you need to find a file You can’t find programs in the out-of-control list of programs in your Start Menu You save all your Word documents in one folder, all your spreadsheets in a second folder, etc Any given file that you’re looking for may be in any one of four different sets of folders But before we start, here are some quick notes: We’re going to assume you know what files and folders are, and how to create, save, rename, copy and delete them The organization principles described in this article apply equally to all computer systems.  However, the screenshots here will reflect how things look on Windows (usually Windows 7).  We will also mention some useful features of Windows that can help you get organized. Everyone has their own favorite methodology of organizing and filing, and it’s all too easy to get into “My Way is Better than Your Way” arguments.  The reality is that there is no perfect way of getting things organized.  When I wrote this article, I tried to keep a generalist and objective viewpoint.  I consider myself to be unusually well organized (to the point of obsession, truth be told), and I’ve had 25 years experience in collecting and organizing files on computers.  So I’ve got a lot to say on the subject.  But the tips I have described here are only one way of doing it.  Hopefully some of these tips will work for you too, but please don’t read this as any sort of “right” way to do it. At the end of the article we’ll be asking you, the reader, for your own organization tips. Why Bother Organizing At All? For some, the answer to this question is self-evident. And yet, in this era of powerful desktop search software (the search capabilities built into the Windows Vista and Windows 7 Start Menus, and third-party programs like Google Desktop Search), the question does need to be asked, and answered. I have a friend who puts every file he ever creates, receives or downloads into his My Documents folder and doesn’t bother filing them into subfolders at all.  He relies on the search functionality built into his Windows operating system to help him find whatever he’s looking for.  And he always finds it.  He’s a Search Samurai.  For him, filing is a waste of valuable time that could be spent enjoying life! It’s tempting to follow suit.  On the face of it, why would anyone bother to take the time to organize their hard disk when such excellent search software is available?  Well, if all you ever want to do with the files you own is to locate and open them individually (for listening, editing, etc), then there’s no reason to ever bother doing one scrap of organization.  But consider these common tasks that are not achievable with desktop search software: Find files manually.  Often it’s not convenient, speedy or even possible to utilize your desktop search software to find what you want.  It doesn’t work 100% of the time, or you may not even have it installed.  Sometimes its just plain faster to go straight to the file you want, if you know it’s in a particular sub-folder, rather than trawling through hundreds of search results. Find groups of similar files (e.g. all your “work” files, all the photos of your Europe holiday in 2008, all your music videos, all the MP3s from Dark Side of the Moon, all your letters you wrote to your wife, all your tax returns).  Clever naming of the files will only get you so far.  Sometimes it’s the date the file was created that’s important, other times it’s the file format, and other times it’s the purpose of the file.  How do you name a collection of files so that they’re easy to isolate based on any of the above criteria?  Short answer, you can’t. Move files to a new computer.  It’s time to upgrade your computer.  How do you quickly grab all the files that are important to you?  Or you decide to have two computers now – one for home and one for work.  How do you quickly isolate only the work-related files to move them to the work computer? Synchronize files to other computers.  If you have more than one computer, and you need to mirror some of your files onto the other computer (e.g. your music collection), then you need a way to quickly determine which files are to be synced and which are not.  Surely you don’t want to synchronize everything? Choose which files to back up.  If your backup regime calls for multiple backups, or requires speedy backups, then you’ll need to be able to specify which files are to be backed up, and which are not.  This is not possible if they’re all in the same folder. Finally, if you’re simply someone who takes pleasure in being organized, tidy and ordered (me! me!), then you don’t even need a reason.  Being disorganized is simply unthinkable. Tips on Getting Organized Here we present our 40 best tips on how to get organized.  Or, if you’re already organized, to get better organized. Tip #1.  Choose Your Organization System Carefully The reason that most people are not organized is that it takes time.  And the first thing that takes time is deciding upon a system of organization.  This is always a matter of personal preference, and is not something that a geek on a website can tell you.  You should always choose your own system, based on how your own brain is organized (which makes the assumption that your brain is, in fact, organized). We can’t instruct you, but we can make suggestions: You may want to start off with a system based on the users of the computer.  i.e. “My Files”, “My Wife’s Files”, My Son’s Files”, etc.  Inside “My Files”, you might then break it down into “Personal” and “Business”.  You may then realize that there are overlaps.  For example, everyone may want to share access to the music library, or the photos from the school play.  So you may create another folder called “Family”, for the “common” files. You may decide that the highest-level breakdown of your files is based on the “source” of each file.  In other words, who created the files.  You could have “Files created by ME (business or personal)”, “Files created by people I know (family, friends, etc)”, and finally “Files created by the rest of the world (MP3 music files, downloaded or ripped movies or TV shows, software installation files, gorgeous desktop wallpaper images you’ve collected, etc).”  This system happens to be the one I use myself.  See below:  Mark is for files created by meVC is for files created by my company (Virtual Creations)Others is for files created by my friends and familyData is the rest of the worldAlso, Settings is where I store the configuration files and other program data files for my installed software (more on this in tip #34, below). Each folder will present its own particular set of requirements for further sub-organization.  For example, you may decide to organize your music collection into sub-folders based on the artist’s name, while your digital photos might get organized based on the date they were taken.  It can be different for every sub-folder! Another strategy would be based on “currentness”.  Files you have yet to open and look at live in one folder.  Ones that have been looked at but not yet filed live in another place.  Current, active projects live in yet another place.  All other files (your “archive”, if you like) would live in a fourth folder. (And of course, within that last folder you’d need to create a further sub-system based on one of the previous bullet points). Put some thought into this – changing it when it proves incomplete can be a big hassle!  Before you go to the trouble of implementing any system you come up with, examine a wide cross-section of the files you own and see if they will all be able to find a nice logical place to sit within your system. Tip #2.  When You Decide on Your System, Stick to It! There’s nothing more pointless than going to all the trouble of creating a system and filing all your files, and then whenever you create, receive or download a new file, you simply dump it onto your Desktop.  You need to be disciplined – forever!  Every new file you get, spend those extra few seconds to file it where it belongs!  Otherwise, in just a month or two, you’ll be worse off than before – half your files will be organized and half will be disorganized – and you won’t know which is which! Tip #3.  Choose the Root Folder of Your Structure Carefully Every data file (document, photo, music file, etc) that you create, own or is important to you, no matter where it came from, should be found within one single folder, and that one single folder should be located at the root of your C: drive (as a sub-folder of C:\).  In other words, do not base your folder structure in standard folders like “My Documents”.  If you do, then you’re leaving it up to the operating system engineers to decide what folder structure is best for you.  And every operating system has a different system!  In Windows 7 your files are found in C:\Users\YourName, whilst on Windows XP it was C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\My Documents.  In UNIX systems it’s often /home/YourName. These standard default folders tend to fill up with junk files and folders that are not at all important to you.  “My Documents” is the worst offender.  Every second piece of software you install, it seems, likes to create its own folder in the “My Documents” folder.  These folders usually don’t fit within your organizational structure, so don’t use them!  In fact, don’t even use the “My Documents” folder at all.  Allow it to fill up with junk, and then simply ignore it.  It sounds heretical, but: Don’t ever visit your “My Documents” folder!  Remove your icons/links to “My Documents” and replace them with links to the folders you created and you care about! Create your own file system from scratch!  Probably the best place to put it would be on your D: drive – if you have one.  This way, all your files live on one drive, while all the operating system and software component files live on the C: drive – simply and elegantly separated.  The benefits of that are profound.  Not only are there obvious organizational benefits (see tip #10, below), but when it comes to migrate your data to a new computer, you can (sometimes) simply unplug your D: drive and plug it in as the D: drive of your new computer (this implies that the D: drive is actually a separate physical disk, and not a partition on the same disk as C:).  You also get a slight speed improvement (again, only if your C: and D: drives are on separate physical disks). Warning:  From tip #12, below, you will see that it’s actually a good idea to have exactly the same file system structure – including the drive it’s filed on – on all of the computers you own.  So if you decide to use the D: drive as the storage system for your own files, make sure you are able to use the D: drive on all the computers you own.  If you can’t ensure that, then you can still use a clever geeky trick to store your files on the D: drive, but still access them all via the C: drive (see tip #17, below). If you only have one hard disk (C:), then create a dedicated folder that will contain all your files – something like C:\Files.  The name of the folder is not important, but make it a single, brief word. There are several reasons for this: When creating a backup regime, it’s easy to decide what files should be backed up – they’re all in the one folder! If you ever decide to trade in your computer for a new one, you know exactly which files to migrate You will always know where to begin a search for any file If you synchronize files with other computers, it makes your synchronization routines very simple.   It also causes all your shortcuts to continue to work on the other machines (more about this in tip #24, below). Once you’ve decided where your files should go, then put all your files in there – Everything!  Completely disregard the standard, default folders that are created for you by the operating system (“My Music”, “My Pictures”, etc).  In fact, you can actually relocate many of those folders into your own structure (more about that below, in tip #6). The more completely you get all your data files (documents, photos, music, etc) and all your configuration settings into that one folder, then the easier it will be to perform all of the above tasks. Once this has been done, and all your files live in one folder, all the other folders in C:\ can be thought of as “operating system” folders, and therefore of little day-to-day interest for us. Here’s a screenshot of a nicely organized C: drive, where all user files are located within the \Files folder:   Tip #4.  Use Sub-Folders This would be our simplest and most obvious tip.  It almost goes without saying.  Any organizational system you decide upon (see tip #1) will require that you create sub-folders for your files.  Get used to creating folders on a regular basis. Tip #5.  Don’t be Shy About Depth Create as many levels of sub-folders as you need.  Don’t be scared to do so.  Every time you notice an opportunity to group a set of related files into a sub-folder, do so.  Examples might include:  All the MP3s from one music CD, all the photos from one holiday, or all the documents from one client. It’s perfectly okay to put files into a folder called C:\Files\Me\From Others\Services\WestCo Bank\Statements\2009.  That’s only seven levels deep.  Ten levels is not uncommon.  Of course, it’s possible to take this too far.  If you notice yourself creating a sub-folder to hold only one file, then you’ve probably become a little over-zealous.  On the other hand, if you simply create a structure with only two levels (for example C:\Files\Work) then you really haven’t achieved any level of organization at all (unless you own only six files!).  Your “Work” folder will have become a dumping ground, just like your Desktop was, with most likely hundreds of files in it. Tip #6.  Move the Standard User Folders into Your Own Folder Structure Most operating systems, including Windows, create a set of standard folders for each of its users.  These folders then become the default location for files such as documents, music files, digital photos and downloaded Internet files.  In Windows 7, the full list is shown below: Some of these folders you may never use nor care about (for example, the Favorites folder, if you’re not using Internet Explorer as your browser).  Those ones you can leave where they are.  But you may be using some of the other folders to store files that are important to you.  Even if you’re not using them, Windows will still often treat them as the default storage location for many types of files.  When you go to save a standard file type, it can become annoying to be automatically prompted to save it in a folder that’s not part of your own file structure. But there’s a simple solution:  Move the folders you care about into your own folder structure!  If you do, then the next time you go to save a file of the corresponding type, Windows will prompt you to save it in the new, moved location. Moving the folders is easy.  Simply drag-and-drop them to the new location.  Here’s a screenshot of the default My Music folder being moved to my custom personal folder (Mark): Tip #7.  Name Files and Folders Intelligently This is another one that almost goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway:  Do not allow files to be created that have meaningless names like Document1.doc, or folders called New Folder (2).  Take that extra 20 seconds and come up with a meaningful name for the file/folder – one that accurately divulges its contents without repeating the entire contents in the name. Tip #8.  Watch Out for Long Filenames Another way to tell if you have not yet created enough depth to your folder hierarchy is that your files often require really long names.  If you need to call a file Johnson Sales Figures March 2009.xls (which might happen to live in the same folder as Abercrombie Budget Report 2008.xls), then you might want to create some sub-folders so that the first file could be simply called March.xls, and living in the Clients\Johnson\Sales Figures\2009 folder. A well-placed file needs only a brief filename! Tip #9.  Use Shortcuts!  Everywhere! This is probably the single most useful and important tip we can offer.  A shortcut allows a file to be in two places at once. Why would you want that?  Well, the file and folder structure of every popular operating system on the market today is hierarchical.  This means that all objects (files and folders) always live within exactly one parent folder.  It’s a bit like a tree.  A tree has branches (folders) and leaves (files).  Each leaf, and each branch, is supported by exactly one parent branch, all the way back to the root of the tree (which, incidentally, is exactly why C:\ is called the “root folder” of the C: drive). That hard disks are structured this way may seem obvious and even necessary, but it’s only one way of organizing data.  There are others:  Relational databases, for example, organize structured data entirely differently.  The main limitation of hierarchical filing structures is that a file can only ever be in one branch of the tree – in only one folder – at a time.  Why is this a problem?  Well, there are two main reasons why this limitation is a problem for computer users: The “correct” place for a file, according to our organizational rationale, is very often a very inconvenient place for that file to be located.  Just because it’s correctly filed doesn’t mean it’s easy to get to.  Your file may be “correctly” buried six levels deep in your sub-folder structure, but you may need regular and speedy access to this file every day.  You could always move it to a more convenient location, but that would mean that you would need to re-file back to its “correct” location it every time you’d finished working on it.  Most unsatisfactory. A file may simply “belong” in two or more different locations within your file structure.  For example, say you’re an accountant and you have just completed the 2009 tax return for John Smith.  It might make sense to you to call this file 2009 Tax Return.doc and file it under Clients\John Smith.  But it may also be important to you to have the 2009 tax returns from all your clients together in the one place.  So you might also want to call the file John Smith.doc and file it under Tax Returns\2009.  The problem is, in a purely hierarchical filing system, you can’t put it in both places.  Grrrrr! Fortunately, Windows (and most other operating systems) offers a way for you to do exactly that:  It’s called a “shortcut” (also known as an “alias” on Macs and a “symbolic link” on UNIX systems).  Shortcuts allow a file to exist in one place, and an icon that represents the file to be created and put anywhere else you please.  In fact, you can create a dozen such icons and scatter them all over your hard disk.  Double-clicking on one of these icons/shortcuts opens up the original file, just as if you had double-clicked on the original file itself. Consider the following two icons: The one on the left is the actual Word document, while the one on the right is a shortcut that represents the Word document.  Double-clicking on either icon will open the same file.  There are two main visual differences between the icons: The shortcut will have a small arrow in the lower-left-hand corner (on Windows, anyway) The shortcut is allowed to have a name that does not include the file extension (the “.docx” part, in this case) You can delete the shortcut at any time without losing any actual data.  The original is still intact.  All you lose is the ability to get to that data from wherever the shortcut was. So why are shortcuts so great?  Because they allow us to easily overcome the main limitation of hierarchical file systems, and put a file in two (or more) places at the same time.  You will always have files that don’t play nice with your organizational rationale, and can’t be filed in only one place.  They demand to exist in two places.  Shortcuts allow this!  Furthermore, they allow you to collect your most often-opened files and folders together in one spot for convenient access.  The cool part is that the original files stay where they are, safe forever in their perfectly organized location. So your collection of most often-opened files can – and should – become a collection of shortcuts! If you’re still not convinced of the utility of shortcuts, consider the following well-known areas of a typical Windows computer: The Start Menu (and all the programs that live within it) The Quick Launch bar (or the Superbar in Windows 7) The “Favorite folders” area in the top-left corner of the Windows Explorer window (in Windows Vista or Windows 7) Your Internet Explorer Favorites or Firefox Bookmarks Each item in each of these areas is a shortcut!  Each of those areas exist for one purpose only:  For convenience – to provide you with a collection of the files and folders you access most often. It should be easy to see by now that shortcuts are designed for one single purpose:  To make accessing your files more convenient.  Each time you double-click on a shortcut, you are saved the hassle of locating the file (or folder, or program, or drive, or control panel icon) that it represents. Shortcuts allow us to invent a golden rule of file and folder organization: “Only ever have one copy of a file – never have two copies of the same file.  Use a shortcut instead” (this rule doesn’t apply to copies created for backup purposes, of course!) There are also lesser rules, like “don’t move a file into your work area – create a shortcut there instead”, and “any time you find yourself frustrated with how long it takes to locate a file, create a shortcut to it and place that shortcut in a convenient location.” So how to we create these massively useful shortcuts?  There are two main ways: “Copy” the original file or folder (click on it and type Ctrl-C, or right-click on it and select Copy):  Then right-click in an empty area of the destination folder (the place where you want the shortcut to go) and select Paste shortcut: Right-drag (drag with the right mouse button) the file from the source folder to the destination folder.  When you let go of the mouse button at the destination folder, a menu pops up: Select Create shortcuts here. Note that when shortcuts are created, they are often named something like Shortcut to Budget Detail.doc (windows XP) or Budget Detail – Shortcut.doc (Windows 7).   If you don’t like those extra words, you can easily rename the shortcuts after they’re created, or you can configure Windows to never insert the extra words in the first place (see our article on how to do this). And of course, you can create shortcuts to folders too, not just to files! Bottom line: Whenever you have a file that you’d like to access from somewhere else (whether it’s convenience you’re after, or because the file simply belongs in two places), create a shortcut to the original file in the new location. Tip #10.  Separate Application Files from Data Files Any digital organization guru will drum this rule into you.  Application files are the components of the software you’ve installed (e.g. Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop or Internet Explorer).  Data files are the files that you’ve created for yourself using that software (e.g. Word Documents, digital photos, emails or playlists). Software gets installed, uninstalled and upgraded all the time.  Hopefully you always have the original installation media (or downloaded set-up file) kept somewhere safe, and can thus reinstall your software at any time.  This means that the software component files are of little importance.  Whereas the files you have created with that software is, by definition, important.  It’s a good rule to always separate unimportant files from important files. So when your software prompts you to save a file you’ve just created, take a moment and check out where it’s suggesting that you save the file.  If it’s suggesting that you save the file into the same folder as the software itself, then definitely don’t follow that suggestion.  File it in your own folder!  In fact, see if you can find the program’s configuration option that determines where files are saved by default (if it has one), and change it. Tip #11.  Organize Files Based on Purpose, Not on File Type If you have, for example a folder called Work\Clients\Johnson, and within that folder you have two sub-folders, Word Documents and Spreadsheets (in other words, you’re separating “.doc” files from “.xls” files), then chances are that you’re not optimally organized.  It makes little sense to organize your files based on the program that created them.  Instead, create your sub-folders based on the purpose of the file.  For example, it would make more sense to create sub-folders called Correspondence and Financials.  It may well be that all the files in a given sub-folder are of the same file-type, but this should be more of a coincidence and less of a design feature of your organization system. Tip #12.  Maintain the Same Folder Structure on All Your Computers In other words, whatever organizational system you create, apply it to every computer that you can.  There are several benefits to this: There’s less to remember.  No matter where you are, you always know where to look for your files If you copy or synchronize files from one computer to another, then setting up the synchronization job becomes very simple Shortcuts can be copied or moved from one computer to another with ease (assuming the original files are also copied/moved).  There’s no need to find the target of the shortcut all over again on the second computer Ditto for linked files (e.g Word documents that link to data in a separate Excel file), playlists, and any files that reference the exact file locations of other files. This applies even to the drive that your files are stored on.  If your files are stored on C: on one computer, make sure they’re stored on C: on all your computers.  Otherwise all your shortcuts, playlists and linked files will stop working! Tip #13.  Create an “Inbox” Folder Create yourself a folder where you store all files that you’re currently working on, or that you haven’t gotten around to filing yet.  You can think of this folder as your “to-do” list.  You can call it “Inbox” (making it the same metaphor as your email system), or “Work”, or “To-Do”, or “Scratch”, or whatever name makes sense to you.  It doesn’t matter what you call it – just make sure you have one! Once you have finished working on a file, you then move it from the “Inbox” to its correct location within your organizational structure. You may want to use your Desktop as this “Inbox” folder.  Rightly or wrongly, most people do.  It’s not a bad place to put such files, but be careful:  If you do decide that your Desktop represents your “to-do” list, then make sure that no other files find their way there.  In other words, make sure that your “Inbox”, wherever it is, Desktop or otherwise, is kept free of junk – stray files that don’t belong there. So where should you put this folder, which, almost by definition, lives outside the structure of the rest of your filing system?  Well, first and foremost, it has to be somewhere handy.  This will be one of your most-visited folders, so convenience is key.  Putting it on the Desktop is a great option – especially if you don’t have any other folders on your Desktop:  the folder then becomes supremely easy to find in Windows Explorer: You would then create shortcuts to this folder in convenient spots all over your computer (“Favorite Links”, “Quick Launch”, etc). Tip #14.  Ensure You have Only One “Inbox” Folder Once you’ve created your “Inbox” folder, don’t use any other folder location as your “to-do list”.  Throw every incoming or created file into the Inbox folder as you create/receive it.  This keeps the rest of your computer pristine and free of randomly created or downloaded junk.  The last thing you want to be doing is checking multiple folders to see all your current tasks and projects.  Gather them all together into one folder. Here are some tips to help ensure you only have one Inbox: Set the default “save” location of all your programs to this folder. Set the default “download” location for your browser to this folder. If this folder is not your desktop (recommended) then also see if you can make a point of not putting “to-do” files on your desktop.  This keeps your desktop uncluttered and Zen-like: (the Inbox folder is in the bottom-right corner) Tip #15.  Be Vigilant about Clearing Your “Inbox” Folder This is one of the keys to staying organized.  If you let your “Inbox” overflow (i.e. allow there to be more than, say, 30 files or folders in there), then you’re probably going to start feeling like you’re overwhelmed:  You’re not keeping up with your to-do list.  Once your Inbox gets beyond a certain point (around 30 files, studies have shown), then you’ll simply start to avoid it.  You may continue to put files in there, but you’ll be scared to look at it, fearing the “out of control” feeling that all overworked, chaotic or just plain disorganized people regularly feel. So, here’s what you can do: Visit your Inbox/to-do folder regularly (at least five times per day). Scan the folder regularly for files that you have completed working on and are ready for filing.  File them immediately. Make it a source of pride to keep the number of files in this folder as small as possible.  If you value peace of mind, then make the emptiness of this folder one of your highest (computer) priorities If you know that a particular file has been in the folder for more than, say, six weeks, then admit that you’re not actually going to get around to processing it, and move it to its final resting place. Tip #16.  File Everything Immediately, and Use Shortcuts for Your Active Projects As soon as you create, receive or download a new file, store it away in its “correct” folder immediately.  Then, whenever you need to work on it (possibly straight away), create a shortcut to it in your “Inbox” (“to-do”) folder or your desktop.  That way, all your files are always in their “correct” locations, yet you still have immediate, convenient access to your current, active files.  When you finish working on a file, simply delete the shortcut. Ideally, your “Inbox” folder – and your Desktop – should contain no actual files or folders.  They should simply contain shortcuts. Tip #17.  Use Directory Symbolic Links (or Junctions) to Maintain One Unified Folder Structure Using this tip, we can get around a potential hiccup that we can run into when creating our organizational structure – the issue of having more than one drive on our computer (C:, D:, etc).  We might have files we need to store on the D: drive for space reasons, and yet want to base our organized folder structure on the C: drive (or vice-versa). Your chosen organizational structure may dictate that all your files must be accessed from the C: drive (for example, the root folder of all your files may be something like C:\Files).  And yet you may still have a D: drive and wish to take advantage of the hundreds of spare Gigabytes that it offers.  Did you know that it’s actually possible to store your files on the D: drive and yet access them as if they were on the C: drive?  And no, we’re not talking about shortcuts here (although the concept is very similar). By using the shell command mklink, you can essentially take a folder that lives on one drive and create an alias for it on a different drive (you can do lots more than that with mklink – for a full rundown on this programs capabilities, see our dedicated article).  These aliases are called directory symbolic links (and used to be known as junctions).  You can think of them as “virtual” folders.  They function exactly like regular folders, except they’re physically located somewhere else. For example, you may decide that your entire D: drive contains your complete organizational file structure, but that you need to reference all those files as if they were on the C: drive, under C:\Files.  If that was the case you could create C:\Files as a directory symbolic link – a link to D:, as follows: mklink /d c:\files d:\ Or it may be that the only files you wish to store on the D: drive are your movie collection.  You could locate all your movie files in the root of your D: drive, and then link it to C:\Files\Media\Movies, as follows: mklink /d c:\files\media\movies d:\ (Needless to say, you must run these commands from a command prompt – click the Start button, type cmd and press Enter) Tip #18. Customize Your Folder Icons This is not strictly speaking an organizational tip, but having unique icons for each folder does allow you to more quickly visually identify which folder is which, and thus saves you time when you’re finding files.  An example is below (from my folder that contains all files downloaded from the Internet): To learn how to change your folder icons, please refer to our dedicated article on the subject. Tip #19.  Tidy Your Start Menu The Windows Start Menu is usually one of the messiest parts of any Windows computer.  Every program you install seems to adopt a completely different approach to placing icons in this menu.  Some simply put a single program icon.  Others create a folder based on the name of the software.  And others create a folder based on the name of the software manufacturer.  It’s chaos, and can make it hard to find the software you want to run. Thankfully we can avoid this chaos with useful operating system features like Quick Launch, the Superbar or pinned start menu items. Even so, it would make a lot of sense to get into the guts of the Start Menu itself and give it a good once-over.  All you really need to decide is how you’re going to organize your applications.  A structure based on the purpose of the application is an obvious candidate.  Below is an example of one such structure: In this structure, Utilities means software whose job it is to keep the computer itself running smoothly (configuration tools, backup software, Zip programs, etc).  Applications refers to any productivity software that doesn’t fit under the headings Multimedia, Graphics, Internet, etc. In case you’re not aware, every icon in your Start Menu is a shortcut and can be manipulated like any other shortcut (copied, moved, deleted, etc). With the Windows Start Menu (all version of Windows), Microsoft has decided that there be two parallel folder structures to store your Start Menu shortcuts.  One for you (the logged-in user of the computer) and one for all users of the computer.  Having two parallel structures can often be redundant:  If you are the only user of the computer, then having two parallel structures is totally redundant.  Even if you have several users that regularly log into the computer, most of your installed software will need to be made available to all users, and should thus be moved out of the “just you” version of the Start Menu and into the “all users” area. To take control of your Start Menu, so you can start organizing it, you’ll need to know how to access the actual folders and shortcut files that make up the Start Menu (both versions of it).  To find these folders and files, click the Start button and then right-click on the All Programs text (Windows XP users should right-click on the Start button itself): The Open option refers to the “just you” version of the Start Menu, while the Open All Users option refers to the “all users” version.  Click on the one you want to organize. A Windows Explorer window then opens with your chosen version of the Start Menu selected.  From there it’s easy.  Double-click on the Programs folder and you’ll see all your folders and shortcuts.  Now you can delete/rename/move until it’s just the way you want it. Note:  When you’re reorganizing your Start Menu, you may want to have two Explorer windows open at the same time – one showing the “just you” version and one showing the “all users” version.  You can drag-and-drop between the windows. Tip #20.  Keep Your Start Menu Tidy Once you have a perfectly organized Start Menu, try to be a little vigilant about keeping it that way.  Every time you install a new piece of software, the icons that get created will almost certainly violate your organizational structure. So to keep your Start Menu pristine and organized, make sure you do the following whenever you install a new piece of software: Check whether the software was installed into the “just you” area of the Start Menu, or the “all users” area, and then move it to the correct area. Remove all the unnecessary icons (like the “Read me” icon, the “Help” icon (you can always open the help from within the software itself when it’s running), the “Uninstall” icon, the link(s)to the manufacturer’s website, etc) Rename the main icon(s) of the software to something brief that makes sense to you.  For example, you might like to rename Microsoft Office Word 2010 to simply Word Move the icon(s) into the correct folder based on your Start Menu organizational structure And don’t forget:  when you uninstall a piece of software, the software’s uninstall routine is no longer going to be able to remove the software’s icon from the Start Menu (because you moved and/or renamed it), so you’ll need to remove that icon manually. Tip #21.  Tidy C:\ The root of your C: drive (C:\) is a common dumping ground for files and folders – both by the users of your computer and by the software that you install on your computer.  It can become a mess. There’s almost no software these days that requires itself to be installed in C:\.  99% of the time it can and should be installed into C:\Program Files.  And as for your own files, well, it’s clear that they can (and almost always should) be stored somewhere else. In an ideal world, your C:\ folder should look like this (on Windows 7): Note that there are some system files and folders in C:\ that are usually and deliberately “hidden” (such as the Windows virtual memory file pagefile.sys, the boot loader file bootmgr, and the System Volume Information folder).  Hiding these files and folders is a good idea, as they need to stay where they are and are almost never needed to be opened or even seen by you, the user.  Hiding them prevents you from accidentally messing with them, and enhances your sense of order and well-being when you look at your C: drive folder. Tip #22.  Tidy Your Desktop The Desktop is probably the most abused part of a Windows computer (from an organization point of view).  It usually serves as a dumping ground for all incoming files, as well as holding icons to oft-used applications, plus some regularly opened files and folders.  It often ends up becoming an uncontrolled mess.  See if you can avoid this.  Here’s why… Application icons (Word, Internet Explorer, etc) are often found on the Desktop, but it’s unlikely that this is the optimum place for them.  The “Quick Launch” bar (or the Superbar in Windows 7) is always visible and so represents a perfect location to put your icons.  You’ll only be able to see the icons on your Desktop when all your programs are minimized.  It might be time to get your application icons off your desktop… You may have decided that the Inbox/To-do folder on your computer (see tip #13, above) should be your Desktop.  If so, then enough said.  Simply be vigilant about clearing it and preventing it from being polluted by junk files (see tip #15, above).  On the other hand, if your Desktop is not acting as your “Inbox” folder, then there’s no reason for it to have any data files or folders on it at all, except perhaps a couple of shortcuts to often-opened files and folders (either ongoing or current projects).  Everything else should be moved to your “Inbox” folder. In an ideal world, it might look like this: Tip #23.  Move Permanent Items on Your Desktop Away from the Top-Left Corner When files/folders are dragged onto your desktop in a Windows Explorer window, or when shortcuts are created on your Desktop from Internet Explorer, those icons are always placed in the top-left corner – or as close as they can get.  If you have other files, folders or shortcuts that you keep on the Desktop permanently, then it’s a good idea to separate these permanent icons from the transient ones, so that you can quickly identify which ones the transients are.  An easy way to do this is to move all your permanent icons to the right-hand side of your Desktop.  That should keep them separated from incoming items. Tip #24.  Synchronize If you have more than one computer, you’ll almost certainly want to share files between them.  If the computers are permanently attached to the same local network, then there’s no need to store multiple copies of any one file or folder – shortcuts will suffice.  However, if the computers are not always on the same network, then you will at some point need to copy files between them.  For files that need to permanently live on both computers, the ideal way to do this is to synchronize the files, as opposed to simply copying them. We only have room here to write a brief summary of synchronization, not a full article.  In short, there are several different types of synchronization: Where the contents of one folder are accessible anywhere, such as with Dropbox Where the contents of any number of folders are accessible anywhere, such as with Windows Live Mesh Where any files or folders from anywhere on your computer are synchronized with exactly one other computer, such as with the Windows “Briefcase”, Microsoft SyncToy, or (much more powerful, yet still free) SyncBack from 2BrightSparks.  This only works when both computers are on the same local network, at least temporarily. A great advantage of synchronization solutions is that once you’ve got it configured the way you want it, then the sync process happens automatically, every time.  Click a button (or schedule it to happen automatically) and all your files are automagically put where they’re supposed to be. If you maintain the same file and folder structure on both computers, then you can also sync files depend upon the correct location of other files, like shortcuts, playlists and office documents that link to other office documents, and the synchronized files still work on the other computer! Tip #25.  Hide Files You Never Need to See If you have your files well organized, you will often be able to tell if a file is out of place just by glancing at the contents of a folder (for example, it should be pretty obvious if you look in a folder that contains all the MP3s from one music CD and see a Word document in there).  This is a good thing – it allows you to determine if there are files out of place with a quick glance.  Yet sometimes there are files in a folder that seem out of place but actually need to be there, such as the “folder art” JPEGs in music folders, and various files in the root of the C: drive.  If such files never need to be opened by you, then a good idea is to simply hide them.  Then, the next time you glance at the folder, you won’t have to remember whether that file was supposed to be there or not, because you won’t see it at all! To hide a file, simply right-click on it and choose Properties: Then simply tick the Hidden tick-box:   Tip #26.  Keep Every Setup File These days most software is downloaded from the Internet.  Whenever you download a piece of software, keep it.  You’ll never know when you need to reinstall the software. Further, keep with it an Internet shortcut that links back to the website where you originally downloaded it, in case you ever need to check for updates. See tip #33 below for a full description of the excellence of organizing your setup files. Tip #27.  Try to Minimize the Number of Folders that Contain Both Files and Sub-folders Some of the folders in your organizational structure will contain only files.  Others will contain only sub-folders.  And you will also have some folders that contain both files and sub-folders.  You will notice slight improvements in how long it takes you to locate a file if you try to avoid this third type of folder.  It’s not always possible, of course – you’ll always have some of these folders, but see if you can avoid it. One way of doing this is to take all the leftover files that didn’t end up getting stored in a sub-folder and create a special “Miscellaneous” or “Other” folder for them. Tip #28.  Starting a Filename with an Underscore Brings it to the Top of a List Further to the previous tip, if you name that “Miscellaneous” or “Other” folder in such a way that its name begins with an underscore “_”, then it will appear at the top of the list of files/folders. The screenshot below is an example of this.  Each folder in the list contains a set of digital photos.  The folder at the top of the list, _Misc, contains random photos that didn’t deserve their own dedicated folder: Tip #29.  Clean Up those CD-ROMs and (shudder!) Floppy Disks Have you got a pile of CD-ROMs stacked on a shelf of your office?  Old photos, or files you archived off onto CD-ROM (or even worse, floppy disks!) because you didn’t have enough disk space at the time?  In the meantime have you upgraded your computer and now have 500 Gigabytes of space you don’t know what to do with?  If so, isn’t it time you tidied up that stack of disks and filed them into your gorgeous new folder structure? So what are you waiting for?  Bite the bullet, copy them all back onto your computer, file them in their appropriate folders, and then back the whole lot up onto a shiny new 1000Gig external hard drive! Useful Folders to Create This next section suggests some useful folders that you might want to create within your folder structure.  I’ve personally found them to be indispensable. The first three are all about convenience – handy folders to create and then put somewhere that you can always access instantly.  For each one, it’s not so important where the actual folder is located, but it’s very important where you put the shortcut(s) to the folder.  You might want to locate the shortcuts: On your Desktop In your “Quick Launch” area (or pinned to your Windows 7 Superbar) In your Windows Explorer “Favorite Links” area Tip #30.  Create an “Inbox” (“To-Do”) Folder This has already been mentioned in depth (see tip #13), but we wanted to reiterate its importance here.  This folder contains all the recently created, received or downloaded files that you have not yet had a chance to file away properly, and it also may contain files that you have yet to process.  In effect, it becomes a sort of “to-do list”.  It doesn’t have to be called “Inbox” – you can call it whatever you want. Tip #31.  Create a Folder where Your Current Projects are Collected Rather than going hunting for them all the time, or dumping them all on your desktop, create a special folder where you put links (or work folders) for each of the projects you’re currently working on. You can locate this folder in your “Inbox” folder, on your desktop, or anywhere at all – just so long as there’s a way of getting to it quickly, such as putting a link to it in Windows Explorer’s “Favorite Links” area: Tip #32.  Create a Folder for Files and Folders that You Regularly Open You will always have a few files that you open regularly, whether it be a spreadsheet of your current accounts, or a favorite playlist.  These are not necessarily “current projects”, rather they’re simply files that you always find yourself opening.  Typically such files would be located on your desktop (or even better, shortcuts to those files).  Why not collect all such shortcuts together and put them in their own special folder? As with the “Current Projects” folder (above), you would want to locate that folder somewhere convenient.  Below is an example of a folder called “Quick links”, with about seven files (shortcuts) in it, that is accessible through the Windows Quick Launch bar: See tip #37 below for a full explanation of the power of the Quick Launch bar. Tip #33.  Create a “Set-ups” Folder A typical computer has dozens of applications installed on it.  For each piece of software, there are often many different pieces of information you need to keep track of, including: The original installation setup file(s).  This can be anything from a simple 100Kb setup.exe file you downloaded from a website, all the way up to a 4Gig ISO file that you copied from a DVD-ROM that you purchased. The home page of the software manufacturer (in case you need to look up something on their support pages, their forum or their online help) The page containing the download link for your actual file (in case you need to re-download it, or download an upgraded version) The serial number Your proof-of-purchase documentation Any other template files, plug-ins, themes, etc that also need to get installed For each piece of software, it’s a great idea to gather all of these files together and put them in a single folder.  The folder can be the name of the software (plus possibly a very brief description of what it’s for – in case you can’t remember what the software does based in its name).  Then you would gather all of these folders together into one place, and call it something like “Software” or “Setups”. If you have enough of these folders (I have several hundred, being a geek, collected over 20 years), then you may want to further categorize them.  My own categorization structure is based on “platform” (operating system): The last seven folders each represents one platform/operating system, while _Operating Systems contains set-up files for installing the operating systems themselves.  _Hardware contains ROMs for hardware I own, such as routers. Within the Windows folder (above), you can see the beginnings of the vast library of software I’ve compiled over the years: An example of a typical application folder looks like this: Tip #34.  Have a “Settings” Folder We all know that our documents are important.  So are our photos and music files.  We save all of these files into folders, and then locate them afterwards and double-click on them to open them.  But there are many files that are important to us that can’t be saved into folders, and then searched for and double-clicked later on.  These files certainly contain important information that we need, but are often created internally by an application, and saved wherever that application feels is appropriate. A good example of this is the “PST” file that Outlook creates for us and uses to store all our emails, contacts, appointments and so forth.  Another example would be the collection of Bookmarks that Firefox stores on your behalf. And yet another example would be the customized settings and configuration files of our all our software.  Granted, most Windows programs store their configuration in the Registry, but there are still many programs that use configuration files to store their settings. Imagine if you lost all of the above files!  And yet, when people are backing up their computers, they typically only back up the files they know about – those that are stored in the “My Documents” folder, etc.  If they had a hard disk failure or their computer was lost or stolen, their backup files would not include some of the most vital files they owned.  Also, when migrating to a new computer, it’s vital to ensure that these files make the journey. It can be a very useful idea to create yourself a folder to store all your “settings” – files that are important to you but which you never actually search for by name and double-click on to open them.  Otherwise, next time you go to set up a new computer just the way you want it, you’ll need to spend hours recreating the configuration of your previous computer! So how to we get our important files into this folder?  Well, we have a few options: Some programs (such as Outlook and its PST files) allow you to place these files wherever you want.  If you delve into the program’s options, you will find a setting somewhere that controls the location of the important settings files (or “personal storage” – PST – when it comes to Outlook) Some programs do not allow you to change such locations in any easy way, but if you get into the Registry, you can sometimes find a registry key that refers to the location of the file(s).  Simply move the file into your Settings folder and adjust the registry key to refer to the new location. Some programs stubbornly refuse to allow their settings files to be placed anywhere other then where they stipulate.  When faced with programs like these, you have three choices:  (1) You can ignore those files, (2) You can copy the files into your Settings folder (let’s face it – settings don’t change very often), or (3) you can use synchronization software, such as the Windows Briefcase, to make synchronized copies of all your files in your Settings folder.  All you then have to do is to remember to run your sync software periodically (perhaps just before you run your backup software!). There are some other things you may decide to locate inside this new “Settings” folder: Exports of registry keys (from the many applications that store their configurations in the Registry).  This is useful for backup purposes or for migrating to a new computer Notes you’ve made about all the specific customizations you have made to a particular piece of software (so that you’ll know how to do it all again on your next computer) Shortcuts to webpages that detail how to tweak certain aspects of your operating system or applications so they are just the way you like them (such as how to remove the words “Shortcut to” from the beginning of newly created shortcuts).  In other words, you’d want to create shortcuts to half the pages on the How-To Geek website! Here’s an example of a “Settings” folder: Windows Features that Help with Organization This section details some of the features of Microsoft Windows that are a boon to anyone hoping to stay optimally organized. Tip #35.  Use the “Favorite Links” Area to Access Oft-Used Folders Once you’ve created your great new filing system, work out which folders you access most regularly, or which serve as great starting points for locating the rest of the files in your folder structure, and then put links to those folders in your “Favorite Links” area of the left-hand side of the Windows Explorer window (simply called “Favorites” in Windows 7):   Some ideas for folders you might want to add there include: Your “Inbox” folder (or whatever you’ve called it) – most important! The base of your filing structure (e.g. C:\Files) A folder containing shortcuts to often-accessed folders on other computers around the network (shown above as Network Folders) A folder containing shortcuts to your current projects (unless that folder is in your “Inbox” folder) Getting folders into this area is very simple – just locate the folder you’re interested in and drag it there! Tip #36.  Customize the Places Bar in the File/Open and File/Save Boxes Consider the screenshot below: The highlighted icons (collectively known as the “Places Bar”) can be customized to refer to any folder location you want, allowing instant access to any part of your organizational structure. Note:  These File/Open and File/Save boxes have been superseded by new versions that use the Windows Vista/Windows 7 “Favorite Links”, but the older versions (shown above) are still used by a surprisingly large number of applications. The easiest way to customize these icons is to use the Group Policy Editor, but not everyone has access to this program.  If you do, open it up and navigate to: User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer > Common Open File Dialog If you don’t have access to the Group Policy Editor, then you’ll need to get into the Registry.  Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft  \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ comdlg32 \ Placesbar It should then be easy to make the desired changes.  Log off and log on again to allow the changes to take effect. Tip #37.  Use the Quick Launch Bar as a Application and File Launcher That Quick Launch bar (to the right of the Start button) is a lot more useful than people give it credit for.  Most people simply have half a dozen icons in it, and use it to start just those programs.  But it can actually be used to instantly access just about anything in your filing system: For complete instructions on how to set this up, visit our dedicated article on this topic. Tip #38.  Put a Shortcut to Windows Explorer into Your Quick Launch Bar This is only necessary in Windows Vista and Windows XP.  The Microsoft boffins finally got wise and added it to the Windows 7 Superbar by default. Windows Explorer – the program used for managing your files and folders – is one of the most useful programs in Windows.  Anyone who considers themselves serious about being organized needs instant access to this program at any time.  A great place to create a shortcut to this program is in the Windows XP and Windows Vista “Quick Launch” bar: To get it there, locate it in your Start Menu (usually under “Accessories”) and then right-drag it down into your Quick Launch bar (and create a copy). Tip #39.  Customize the Starting Folder for Your Windows 7 Explorer Superbar Icon If you’re on Windows 7, your Superbar will include a Windows Explorer icon.  Clicking on the icon will launch Windows Explorer (of course), and will start you off in your “Libraries” folder.  Libraries may be fine as a starting point, but if you have created yourself an “Inbox” folder, then it would probably make more sense to start off in this folder every time you launch Windows Explorer. To change this default/starting folder location, then first right-click the Explorer icon in the Superbar, and then right-click Properties:Then, in Target field of the Windows Explorer Properties box that appears, type %windir%\explorer.exe followed by the path of the folder you wish to start in.  For example: %windir%\explorer.exe C:\Files If that folder happened to be on the Desktop (and called, say, “Inbox”), then you would use the following cleverness: %windir%\explorer.exe shell:desktop\Inbox Then click OK and test it out. Tip #40.  Ummmmm…. No, that’s it.  I can’t think of another one.  That’s all of the tips I can come up with.  I only created this one because 40 is such a nice round number… Case Study – An Organized PC To finish off the article, I have included a few screenshots of my (main) computer (running Vista).  The aim here is twofold: To give you a sense of what it looks like when the above, sometimes abstract, tips are applied to a real-life computer, and To offer some ideas about folders and structure that you may want to steal to use on your own PC. Let’s start with the C: drive itself.  Very minimal.  All my files are contained within C:\Files.  I’ll confine the rest of the case study to this folder: That folder contains the following: Mark: My personal files VC: My business (Virtual Creations, Australia) Others contains files created by friends and family Data contains files from the rest of the world (can be thought of as “public” files, usually downloaded from the Net) Settings is described above in tip #34 The Data folder contains the following sub-folders: Audio:  Radio plays, audio books, podcasts, etc Development:  Programmer and developer resources, sample source code, etc (see below) Humour:  Jokes, funnies (those emails that we all receive) Movies:  Downloaded and ripped movies (all legal, of course!), their scripts, DVD covers, etc. Music:  (see below) Setups:  Installation files for software (explained in full in tip #33) System:  (see below) TV:  Downloaded TV shows Writings:  Books, instruction manuals, etc (see below) The Music folder contains the following sub-folders: Album covers:  JPEG scans Guitar tabs:  Text files of guitar sheet music Lists:  e.g. “Top 1000 songs of all time” Lyrics:  Text files MIDI:  Electronic music files MP3 (representing 99% of the Music folder):  MP3s, either ripped from CDs or downloaded, sorted by artist/album name Music Video:  Video clips Sheet Music:  usually PDFs The Data\Writings folder contains the following sub-folders: (all pretty self-explanatory) The Data\Development folder contains the following sub-folders: Again, all pretty self-explanatory (if you’re a geek) The Data\System folder contains the following sub-folders: These are usually themes, plug-ins and other downloadable program-specific resources. The Mark folder contains the following sub-folders: From Others:  Usually letters that other people (friends, family, etc) have written to me For Others:  Letters and other things I have created for other people Green Book:  None of your business Playlists:  M3U files that I have compiled of my favorite songs (plus one M3U playlist file for every album I own) Writing:  Fiction, philosophy and other musings of mine Mark Docs:  Shortcut to C:\Users\Mark Settings:  Shortcut to C:\Files\Settings\Mark The Others folder contains the following sub-folders: The VC (Virtual Creations, my business – I develop websites) folder contains the following sub-folders: And again, all of those are pretty self-explanatory. Conclusion These tips have saved my sanity and helped keep me a productive geek, but what about you? What tips and tricks do you have to keep your files organized?  Please share them with us in the comments.  Come on, don’t be shy… Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Fix For When Windows Explorer in Vista Stops Showing File NamesWhy Did Windows Vista’s Music Folder Icon Turn Yellow?Print or Create a Text File List of the Contents in a Directory the Easy WayCustomize the Windows 7 or Vista Send To MenuAdd Copy To / Move To on Windows 7 or Vista Right-Click Menu 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 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Track Daily Goals With 42Goals Video Toolbox is a Superb Online Video Editor Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day Check the Average Speed of YouTube Videos You’ve Watched OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics

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  • Using Web Services from an XNA 4.0 WP7 Game

    - by Michael Cummings
    Now that the Windows Phone 7 development tools have been out for a while, let’s talk about how you can use them. Windows Phone 7 ( WP7 ) has two application types that you can create, either Silverlight or XNA, and you can’t really mix the two together. The development environment for WP7 is a special edition of Visual Studio 2010 called Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone. This edition will be installed with the WP7 tools, even if you have a full edition of VS2010 already installed. While you can use your full edition of VS2010 to do WP7 development, this astute developer has noticed that there are a few things that you can only do in the Express for Windows Phone edition. So lets start by discussing WP7 networking. On the WP7 platform the only networking available is through Web Services using WCF or if you’re really masochistic, you’ll use the WebClient to do http. In Silverlight, it’s fairly easy to wire up a WCF proxy to call a web service and get some data. In the XNA projects, not so much. Create WCF Service First, we’ll create our service that will return some information that we need in our game. Open Visual Studio 2010, and create a new WCF Web Service project. We’ll use the default implementation as we only need to see how to use a service, we are not interested in creating a really cool service at this point. However you may want to follow the instructions in the comments of Service1.svc.cs to change the name to something better, I used DataService and IDataService for the interface. You should now be able to run the project and the WCF Test Client will load and properly enumerate your service. At this point we have a functional service that can be consumed by our XNA game. Consume the WCF Service Open Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phone and create a new XNA Game Studio 4.0 Windows Phone Game project. Now if you try to add a service reference to the project, you’ll notice that the option is not available. However, if you add a Silverlight application to your solution, you’ll notice that you can create a service reference there. So using the Silverlight project, we can create the service reference. Unfortunately you can’t reference the Silverlight project from the XNA Game project, so using Windows Explorer copy the Service References folder from the Silverlight project directory to the XNA Game project directory, then add the folder to your XNA Game project. You’ll need to set the property Build Action to None for all the files, except for Reference.cs, which should be Build. Truely, we only need Reference.cs but I find it easier to copy the whole folder. If you try to compile at this point, you’ll notice that we are missing  a couple of references, System.Runtime.Serialization, System.Net and System.ServiceModel. Add these to the XNA Game project and you should build successfully. You’ll also need to copy the ServiceReference.ClientConfig file and add it to your project. The WCF infrastructure looks for this file and will complain if it can’t find it. You’ll need to set the Copy to Output Directory property to Copy if Newer. We now need to add the code to call the service and display the results on the screen. Go ahead and add a SpriteFont resource to the Content project and load it in the Game project. There’s nothing here that’s changed much from 3.1 other than your Content project is now under the Solution node and not the Project node. While you’re at it, add a string field to store the result of the service call, and intialize it to string.Empty. Then in the Draw method, write the string out to the screen, only if it does not equal string.Empty. Now to wrap this up, lets create a new field that’s of the type DataServiceClient. In the Initialize Method, create a new instance of this type using its default contructor, then in the LoadContent we can call the service. Since we can only call the GetData method of our service asynchronously we need to set up a Completed event handler first. Thankfully, Visual Studio helps out a lot there just create, using the tab key whatever VS says to. In the GetDataAsyncCompleted event handler assign the service result ( e.Result) to your string field. If you run your game, you should get something like this : Enjoy!

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  • Replication Services in a BI environment

    - by jorg
    In this blog post I will explain the principles of SQL Server Replication Services without too much detail and I will take a look on the BI capabilities that Replication Services could offer in my opinion. SQL Server Replication Services provides tools to copy and distribute database objects from one database system to another and maintain consistency afterwards. These tools basically copy or synchronize data with little or no transformations, they do not offer capabilities to transform data or apply business rules, like ETL tools do. The only “transformations” Replication Services offers is to filter records or columns out of your data set. You can achieve this by selecting the desired columns of a table and/or by using WHERE statements like this: SELECT <published_columns> FROM [Table] WHERE [DateTime] >= getdate() - 60 There are three types of replication: Transactional Replication This type replicates data on a transactional level. The Log Reader Agent reads directly on the transaction log of the source database (Publisher) and clones the transactions to the Distribution Database (Distributor), this database acts as a queue for the destination database (Subscriber). Next, the Distribution Agent moves the cloned transactions that are stored in the Distribution Database to the Subscriber. The Distribution Agent can either run at scheduled intervals or continuously which offers near real-time replication of data! So for example when a user executes an UPDATE statement on one or multiple records in the publisher database, this transaction (not the data itself) is copied to the distribution database and is then also executed on the subscriber. When the Distribution Agent is set to run continuously this process runs all the time and transactions on the publisher are replicated in small batches (near real-time), when it runs on scheduled intervals it executes larger batches of transactions, but the idea is the same. Snapshot Replication This type of replication makes an initial copy of database objects that need to be replicated, this includes the schemas and the data itself. All types of replication must start with a snapshot of the database objects from the Publisher to initialize the Subscriber. Transactional replication need an initial snapshot of the replicated publisher tables/objects to run its cloned transactions on and maintain consistency. The Snapshot Agent copies the schemas of the tables that will be replicated to files that will be stored in the Snapshot Folder which is a normal folder on the file system. When all the schemas are ready, the data itself will be copied from the Publisher to the snapshot folder. The snapshot is generated as a set of bulk copy program (BCP) files. Next, the Distribution Agent moves the snapshot to the Subscriber, if necessary it applies schema changes first and copies the data itself afterwards. The application of schema changes to the Subscriber is a nice feature, when you change the schema of the Publisher with, for example, an ALTER TABLE statement, that change is propagated by default to the Subscriber(s). Merge Replication Merge replication is typically used in server-to-client environments, for example when subscribers need to receive data, make changes offline, and later synchronize changes with the Publisher and other Subscribers, like with mobile devices that need to synchronize one in a while. Because I don’t really see BI capabilities here, I will not explain this type of replication any further. Replication Services in a BI environment Transactional Replication can be very useful in BI environments. In my opinion you never want to see users to run custom (SSRS) reports or PowerPivot solutions directly on your production database, it can slow down the system and can cause deadlocks in the database which can cause errors. Transactional Replication can offer a read-only, near real-time database for reporting purposes with minimal overhead on the source system. Snapshot Replication can also be useful in BI environments, if you don’t need a near real-time copy of the database, you can choose to use this form of replication. Next to an alternative for Transactional Replication it can be used to stage data so it can be transformed and moved into the data warehousing environment afterwards. In many solutions I have seen developers create multiple SSIS packages that simply copies data from one or more source systems to a staging database that figures as source for the ETL process. The creation of these packages takes a lot of (boring) time, while Replication Services can do the same in minutes. It is possible to filter out columns and/or records and it can even apply schema changes automatically so I think it offers enough features here. I don’t know how the performance will be and if it really works as good for this purpose as I expect, but I want to try this out soon!

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