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  • DIY Arcade Build Packed into an IKEA Console Table

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you checked out the Raspberry Pi-powered arcade table we shared earlier this week but want an all-in-one solution that doesn’t require as much configuration, this table uses a pre-programmed board that comes loaded with arcade classics. Courtesy of tinker Casper36, we’re treated to a compact build hidden inside an IKEA console table. One of the most polished aspects of this build is how well hidden the flush-mounted screen is under the dark glass tabletop–when the screen it just looks like the table has a patterned glass insert. Hit up the link below for the full photo build-log. IKEA Console Arcade Build [via Make] 6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7 HTG Explains: Why It’s Good That Your Computer’s RAM Is Full 10 Awesome Improvements For Desktop Users in Windows 8

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  • Bar Table Modded Into Standing Desk

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    This polished looking standing desk combines a stand alone bar-height counter with extra storage, cable management, and monitor riser. The end result looks like a $$$$ standing desk at a fraction of the price. Courtesy of IKEA hacker Marc Marton, the build combines the Billsta Bar Table, the Ekby Alex Shelf, and Besta legs to raise the shelf up off the desk and create a keyboard storage area. For more information about the build hit up the link below. Billsta Bar Table into Standing Work Station [IKEAHacker] 8 Deadly Commands You Should Never Run on Linux 14 Special Google Searches That Show Instant Answers How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates

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  • Tiny DSLR Intervalometer Snaps Pics On User-Defined Schedule

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you’re interested in time-lapse photography but underwhelmed by the in-camera options (or lack there of) or don’t want to shell out money for an expensive commercial intervalometer, this DIY option is pretty slick solution. Achim Sack, a fan of hardware hacking and time lapse photography, created a super tiny interval timer that works with Nikon, Canon, and Pentax DSLRs. Plug it in, snap a shot between 0.4 seconds and 18 minutes to set the interval and then leave it be. As long as you have space on the memory card and power left in the battery the camera will keep snapping pictures. Hit up the link below to see his schematics, parts list, and more photos of the build. Interval Timer v2 [via Hack A Day] How To Encrypt Your Cloud-Based Drive with BoxcryptorHTG Explains: Photography with Film-Based CamerasHow to Clean Your Dirty Smartphone (Without Breaking Something)

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  • MVC 2 Presentation &ndash; Final Demo

    - by Steve Michelotti
    In my presentation this past weekend at NoVa Code Camp, a member of the audience caught my final demo on video. In this demo, I combine multiple new features from MVC 2 to show how to build apps quickly with MVC 2. These features include: Template Helpers / Editor Templates Server-side/Client-side Validation Model Metadata for View Model HTML Encoding Syntax Dependency Injection Abstract Controllers Custom T4 Templates Custom MVC Visual Studio 2010 Code Snippets The projector screen is a little difficult to see during parts of the video – a video of the direct screencast can be seen here: MVC 2 in 2 Minutes.   Direct link to YouTube video here.

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  • How to build Open JavaFX for Android.

    - by PictureCo
    Here's a short recipe for baking JavaFX for Android dalvik. We will need just a few ingredients but each one requires special care. So let's get down to the business.  SourcesThe first ingredient is an open JavaFX repository. This should be piece of cake. As always there's a catch. You probably know that dalvik is jdk6 compatible  and also that certain APIs are missing comparing to good old java vm from Oracle.  Fortunately there is a repository which is a backport of regular OpenJFX to jdk7 and going from jdk7 to jdk6 is possible. The first thing to do is to clone or download the repository from https://bitbucket.org/narya/jfx78. Main page of the project says "It works in some cases" so we will presume that it will work in most cases As I've said dalvik vm misses some APIs which would lead to a build failures. To get them use another compatibility repository which is available on GitHub https://github.com/robovm/robovm-jfx78-compat. Download the zip and unzip sources into jfx78/modules/base.We need also a javafx binary stubs. Use jfxrt.jar from jdk8.The last thing to download are freetype sources from http://freetype.org. These will be necessary for native font rendering. Toolchain setup I have to point out that these instructions were tested only on linux. I suppose they will work with minimal changes also on Mac OS. I also presume that you were able to build open JavaFX. That means all tools like ant, gradle, gcc and jdk8 have been installed and are working all right. In addition to this you will need to download and install jdk7, Android SDK and Android NDK for native code compilation.  Installing all of them will take some time. Don't forget to put them in your path. export ANDROID_SDK=/opt/android-sdk-linux export ANDROID_NDK=/opt/android-ndk-r9b export JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk1.7.0 export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$ANDROID_SDK/tools:$ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools:$ANDROID_NDK FreetypeUnzip freetype release sources first. We will have to cross compile them for arm. Firstly we will create a standalone toolchain for cross compiling installed in ~/work/ndk-standalone-19. $ANDROID_NDK/build/tools/make-standalone-toolchain.sh  --platform=android-19 --install-dir=~/work/ndk-standalone-19 After the standalone toolchain has been created cross compile freetype with following script: export TOOLCHAIN=~/work/freetype/ndk-standalone-19 export PATH=$TOOLCHAIN/bin:$PATH export FREETYPE=`pwd` ./configure --host=arm-linux-androideabi --prefix=$FREETYPE/install --without-png --without-zlib --enable-shared sed -i 's/\-version\-info \$(version_info)/-avoid-version/' builds/unix/unix-cc.mk make make install It will compile and install freetype library into $FREETYPE/install. We will link to this install dir later on. It would be possible also to link openjfx font support dynamically against skia library available on Android which already contains freetype. It creates smaller result but can have compatibility problems. Patching Download patches javafx-android-compat.patch + android-tools.patch and patch jfx78 repository. I recommend to have look at patches. First one android-compat.patch updates openjfx build script, removes dependency on SharedSecret classes and updates LensLogger to remove dependency on jdk specific PlatformLogger. Second one android-tools.patch creates helper script in android-tools. The script helps to setup javaFX Android projects. Building Now is time to try the build. Run following script: JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk1.7.0 JDK_HOME=/opt/jdk1.7.0 ANDROID_SDK=/opt/android-sdk-linux ANDROID_NDK=/opt/android-ndk-r9b PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$ANDROID_SDK/tools:$ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools:$ANDROID_NDK:$PATH gradle -PDEBUG -PDALVIK_VM=true -PBINARY_STUB=~/work/binary_stub/linux/rt/lib/ext/jfxrt.jar \ -PFREETYPE_DIR=~/work/freetype/install -PCOMPILE_TARGETS=android If everything went all right the output is in build/android-sdk Create first JavaFX Android project Use gradle script int android-tools. The script sets the project structure for you.   Following command creates Android HelloWorld project which links to a freshly built javafx runtime and to a HelloWorld application. NAME is a name of Android project. DIR where to create our first project. PACKAGE is package name required by Android. It has nothing to do with a packaging of javafx application. JFX_SDK points to our recently built runtime. JFX_APP points to dist directory of javafx application. (where all application jars sit) JFX_MAIN is fully qualified name of a main class. gradle -PDEBUG -PDIR=/home/user/work -PNAME=HelloWorld -PPACKAGE=com.helloworld \ -PJFX_SDK=/home/user/work/jfx78/build/android-sdk -PJFX_APP=/home/user/NetBeansProjects/HelloWorld/dist \ -PJFX_MAIN=com.helloworld.HelloWorld createProject Now cd to the created project and use it like any other android project. ant clean, debug, uninstall, installd will work. I haven't tried it from any IDE Eclipse nor Netbeans. Special thanks to Stefan Fuchs and Daniel Zwolenski for the repositories used in this blog post.

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  • What are some “must have” Ubuntu programs? [closed]

    - by Benjamin
    What essential software do you have on a Ubuntu Desktop machine? One per answer please, and if you can, provide the official site link if they have it. Before adding an another answer, please search for it first and upvote the existing answer rather than adding it again. To search, use the search box in the upper-right corner. To search the answers of the current question, use inquestion:this. For example: inquestion:this "7-zip" P.S Inspired by this question. I think the question was very useful for Windows users. I don't mind if the moderators change this question to community wiki.

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  • .NETTER Code Starter Pack v1.0.beta Released

    - by Mohammad Ashraful Alam
    .NETTER Code Starter Pack contains a gallery of Visual Studio 2010 solutions leveraging latest and new technologies released by Microsoft. Each Visual Studio solution included here is focused to provide a very simple starting point for cutting edge development technologies and framework, using well known Northwind database. The current release of this project includes starter samples for the following technologies: ASP.NET Dynamic Data QuickStart (TBD) Azure Service Platform Windows Azure Hello World Windows Azure Storage Simple CRUD Database Scripts Entity Framework 4.0 (TBD) SharePoint 2010 Visual Web Part Linq QuickStart Silverlight Business App Hello World WCF RIA Services QuickStart Utility Framework MEF Moq QuickStart T-4 QuickStart Unity QuickStart WCF WCF Data Services QuickStart WCF Hello World WorkFlow Foundation Web API Facebook Toolkit QuickStart Download link: http://codebox.codeplex.com/releases/view/57382 Technorati Tags: release,new release,asp.net,mef,unity,sharepoint,wcf

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  • Tolkien’s Rivendell Rendered in LEGO

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you’re a fan of all things geeky rendered in LEGO–and we certainly are–you’ll want to take a moment to appreciate this incredible model of the mythical Rivendell from the Lord of the Rings universe. Courtesy of builders Blake Baer and Jake Bittner, the behemoth model measures nearly 4×3 ft. in size, weighs 120 pounds, and required over 50,000 LEGO bricks. Hit up the link below to check out the full set of photos. Rivendell in LEGO [via Geeks Are Sexy] How To Switch Webmail Providers Without Losing All Your Email How To Force Windows Applications to Use a Specific CPU HTG Explains: Is UPnP a Security Risk?

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  • Add 33 Unique Biomes to Minecraft with the Biomes O’ Plenty Mod Pack

    - by Asian Angel
    Are you tired of looking at the same old biomes in Minecraft? Then add some fresh scenery with the Biomes O’ Plenty mod pack and enjoy a whole new Minecraft world! Biomes included in the mod pack: Birch Forest, Bog, Cherry Blossom Grove, Crag, Deadlands, Dense Forest, Field, Frost Forest, Garden, Glacier, Highland, Mangrove, Marsh, Meadow, Mesa, Mountain, Mystic Grove, Oasis, Ominous Woods, Orchard, Prairie, Quagmire, Rainforest, Savanna, Scrubland, Seasonal Forest, Shrubland, Spruce Forest, Tropics, Tundra, Wasteland, Wetlands, and Woodlands. You can download the mod pack, view the setup instructions, see images of each biome type, and more by visiting the link below. [1.3.2] [MODLOADERMP] Biomes O’ Plenty – Adds 33 Unique Biomes! (SSP/SMP) [via BoingBoing] 8 Deadly Commands You Should Never Run on Linux 14 Special Google Searches That Show Instant Answers How To Create a Customized Windows 7 Installation Disc With Integrated Updates

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  • “Unplugged” Chat with Me this Thursday

    - by ScottGu
    This Thursday (May 13th) I’m going to be doing another online LIDNUG chat session.  The chat will be from 10:00am to 11:30am Pacific Time. You can learn more about it here and join the chat at the appropriate time with this link. I do these chats a few times a year and they tend to be pretty fun.  Attendees can listen to me talk live via LiveMeeting, and can submit any questions they want to me.  I then answer as many of them as I can in the 90 minutes.  We’ll probably talk a lot about the new features in VS 2010, .NET 4, Silverlight 4, Windows Phone 7, ASP.NET 4 and ASP.NET MVC 2 this week. Hope to get a chance to chat with some of you there! Scott

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  • Smart Grid Gurus

    - by caroline.yu
    Join Paul Fetherland, AMI director at Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) and Keith Sturkie, vice president of Information Technology, Mid-Carolina Electric Cooperative (MCEC) on Thursday, April 29 at 12 p.m. EDT for the free "Smart Grid Gurus" Webcast. In this Webcast, underwritten by Oracle Utilities, Intelligent Utility will profile Paul Fetherland and Keith Sturkie to examine how they ended up in their respective positions and how they are making smarter grids a reality at their companies. By attending, you will: Gain insight from the paths taken and lessons learned by HECO and MCEC as these two utilities add more grid intelligence to their operations Identify the keys to driving AMI deployment, increasing operational and productivity gains, and targeting new goals on the technology roadmap Learn why HECO is taking a careful, measured approach to AMI deployment, and how Hawaii's established renewable portfolio standard of 40% and an energy efficiency standard of 30%, both by 2030, impact its efforts Discover how MCEC's 45,000-meter AMI deployment, completed in 2005, reduced field trips for high-usage complaints by 90% in the first year, and MCEC's immediate goals for future technology implementation To register, please follow this link.

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  • ADF Faces Layouts Demo - A Hidden Treasure

    - by shay.shmeltzer
    Layouting pages with ADF Faces containers is sometimes not as simple as we would have liked it to be - especially for people who are just getting started. There are some tricks that can help you achieve the layout that you are looking for. One great way to learn some of those tricks is to look at the new "Visual Design" section of the ADF Faces Hosted demo. For example look at the Form Layout part - and you'll see nicely aligned forms that contain various UI layout scenarios. Want to learn how this has been achieved? - just click the "page source" link at the top right - and you can see how that layout has been done. Don't forget that you can also download the full demo source here. One other good resource I came across today is the "Designing well known websites with ADF Rich Faces" presentation from Maiko Rocha and George Magessy - it's missing the demo part - but you can still learn a lot from the slides. Designing well known websites with ADF Rich Faces

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  • Don't forget to confirm your SQLBits registration

    - by simonsabin
    If you filled in the registration form for SQLBits VI and haven't received an email requesting you to confirm your registration then you are not confirmed and we will be assuming you aren't coming. You need to get that email and click on the confirmation link to confirm your registration We currently have 30 people that have not confirmed. So if you haven't seen an email then please check your spam folders for the email. If you still don't get any luck then please contact us (contactus(at)sqlbits.com) If you are not confirmed and turn up on the day then you will only get in if we have room, and it looks like we wil be over subscribed. you can check your registration status by loggin in to the site and going to the http://www.sqlbits.com/information/Registration.aspx. Check their is a confirmation data at the bottom.

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  • Don't forget to confirm your SQLBits registration

    - by simonsabin
    If you filled in the registration form for SQLBits VI and haven't received an email requesting you to confirm your registration then you are not confirmed and we will be assuming you aren't coming. You need to get that email and click on the confirmation link to confirm your registration We currently have 30 people that have not confirmed. So if you haven't seen an email then please check your spam folders for the email. If you still don't get any luck then please contact us (contactus(at)sqlbits.com) If you are not confirmed and turn up on the day then you will only get in if we have room, and it looks like we wil be over subscribed. you can check your registration status by loggin in to the site and going to the http://www.sqlbits.com/information/Registration.aspx. Check their is a confirmation data at the bottom.

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  • Running a Silverlight application in the Google App Engine platform

    - by rajbk
    This post shows you how to host a Silverlight application in the Google App Engine (GAE) platform. You deploy and host your Silverlight application on Google’s infrastructure by creating a configuration file and uploading it along with your application files. I tested this by uploading an old demo of mine - the four stroke engine silverlight demo. It is currently being served by the GAE over here: http://fourstrokeengine.appspot.com/ The steps to run your Silverlight application in GAE are as follows: Account Creation Create an account at http://appengine.google.com/. You are allocated a free quota at signup. Select “Create an Application”   Verify your account by SMS   Create your application by clicking on “Create an Application”   Pick an application identifier on the next screen. The identifier has to be unique. You will use this identifier when uploading your application. The application you create will by default be accessible at [applicationidentifier].appspot.com. You can also use custom domains if needed (refer to the docs).   Save your application. Download SDK  We will use the  Windows Launcher for Google App Engine tool to upload our apps (it is possible to do the same through command line). This is a GUI for creating, running and deploying applications. The launcher lets you test the app locally before deploying it to the GAE. This tool is available in the Google App Engine SDK. The GUI is written in Python and therefore needs an installation of Python to run. Download and install the Python Binaries from here: http://www.python.org/download/ Download and install the Google App Engine SDK from here: http://code.google.com/appengine/downloads.html Run the GAE Launcher. Select Create New Application.   On the next dialog, give your application a name (this must match the identifier we created earlier) For Parent Directory, point to the directory containing your Silverlight files. Change the port if you want to. The port is used by the GAE local web server. The server is started if you choose to run the application locally for testing purposes. Hit Save. Configure, Test and Upload As shown below, the files I am interested in uploading for my Silverlight demo app are The html page used to host the Silverlight control The xap file containing the compiled Silverlight application A favicon.ico file.   We now create a configuration file for our application called app.yaml. The app.yaml file specifies how URL paths correspond to request handlers and static files.  We edit the file by selecting our app in the GUI and clicking “Edit” The contents of file after editing is shown below (note that the contents of the file should be in plain text): application: fourstrokeengine version: 1 runtime: python api_version: 1 handlers: - url: /   static_files: Default.html   upload: Default.html - url: /favicon.ico   static_files: favicon.ico   upload: favicon.ico - url: /FourStrokeEngine.xap   static_files: FourStrokeEngine.xap   upload: FourStrokeEngine.xap   mime_type: application/x-silverlight-app - url: /.*   static_files: Default.html   upload: Default.html We have listed URL patterns for our files, specified them as static files and specified a mime type for our xap file. The wild card URL at the end will match all URLs that are not found to our default page (you would normally include a html file that displays a 404 message).  To understand more about app.yaml, refer to this page. Save the file. Run the application locally by selecting “Browse” in the GUI. A web server listening on the port you specified is started (8080 in my case). The app is loaded in your default web browser pointing to http://localhost:8080/. Make sure the application works as expected. We are now ready to deploy. Click the “Deploy” icon. You will be prompted for your username and password. Hit OK. The files will get uploaded and you should get a dialog telling you to “close the window”. We are done uploading our Silverlight application. Go to http://appengine.google.com/ and launch the application by clicking on the link in the “Current Version” column.   You should be taken to a URL which points to your application running in Google’s infrastructure : http://fourstrokeengine.appspot.com/. We are done deploying our application! Clicking on the link in the Application column will take you to the Admin console where you can see stats related to system usage.  To learn more about the Google Application Engine, go here: http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/whatisgoogleappengine.html

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  • ETPM/OUAF 2.3.1 Framework Overview - Session 1

    - by MHundal
    A number of sessions are planned to review the ETPM (OUAF) 2.3.1 Framework.  These sessions will include an overview of the Navigation, Portals, Zones, Business Objects, Business Services, Algorithms, Scripts, etc.. Session 1 includes an overview of the standards in ETPM 2.3.1 Navigation and changes in the configuration and options for Portals and Zones.  Session 1 starts to look at the configuration of Business Objects.  The next session will provide an in-depth explanation for the configuration of Business Objects.  Click on the link below for Session 1 (45 minutes) that provides an overview of the changes in Navigation, general standards, changes in Portals/Zones configuration and a high-level overview of Business Objects. To stream the recording:   https://oracletalk.webex.com/oracletalk/ldr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=70387157&rKey=f791a7285affeb25 To download the recording: https://oracletalk.webex.com/oracletalk/lsr.php?AT=dw&SP=MC&rID=70387157&rKey=0be61590fd72d20e For additional questions, please contact [email protected].

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  • WebGL, security, and Microsoft

    - by 3412132
    I was writing a post about a link I saw, but realized it was also about what companies do to this industry, so I'd like to ask your opinions on that first (the original post is below). Is it ok for companies to act childish (not wanting to share, not-invented-here syndrome, etc)? ORIGINAL POST: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20071726-264/microsoft-declares-webgl-harmful-to-security/ What gives? I understand they're making some real points here, but haven't they been doing similar things with ActiveX? Also who are they to talk when their browser has more security problems than modern browsers do?

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  • ADF and Oracle E-Business Suite Integration Series Index

    - by Juan Camilo Ruiz
    I'm creating this entry with the purpose of keeping one page that lists all the past and future entries on the series of integration of ADF with Oracle E-Business Suite, you can access all the articles and reference information that resides in other places too. Also this would the one link that I can reference while presenting about this topic. Here is the list of individual entries from the series: ADF and Oracle E-Business Suite Integration Series: Displaying Read-Only EBS data on ADF ADF and Oracle E-Business Suite Integration Series: Displaying Read-Only EBS data on iPad Using the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java on ADF Applications Securing ADF Applications Using the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK JAAS Implementation Debugging ADF Security in JDeveloper 11g Adding a Role to a Responsibility for Use with the Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java JAAS Implementation Embedding ADF UI Components into OAF regions Bonus Material: Webcast Replays Using Oracle ADF with Oracle E-Business Suite: The Full Integration View Best Practices for Using Oracle E-Business Suite SDK for Java with Oracle ADF Documents FAQ for Integration of Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) Applications (Doc ID 1296491.1)

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  • FrankenUPS Hack Turns a Server UPS into a Whole House UPS

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    This well documented build guide showcases the process of turning a rack-mounted UPS battery device intended for a server bank, into a super-charged whole-house UPS system with a massive 14 hours of backup juice. It’s a very ambitious build and, due to the work required in the main circuit breaker of your home, we highly recommend only those experienced with electrical work undertake the project. That said, it’s a really clever bit of recycling that yielded an impressive half-day worth of backup power. Hit up the link below for the detailed build log. FrankenUPS [via Hack A Day] The Best Free Portable Apps for Your Flash Drive Toolkit How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 3 How to Sync Your Media Across Your Entire House with XBMC

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  • What If Nintendo Made Children’s Books?

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    What if the great minds at Nintendo had directed their energy towards children’s literature? These humorous cover mock-ups show us what the titles may have looked like. Hit up the link below for more books from the Nintendo universe; if you have a clever idea for a game-based children’s book that should exist, sound off in the comments. Videogame Children’s Books [via Neatorama] How to Stress Test the Hard Drives in Your PC or Server How To Customize Your Android Lock Screen with WidgetLocker The Best Free Portable Apps for Your Flash Drive Toolkit

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  • Ubuntu 12.10 MBR not loading from dual boot selector

    - by Justin Holmes
    Since I am new to the forums here I cannot post pictures, but hopefully this link to my error screen will work. Error when selecting to boot the Ubuntu mbr Basically no matter what I do, windows boot manager wants to load windows and windows only. I tried running from my hard drive and also from a USB drive that had live installed. Both times I ended up with this message. I am running windows 7 with all the newest updates, on a Samsung series 7 Laptop. I have had many dual boot machines in the past and never seen this issue. I even had a dual booting windows 7 machine a few months ago and had no issues at all. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks! Justin

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  • The ugly evolution of running a background operation in the context of an ASP.NET app

    - by Jeff
    If you’re one of the two people who has followed my blog for many years, you know that I’ve been going at POP Forums now for over almost 15 years. Publishing it as an open source app has been a big help because it helps me understand how people want to use it, and having it translated to six languages is pretty sweet. Despite this warm and fuzzy group hug, there has been an ugly hack hiding in there for years. One of the things we find ourselves wanting to do is hide some kind of regular process inside of an ASP.NET application that runs periodically. The motivation for this has always been that a lot of people simply don’t have a choice, because they’re running the app on shared hosting, or don’t otherwise have access to a box that can run some kind of regular background service. In POP Forums, I “solved” this problem years ago by hiding some static timers in an HttpModule. Truthfully, this works well as long as you don’t run multiple instances of the app, which in the cloud world, is always a possibility. With the arrival of WebJobs in Azure, I’m going to solve this problem. This post isn’t about that. The other little hacky problem that I “solved” was spawning a background thread to queue emails to subscribed users of the forum. This evolved quite a bit over the years, starting with a long running page to mail users in real-time, when I had only a few hundred. By the time it got into the thousands, or tens of thousands, I needed a better way. What I did is launched a new thread that read all of the user data in, then wrote a queued email to the database (as in, the entire body of the email, every time), with the properly formatted opt-out link. It was super inefficient, but it worked. Then I moved my biggest site using it, CoasterBuzz, to an Azure Website, and it stopped working. So let’s start with the first stupid thing I was doing. The new thread was simply created with delegate code inline. As best I can tell, Azure Websites are more aggressive about garbage collection, because that thread didn’t queue even one message. When the calling server response went out of scope, so went the magic background thread. Duh, all I had to do was move the thread to a private static variable in the class. That’s the way I was able to keep stuff running from the HttpModule. (And yes, I know this is still prone to failure, particularly if the app recycles. For as infrequently as it’s used, I have not, however, experienced this.) It was still failing, but this time I wasn’t sure why. It would queue a few dozen messages, then die. Running in Azure, I had to turn on the application logging and FTP in to see what was going on. That led me to a helper method I was using as delegate to build the unsubscribe links. The idea here is that I didn’t want yet another config entry to describe the base URL, appended with the right path that would match the routing table. No, I wanted the app to figure it out for you, so I came up with this little thing: public static string FullUrlHelper(this Controller controller, string actionName, string controllerName, object routeValues = null) { var helper = new UrlHelper(controller.Request.RequestContext); var requestUrl = controller.Request.Url; if (requestUrl == null) return String.Empty; var url = requestUrl.Scheme + "://"; url += requestUrl.Host; url += (requestUrl.Port != 80 ? ":" + requestUrl.Port : ""); url += helper.Action(actionName, controllerName, routeValues); return url; } And yes, that should have been done with a string builder. This is useful for sending out the email verification messages, too. As clever as I thought I was with this, I was using a delegate in the admin controller to format these unsubscribe links for tens of thousands of users. I passed that delegate into a service class that did the email work: Func<User, string> unsubscribeLinkGenerator = user => this.FullUrlHelper("Unsubscribe", AccountController.Name, new { id = user.UserID, key = _profileService.GetUnsubscribeHash(user) }); _mailingListService.MailUsers(subject, body, htmlBody, unsubscribeLinkGenerator); Cool, right? Actually, not so much. If you look back at the helper, this delegate then will depend on the controller context to learn the routing and format for the URL. As you might have guessed, those things were turning null after a few dozen formatted links, when the original request to the admin controller went away. That this wasn’t already happening on my dedicated server is surprising, but again, I understand why the Azure environment might be eager to reclaim a thread after servicing the request. It’s already inefficient that I’m building the entire email for every user, but going back to check the routing table for the right link every time isn’t a win either. I put together a little hack to look up one generic URL, and use that as the basis for a string format. If you’re wondering why I didn’t just use the curly braces up front, it’s because they get URL formatted: var baseString = this.FullUrlHelper("Unsubscribe", AccountController.Name, new { id = "--id--", key = "--key--" }); baseString = baseString.Replace("--id--", "{0}").Replace("--key--", "{1}"); Func unsubscribeLinkGenerator = user => String.Format(baseString, user.UserID, _profileService.GetUnsubscribeHash(user)); _mailingListService.MailUsers(subject, body, htmlBody, unsubscribeLinkGenerator); And wouldn’t you know it, the new solution works just fine. It’s still kind of hacky and inefficient, but it will work until this somehow breaks too.

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  • Homebrew LEGO CD Duplicator Copies CDs On The Cheap

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you’d like to bulk copy CDs/DVDs without the sticker shock of a $500+ commercial duplicator, this DIY LEGO duplicator is a homebrew solution. Paul Rea wanted to rip and copy CDs and DVDs without shelling out for a commercial duplicator and without the hassle of being bound to that commercial duplicator’s propriety software. His homebrew solution–a combination of LEGO, a rotating base, an Arduino controller, and little ingenuity–handles his ripping and copying needs with ease. Watch the video above to see it in action then hit up the link below for the build log and Arduino code. CD Duplicator [PaulRea.net via Make] HTG Explains: Understanding Routers, Switches, and Network Hardware How to Use Offline Files in Windows to Cache Your Networked Files Offline How to See What Web Sites Your Computer is Secretly Connecting To

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  • Here’s a Quick Alternative Way to Download Videos from YouTube

    - by Taylor Gibb
    More than 24 hours of video content are uploaded to the internet per minute. With so many videos being uploaded, there’s no doubt you’ve come across a video you want to keep. Read on to find out how you can download your favorite videos for offline viewing. This method of downloading YouTube videos, is different, in the sense that you are just retrieving a buffered version of the video from your browsers cache. While you could always do this manually, different browsers store the cache in different places, a much easier method would be to head over to the NirSoft site and download a copy of Video Cache View (choose the zipped version), which allows you to view all the videos in your cache and supports all major browsers. Note: The download link is quite far down the page, see screenshot below How To Properly Scan a Photograph (And Get An Even Better Image) The HTG Guide to Hiding Your Data in a TrueCrypt Hidden Volume Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage

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  • DIY Grid-It Clone Organizes Your Tech Gear in Style

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    If you’re looking for a customizable way to organize your cables and small electronics, this DIY Grid-It clone uses a series of elastic straps to hold everything in place. Grid-It is a commercial cable and device organizer that is, essentially, a stiff insert for your briefcase or bag that is wrapped in inter-woven elastic straps. You lift and slide the straps the secure your items in place creating, on the fly, customized organization for your cables and small devices. This DIY project recreations the Grid-It system using an old hard cover book as the foundation for the straps–it doubles the amount of usable space, provides a stiff cover, and (if you select a striking book) looks striking at the same time. Hit up the link below to check out the full DIY guide. DIY Project: Vintage Book Travel-Tech Organizer [Design Sponge via GeekSugar] HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers? How to Make the Kindle Fire Silk Browser *Actually* Fast! Amazon’s New Kindle Fire Tablet: the How-To Geek Review

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