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• Idea for a physics–computer science joint curriculum and textbook

  - by Ami

  (I apologize in advance if this question is off topic or too vague) I want to write (and have starting outlining) a physics textbook which assumes its reader is a competent computer programmer. Normal physics textbooks teach physical formulas and give problems that are solved with pen, paper and calculator. I want to provide a book that emphasizes computational physics, how computers can model physical systems and gives problems of the kind: write a program that can solve a set of physics problems based on user input. Third party open source libraries would be used to handle most of the computation and I want to use a high-level language like Java or C#. Besides the fact I'd enjoy working on this, I think a physics-computer science joint curriculum should be offered in schools and this is part of a large agenda to make this happen. I think physics students (like myself) should be learning how to use and leverage computers to solve abstract problems and sets of problems. I think programming languages should be thought of as a useful medium for engaging in many areas of inquiry. Is this an idea worth pursuing? Is the merger of these two subjects in the form of an undergraduate college curriculum feasible? Are there any specific tools I should be leveraging or pitfalls I should be aware of? Has anyone heard of college courses or otherwise that assume this methodology? Are there any books/textbooks out there like the one I'm describing (for physics or any other subject)?

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• How to Create Quality Photo Prints With Free Software

  - by Eric Z Goodnight

  Photoshop may be the professional standard for high quality photo prints, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay hundreds of dollars for printing software. Freeware program Google Picasa can create excellent quality photo prints that’ll only cost you a download. Picasa and other freeware graphics programs are hardly news to savvy geeks, although with a little patience, they can produce quality prints few could tell apart from thousand dollar graphics suites. Stay tuned for links to various graphics programs, and a simple how-to on getting the perfect print settings for your photos Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Deathwing the Destroyer – WoW Cataclysm Dragon Wallpaper Drag2Up Lets You Drag and Drop Files to the Web With Ease The Spam Police Parts 1 and 2 – Goodbye Spammers [Videos] Snow Angels Theme for Windows 7 Exploring the Jungle Ruins Wallpaper Protect Your Privacy When Browsing with Chrome and Iron Browser

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• Microsoft MVP 2012 – ASP.NET/IIS

  - by hajan

  It’s Sunday. I wasn’t really sure whether I should expect something today or not, although its 1st of July when we all know that the new and re-awarded MVPs should get the ‘Congratulations’ email by Microsoft. And YES! I GOT IT! This is my second year, and first time re-awarded… Microsoft MVP 2012 The feeling is exactly same as the first time… I am honored, privileged, veeeery happy and thankful to Microsoft for this prestigious award! The past year was really great with all the events, speaking engagements in various conferences and camps, many other community activities and the first time visit at MVP Global Summit. I am looking forward to boost even more the Microsoft community activities in the next year... And… part of the email message: Dear Hajan Selmani, Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2012 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in ASP.NET/IIS technical communities during the past year. I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all stakeholders. First of all, THANK YOU MICROSOFT for this prestigious award, Thanks to CEE & Italy Region MVP Lead, Alessandro Teglia, who did a great job by helping and supporting MVPs through the whole past year, I hope we will continue collaborating in the same way on the forthcoming year! Thanks to my family, friends, supports, followers, those who read my blogs regularly and have made me reach more than thousands of comments in my ASP.NET Blog :), those who collaborate and work with me on a daily basis and are supporting me in all my community activities. Thank You Everyone! There are lot of new, exciting, great and innovative technologies in the Microsoft Technology Stack. I am excited and really looking forward to rock the community in the years to come! THANK YOU! Hajan

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• Hello Operator, My Switch Is Bored

  - by Paul White

  This is a post for T-SQL Tuesday #43 hosted by my good friend Rob Farley. The topic this month is Plan Operators. I haven’t taken part in T-SQL Tuesday before, but I do like to write about execution plans, so this seemed like a good time to start. This post is in two parts. The first part is primarily an excuse to use a pretty bad play on words in the title of this blog post (if you’re too young to know what a telephone operator or a switchboard is, I hate you). The second part of the post looks at an invisible query plan operator (so to speak). 1. My Switch Is Bored Allow me to present the rare and interesting execution plan operator, Switch: Books Online has this to say about Switch: Following that description, I had a go at producing a Fast Forward Cursor plan that used the TOP operator, but had no luck. That may be due to my lack of skill with cursors, I’m not too sure. The only application of Switch in SQL Server 2012 that I am familiar with requires a local partitioned view: CREATE TABLE dbo.T1 (c1 int NOT NULL CHECK (c1 BETWEEN 00 AND 24)); CREATE TABLE dbo.T2 (c1 int NOT NULL CHECK (c1 BETWEEN 25 AND 49)); CREATE TABLE dbo.T3 (c1 int NOT NULL CHECK (c1 BETWEEN 50 AND 74)); CREATE TABLE dbo.T4 (c1 int NOT NULL CHECK (c1 BETWEEN 75 AND 99)); GO CREATE VIEW V1 AS SELECT c1 FROM dbo.T1 UNION ALL SELECT c1 FROM dbo.T2 UNION ALL SELECT c1 FROM dbo.T3 UNION ALL SELECT c1 FROM dbo.T4; Not only that, but it needs an updatable local partitioned view. We’ll need some primary keys to meet that requirement: ALTER TABLE dbo.T1 ADD CONSTRAINT PK_T1 PRIMARY KEY (c1);   ALTER TABLE dbo.T2 ADD CONSTRAINT PK_T2 PRIMARY KEY (c1);   ALTER TABLE dbo.T3 ADD CONSTRAINT PK_T3 PRIMARY KEY (c1);   ALTER TABLE dbo.T4 ADD CONSTRAINT PK_T4 PRIMARY KEY (c1); We also need an INSERT statement that references the view. Even more specifically, to see a Switch operator, we need to perform a single-row insert (multi-row inserts use a different plan shape): INSERT dbo.V1 (c1) VALUES (1); And now…the execution plan: The Constant Scan manufactures a single row with no columns. The Compute Scalar works out which partition of the view the new value should go in. The Assert checks that the computed partition number is not null (if it is, an error is returned). The Nested Loops Join executes exactly once, with the partition id as an outer reference (correlated parameter). The Switch operator checks the value of the parameter and executes the corresponding input only. If the partition id is 0, the uppermost Clustered Index Insert is executed, adding a row to table T1. If the partition id is 1, the next lower Clustered Index Insert is executed, adding a row to table T2…and so on. In case you were wondering, here’s a query and execution plan for a multi-row insert to the view: INSERT dbo.V1 (c1) VALUES (1), (2); Yuck! An Eager Table Spool and four Filters! I prefer the Switch plan. My guess is that almost all the old strategies that used a Switch operator have been replaced over time, using things like a regular Concatenation Union All combined with Start-Up Filters on its inputs. Other new (relative to the Switch operator) features like table partitioning have specific execution plan support that doesn’t need the Switch operator either. This feels like a bit of a shame, but perhaps it is just nostalgia on my part, it’s hard to know. Please do let me know if you encounter a query that can still use the Switch operator in 2012 – it must be very bored if this is the only possible modern usage! 2. Invisible Plan Operators The second part of this post uses an example based on a question Dave Ballantyne asked using the SQL Sentry Plan Explorer plan upload facility. If you haven’t tried that yet, make sure you’re on the latest version of the (free) Plan Explorer software, and then click the Post to SQLPerformance.com button. That will create a site question with the query plan attached (which can be anonymized if the plan contains sensitive information). Aaron Bertrand and I keep a close eye on questions there, so if you have ever wanted to ask a query plan question of either of us, that’s a good way to do it. The problem The issue I want to talk about revolves around a query issued against a calendar table. The script below creates a simplified version and adds 100 years of per-day information to it: USE tempdb; GO CREATE TABLE dbo.Calendar ( dt date NOT NULL, isWeekday bit NOT NULL, theYear smallint NOT NULL,   CONSTRAINT PK__dbo_Calendar_dt PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (dt) ); GO -- Monday is the first day of the week for me SET DATEFIRST 1;   -- Add 100 years of data INSERT dbo.Calendar WITH (TABLOCKX) (dt, isWeekday, theYear) SELECT CA.dt, isWeekday = CASE WHEN DATEPART(WEEKDAY, CA.dt) IN (6, 7) THEN 0 ELSE 1 END, theYear = YEAR(CA.dt) FROM Sandpit.dbo.Numbers AS N CROSS APPLY ( VALUES (DATEADD(DAY, N.n - 1, CONVERT(date, '01 Jan 2000', 113))) ) AS CA (dt) WHERE N.n BETWEEN 1 AND 36525; The following query counts the number of weekend days in 2013: SELECT Days = COUNT_BIG(*) FROM dbo.Calendar AS C WHERE theYear = 2013 AND isWeekday = 0; It returns the correct result (104) using the following execution plan: The query optimizer has managed to estimate the number of rows returned from the table exactly, based purely on the default statistics created separately on the two columns referenced in the query’s WHERE clause. (Well, almost exactly, the unrounded estimate is 104.289 rows.) There is already an invisible operator in this query plan – a Filter operator used to apply the WHERE clause predicates. We can see it by re-running the query with the enormously useful (but undocumented) trace flag 9130 enabled: Now we can see the full picture. The whole table is scanned, returning all 36,525 rows, before the Filter narrows that down to just the 104 we want. Without the trace flag, the Filter is incorporated in the Clustered Index Scan as a residual predicate. It is a little bit more efficient than using a separate operator, but residual predicates are still something you will want to avoid where possible. The estimates are still spot on though: Anyway, looking to improve the performance of this query, Dave added the following filtered index to the Calendar table: CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX Weekends ON dbo.Calendar(theYear) WHERE isWeekday = 0; The original query now produces a much more efficient plan: Unfortunately, the estimated number of rows produced by the seek is now wrong (365 instead of 104): What’s going on? The estimate was spot on before we added the index! Explanation You might want to grab a coffee for this bit. Using another trace flag or two (8606 and 8612) we can see that the cardinality estimates were exactly right initially: The highlighted information shows the initial cardinality estimates for the base table (36,525 rows), the result of applying the two relational selects in our WHERE clause (104 rows), and after performing the COUNT_BIG(*) group by aggregate (1 row). All of these are correct, but that was before cost-based optimization got involved :) Cost-based optimization When cost-based optimization starts up, the logical tree above is copied into a structure (the ‘memo’) that has one group per logical operation (roughly speaking). The logical read of the base table (LogOp_Get) ends up in group 7; the two predicates (LogOp_Select) end up in group 8 (with the details of the selections in subgroups 0-6). These two groups still have the correct cardinalities as trace flag 8608 output (initial memo contents) shows: During cost-based optimization, a rule called SelToIdxStrategy runs on group 8. It’s job is to match logical selections to indexable expressions (SARGs). It successfully matches the selections (theYear = 2013, is Weekday = 0) to the filtered index, and writes a new alternative into the memo structure. The new alternative is entered into group 8 as option 1 (option 0 was the original LogOp_Select): The new alternative is to do nothing (PhyOp_NOP = no operation), but to instead follow the new logical instructions listed below the NOP. The LogOp_GetIdx (full read of an index) goes into group 21, and the LogOp_SelectIdx (selection on an index) is placed in group 22, operating on the result of group 21. The definition of the comparison ‘the Year = 2013’ (ScaOp_Comp downwards) was already present in the memo starting at group 2, so no new memo groups are created for that. New Cardinality Estimates The new memo groups require two new cardinality estimates to be derived. First, LogOp_Idx (full read of the index) gets a predicted cardinality of 10,436. This number comes from the filtered index statistics: DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS (Calendar, Weekends) WITH STAT_HEADER; The second new cardinality derivation is for the LogOp_SelectIdx applying the predicate (theYear = 2013). To get a number for this, the cardinality estimator uses statistics for the column ‘theYear’, producing an estimate of 365 rows (there are 365 days in 2013!): DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS (Calendar, theYear) WITH HISTOGRAM; This is where the mistake happens. Cardinality estimation should have used the filtered index statistics here, to get an estimate of 104 rows: DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS (Calendar, Weekends) WITH HISTOGRAM; Unfortunately, the logic has lost sight of the link between the read of the filtered index (LogOp_GetIdx) in group 22, and the selection on that index (LogOp_SelectIdx) that it is deriving a cardinality estimate for, in group 21. The correct cardinality estimate (104 rows) is still present in the memo, attached to group 8, but that group now has a PhyOp_NOP implementation. Skipping over the rest of cost-based optimization (in a belated attempt at brevity) we can see the optimizer’s final output using trace flag 8607: This output shows the (incorrect, but understandable) 365 row estimate for the index range operation, and the correct 104 estimate still attached to its PhyOp_NOP. This tree still has to go through a few post-optimizer rewrites and ‘copy out’ from the memo structure into a tree suitable for the execution engine. One step in this process removes PhyOp_NOP, discarding its 104-row cardinality estimate as it does so. To finish this section on a more positive note, consider what happens if we add an OVER clause to the query aggregate. This isn’t intended to be a ‘fix’ of any sort, I just want to show you that the 104 estimate can survive and be used if later cardinality estimation needs it: SELECT Days = COUNT_BIG(*) OVER () FROM dbo.Calendar AS C WHERE theYear = 2013 AND isWeekday = 0; The estimated execution plan is: Note the 365 estimate at the Index Seek, but the 104 lives again at the Segment! We can imagine the lost predicate ‘isWeekday = 0’ as sitting between the seek and the segment in an invisible Filter operator that drops the estimate from 365 to 104. Even though the NOP group is removed after optimization (so we don’t see it in the execution plan) bear in mind that all cost-based choices were made with the 104-row memo group present, so although things look a bit odd, it shouldn’t affect the optimizer’s plan selection. I should also mention that we can work around the estimation issue by including the index’s filtering columns in the index key: CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX Weekends ON dbo.Calendar(theYear, isWeekday) WHERE isWeekday = 0 WITH (DROP_EXISTING = ON); There are some downsides to doing this, including that changes to the isWeekday column may now require Halloween Protection, but that is unlikely to be a big problem for a static calendar table ;)  With the updated index in place, the original query produces an execution plan with the correct cardinality estimation showing at the Index Seek: That’s all for today, remember to let me know about any Switch plans you come across on a modern instance of SQL Server! Finally, here are some other posts of mine that cover other plan operators: Segment and Sequence Project Common Subexpression Spools Why Plan Operators Run Backwards Row Goals and the Top Operator Hash Match Flow Distinct Top N Sort Index Spools and Page Splits Singleton and Range Seeks Bitmaps Hash Join Performance Compute Scalar © 2013 Paul White – All Rights Reserved Twitter: @SQL_Kiwi

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• Now Available: Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate Virtual Machines with Sample Data and Hands-on-L

  - by John Alexander

  From a message from Brian Keller: “Back in December we posted a set of virtual machines pre-configured with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 Beta 2, and 7 hands-on-labs. I am pleased to announce that today we have shipped an updated virtual machine using the Visual Studio 2010 Release Candidate bits, a brand new sample application, and 9 hands-on-labs. This VM is customer-ready and includes everything you need to learn and/or deliver demonstrations of many of my favorite application lifecycle management (ALM) capabilities in Visual Studio 2010. This VM is available in the virtualization platform of your choice (Hyper-V, Virtual PC 2007 SP1, and Windows [7] Virtual PC). Hyper-V is highly recommended because of the performance benefits and snapshotting capabilities. Tailspin Toys The sample application we are using in this virtual machine is a simple ASP.NET MVC 2 storefront called Tailspin Toys. Tailspin Toys sells model airplanes and relies on the application lifecycle management capabilities of Visual Studio 2010 to help them build, test, and maintain their storefront. Major kudos go to Dan Massey for building out this great application for us. Hands-on-Labs / Demo Scripts The 9 hands-on-labs / demo scripts which accompany this virtual machine cover several of the core capabilities of conducting application lifecycle management with Visual Studio 2010. Each document can be used by an individual in a hands-on-lab capacity, to learn how to perform a given set of tasks, or used by a presenter to deliver a demonstration or classroom-style training. Unlike the beta 2 release, 100% of these labs target Tailspin Toys to help ensure a consistent storytelling experience. Software quality: Authoring and Running Manual Tests using Microsoft Test Manager 2010 Introduction to Test Case Management with Microsoft Test Manager 2010 Introduction to Coded UI Tests with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Debugging with IntelliTrace using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Software architecture: Code Discovery using the architecture tools in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Understanding Class Coupling with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Using the Architecture Explore in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate to Analyze Your Code Software Configuration Management: Planning your Projects with Team Foundation Server 2010 Branching and Merging Visualization with Team Foundation Server 2010 “ Check out Brian’s Post for more info including download instructions…

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• It's an Oracle Linux Wrap: Oracle Openworld 2012

  - by Zeynep Koch

  Are you still recovering from an amazing Oracle OpenWorld experience? 50,000 attendees had access to thousands of sessions, demos, hands-on-labs, networking opportunities, music concerts, and loads of fun. For the Oracle Linux team, this was a week full of many insightful sessions and customer interactions. In case you were unable to attend Oracle OpenWorld or missed some of content presented, here's a compilation of key session presentations, keynotes, and videos.Go to the Oracle OpenWorld content catalog and access all the session presentations. Oracle Openworld Keynote by Edward Screven Oracle's commitment to Open Source by Edward Screven Oracle Linux Interview with Wim Coekaerts Making the most of mainline kernel by Wim Coekaerts Why DTrace and Ksplice have made Oracle Linux 6 popular by W.Coekaerts How partnership between Oracle Linux and Oracle Partners benefits Sysadmins by Michele Resta Hugepages=Huge Performance on Oracle Linux by Greg Marsden Benefits of Kpslice in your Linux Environment by Tim Hill Oracle Linux, Ksplice and MySQL by Lenz Grimmer We also hosted a successful Oracle Linux Pavilion with 11 of our key partners - Beyond Trust, Centrify, Data Intensity, Fujitsu, HP, LSI, Mellanox, Micro Focus, NetApp, QLogic and Teleran showcased their solutions for Oracle Linux and Oracle VM. Here are some videos from the Oracle Linux Pavilion. Centrify covers Oracle Linux solution they offer at Oracle Linux PavilionMellanox talk about their solution at Oracle Linux Pavilion Eric Pan covers Micro Focus products at Oracle Linux Pavilion There's also collection of the keynotes and executive sessions as on-demand videos posted  here . We hope you find this information useful and look forward to seeing at Oracle OpenWorld 2013! ORACLE LINUX TEAM

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• Java Spotlight Episode 86: Tony Printezis on Garbage Collection First

  - by Roger Brinkley

  Interview with Tony Printezis on Garbage Collection First (GC1). Joining us this week on the Java All Star Developer Panel is Arun Gupta, Java EE Guy. Right-click or Control-click to download this MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the Java Spotlight Podcast Feed to get the latest podcast automatically. If you use iTunes you can open iTunes and subscribe with this link:  Java Spotlight Podcast in iTunes. Show Notes News JSR 358: A major revison of the Java Community Process - JCP 3.Next JAX-RS 2.0 Early Draft- Third Edition Events June 11-14, Cloud Computing Expo, New York City June 12, Boulder JUG June 13, Denver JUG June 13, Eclipse Juno DemoCamp, Redwoood Shore June 13, JUG Münster June 14, Java Klassentreffen, Vienna, Austria June 18-20, QCon, New York City June 19, CJUG, Chicago June 20, 1871, Chicago June 26-28, Jazoon, Zurich, Switzerland Jun 27, Houston JUG ?? July 5, Java Forum, Stuttgart, Germany Jul 13-14, IndicThreads, Delhi July 30-August 1, JVM Language Summit, Santa Clara Feature InterviewTony Printezis is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Oracle, based in Burlington, MA. He has been contributing to the Java HotSpot Virtual Machine since 2006. He spends most of his time working on dynamic memory management for the Java platform, concentrating on performance, scalability, responsiveness, parallelism, and visualization of garbage collectors. He obtained a Ph.D. in 2000 and a BSc (Hons) in 1995, both from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. In addition, he is a JavaOne Rock Star, a title awarded for his highly rated JavaOne session on GC. Mail Bag What’s Cool JavaOne content selection is complete. Notifications done.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 25, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, February 25, 2011Popular ReleasesMono.Addins: Mono.Addins 0.6: The 0.6 release of Mono.Addins includes many improvements, bug fixes and new features: Add-in engine Add-in name and description can now be localized. There are new custom attributes for defining them, and can also be specified as xml elements in an add-in manifest instead of attributes. Support for custom add-in properties. It is now possible to specify arbitrary properties in add-ins, which can be queried at install time (using the Mono.Addins.Setup API) or at run-time. Custom extensio...patterns & practices: Project Silk: Project Silk Community Drop 3 - 25 Feb 2011: IntroductionWelcome to the third community drop of Project Silk. For this drop we are requesting feedback on overall application architecture, code review of the JavaScript Conductor and Widgets, and general direction of the application. Project Silk provides guidance and sample implementations that describe and illustrate recommended practices for building modern web applications using technologies such as HTML5, jQuery, CSS3 and Internet Explorer 9. This guidance is intended for experien...PhoneyTools: Initial Release (0.1): This is the 0.1 version for preview of the features.Minemapper: Minemapper v0.1.5: Now supports new Minecraft beta v1.3 map format, thanks to updated mcmap. Disabled biomes, until Minecraft Biome Extractor supports new format.Smartkernel: Smartkernel: ????，??????Document.Editor: 2011.7: Whats new for Document.Editor 2011.7: New Find dialog Improved Email dialog Improved Home tab Improved Format tab Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsChiave File Encryption: Chiave 0.9.1: Application for file encryption and decryption using 512 Bit rijndael encyrption algorithm with simple to use UI. Its written in C# and compiled in .Net version 3.5. It incorporates features of Windows 7 like Jumplists, Taskbar progress and Aero Glass. Change Log from 0.9 Beta to 0.9.1: ======================= >Added option for system shutdown, sleep, hibernate after operation completed. >Minor Changes to the UI. >Numerous Bug fixes. Feedbacks are Welcome!....Coding4Fun Tools: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1.2: New control, Toast Prompt! Removed progress bar since Silverlight Toolkit Feb 2010 has it.Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.7: Service release fixing 31 issues. A full changelog will be available with the final stable release of 4.7 Important when upgradingUpgrade as if it was a patch release (update /bin, /umbraco and /umbraco_client). For general upgrade information follow the guide found at http://our.umbraco.org/wiki/install-and-setup/upgrading-an-umbraco-installation 4.7 requires the .NET 4.0 framework Web.Config changes Update the web web.config to include the 4 changes found in (they're clearly marked in...HubbleDotNet - Open source full-text search engine: V1.1.0.0: Add Sqlite3 DBAdapter Add App Report when Query Cache is Collecting. Improve the performance of index through Synchronize. Add top 0 feature so that we can only get count of the result. Improve the score calculating algorithm of match. Let the score of the record that match all items large then others. Add MySql DBAdapter Improve performance for multi-fields sort . Using hash table to access the Payload data. The version before used bin search. Using heap sort instead of qui...Silverlight????[???]: silverlight????[???]2.0: ???????，?????，????????silverlight??????。DBSourceTools: DBSourceTools_1.3.0.0: Release 1.3.0.0 Changed editors from FireEdit to ICSharpCode.TextEditor. Complete re-vamp of Intellisense ( further testing needed). Hightlight Field and Table Names in sql scripts. Added field dropdown on all tables and views in DBExplorer. Added data option for viewing data in Tables. Fixed comment / uncomment bug as reported by tareq. Included Synonyms in scripting engine ( nickt_ch ).IronPython: 2.7 Release Candidate 1: We are pleased to announce the first Release Candidate for IronPython 2.7. This release contains over two dozen bugs fixed in preparation for 2.7 Final. See the release notes for 60193 for details and what has already been fixed in the earlier 2.7 prereleases. - IronPython TeamCaliburn Micro: A Micro-Framework for WPF, Silverlight and WP7: Caliburn.Micro 1.0 RC: This is the official Release Candicate for Caliburn.Micro 1.0. The download contains the binaries, samples and VS templates. VS Templates The templates included are designed for situations where the Caliburn.Micro source needs to be embedded within a single project solution. This was targeted at government and other organizations that expressed specific requirements around using an open source project like this. NuGet This release does not have a corresponding NuGet package. The NuGet pack...Caliburn: A Client Framework for WPF and Silverlight: Caliburn 2.0 RC: This is the official Release Candidate for Caliburn 2.0. It contains all binaries, samples and generated code docs.Rawr: Rawr 4.0.20 Beta: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Beta Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a pre-alpha release of the WPF version, there are likely to be a lot of issues. If you have a problem, please follow the Posting Guidelines and put it into the Issue Trac...Azure Storage Samples: Version 1.0 (February 2011): These downloads contain source code. Each is a complete sample that fully exercises Windows Azure Storage across blobs, queues, and tables. The difference between the downloads is implementation approach. Storage DotNet CS.zip is a .NET StorageClient library implementation in the C# language. This library come with the Windows Azure SDK. Contains helper classes for accessing blobs, queues, and tables. Storage REST CS.zip is a REST implementation in the C# language. The code to implement R...PowerGUI Visual Studio Extension: PowerGUI VSX 1.3.2: New FeaturesPowerGUI Console Tool Window PowerShell Project Type PowerGUI 2.4 SupportMiniTwitter: 1.66: MiniTwitter 1.66 ???? ?? ?????????? 2 ??????????????????? User Streams ?????????Windows Phone 7 Isolated Storage Explorer: WP7 Isolated Storage Explorer v1.0 Beta: Current release features:WPF desktop explorer client Visual Studio integrated tool window explorer client (Visual Studio 2010 Professional and above) Supported operations: Refresh (isolated storage information), Add Folder, Add Existing Item, Download File, Delete Folder, Delete File Explorer supports operations running on multiple remote applications at the same time Explorer detects application disconnect (1-2 second delay) Explorer confirms operation completed status Explorer d...New ProjectsAgriscope: This is an open information visualization tool used to assist RADA and other Agriculture officers in retrieving and analyzing data in day to day tasks.AVCampos NF-e: Realizar a emissão e controle de nf-e, através de ambientes moveis.Babel Obfuscator NAnt Tasks: This is an NAnt task for Babel Obfuscator. Babel Obfuscator protect software components realized with Microsoft .NET Framework in order to make reverse engineering difficult. Babel Obfuscator can be downloaded at http://www.babelfor.netConcurrent Programming Library: Concurrent Programming Library provides an opportunity to develop a parallel programs using .net framework 2.0 and above. It includes an implementation of various parallel algorithms, thread-safe collections and patterns.EOrg: Gelistirme maksatli yaptigim çalismalar.Extend Grid View: Extend grid view is user control. It help paging a dataset is set on gridview.FinlogiK ReSharper Contrib: FinlogiK ReSharper Contrib is a plugin for ReSharper 5.1 which adds code cleanup and inspection options for static qualifiers.Game development with Playstation Move and Ogre3D: This project is a research aiming to develop a program which can handle the Playstation Move on PC. After that, we will implement a game based on it. The programming language is C++. The graphics is handled by Ogre3D.JAD: Projeto de software.JSARP: This tool allows describing and verifying Petri Nets with the support of a graphical interface. This tool, is being developed in Java.KangmoDB - A replacement for the storage engine of SQLite: KangmoDB claims to be a real-time storage engine that replaces the one in SQLite. KangmoDB tries to achieve the lowest latency time for a transaction with ACID properties. It will be mainly used for the stock market that requires lowest latency with highest stability. MetaprogrammingInDotNetBook: This project will contain code and other artifacts related to the "Metaprogramming in .NET" book that should be avaible in October 2011.munix workstation: The µnix project is an endeavour to create a complete workstation and UNIX-like OS using standard logic IC's and 8-bit AVR microcontrollers. The goal isn't to make something that will compete with a traditional workstation in computation but instead to have a great DIY project.PhoneyTools: Set of controls and utilities for WP7 development.Plist Builder: Serialize non-circular-referencing .NET objects to plist in .NET.Quake3.NET: A port of the Quake 3 engine to C#. This is not merely a port of Quake 3 to run in a managed environment, but a complete rewrite of the engine using C# 4.0's powerful language features.SecViz: Web server security attack graph alert correlation IDS SerialNome: This is a multiport serial applicationsprout sms: a wp7 cabbage clientUsing external assembly in Biztalk 2009 map: Using external assembly in Biztalk 2009 map.

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• MVVM Light V3 released at #MIX10

  - by Laurent Bugnion

  During my session “Understanding the MVVM pattern” at MIX10 in Vegas, I showed some components of the MVVM Light toolkit V3, which gave me the occasion to announce the release of version 3. This version has been in alpha stage for a while, and has been tested by many users. it is very stable, and ready for a release. So here we go! What’s new What’s new in MVVM Light Toolkit V3 is the topic of the next post. Cleaning up I would recommend cleaning up older versions before installing V3. I prepared a page explaining how to do that manually. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to create an automatic cleaner/installer, this is very high on my list but with the book and the conferences going on, it will take a little more time. Cleaning up is recommended because I changed the name of some DLLs to avoid some confusion (between the WPF3.5 and WPF4 version, as well as between the SL3 and SL4 versions). More details in the section titled “Compatibility”. Installation Installing MVVM Light toolkit is the manual process of unzipping a few files. The installation page has been updated to reflect the newest information. Compatibility MVVM Light toolkit V3 has components for the following environments and frameworks: Visual Studio 2008: Silverlight 3 Windows Presentation Foundation 3.5 SP1 Expression Blend 3 Silverlight 3 Windows Presentation Foundation 3.5 SP1 Visual Studio 2010 RC Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 Windows Presentation Foundation 3.5 SP1 Windows Presentation Foundation 4 Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 series Expression Blend 4 beta Silverlight 3 Silverlight 4 Windows Presentation Foundation 3.5 SP1 Windows Presentation Foundation 4 Feedback As usual I welcome your constructive feedback. If you want the issue to be discussed in public, the best way is through the discussion page on the Codeplex site. if you wish to keep the conversation private, please check my Contact page for ways to talk to me. Video, tutorials There are a few new videos and tutorials available for the MVVM Light toolkit. The material is listed on the Get Started page, under “tutorials”.   Laurent Bugnion (GalaSoft) Subscribe | Twitter | Facebook | Flickr | LinkedIn

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• Remastered King’s Quest Games Offer Classic Gaming on Modern Machines

  - by ETC

  If you were a fan of the King’s Quest series of adventure games from the 1980s and 1990s, you’ll be thrilled to see them remastered with enhanced graphics, polished voice acting, and more. Gaming studio AGD Interactive has been engaged in a multi-year project to remaster and freely release the classic King’s Quest games. They started with King’s Quest I in 2001, moved on to King’s Quest II, and just recently released King’s Quest III (see in the screenshot above). The gameplay for all three games is excellent and really captures the feel of the original games (with better graphics, quality voice acting, and adjustments made for modern computers). When you run the game you first get a small pre-launch console. There you can make adjusts to the game before launching it. We’d recommend you enable the pixel doubling filter. It make the game a little blockier (hey you are playing a 1980s remake!) but it fills up high resolution monitors more effectively. Hit up the link below to download King’s Quest Redux I-III free of charge for both Windows and Mac computers. King’s Quest Redux [AGD Interactive via @cbeust] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC 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? How To Make Hundreds of Complex Photo Edits in Seconds With Photoshop Actions How to Enable User-Specific Wireless Networks in Windows 7 How to Use Google Chrome as Your Default PDF Reader (the Easy Way) Manage Your Favorite Social Accounts in Chrome and Iron with Seesmic E.T. II – Extinction [Fake Movie Sequel Video] Remastered King’s Quest Games Offer Classic Gaming on Modern Machines Compare Your Internet Cost and Speed to Global Averages [Infographic] Orbital Battle for Terra Wallpaper WizMouse Enables Mouse Over Scrolling on Any Window

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• SQL SERVER – Copy Statistics from One Server to Another Server

  - by pinaldave

  I was recently working on a performance tuning project in Dubai (yeah I was able to see the tallest tower from the window of my work place). I had a very interesting learning experience there. There was a situation where we wanted to receive the schema of original database from a certain client. However, the client was not able to provide us any data due to privacy issues. The schema was very important because without having an access to underlying data, it was a bit difficult to judge the queries etc. For example, without any primary data, all the queries are running in 0 (zero) milliseconds and all were using nested loop as there were no data to be returned. Even though we had CPU offending queries, they were not doing anything without the data in the tables. This was really a challenge as I did not have access to production server data and I could not recreate the scenarios as production without data. Well, I was confused but Ruben from Solid Quality Mentors, Spain taught me new tricks. He suggested that when table schema is generated, we can create the statistics consequently. Here is how we had done that: Once statistics is created along with the schema, without data in the table, all the queries will work as how they will work on production server. This way, without access to the data, we were able to recreate the same scenario as production server on development server. When observed at the script, you will find that the statistics were also generated along with the query. You will find statistics included in WITH STATS_STREAM clause. What a very simple and effective script. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Statistics, Statistics

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• Google CDN or Akamai

  - by AlienWebguy

  We combine and minify our JS with Minify - the combined JS is then cached on Akamai. I'm suggesting to my supervisor that we put JQuery and JQueryUI on Google CDN and take it out of our combined JS. The benefits I see are parallel downloads, significantly smaller Akamai cache hit, and the high potential the user will have JQuery from Google CDN cached in his/her browser when he/she visits our site so no download will be required at all. I also pointed out how pointing to the major version CDN URL //ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js will eliminate the need for us to micro-manage our JQuery version control, and that if a new release introduces a bug, we simply point the CDN URL to a stable minor version of our choice until the issue is resolved. My supervisor disagrees and thinks keeping it on Akamai is the way to go. Any insight as to which is going to be faster here? I looked for some benchmarks and references online but they are either out-dated or merely talk about Google wanting to acquire Akamai. EDIT: Some further research has pointed me to an article mentioning how 'latest version' CDN URL's use short expires headers so it might be more optimal to use /jquery/1.7/. I'm fine with this - the general question still remains.

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• The battery indicator& Power setting panel shows wrong battery state

  - by Eastsun

  My laptop is Thinkpad E420 with Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit installed, the kernel version is 3.2.0-33-generic. I have set the battery threshold as 60% via windows7. It seems that the threshold auto effected in Ubuntu. However, there are some problems of the battery indicator's state. I'll list some information of the battery state as following: (Note that in terminal ubuntu says that battery charging state is charged, while the power setting panel shows that the battery state is charging as well as the battery indicator shows.) $ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state present: yes capacity state: ok *charging state: charged* present rate: 0 mW remaining capacity: 18200 mWh present voltage: 16103 mV battery indicator state Power Setting Panel Is there any way to fix the problem? Edit Add some result via *sudo fwts battery - battery.log * 3 passed, 4 failed, 0 warnings, 0 aborted, 0 skipped, 0 info only. Test Failure Summary =============================== Critical failures: NONE High failures: 2 battery: Did not detect any ACPI battery events. battery: Could not detect ACPI events for battery BAT0. Medium failures: 1 battery: Battery BAT0 claims it's charging but no charge is added Low failures: 1 battery: System firmware may not support cycle count interface or it reports it incorrectly for battery BAT0. Other failures: NONE Test |Pass |Fail |Abort|Warn |Skip |Info | ---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ battery | 3| 4| | | | | ---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Total: | 3| 4| 0| 0| 0| 0| ---------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ Any help would be appreciated!

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• Using Microsoft benefits to kickstart your own development

  - by douglasscott

  Working for a big company I enjoy all the Microsoft tools I can consume. I also have the infrastructure to support my development and team communication.I recently helped form a small consulting team that requires the same type of resources. That is when the realization of the true cost of Microsoft's professional development tools really hit me.Okay, I'll just bite the bullet and get what I'm used to working with to do high quality development projects.  After just a few minutes of looking at street prices and doing some quick math I began to have a realization...doing this right isn't cheap!Luckily there is help.  If you are willing to get your ducks in a row and do a little documentation  Microsoft will give you some developer manna. I went to the Bizspark site and completed the application which describes your company profile and services offer.  The approval process took about a week.  Voila, A Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN Subscription!As a start-up Office 365 can be a great solution for all your team communications.  I also enrolled in the Microsoft Cloud Essentials program as part of a business track.  Once you meet the Cloud Essentials requirements you will receive 250 Office 365 licenses! This includes Office and hosted Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint.Take advantage of what Microsoft has to offer for your start-up.  It just may surprise you and save you a lot of your start-up budget.

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• Full-text indexing? You must read this

  - by Kyle Hatlestad

  For those of you who may have missed it, Peter Flies, Principal Technical Support Engineer for WebCenter Content, gave an excellent webcast on database searching and indexing in WebCenter Content.  It's available for replay along with a download of the slidedeck.  Look for the one titled 'WebCenter Content: Database Searching and Indexing'. One of the items he led with...and concluded with...was a recommendation on optimizing your search collection if you are using full-text searching with the Oracle database.  This can greatly improve your search performance.  And this would apply to both Oracle Text Search and DATABASE.FULLTEXT search methods.  Peter describes how a collection can become fragmented over time as content is added, updated, and deleted.  Just like you should defragment your hard drive from time to time to get your files placed on the disk in the most optimal way, you should do the same for the search collection. And optimizing the collection is just a simple procedure call that can be scheduled to be run automatically.   [Read more] 

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• ArchBeat Top 20 for March 11-17, 2012

  - by Bob Rhubart

  The 20 most-clicked links as shared via my social networks for the week of March 11-17, 2012. Start Small, Grow Fast: SOA Best Practices article by @biemond, @rluttikhuizen, @demed Packt Publishing offers discounts of up to 30% on 60+ Oracle titles IT Strategies from Oracle; Three Recipes for Oracle Service Bus 11g ; Stir Up Some SOA Oracle Cloud Conference: dates and locations worldwide Applications Architecture | Roy Hunter and Brian Rasmussen How Strategic is IT? - Assessing Strategic Value | Al Kiessel White Paper: An Architect’s Guide to Big Data | Dr. Helen Sun, Peter Heller Getting Started with Oracle Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2 | Lenz Grimmer Great Solaris 10 features paving the way to Solaris 11 | Karoly Vegh Who the Linux Developer Met on His Way to St. Ives | Rick Ramsey Peripheral Responsibilities Required for Large IDM Build Outs (Including Fusion Apps) | Brian Eidelman IOUG Real World Performance Tour, w/Tom Kyte, Andrew Holdsworth, Graham Wood Configure IPoIB on Solaris 10 branded zone | Leo Yuen Oracle OpenWorld 2012 Call for Papers Use Case Assumptions versus Pre-Conditions | Dave Burke Handling Custom XML documents in Oracle B2B | @Biemond Building a Coherence Cluster with Multiple Application Servers | Rene van Wijk XMLA vs BAPI | Sunil S. Ranka The Java EE 6 Example - Running Galleria on WebLogic 12 - Part 3 | @MyFear Public Sector Architecture | @jeremy_forman, @hamzajahangir Thought for the Day "The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it." —Anonymous

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• How to Monitor the Bandwidth Consumption of Individual Applications

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Yesterday we showed you how to monitor and track your total bandwidth usage, today we’re back to show you how to keep tabs on individual applications and how much bandwidth they’re gobbling up. We’ve received several reader requests, both by email and in the aforementioned post about bandwidth tracking, for a good way to track the data consumption of individual applications. How-To Geek reader Oaken noted that he used NetWorx to track his total bandwidth usage but another application, NetBalancer, to keep tabs on individual applications. We took NetBalancer for a spin and it’s a great solution for monitoring bandwidth at the application level. Let’s take it for a spin and start monitoring our applications. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How To Remove People and Objects From Photographs In Photoshop Ask How-To Geek: How Can I Monitor My Bandwidth Usage? Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The Legend of Zelda – 1980s High School Style [Video] Suspended Sentence is a Free Cross-Platform Point and Click Game Build a Batman-Style Hidden Bust Switch Make Your Clock Creates a Custom Clock for your Android Homescreen Download the Anime Angels Theme for Windows 7 CyanogenMod Updates; Rolls out Android 2.3 to the Less Fortunate

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• SSIS Prehistory video

  - by jamiet

  I’m currently wasting spending my Easter bank holiday putting together my presentation SSIS Dataflow Performance Tuning for the upcoming SQL Bits conference in London and in doing so I’m researching some old material about how the dataflow actually works. Boring as it is I’ve gotten easily sidelined and have chanced upon an old video on Channel 9 entitled Euan Garden - Tour of SQL Server Team (part I). Euan is a former member of the SQL Server team and in this series of videos he walks the halls of the SQL Server building on Microsoft’s Redmond campus talking to some of the various protagonists and in this one he happens upon the SQL Server Integration Services team. The video was shot in 2004 so this is a fascinating (to me anyway) glimpse into the development of SSIS from before it was ever shipped and if you’re a geek like me you’ll really enjoy this behind-the-scenes look into how and why the product was architected. The video is also notable for the presence of the cameraman – none other than the now-rather-more-famous-than-he-was-then Robert Scoble. See it at http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/TheChannel9Team/Euan-Garden-Tour-of-SQL-Server-Team-part-I/ Enjoy! @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Introducing Oracle VM VirtualBox

  - by Fat Bloke

  I guess these things always take longer than expected and, while the dust is still not completely settled in all the ex-Sun geographies, it is high time we started looking at some of the great new assets in the Oracle VM portfolio. So let's start with one of the most exciting: Oracle VM VirtualBox. VirtualBox is cross-platform virtualization software, oftentimes called a hypervisor, and it runs on Windows, Linux, Solaris and the Mac. Which means that you download it, you install it on your existing platform, and start creating and running virtual machines alongside your existing applications. For example, on my Mac I can run Oracle Enterprise Linux and Windows 7 alongside my Mac apps like this...(Click to zoom)VirtualBox use has grown phenomenally to the point that at Sun it was the 3rd most popular download behind Java and MySQL. Its success can be attributed to the fact that it doesn't need dedicated hardware, it can be installed on either client or server classes of computers, is very easy to use and is free for personal use. And, as you might expect, VirtualBox has it's own vibrant community too, over at www.virtualbox.org There are hundreds of tutorials out there about how to use VirtualBox to create vm's and install different operating systems ranging from Windows 7 to ChromeOS, and if you don't want to install an operating system yourself, you can download pre-built virtual appliances from community sites such as VirtualBox Images or commercial companies selling subscriptions to whole application stacks, such as JumpBox . In no time you'll be creating and sharing your own vm's using the VirtualBox OVF export and import function. VirtualBox is deceptively powerful. Under the simple GUI lies a formidable engine capable of running heavyweight multi-CPU virtual workloads, exhibiting Enterprise capabilities including a built-in remote display server, an iSCSI initiator for connecting to shared storage, and the ability to teleport running vm's from one host to another. And for solution builders, you should be aware that VirtualBox has a scriptable command line interface and an SDK and rich web service APIs. To get a further feel for what VirtualBox is capable of, check out some of these short movies or simply go download it for yourself.- FB

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• SQL SERVER – New SQL Server 2012 Functions – Webinar by Rick Morelan

  - by Pinal Dave

  My friend Rick Morelan is a wonderful speaker and listening to him is very delightful. Rick is one of the speakers who can articulate a very complex subject in very simple words. Rick has attained over 30 Microsoft certifications in applications, networking, databases and .NET development, including MCDBA, MCTS, MCITP, MCAD, MOE, MCSE and MCSE+. Here is the chance for every one who has not listened Rick Morelan before as he is presenting an online webinar on New SQL Server 2012 Functions. Whether or not you’re a database developer or administrator, you love the power of SQL functions. The functions in SQL Server give you the power to accelerate your applications and database performance. Each version of SQL Server adds new functionality, so come and see Rick Morelan explain what’s new in SQL Server 2012! This webinar will focus on the new string, time and logical functions added to SQL Server 2012. Register for the webinar now to learn: SQL Server 2012 function basics String, time and logical function details Tools to accelerate the SQL coding process Tuesday June 11, 2013  7:00 AM PDT / 10:00 AM EDT 11:00 AM PDT / 2:00 PM EDT Secret Hint: Here is something I would like to tell everyone that there is a quiz coming up on SQLAuthority.com and those who will attend the webinar will find it very easy to resolve it. Register for webinar Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Taskbar Meters Turn Your Taskbar into a System Resource Monitor

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  If you’re looking for some simple hardware monitoring tools that don’t clutter up your screen real estate but are right in front of you when you need them, Taskbar Meters sit unobtrusively right on the Windows taskbar. Open source, lightweight, and portable Taskbar Meters is actually a set of three applications. There is one for monitoring memory use, one for CPU use, and one for disk activity. Using the application is as simple as running the specific app for the monitoring you want (we have all three running in the screenshot here) and adjusting the sliders to set the update frequency and the percent utilization at which the meters turn from green, to yellow, to red. If you’re testing software loads and benchmarking Taskbar Meters doesn’t offer the kind of fine-tooth-comb view into system performance that you’ll need but for casual “What’s going on with my machine?” monitoring, it’s unobtrusive and effective. Taskbar Meters is an open source set of portable applications, Windows 7 only. Taskbar Meters [Codeplex] Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Macs Don’t Make You Creative! So Why Do Artists Really Love Apple? MacX DVD Ripper Pro is Free for How-To Geek Readers (Time Limited!) HTG Explains: What’s a Solid State Drive and What Do I Need to Know? 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? Lakeside Sunset in the Mountains [Wallpaper] Taskbar Meters Turn Your Taskbar into a System Resource Monitor Create Shortcuts for Your Favorite or Most Used Folders in Ubuntu Create Custom Sized Thumbnail Images with Simple Image Resizer [Cross-Platform] Etch a Circuit Board using a Simple Homemade Mixture Sync Blocker Stops iTunes from Automatically Syncing

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• Looking Back at MIX10

  - by WeigeltRo

  It’s the sad truth of my life that even though I’m fascinated by airplanes and flight in general since my childhood days, my body doesn’t like flying. Even the ridiculously short flights inside Germany are taking their toll on me each time. Now combine this with sitting in the cramped space of economy class for many hours on a transatlantic flight from Germany to Las Vegas and back, and factor in some heavy dose of jet lag (especially on my way eastwards), and you get an idea why after coming back home I had this question on my mind: Was it really worth it to attend MIX10? This of course is a question that will also be asked by my boss at Comma Soft (for other reasons, obviously), who decided to send me and my colleague Jens Schaller, to the MIX10 conference. (A note to my German readers: An dieser Stelle der Hinweis, dass Comma Soft noch Silverlight-Entwickler und/oder UI-Designer für den Standort Bonn sucht – aussagekräftige Bewerbungen bitte an [email protected]) Too keep things short: My answer is yes. Before I’ll go into detail, let me ask the heretical questions whether tech conferences in general still make sense. There was a time, where actually being at a tech conference gave you a head-start in regard to learning about new technologies. Nowadays this is no longer true, where every bit of information and every detail is immediately twittered, blogged and whatevered to death. In the case of MIX10 you even can download the video-taped sessions shortly after. So: Does visiting a conference still make sense? It depends on what you expect from a conference. It should be clear to everybody that you’ll neither get exclusive information, nor receive training in a small group. What a conference does offer that sitting in front of your computer does not can be summarized as follows: Focus Being away from work and home will help you to focus on the presented information. Of course there are always the poor guys who are haunted by their work (with mails and short text messages reporting the latest showstopper problem), but in general being out of your office makes a huge difference. Inspiration With the focus comes the emotional involvement. I find it much easier to absorb information if I feel that certain vibe when sitting in a session. This still means that I have put work into reviewing the information later, but it’s a better starting point. And all the impressions collected at a (good) conference combined lead to a higher motivation – be it by the buzz (“this is gonna be sooo cool!”) or by the fear to fall behind (“man, we’ll have work on this, or else…”). People At a conference it’s pretty easy to get into contact with other people during breakfast, lunch and other breaks. This is a good opportunity to get a feel for what other development teams are doing (on a very general level of course, nobody will tell you about their secret formula) and what they are thinking about specific technologies. So MIX10 did offer focus, inspiration and people, but that would have meant nothing without valuable content. When I (being a frontend developer with a strong interest in UI/UX) planned my visit to MIX10, I made the decision to focus on the "soft" topics of design, interaction and user experience. I figured that I would be bombarded with all the technical details about Silverlight 4 anyway in the weeks and months to come. Actually, I would have liked to catch a few technical sessions, but the agenda wasn’t exactly in favor of people interested in any kind of Silverlight and UI/UX/Design topics. That’s one of my few complaints about the conference – I would have liked one more day and/or more sessions per day. Overall, the quality of the workshops and sessions was pretty high. In fact, looking back at my collection of conferences I’ve visited in the past I’d say that MIX10 ranks somewhere near the top spot. Here’s an overview of the workshops/sessions I attended (I’ll leave out the keynotes): Day 0 (Workshops on Sunday) Design Fundamentals for Developers Robby Ingebretsen is the man! Great workshop in three parts with the perfect mix of examples, well-structured definition of terminology and the right dose of humor. Robby was part of the WPF team before founding his own company so he not only has a strong interest in design (and the skillz!) but also the technical background.   Design Tools and Techniques Originally announced to be held by Arturo Toledo, the Rosso brothers from ArcheType filled in for the first two parts, and Corrina Black had a pretty general part about the Windows Phone UI. The first two thirds were a mixed bag; the two guys definitely knew what they were talking about, and the demos were great, but the talk lacked the preparation and polish of a truly great presentation. Corrina was not allowed to go into too much detail before the keynote on Monday, but the session was still very interesting as it showed how much thought went into the Windows Phone UI (and there’s always a lot to learn when people talk about their thought process). Day 1 (Monday) Designing Rich Experiences for Data-Centric Applications I wonder whether there was ever a test-run for this session, but what Ken Azuma and Yoshihiro Saito delivered in the first 15 minutes of a 30-minutes-session made me walk out. A commercial for a product (just great: a video showing a SharePoint plug-in in an all-Japanese UI) combined with the most generic blah blah one could imagine. EPIC FAIL.   Great User Experiences: Seamlessly Blending Technology & Design I switched to this session from the one above but I guess I missed the interesting part – what I did catch was what looked like a “look at the cool stuff we did” without being helpful. Or maybe I was just in a bad mood after the other session.   The Art, Technology and Science of Reading This talk by Kevin Larson was very interesting, but was more a presentation of what Microsoft is doing in research (pretty impressive) and in the end lacked a bit the helpful advice one could have hoped for.   10 Ways to Attack a Design Problem and Come Out Winning Robby Ingebretsen again, and again a great mix of theory and practice. The clean and simple, yet effective, UI of the reader app resulted in a simultaneous “wow” of Jens and me. If you’d watch only one session video, this should be it. Microsoft has to bring Robby back next year! Day 2 (Tuesday) Touch in Public: Multi-touch Interaction Design for Kiosks & Architectural Experiences Very interesting session by Jason Brush, a great inspiration with many details to look out for in the examples. Exactly what I was hoping for – and then some!   Designing Bing: Heart and Science How hard can it be to design the UI for a search engine? An input field and a list of results, that should be it, right? Well, not so fast! The talk by Paul Ray showed the many iterations to finally get it right (up to the choice of a specific blue for the links). And yes, I want an eye-tracking device to play around with!   The Elephant in the Room When Nishant Kothary presented a long list of what his session was not about, I told to myself (not having the description text present) “Am I in the wrong talk? Should I leave?”. Boy, was I wrong. A great talk about human factors in the process of designing stuff.   An Hour with Bill Buxton Having seen Bill Buxton’s presentation in the keynote, I just had to see this man again – even though I didn’t know what to expect. Being more or less unplanned and intended to be more of a conversation, the session didn’t provide a wealth of immediately useful information. Nevertheless Bill Buxton was impressive with his huge knowledge of seemingly everything. But this could/should have been a session some when in the evening and not in parallel to at least two other interesting talks. Day 3 (Wednesday) Design the Ordinary, Like the Fixie This session by DL Byron and Kevin Tamura started really well and brought across the message to keep things simple. But towards the end the talk lost some of its steam. And, as a member of the audience pointed out, they kind of ignored their own advice when they used a fancy presentation software other then PowerPoint that sometimes got in the way of showing things.   Developing Natural User Interfaces Speaking of alternative presentation software, Joshua Blake definitely had the most remarkable alternative to PowerPoint, a self-written program called NaturalShow that was controlled using multi-touch on a touch screen. Not a PowerPoint-killer, but impressive nevertheless. The (excellent) talk itself was kind of eye-opening in regard to what “multi-touch support” on various platforms (WPF, Silverlight, Windows Phone) actually means.   Treat your Content Right The talk by Tiffani Jones Brown wasn’t even on my planned schedule, but somehow I ended up in that session – and it was great. And even for people who don’t necessarily have to write content for websites, some points made by Tiffani are valid in many places, notably wherever you put texts with more than a single word into your UI. Creating Effective Info Viz in Microsoft Silverlight The last session of MIX10 I attended was kind of disappointing. At first things were very promising, with Matthias Shapiro giving a brief but well-structured introduction to info graphics and interactive visualizations. Then the live-coding began and while the result was interesting, too much time was spend on wrestling to get the code working. Ending earlier than planned, the talk was a bit light on actual content, but at least it included a nice list of resources. Conclusion It could be felt all across MIX10, UIs will take a huge leap forward; in fact, there are enough examples that have already. People who both have the technical know-how and at least a basic understanding of design (“literacy” as Bill Buxton called it) are in high demand. The concept of the MIX conference and initiatives like design.toolbox shows that Microsoft understands very well that frontend developers have to acquire new knowledge besides knowing how to hack code and putting buttons on a form. There are extremely exciting times before us, with lots of opportunity for those who are eager to develop their skills, that is for sure.

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• How can I transfer files to a Kindle Fire with a Micro-USB cable?

  - by Jeff

  I'm running Ubuntu 11.10, and when I connect my Kindle Fire to my computer via micro usb, it is not recognized automatically. Other usb devices, such as my ipod and digital camera, are recognized just fine. It does not appear to be a usb power issue, since the Kindle Fire wakes up from sleeping when it is plugged in. I never get the message on the Kindle telling me it is ready to accept files from the computer, though. Here are the last 15 lines of dmesg after plugging the kindle in: jeff@prime:~$ dmesg | tail -n 15 [45918.269671] ieee80211 phy0: wl_ops_bss_info_changed: arp filtering: enabled true, count 1 (implement) [45929.072149] wlan0: no IPv6 routers present [46743.224217] usb 1-1: new high speed USB device number 5 using ehci_hcd [46743.364623] scsi8 : usb-storage 1-1:1.0 [46744.366102] scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access Amazon Kindle 0001 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2 [46744.366356] scsi: killing requests for dead queue [46744.372494] scsi: killing requests for dead queue [46744.384510] scsi: killing requests for dead queue [46744.392348] scsi: killing requests for dead queue [46744.392731] scsi: killing requests for dead queue [46744.396853] scsi: killing requests for dead queue [46744.397214] scsi: killing requests for dead queue [46744.400795] scsi: killing requests for dead queue [46744.401589] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0 [46744.407520] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk And here are my mounted filesystems: jeff@prime:~$ df Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 298594984 174663712 108763480 62% / udev 1407684 4 1407680 1% /dev tmpfs 566924 896 566028 1% /run none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock none 1417308 300 1417008 1% /run/shm /home/jeff/.Private 298594984 174663712 108763480 62% /home/jeff I should note that, since I got Dropbox working on my Kindle, the usb is no longer strictly necessary, but as a matter of principle I'd love to get it working.

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• Can&rsquo;t eject external USB or Firewire drive in Windows 7

  - by Kelly Jones

  As a SharePoint developer, I work a lot with Virtual Machines (presently using Windows Virtual PC, with Windows 7).  I’m using these VMs with my laptop, and in order to get better performance, I’ve moved them to external hard drives.  (These drives have faster RPMs, larger caches, and a larger capacity, than the internal drive.)  I have one large external drive at home, another similar drive at the office, and a small, slow portable drive that I carry with me. So, at the end of each day at the office, I copy the files from the external drive to my portable drive and then once I get home, I copy them from the portable to the larger external drive I leave at home.  I do this for a couple of reasons: so I can work at home and secondly, so I have backup copies.  (Often, I feel like I’m in the movie “Office Space” when copying the files before I leave the office). Anyway, after the files are copied, I safely eject the external drives, and then hibernate my laptop.  I’ve been doing this for over a year now, but within the last couple of months I started to have issues disconnecting the drives.  Intermittently, some application/process would have a lock on some file on the drive that would keep Windows from safely ejecting it. After looking into it, I found that it was actually the Windows search service that was accessing the drive! Since I wasn’t using Windows search to look for stuff on these drives, I removed them as locations to index. To do this in Windows 7, you need to go to Indexing Options (just type “Indexing” into the search box in the Start menu…).  One of the choices displayed will then be Indexing Options, so click on it and you should then see a window similar to this:   Click on the Modify button and you’ll see this window: Notice the different drives listed above.  My “FreeAgent XTreme (F:)” drive was checked for some reason, which was causing the indexing service to scan the drive looking for new files to make available in the search results.  Ever since I unchecked this box, I’ve been able to safely eject the drive.

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• Dutch Techdays 2011 in The Hague

  Microsoft organizes at April 27, 28 and 29 the Dutch Techdays in The Hague. Already for 14 years this is the biggest Microsoft event in The Netherlands where you get the chance to get up to speed with the latest technology with speakers all over the world. I have the pleasure to provide you with two sessions this year: At the DevDays Pre-conference four ALM experts from the Dutch region help you understand how to adopt and improve your agile practices for greater productivity and higher quality applications. The topics for the day are: Adopting SCRUM Improve the developer workflow Adopting Continous Integration Agile testing My second session, LAB Management in de Praktijk , is about one of the features in Visual Studio ALM a lot of people are not aware of, which is called Lab Management. In the Dutch edition of the .NET magazine, I already gave the first sneak peak into the product. In the session I will dive deeper in the product and show you how you can create your templates and your test environments. I also show you how you can execute the tests on these environments and how you can incorporate it in Team Build. As a speaker you have the advantage to attend other sessions as well. The sessions I really look forward to are: Entity Framework in de Praktijk (Pieter de Bruin) Introduction to Visual Studio Lightswitch (Beth Massi) Building Robust, Maintainable Coded UI Tests with Visual Studio 2010 (Brian Keller) CQRS op Windows Azure (Tijmen van de Kamp) Using SharePoint Search to Develop Custom Solutions (Mirjam van Olst) Application Performance on Windows Phone 7 (Caspar Ruhe) Have fun at the Techdays, and hopefully we have a chance to meet each other.

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