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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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  • CodeStock 2012 Review: Michael Eaton( @mjeaton ) - 3 Simple Things for Increased Productivity

    3 Simple Things for Increased ProductivitySpeaker: Michael EatonTwitter: @mjeatonBlog: http://mjeaton.net/blog This was the first time I had seen Michael Eaton speak but have hear a lot of really good things about his speaking abilities. Needless to say I was really looking forward to his session. He basically addressed the topic of distractions and how they can decrease or increase your productivity as a developer. He makes the case that in order to become more productive you must block/limit all distractions. For example, he covered his top distractions as a developer. Top Distractions Social Media(Twitter, Reddit, Facebook) Wiki sites Phone Email Video Games Coworkers, Friends, Family Michael stated that he uses various types of music to help him block out these distractions in order for him to get into his coding zone. While he states that music works for him, he also notes that he knows of others that cannot really work with music. I have to say I am in the latter group because I require a quiet environment in order to work. A few session attendees also recommended listening to really loud white noise or music in another language other than your own. This allows for less focus to be placed on words being sung compared to the rhythmic beats being played. I have to say that I have not tried these suggestions yet but will in the near future. However, distractions can be very beneficial to productivity in that they give your mind a chance to relax and not think about the issues at hand. He spoke highly of taking vacations, and setting boundaries at work so that develops prevent the problem of burnout. One way he suggested that developer’s combat distractions is to use the Pomodoro technique. In his example he selects one task to do for 20 minutes and he can only do that task during that time. He ignores all other distractions until this task or time limit is complete. After it is completed he allows himself to relax and distract himself for another 5- 10 minutes before his next Pomodoro. This allows him to stay completely focused on a task and when the time is up he can then focus on other things.

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  • Compute Scalars, Expressions and Execution Plan Performance

    - by Paul White
    The humble Compute Scalar is one of the least well-understood of the execution plan operators, and usually the last place people look for query performance problems. It often appears in execution plans with a very low (or even zero) cost, which goes some way to explaining why people ignore it. Some readers will already know that a Compute Scalar can contain a call to a user-defined function, and that any T-SQL function with a BEGIN…END block in its definition can have truly disastrous consequences...(read more)

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  • Angry Bird Makers: Developers Love iOS Over Android To Make Money

    - by Gopinath
    These days web is buzzing with Apple iOS vs Google Android debates. Recently Fortune predicted that Android is going to explode in 2011 and it will surpass Apple’s iOS market share. Yes Android is set to spread its wings across all the devices – smartphones, TVs, set top boxes, in car entertainment devices, what not. Think of any device that requires operating system, Android can be used. On the other than iOS is only available on very selective Apple devices – iPods, iPhones and iPads. When it comes to the count of devices running on a specific OS, Android will be far ahead of iOS but when you consider a quality of devices and providing an eco system for business to make money iOS seems to be the winner. That is what experts and analysts are saysing. Here is an excerpt from Peter Vesterbacka, maker of the popular Angry Birds game, interview to Tech N Marketing site.  He says Apple will be the number one platform for a long time from a developer perspective, they have gotten so many things right. And they know what they are doing and they call the shots. Android is growing, but it’s also growing complexity at the same time. Device fragmentation not the issue, but rather the fragmentation of the ecosystem. So many different shops, so many different models. The carriers messing with the experience again. Open but not really open, a very Google centric ecosystem. And paid content just doesn’t work on Android. Peter says developer prefer iOS over Android as it’s not very easy to make money on Android market. That’s why they released a free version of Angry Birds game with ads support for Android devices. Free is the way to go with Android. Nobody has been successful selling content on Android. We will offer a way to remove the ads by paying for the app, but we don’t expect that to be a huge revenue stream. You can read full interview here. cc image credit: flickr/johanl This article titled,Angry Bird Makers: Developers Love iOS Over Android To Make Money, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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  • Looking into ASP.Net MVC 4.0 Mobile Development - part 2

    - by nikolaosk
    In this post I will be continuing my discussion on ASP.Net MVC 4.0 mobile development. You can have a look at my first post on the subject here . Make sure you read it and understand it well before you move one reading the remaining of this post. I will not be writing any code in this post. I will try to explain a few concepts related to the MVC 4.0 mobile functionality. In this post I will be looking into the Browser Overriding feature in ASP.Net MVC 4.0. By that I mean that we override the user agent for a given user session. This is very useful feature for people who visit a site through a device and they experience the mobile version of the site, but what they really want is the option to be able to switch to the desktop view. "Why they might want to do that?", you might wonder.Well first of all the users of our ASP.Net MVC 4.0 application will appreciate that they have the option to switch views while some others will think that they will enjoy more the contents of our website with the "desktop view" since the mobile device they view our site has a quite large display.  Obviously this is only one site. These are just different views that are rendered.To put it simply, browser overriding lets our application treat requests as if they were coming from a different browser rather than the one they are actually from. In order to do that programmatically we must have a look at the System.Web.WebPages namespace and the classes in it. Most specifically the class BrowserHelpers. Have a look at the picture below   In this class we see some extension methods for HttpContext class.These methods are called extensions-helpers methods and we use them to switch to one browser from another thus overriding the current/actual browser. These APIs have effect on layout,views and partial views and will not affect any other ASP.Net Request.Browser related functionality.The overridden browser is stored in a cookie. Let me explain what some of these methods do. SetOverriddenBrowser() -  let us set the user agent string to specific value GetOverriddenBrowser() -  let us get the overridden value ClearOverriddenBrowser() -  let us remove any overridden user agent for the current request   To recap, in our ASP.Net MVC 4.0 applications when our application is viewed in our mobile devices, we can have a link like "Desktop View" for all those who desperately want to see the site with in full desktop-browser version.We then can specify a browser type override. My controller class (snippet of code) that is responsible for handling the switching could be something like that. public class SwitchViewController : Controller{ public RedirectResult SwitchView(bool mobile, string returnUrl){if (Request.Browser.IsMobileDevice == mobile)HttpContext.ClearOverriddenBrowser();elseHttpContext.SetOverriddenBrowser(mobile ? BrowserOverride.Mobile : BrowserOverride.Desktop);return Redirect(returnUrl);}} Hope it helps!!!!

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  • Visio Architecture Diagram [closed]

    - by Mike
    I am using Visio to create an architecture diagram similar to the following Windows block diagram: Are there components available in Visio to make a diagram like this? I can do it manually by using the open/closed bar shape from Blocks and then adding the text as textboxes but it means I have to worry about sizing/offsetting text for each black box. Is anyone aware of whether there is some built-in shape already for this?

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  • Problem booting Windows after failed installation Ubuntu 12.04 alongside Windows 7

    - by Tassos
    I tried to install in my laptop Ubuntu 12.04 so that I can dual-boot with Windows 7. I made some mistakes during this process and I didn't manage to install Ubuntu. But my real problem now is that I'm afraid that I also destroyed the installation of Windows 7. Your help would be precious for me. Here are the details of what I did: 1) I followed these instructions to dual boot Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 7: http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/05/17/how-to-dual-boot-ubuntu-12-04-and-windows-7/ The only difference from what is described above, is that in my case the device names where: /dev/mapper/isw_fdjdhbadc_Volume0* instead of: /dev/sda* Note that I had created a bootable USB stick to do that. 2) The installation proceeded normally, but in the end I got a fatal error because the grub-install failed. 3) Then, after googling this problem, I runned ubuntu from the USB stick and run this command: sudo grub-install --root-directory=/home/ubuntu/temp /dev/mapper/isw_fdjdhbadc_Volume0p5 (/isw_fdjdhbadc_Volume0p5 was the partition that I had made for /boot) but this command also failed. 4) Then, I did something stupid (I think): I run the above command as: sudo grub-install --root-directory=/home/ubuntu/temp /dev/mapper/isw_fdjdhbadc_Volume0 namely I tried to install grub in the device isw_fdjdhbadc_Volume0 instead of the boot partition isw_fdjdhbadc_Volume0p5 The above command did not fail and was executed ok. 5) After that, I tried to boot my laptop, but it seemed that I had no operation system. Not even windows were detected. 6) I thought that I should uninstall grub from isw_fdjdhbadc_Volume0. So following some online instructions that I found, I booted again Ubuntu from the USB stick and run the following command (this was stupid since the instructions were for a totally different case than mine): sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mapper/isw_fdjdhbadc_Volume0 bs=446 count=1 Afte that, I was still unable to boot Windows. I realize that I deleted something that I shouldn't, but I'm hope that this is not crucial and I can recover somehow. When I boot Ubuntu from the USB, I can see that the partition with Windows is still there, with all the directories, Windows files, my data etc. So, my question is: Is there a way to undo the mistakes that I desribed above and recover Windows 7? This is my major question. After solving that, I'd also like to know what I did wrong with the installation of Ubuntu. Thanks in advance for you valuable help!

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  • Separating physics and game logic from UI code

    - by futlib
    I'm working on a simple block-based puzzle game. The game play consists pretty much of moving blocks around in the game area, so it's a trivial physics simulation. My implementation, however, is in my opinion far from ideal and I'm wondering if you can give me any pointers on how to do it better. I've split the code up into two areas: Game logic and UI, as I did with a lot of puzzle games: The game logic is responsible for the general rules of the game (e.g. the formal rule system in chess) The UI displays the game area and pieces (e.g. chess board and pieces) and is responsible for animations (e.g. animated movement of chess pieces) The game logic represents the game state as a logical grid, where each unit is one cell's width/height on the grid. So for a grid of width 6, you can move a block of width 2 four times until it collides with the boundary. The UI takes this grid, and draws it by converting logical sizes into pixel sizes (that is, multiplies it by a constant). However, since the game has hardly any game logic, my game logic layer [1] doesn't have much to do except collision detection. Here's how it works: Player starts to drag a piece UI asks game logic for the legal movement area of that piece and lets the player drag it within that area Player lets go of a piece UI snaps the piece to the grid (so that it is at a valid logical position) UI tells game logic the new logical position (via mutator methods, which I'd rather avoid) I'm not quite happy with that: I'm writing unit tests for my game logic layer, but not the UI, and it turned out all the tricky code is in the UI: Stopping the piece from colliding with others or the boundary and snapping it to the grid. I don't like the fact that the UI tells the game logic about the new state, I would rather have it call a movePieceLeft() method or something like that, as in my other games, but I didn't get far with that approach, because the game logic knows nothing about the dragging and snapping that's possible in the UI. I think the best thing to do would be to get rid of my game logic layer and implement a physics layer instead. I've got a few questions regarding that: Is such a physics layer common, or is it more typical to have the game logic layer do this? Would the snapping to grid and piece dragging code belong to the UI or the physics layer? Would such a physics layer typically work with pixel sizes or with some kind of logical unit, like my game logic layer? I've seen event-based collision detection in a game's code base once, that is, the player would just drag the piece, the UI would render that obediently and notify the physics system, and the physics system would call a onCollision() method on the piece once a collision is detected. What is more common? This approach or asking for the legal movement area first? [1] layer is probably not the right word for what I mean, but subsystem sounds overblown and class is misguiding, because each layer can consist of several classes.

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  • Broadcom BCM4331 not working on new Mac Mini 5,1

    - by Jon
    I can't seem to get my wireless card working on my Mac Mini 5,1. Lspci returns: 03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 02) But running "additional drivers" doesn't detect anything. The nm-applet menu reads "device not ready--firmware missing." What can I do to get this to work? Note, this is with 12.04.1, so many of the previous discussions (for 11.10, etc) probably don't apply here.

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  • Very very slow transfer speeds between Windows 7 and samba server running on Ubuntu 11.10/12.04 minimal

    - by kuzyt
    As mentioned in the title I tried transferring files between Windows 7 and the samba server running on both Ubuntu 11.10 and 12.04 but both showed very slow transfer speeds. Can someone please guide me in the right direction to debug this problem ? wget --output-document=/dev/null http://tokyo1.linode.com/100MB-tokyo.bin --2012-08-21 22:02:17-- http://tokyo1.linode.com/100MB-tokyo.bin Resolving tokyo1.linode.com (tokyo1.linode.com)... 106.187.33.12 Connecting to tokyo1.linode.com (tokyo1.linode.com)|106.187.33.12|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream] Saving to: `/dev/null' 8% [=============> ] 8,923,980 64.8K/s eta 15m 0s wlan0 IEEE 802.11abgn ESSID:"TNET" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 58:6D:8F:26:20:7A Bit Rate=117 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality=57/70 Signal level=-53 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:101 Invalid misc:2448 Missed beacon:0 03:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9300 Wireless LAN adaptor (rev 01) Subsystem: Atheros Communications Inc. Device 3112 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx+ Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16 Region 0: Memory at fea00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K] Expansion ROM at fea20000 [disabled] [size=64K] Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3 Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2- AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold-) Status: D0 NoSoftRst- PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME- Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/4 Maskable+ 64bit+ Address: 0000000000000000 Data: 0000 Masking: 00000000 Pending: 00000000 Capabilities: [70] Express (v2) Endpoint, MSI 00 DevCap: MaxPayload 128 bytes, PhantFunc 0, Latency L0s <1us, L1 <8us ExtTag- AttnBtn- AttnInd- PwrInd- RBE+ FLReset- DevCtl: Report errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported- RlxdOrd- ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop- MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 512 bytes DevSta: CorrErr- UncorrErr- FatalErr- UnsuppReq- AuxPwr- TransPend- LnkCap: Port #0, Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Latency L0 <2us, L1 <64us ClockPM- Surprise- LLActRep- BwNot- LnkCtl: ASPM Disabled; RCB 64 bytes Disabled- Retrain- CommClk+ ExtSynch- ClockPM- AutWidDis- BWInt- AutBWInt- LnkSta: Speed 2.5GT/s, Width x1, TrErr- Train- SlotClk+ DLActive- BWMgmt- ABWMgmt- DevCap2: Completion Timeout: Not Supported, TimeoutDis+ DevCtl2: Completion Timeout: 50us to 50ms, TimeoutDis- LnkCtl2: Target Link Speed: 2.5GT/s, EnterCompliance- SpeedDis-, Selectable De-emphasis: -6dB Transmit Margin: Normal Operating Range, EnterModifiedCompliance- ComplianceSOS- Compliance De-emphasis: -6dB LnkSta2: Current De-emphasis Level: -6dB Capabilities: [100 v1] Advanced Error Reporting UESta: DLP- SDES- TLP- FCP- CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF- MalfTLP- ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol- UEMsk: DLP- SDES- TLP- FCP- CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF- MalfTLP- ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol- UESvrt: DLP+ SDES+ TLP- FCP+ CmpltTO- CmpltAbrt- UnxCmplt- RxOF+ MalfTLP+ ECRC- UnsupReq- ACSViol- CESta: RxErr- BadTLP- BadDLLP- Rollover- Timeout- NonFatalErr- CEMsk: RxErr- BadTLP- BadDLLP- Rollover- Timeout- NonFatalErr+ AERCap: First Error Pointer: 00, GenCap- CGenEn- ChkCap- ChkEn- Capabilities: [140 v1] Virtual Channel Caps: LPEVC=0 RefClk=100ns PATEntryBits=1 Arb: Fixed- WRR32- WRR64- WRR128- Ctrl: ArbSelect=Fixed Status: InProgress- VC0: Caps: PATOffset=00 MaxTimeSlots=1 RejSnoopTrans- Arb: Fixed- WRR32- WRR64- WRR128- TWRR128- WRR256- Ctrl: Enable+ ID=0 ArbSelect=Fixed TC/VC=01 Status: NegoPending- InProgress- Capabilities: [300 v1] Device Serial Number 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00 Kernel driver in use: ath9k Kernel modules: ath9k

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  • How to detect collisions in AS3?

    - by Gabriel Meono
    I'm trying to make a simple game, when the ball falls into certain block, you win. Mechanics: The ball falls through several obstacles, in the end there are two blocks, if the ball touches the left block you win, the next level will contain more blocks and less space between them. Test the movie (click on the screen to drop the ball): http://gabrielmeono.com/downloads/Lucky_Hit_Alpha.swf These are the main variables: var winBox:QuickObject;//You win var looseBox:QuickObject;//You loose var gameBall:QuickObject;//Ball dropped Question: How do I trigger a collision function if the ball hits the winBox? (Win message/Next level) Thanks, here is the full code: package { import flash.display.MovieClip; import com.actionsnippet.qbox.*; import flash.events.MouseEvent; [SWF(width = 600, height = 600, frameRate = 60)] public class LuckyHit extends MovieClip { public var sim:QuickBox2D; var winBox:QuickObject; var looseBox:QuickObject; var gameBall:QuickObject; /** * Constructor */ public function LuckyHit() { sim = new QuickBox2D(this); //sim.createStageWalls(); winBox = sim.addBox({x:5,y:600/30, width:300/30, height:10/30, density:0}); looseBox = sim.addBox({x:15,y:600/30, width:300/30, height:10/30, density:0}); // make obstacles for (var i:int = 0; i<(stage.stageWidth/50); i++){ //End sim.addCircle({x:1 + i * 1.5, y:16, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:2 + i * 1.5, y:15, radius:0.1, density:0}); //Mid End sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 2, y:14, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 2, y:13, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 2, y:12, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 2, y:11, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 2, y:10, radius:0.1, density:0}); //Middle Start sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 1.5, y:09, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:1 + i * 1.5, y:08, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:0 + i * 1.5, y:07, radius:0.1, density:0}); sim.addCircle({x:1 + i * 1.5, y:06, radius:0.1, density:0}); } sim.start(); stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, _clicked); } /** * .. * @param e MouseEvent.CLICK */ private function _clicked(e:MouseEvent) { gameBall = sim.addCircle({x:(mouseX/30), y:(1), radius:0.25, density:5}); } } }

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  • Consistent Flash Player Crash ONLY on YouTube

    - by Aiman Mueller
    It could be similar to one of the bugs listed on LaunchPad (#689158), but may not be. Basically, I used to occasionally get a crash on YouTube and opening a new browser or rebooting (don't remember which) took care of the problem. However, now, EVERY time I try to open a video on YouTube, I get the frowning block and the message, "The Adobe Flash plugin has crashed." However, Hulu would also call for Adobe, right? But I can see videos there.

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  • Android 4 Fragments with Mono for Android

    - by Wallym
    With the release of Android 3.0, Google added support for larger displays and attention-grabbing UI designs and layouts. On a tablet screen, UI components can be used to present better information. How does Android do this? It has a technology called Fragments, and I'll look at its implementation in the currently shipping operating system, Android 4. (Let's get past all the jokes about Android and fragmentation on its device platform.)For more information on this, check out my article at Visual Studio Magazine - http://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2012/12/13/android-4-and-fragments.aspx

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  • C#: Does an IDisposable in a Halted Iterator Dispose?

    - by James Michael Hare
    If that sounds confusing, let me give you an example. Let's say you expose a method to read a database of products, and instead of returning a List<Product> you return an IEnumerable<Product> in iterator form (yield return). This accomplishes several good things: The IDataReader is not passed out of the Data Access Layer which prevents abstraction leak and resource leak potentials. You don't need to construct a full List<Product> in memory (which could be very big) if you just want to forward iterate once. If you only want to consume up to a certain point in the list, you won't incur the database cost of looking up the other items. This could give us an example like: 1: // a sample data access object class to do standard CRUD operations. 2: public class ProductDao 3: { 4: private DbProviderFactory _factory = SqlClientFactory.Instance 5:  6: // a method that would retrieve all available products 7: public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 8: { 9: // must create the connection 10: using (var con = _factory.CreateConnection()) 11: { 12: con.ConnectionString = _productsConnectionString; 13: con.Open(); 14:  15: // create the command 16: using (var cmd = _factory.CreateCommand()) 17: { 18: cmd.Connection = con; 19: cmd.CommandText = _getAllProductsStoredProc; 20: cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure; 21:  22: // get a reader and pass back all results 23: using (var reader = cmd.ExecuteReader()) 24: { 25: while(reader.Read()) 26: { 27: yield return new Product 28: { 29: Name = reader["product_name"].ToString(), 30: ... 31: }; 32: } 33: } 34: } 35: } 36: } 37: } The database details themselves are irrelevant. I will say, though, that I'm a big fan of using the System.Data.Common classes instead of your provider specific counterparts directly (SqlCommand, OracleCommand, etc). This lets you mock your data sources easily in unit testing and also allows you to swap out your provider in one line of code. In fact, one of the shared components I'm most proud of implementing was our group's DatabaseUtility library that simplifies all the database access above into one line of code in a thread-safe and provider-neutral way. I went with my own flavor instead of the EL due to the fact I didn't want to force internal company consumers to use the EL if they didn't want to, and it made it easy to allow them to mock their database for unit testing by providing a MockCommand, MockConnection, etc that followed the System.Data.Common model. One of these days I'll blog on that if anyone's interested. Regardless, you often have situations like the above where you are consuming and iterating through a resource that must be closed once you are finished iterating. For the reasons stated above, I didn't want to return IDataReader (that would force them to remember to Dispose it), and I didn't want to return List<Product> (that would force them to hold all products in memory) -- but the first time I wrote this, I was worried. What if you never consume the last item and exit the loop? Are the reader, command, and connection all disposed correctly? Of course, I was 99.999999% sure the creators of C# had already thought of this and taken care of it, but inspection in Reflector was difficult due to the nature of the state machines yield return generates, so I decided to try a quick example program to verify whether or not Dispose() will be called when an iterator is broken from outside the iterator itself -- i.e. before the iterator reports there are no more items. So I wrote a quick Sequencer class with a Dispose() method and an iterator for it. Yes, it is COMPLETELY contrived: 1: // A disposable sequence of int -- yes this is completely contrived... 2: internal class Sequencer : IDisposable 3: { 4: private int _i = 0; 5: private readonly object _mutex = new object(); 6:  7: // Constructs an int sequence. 8: public Sequencer(int start) 9: { 10: _i = start; 11: } 12:  13: // Gets the next integer 14: public int GetNext() 15: { 16: lock (_mutex) 17: { 18: return _i++; 19: } 20: } 21:  22: // Dispose the sequence of integers. 23: public void Dispose() 24: { 25: // force output immediately (flush the buffer) 26: Console.WriteLine("Disposed with last sequence number of {0}!", _i); 27: Console.Out.Flush(); 28: } 29: } And then I created a generator (infinite-loop iterator) that did the using block for auto-Disposal: 1: // simply defines an extension method off of an int to start a sequence 2: public static class SequencerExtensions 3: { 4: // generates an infinite sequence starting at the specified number 5: public static IEnumerable<int> GetSequence(this int starter) 6: { 7: // note the using here, will call Dispose() when block terminated. 8: using (var seq = new Sequencer(starter)) 9: { 10: // infinite loop on this generator, means must be bounded by caller! 11: while(true) 12: { 13: yield return seq.GetNext(); 14: } 15: } 16: } 17: } This is really the same conundrum as the database problem originally posed. Here we are using iteration (yield return) over a large collection (infinite sequence of integers). If we cut the sequence short by breaking iteration, will that using block exit and hence, Dispose be called? Well, let's see: 1: // The test program class 2: public class IteratorTest 3: { 4: // The main test method. 5: public static void Main() 6: { 7: Console.WriteLine("Going to consume 10 of infinite items"); 8: Console.Out.Flush(); 9:  10: foreach(var i in 0.GetSequence()) 11: { 12: // could use TakeWhile, but wanted to output right at break... 13: if(i >= 10) 14: { 15: Console.WriteLine("Breaking now!"); 16: Console.Out.Flush(); 17: break; 18: } 19:  20: Console.WriteLine(i); 21: Console.Out.Flush(); 22: } 23:  24: Console.WriteLine("Done with loop."); 25: Console.Out.Flush(); 26: } 27: } So, what do we see? Do we see the "Disposed" message from our dispose, or did the Dispose get skipped because from an "eyeball" perspective we should be locked in that infinite generator loop? Here's the results: 1: Going to consume 10 of infinite items 2: 0 3: 1 4: 2 5: 3 6: 4 7: 5 8: 6 9: 7 10: 8 11: 9 12: Breaking now! 13: Disposed with last sequence number of 11! 14: Done with loop. Yes indeed, when we break the loop, the state machine that C# generates for yield iterate exits the iteration through the using blocks and auto-disposes the IDisposable correctly. I must admit, though, the first time I wrote one, I began to wonder and that led to this test. If you've never seen iterators before (I wrote a previous entry here) the infinite loop may throw you, but you have to keep in mind it is not a linear piece of code, that every time you hit a "yield return" it cedes control back to the state machine generated for the iterator. And this state machine, I'm happy to say, is smart enough to clean up the using blocks correctly. I suspected those wily guys and gals at Microsoft engineered it well, and I wasn't disappointed. But, I've been bitten by assumptions before, so it's good to test and see. Yes, maybe you knew it would or figured it would, but isn't it nice to know? And as those campy 80s G.I. Joe cartoon public service reminders always taught us, "Knowing is half the battle...". Technorati Tags: C#,.NET

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  • Voxel Face Crawling (Mesh simplification, possibly using greedy)

    - by Tim Winter
    This is in regards to a Minecraft-like terrain engine. I store blocks in chunks (16x256x16 blocks in a chunk). When I generate a chunk, I use multiple procedural techniques to set the terrain and to place objects. While generating, I keep one 1D array for the full chunk (solid or not) and a separate 1D array of solid blocks. After generation, I iterate through the solid blocks checking their neighbors so I only generate block faces that don't have solid neighbors. I store which faces to generate in their own list (that's 6 lists, one per possible face). When rendering a chunk, I render all lists in the camera's current chunk and only the lists facing the camera in all other chunks. Using a 2D atlas with this little shader trick Andrew Russell suggested, I want to merge similar faces together completely. That is, if they are in the same list (same normal), are adjacent to each other, have the same light level, etc. My assumption would be to have each of the 6 lists sorted by the axis they rest on, then by the other two axes (the list for the top of a block would be sorted by it's Y value, then X, then Z). With this alone, I could quite easily merge strips of faces, but I'm looking to merge more than just strips together when possible. I've read up on this greedy meshing algorithm, but I am having a lot of trouble understanding it. To even use it, I would think I'd need to perform a type of flood-fill per sorted list to get the groups of merge-able faces. Then, per group, perform the greedy algorithm. It all sounds awfully expensive if I would ever want dynamic terrain/lighting after initial generation. So, my question: To perform merging of faces as described (ignoring whether it's a bad idea for dynamic terrain/lighting), is there perhaps an algorithm that is simpler to implement? I would also quite happily accept an answer that walks me through the greedy algorithm in a much simpler way (a link or explanation). I don't mind a slight performance decrease if it's easier to implement or even if it's only a little better than just doing strips. I worry that most algorithms focus on triangles rather than quads and using a 2D atlas the way I am, I don't know that I could implement something triangle based with my current skills. PS: I already frustum cull per chunk and as described, I also cull faces between solid blocks. I don't occlusion cull yet and may never.

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  • Tools to simulate mobile devices on a desktop to test websites

    - by Kris
    Are there any good tools that can be run on desktop machines (Windows or Linux) that can simulate a mobile device, preferably with some options as to screen size and mobile browser (user agent if not full render engine). I know it is never going to be perfect (especially without an actual touchscreen), but having a tool on our development machines to do what testing we can that way would be very useful.

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  • Network Balancing Act

    - by listey
    Next up in our popular Oracle Solaris How To series is the Integrated Load Balancer, part of the suite of network facilities that are built in to Oracle Solaris 11. Providing Layer 3 and Layer 4 load balancing capabilities you can use this device to simulate or even replace your hardware based network infrastructure. Read more about the capabilities and how to get a basic configuration working in How to Set Up a Load-Balanced Application Across Two Oracle Solaris Zones

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  • I'd like to learn how to do mobile development - which competitions can I join to help me learn?

    - by Oscar
    I want to start learning mobile device development, but I am someone that gets much more motivated when there is some goal to reach. Because of that, I would like to join a competition. I know about Microsoft Imagine Cup, which is a very nice competition. Are there any another mobile development competition with a deadline in the next 6~8 months? I have been googling for them, but I could not find any, maybe someone knows about something that I couldn't find.

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  • DELL Inspiron 9400 SD Card Reader not working on 10.11 ubuntu

    - by Mario Martz
    Im new in linux, just installed Ubuntu 11.10 in a Dell Inspiron 9400, everything works fine with the exception of the SD card reader, everytime I insert a card the computer doesnt do anything, its like the SD card reader is not there. I did a $lspci and it shows the next drivers 03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller 03:01.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 19) 03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 0a) 03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 05) Everytime I insert a memory card, dmesg shows the next d status 0x600b00 [ 2687.227351] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 64 [ 2687.229436] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.229440] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 65 [ 2687.230512] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.230515] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 66 [ 2687.231588] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.231592] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 67 [ 2687.232674] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.232678] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 68 [ 2687.234763] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.234766] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 69 [ 2687.236864] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.236868] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 70 [ 2687.238942] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.238946] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 71 [ 2687.238949] Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk0, logical block 8 [ 2687.241028] mmcblk0: retrying using single block read [ 2687.243104] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.243108] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 64 [ 2687.245212] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.245215] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 65 [ 2687.247298] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.247302] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 66 [ 2687.248389] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.248393] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 67 [ 2687.250476] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.250480] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 68 [ 2687.252617] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 [ 2687.252621] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 69 [ 2687.254737] mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x600b00 and more of the same but with different sector number Im using Kernel 3.0.0-12-generic By the way, when I was installing it and ubuntu asks about installation (If I want to install it along with windows or delete something or change the partitions of the HDD) if I go to the window to change the partition of the disc, linux detects the SD Card (if there's one inserted course). Any help with this it would be appreciated -sorry for my english Thank you

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  • NVIDIA x server - "sudo nvidia config" does not generate a working 'xorg.config'

    - by Mike
    I am over 18 hours deep on this challenge. I got to this point and am stuck. very stuck. Maybe you can figure it out? Ubuntu Version 12.04 LTS with all the updates installed. Problem: The default settings in "etc/X11/xorg.conf" that are generated by the "nvidia-xconfig" tool, do not allow the NVIDIA x server to connect to the driver in my "System Settings Additional Driver window". (that's how I understand it. Lots of information below). Symptoms of Problem "System Settings Additional Driver" window has drivers, but the nvidia x server cannot connect/utilize any of the 4 drivers. the drivers are activated, but not in use. When I go to "System Tools Administration NVIDIA x server settings" I get an error that basically tells me to create a default file to initialize the NVIDIA X server (screen shot below). This is the messages the terminal gives after running a "sudo nvidia-xconfig" command for the first time. It seems that the generated file by the tool i just ran is generating a bad/unusable file: If I run the "sudo nvidia-xconfig" command again, I wont get an error the second time. However when I reboot, the default file that is generated (etc/X11/xorg.conf) simply puts the screen resolution at 800 x 600 (or something big like that). When I try to go to NVIDIA x server settings I am greeted with the same screen as the screen shot as in symptom 2 (no option to change the resolution). If I try to go to "system settings display" there are no other resolutions to choose from. At this point I must delete the newly minted "xorg.conf" and reinstate the original in its place. Here are the contents of the "xorg.conf" that is generated first (the one missing required information): # nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig # nvidia-xconfig: version 304.88 (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-06) Wed Mar 27 15:32:58 PDT 2013 Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Layout0" Screen 0 "Screen0" InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard" InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer" EndSection Section "Files" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # generated from default Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" Option "Protocol" "auto" Option "Device" "/dev/psaux" Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no" Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" EndSection Section "InputDevice" # generated from default Identifier "Keyboard0" Driver "kbd" EndSection Section "Monitor" Identifier "Monitor0" VendorName "Unknown" ModelName "Unknown" HorizSync 28.0 - 33.0 VertRefresh 43.0 - 72.0 Option "DPMS" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "Device0" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "Device0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 SubSection "Display" Depth 24 EndSubSection EndSection Hardware: I ran the "lspci|grep VGA". There results are: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 [Quadro 1000M] (rev a1) More Hardware info: Ram: 16GB CPU: Intel Core i7-2720QM @2.2GHz * 8 Other: 64 bit. This is a triple boot computer and not a VM. Attempts With Not Success on My End: 1) Tried to append the "xorg.conf" with what I perceive is missing information and obviously it didn't fly. 2) All the other stuff I tried got me to this point. 3) See if this link is helpful to you (I barely get it, but i get enough knowing that a smarter person might find this useful): http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/lucid/man1/nvidia-xconfig.1.html 4) I am completely new to Linux (40 hours over past week), but not to programming. However I am very serious about changing over to Linux. When you respond (I hope someone responds...) please respond in a way that a person new to Linux can understand. 5) By the way, the reason I am in this mess is because I MUST have a second monitor running from my laptop, and "System Settings Display" doesn't recognize my second display. I know it is possible to make the second display work in my system, because when I boot from the install CD, I perform work on the native laptop monitor, but the second monitor shows a purple screen with Ubuntu in the middle, so I know the VGA port is sending a signal out. If this is too much for you to tackle please suggest an alternative method to get a second display. I don't want to go to windows but I cannot have a single display. I am really fudged here. I hope some smart person can help. Thanks in advance. Mike. **********************EDIT #1********************** More Details About Graphics Card I was asked "which brand of nvidia-card do you have exactly?" Here is what I did to provide more info (maybe relevant, maybe not, but here is everything): 1) Took my Lenovo W520 right apart to see if there is an identifier on the actual card. However I realized that if I get deep enough to take a look, the laptop "won't like it". so I put it back together. Figuring out the card this way is not an option for me right now. 2) (My computer is triple boot) I logged into Win7 and ran 'dxdiag' command. here is the screen shot: 3) I tried to look on the lenovo website for more details... but no luck. I took a look at my receipts and here is info form receipt: System Unit: W520 NVIDIA Quadro 1000M 2GB 4) In win7 I went to the NVIDIA website and used the option to have my card 'scanned' by a Java applet to determine the latest update for my card. I tried the same with Ubuntu but I can't get the applet to run. Here is the recommended driver from from the NVIDIA Applet for my card for Win7 (I hope this shines some light on the specifics of the card): Quadro/NVS/Tesla/GRID Desktop Driver Release R319 Version: 320.00 WHQL Release Date: 3.5.2013 5) Also I went on the NVIDIA driver search and looked through every possible combination of product type + product series + product to find all the combinations that yield a 1000M card. My card is: Product Type: Quadro Product Series: Quadro Series (Notebooks) Product: 1000M ***********************EDIT #2******************* Additional Symptoms Another question that generated more symptoms I previously didn't mention was: "After generating xorg.conf by nvidia-xconfig, go to additional drivers, do you see nvidia-304?" 1) I took a screen shot of the "additional drivers" right after generating xorg.conf by nvidia-xconfig. Here it is: 2) Then I did a reboot. Now Ubuntu is 600 x 800 resolution. When I logged in after the computer came up I got an error (which I always get after generating xorg.conf by nvidia-xconfig and rebooting) 3) To finally answer the question - No. There is no "NVIDIA-304" driver. Screen shot of additional drivers after generating xorg.conf by nvidia-xconfig and rebooting : At this point I revert to the original xorg.conf and delete the xorg.conf generated by Nvidia.

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  • Lubuntu: neither shut-down nor restart works

    - by Rantanplan
    aI have a freshly installed Lubuntu 14.04.1 (installed with forcepae option on a laptop with Pentium M processor). The only problem that I have found so far is that I cannot shut-down or restart the laptop. It always continues showing "Lubuntu" and some dots. Pressing Esc it says wait-for-state stop/waiting * Stopping rsync daemon rsync [OK] * Asking all remaining processes to terminate… [OK] * Killing all remaining processes… [fail] ModemManager [597] : <info> Caught signal, shutting down… ModemManager [597] : <info> ModemManager is shut down nm-dispatcher.action: Could not get the system bus. Make sure the message bus daemon is running! Message: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken. * Deactivating swap… [OK] * Will now halt The cursor remains blinking but the only way to switch it off is to hold the power-off key pressed for some seconds. I tried sudo shutdown -h now, sudo halt and sudo poweroff resulting in the same problem. I also tried to add acpi=force in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" in /etc/default/grub and run sudo update-grub; then, using the taskbar's shot-down button lead to a direct stop of the laptop equal to holding the power-off key pressed for some seconds. Next I followed the answer http://askubuntu.com/a/202481/288322. Now, I directly receive some messages during shut-down starting wait-for-state stop/waiting * Stopping rsync daemon rsync [OK] * Asking all remaining processes to terminate… [OK] [ 240.944277] INFO: task kworker/0:2:24: block for more than 120 seconds. [ 240.944461] Tainted: G S 3.13.0-34-generic #60-Ubuntu [ 240.944623] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_tasks_timeout_secs" disables this message. followed by some more similar lines and then: * Killing all remaining processes… [fail] ModemManager [576] : <info> Caught signal, shutting down… nm-dispatcher.action: Caught signal 15, shutting down... ModemManager [576] : <info> ModemManager is shut down * Deactivating swap… [OK] * Will now halt [ 600.944276] INFO: task kworker/0:2:24: block for more than 120 seconds. [ 600.944458] Tainted: G S 3.13.0-34-generic #60-Ubuntu [ 600.944619] "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_tasks_timeout_secs" disables this message. Then, nothing more was coming during the next 5 minutes. If you know where can I find relevant error information, I will be happy to search for them.

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