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  • The Worst of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011

    - by Justin Garrison
    This year, How-To Geek’s own Justin was on-site at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where every gadget manufacturer shows off their latest creations, and he was able to sit down and get hands-on with most of them. Here’s the ones that just didn’t make the cut. Make sure you also read our Best of CES 2011 post, where we cover the greatest gadgets that we found. Keep reading to take a look at the best of the worst products, that might have initially appeared good but showed their true colors after we spent some time with them Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Arctic Theme for Windows 7 Gives Your Desktop an Icy Touch Install LibreOffice via PPA and Receive Auto-Updates in Ubuntu Creative Portraits Peek Inside the Guts of Modern Electronics Scenic Winter Lane Wallpaper to Create a Relaxing Mood Access Your Web Apps Directly Using the Context Menu in Chrome The Deep – Awesome Use of Metal Objects as Deep Sea Creatures [Video]

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  • Scala newbie vproducer/consumer attempt running out of memory

    - by Nick
    I am trying to create a producer/consumer type Scala app. The LoopControl just sends a message to the MessageReceiver continually. The MessageReceiver then delegates work to the MessageCreatorActor (whose work is to check a map for an object, and if not found create one and start it up). Each MessageActor created by this MessageCreatorActor is associated with an Id. Eventually this is where I want to do business logic. But I run out of memory after 15 minutes. Its finding the cached actors,but quickly runs out of memory. Any help is appreciated. Or any one has any good code on producers consumers doing real stuff (not just adding numbers), please post. import scala.actors.Actor import java.util.HashMap import scala.actors.Actor._ case object LoopControl case object MessageReceiver case object MessageActor case object MessageActorCreator class MessageReceiver(msg: String) extends Actor { var messageActorMap = new HashMap[String, MessageActor] val messageCreatorActor = new MessageActorCreator(null, null) def act() { messageCreatorActor.start loop { react { case MessageActor(messageId) => if (msg.length() > 0) { var messageActor = messageActorMap.get(messageId); if(messageActor == null) { messageCreatorActor ! MessageActorCreator(messageId, messageActorMap) }else { messageActor ! MessageActor } } } } } } case class MessageActorCreator(msg:String, messageActorMap: HashMap[String, MessageActor]) extends Actor { def act() { loop { react { case MessageActorCreator(messageId, messageActorMap) => if(messageId != null ) { var messageActor = new MessageActor(messageId); messageActorMap.put(messageId, messageActor) println(messageActorMap) messageActor.start messageActor ! MessageActor } } } } } class LoopControl(messageReceiver:MessageReceiver) extends Actor { var count : Int = 0; def act() { while (true) { messageReceiver ! MessageActor ("00-122-0X95-FEC0" + count) //Thread.sleep(100) count = count +1; if(count > 5) { count = 0; } } } } case class MessageActor(msg: String) extends Actor { def act() { loop { react { case MessageActor => println() println("MessageActor: Got something-> " + msg) } } } } object messages extends Application { val messageReceiver = new MessageReceiver("bootstrap") val loopControl = new LoopControl(messageReceiver) messageReceiver.start loopControl.start }

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  • Java threads, wait time always 00:00:00-Producer/Consumer

    - by user3742254
    I am currently doing a producer consumer problem with a number of threads and have had to set priorities and waits to them to ensure that one thread, the security thread, runs last. I have managed to do this and I have managed to get the buffer working. The last thing that I am required to do is to show the wait time of threads that are too large for the buffer and to calculate the average wait time. I have included code to do so, but everything I run the program, the wait time is always returned as 00:00:00, and by extension, the average is returned as the same. I was speaking to one of my colleagues who said that it is not a matter of the code but rather a matter of the computer needing to work off of one processor, which can be adjusted in the task manager settings. He has an HP like myself but his program prints the wait time 180 times, whereas mine prints usually about 3-7 times and is only 00:00:01 on one instance before finishing when I have made the processor adjustments. My other colleague has an iMac and hers puts out an average of 42:00:34(42 minutes??) I am very confused about this because I can see no difference between our codes and like my colleague said, I was wondering is it a computer issue. I am obviously concerned as I wanted to make sure that my code correctly calculated an average wait time, but that is impossible to tell when the wait times always show as 00:00:00. To calculate the thread duration, including the time it entered and exited the buffer was done by using a timestamp import, and then subtracting start time from end time. Is my code correct for this issue or is there something which is missing? I would be very grateful for any solutions. Below is my code: My buffer class package com.Com813cw; import java.text.DateFormat; import java.text.SimpleDateFormat; /** * Created by Rory on 10/08/2014. */ class Buffer { private int contents, count = 0, process = 200; private int totalRam = 1000; private boolean available = false; private long start, end, wait, request = 0; private DateFormat time = new SimpleDateFormat("ss:SSS"); public int avWaitTime =0; public void average(){ System.out.println("Average Application Request wait time: "+ time.format(request/count)); } public synchronized int get() { while (process <= 500) { try { wait(); } catch (InterruptedException e) { } } process -= 200; System.out.println("CPU After Process " + process); notifyAll(); return contents; } public synchronized void put(int value) { if (process <= 500) { process += value; } else { start = System.currentTimeMillis(); try { wait(); } catch (InterruptedException e) { } end = System.currentTimeMillis(); wait = end - start; count++; request += wait; System.out.println("Application Request Wait Time: " + time.format(wait)); process += value; contents = value; calcWait(wait, count); } notifyAll(); } public void calcWait(long wait, int count){ this.avWaitTime = (int) (wait/count); } public void printWait(){ System.out.println("Wait time is " + time.format(this.avWaitTime)); } } My spotify class package com.Com813cw; import java.sql.Timestamp; /** * Created by Rory on 11/08/2014. */ class Spotify extends Thread { private Buffer buffer; private int number; private int bytes = 250; public Spotify(Buffer c, int number) { buffer = c; this.number = number; } long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); public void run() { for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) { buffer.put(bytes); System.out.println(getName() + this.number + " put: " + bytes + " bytes "); try { sleep(1000); } catch (InterruptedException e) { } } long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); long timeTaken = endTime - startTime; java.util.Date date = new java.util.Date(); System.out.println("-----------------------------"); System.out.println("Spotify has finished executing."); System.out.println("Time taken to execute was " + timeTaken + " milliseconds"); System.out.println("Time that Spotify thread exited Buffer was " + new Timestamp(date.getTime())); System.out.println("-----------------------------"); } } My BubbleWitch class package com.Com813cw; import java.lang.*; import java.lang.System; import java.sql.Timestamp; /** * Created by Rory on 10/08/2014. */ class BubbleWitch2 extends Thread { private Buffer buffer; private int number; private int bytes = 100; public BubbleWitch2(Buffer c, int number) { buffer = c; this.number=number ; } long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); public void run() { for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) { buffer.put(bytes); System.out.println(getName() + this.number + " put: " + bytes + " bytes "); try { sleep(1000); } catch (InterruptedException e) { } } long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); long timeTaken = endTime - startTime; java.util.Date date = new java.util.Date(); System.out.println("-----------------------------"); System.out.println("BubbleWitch2 has finished executing."); System.out.println("Time taken to execute was " +timeTaken+ " milliseconds"); System.out.println("Time Bubblewitch2 thread exited Buffer was " + new Timestamp(date.getTime())); System.out.println("-----------------------------"); } } My Test class package com.Com813cw; /** * Created by Rory on 10/08/2014. */ public class ProducerConsumerTest { public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException { Buffer c = new Buffer(); BubbleWitch2 p1 = new BubbleWitch2(c,1); Processor c1 = new Processor(c, 1); Spotify p2 = new Spotify(c, 2); SystemManagement p3 = new SystemManagement(c, 3); SecurityUpdate p4 = new SecurityUpdate(c, 4, p1, p2, p3); p1.setName("BubbleWitch2 "); p2.setName("Spotify "); p3.setName("System Management "); p4.setName("Security Update "); p1.setPriority(10); p2.setPriority(10); p3.setPriority(10); p4.setPriority(5); c1.start(); p1.start(); p2.start(); p3.start(); p4.start(); p2.join(); p3.join(); p4.join(); c.average(); System.exit(0); } } My security update package com.Com813cw; import java.lang.*; import java.lang.System; import java.sql.Timestamp; /** * Created by Rory on 11/08/2014. */ class SecurityUpdate extends Thread { private Buffer buffer; private int number; private int bytes = 150; private int process = 0; public SecurityUpdate(Buffer c, int number, BubbleWitch2 bubbleWitch2, Spotify spotify, SystemManagement systemManagement) throws InterruptedException { buffer = c; this.number = number; bubbleWitch2.join(); spotify.join(); systemManagement.join(); } long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); public void run() { for (int i = 0; i < 15; i++) { buffer.put(bytes); System.out.println(getName() + this.number + " put: " + bytes + " bytes"); try { sleep(1500); } catch (InterruptedException e) { } } long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); long timeTaken = endTime - startTime; java.util.Date date = new java.util.Date(); System.out.println("-----------------------------"); System.out.println("Security Update has finished executing."); System.out.println("Time taken to execute was " + timeTaken + " milliseconds"); System.out.println("Time that SecurityUpdate thread exited Buffer was " + new Timestamp(date.getTime())); System.out.println("------------------------------"); } } I'd be grateful as I said for any help as this is the last and most frustrating obstacle.

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  • what's wrong with my producer-consumer queue design?

    - by toasteroven
    I'm starting with the C# code example here. I'm trying to adapt it for a couple reasons: 1) in my scenario, all tasks will be put in the queue up-front before consumers will start, and 2) I wanted to abstract the worker into a separate class instead of having raw Thread members within the WorkerQueue class. My queue doesn't seem to dispose of itself though, it just hangs, and when I break in Visual Studio it's stuck on the _th.Join() line for WorkerThread #1. Also, is there a better way to organize this? Something about exposing the WaitOne() and Join() methods seems wrong, but I couldn't think of an appropriate way to let the WorkerThread interact with the queue. Also, an aside - if I call q.Start(#) at the top of the using block, only some of the threads every kick in (e.g. threads 1, 2, and 8 process every task). Why is this? Is it a race condition of some sort, or am I doing something wrong? using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Text; using System.Messaging; using System.Threading; using System.Linq; namespace QueueTest { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { using (WorkQueue q = new WorkQueue()) { q.Finished += new Action(delegate { Console.WriteLine("All jobs finished"); }); Random r = new Random(); foreach (int i in Enumerable.Range(1, 10)) q.Enqueue(r.Next(100, 500)); Console.WriteLine("All jobs queued"); q.Start(8); } } } class WorkQueue : IDisposable { private Queue _jobs = new Queue(); private int _job_count; private EventWaitHandle _wh = new AutoResetEvent(false); private object _lock = new object(); private List _th; public event Action Finished; public WorkQueue() { } public void Start(int num_threads) { _job_count = _jobs.Count; _th = new List(num_threads); foreach (int i in Enumerable.Range(1, num_threads)) { _th.Add(new WorkerThread(i, this)); _th[_th.Count - 1].JobFinished += new Action(WorkQueue_JobFinished); } } void WorkQueue_JobFinished(int obj) { lock (_lock) { _job_count--; if (_job_count == 0 && Finished != null) Finished(); } } public void Enqueue(int job) { lock (_lock) _jobs.Enqueue(job); _wh.Set(); } public void Dispose() { Enqueue(Int32.MinValue); _th.ForEach(th = th.Join()); _wh.Close(); } public int GetNextJob() { lock (_lock) { if (_jobs.Count 0) return _jobs.Dequeue(); else return Int32.MinValue; } } public void WaitOne() { _wh.WaitOne(); } } class WorkerThread { private Thread _th; private WorkQueue _q; private int _i; public event Action JobFinished; public WorkerThread(int i, WorkQueue q) { _i = i; _q = q; _th = new Thread(DoWork); _th.Start(); } public void Join() { _th.Join(); } private void DoWork() { while (true) { int job = _q.GetNextJob(); if (job != Int32.MinValue) { Console.WriteLine("Thread {0} Got job {1}", _i, job); Thread.Sleep(job * 10); // in reality would to actual work here if (JobFinished != null) JobFinished(job); } else { Console.WriteLine("Thread {0} no job available", _i); _q.WaitOne(); } } } } }

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  • Why is my producer-consumer blocking?

    - by User007
    My code is here: http://pastebin.com/Fi3h0E0P Here is the output 0 Should we take order today (y or n): y Enter order number: 100 More customers (y or n): n Stop serving customers right now. Passing orders to cooker: There are total of 1 order(s) 1 Roger, waiter. I am processing order #100 The goal is waiter must take orders and then give them to the cook. The waiter has to wait cook finishes all pizza, deliver the pizza, and then take new orders. I asked how P-V work in my previous post here. I don't think it has anything to do with \n consuming? I tried all kinds of combination of wait(), but none work. Where did I make a mistake? The main part is here: //Producer process if(pid > 0) { while(1) { printf("0"); P(emptyShelf); // waiter as P finds no items on shelf; P(mutex); // has permission to use the shelf waiter_as_producer(); V(mutex); // cooker now can use the shelf V(orderOnShelf); // cooker now can pickup orders wait(); printf("2"); P(pizzaOnShelf); P(mutex); waiter_as_consumer(); V(mutex); V(emptyShelf); printf("3 "); } } if(pid == 0) { while(1) { printf("1"); P(orderOnShelf); // make sure there is an order on shelf P(mutex); //permission to work cooker_as_consumer(); // take order and put pizza on shelf printf("return from cooker"); V(mutex); //release permission printf("just released perm"); V(pizzaOnShelf); // pizza is now on shelf printf("after"); wait(); printf("4"); } } So I imagine this is the execution path: enter waiter_as_producer, then go to child process (cooker), then transfer the control back to parent, finish waiter_as_consumer, switch back to child. The two waits switch back to parent (like I said I tried all possible wait() combination...).

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  • WCF MSMQ consumer thread count

    - by Andy White
    What's the best way to configure the maximum number of threads that can pull messages from an MSMQ queue, using a netMsmqBinding in WCF? For example, say I have an MSMQ service for which I only want to have 2 (or 10, or whatever number of) worker threads pulling messages off at a time.

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  • Electronics 101 for kids: littleBits review

    - by Daniel Cazzulino
    I'm always on the lookout for cool toys that can empower my kids (9, 6 and 2yo) to be creative and break the mold of being just consumers of other's ideas. I recently came across littleBits while watching a TED video of their creator. I was immediately hooked. It seemed like the perfect blend of simplicity and self-learning that I was looking to get my kids into electronics. So I went ahead and purchased the kit from SparkFun and a bunch of standalone parts (&quot;bits&quot;) from the site itself. There are also a bunch of videos and pictures on their site to get a better idea of what they are, as well as multitude YouTube videos. This weekend I gave them to my kids, and coincidentally, we also travelled to my hometown and they got to share them too with their cousins. Man, what a blast it was! I decided to approach this &quot;toy&quot; just like one of the iPod/iPad games I buy for them: &quot;How it's used? I've no idea! I just heard it was great, you go figure it out!&quot;. And figure it out they did....Read full article

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  • Consumer Priority Service - How many years of coverage should I buy for my Apple MacBook Pro 17"?

    - by jaffsmith
    I recently purchased a Apple MacBook Pro 17" online. It costs me $2299 plus shipping. If the unit should have an issue over the next few years I want to be fully covered so I will be purchasing the Consumer Priority Service extended warranty as well. The online dealer offers a 2 year or a 3 year for about $100 more, Is it worth the extra money for the 3 year warranty?

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  • Unknown error in Producer/Consumer program, believe it to be an infinite loop.

    - by ray2k
    Hello, I am writing a program that is solving the producer/consumer problem, specifically the bounded-buffer version(i believe they mean the same thing). The producer will be generating x number of random numbers, where x is a command line parameter to my program. At the current moment, I believe my program is entering an infinite loop, but I'm not sure why it is occurring. I believe I am executing the semaphores correctly. You compile it like this: gcc -o prodcon prodcon.cpp -lpthread -lrt Then to run, ./prodcon 100(the number of randum nums to produce) This is my code. typedef int buffer_item; #include <stdlib.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <pthread.h> #include <semaphore.h> #include <unistd.h> #define BUFF_SIZE 10 #define RAND_DIVISOR 100000000 #define TRUE 1 //two threads void *Producer(void *param); void *Consumer(void *param); int insert_item(buffer_item item); int remove_item(buffer_item *item); int returnRandom(); //the global semaphores sem_t empty, full, mutex; //the buffer buffer_item buf[BUFF_SIZE]; //buffer counter int counter; //number of random numbers to produce int numRand; int main(int argc, char** argv) { /* thread ids and attributes */ pthread_t pid, cid; pthread_attr_t attr; pthread_attr_init(&attr); pthread_attr_setscope(&attr, PTHREAD_SCOPE_SYSTEM); numRand = atoi(argv[1]); sem_init(&empty,0,BUFF_SIZE); sem_init(&full,0,0); sem_init(&mutex,0,0); printf("main started\n"); pthread_create(&pid, &attr, Producer, NULL); pthread_create(&cid, &attr, Consumer, NULL); printf("main gets here"); pthread_join(pid, NULL); pthread_join(cid, NULL); printf("main done\n"); return 0; } //generates a randum number between 1 and 100 int returnRandom() { int num; srand(time(NULL)); num = rand() % 100 + 1; return num; } //begin producing items void *Producer(void *param) { buffer_item item; int i; for(i = 0; i < numRand; i++) { //sleep for a random period of time int rNum = rand() / RAND_DIVISOR; sleep(rNum); //generate a random number item = returnRandom(); //acquire the empty lock sem_wait(&empty); //acquire the mutex lock sem_wait(&mutex); if(insert_item(item)) { fprintf(stderr, " Producer report error condition\n"); } else { printf("producer produced %d\n", item); } /* release the mutex lock */ sem_post(&mutex); /* signal full */ sem_post(&full); } return NULL; } /* Consumer Thread */ void *Consumer(void *param) { buffer_item item; int i; for(i = 0; i < numRand; i++) { /* sleep for a random period of time */ int rNum = rand() / RAND_DIVISOR; sleep(rNum); /* aquire the full lock */ sem_wait(&full); /* aquire the mutex lock */ sem_wait(&mutex); if(remove_item(&item)) { fprintf(stderr, "Consumer report error condition\n"); } else { printf("consumer consumed %d\n", item); } /* release the mutex lock */ sem_post(&mutex); /* signal empty */ sem_post(&empty); } return NULL; } /* Add an item to the buffer */ int insert_item(buffer_item item) { /* When the buffer is not full add the item and increment the counter*/ if(counter < BUFF_SIZE) { buf[counter] = item; counter++; return 0; } else { /* Error the buffer is full */ return -1; } } /* Remove an item from the buffer */ int remove_item(buffer_item *item) { /* When the buffer is not empty remove the item and decrement the counter */ if(counter > 0) { *item = buf[(counter-1)]; counter--; return 0; } else { /* Error buffer empty */ return -1; } }

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  • Letter to Ballmer: Making Better Consumer Devices

    - by andrewbrust
    Last year, I wrote Steve Ballmer an email, and he was kind enough to write me back.  The email contained a scan of a column I wrote praising Microsoft’s BI strategy.  His reply contained three simple words: “Super nice  thanks.” Well, now I’d like to write to Steve again, in an open letter format, and this time the love may be a bit tougher.  But I’m still super earnest. The past two days have been eventful ones for Microsoft: The company announced the departure of company veterans Robbie Bach and J Allard and the market announced Apple is now besting Microsoft in market capitalization. Plus, announcements were made that make it plain that Ballmer will, in effect, be running Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division himself. With that in mind, I’d like to offer my list of a dozen things I think Microsoft’s CEO should do to improve that division’s offerings and, hopefully, its bottom line. So here goes:   1. On Windows Phone 7, Stay the Course The press is teeming with headlines and reader comments proclaiming the death-before-arrival of Windows Phone 7.  That’s plain silly.  You’ve got the makings of a great and unique SmartPhone platform, and you’re the only company (even considering RIM) that can offer full fidelity Exchange integration, not to mention implementing Office on the device.  Let the existing team finish this puppy and ship it. And then have them pump out a few updates, over-the-air, quickly.  Show them that Google Android’s not the only product that can do good, rapid dot releases. And another thing: make sure your OEMs’ devices have flawless touch screens.  If they don’t, then you shouldn’t certify them for delivery to customers.  Period. Oh, and kill the Kin, quietly.  It was DOA, and you know it.   2. Move Media Center to the Xbox Platform Media Center is, at its core, a good product.  But delivering a media distribution and DVR platform on a sophisticated PC operating system like Windows 7 just creates too many moving parts.  Xbox already functions as the best Media Center extender device – it should actually be the hub as well. Media Center is mostly based on .NET code – and XNA is a .NET environment for Xbox – find a way to bridge that small gap and make Media Center a joy to work with instead of a frustration.  Beating Apple TV out of this sub-market is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree (goofy pun, but it’s true).   3. Integrate Media Center with Mediaroom, or Kill the Latter You have two media products with almost identical names.  One is for standalone DVRs and the other is for IPTV cable set tops with DVR capabilities.  Can we merge these please?  My previous request of putting Media Center on Xbox would seem to tie into this nicely, since you’ve announced plans to do that with Mediaroom already.   4. Fix the Red Ring of Death People love the Xbox, but they really don’t love sending their consoles back every 18-24 months, when they get a bunch of red lights flashing on power up.  You’ve handled this defect about as gracefully as possible, but it’s been around for a long time now and it doesn’t seem to be fixed yet.  You can do better.  In fact, you must do better, or you insult your customers.   5. Add Blu Ray to Xbox I know, streaming movies are the future; physical media is legacy technology.  So if that’s true, why did you back HD DVD so hard?  You know why: for now, the film studios won’t allow a large selection of new release, HD, surround sound content be distributed on any medium other than Blu Ray or cable pay per view/on-demand.  Don’t you want home theater buffs to see the Xbox as a fantastic device for their rigs?  Don’t you want to put PlayStation 3 out of its misery?  And if you follow my suggestions above (move Media Center to the Xbox and fix the Red Ring problem), you’d have it all sewn up.  Do I think Blu Ray functionality will move a lot of units?  No.  Do I think that it would move more units with desperately needed influential home theater consumers?  You bet.  And you might sell more ZunePass subscriptions in the process. But while you’re at it, make the fan quieter, please.   6. Make More of Windows Home Server Home Server is a fantastic product.  And for reasons unknown to me, it seems like you’re letting it languish.  Development of the add-in ecosystem seems underfunded.  WHS’ unparalleled ease of use and reliability for home PC backup (and emergency restores) goes unsung.  Product cycles are slow.  Support for your OEMs, who are doing great work, especially in the green space with Atom CPUs, seems lacking.  You’ve married a trophy girl and you keep her cloistered at home!  That’s cruel, unusual and, um, incredibly ill-advised.  Make use of this ace card, and while you’re at it, give it real integration with Media Center.  The integration thus far proof-of-concept quality.  You should go way past that – both products will benefit immeasurably.   7. Set Up a Partner Platform for Custom Installers There’s a whole sub-industry of companies that install, integrate and configure home theater, security and connected home products.  They have an industry group. They are influential in the high-end of the consumer electronics industry, and so are their customers.  They love Media Center and they love Windows Home Server.  But I have talked to several of them at the Consumer Electronics Show and they tell me you don’t love them.  They find it very difficult to do business with Microsoft, even though they want nothing more than to sell and evangelize your platform.  This is a travesty.  Please fix it.  Get Allison Watson and the Microsoft Partner Network on board and have her hire someone who knows how to run a channel program for consumer electronics companies.  Problem solved.  Markets expanded.   8. Make Your Own Hardware In other areas, I know you love your partners.  I help run one, so I appreciate that.  But when it came to Xbox and Zune you built them it yourself (albeit on a contract basis, which is fine).  Windows Phone 7 has a chance to work as an OEM play, but it would work better if you produced the devices.  At least consider building a reference device that sells alongside your OEMs’ offerings.  That’s what Google did with the Nexxus One.  And while that phone was not itself a big seller, it catalyzed two wonderful things : (1) a quality bar was set and (2) partners exceeded it.  Before the Nexxus One, the best Android handset out there was the Motorola Droid. The Nexxus One was better, and the HTC Droid Incredible and Evo 4G are now even better than Google’s phone, which is why Verizon and Sprint decided not to carry it.  Imagine if all Windows Phone 6.x devices were on par with the HTC HD2.  I tend to believe you’d have a lot bigger market share than you do now.   9. Continue with Your Retail Initiative From what I hear, it sounds like it’s going well.  And this goes right along with making your own hardware.  When you build it, they will come.  And then it makes the likes of Best Buy and Staples do better.   10. Make an Acquisition (or Two) TiVo and/or Moxi look ripe for the picking.  With their ability to build stuff people love and your ability to run a business, you might just have something.  But do a better job than you did when you bought Danger.  Buy the ideas, not just the customers, eh?   11. Make Beautiful Stuff You’ve heard this one before, I know.  But I have some head-shrinking advice on this one.  You know that Apple obsesses over its industrial design.  You know that appeals to consumers.  But it seems you think doing so is Apple’s game exclusively and so you shouldn’t even try.  Bull dinky.  Come to New York and visit the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design gallery.  You’ll see that lots of companies and product categories have had very high design value well before Apple existed.  You can do this, and the Zune HD was a great start.  Now run with that.  Find those negative voices in your head that are telling you that you can’t and shut them up.  For good.   12. Burst the Bubble Some of the products you’ve built seem like they were conceived in a bizarro world.  That would appear to be the result of groupthink.  You must do better.  And there’s lots of people willing to advise you.  This includes just about everyone in the Regional Director program, and probably a bunch of MVPs.  Heck, I bet the guys at Engadget could help out too.  Imagine if you let them see the Kin before it shipped.  Talk to high-end gear consumers.  Talk to Best Buy and CostCo customers too.   Signing Off I hope this was of value to you.  As I wrote this I kept telling myself how obvious, even trite, some of these pieces of advice were and then, because of that, doubting they’d really help.  But I decided that they must not be obvious to Microsoft.  Sometimes when you get wrapped up in stuff, it’s hard to clear your head.  I think my head’s pretty clear here though (I’m wrapped up in other stuff), so maybe my perspective can help.  If not, well, then, I guess they all can’t be super nice.

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  • Webcast: Attack of the Customers- The rise of the Empowered Consumer

    - by Richard Lefebvre
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Watch Paul Gillin, author of “Attack of the Customers: Why Critics Assault Brands Online and How to Avoid Becoming a Victim,” and Oracle Social Cloud Vice President Erika Brookes, talk about the rise of the empowered consumer. Watch now! /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}

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  • What causes bad performance in consumer apps?

    - by Crashworks
    My Comcast DVR takes at least three seconds to respond to every remote control keypress, making the simple task of watching television into a frustrating button-mashing experience. My iPhone takes at least fifteen seconds to display text messages and crashes ¼ of the times I try to bring up the iPad app; simply receiving and reading an email often takes well over a minute. Even the navcom in my car has mushy and unresponsive controls, often swallowing successive inputs if I make them less than a few seconds apart. These are all fixed-hardware end-consumer appliances for which usability should be paramount, and yet they all fail at basic responsiveness and latency. Their software is just too slow. What's behind this? Is it a technical problem, or a social one? Who or what is responsible? Is it because these were all written in managed, garbage-collected languages rather than native code? Is it the individual programmers who wrote the software for these devices? In all of these cases the app developers knew exactly what hardware platform they were targeting and what its capabilities were; did they not take it into account? Is it the guy who goes around repeating "optimization is the root of all evil," did he lead them astray? Was it a mentality of "oh it's just an additional 100ms" each time until all those milliseconds add up to minutes? Is it my fault, for having bought these products in the first place? This is a subjective question, with no single answer, but I'm often frustrated to see so many answers here saying "oh, don't worry about code speed, performance doesn't matter" when clearly at some point it does matter for the end-user who gets stuck with a slow, unresponsive, awful experience. So, at what point did things go wrong for these products? What can we as programmers do to avoid inflicting this pain on our own customers?

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  • MVVM Light V4b1 for Windows 8 Consumer Preview (with installer)

    - by Laurent Bugnion
    I just pushed the following to Codeplex: A new MVVM Light project template for Windows 8 Consumer Preview. This template appears in the File, New Project dialog and allows you to create a Metro style app already wired with MVVM Light. An updated Windows 8 installer for MVVM Light. Preconditions: This installs MVVM Light for Windows 8 only. You can install it side-by-side with the standard MVVM Light for Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone. Where do I get it? You can download the MSI from: http://mvvmlight.codeplex.com/releases/view/85317 What does it do? The installer installs the Windows 8 version of the MVVM Light DLLs, as well as a new project template for an MVVM Light Metro style app, and code snippets. What is missing? Since Windows 8 Developer Preview, I worked on porting the DispatcherHelper class, and it works now. However the EventToCommand behavior is still not available on Windows 8 (because behaviors are not supported on Windows 8 for the moment). Known issues Some testers reported issues with the code snippets installation. Code snippets should appear when you type “mvvm” in your C# code, there is a list of mvvm-prefixed snippets (such as mvvminpc, etc). If you do not see these snippets, please stay tuned, I am working on fixing this issue.   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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  • Usage of repository between EF model and code consumer

    - by jim
    I have binary data in my database that I'll have to convert to bitmap at some point. I was thinking whether or not it's appropriate to use a repository and do it there. My consumer, which is a presentation layer, will use this repository. For example: // This is a class I created for modeling the item as is. public class RealItem { public string Name { get; set; } public Bitmap Image { get; set; } } public abstract class BaseRepository { //using Unity (http://unity.codeplex.com) to inject the dependancy of entity context. [Dependency] public Context { get; set; } } public calss ItemRepository : BaseRepository { public List<Items> Select() { IEnumerable<Items> items = from item in Context.Items select item; List<RealItem> lst = new List<RealItem>(); foreach(itm in items) { MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream(itm.Image); Bitmap image = (Bitmap)Image.FromStream(stream); RealItem ritem = new RealItem{ Name=item.Name, Image=image }; lst.Add(ritem); } return lst; } } Is this a correct way to use the repository pattern? I'm learning this pattern and I've seen a lot of examples online that are using a repository but when I looked at their source code... for example: public IQueryable<object> Select { return from q in base.Context select q; } as you can see no behavior is added to the system by their approach, so I was confused that maybe repository is something else and I got it all wrong. At the end there should be extra benifits of using them right?

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  • Minty Bug: Build an FM Bug Inside a Mint Container

    - by ETC
    Electronics projects that have real world (and showing off to your friends) potential are the most fun; today we take a look at a clever FM bug design hidden in a mint container. At PyroElectro Projects they wanted to try something new with the whole electronics-in-mint-container genre. They opted to turn a container of Ice Breakers Frost mints (the Ice Breakers response to Altoid Mints, presumably) into a small FM bug. The most clever part of the design is that the container still holds mints. Aside from a small black dot on the back of the case you’d have little reason to believe it was anything buy a box of mints. Check out the video below to see the mint container unpacked and the hidden electronics payload revealed: If you’re interested in the project hit up the link below for additional information. FM Bug Transmitter Mint Box [Pyro Electro Projects via Hack A Day] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Get Amazing Color from Photos in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Learn To Adjust Contrast Like a Pro in Photoshop, GIMP, and Paint.NET Have You Ever Wondered How Your Operating System Got Its Name? Should You Delete Windows 7 Service Pack Backup Files to Save Space? What Can Super Mario Teach Us About Graphics Technology? Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is Released: But Should You Install It? Get the MakeUseOf eBook Guide to Hacker Proofing Your PC Sync Your Windows Computer with Your Ubuntu One Account [Desktop Client] Awesome 10 Meter Curved Touchscreen at the University of Groningen [Video] TV Antenna Helper Makes HDTV Antenna Calibration a Snap Turn a Green Laser into a Microscope Projector [Science] The Open Road Awaits [Wallpaper]

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  • Windows Azure Recipe: Consumer Portal

    - by Clint Edmonson
    Nearly every company on the internet has a web presence. Many are merely using theirs for informational purposes. More sophisticated portals allow customers to register their contact information and provide some level of interaction or customer support. But as our understanding of how consumers use the web increases, the more progressive companies are taking advantage of social web and rich media delivery to connect at a deeper level with the consumers of their goods and services. Drivers Cost reduction Scalability Global distribution Time to market Solution Here’s a sketch of how a Windows Azure Consumer Portal might be built out: Ingredients Web Role – this will host the core of the solution. Each web role is a virtual machine hosting an application written in ASP.NET (or optionally php, or node.js). The number of web roles can be scaled up or down as needed to handle peak and non-peak traffic loads. Database – every modern web application needs to store data. SQL Azure databases look and act exactly like their on-premise siblings but are fault tolerant and have data redundancy built in. Access Control (optional) – if identity needs to be tracked within the solution, the access control service combined with the Windows Identity Foundation framework provides out-of-the-box support for several social media platforms including Windows LiveID, Google, Yahoo!, Facebook. It also has a provider model to allow integration with other platforms as well. Caching (optional) – for sites with high traffic with lots of read-only data and lists, the distributed in-memory caching service can be used to cache and serve up static data at higher scale and speed than direct database requests. It can also be used to manage user session state. Blob Storage (optional) – for sites that serve up unstructured data such as documents, video, audio, device drivers, and more. The data is highly available and stored redundantly across data centers. Each entry in blob storage is provided with it’s own unique URL for direct access by the browser. Content Delivery Network (CDN) (optional) – for sites that service users around the globe, the CDN is an extension to blob storage that, when enabled, will automatically cache frequently accessed blobs and static site content at edge data centers around the world. The data can be delivered statically or streamed in the case of rich media content. Training Labs These links point to online Windows Azure training labs where you can learn more about the individual ingredients described above. (Note: The entire Windows Azure Training Kit can also be downloaded for offline use.) Windows Azure (16 labs) Windows Azure is an internet-scale cloud computing and services platform hosted in Microsoft data centers, which provides an operating system and a set of developer services which can be used individually or together. It gives developers the choice to build web applications; applications running on connected devices, PCs, or servers; or hybrid solutions offering the best of both worlds. New or enhanced applications can be built using existing skills with the Visual Studio development environment and the .NET Framework. With its standards-based and interoperable approach, the services platform supports multiple internet protocols, including HTTP, REST, SOAP, and plain XML SQL Azure (7 labs) Microsoft SQL Azure delivers on the Microsoft Data Platform vision of extending the SQL Server capabilities to the cloud as web-based services, enabling you to store structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. Windows Azure Services (9 labs) As applications collaborate across organizational boundaries, ensuring secure transactions across disparate security domains is crucial but difficult to implement. Windows Azure Services provides hosted authentication and access control using powerful, secure, standards-based infrastructure. See my Windows Azure Resource Guide for more guidance on how to get started, including links web portals, training kits, samples, and blogs related to Windows Azure.

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  • The gestures of Windows 8 (Consumer preview): part 2, More about Search

    - by Laurent Bugnion
    This is part 2 of a multipart blog post about the gestures and shortcuts in Windows 8 consumer preview. Part 1 can be found here! More about the Search charm In the first installment of this series, we talked about the charms and mentioned a few gestures to display the Search charm. Search is a very central and powerful feature in Windows 8, and allows you to search in Apps, Settings, Files and within Metro applications that support the Search contract. There are a few cool features around the Search, and especially the applications associated to it. I already mentioned the keyboard shortcuts you can use: Win-C shows the Charms bar (same as swiping from the right bevel towards the center of the screen). Win-Q open the Search fly out with Apps preselected. Win-W open the Search fly out with Settings preselected. Win-F open the Search fly out with Files preselected. Searching in Metro apps In addition to these three search domains, you can also search a Metro app, as long as it supports the Search contract (check this Build video to learn more about the Search contract). These apps show up in the Search flyout as shown here: Notice the list of apps below the Files button? That’s what we are talking about. First of all, the list order changes when you search in some applications. For instance, in the image above, I had used the Store with the Search charm. This is why the store shows up as the first app. I am not 100% what algorithm is used here (sorting according to number of searches is my guess), but try it out and try to figure it out Applications that have never been searched are sorted alphabetically. Does it mean we will see cool app names like ___AAA_MyCoolApp? I certainly hope not!! Pinning You can also pin often used apps to the Search flyout. To pin an app with the mouse, right click on it in the Search flyout and select Pin from the context menu. With the keyboard, use the arrow keys to go down to the selected app, and then open the context menu. With the finger, simply tap and hold until you see a semi transparent rectangle indicating that the context menu will be shown, then release. The context menu opens up and you can select Pin. Pin context menu Pinned apps Unpinning, Hiding Using the same technique as for pinning here above, you can also unpin a pinned application. Finally, you can also choose to hide an app from the Search flyout altogether. This is a convenient way to clean up and make it easy to find stuff. Note: At this point, I am not sure how to re-add a hidden app to the Search flyout. If anyone knows, please mention it in the comments, thanks! Reordering You can also reorder pinned apps. To do this, with the finger, tap, hold and pull the app to the side, then pull it vertically to reorder it. You can also reorder with the mouse, simply by clicking on an app and pulling it vertically to the place you want to put it. I don’t think there is a way to do that with the keyboard though. That’s it for now More gestures will follow in a next installment! Have fun with Windows 8   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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  • Mobile Deals: the Consumer Wants You in Their Pocket

    - by Mike Stiles
    Mobile deals offer something we talk about a lot in social marketing, relevant content. If a consumer is already predisposed to liking your product and gets a timely deal for it that’s easy and convenient to use, not only do you score on the marketing side, it clearly generates some of that precious ROI that’s being demanded of social. First, a quick gut-check on the public’s adoption of mobile. Nielsen figures have 55.5% of US mobile owners using smartphones. If young people are indeed the future, you can count on the move to mobile exploding exponentially. Teens are the fastest growing segment of smartphone users, and 58% of them have one. But the largest demographic of smartphone users is 25-34 at 74%. That tells you a focus on mobile will yield great results now, and even better results straight ahead. So we can tell both from statistics and from all the faces around you that are buried in their smartphones this is where consumers are. But are they looking at you? Do you have a valid reason why they should? Everybody likes a good deal. BIA/Kelsey says US consumers will spend $3.6 billion this year for daily deals (the Groupons and LivingSocials of the world), up 87% from 2011. The report goes on to say over 26% of small businesses are either "very likely" or "extremely likely" to offer up a deal in the next 6 months. Retail Gazette reports 58% of consumers shop with coupons, a 40% increase in 4 years. When you consider that a deal can be the impetus for a real-world transaction, a first-time visit to a store, an online purchase, entry into a loyalty program, a social referral, a new fan or follower, etc., that 26% figure shows us there’s a lot of opportunity being left on the table by brands. The existing and emerging technologies behind mobile devices make the benefits of offering deals listed above possible. Take how mobile payment systems are being tied into deal delivery and loyalty programs. If it’s really easy to use a coupon or deal, it’ll get used. If it’s complicated, it’ll be passed over as “not worth it.” When you can pay with your mobile via technologies that connects store and user, you get the deal, you get the loyalty credit, you pay, and your receipt is uploaded, all in one easy swipe. Nothing to keep track of, nothing to lose or forget about. And the store “knows” you, so future offers will be based on your tastes. Consider the endgame. A customer who’s a fan of your belt buckle store’s Facebook Page is in one of your physical retail locations. They pull up your app, because they’ve gotten used to a loyalty deal being offered when they go to your store. Voila. A 10% discount active for the next 30 minutes. Maybe the app also surfaces social references to your brand made by friends so they can check out a buckle someone’s raving about. If they aren’t a fan of your Page or don’t have your app, perhaps they’ve opted into location-based deal services so you can still get them that 10% deal while they’re in the store. Or maybe they’ve walked in with a pre-purchased Groupon or Living Social voucher. They pay with one swipe, and you’ve learned about their buying preferences, credited their loyalty account and can encourage them to share a pic of their new buckle on social. Happy customer. Happy belt buckle company. All because the brand was willing to use the tech that’s available to meet consumers where they are, incentivize them, and show them how much they’re valued through rewards.

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  • Consumer Oriented Search In Oracle Endeca Information Discovery – Part 1

    - by Bob Zurek
    Information Discovery, a core capability of Oracle Endeca Information Discovery, enables business users to rapidly search, discover and navigate through a wide variety of big data including structured, unstructured and semi-structured data. One of the key capabilities, among many, that differentiate our solution from others in the Information Discovery market is our deep support for search across this growing amount of varied big data. Our method and approach is very different than classic simple keyword search that is found in may information discovery solutions. In this first part of a series on the topic of search, I will walk you through many of the key capabilities that go beyond the simple search box that you might experience in products where search was clearly an afterthought or attempt to catch up to our core capabilities in this area. Lets explore. The core data management solution of Oracle Endeca Information Discovery is the Endeca Server, a hybrid search-analytical database that his highly scalable and column-oriented in nature. We will talk in more technical detail about the capabilities of the Endeca Server in future blog posts as this post is intended to give you a feel for the deep search capabilities that are an integral part of the Endeca Server. The Endeca Server provides best-of-breed search features aw well as a new class of features that are the first to be designed around the requirement to bridge structured, semi-structured and unstructured big data. Some of the key features of search include type a heads, automatic alphanumeric spell corrections, positional search, Booleans, wildcarding, natural language, and category search and query classification dialogs. This is just a subset of the advanced search capabilities found in Oracle Endeca Information Discovery. Search is an important feature that makes it possible for business users to explore on the diverse data sets the Endeca Server can hold at any one time. The search capabilities in the Endeca server differ from other Information Discovery products with simple “search boxes” in the following ways: The Endeca Server Supports Exploratory Search.  Enterprise data frequently requires the user to explore content through an ad hoc dialog, with guidance that helps them succeed. This has implications for how to design search features. Traditional search doesn’t assume a dialog, and so it uses relevance ranking to get its best guess to the top of the results list. It calculates many relevance factors for each query, like word frequency, distance, and meaning, and then reduces those many factors to a single score based on a proprietary “black box” formula. But how can a business users, searching, act on the information that the document is say only 38.1% relevant? In contrast, exploratory search gives users the opportunity to clarify what is relevant to them through refinements and summaries. This approach has received consumer endorsement through popular ecommerce sites where guided navigation across a broad range of products has helped consumers better discover choices that meet their, sometimes undetermined requirements. This same model exists in Oracle Endeca Information Discovery. In fact, the Endeca Server powers many of the most popular e-commerce sites in the world. The Endeca Server Supports Cascading Relevance. Traditional approaches of search reduce many relevance weights to a single score. This means that if a result with a good title match gets a similar score to one with an exact phrase match, they’ll appear next to each other in a list. But a user can’t deduce from their score why each got it’s ranking, even though that information could be valuable. Oracle Endeca Information Discovery takes a different approach. The Endeca Server stratifies results by a primary relevance strategy, and then breaks ties within a strata by ordering them with a secondary strategy, and so on. Application managers get the explicit means to compose these strategies based on their knowledge of their own domain. This approach gives both business users and managers a deterministic way to set and understand relevance. Now that you have an understanding of two of the core search capabilities in Oracle Endeca Information Discovery, our next blog post on this topic will discuss more advanced features including set search, second-order relevance as well as an understanding of faceted search mechanisms that include queries and filters.  

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  • A website to compare software/hardware/electronics?

    - by liori
    Hello, When choosing software or hardware I often Wikipedia's comparision pages like the page on Comparison of project management software. However, criteria on including items on such lists are sometimes unclear (f.e. project has to be "notable", has to have a Wikipedia page), and the number of compared features are limited. Also, Wikipedia's software doesn't make it easy to edit such lists. I am looking for an external webapp/website that would do the task of comparing different solutions in the world of software, hardware, maybe even electronics, in this kind of social way. Is there any kind of such service? It should allow users to add new entries, add new features to compare and discuss items in a collaborative way. It should be also easy to browse already entered items, filter by features. (this might be a good idea for a startup ;-))

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  • SkyDrive and Consumer Cloud Services

    - by Tim Murphy
    Paul Thurrrott recently posted an article on the future of SkyDrive and I was asked what I thought about its future by @UserCommunity.  So let’s take a look. The breakdown from Microsoft that Paul described I believe is an accurate representation of users and usages. While I can’t say that I leverage SkyDrive to the extent that it was meant to be I do enjoy having OneNote hosted their and being able to consult and edit it from the desktop, web and Windows Phone. Taking that one step further is the Midwest Geeks group which started as the community of Microsoft related user groups in our region uses SkyDrive groups and shares calendars and documents.  This collaboration aspect isn’t new in itself, but having it connected with the rest of your cloud assets makes life easier. Another recent usage of this type of cloud service is storing your personal music files in order to get that same universal access.  This is a scenario that has some arguments for and against.  On the one hand own once and listen anywhere is great, but the on the other hand the bandwidth cost becomes a giant downside.  This is especially the case since most carriers are now doing away with unlimited data packages. Ultimately I see this type of resource growing an evolving at a phenomenal rate over the next few years as we continue to become more mobile.  Having multiple players such as SkyDrive and iCloud will only help to give us more options.  Only time will tell where we end up next. del.icio.us Tags: SkyDrive,Cloud Services,Paul Thurrott,UserCommunity

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  • Windows 8 Consumer Preview and SkyDrive

    - by John Paul Cook
    SkyDrive integrates very nicely with Windows 8. More on that later. First, let’s discuss using Windows 8 x64 on VirtualBox. Since I wanted to test with x64 and didn’t have a Hyper-V server available, I used VirtualBox. The latest version of VirtualBox does list Windows 8 as a guest operating system choice. The first time I attempted the installation, I chose the experimental Direct3D graphics support. That didn’t work well. After what seemed like FOREVER looking at a completely black screen, I decided...(read more)

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