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• file error /boot/grub/i386-pc/normal.mod trying to repair boot, live dvd install probleml

  - by user179295

  I have seen that there are a lot of threads about this problem. I had Windows 8 installed on my series 3 samsung i5 computer and I tried to install ubuntu 13.04. This is what I did: Because of the secure boot I can't install ubuntu from the dvd. So I went in the bios and disabled secure boot and enabled ''CSM''. I went out of the bios and windows 8 couldn't boot more. So I follow a guide on this thread ( Installing on a Pre-Installed Windows 8 System (UEFI Supported) ) and on ubuntu I tried to repair the boot by inserting this code in the terminal: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install boot-repair Then I ran boot-repair and I follow all the steps. Then I reboot the sistem and saw the black screen that says: error: file '/boot/grub/i386-pc/normal mod' not found grub rescure> Now I saw a lot of guides about this problem but I can't understand how to reistall ubuntu trough the live dvd that I used to install it the first time... I put it in the computer but nothing appears.. so what should I do now? I'm a noob on ubuntu and I have read all the things about this grub 2 install and know where the problem comes from but how to start the dvd??

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• Dell Docking Station Doesn’t Detect USB Mouse and Keyboard

  - by Ben Griswold

  I’ve found myself in this situation with multiple Dell docking stations and multiple Dell laptops running various Windows operating systems.  I don’t know why the docking station stops recognizing my USB mouse and keyboard – it just does.  It’s black magic.  The last time around I just starting plugging the mouse and keyboard into the docked laptop directly and went about my business (as if I wasn’t completing missing out on a couple of the core benefits of using a docking station.)  I guess that’s what happens when you forget how you got yourself out of the mess the last time around.  I had been in this half-assed state for a couple of weeks now, but a coworker fortunately got themselves in and out of the same pickle this morning.  Procrastinate long enough and the solution will just come to you, right? Here’s how to get yourself out of this mess: Undock your computer Unplug your docking station Count to an arbitrary number greater than 12.  (Not sure this is really required, but…) Plug your docking station back in Redock your machine I put my machine to sleep before taking the aforementioned actions.  My coworker completely shutdown his laptop instead.  The steps worked on both of our Win 7 machines this morning and, who knows, it might just work for you too. 

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• Killer content for my Kindle - The Economist with no need for an iPad - yipeee!

  - by Liam Westley

  I admin it, I was jealous of someone's iPad. They were reading The Economist, for free, as they were a print subscriber. I'm a print subscriber too. However, I don't have an iPad or an iPhone, just an Android phone and a Kindle. As soon as I got the Kindle, I looked up how to get The Economist on it. £9.99 per month. Hmmm, twice as much again as a my print subscription and I wanted to maintain the print subscription. No way Amazon. Fortunately some nice person wrote similar comments on The Economist subscription for Kindle, but added a very important additional nugget of information; and there is no need, as a print subscriber you can just use the free Calibre e-book creation tool anyway. So I downloaded it, searched for The Economist online 'recipe', entered my login name and password (part of my print subscription) and off went Calibre to screen scrape every single article from the Christmas 2010 issue into a .mobi file, complete with front cover image and full indexing. It's wonderful. Truely wonderful. Every section individually indexed, with each article separated and all inline images preserved. It even feels wonderfully retro, back to the days when The Economist only used black and white images. So many thanks the guys behind Calibre and The Economist recipe creators. Finally, I have my essential Kindle content that I've been waiting for.

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• How to get ip-address out of SPAMHAUS blacklist?

  - by ???????? ????? ???????????

  I frequently read that it is possible to remove individual ip-addresses from SPAMHAUS blacklisting. OK. Here is 91.205.43.252 (91.205.43.251 - 91.205.43.253) used by back3.stopspamers.com (back2.stopspamers.com, back1.stopspamers.com) in geo-cluster on dedicated servers in Switzerland. The queries: http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=91.205.43.251 http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=91.205.43.252 http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=91.205.43.253 tell that: 91.205.43.251 - 91.205.43.253 are all listed in the SBL80808 blacklist And SBL80808 blacklist tells: "Ref: SBL80808 91.205.40.0/22 is listed on the Spamhaus Block List (SBL) 01-Apr-2010 05:52 GMT | SR04 Spamming and now seems this place is involved in other fraud" 91.205.43.251-91.205.43.253 are not listed amongst criminal ip-addresses individually but there is no way to remove it individually from black listing. How to remove this individual (91.205.43.251-91.205.43.253) addresses from SPAMHAUS blacklist? And why the heck SPAMHAUS is blacklisting spam-stopping service? This is only one example of a bunch. My related posts: Blacklist IP database Update: From the answer provided I realized that my question was not even understood. This ip-addresses 91.205.43.251 - 91.205.43.253 are not blacklisted individually, they are blacklisted through its supernet 91.205.40.0/22. Also note that dedicated server, ISP and customer are in much different distant countries. Update2: http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/sbl.lasso?query=SBL80808#removal tells: "To have record SBL80808 (91.205.40.0/22) removed from the SBL, the Abuse/Security representative of RIPE (or the Internet Service Provider responsible for supplying connectivity to 91.205.40.0/22) needs to contact the SBL Team" There are dozens of "abusers" in that blacklist SBL80808. The company using that dedicated server is not an ISP or RIPE representative to treat these issues. Even if to treat it, it is just a matter of pressing "Report spam" on internet to be again blacklisted, this is fruitless approach. These techniques are broadly used by criminals and spammers, See also this my post on blacklisting. This is just one specific example but there are many-many more.

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• SQL SERVER – Quiz and Video – Introduction to Hierarchical Query using a Recursive CTE

  - by pinaldave

  This blog post is inspired from SQL Queries Joes 2 Pros: SQL Query Techniques For Microsoft SQL Server 2008 – SQL Exam Prep Series 70-433 – Volume 2.[Amazon] | [Flipkart] | [Kindle] | [IndiaPlaza] This is follow up blog post of my earlier blog post on the same subject - SQL SERVER – Introduction to Hierarchical Query using a Recursive CTE – A Primer. In the article we discussed various basics terminology of the CTE. The article further covers following important concepts of common table expression. What is a Common Table Expression (CTE) Building a Recursive CTE Identify the Anchor and Recursive Query Add the Anchor and Recursive query to a CTE Add an expression to track hierarchical level Add a self-referencing INNER JOIN statement Above six are the most important concepts related to CTE and SQL Server.  There are many more things one has to learn but without beginners fundamentals one can’t learn the advanced  concepts. Let us have small quiz and check how many of you get the fundamentals right. Quiz 1) You have an employee table with the following data. EmpID FirstName LastName MgrID 1 David Kennson 11 2 Eric Bender 11 3 Lisa Kendall 4 4 David Lonning 11 5 John Marshbank 4 6 James Newton 3 7 Sally Smith NULL You need to write a recursive CTE that shows the EmpID, FirstName, LastName, MgrID, and employee level. The CEO should be listed at Level 1. All people who work for the CEO will be listed at Level 2. All of the people who work for those people will be listed at Level 3. Which CTE code will achieve this result? WITH EmpList AS (SELECT Boss.EmpID, Boss.FName, Boss.LName, Boss.MgrID, 1 AS Lvl FROM Employee AS Boss WHERE Boss.MgrID IS NULL UNION ALL SELECT E.EmpID, E.FirstName, E.LastName, E.MgrID, EmpList.Lvl + 1 FROM Employee AS E INNER JOIN EmpList ON E.MgrID = EmpList.EmpID) SELECT * FROM EmpList WITH EmpListAS (SELECT EmpID, FirstName, LastName, MgrID, 1 as Lvl FROM Employee WHERE MgrID IS NULL UNION ALL SELECT EmpID, FirstName, LastName, MgrID, 2 as Lvl ) SELECT * FROM BossList WITH EmpList AS (SELECT EmpID, FirstName, LastName, MgrID, 1 as Lvl FROM Employee WHERE MgrID is NOT NULL UNION SELECT EmpID, FirstName, LastName, MgrID, BossList.Lvl + 1 FROM Employee INNER JOIN EmpList BossList ON Employee.MgrID = BossList.EmpID) SELECT * FROM EmpList 2) You have a table named Employee. The EmployeeID of each employee’s manager is in the ManagerID column. You need to write a recursive query that produces a list of employees and their manager. The query must also include the employee’s level in the hierarchy. You write the following code segment: WITH EmployeeList (EmployeeID, FullName, ManagerName, Level) AS ( –PICK ANSWER CODE HERE ) SELECT EmployeeID, FullName, ” AS [ManagerID], 1 AS [Level] FROM Employee WHERE ManagerID IS NULL UNION ALL SELECT emp.EmployeeID, emp.FullName mgr.FullName, 1 + 1 AS [Level] FROM Employee emp JOIN Employee mgr ON emp.ManagerID = mgr.EmployeeId SELECT EmployeeID, FullName, ” AS [ManagerID], 1 AS [Level] FROM Employee WHERE ManagerID IS NULL UNION ALL SELECT emp.EmployeeID, emp.FullName, mgr.FullName, mgr.Level + 1 FROM EmployeeList mgr JOIN Employee emp ON emp.ManagerID = mgr.EmployeeId Now make sure that you write down all the answers on the piece of paper. Watch following video and read earlier article over here. If you want to change the answer you still have chance. Solution 1) 1 2) 2 Now compare let us check the answers and compare your answers to following answers. I am very confident you will get them correct. Available at USA: Amazon India: Flipkart | IndiaPlaza Volume: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Please leave your feedback in the comment area for the quiz and video. Did you know all the answers of the quiz? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Wubi doens't work anymore - shows 'No wubildr' error

  - by Joe

  Basics: HP Mini 311 Ubuntu netbook edition 10.04 (installed via Wubi) Symptoms: I load to Windows Boot Manager as usual. Options are Windows 7 and Ubuntu Netbook, like usual. Selecting Windows 7 does as it should. Loading Ubuntu Netbook, though, does not take me to the usual screen where it lets me select versions of Ubuntu (sorry for bad wording, not sure what the real name is called; it's where you select from about 6 items; I always picked the first due to lack of knowledge without issue). Instead it flashes an error in white on a black screen then restarts very quickly. It took me a few restarts, but here is the error: Try (hd0,0): NTSF5 No wubildr Try (hd0,1): NTSF5: Situation: I have no clue what caused it. The only thing I did last night on Ubuntu was install Skype, but the mic didn't work instantly so I got lazy and switched to Windows 7 and used Skype on there. When I tried to switch back to Ubuntu it began this. (There may be something I forget... it was 5 in the morning). There were no recent updates that I remember. No weird activity. Just... random. Help please?

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• Order of operations to render VBO to FBO texture and then rendering FBO texture full quad

  - by cyberdemon

  I've just started using OpenGL with C# via the OpenTK library. I've managed to successfully render my game world using VBOs. I now want to create a pixellated affect by rendering the frame to an offscreen FBO with a size half of my GameWindow size and then render that FBO to a full screen quad. I've been looking at the OpenTK example here: http://www.opentk.com/doc/graphics/frame-buffer-objects ...but the result is a black form. I'm not sure which parts of the example code belongs in the OnLoad event and OnRenderFrame. Can someone please tell me if the below code shows the correct order of operations? OnLoad { // VBO. // DataArrayBuffer GenBuffers/BindBuffer/BufferData // ElementArrayBuffer GenBuffers/BindBuffer/BufferData // ColourArrayBuffer GenBuffers/BindBuffer/BufferData // FBO. // ColourTexture GenTextures/BindTexture/TexParameterx4/TexImage2D // Create FBO. // Textures Ext.GenFramebuffers/Ext.BindFramebuffer/Ext.FramebufferTexture2D/Ext.FramebufferRenderbuffer } OnRenderFrame { // Use FBO buffer. Ext.BindFramebuffer(FBO) GL.Clear // Set viewport to FBO dimensions. GL.DrawBuffer((DrawBufferMode)FramebufferAttachment.ColorAttachment0Ext) // Bind VBO arrays. GL.BindBuffer(ColourArrayBuffer) GL.ColorPointer GL.EnableClientState(ColorArray) GL.BindBuffer(DataArrayBuffer) // If world changed GL.BufferData(DataArrayBuffer) GL.VertexPointer GL.EnableClientState(VertexArray) GL.BindBuffer(ElementArrayBuffer) // Render VBO. GL.DrawElements // Bind visible buffer. GL.Ext.BindFramebuffer(0) GL.DrawBuffer(Back) GL.Clear // Set camera to view texture. GL.BindTexture(ColourTexture) // Render FBO texture GL.Begin(Quads) // Draw texture on quad // TexCoord2/Vertex2 GL.End SwapBuffers }

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• My Expert F# Book has now arrived!

  - by MarkPearl

  So it has finally arrived from Amazon. Expert F# by Don Syme, Adam Granicz & Antonio Cisternino. I got a note from the post office yesterday that I needed to collect a package from their offices. After paying a 10% customs fee (that I wasn’t expecting) I had my new Yellow & Black F# Book… it’s so shinny. Trust my luck though – I have a few university assignments due this week as well as a crazy week of work so it has been sitting on my desk for a day and I haven’t managed to get into it. Eventually I managed to take a few minutes this evening to page through it and it looks really good. I can’t wait! So my goal this week is to cover Chapter 2 (by the end of the weekend) and put the appropriate posts up. F# is slowly working on me but I am keen to get a deeper understanding of the language which I am hoping this book will help me achieve.

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• Is it reasonable to expect knowing the whole stack bottom up?

  - by Vaibhav Garg

  I am an Sr. developer/architect/Product Manager for embedded systems. The systems that I have had experience with have typically been small to medium size codebases - typically close to 25-30K LOC in C, using 8-16 and 32 bit low end microcontrollers. The systems have been entirely bootstrapped by our team - meaning right from the start-up code to the end application code has either been written by the team, or at the very least, is thoroughly understood and maintained by us. Now, if we were to start developing more complex systems with complex peripherals, such as USB OTG et al. (think, low end cell phones), there are libraries and stacks available commercially and from chip vendors that reduce the task to just calling the right APIs and being able to use those peripherals. Now, from a habit point of view, this does not give me and the team a comfortable feeling, not being able to comprehend the entire code tree, with virtual black boxes at the lower layers. Is it reasonable to devote, and reserve, time getting into the details of how the APIs are implemented, assuming that the same would also entail getting into details of relevant standards (again, for USB as an example)? Or, alternatively, should a thorough understanding of the top level usage of the APIs be sufficient? This of course assumes that the source codes to all libraries are available, which they are, in almost all cases. Edit: In partial response to @Abhi Beckert, the documentation is refreshingly very comprehensive and meticulously maintained, AFAIK and been able to judge. I have not had a long experience with the same.

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• Boot failure after update and system crash 11.10

  - by Alubuntu

  I'm using: Dell XPS M1330 laptop, Ubuntu 11.10 32bits, single boot (only Linux OS), Virtualbox (with Windows XP on virtual machine). System crashed while working with a very heavy image on GIMP (and Virtualbox was on). During the same session, I made an automatic system update, but don't know what was exactly updated. After the crash the system doesn't boot. Always freezes on terminal screen but at different stages, ""Starting CUPS printing spooler/server", "Checking battery state", "mountall: plymouth command failed", etc. Sometimes indicates [failed] in some of the processes and sometimes they're all [ok]. Did a Boot info summary with boot-repair and gave me this report http://paste.ubuntu.com/1050743/ This is not a new install, have been using it for almost 6 months...though since last month it couldn't halt..it started shutting down and stopped at black screen with fan on and on/off light still on (I used to finish the shutdown process by forcing halt with a long-press of the power button). I don't know if these has anything to do with the boot failure. Is there anyway I can solve this issue (the boot failure) or make some sort of system check to find out what is the cause of the problem? I wasn't sure if this was the right place to ask the question, so I also did it at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/201004

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• create a simple game board android

  - by user2819446

  I am a beginner in Android and I want to create a very simple 2D game. I've already programmed a Tic-Tac-Toe game. The drawing of the game board and connecting it with my game and input logic was quite difficult (as it was done separately, canvas drawing, calculating positions, etc). By now I figured out that there must be a simpler way. All I want is a simple grid; something like this: http://www.blelb.com/deutsch/blelbspots/spot29/images/hermannneg.gif. The edges should be visible and black, and each cell editable, containing either an image or nothing, so I can detect if the player is on that cell or not, move it... Think of it as Chess or something similar. Searching the internet during the last days, I am a bit overwhelmed of all the different options. After all, I think Gridview or Gridlayout is what I am searching for, but I'm still stuck. I hope you can help me with some good advice or maybe a link to a nice tutorial. I have checked several already, and none were exactly what I was searching for.

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• Boot-repair commands not found in PATH or not executable

  - by Bram Meerten

  I recently had problems with my ubuntu partition (after the battery died), I managed to fix them by running ubuntu from usb and run gparted. It worked I can access my files on the partition by running ubuntu from usb. But when I restart the computer, after selecting ubuntu in Grub, I get a black screen with a white underscore. I googled the problem, and tried to solve it by setting nomodeset, but it didn't work. Next I wanted to try to fix Grub using boot-repair, I clicked on 'Recommended repair', it tells me to type the following commands in the terminal: sudo chroot "/mnt/boot-sav/sda5" apt-get install -fy sudo chroot "/mnt/boot-sav/sda5" dpkg --configure -a sudo chroot "/mnt/boot-sav/sda5" apt-get purge -y --force-yes grub-common But when running the second command, I get this error: dpkg: warning: 'sh' not found in PATH or not executable. dpkg: warning: 'rm' not found in PATH or not executable. dpkg: warning: 'tar' not found in PATH or not executable. dpkg: error: 3 expected programs not found in PATH or not executable. Note: root's PATH should usually contain /usr/local/sbin, /usr/sbin and /sbin. I didn't edit /etc/environment (or any other files), this is what it looks like: PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games" RUNNING_UNDER_GDM="yes" I have no idea how to fix this. I'm running dualboot Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 7, Windows boots fine.

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• Can I trust the Basic schedule equation?

  - by Steve Campbell

  I've been reading Steve McConnell's demystifying the black art of estimating book, and he gives an equation for estimating nominal schedule based on Person-months of effort: ScheduleInMonths = 3.0 x EffortInMonths ^ (1/3) Per the book, this is very accurate (within 25%), although the 3.0 factor above varies depending on your organization (typically between 2 and 4). It is supposedly easy to use historical projects in your organization to derive an appropriate factor for your use. I am trying to reconcile the equation against Agile methods, using 2-6 week cycles which are often mini-projects that have a working deliverable at the end. If I have a team of 5 developers over 4 weeks (1 month), then EffortInMonths = 5 Person Months. The algorithm then outputs a schedule of 3.0 x 5^(1/3) = 5 months. 5 months is much more than 25% different than 1 month. If I lower the 3.0 factor to 0.6, then the algorthim works (outputs a schedule of approx 1 month). The lowest possible factor mentioned in the book through is 2.0. Whats going on here? I want to trust this equation for estimating a "traditional" non-agile project, but I cannot trust it when it does not reconcile with my (agile) experience. Can someone help me understand?

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• Grub options are not visible on booting on Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite running Ubuntu 14.04

  - by mjwittering

  I've managed to install Ubuntu 14.04 on my new Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite ultrabook. After updating some configuratiosn in the UEFI installation was very easy. The only questions and issue I believe I'm still experience is when booting. I believe when the laptop would be displaying the grub boot options I see the following. There is a black screen with a purple border of 10px around the screen. I'd like to know how I can update my system so that I see the grub boot manager. I've run these commands: sudo cat /etc/default/grub # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update # /boot/grub/grub.cfg. # For full documentation of the options in this file, see: # info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration' GRUB_DEFAULT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" # Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs # This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains # the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...) #GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef" # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only) #GRUB_TERMINAL=console # The resolution used on graphical terminal # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE # you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo' #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 # Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true # Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries #GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true" # Uncomment to get a beep at grub start #GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1" The command was not possible, sudo efibootmgr.

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• Ubuntu 12.04.2 won't boot after bumblebee instalation

  - by Andrej

  First of all sorry for my English, it's not my first language. Here is what I have done: I had a working ubuntu 12.04 with all updates and working bumblebee, so I could do optirun command and battery life was better than without bumblebee. Than I decided to reinstall both my systems installed windows 7 and ubuntu. Reinstalled Windows 7 all working as expected, than on other partition installed ubuntu 12.04. All worked perfectly. Than I installed bumblebee according to the procedure written here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee same steps that I used before. But now after I install drivers and do all written in procedure and I reboot my notebook system won't boot, it is simply stuck at black screen after short showing of start screen. I reinstalled ubuntu many times already and tried everthing, but when I try install nvidia drivers it won't boot after shutting down notebook and only thing I can do is reinstalling system. I have Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E530 and processor: Intel® Core™ i5-3210M CPU and graphic cards are Intel HD 4000 and Nvidia geforce gt630m After clean install without bumblebee, terminal command lspci| grep VGA is showing: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Ivy Bridge Graphics Controller (rev 09) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0de9 (rev a1) Can you suggest a sollution?? Or at least some links to similar topics??

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• Not Happy With the Monochrome Visual Studio 11 Beta UI

  - by Ken Cox [MVP]

  I can’t wait for a third-party to come out with tools to return some colour to the flat, monochrome look of Visual Studio 11 (beta). What bugs me most are the icons. I feel like a newbie when I have to squint and analyze the shape of icons on the debugging toolbar just to get the one I want. (Fortunately, the meddlers didn’t mess with the keyboard commands so I’m not totally lost.) Not sure what usability studies told MS that bland is better. Maybe it is for most people, but not for me.  Gray, shades of gray and black. Ugh. And don’t get me started on the stupidity of using all-caps for window titles. Who approved that? I see that there’s a UserVoice poll on the topic (http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio/suggestions/2623017-add-some-color-to-visual-studio-11-beta) but I doubt that anything will change Microsoft’s opinion in time for the release. Once a product gets to a stable beta, most non-crashing stuff gets pushed to the next version. I hope I’m proved wrong. Fortunately, Visual Studio is quite customizable. Unless ‘Bland’ is hard-coded, some registry tweaks and a collection of replacement icons should allow dissenters like me back to productivity. BTW, other than hating the UI, VS 11 beta is working quite well for me on a .NET 4 project.Note: Although my username for the ASP.NET domain includes the letters "[MVP]", I'm no longer an MVP. Apparently it's nearly impossible to change a username in the system. My apologies for the misleading identifier but I tried to have it changed without success.

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• Stencil mask with AlphaTestEffect

  - by Brendan Wanlass

  I am trying to pull off the following effect in XNA 4.0: http://eng.utah.edu/~brendanw/question.jpg The purple area has 50% opacity. I have gotten pretty close with the following code: public static DepthStencilState AlwaysStencilState = new DepthStencilState() { StencilEnable = true, StencilFunction = CompareFunction.Always, StencilPass = StencilOperation.Replace, ReferenceStencil = 1, DepthBufferEnable = false, }; public static DepthStencilState EqualStencilState = new DepthStencilState() { StencilEnable = true, StencilFunction = CompareFunction.Equal, StencilPass = StencilOperation.Keep, ReferenceStencil = 1, DepthBufferEnable = false, }; ... if (_alphaEffect == null) { _alphaEffect = new AlphaTestEffect(_spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice); _alphaEffect.AlphaFunction = CompareFunction.LessEqual; _alphaEffect.ReferenceAlpha = 129; Matrix projection = Matrix.CreateOrthographicOffCenter(0, _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferWidth, _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferHeight, 0, 0, 1); _alphaEffect.Projection = world.SystemManager.GetSystem<RenderSystem>().Camera.View * projection; } _mask = new RenderTarget2D(_spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice, _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferWidth, _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.PresentationParameters.BackBufferHeight, false, SurfaceFormat.Color, DepthFormat.Depth24Stencil8); _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(_mask); _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.Clear(ClearOptions.Target | ClearOptions.Stencil, Color.Transparent, 0, 0); _spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Immediate, null, null, AlwaysStencilState, null, _alphaEffect); _spriteBatch.Draw(sprite.Texture, position, sprite.SourceRectangle,Color.White, 0f, sprite.Origin, 1f, SpriteEffects.None, 0); _spriteBatch.End(); _spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Immediate, null, null, EqualStencilState, null, null); _spriteBatch.Draw(_maskTex, new Vector2(x * _maskTex.Width, y * _maskTex.Height), null, Color.White, 0f, Vector2.Zero, 1f, SpriteEffects.None, 0); _spriteBatch.End(); _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.SetRenderTarget(null); _spriteBatch.GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Black); _spriteBatch.Begin(); _spriteBatch.Draw((Texture2D)_mask, Vector2.Zero, null, Color.White, 0f, Vector2.Zero, 1f, SpriteEffects.None, layer/max_layer); _spriteBatch.End(); My problem is, I can't get the AlphaTestEffect to behave. I can either mask over the semi-transparent purple junk and fill it in with the green design, or I can draw over the completely opaque grassy texture. How can I specify the exact opacity that needs to be replace with the green design?

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• How to zero out a drive?

  - by Mohd Arafat Hossain

  I'm currently running Ubuntu 12.04 and want to completely format my laptop so I can install Windows 7 (replace Ubuntu). When I put in my bootable USB with the OS it just shows a black screen with a white blinking cursor on the top left corner. I wait for hours (to be specific 5 whole hours) waiting for something to happen but I get nothing, so I pull out the USB and my Ubuntu 12.04 loads up. Repeated this several times with putting different boot priority options on top-est that relate to USB but the results are same. I go and visit some sites on the net like this http://www.techspot.com/community/topics/cant-replace-ubuntu-with-windows.175716/ that say I have to zero out my hard drive. My question is how? Note: Erasing out all my data is no problem cause I have nothing important to backup. If I have to lose my primary OS (Ubuntu 12.04) in the process I am ready to as my aim is just to install Windows 7 successfully. Please don't answer that there is something wrong with my USB or my USB reader/port/hardware or the content inside the USB cause they all works fine on my brothers PC as it boots up flawlessly.

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• Java Spotlight Episode 76: Pro Java FX2 - A Definative Guide to Rich Clients with Java Technology

  - by Roger Brinkley

  Tweet An interview with the authors of Pro Java FX2: A Definative Guide to Rich Clients with Java Technology. Right-click or Control-click to download this MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the Java Spotlight Podcast Feed to get the latest podcast automatically. If you use iTunes you can open iTunes and subscribe with this link:  Java Spotlight Podcast in iTunes. Show Notes News Angela Caicedo has created 3 new Java FX screen cast videos on java UTube channel: Part 1: Building your First Java FX Application with Netbeans 7.1, Part 2: Building your First Java FX Application with Netbeans 7.1, and Getting Started with Scene Builder.  Events March 26-29, EclipseCon, Reston, USA March 27, Virtual Developer Days - Java (Asia Pacific (English)),9:30 am to 2:00pm IST / 12:00pm to 4.30pm SGT  / 3.00pm - 7.30pm AEDT April 4-5, JavaOne Japan, Tokyo, Japan April 12, GreenJUG, Greenville, SC April 17-18, JavaOne Russia, Moscow Russia April 18–20, Devoxx France, Paris, France April 26, Mix-IT, Lyon, France, May 3-4, JavaOne India, Hyderabad, India Feature InterviewPro JavaFX 2: A Definitive Guide to Rich Clients with Java Technology is available from Amazon.com in either paperback or on the Kindle.James L. (Jim) Weaver is a Java and JavaFX developer, author, and speaker with a passion for helping rich-client Java and JavaFX become preferred technologies for new application development. Books that Jim has authored include Inside Java, Beginning J2EE, and Pro JavaFX Platform, with the latter being updated to cover JavaFX 2.0. His professional background includes 15 years as a systems architect at EDS, and the same number of years as an independent developer. Jim is an international speaker at software technology conferences, including the JavaOne conferences in San Francisco and São Paulo. Jim blogs at http://javafxpert.com, tweets @javafxpert. Weiqi Gao is a principal software engineer with Object Computing, Inc., in St. Louis, MO. He has more than 18 years of software development experience and has been using Java technology since 1998. He is interested in programming languages, object-oriented systems, distributed computing, and graphical user interfaces. He is a presenter and a member of the steering committee of the St. Louis Java Users Group. Weiqi holds a PhD in mathematics. Stephen Chin is chief agile methodologist at GXS and a technical expert in client UI technologies. He is lead author on the Pro Android Flash title and coauthored the Pro JavaFX Platform title, which is the leading technical reference for JavaFX. In addition, Stephen runs the very successful Silicon Valley JavaFX User Group, which has hundreds of members and tens of thousands of online viewers. Finally, he is a Java Champion, chair of the OSCON Java conference, and an internationally recognized speaker featured at Devoxx, Codemash, AnDevCon, Jazoon, and JavaOne, where he received a Rock Star Award. Stephen can be followed on twitter @steveonjava and reached via his blog: http://steveonjava.com.Dean Iverson has been writing software professionally for more than 15 years. He is employed by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, where he is a rich client application developer. He also has a small software consultancy called Pleasing Software Solutions, which he cofounded with his wife. Johan Vos started to work with Java in 1995. As part of the Blackdown team, he helped port Java to Linux. With LodgON, the company he cofounded, he has been mainly working on Java-based solutions for social networking software. Because he can't make a choice between embedded development and enterprise development, his main focus is on end-to-end Java, combining the strengths of backend systems and embedded devices. His favorite technologies are currently Java EE/Glassfish at the backend and JavaFX at the frontend. Johan's blog can be followed at http://blogs.lodgon.com/johan, he tweets at http://twitter.com/johanvos. Mail Bag What’s Cool Gerrit Grunwald's SteelSeries FX Experience Tools Canned Animations ComboBox

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• Lexmark X5650 doesn't print (scanning works)

  - by unor

  I want to use a Lexmark X5650 under Ubuntu. When I connect it via USB, Ubuntu recognizes the device, but can't find a driver. On the Lexmark support site, you can select "Unix/Linux" and then "Ubuntu 9.04", "9.10", "10.04" and "10.10". However, all versions lead to the same driver: lexmark-08z-series-driver-1.0-1.i386.deb.sh.tar.gz (Last updated: 2012-04-13). While installing this driver, the installer asks me to connect the device. As soon as I connect it via USB, Ubuntu now adds the printer automatically. So after the installation completed, I had 2 printers set up. But I can't print anything (I tried it with both printer configurations). Scanning works fine, though. So I guess the driver installation and the device connection are successful. When I try to print something, the print job is listed in the printing queue, but nothing happens. After some time, I get an error message which starts a debug wizard, but in the end it reads something like "Sorry, couldn't find the reason". I had several different error messages (unfortunately, I didn't record them), one was approximately like "printer cannot communicate with computer". Another said that my color ink was low (which is true, but black is full). Another said there was an input/output error. I tried it with Ubuntu 11.10. Because I read that some people had success with 10.04., I installed it in QEMU and installed the driver there, too. Same problem, though. I'd like to upgrade to 12.04, if it should work there for any reason, but I read that for some people this printer stopped working in 12.04 :/ So, it would be best if the printer would work in 12.04. If that's not possible, I'd be fine with starting a QEMU virtual machine with any GNU/Linux distribution that works with my printer.

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• kubuntu 12.10 will not boot on mac 2.93Ghz intel core 2 duo

  - by Jake Sweet

  I feel like I've tried it all and nothing is changing. I've tried booting from a liveUSB, a liveDVD, and I've checked the mod5 everything matches up. I've even tried different distro's same result on all of them. Just for reference: linuxmint 13kde and Fedora 17. I've also tried changing my liveUSB building software just in case. I've tried unetbootin and Linux USB builder. Both have same results, my opinion is that it is a hardware issue since I'm having near the same result with all of these variables. So now what is actually happening? I can boot up to a screen. I say A screen because some of the ways that dvd's and usb's boot differs. Now on liveusb I'm reaching a black screen with white text. Says booting: done, then below says loading ramdrive: done, then below that it says preparing to boot kernel this may take a while and buckle in or something to that effect. Then nothing. That's it computer freezes. I've waited up to 8 hrs and still nothing. Ok for the liveDVD Everything goes according to instructions per pdf files on every distro, until linux starts. I can only run in compatibility mode. When any other option is tried the computer seems to freeze/stall/be a pain in my butt... Ok well that seems to wrap it up. Also if I'm not explaining something well, I'm sorry I can try to clear anything up. I'm not the best at descriptions. I'm leaving with a tech specs of my mac: 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB ram, NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics, bought in late 09" it's the 24" model, let me know if anymore information will help. Also thanks in advance

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• Remote reboot over ssh does not restart

  - by Finn Årup Nielsen

  I would like to remotely reboot my Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server via ssh. I do sudo reboot and I loose connection and the server connection does not reappear. It does not ping. When I go the the physical computer with a screen attached I see a black screen and hear that the server is still on. I do a hard power off (press power on button for a few seconds) and the server halts. After I press power on the server boots with no problem. As far as I remember the remote reboot has previously worked on that server. I wonder if sudo reboot & will help? I suppose I could also try sudo shutdown -r and see if that does any difference. I have listed an excerpt of /etc/log/syslog below. The last thing it records is the stopping of the logging. Oct 24 10:14:49 servername kernel: [1354427.594709] init: cron main process (1060) killed by TERM signal Oct 24 10:14:49 servername kernel: [1354427.594908] init: irqbalance main process (1080) killed by TERM signal Oct 24 10:14:49 servername kernel: [1354427.595299] init: tty1 main process (1424) killed by TERM signal Oct 24 10:14:49 servername kernel: [1354427.637747] init: plymouth-upstart-bridge main process (20873) terminated with status 1 Oct 24 10:14:49 servername kernel: Kernel logging (proc) stopped. Oct 24 10:14:49 servername rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="5.8.6" x-pid="876" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] exiting on signal 15. Oct 24 10:25:34 servername kernel: imklog 5.8.6, log source = /proc/kmsg started. Oct 24 10:25:34 servername rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="5.8.6" x-pid="862" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] start

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• BlitzMax - generating 2D neon glowing line effect to png file

  - by zanlok

  Originally asked on StackOverflow, but it became tumbleweed. I'm looking to create a glowing line effect in BlitzMax, something like a Star Wars lightsaber or laserbeam. Doesn't have to be realtime, but just to TImage objects and then maybe saved to PNG for later use in animation. I'm happy to use 3D features, but it will be for use in a 2D game. Since it will be on black/space background, my strategy is to draw a series of white blurred lines with color and high transparency, then eventually central lines less blurred and more white. What I want to draw is actually bezier curved lines. Drawing curved lines is easy enough, but I can't use the technique above to create a good laser/neon effect because it comes out looking very segmented. So, I think it may be better to use a blur effect/shader on what does render well, which is a 1-pixel bezier curve. The problems I've been having are: Applying a shader to just a certain area of the screen where lines are drawn. If there's a way to do draw lines to a texture and then blur that texture and save the png, that would be great to hear about. There's got to be a way to do this, but I just haven't gotten the right elements working together yet. Any help from someone familiar with this stuff would be greatly appreciated. Using just 2D calls could be advantageous, simpler to understand and re-use. It would be very nice to know how to save a PNG that preserves the transparency/alpha stuff. p.s. I've reviewed this post (and many many others on the Blitz site), have samples working, and even developed my own 5x5 frag shaders. But, it's 3D and a scene-wide thing that doesn't seem to convert to 2D or just a certain area very well. I'd rather understand how to apply shading to a 2D scene, especially using the specifics of BlitzMax.

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• Checkers AI Algorithm

  - by John

  I am making an AI for my checkers game and I'm trying to make it as hard as possible. Here is the current criteria for a move on the hardest difficulty: 1: Look For A Block: This is when a piece is being threatened and another piece can be moved in behind it to protect it. Here is an example: Black Moves |W| |W| |W| |W| | | |W| |W| |W| |W| |W| | | |W| |W| | | | | |W| | | | | | | | | |B| | | | | |B| | | |B| |B| |B| |B| |B| |B| | | |B| |B| |B| |B| White Blocks |W| |W| |W| |W| | | |W| | | |W| |W| |W| |W| |W| |W| | | | | |W| | | | | | | | | |B| | | | | |B| | | |B| |B| |B| |B| |B| |B| | | |B| |B| |B| |B| 2: Move pieces out of danger: if any piece is being threatened, and a piece cannot block for that piece, then it will attempt to move out of the way. If the piece cannot move out of the way without still being in danger, the computer ignores the piece. 3: If the computer player owns any kings, it will attempt to 'hunt down' enemy pieces on the board, if no moves can be made that won't in danger the king or any other pieces, the computer ignores this rule. 4: Any piece that is owned by the computer that is in column 1 or 6 will attempt to go to a side. When a piece is in column 0 or 7, it is in a very strategic position because it cannot get captured while it is in either of these columns 5: It makes an educated random move, the move will not indanger the piece that is moving or any piece that is on the board. 6: If none of the above are possible it makes a random move. This question is not really specific to any language but if all examples could be in Java that would be great, considering this app is written in android. Does anyone see any room for improvement in this algorithm? Anything that would make it better at playing checkers?

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• Windows 8 + Ubuntu dualboot problem - ubuntu does not load after windows updates

  - by Michal Biros

  I have installed Windows 8 64-bit and Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit in dualboot with EFI mode. Everything worked great. I could run Ubuntu or Windows without any problems. Only one little issue was that Windows locked NTFS partitions when I shut it down. When I clicked on restart button in Windows and started Ubuntu, partitions mounted successfully. But today ... I opened windows and downloaded all available updates. When I wanted to come back to Ubuntu I noticed that grub did not count down seconds to automatic start. After choosing Ubuntu option manually, the OS did not load. Just black screen with white underscore in the upper left corner. Windows is accessible always without such issues. Last time I solved it by reinstalling ubuntu but I dont want to do it each time windows downloads some updates. Have you ever meet such problem, or do you know how to solve it? EDIT Ubuntu boots, but it won't start. It ends on loading screen.

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