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  • Dell Powerdge840 2.4GHz 64 bit quad core

    - by newb64bit
    I am having an issue, where I have changed the boot order to cdrom and turned off hd boot all together and still my system is unable to detect ubuntu and claims, no boot device found. Some additional information: When this same cd is inserted and dell is booted into win 2003 server (which is what is installed on this machine), it detects the cd drive but not the cd at all (keeps asking me to insert disc) I have also created a bootable flash drive using LinuxLive USB creator and when this is selected in boot order again am told no boot device detected. I was speaking to dell and they suggested perhaps there are no drivers on the actual ubuntu installation for the hardware on this Dell and hence the failure of this dell to detect the ubuntu cd. Now, I don't know too much about computers, but this last bit confused me a bit. If the system detects the hardware (when it is booting it sees the cd rom and in bios it sees when the flash drive is connected), then shouldn't it be able to read what is on those drives? However, if there is some firmware or software install that needs to happen, could someone please tell me where to find the correct drivers for ubuntu and dell poweredge to work together? Shall I be installing the desktop version or the server edition, also, 32 bit or 63 bit? Thank you in advance.

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  • Cross-platform builds with OGRE3D via CMake. Any tips?

    - by frarees
    I've been trying to compile a simple project for both OSX and Windows platforms, using OGRE3D, but I've got some problems on the way. I'm using CMake to create my platform specific project files (VS solution & Xcode project). Some problems I found are: OGRE3D source is distributed in 2 flavors, Windows sources and UNIX/OSX sources. In OSX, compiling dependencies (freetype, FreeImage and specially OIS) is such a pain. I don't know how to handle precompiled dependencies (they exist for both Win & Mac). May sound like a noob question, but I would appreciate some tips on this. Resources, forum posts, anything. There exists any "cross-platform base project for OGRE3D" on the net? Would be really helpful if someone who already managed to do this can bring some light. Btw, I'm not basing the project on OGRE3D, it's just that is the biggest library I'm probably using, so I depend a lot on it. Thanks in advantage!

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  • Any benefit of /home Ubuntu partition

    - by nightcrawler
    I want to have dual OS of Win8 & Ubuntu 12.10. Provided that Ubuntu can access ntfs partition of Windows but same can't be said about Windows this leads to a question mark on the significance of having /home partition while installing Ubuntu. As far as I know /swap & / are the two partitions directly used by Ubuntu to store programs, installation & stuff while the documents/media resides in /home. Now because Ubuntu releases are more frequent than Windows & updates needs backup & relate stuff, so I came to decision to not to use /home at all, rather keep all my documents/media in ntfs, which would be untouched while upgrading Ubuntu as Win updates are once in a decade! Is my thinking correct? If yes, what would be the minimum space I should allot to /home plus how much I should allot to / one must know that I plan to use heavy applications like Maple, Matlab & Sagemath on Ubuntu.

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  • It is not quantifiably better

    - by MarkPearl
    An interesting statement I have heard recently in one of the organizations that I have been working with is that some of the agile processes that we are implementing are not quanitfiably better than the traditional processes they had before. This seemed to be the motivation for not moving the new process to the rest of the organization or expanding it. They would say, “the team seems to be happier than they were before but the improvement is not quanitifiable and until we can quantify it on paper we cannot make any further changes”. Up till recently I thought this was a problem until it dawned on me that their existing system was not being quantified, meaning even if I managed to quantify what we were doing (which I can), what would we be comparing it to? An appropriate response to someone when they give this reasoning is - "That's a very good point, let's go over the quantifiable attributes of your existing processes and see if we can get some common metric that we can compare them on?" If they then are able to produce some quantifiable metrics, you win because you now have something to compare it to, and if they don't then you can politely point the logic of that out as well.

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  • USB Keyboard works occasionally

    - by palimmo
    A few days ago I bought a SL640 Hama USB keyboard to use on my laptop with Ubuntu 12.04. But I'm having problems, as it works one time out of 10! While on my girlfriend's laptop, with Win Vista, always works. And on my laptop I have Win7 in dual boot. And I have to say that it always works on it. Here are some infos: ~$ lsusb Bus 006 Device 003: ID 04d9:1503 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. Shortboard Lefty As you can see, the OS recognized it but the keyboard doesn't react ... even the Caps Lock and Num Lock keys don't blink. Regarding the legacy support (useful for GRUB), I have found no entry in the BIOS. But I'm not interested in it. I just want to use it in Ubuntu. However, in GRUB it works sometimes. Surprisingly, now I have booted my laptop: the usb keyboard hasn't worked in GRUB but it has worked since the ubuntu login! And now I'm typing with it. Well.. it means that Ubuntu has the right drivers and they work. But how to "load" them always correctly? thanks in advance!

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  • Windows partition UNKNOWN after Ubuntu installation attempt at dual boot - How to fix?

    - by user285645
    The idea was to install Win 7 and Ubuntu with dual boot. However, after installation, Gparted shows a /dev/sda1 as an 'unknown' filesystem and its size is 278 GB. All my windows files, data are in this partition. THen, there's /dev/sda2 with 'EXT4' filesystem (size-9.54 GB) - created during Ubuntu install. Then, there's /dev/sda3 with 'extended' filesystem (size- 10.5 GB) - created during Ubuntu install. Then, there's /dev/sda5 with 'linux swap' filesystem (size- 2 GB) - created during Ubuntu install. Then, there's /dev/sda6 with 'ext4' filesystem (size- 8.5 GB) - created during Ubuntu install. MY questions are: What exactly does this Gparted output above mean? How to recover my previous Windows 7 installation that's in /dev/sda1 (NTFS). I have some important files I need. Also, I had a PGP encryption on the disk before installing Ubuntu. Now, it just boots straight into Ubuntu... why? How to uninstall Ubuntu (the Try ubuntu and uninstall did not work. the boot-repair did not work) I have read other topics but noone has provided a proper step by step answer to how to recover my 278GB WIndows partition. The testdisk step by step procedure did not work. It says the NTFS disk is unrecognized.

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  • recovering raid 0 hard disk

    - by Hiawatha
    I bumped to a huge (for me) problem. I was running dual boot system (win 7 / linux) and at some point I decided to test fedora ( I am new in Linux ). My hard disk conf: 3 hard disks each 1 TB, 2 set to raid 0 with windows running on it and 1 for linux. After installing it from live usb I found out that windows 7 is not in grub anymore and while booting shows raid error. I installed back Ubuntu and ran Disk Utility and checked now I have one disks (raid 0) failed (READ) error. First has 5 bad sectors and second has 1 bad sector. And now I dont know what to do and how to repair. further I dont know which data i could provide to get help. I tried ntfsfix and got this output: Mounting volume... NTFS signature is missing. FAILED Attempting to correct errors... NTFS signature is missing. FAILED Failed to startup volume: Invalid argument NTFS signature is missing. Trying the alternate boot sector Unrecoverable error Volume is corrupt. You should run chkdsk. #sudo ntfs-3g -o force,rw /dev/sdb /media/windows NTFS signature is missing. Failed to mount '/dev/sdb': Invalid argument The device '/dev/sdb' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?

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  • Ubuntu cannot see Windows 7 partitions on install

    - by Nash0
    I've been trying to install Ubuntu 10.10 as a dual boot with Windows 7 on my Dell latitude e6510. It is currently running Windows 7 and I have used the MS disk tools to shrink the Win 7 NTFS partition to make room for Linux. The issue I'm having is that when I run Ubuntus installer by booting from CD it sees the entire hard drive as unallocated space. I have also tried Kbuntu 10.10, Fedora 14, booting a Gparted 0.8.0 usb drive, and Ubuntu "install in Windows" with wubi they all have problems. EDIT: When I run the "try Ubuntu" option on booting from cd it can mount my Windows partition and I can view the files. The output of sudo parted -l when running in try Ubuntu mode: Warning: /dev/sda contains GPT signatures, indicating that it has a GPT table. However, it does not have a valid fake msdos partition table, as it should. Perhaps it was corrupted -- possibly by a program that doesn't understand GPT partition tables. Or perhaps you deleted the GPT table, and are now using an msdos partition table. Is this a GPT partition table? Yes/No? yes Model: ATA ST9500420AS (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 500GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/sr0 has been opened read-only. Error: /dev/sr0: unrecognised disk label

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  • Now that Apple's intending to deprecate Java on OS X, what language should I focus on?

    - by Smalltown2000
    After getting shot down on SO, I'll try this here: I'm sure you'll all know of Apple's recent announcement to deprecate Java on OS X (such as discussed here). I've recently come back to programming in the last year or so since I originally learnt on ye olde BASIC many years ago. I have a Mac at home and a PC at work and whilst I have got Windows and Ubuntu installed on my Mac as VMs, I chose to focus my "relearning" on VB first (as it was closest to BASIC) and then rapidly moved to Java as it was cross platform (with minimal effort) and so it was easiest to work on code from both OSes. So my question, if the winds of change on Mac are blowing away from Java and in this post-Sun era, what would be the best language to focus my new efforts on? Please note, this isn't a general "which language is better?" thread and or an opportunity for the associated flame-war. There's plenty of those and it's not the point. I realise that in the long term one shouldn't be allegiant to an individual language so, taking this as an excuse, the question is specifically which is going to be the most quick to be productive on given the background whilst bearing in mind minimum portability rewrites (aspiration rather then requirement) and with a long term value of usage. To that I see the main options as: C# - Closest in "style" to Java but M$ dependent (unless you consider Mono of course) C++ - Hugely complex but if even slightly conquered, then a win? Is it worth the climb up the learning curve? VB.Net - Already have background so easiest to go back to but who uses VB for .Net these days? Surely if using a CLI language I should use C#... Python - Cross-platform but what about UI for the end-user? EDIT: As a usage priority, I envision desktop application programming. Though the ability to branch in the future is always desirable. I guess graphics are the next direction once basics are in place.

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  • Help with collision detection method [on hold]

    - by derek jones
    I was wondering if any of you could spare me some time to go over some collision detection on my platform engine. i tried XNA a few years back but for reasons i wont go into online could not continue, my health is now at a state where i am ready to try again but due to my current circumstances (and age) schooling is out of the question so i turn to you guys for help. Whilst i can adapt the MS sample ok and have some great features, you will agree modifying code is not really learning. So i have spent the last couple of week going over my old MS code and lots of stuff online and decided on what i want and have ported most of it over to code that i understand 90% of. I have my player class that moves about, jumps with gravity, has animations and a bounding box that follows it around. I have my map & basic level class to load levels from text files. Its just how i handle the collisions that i am struggling with as i will want per pixel collision on some tiles(i have code for this in a pong game i made so that should be ok). I'm pretty clear in my mind on what i need to do its just putting it in code and in the right place, here's what i was thinking. I was going to do it all in layers, have a tile layer, a collision layer & an item layer this way i could make a nice map editor in Win Forms at some point. Anyway i need to read in the collision layer the assign each tile a rectangle and collision property, and this is where i get me. Would any of you be able to spare some time and go over this with me ? I will post some code later Regards Del

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  • Reversing animated sprites

    - by brandon sedgwick
    I have created a sprite sheet of which consists of 6 frames with a character moving legs each frame, now I have coded it so that the animation is running successfully from frame 1 to 6, however I am trying to reverse this so then when it goes from 1 to 6 instead of restarting it go's 6 to 1 in a continuous loop. The coding for current animation is: void SpriteGame::Update(int tickTotal, int tickDelta) { //This is where you manage the state of game objects if ( tickTotal >= this->playerLastFrameChange + 4) { //Four ticks have elapsed since the last frame change this->playerFrame = this->playerFrame + 1; this->playerLastFrameChange = tickTotal; //We've just changed the frame if (this->playerFrame >= this->playerSheetLength) { this->playerFrame = playerLastFrameChange + 4; } //Frame has changed so change the source rectangle this->playerSourceRect->left = this->playerFrame * 64; this->playerSourceRect->top = 0; this->playerSourceRect->right = (this->playerFrame + 1) * 64; this->playerSourceRect->bottom = 64; } } any help please I am using DirectX11 as thats what we are being told to use as its for an win 8 game.

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  • The Oracle EMEA Partner Event of the Year- FREE, LIVE & ONLINE!

    - by Claudia Costa
    New products. New specializations. New opportunities. Find out how you can use them to build your Oracle business even faster and more effectively in 2010/11. The date for your diary is the 29th of June 2010, at 11:00 GMT. And this summer's event is bigger and better than ever. You will learn: What Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems means for your business and your customers How Oracle Specialization can help you grow faster and smarter, and how Oracle partners from across the region are already benefitting Why Oracle's latest technology, applications, middleware and hardware products and solutions offer you unbeatable new business opportunities How Oracle's partner program is evolving to help partners succeed with a live link to the Oracle FY11 Global Partner Kickoff How specialization has helped a former Microsoft executive become one of the world's most successful social entrepreneurs You'll also have the chance to network with Oracle experts and other partners, and download valuable collateral from specially constructed virtual information booths. Plus, at the end of the event, submit your feedback form for the chance to win two passes to Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco this September! Don't miss out! REGISTER TODAY!  for this exciting, exclusive online event. Visit here for more information and to view the complete agenda We look forward to welcoming you on the 29th of June! Yours sincerely, Stein SurlienSenior Vice President, Alliances & Channels, Oracle EMEA PS. The Oracle PartnerNetwork Days Virtual Event will be followed by "Oracle PartnerNetwork Days Executive Forums", and "Oracle PartnerNetwork Days Satellite Events" in various countries. Please look out for further communications from your local Oracle team.

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  • Random generation of interesting puzzle levels?

    - by monsterfarm
    I'm making a Sokoban-like game i.e. there's a grid that has some crates on it you can push and you have to get the crates on crosses to win the level (although I'm going to add some extra elements to it). Are there any general algorithms or reading material I can look at for how I could go about generating interesting (as in, not trivial to solve) levels for this style of game? I'm aware that random level generators exist for Sokoban but I'm having trouble finding the algorithm descriptions. I'm interested in making a game where the machine can generate lots of levels for me, sorted by difficulty. I'm even willing to constrain the rules of the game to make the level generation easier (e.g. I'll probably limit the grid size to about 7x7). I suspect there are some general ways to do level generation here as I've seen e.g. Traffic Jam-like games (where you have to move blocks around the free some block) with 1000s of levels where each one has a unique solution. One idea I had was to generate a random map in its final state (i.e. where all crates are on top of their crosses) and then the computer would pull (instead of push) these crates around to create a level. The nice property here is that we know the level is solvable. However, I'd need some heuristics to ensure the level was interesting.

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  • Is there an open source version check library and web app?

    - by user52485
    I'm a developer for a cross platform (Win, MacOS, Linux) open source C++ application. I would like to have the program occasionally check for the latest version from our web site. Between the security, privacy, and cross platform network issues, I'd rather not roll our own solution. It seems like this is a common enough thing that there 'ought' to be a library/app which will do this. Unfortunately, the searches I've tried come up empty. Ideally, the web app would track requests and process the logs into some nice reports (number of users, what version, what platform, frequency of use, maybe even geographical info from IP address, etc.). While appropriately respecting privacy, etc. What pre-existing tools can help solve this problem? Edits: I am looking for a reporting tool, not a dependency checker. Our project has the challenge of keeping up with our users. Most do not join the mailing list. Our project has not been picked up by major distributions -- most of our users are Windows/MacOS anyway. When a new version comes out, we have no way of informing our users of its existence. Development is moving pretty fast, major features added every few months. We would like to provide the user with a way to check for an updated version. While we're at it, we would like to use these requests for some simple & anonymous usage tracking (X users running version Y with Z frequency, etc.). We do not need/want something that auto-updates or tracks dependencies on the system. We are not currently worried about update size -- when the user chooses to update, we expect them to download the complete latest version. We would like to keep this as simple as possible.

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  • some questions related to ubuntu app showdown

    - by user49557
    Where to ask questions related to ubuntu app developer showdown? http://askubuntu.com/questions/151148/how-do-i-participate-in-the-ubuntu-app-showdown Can I use old code by myself to build on for my entry in the Ubuntu App Showdown contest? after seeing these threads and posting a question at askubuntu where to ask questions related to ubuntu app showdown i got we can ask these questions here my questions: can i submit more than one app in the contest and tell me more about this suppose i submit 5 apps out of which one is won then will it be valid if 2 or 3 are won i think the number of t-shirts does not depends upon number of apps one per person for development i have to use quickly but can i use third party libraries for GUI or other work i think i will need it for eg. pyside the first and second winner will get laptop + mobile too right or not the mobile how the prizes will be delivered will they charge(i don't think so) i would like to use multiple libraries i can use htme right ? more details are always welcomes i have mostly all ubuntu app showdown related pages but if you find something in background than tell me note:i am not saying that i am going to win just questions don't take it in that way

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  • How to Program AWS Spot Instances to Strategically Bid So the Auction is Never Lost Until a Competitor Beats the Maximum I'm Willing to Pay?

    - by Taal
    I believe I'm in the right section of stack exchange to ask this. If not, let me know. I only use Amazon Web Services for temporary type hosting services, so the spot instances are quite valuable to me. I would also just make an instance and start and stop it - but - that doesn't necessarily fit my bootstrapped budget sadly. Anyways, it really kills me when someone outbids me on a spot instance I have (I tend to go for the larger ones which there are fewer of available) and I get randomly kicked off. I know or at least I believe there is a way to program in something somehow to dynamically change your bidding price to beat a potential competitor's if their's is higher than yours. Now, I previously believed Amazon would just charge me for the highest price right above the next lowest competitor automatically (eliminating the need for this) - so if I bid too high, then I only pay what I would of needed to in order to win and keep the auction. Essentially, I thought my bid price was my max bid price. Apparently, according to my bills and several experiments I've done - this is not the case. They charge me for whatever I bid even when I know there is no one else around to counter bid me. I needed to clarify that, but let me get back to the main point: Let's say I'm bidding $0.50, competitor comes in and bids 0.55 cents. I get kicked off. I want to have it to where I'd set a maximum I'm willing to pay (let's say $1.00 here), and then when competitor comes in and tries to bid $.55, my bid is dynamically adjusted to beat his at $0.56 up until he breaks my $1.00 threshold. I've been reading the guides and although they are more or less straightforward, I feel like they leave a few holes in them that end up confusing me. Like, for instance, where do I input said command or when do I do it? Maybe I'm just tech illiterate and need help deciphering these guides. A good start for someone willing to answer/help me decipher this problem would be here: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/spot-as-update-bid.html

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  • How do I make a Live USB without destroying my Windows computer?

    - by user71089
    Unlike every other post I have read, let me begin by saying that I am TERRIFIED of destroying my Windows 7 home system in the attempt of making a bootable Ubuntu Thumb Drive. I very specifically DO NOT want to attempt configuring a dual boot system. What I am seeking is a portable operating system on a thumb drive, through which I can run my COREL software via VirtualBox-4.1.16-78094-Win. I want to be able to use my own software on my work computer without any worries about screwing up the host system anywhere I go. Supposedly, I just made a bootable Thumb drive, having successfully loaded the ISO for ubuntu-12.04-desktop-i386 using Pendrivelinux's Universal-USB-Installer-1.9.0.1 However, all that I get is a Thumb Drive that wants to install Unbutu onto my PC's HDD. I am not finding any clear path to this end in the posts I am reading. Like it or not, Windows is a fact of life for me. The goal is to be able to use my software on my work PC without doing anything intrusive that will cost me my job. If I have a meltdown on my PC at home trying to make this happen, it will be nearly as bad. Is this even Do-Able? Can the process be made clear? Thank You, Ubuntu World ...!

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  • Dual boot :Windows 7 partition deleted after Kubuntu 14.04 install...Weird!

    - by user292152
    I've bought two new SSD's in order to install Kubuntu on one and Win 7 on the other one. Before I had Linux Mint and Win7 together one just one SSD. So first I installed win7 as recommended, and then used the guided installer of Kubuntu to install Kubuntu. I selected the second SSD, chose the option "use entire disk and install", but to my surprise after rebooting and selecting win7 boot loader from grub2, I got a prompt that my windows installation is damaged, and I need to run the repair option from the installation disk. So I booted into Kubuntu again, fired up kparted and saw that indeed my windows partition got deleted, except the recovery partition. I don't understand what happened. I am not new to this topic, and this was not my first time installing Ubuntu alongside windows. I have never ever had that problem. What can I do to make sure this won't happen again, so I won't waste another 2 hours of my life? ?? Thanks a lot !

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  • And the Winner Is ...

    - by Oracle OpenWorld Blog Team
    If you know excellent Oracle technologists, now's your chance to nominate them for an award. by Karen Shamban It’s possible to win an Oracle Excellence Award in one of 12 categories this year—nominations are open now through July 17, 2012. Winning customers and partners will be hosted at Oracle OpenWorld or JavaOne 2012, where they can meet with Oracle executives, network with peers, and be featured in an upcoming edition of an Oracle publication such as Oracle Magazine. This year’s Oracle Excellence Award categories are: •    CIO of the Year•    Database Administrator of the Year•    Eco-Enterprise Innovation•    Java Business Innovation•    Leadership•    Oracle Fusion Middleware Innovation•    Proactive Support Champion–Global•    Specialized Partner of the Year–Europe, Middle East, and Africa•    Specialized Partner of the Year–Global•    Specialized Partner of the Year–North America•    Technologist of the Year Learn more about each award and nominate a deserving candidate now! Go to the Oracle Excellence Awards information page for details.

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  • Why does my system slow down or freeze when there is heavy disk activity?

    - by user72270
    Im a first-time user to Ubuntu-12.04 with WUBI installation. My NoteBook Information : Dell vostro 3450 : i5 2410m, 3 gb ram, intel hd3000, amd 6630m hybrid. Surfing and playing games works flawlessly, however, I'm having huge problems when installing applications and generally copying and moving files. When doing so, system is significantly slower and freezes quite often (Firefox gets bluish, sometimes even black n white). I would say that Ubuntu allocates too much resources on file transfers and installing, but even these tasks are very slow. Here is very specific example : today, i tried to move 6 GB file from win 7 installation. It was good at first, i jumped to firefox but after a while firefox started to randomly turn bluish and mouse was randomly stopping working. It was gradually worse and worse and it got to a point when firefox black n whited and mouse wasn't working at all. I raged and went for some meal, when i got back screen was black. It probably unlogged me due to inactivity, when i pushed random button to bring screen to life i had to wait few minutes to let it show me only my screen background. No log in screen, just background and working mouse. NoteBook fan was working at 100 % so I assumed that file transfer was going on and I left it to work. Nothing then changed for a full hour so I hard rebooted it. File transfer unsuccessful, It transfered hardly 2 gigs. Is this normal ? What to do in these situations ? It didn't let me load system manager and not even terminal. Thanks.

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  • How to repair ubuntu or restore my windows 7 installation? Nothing helps

    - by AFRIKA
    i had windows 7 installed and I installed ubuntu alongside it. Booted ubuntu and explore it for a while. Turned pc off and went to bed. Next morning wanted to boot into windows but no luck... MBR error... Tried to repair windows using installation disk but it doesn't recognize win installation. Tried console bootrec /fixmbr bootrec /fixboot but still same. So I went back to ubuntu and tried with boot-repair, but got a write error. Restarted pc and now I cannot boot to either ubuntu or windows... Tried to recover NTFS partition with hiren's boot but it cannot find partition. Tried every solution there is on the web but no help... Is there any way to fix it because windows installation is very important to me?! btw, i noticed that grub indicates windows 7 to a sdb2 partition that doesn't exists... And when I RUN ubuntu from CD and browse disk, I dont see any files from windows 7. Is that normal or? http://paste.ubuntu.com/6338340/ PLEASE HELP...

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  • What does the Sys_PageIn() function do in Quake?

    - by Philip
    I've noticed in the initialization process of the original Quake the following function is called. volatile int sys_checksum; // **lots of code** void Sys_PageIn(void *ptr, int size) { byte *x; int j,m,n; //touch all memory to make sure its there. The 16-page skip is to //keep Win 95 from thinking we're trying to page ourselves in (we are //doing that, of course, but there's no reason we shouldn't) x = (byte *)ptr; for (n=0 ; n<4 ; n++) { for (m=0; m<(size - 16 * 0x1000) ; m += 4) { sys_checksum += *(int *)&x[m]; sys_checksum += *(int *)&x[m + 16 * 0x10000]; } } } I think I'm just not familiar enough with paging to understand this function. the void* ptr passed to the function is a recently malloc()'d piece of memory that is size bytes big. This is the whole function - j is an unreferenced variable. My best guess is that the volatile int sys_checksum is forcing the system to physically read all of the space that was just malloc()'d, perhaps to ensure that these spaces exist in virtual memory? Is this right? And why would someone do this? Is it for some antiquated Win95 reason?

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  • trouble running smooth animation in thread only when using key listener

    - by heysuse renard
    first time using a forum for coding help so sorry if i post this all wrong. i have more than a few classes i don't think screenManger or core holds the problem but i included them just incase. i got most of this code working through a set of tutorials. but a certain point started trying to do more on my own. i want to play the animation only when i'm moving my sprite. in my KeyTest class i am using threads to run the animation it used to work (poorly) but now not at all pluss it really gunks up my computer. i think it's because of the thread. im new to threads so i'm not to sure if i should even be using one in this situation or if its dangerous for my computer. the animation worked smoothly when i had the sprite bouce around the screen forever. the animation loop played with out stopping. i think the main problem is between the animationThread, Sprite, and keyTest classes, but itcould be more indepth. if someone could point me in the right direction for making the animation run smoothly when i push down a key and stop runing when i let off it would be greatly apriciated. i already looked at this Java a moving animation (sprite) obviously we were doing the same tutorial. but i feel my problem is slightly different. p.s. sorry for the typos. import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.KeyEvent; import java.awt.event.KeyListener; import java.awt.image.BufferStrategy; import java.awt.image.BufferedImage; import java.util.ArrayList; import javax.swing.ImageIcon; import javax.swing.JFrame; public class KeyTest extends Core implements KeyListener { public static void main(String[] args) { new KeyTest().run(); } Sprite player1; Image hobo; Image background; animation hoboRun; animationThread t1; //init also calls init form superclass public void init() { super.init(); loadImages(); Window w = s.getFullScreenWindow(); w.setFocusTraversalKeysEnabled(false); w.addKeyListener(this); } //load method will go here. //load all pics need for animation and sprite public void loadImages() { background = new ImageIcon("\\\\STUART-PC\\Users\\Stuart\\workspace\\Gaming\\yellow square.jpg").getImage(); Image face1 = new ImageIcon("\\\\STUART-PC\\Users\\Stuart\\workspace\\Gaming\\circle.png").getImage(); Image face2 = new ImageIcon("\\\\STUART-PC\\Users\\Stuart\\workspace\\Gaming\\one eye.png").getImage(); hoboRun = new animation(); hoboRun.addScene(face1, 250); hoboRun.addScene(face2, 250); player1 = new Sprite(hoboRun); this.t1 = new animationThread(); this.t1.setAnimation(player1); } //key pressed public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) { int keyCode = e.getKeyCode(); if (keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_ESCAPE) { stop(); } if (keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT) { player1.setVelocityX(0.3f); try { this.t1.setRunning(true); Thread th1 = new Thread(this.t1); th1.start(); } catch (Exception ex) { System.out.println("noooo"); } } if (keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) { player1.setVelocityX(-0.3f); try { this.t1.setRunning(true); Thread th1 = new Thread(this.t1); th1.start(); } catch (Exception ex) { System.out.println("noooo"); } } if (keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) { player1.setVelocityY(0.3f); try { this.t1.setRunning(true); Thread th1 = new Thread(this.t1); th1.start(); } catch (Exception ex) { System.out.println("noooo"); } } if (keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_UP) { player1.setVelocityY(-0.3f); try { this.t1.setRunning(true); Thread th1 = new Thread(this.t1);; th1.start(); } catch (Exception ex) { System.out.println("noooo"); } } else { e.consume(); } } //keyReleased @SuppressWarnings("static-access") public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) { int keyCode = e.getKeyCode(); if (keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT || keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) { player1.setVelocityX(0); try { this.t1.setRunning(false); } catch (Exception ex) { } } if (keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_UP || keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) { player1.setVelocityY(0); try { this.t1.setRunning(false); } catch (Exception ex) { } } else { e.consume(); } } //last method from interface public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) { e.consume(); } //draw public void draw(Graphics2D g) { Window w = s.getFullScreenWindow(); g.setColor(w.getBackground()); g.fillRect(0, 0, s.getWidth(), s.getHieght()); g.setColor(w.getForeground()); g.drawImage(player1.getImage(), Math.round(player1.getX()), Math.round(player1.getY()), null); } public void update(long timePassed) { player1.update(timePassed); } } abstract class Core { private static DisplayMode modes[] = { new DisplayMode(1600, 900, 64, 0), new DisplayMode(800, 600, 32, 0), new DisplayMode(800, 600, 24, 0), new DisplayMode(800, 600, 16, 0), new DisplayMode(800, 480, 32, 0), new DisplayMode(800, 480, 24, 0), new DisplayMode(800, 480, 16, 0),}; private boolean running; protected ScreenManager s; //stop method public void stop() { running = false; } public void run() { try { init(); gameLoop(); } finally { s.restoreScreen(); } } //set to full screen //set current background here public void init() { s = new ScreenManager(); DisplayMode dm = s.findFirstCompatibleMode(modes); s.setFullScreen(dm); Window w = s.getFullScreenWindow(); w.setFont(new Font("Arial", Font.PLAIN, 20)); w.setBackground(Color.GREEN); w.setForeground(Color.WHITE); running = true; } //main gameLoop public void gameLoop() { long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); long cumTime = startTime; while (running) { long timePassed = System.currentTimeMillis() - cumTime; cumTime += timePassed; update(timePassed); Graphics2D g = s.getGraphics(); draw(g); g.dispose(); s.update(); try { Thread.sleep(20); } catch (Exception ex) { } } } //update animation public void update(long timePassed) { } //draws to screen abstract void draw(Graphics2D g); } class animationThread implements Runnable { String name; boolean playing; Sprite a; //constructor takes input from keyboard public animationThread() { } //The run method for animation public void run() { long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); long cumTime = startTime; boolean test = getRunning(); while (test) { long timePassed = System.currentTimeMillis() - cumTime; cumTime += timePassed; test = getRunning(); } } public String getName() { return name; } public void setAnimation(Sprite a) { this.a = a; } public void setName(String name) { this.name = name; } public void setRunning(boolean running) { this.playing = running; } public boolean getRunning() { return playing; } } class animation { private ArrayList scenes; private int sceneIndex; private long movieTime; private long totalTime; //constructor public animation() { scenes = new ArrayList(); totalTime = 0; start(); } //add scene to ArrayLisy and set time for each scene public synchronized void addScene(Image i, long t) { totalTime += t; scenes.add(new OneScene(i, totalTime)); } public synchronized void start() { movieTime = 0; sceneIndex = 0; } //change scenes public synchronized void update(long timePassed) { if (scenes.size() > 1) { movieTime += timePassed; if (movieTime >= totalTime) { movieTime = 0; sceneIndex = 0; } while (movieTime > getScene(sceneIndex).endTime) { sceneIndex++; } } } //get animations current scene(aka image) public synchronized Image getImage() { if (scenes.size() == 0) { return null; } else { return getScene(sceneIndex).pic; } } //get scene private OneScene getScene(int x) { return (OneScene) scenes.get(x); } //Private Inner CLASS////////////// private class OneScene { Image pic; long endTime; public OneScene(Image pic, long endTime) { this.pic = pic; this.endTime = endTime; } } } class Sprite { private animation a; private float x; private float y; private float vx; private float vy; //Constructor public Sprite(animation a) { this.a = a; } //change position public void update(long timePassed) { x += vx * timePassed; y += vy * timePassed; } public void startAnimation(long timePassed) { a.update(timePassed); } //get x position public float getX() { return x; } //get y position public float getY() { return y; } //set x public void setX(float x) { this.x = x; } //set y public void setY(float y) { this.y = y; } //get sprite width public int getWidth() { return a.getImage().getWidth(null); } //get sprite height public int getHeight() { return a.getImage().getHeight(null); } //get horizontal velocity public float getVelocityX() { return vx; } //get vertical velocity public float getVelocityY() { return vx; } //set horizontal velocity public void setVelocityX(float vx) { this.vx = vx; } //set vertical velocity public void setVelocityY(float vy) { this.vy = vy; } //get sprite / image public Image getImage() { return a.getImage(); } } class ScreenManager { private GraphicsDevice vc; public ScreenManager() { GraphicsEnvironment e = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment(); vc = e.getDefaultScreenDevice(); } //get all compatible DM public DisplayMode[] getCompatibleDisplayModes() { return vc.getDisplayModes(); } //compares DM passed into vc DM and see if they match public DisplayMode findFirstCompatibleMode(DisplayMode modes[]) { DisplayMode goodModes[] = vc.getDisplayModes(); for (int x = 0; x < modes.length; x++) { for (int y = 0; y < goodModes.length; y++) { if (displayModesMatch(modes[x], goodModes[y])) { return modes[x]; } } } return null; } //get current DM public DisplayMode getCurrentDisplayMode() { return vc.getDisplayMode(); } //checks if two modes match each other public boolean displayModesMatch(DisplayMode m1, DisplayMode m2) { if (m1.getWidth() != m2.getWidth() || m1.getHeight() != m2.getHeight()) { return false; } if (m1.getBitDepth() != DisplayMode.BIT_DEPTH_MULTI && m2.getBitDepth() != DisplayMode.BIT_DEPTH_MULTI && m1.getBitDepth() != m2.getBitDepth()) { return false; } if (m1.getRefreshRate() != DisplayMode.REFRESH_RATE_UNKNOWN && m2.getRefreshRate() != DisplayMode.REFRESH_RATE_UNKNOWN && m1.getRefreshRate() != m2.getRefreshRate()) { return false; } return true; } //make frame full screen public void setFullScreen(DisplayMode dm) { JFrame f = new JFrame(); f.setUndecorated(true); f.setIgnoreRepaint(true); f.setResizable(false); vc.setFullScreenWindow(f); if (dm != null && vc.isDisplayChangeSupported()) { try { vc.setDisplayMode(dm); } catch (Exception ex) { } } f.createBufferStrategy(2); } //sets graphics object = this return public Graphics2D getGraphics() { Window w = vc.getFullScreenWindow(); if (w != null) { BufferStrategy s = w.getBufferStrategy(); return (Graphics2D) s.getDrawGraphics(); } else { return null; } } //updates display public void update() { Window w = vc.getFullScreenWindow(); if (w != null) { BufferStrategy s = w.getBufferStrategy(); if (!s.contentsLost()) { s.show(); } } } //returns full screen window public Window getFullScreenWindow() { return vc.getFullScreenWindow(); } //get width of window public int getWidth() { Window w = vc.getFullScreenWindow(); if (w != null) { return w.getWidth(); } else { return 0; } } //get height of window public int getHieght() { Window w = vc.getFullScreenWindow(); if (w != null) { return w.getHeight(); } else { return 0; } } //get out of full screen public void restoreScreen() { Window w = vc.getFullScreenWindow(); if (w != null) { w.dispose(); } vc.setFullScreenWindow(null); } //create image compatible with monitor public BufferedImage createCopatibleImage(int w, int h, int t) { Window win = vc.getFullScreenWindow(); if (win != null) { GraphicsConfiguration gc = win.getGraphicsConfiguration(); return gc.createCompatibleImage(w, h, t); } return null; } }

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, November 08, 2013

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, November 08, 2013Popular ReleasesDynamics AX 2012 R2 Kitting: AX 2012 R2 CU7 release of Kitting: Here is the AX 2012 R2 CU7 release of kitting. Released both as a XPO and a model.PantheR's GraphX for .NET: GraphX for .NET RELEASE v1.0.1: PLEASE RATE THIS RELEASE IF YOU LIKED IT! THANKS! :) RELEASE 1.0.1 + Changed ExportToImage() parameters: added useZoomControlSurface param that enables zoom control parent visual space to be used for export instead whole GraphArea panel. Using this technique it is possible to export graphs with negative vertices coordinates. + Added common interface IZoomControl for all included Zoom controls + Added new method GraphArea.GenerateGraph() that accepts only optional parameters and will use in...ConEmu - Windows console with tabs: ConEmu 131107 [Alpha]: ConEmu - developer build x86 and x64 versions. Written in C++, no additional packages required. Run "ConEmu.exe" or "ConEmu64.exe". Some useful information you may found: http://superuser.com/questions/tagged/conemu http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/wiki/ConEmuFAQ http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/wiki/TableOfContents If you want to use ConEmu in portable mode, just create empty "ConEmu.xml" file near to "ConEmu.exe"Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide: v3 - TFS 2013 Upgrade Guide: Welcome to the Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide Quality-Bar Details Documentation has been reviewed by Visual Studio ALM Rangers Documentation has not been through an independent technical review Known issues NoneUpgrading SharePoint section is not included yet. Independent technical review is pending.Epi Info™ - Community Edition: Epi Info 7 (build 7.1.3.0): ResourcesFor the latest stable downloads and all up-to-date help and training material, please visit the official Epi Info 7 website: http://www.cdc.gov/epiinfo/7 To watch training and overview videos, visit the Epi Info YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/EpiInfoVideosVidCoder: 1.5.12 Beta: Added an option to preserve Created and Last Modified times when converting files. In Options -> Advanced. Added an option to mark an automatically selected subtitle track as "Default". Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5878. Fixed auto passthrough not applying just after switching to it. Fixed bug where preset/profile/tune could disappear when reverting a preset.Compare .NET Objects: Version 1.7.4.0: Manual merge of patch 15325 from Farris to fix issues 9075 and 9076 relating to defects with Ignoring the Collection Order Applied patch 15263 from MariuszWojcik to support LINQ enumerators.Toolbox for Dynamics CRM 2011/2013: XrmToolBox (v1.2013.9.25): XrmToolbox improvement Correct changing connection from the status dropdown Tools improvement Updated tool Audit Center (v1.2013.9.10) -> Publish entities Iconator (v1.2013.9.27) -> Optimized asynchronous loading of images and entities MetadataDocumentGenerator (v1.2013.11.6) -> Correct system entities reading with incorrect attribute type Script Manager (v1.2013.9.27) -> Retrieve only custom events SiteMapEditor (v1.2013.11.7) -> Reset of CRM 2013 SiteMap ViewLayoutReplicator (v1.201...Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: SQL Server 2014 CTP2 In-Memory OLTP Sample, based: This sample showcases the new In-Memory OLTP feature, which is part of SQL Server 2014 CTP2. It shows the new memory-optimized tables and natively-compiled stored procedures, and can be used to show the performance benefit of in-memory OLTP. Installation instructions for the sample are included in the file ‘awinmemsample.doc’, which is part of the download. You can ask a question about this sample at the SQL Server Samples Forum Composite C1 CMS - Open Source on .NET: Composite C1 4.1: Composite C1 4.1 (4.1.5058.34326) Write a review for this release - help us improve, recommend us. Getting started If you are new to Composite C1 and want to install it: http://docs.composite.net/Getting-started What's new in Composite C1 4.1 The following are highlights of major changes since Composite C1 4.0: General user features: Drag-and-drop images and files like PDF and Word directly from own your desktop and folders into page content Allow you to install Composite Form Builder ...CS-Script for Notepad++ (C# intellisense and code execution): Release v1.0.9.0: Implemented Recent Scripts list Added checking for plugin updates from AboutBox Multiple formatting improvements/fixes Implemented selection of the CLR version when preparing distribution package Added project panel button for showing plugin shortcuts list Added 'What's New?' panel Fixed auto-formatting scrolling artifact Implemented navigation to "logical" file (vs. auto-generated) file from output panel To avoid the DLLs getting locked by OS use MSI file for the installation.Home Access Plus+: v9.7: Updated: JSON.net Fixed: Issue with the Windows 8 App Added: Windows 8.1 App Added: Win: Self Signed HAP+ Install Support Added: Win: Delete File Support Added: Timeout for the Logon Tracker Removed: Error Dialogs on the User Card Fixed: Green line showing over the booking form Note: a web.config file update is requiredWPF Extended DataGrid: WPF Extended DataGrid 2.0.0.10 binaries: Now row summaries are updated whenever autofilter value sis modified.Social Network Importer for NodeXL: SocialNetImporter(v.1.9.1): This new version includes: - Include me option is back - Fixed the login bug reported latelyVeraCrypt: VeraCrypt version 1.0c: Changes between 1.0b and 1.0c (11 November 2013) : Set correctly the minimum required version in volumes header (this value must always follow the program version after any major changes). This also solves also the hidden volume issueCaptcha MVC: Captcha MVC 2.5: v 2.5: Added support for MVC 5. The DefaultCaptchaManager is no longer throws an error if the captcha values was entered incorrectly. Minor changes. v 2.4.1: Fixed issues with deleting incorrect values of the captcha token in the SessionStorageProvider. This could lead to a situation when the captcha was not working with the SessionStorageProvider. Minor changes. v 2.4: Changed the IIntelligencePolicy interface, added ICaptchaManager as parameter for all methods. Improved font size ...Duplica: duplica 0.2.498: this is first stable releaseDNN Blog: 06.00.01: 06.00.01 ReleaseThis is the first bugfix release of the new v6 blog module. These are the changes: Added some robustness in v5-v6 scripts to cater for some rare upgrade scenarios Changed the name of the module definition to avoid clash with Evoq Social Addition of sitemap providerVG-Ripper & PG-Ripper: VG-Ripper 2.9.50: changes NEW: Added Support for "ImageHostHQ.com" links NEW: Added Support for "ImgMoney.net" links NEW: Added Support for "ImgSavy.com" links NEW: Added Support for "PixTreat.com" links Bug fixesWsus Package Publisher: Release v1.3.1311.02: Add three new Actions in Custom Updates : Work with Files (Copy, Delete, Rename), Work with Folders (Add, Delete, Rename) and Work with Registry Keys (Add, Delete, Rename). Fix a bug, where after resigning an update, the display is not refresh. Modify the way WPP sort rows in 'Updates Detail Viewer' and 'Computer List Viewer' so that dates are correctly sorted. Add a Tab in the settings form to set Proxy settings when WPP needs to go on Internet. Fix a bug where 'Manage Catalogs Subsc...New ProjectsBDTramite: El presente proyecto sera realizado por los alumnos: - Oliver Becerra Briones - Eduardo Tello Cruzado - Gustavo Huaripata Sanchez - Williams Infante PradoCONDIMAR: SISTEMA DE VENTAS CONDIMARCurso20480B201311: course project new horizonsDeck Builder 5000: This application is a very simple tool used to make deck building in your favorite card battling game a breeze! doinikTara: doinik taraDovizHesap: Özel Dvz Gelistirme ProjesiEventSys: Sistema de EventosItems Filter (WPF DataGrid column Filter).: WPF quick filter controls - all where you need it. This is the easiest way to enrich you DataGrid width quick filter in header like in Excell, but not only thatJade: ????????? kolhoz: ??????? ??? ????????? ?????????? ????LINQ2DynamoDB: A type-safe data context for AWS DynamoDB with LINQ and in-memory caching support. Allows to combine DynamoDB's durability with cache speed and read consistencyM5NDFD: MVC5 NorthWind DataFirst Microsoft Forefront 2010 R2 Powershell Extension: Powershell extensions for Microsoft Forefront 2010 R2 to enable usage of powershell from both Portal as Workflow Activity and Synchronization Engine as XMAMulti Database Migrator: Miltiple database migratorMy Bacon Recipe (Prototype): MyBaconRecipe is a VB.NET prototype website for bacon recipes. Users can add, seach & sort recipes. Developed by Justin Mifsud as part of Assignment2 (7COM0152)MYPROJECT-sareddy: Just Sample ProjectObjectStore - An easy to use ObjectRelational-Mapper: An easy to use OR-Mapper which supports Code only(no Designer) and existing Database(no Sync or Codegeneration) by implementing abstract Classes at runtime.Open Electronic Integrated Disease Surveillance System (EIDSS™): SummaryPegion: A LAN Messenger projectPetshop2013_MyM: LolololoppeSmokeTest110713: awdawdPraxis: Esta es la primera prueba.Praxis2: PraxisProject Dionysus: Local Movie App being built undergroundProject JDT: About management system.PROJECT SITI KULIM: project siti punyaProject Taiping: Project TaipingPublic_Library: ???SHRFrameWork: This Framework use EF6 , Repository, Unit of Work and othre patternsteamtesting: teamtestingTheProject: The project for Samara team !Travel Website: Travel Website is a website that contains several hotels. Users can browse these hotels, view detailed info, comment and rate them.?ng d?ng chuy?n và nh?n s? ki?n trên windows: de an xay dung ung dung chuyen va nhan su kien tren windowsVehicle Statistics Analysis: Build a generic framework for extracting second hand vehicle retail pricing. Virtual joystick control (Silverlight, WP): Simple on-screen "virtual" joystick control for SilverlightVisual Studio Coverage file to Emma converter: Visual Studio Coverage file to Emma converter. Simple solution, can apply only one tool to five Visual Studio versions. Fast multicore processing.WebForms DataSourceControl for EntityFramework CodeFirst: A ASP.NET WebForms DataSourceControl for use with DbContext & CodeFirst.WPF Study: wpf study project ???????: ???????,???? Session ??????????.

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  • PASS: Bylaw Changes

    - by Bill Graziano
    While you’re reading this, a post should be going up on the PASS blog on the plans to change our bylaws.  You should be able to find our old bylaws, our proposed bylaws and a red-lined version of the changes.  We plan to listen to feedback until March 31st.  At that point we’ll decide whether to vote on these changes or take other action. The executive summary is that we’re adding a restriction to prevent more than two people from the same company on the Board and eliminating the Board’s Officer Appointment Committee to have Officers directly elected by the Board.  This second change better matches how officer elections have been conducted in the past. The Gritty Details Our scope was to change bylaws to match how PASS actually works and tackle a limited set of issues.  Changing the bylaws is hard.  We’ve been working on these changes since the March board meeting last year.  At that meeting we met and talked through the issues we wanted to address.  In years past the Board has tried to come up with language and then we’ve discussed and negotiated to get to the result.  In March, we gave HQ guidance on what we wanted and asked them to come up with a starting point.  Hannes worked on building us an initial set of changes that we could work our way through.  Discussing changes like this over email is difficult wasn’t very productive.  We do a much better job on this at the in-person Board meetings.  Unfortunately there are only 2 or 3 of those a year. In August we met in Nashville and spent time discussing the changes.  That was also the day after we released the slate for the 2010 election. The discussion around that colored what we talked about in terms of these changes.  We talked very briefly at the Summit and again reviewed and revised the changes at the Board meeting in January.  This is the result of those changes and discussions. We made numerous small changes to clean up language and make wording more clear.  We also made two big changes. Director Employment Restrictions The first is that only two people from the same company can serve on the Board at the same time.  The actual language in section VI.3 reads: A maximum of two (2) Directors who are employed by, or who are joint owners or partners in, the same for-profit venture, company, organization, or other legal entity, may concurrently serve on the PASS Board of Directors at any time. The definition of “employed” is at the sole discretion of the Board. And what a mess this turns out to be in practice.  Our membership is a hodgepodge of interlocking relationships.  Let’s say three Board members get together and start a blog service for SQL Server bloggers.  It’s technically for-profit.  Let’s assume it makes $8 in the first year.  Does that trigger this clause?  (Technically yes.)  We had a horrible time trying to write language that covered everything.  All the sample bylaws that we found were just as vague as this. That led to the third clause in this section.  The first sentence reads: The Board of Directors reserves the right, strictly on a case-by-case basis, to overrule the requirements of Section VI.3 by majority decision for any single Director’s conflict of employment. We needed some way to handle the trivial issues and exercise some judgment.  It seems like a public vote is the best way.  This discloses the relationship and gets each Board member on record on the issue.   In practice I think this clause will rarely be used.  I think this entire section will only be invoked for actual employment issues and not for small side projects.  In either case we have the mechanisms in place to handle it in a public, transparent way. That’s the first and third clauses.  The second clause says that if your situation changes and you fall afoul of this restriction you need to notify the Board.  The clause further states that if this new job means a Board members violates the “two-per-company” rule the Board may request their resignation.  The Board can also  allow the person to continue serving with a majority vote.  I think this will also take some judgment.  Consider a person switching jobs that leads to three people from the same company.  I’m very likely to ask for someone to resign if all three are two weeks into a two year term.  I’m unlikely to ask anyone to resign if one is two weeks away from ending their term.  In either case, the decision will be a public vote that we can be held accountable for. One concern that was raised was whether this would affect someone choosing to accept a job.  I think that’s a choice for them to make.  PASS is clearly stating its intent that only two directors from any one organization should serve at any time.  Once these bylaws are approved, this policy should not come as a surprise to any potential or current Board members considering a job change.  This clause isn’t perfect.  The biggest hole is business relationships that aren’t defined above.  Let’s say that two employees from company “X” serve on the Board.  What happens if I accept a full-time consulting contract with that company?  Let’s assume I’m working directly for one of the two existing Board members.  That doesn’t violate section VI.3.  But I think it’s clearly the kind of relationship we’d like to prevent.  Unfortunately that was even harder to write than what we have now.  I fully expect that in the next revision of the bylaws we’ll address this.  It just didn’t make it into this one. Officer Elections The officer election process received a slightly different rewrite.  Our goal was to codify in the bylaws the actual process we used to elect the officers.  The officers are the President, Executive Vice-President (EVP) and Vice-President of Marketing.  The Immediate Past President (IPP) is also an officer but isn’t elected.  The IPP serves in that role for two years after completing their term as President.  We do that for continuity’s sake.  Some organizations have a President-elect that serves for one or two years.  The group that founded PASS chose to have an IPP. When I started on the Board, the Nominating Committee (NomCom) selected the slate for the at-large directors and the slate for the officers.  There was always one candidate for each officer position.  It wasn’t really an election so much as the NomCom decided who the next person would be for each officer position.  Behind the scenes the Board worked to select the best people for the role. In June 2009 that process was changed to bring it line with what actually happens.  An Officer Appointment Committee was created that was a subset of the Board.  That committee would take time to interview the candidates and present a slate to the Board for approval.  The majority vote of the Board would determine the officers for the next two years.  In practice the Board itself interviewed the candidates and conducted the elections.  That means it was time to change the bylaws again. Section VII.2 and VII.3 spell out the process used to select the officers.  We use the phrase “Officer Appointment” to separate it from the Director election but the end result is that the Board elects the officers.  Section VII.3 starts: Officers shall be appointed bi-annually by a majority of all the voting members of the Board of Directors. Everything else revolves around that sentence.  We use the word appoint but they truly are elected.  There are details in the bylaws for term limits, minimum requirements for President (1 prior term as an officer), tie breakers and filling vacancies. In practice we will have an election for President, then an election for EVP and then an election for VP Marketing.  That means that losing candidates will be able to fall down the ladder and run for the next open position.  Another point to note is that officers aren’t at-large directors.  That means if a current sitting officer loses all three elections they are off the Board.  Having Board member votes public will help with the transparency of this approach. This process has a number of positive and negatives.  The biggest concern I expect to hear is that our members don’t directly choose the officers.  I’m going to try and list all the positives and negatives of this approach. Many non-profits value continuity and are slower to change than a business.  On the plus side this promotes that.  On the negative side this promotes that.  If we change too slowly the members complain that we aren’t responsive.  If we change too quickly we make mistakes and fail at various things.  We’ve been criticized for both of those lately so I’m not entirely sure where to draw the line.  My rough assumption to this point is that we’re going too slow on governance and too quickly on becoming “more than a Summit.”  This approach creates competition in the officer elections.  If you are an at-large director there is no consequence to losing an election.  If you are an officer the only way to stay on the Board is to win an officer election or an at-large election.  If you are an officer and lose an election you can always run for the next office down.  This makes it very easy for multiple people to contest an election. There is value in a person moving through the officer positions up to the Presidency.  Having the Board select the officers promotes this.  The down side is that it takes a LOT of time to get to the Presidency.  We’ve had good people struggle with burnout.  We’ve had lots of discussion around this.  The process as we’ve described it here makes it possible for someone to move quickly through the ranks but doesn’t prevent people from working their way up through each role. We talked long and hard about having the officers elected by the members.  We had a self-imposed deadline to complete these changes prior to elections this summer. The other challenge was that our original goal was to make the bylaws reflect our actual process rather than create a new one.  I believe we accomplished this goal. We ran out of time to consider this option in the detail it needs.  Having member elections for officers needs a number of problems solved.  We would need a way for candidates to fall through the election.  This is what promotes competition.  Without this few people would risk an election and we’ll be back to one candidate per slot.  We need to do this without having multiple elections.  We may be able to copy what other organizations are doing but I was surprised at how little I could find on other organizations.  We also need a way for people that lose an officer election to win an at-large election.  Otherwise we’ll have very little competition for officers. This brings me to an area that I think we as a Board haven’t done a good job.  We haven’t built a strong process to tell you who is doing a good job and who isn’t.  This is a double-edged sword.  I don’t want to highlight Board members that are failing.  That’s not a good way to get people to volunteer and run for the Board.  But I also need a way let the members make an informed choice about who is doing a good job and would make a good officer.  Encouraging Board members to blog, publishing minutes and making votes public helps in that regard but isn’t the final answer.  I don’t know what the final answer is yet.  I do know that the Board members themselves are uniquely positioned to know which other Board members are doing good work.  They know who speaks up in meetings, who works to build consensus, who has good ideas and who works with the members.  What I Could Do Better I’ve learned a lot writing this about how we communicated with our members.  The next time we revise the bylaws I’d do a few things differently.  The biggest change would be to provide better documentation.  The March 2009 minutes provide a very detailed look into what changes we wanted to make to the bylaws.  Looking back, I’m a little surprised at how closely they matched our final changes and covered the various arguments.  If you just read those you’d get 90% of what we eventually changed.  Nearly everything else was just details around implementation.  I’d also consider publishing a scope document defining exactly what we were doing any why.  I think it really helped that we had a limited, defined goal in mind.  I don’t think we did a good job communicating that goal outside the meeting minutes though. That said, I wish I’d blogged more after the August and January meeting.  I think it would have helped more people to know that this change was coming and to be ready for it. Conclusion These changes address two big concerns that the Board had.  First, it prevents a single organization from dominating the Board.  Second, it codifies and clearly spells out how officers are elected.  This is the process that was previously followed but it was somewhat murky.  These changes bring clarity to this and clearly explain the process the Board will follow. We’re going to listen to feedback until March 31st.  At that time we’ll decide whether to approve these changes.  I’m also assuming that we’ll start another round of changes in the next year or two.  Are there other issues in the bylaws that we should tackle in the future?

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