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• HTG Explains: Are You Using IPv6 Yet? Should You Even Care?

  - by Chris Hoffman

  IPv6 is extremely important for the long-term health of the Internet. But is your Internet service provider providing IPv6 connectivity yet? Does your home network support it? Should you even care if you’re using IPv6 yet? Switching from IPv4 to IPv6 will give the Internet a much larger pool of IP addresses. It should also allow every device to have its own public IP address, rather than be hidden behind a NAT router. IPv6 is Important Long-Term IPv6 is very important for the long-term health of the Internet. There are only about 3.7 billion public IPv4 addresses. This may sound like a lot, but it isn’t even one IP address for each person on the planet. Considering people have more and more Internet-connected devices — everything from light bulbs to thermostats are starting to become network-connected — the lack of IP addresses is already proving to be a serious problem. This may not affect those of us in well-off developed countries just yet, but developing countries are already running out of IPv4 addresses. So, if you work at an Internet service provider, manage Internet-connected servers, or develop software or hardware — yes, you should care about IPv6! You should be deploying it and ensuring your software and hardware works properly with it. It’s important to prepare for the future before the current IPv4 situation becomes completely unworkable. But, if you’re just typical user or even a typical geek with a home Internet connection and a home network, should you really care about your home network just yet? Probably not. What You Need to Use IPv6 To use IPv6, you’ll need three things: An IPv6-Compatible Operating System: Your operating system’s software must be capable of using IPv6. All modern desktop operating systems should be compatible — Windows Vista and newer versions of Windows, as well as modern versions of Mac OS X and Linux. Windows XP doesn’t have IPv6 support installed by default, but you shouldn’t be using Windows XP anymore, anyway. A Router With IPv6 Support: Many — maybe even most — consumer routers in the wild don’t support IPv6. Check your router’s specifications details to see if it supports IPv6 if you’re curious. If you’re going to buy a new router, you’ll probably want to get one with IPv6 support to future-proof yourself. If you don’t have an IPv6-enabled router yet, you don’t need to buy a new one just to get it. An ISP With IPv6 Enabled:  Your Internet service provider must also have IPv6 set up on their end. Even if you have modern software and hardware on your end, your ISP has to provide an IPv6 connection for you to use it. IPv6 is rolling out steadily, but slowly — there’s a good chance your ISP hasn’t enabled it for you yet. How to Tell If You’re Using IPv6 The easiest way to tell if you have IPv6 connectivity is to visit a website like testmyipv6.com. This website allows you to connect to it in different ways — click the links near the top to see if you can connect to the website via different types of connections. If you can’t connect via IPv6, it’s either because your operating system is too old (unlikely), your router doesn’t support IPv6 (very possible), or because your ISP hasn’t enabled it for you yet (very likely). Now What? If you can connect to the test website above via IPv6, congratulations! Everything is working as it should. Your ISP is doing a good job of rolling out IPv6 rather than dragging its feet. There’s a good chance you won’t have IPv6 working properly, however. So what should you do about this — should you head to Amazon and buy a new IPv6-enabled router or switch to an ISP that offers IPv6? Should you use a “tunnel broker,” as the test site recommends, to tunnel into IPv6 via your IPv4 connection? Well, probably not. Typical users shouldn’t have to worry about this yet. Connecting to the Internet via IPv6 shouldn’t be perceptibly faster, for example. It’s important for operating system vendors, hardware companies, and Internet service providers to prepare for the future and get IPv6 working, but you don’t need to worry about this on your home network. IPv6 is all about future-proofing. You shouldn’t be racing to implement this at home yet or worrying about it too much — but, when you need to buy a new router, try to buy one that supports IPv6. Image Credit: Adobe of Chaos on Flickr, hisperati on Flickr, Vox Efx on Flickr     

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• How to Find Your Computer’s Private & Public IP Addresses

  - by Chris Hoffman

  An IP address (or Internet Protocol address) identifies each networked computer and device on a network. When computers communicate with each other on the Internet or a local network, they send information to each other’s IP addresses. Your computer likely has public and private IP addresses. You’ll need the IP address if you’re hosting server software – the client computers will need your computer’s IP address to connect to it. How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It? HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me?

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• Macbook Pro wifi won't work

  - by Chris Dudley

  I opened xdiganose and it told me to go to http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware in order to download and install the wireless driver. I followed the instructions for Ubuntu and it aborted the installation saying something about an unsupported device (I should've saved the output, I'm using a late 2011 13" Macbook Pro.) Now when I trysudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer I get this: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done firmware-b43-installer is already the newest version. 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 338 not upgraded. What do I do?

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• 3D Ray Casting / Picking

  - by Chris

  Hi, I am not sure if I should post this link, but I feel this falls into game development just as much as it does math. I have a ray cast's far and near values and I am trying to calculate the end point of the ray so that I can either draw a line to show the ray, or render an object at the end of 3d mouse position. Here is my post on the stack overflow math site, if there is a problem with me doing this just close the thread. Thank you. http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/15918/help-with-matrix-mathematica

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• Couldn't find package - But package is listed in the Packages file

  - by Chris

  (Quoted items are redacted elements) I am using a private repository and an currently trying to repackage some packages 3rd-party packages. I extract the package, make a few modifications (just the control files to fit with company policy - though sometimes file install locations though not in this case) and repackage (and usually rename). Normally I copy the files into a new blank debhelper project and reconstruct the package, however, with a recent one I attempting to convert and some libraries and stuff aren't linking properly (I did copy the postinst, postrm, and preinst files along with all DEDIAN files exactly), the original package worked, but my repackage doesn't, despite providing the same files in the same locations and the same postinst and preinst. So I was attempting to just modify the current packages control files (as the original package is not very good and will not list in our repository and getting a better one from the 3rd party is not an option). I also renamed the package. I did the following: dpkg-deb -R "directory" Modify DEBIAN/control dpkg-deb -b "directory" "package name I want" I did this and put it in our repository. The package shows up in the "Packages" file on the repository and running apt-get update on the client side shows the package in: /var/lib/apt/lists/"server"_"location"_Packages However when I do an apt-get install on the package name (as listed in the Packages file - I did a copy paste) it says it can't find the package. Same with an apt-cache search The Packages listings is as follow (name redacted): Package: "package name" Priority: extra Section: unknown Maintainer: "maintainer" Architecture: any Version: 1.0-lucid5 Depends: libc Filename: "directory"/"package_filename" Size: 2206292 MD5sum: "md5sum" SHA1: "sha key" SHA256: "sha256 key" Description: "description" I am running as sudo (and tried as root as well). I don't understand why apt-get won't see the package. Can you point out any flaws in what I have done, or perhaps some help on getting apt-get to properly see the package. Or perhaps an alternative. I am not even sure if this is a valid way to repackage something. Thanks.

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• My Thoughts On the Xbox 180

  - by Chris Gardner

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/freestylecoding/archive/2013/06/21/my-thoughts-on-the-xbox-180.aspx Everyone seems to be putting their 0.00237 cents into the wishing well over Microsoft's recent decision to reverse the DRM policy on the Xbox One. However, there have been a few issues that nobody has touched. As such, I have decided to dig 0.00237 cents out of my pocket. First, let me be clear about this point. I do not support the decision to reverse the DRM policy on the Xbox One. I wanted that point to be expressed first and unambiguously. I will say it again. I do not support the decision to reverse the DRM policy on the Xbox One. Now that I have that out of the way, let me go into my rationale. This decision removes most of the cool features that enticed me to pre-order the console. No, I didn't cancel my pre-order. There is still five months before the release of the console, and there is still a plethora of information that we, as consumers, do not have. With that, it should be noted that much of the talk in this post is speculation and rhetoric. I do not have any insider information that you do not possess. The persistent connection would have allowed the console to do many of the functions for which we have been begging. That demo where someone was playing Ryse, seamlessly accepted a multiplayer challenge in Killer Instinct, played the match (and a rematch,) and then jumped back into Ryse. That's gone, if you bought the game on disc. The new, DRM free system will require the disc in the system to play a game. That bullet point where one Xbox Live account could have up to 10 slave accounts so families could play together, no matter where they were located. That's gone as well. The promise of huge, expansive, dynamically changing worlds that was brought to us with the power of cloud computing. Well, "the people" didn't want there to be a forced, persistent connection. As such, developers can't rely on a connection and, as such, that feature is gone. This is akin to the removal of the hard drive on the Xbox 360. The list continues, but the enthusiast press has enumerated the list far better than I wish. All of this is because the Xbox team saw the HUGE success of Steam and decided to borrow a few ideas. Yes, Steam. The service that everyone hated for the first six months (for the same reasons the Xbox One is getting flack.) There was an initial growing pain. However, it is now lauded as the way games distribution should be handled. Unless you are Microsoft. I do find it curious that many of the features were originally announced for the PS4 during its unveiling. However, much of that was left strangely absent for Sony's E3 press conference. Instead, we received a single, static slide that basically said the exact opposite of Microsoft's plans. It is not farfetched to believe that slide came into existence during the approximately seven hours between the two media briefings. The thing that majorly annoys me over this whole kerfuffle is that the single thing that caused the call to arms is, really, not an issue. Microsoft never said they were going to block used sales. They said it was up to the publisher to make that decision. This would have allowed publishers to reclaim some of the costs of development in subsequent sales of the product. If you sell your game to GameStop for 7 USD, GameStop is going to sell it for 55 USD. That is 48 USD pure profit for them. Some publishers asked GameStop for a small cut. Was this a huge, money grubbing scheme? Well, yes, but the idea was that they have to handle server infrastructure for dormant accounts, etc. Of course, GameStop flatly refused, and the Online Pass was born. Fortunately, this trend didn’t last, and most publishers have stopped the practice. The ability to sell "licenses" has already begun to be challenged. Are you living in the EU? If so, companies must allow you to sell digital property. With this precedent in place, it's only a matter of time before other areas follow suit. If GameStop were smart, they should have immediately contacted every publisher out there to get the rights to become a clearing house for these licenses. Then, they keep their business model and could reduce their brick and mortar footprint. The digital landscape is changing. We need to not block this process. As Seth MacFarlane best said "Some issues are so important that you should drag people kicking and screaming." I believe this was said on an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher about the issue of Gay Marriages. Much like the original source, this is an issue that we need to drag people to the correct, progressive position. Microsoft, as a company, actually has the resources to weather the transition period. They have a great pool of first and second party developers that can leverage this new framework to prove the validity. Over time, the third party developers will get excited to use these tools. As an old C++ guy, I resisted C# for years. Now, I think it's one of the best languages I've ever used. I have a server room and a Co-Lo full of servers, so I originally didn't see the value in Azure. Now, I wish I could move every one of my projects into the cloud. I still LOVE getting physical packaging, which my music and games collection will proudly attest. However, I have started to see the value in pure digital, and have found ways to integrate this into the ways I consume those products. I can, honestly, understand how some parts of the population would be very apprehensive about this new landscape. There were valid arguments about people with no internet access. There are ways to combat these problems. These methods do not require us to throw the baby out with the bathwater. However, the number of people in the computer industry that I have seen cry foul is truly appalling. We are the forward looking people that help show how technology can improve people's lives. If we can't see the value of the brief pain involved with an exciting new ecosystem, than who will?

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• HTG Explains: How Private Browsing Works and Why It Doesn’t Offer Complete Privacy

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Private Browsing, InPrivate Browsing, Incognito Mode – it has a lot of names, but it’s the same basic feature in every browser. Private browsing offers some improved privacy, but it’s not a silver bullet that makes you completely anonymous online. Private Browsing mode changes the way your browser behaves, whether you’re using Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Opera or any other browser – but it doesn’t change the way anything else behaves. How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It?

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• The Krewe App Post-Mortem

  - by Chris Gardner

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/freestylecoding/archive/2014/05/23/the-krewe-app-post-mortem.aspxNow that teched has come and gone, I thought I would use this opportunity to do a little post-mortem on The Krewe app. It is one thing to test the app at home. It is a completely different animal to see how it responds in the environment TechEd creates. At a future time, I will list all the things that I would like to change with the app. At this point, I will find some good way to get community feedback. I want to break all this down screen by screen. We'll start with the screen I got right. The first of these is the events calendar. This is the one screen that, to you guys, just worked. However, there was an issue here. When I wrote v1 for last year, I was lazy and placed everything in CST. This caused problems with the achievements, which I will explain later. Furthermore, the event locations were not check-in locations. This created another problem with the achievements. Next, we get to the Twitter page. For what this page does, it works great. For those that don't know, I have an Azure Worker Role that polls Twitter pretty close to the rate limit. I cache these results in my database, and serve them upon request. This gives me great control over the content. I just have to remember to flush past tweets after a period, to save database growth. The next screen is the check-in screen. This screen has been the bane of my existence since I first created the thing. Last year, I used a background task to check people out of locations after they traveled. This year, I removed the background task in favor of a foursquare model. You are checked out after 3 hours or when you check-in to some other location. This seemed to work well, until those pesky achievements came into the mix. Again, more on this later. Next, I want to address the Connect and Connections screens together. I wanted to use some of the capabilities of the phone, and NFC seemed a natural choice. From this, I came up with the gamification aspects of the app. Since we are, fundamentally, a networking organization, I wanted to encourage people to actually network. Users could make and share a profile, similar to a virtual business card. I just had to figure out how to get people to use the feature. Why not just give someone a business card? Thus, the achievements were born. This was such a good idea. It would have been a great idea, if I have come up with it about two months earlier... When I came up with these ideas, I had about 2 weeks to implement them. Version 1 of the app was, basically, a pure consumption app. We provided data and centralized it. With version 2, the app became a much more interactive experience. The API was not ready for this change in such a short period of time. Most of this became apparent when I started implementing the achievements. The achievements based on count and specific person when fairly easy. The problem came with tying them to locations and events. This took some true SQL kung fu. This also showed me the rookie mistake of putting CST, not UTC, in the database. Once I got all of that cleaned up, I had to find a way to get the achievement system to talk to the phone. I knew I needed to be able to dynamically add achievements. I wouldn't know the precise location of some things until I got to Houston. I wanted the server to approve the achievements. This, unfortunately, required a decent data connection. Some achievements required GPS levels of location accuracy in areas of network triangulation. All of this became a huge nightmare. My flagship feature was based on some silly assumptions. Still, I managed to get 31 people to get the first achievement (Make 1 Connection.) Quite a few of those managed to get to the higher levels. Soon, I will post a list of the feature and changes that need to happen to the API. This includes things like proper objects for communication, geo-fencing, and caching. However, that is for another day.

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• Modular Open MMO RPG

  - by Chris Valentine

  Has there been an MMORPG type attempt at some kind of open universe where you could host a server on your own if you wish and it would merely be added to the collective of possible places to travel within the MMO? Two types come to mind, a DnD Neverwinter Nights type place or something like EVE online. Where there is a "universe" and each hosted space is a planet or solar system or galaxy and players can travel between them using the same characters/ships/portal system and each new server is than just a new adventure or place to go. I would also assume there were dedicated/replicated servers that housed the characters/inventory themselves so that the environment was decentralized and always expandable. Not sure thats clear but has there been any such attempts or WIP? thanks

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• Videos of my MonoTouch and Mono and Mobile sessions from NDC 2011

  - by Chris Hardy (ChrisNTR)

  Two weeks ago, I was in Oslo, Norway getting ready to present a few talks at the Norwegian Developer's Conference 2011 and now two weeks later, it's about time I point you to my MonoTouch and Mono and Mobile talks from the conference! First I would like to thanks for everyone involved with the conference, the hosts, the staff, the speakers and the attendees. There was so many great talks going on that you're forced to download the videos afterwards! All the videos from the conference are up on the...(read more)

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• How to Turn Your Ubuntu Laptop into a Wireless Access Point

  - by Chris Hoffman

  If you have a single wired Internet connection – say, in a hotel room – you can create an ad-hoc wireless network with Ubuntu and share the Internet connection among multiple devices. Ubuntu includes an easy, graphical setup tool. Unfortunately, there are some limitations. Some devices may not support ad-hoc wireless networks and Ubuntu can only create wireless hotspots with weak WEP encryption, not strong WPA encryption. HTG Explains: What Is RSS and How Can I Benefit From Using It? HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online

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• No VB6 to VS2010 direct upgrade path

  - by Chris Williams

  From the "is this really news?" department... From looking at the currently available versions of 2010, there is no direct upgrade path from VB6 to VS2010. Anyone still using VB6 and wishing to upgrade to VS2010 has two options:  Use the upgrade tool from an earlier version of VS (like 2005 or 2008) and then run the upgrade in VS2010 to get the rest of the way... or rewrite your code. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader which is the better option. I'd like to take a moment to point out the obvious: A) If you're still using VB6 at this point, you probably don't care about VS2010 compatibility. B) Running your code through 2 upgrade wizards isn't going to result in anything resembling best practices. C) Bemoaning the lack of support in 2010 for a 12 year old version of an extinct programming language helps nobody. This public service announcement is brought to you by the letter C. Thank you.

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• Part 5, Moving Forum threads from CommunityServer to DotNetNuke

  - by Chris Hammond

  This is the fifth post in a series of blog posts about converting from CommunityServer to DotNetNuke. A brief background: I had a number of websites running on CommunityServer 2.1, I decided it was finally time to ditch CommunityServer due to the change in their licensing model and pricing that made it not good for the small guy. This series of blog posts is about how to convert your CommunityServer based sites to DotNetNuke . Previous Posts: Part 1: An Introduction Part 2: DotNetNuke Installation...(read more)

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• HTG Explains: Why You Shouldn’t Disable UAC

  - by Chris Hoffman

  User Account Control is an important security feature in the latest versions of Windows. While we’ve explained how to disable UAC in the past, you shouldn’t disable it – it helps keep your computer secure. If you reflexively disable UAC when setting up a computer, you should give it another try – UAC and the Windows software ecosystem have come a long way from when UAC was introduced with Windows Vista. How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates How to Get Pro Features in Windows Home Versions with Third Party Tools HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using?

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• 8 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do In Windows 7's Task Manager

  - by Chris Hoffman

  The Windows Task Manager is often used for troubleshooting – perhaps closing an application that isn’t working properly or monitoring system resource usage. However, there’s a lot more you can do with Windows 7’s Task Manager. To quickly open the Task Manager, right-click your taskbar and select Start Task Manager. You can also press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to quickly launch the Task Manager with a keyboard shortcut. Windows 8 may have a great new task manager, but Windows 7’s is still useful. HTG Explains: Is ReadyBoost Worth Using? HTG Explains: What The Windows Event Viewer Is and How You Can Use It HTG Explains: How Windows Uses The Task Scheduler for System Tasks

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• How to Connect Your Android to Your PC’s Internet Connection Over USB

  - by Chris Hoffman

  People often “tether” their computers to their smartphones, sending their computer’s network traffic over the device’s cellular data connection. “Reverse tethering” is the opposite – tethering your Android smartphone or tablet to your PC to use your PC’s Internet connection. This method requires a rooted Android and a Windows PC, but it’s very easy to use. If your computer has Wi-Fi, it may be easier to create a Wi-Fi hotspot using a utility like Connectify instead. How to Make Your Laptop Choose a Wired Connection Instead of Wireless HTG Explains: What Is Two-Factor Authentication and Should I Be Using It? HTG Explains: What Is Windows RT and What Does It Mean To Me?

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• How do you create a .XNB Font file for use with CocosSharp?

  - by Chris Pietschmann

  I know the .XNB file format is an XNA thing and that CocosSharp inherits this from its MonoGame roots. However there doesn't seem to be any information on how to create your own .XNB fonts to use with CocosSharp. I've tried searching but can find any information. Could someone explain it here or point me to a tutorial on how to create .XNB font file for use with CocosSharp? A site to download already compiled .XNB Fonts would also be acceptable. Update: Another thing that makes this tricky is that I guess XNA Game Studio could be used, but it's not compatible with Windows 8.1; which is what I currently use for my dev machine...

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• Event-based server-gameloop in a server based game

  - by Chris

  I know that this site is full of questions about fixed gameloops and variable gameloops and different types of threading. But I coult find barely nothing that is related to server loops. The server has no screen to draw on. It could just run as fast as possible, but of course this makes no sense. But should it really use single "ticks" and send the updates periodically after each tick and wait for the next "tick" to update its state. Is it applicable to replace the gameloop by multilpe events? Suchs as incoming network traffic or timers? I often heared that a gameloop should be determistic, but does it really matter? For instance, when you play a shooter game against humand players and/or AI you proably would never be ably to repeat the same input twice. Is it a good idea to lose determistic behavior if it is nearly impossible to reprodruce the same input twice? So this question is more or less about whether an strictly event-based gameloop is adviseable or not and what are the pros and cons. I could imagene that an event-based gameloop could perform much faster and smoother, since you don't have bug CPU-spikes during the beginning of a new "tick". The fact that I could not find much about an event-based gameloop for servers leads me to the conclusion that inefficient or too complicated to get a real benefit from it. I'm sure if this is enough to get an idea from what I'm interessted to know, but I hope so.

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• 11 Ubuntu One Features You May Not Be Aware Of

  - by Chris Hoffman

  While Ubuntu One might seem like a Ubuntu-only file synchronization service, it’s more than that – you can use Ubuntu One on Windows, Android, iOS, and from the web. Ubuntu One offers 5GB of free storage space to everyone. Ubuntu One includes features for sharing files or folders online, streaming music to your smartphone, synchronizing installed applications across all your devices, and more. How to Use an Xbox 360 Controller On Your Windows PC Download the Official How-To Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 How to Banish Duplicate Photos with VisiPic

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• How to Easily Put a Windows PC into Kiosk Mode With Assigned Access

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Windows 8.1′s Assigned Access feature allows you to easily lock a Windows PC to a single application, such as a web browser. This feature makes it easy for anyone to configure Windows 8.1 devices as point-of-sale or other kiosk systems. In the past, setting up a Windows PC in kiosk mode involved much more work, requiring the use of third-party software, group policy, or Linux distributions designed around kiosk mode. Assigned Access is available on Windows 8.1 RT, Windows 8.1 Professional, and Windows 8.1 Enterprise. The standard edition of Windows 8.1 doesn’t support Assigned Access. Create a User Account for Assigned Access Rather than turn your entire computer into a locked-down kiosk system, Assigned Access allows you to create a separate user account that can only launch a single app — such as a web browser. To set this up, you must be logged into Windows as a user with administrator permissions. First, open the PC settings app — swipe in from the right or press Windows Key + C to open the charms bar, tap Settings, and tap Change PC settings. In the PC settings app, select Accounts and select Other accounts. Use the Add an account button to create a new Windows account. Select  the “Sign in without a Microsoft account” option and select Local account to create a local user account. You could also create a Microsoft account, but you may not want to do this if you just want a locked-down account with only browser access. If you need to install apps from the Windows Store to use in Assigned Access mode, you’ll have to set up a Microsoft account instead of a local account. A local account will still allow you access to the preinstalled apps, such as Internet Explorer. You may want to create a user account with a blank password. This would make it simple for anyone to access kiosk mode, even if the system becomes locked or needs to be rebooted. The account will be created as a standard user account with limited permissions. Leave it as a standard user account — don’t make it an administrator account. Set Up Assigned Access Once you’ve created an account, you’ll first need to sign into it. If you don’t, you’ll see a “This account has no apps” message when trying to enable Assigned Access. Go back to the welcome screen, log in to the new account you created, and allow Windows to go through the first-time account setup process. If you want to use a non-default app in kiosk mode, install it while logged in as that user account. Once you’re done, log out of the other account, log back in as your administrator account, and go back to the Other accounts screen. Click the Set up an account for assigned access option to continue. Select the user account you created and select the app you want to limit the account to. For a web-based kiosk, this can be a web browser such as the Modern version of Internet Explorer. Businesses can also create their own Modern apps and set them to run in kiosk mode in this way. Note that Microsoft’s documentation says “web browsers are not good choices for assigned access” because they require more permissions than average Modern (or “Windows Store”) apps. However, if you want to provide a kiosk for web-browsing, using Assigned Access is a much better option than using Guest Mode and offering up a full Windows desktop. When you’re done, restart your PC and log in as the Assigned Access account. Windows will automatically open the app you chose and won’t allow a user to leave that app. Standard Windows 8 features like the charms bar, app switcher, and Start screen won’t appear. Pressing the Windows key once will do nothing. To sign out of Assigned Access mode, press the Windows key five times — quickly — while signed in. You’ll be sent back to the standard login screen. The account will actually still be logged in and the app will remain running — this method just “locks” the screen and allows another user to log in. Automatically Log Into Assigned Access Whenever your Windows device boots, you can log into the Assigned Access account and turn it into a kiosk system. While this isn’t ideal for all kiosk systems, you may want the device to automatically launch the specific app when it boots without requiring any login process. To do so, you’ll just need to have Windows automatically log into the Assigned Access account when it boots. This option is hidden and not available in the standard Control Panel. You’ll need to use the hidden netplwiz Control Panel tool to set up automatic login on boot. If you didn’t create a password for the user account, leave the Password field empty while configuring this. Security Considerations If you’re using this feature to turn a Windows 8.1 system into a kiosk and leaving it open to the public, remember to consider security. Anyone could come up to the system, press the Windows key five times, and try to log into your standard administrator user account. Ensure the administrator user account has a strong password so people won’t be able to get past the kiosk system’s limitations and tamper with the system. Even Windows 8′s detractors have to admit that it’s an ideal system for a touch-screen kiosk device, running either a browser or another specific application. Assigned Access finally makes this easy to set up on Windows systems in the real world — no IT experience, third-party software, or Linux distributions necessary.     

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• Java default Integer value is int

  - by Chris Okyen

  My code looks like this import java.util.Scanner; public class StudentGrades { public static void main(String[] argv) { Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in); byte q1 = keyboard.nextByte() * 10; } } It gives me an error "Type mismatch: cannot convert from int to byte." Why the heck would Java store a literal operand that is small enough to fit in a byte,. into a int type? Do literals get stored in variables/registers before the ALU performs arithmatic operations.

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• HTG Explains: Why It’s Good That Your Computer’s RAM Is Full

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Is Windows, Linux, Android, or another operating system using a lot of RAM? Don’t panic! Modern operating systems use RAM as a file cache to speed things up. Assuming your computer is performing well, there’s nothing to worry about. While it may seem counterintuitive to those of us who remember our computers always being starved for RAM, high RAM usage means your RAM is being put to good use. Empty RAM is wasted RAM. HTG Explains: Why It’s Good That Your Computer’s RAM Is Full 10 Awesome Improvements For Desktop Users in Windows 8 How To Play DVDs on Windows 8

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• HTG Explains: What’s the Difference Between CC and BCC When Sending an Email?

  - by Chris Hoffman

  The CC and BCC fields when sending email work similarly. CC stands for “carbon copy,” while BCC stands for “blind carbon copy.” While these terms may have been immediately obvious when email was invented, they’re antiquated today. CC and BCC are both ways of sending copies of an email to additional people. However, you can also send copies of an email to additional people by specifying multiple addresses in the To field. How To Play DVDs on Windows 8 6 Start Menu Replacements for Windows 8 What Is the Purpose of the “Do Not Cover This Hole” Hole on Hard Drives?

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• 6 Things You Shouldn’t Do With Solid-State Drives

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Solid-state drives are different from the mechanical, magnetic hard drives in wide use. Many of the things you’ve done with typical mechanical hard drives shouldn’t be done with newer solid-state drives. Solid-state drives are presented by the operating system the same way mechanical drives are, but they work differently. If you’re a geek, knowing what you shouldn’t do is important.    

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• HTG Explains: Do Non-Windows Platforms Like Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux Get Viruses?

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Viruses and other types of malware seem largely confined to Windows in the real world. Even on a Windows 8 PC, you can still get infected with malware. But how vulnerable are other operating systems to malware? When we say “viruses,” we’re actually talking about malware in general. There’s more to malware than just viruses, although the word virus is often used to talk about malware in general. Why Are All the Viruses For Windows? Not all of the malware out there is for Windows, but most of it is. We’ve tried to cover why Windows has the most viruses in the past. Windows’ popularity is definitely a big factor, but there are other reasons, too. Historically, Windows was never designed for security in the way that UNIX-like platforms were — and every popular operating system that’s not Windows is based on UNIX. Windows also has a culture of installing software by searching the web and downloading it from websites, whereas other platforms have app stores and Linux has centralized software installation from a secure source in the form of its package managers. Do Macs Get Viruses? The vast majority of malware is designed for Windows systems and Macs don’t get Windows malware. While Mac malware is much more rare, Macs are definitely not immune to malware. They can be infected by malware written specifically for Macs, and such malware does exist. At one point, over 650,000 Macs were infected with the Flashback Trojan. [Source] It infected Macs through the Java browser plugin, which is a security nightmare on every platform. Macs no longer include Java by default. Apple also has locked down Macs in other ways. Three things in particular help: Mac App Store: Rather than getting desktop programs from the web and possibly downloading malware, as inexperienced users might on Windows, they can get their applications from a secure place. It’s similar to a smartphone app store or even a Linux package manager. Gatekeeper: Current releases of Mac OS X use Gatekeeper, which only allows programs to run if they’re signed by an approved developer or if they’re from the Mac App Store. This can be disabled by geeks who need to run unsigned software, but it acts as additional protection for typical users. XProtect: Macs also have a built-in technology known as XProtect, or File Quarantine. This feature acts as a blacklist, preventing known-malicious programs from running. It functions similarly to Windows antivirus programs, but works in the background and checks applications you download. Mac malware isn’t coming out nearly as quick as Windows malware, so it’s easier for Apple to keep up. Macs are certainly not immune to all malware, and someone going out of their way to download pirated applications and disable security features may find themselves infected. But Macs are much less at risk of malware in the real world. Android is Vulnerable to Malware, Right? Android malware does exist and companies that produce Android security software would love to sell you their Android antivirus apps. But that isn’t the full picture. By default, Android devices are configured to only install apps from Google Play. They also benefit from antimalware scanning — Google Play itself scans apps for malware. You could disable this protection and go outside Google Play, getting apps from elsewhere (“sideloading”). Google will still help you if you do this, asking if you want to scan your sideloaded apps for malware when you try to install them. In China, where many, many Android devices are in use, there is no Google Play Store. Chinese Android users don’t benefit from Google’s antimalware scanning and have to get their apps from third-party app stores, which may contain infected copies of apps. The majority of Android malware comes from outside Google Play. The scary malware statistics you see primarily include users who get apps from outside Google Play, whether it’s pirating infected apps or acquiring them from untrustworthy app stores. As long as you get your apps from Google Play — or even another secure source, like the Amazon App Store — your Android phone or tablet should be secure. What About iPads and iPhones? Apple’s iOS operating system, used on its iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches, is more locked down than even Macs and Android devices. iPad and iPhone users are forced to get their apps from Apple’s App Store. Apple is more demanding of developers than Google is — while anyone can upload an app to Google Play and have it available instantly while Google does some automated scanning, getting an app onto Apple’s App Store involves a manual review of that app by an Apple employee. The locked-down environment makes it much more difficult for malware to exist. Even if a malicious application could be installed, it wouldn’t be able to monitor what you typed into your browser and capture your online-banking information without exploiting a deeper system vulnerability. Of course, iOS devices aren’t perfect either. Researchers have proven it’s possible to create malicious apps and sneak them past the app store review process. [Source] However, if a malicious app was discovered, Apple could pull it from the store and immediately uninstall it from all devices. Google and Microsoft have this same ability with Android’s Google Play and Windows Store for new Windows 8-style apps. Does Linux Get Viruses? Malware authors don’t tend to target Linux desktops, as so few average users use them. Linux desktop users are more likely to be geeks that won’t fall for obvious tricks. As with Macs, Linux users get most of their programs from a single place — the package manager — rather than downloading them from websites. Linux also can’t run Windows software natively, so Windows viruses just can’t run. Linux desktop malware is extremely rare, but it does exist. The recent “Hand of Thief” Trojan supports a variety of Linux distributions and desktop environments, running in the background and stealing online banking information. It doesn’t have a good way if infecting Linux systems, though — you’d have to download it from a website or receive it as an email attachment and run the Trojan. [Source] This just confirms how important it is to only run trusted software on any platform, even supposedly secure ones. What About Chromebooks? Chromebooks are locked down laptops that only run the Chrome web browser and some bits around it. We’re not really aware of any form of Chrome OS malware. A Chromebook’s sandbox helps protect it against malware, but it also helps that Chromebooks aren’t very common yet. It would still be possible to infect a Chromebook, if only by tricking a user into installing a malicious browser extension from outside the Chrome web store. The malicious browser extension could run in the background, steal your passwords and online banking credentials, and send it over the web. Such malware could even run on Windows, Mac, and Linux versions of Chrome, but it would appear in the Extensions list, would require the appropriate permissions, and you’d have to agree to install it manually. And Windows RT? Microsoft’s Windows RT only runs desktop programs written by Microsoft. Users can only install “Windows 8-style apps” from the Windows Store. This means that Windows RT devices are as locked down as an iPad — an attacker would have to get a malicious app into the store and trick users into installing it or possibly find a security vulnerability that allowed them to bypass the protection. Malware is definitely at its worst on Windows. This would probably be true even if Windows had a shining security record and a history of being as secure as other operating systems, but you can definitely avoid a lot of malware just by not using Windows. Of course, no platform is a perfect malware-free environment. You should exercise some basic precautions everywhere. Even if malware was eliminated, we’d have to deal with social-engineering attacks like phishing emails asking for credit card numbers. Image Credit: stuartpilbrow on Flickr, Kansir on Flickr     

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