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  • Skyrim: Heavy Performance Issues after a couple of location changes

    - by Derija
    Okay, I've tried different solutions: ENB Series, removing certain mods, checking my FPS Rate, monitoring my resources, .ini tweaks. It's all just fine, I don't see what I'm missing. A couple of days ago, I bought Skyrim. Before I bought the game, I admit I had a pirated copy because my girlfriend actually wanted to buy me the game as a present, then said she didn't have enough money. Sick of waiting, I decided to buy the game by myself. The ridiculous part is, it worked better cracked than it does now uncracked. As the title suggests, after entering and leaving houses a couple of times, my performance obviously drops extremely. My build is just fine, Intel i5 quad core processor, NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti from Gigabyte, actually stock-OC, but manually downclocked to usual settings using appropriate Gigabyte software. This fixed the CTD issues I had before with both Skyrim and BF3. I have 4GB RAM. A website about Game Tweaks suggested that my HDD may be too slow. A screenshot of a Windows Performance Index sample with the subscription "This is likely to cause issues" showed the HDD with a performance index of 5.9, the exact same mine has, so I was playing with the thought to purchase an SSD instead, load games onto it that really need it like Skyrim, and hope it'd do the trick. Unfortunately, SSDs are likewise expensive, compared to "normal" HDDs... I'm really getting desperate about it. My save is gone because the patches made it impossible to load saves of the unpatched version and I already saved more than 80 times despite being only level 8, just because every time I interact with a door leading me to another location I'm scared the game will drop again. I can't even play for 30 mins straight anymore, it's just no fun at all. I've researched for a couple of days before I decided to post my question here. Any help is appreciated, I don't want to regret having bought the game... Since it actually is the best game I've played possibly for ever. Sincerely. P.S.: I don't think it's necessary to say, but still, of course I'm playing on PC. P.P.S.: After monitoring both my PC resources including CPU usage and HDD usage as well as the GPU usage, I don't see any changes even after the said event. P.P.P.S.: Original question posted here where I've been advised to ask here.

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  • Remove DRM from *.pdb e-book that I own - while maintaining footnotes, etc.?

    - by ziesemer
    Background: I've already reviewed Remove DRM from ePub Files? and How can I remove DRM from Kindle books? - the answers to which have already brought me partial process. The challenge is that I have a few purchased *.pdb e-books that I purchased in years past, e.g. 2006. In particular, they were purchased from the palm eBook Store (ebooks.palm.com - now defunct, possibly part of http://www.ereader.com / Barnes & Noble?) - originally for use on a Palm Treo that has since died. Of particular note is that I have a revision / publication of a book that is no longer published, and not available as an e-book from anywhere else that I've been able to find. (I feel fortunate to have even found the *.pdb files on backup.) I have a copy of the electronic invoice for it - which includes the details necessary for unlocking - the "Purchaser's Name" and the "Unlock Code" - which is the digits of my credit card # that I had used to purchase it. Given the above information, I was surprised to be able to open the book using the Windows eReader software and unlock it. Here I am able to view the complete contents and functionality of the book as I had done on the Palm Treo - including viewing of linked annotations / footnotes, etc. Following the full spirit of Remove DRM from ePub Files?, I want to ensure that I can access this on any device of my choosing - especially now and in the future, and as new technologies arrive and disappear. Ideally, I'm just looking to accomplish the minimum necessary to allow import into calibre. Outstanding Issue: I've found a few solutions that have given me "90%" success - all based on various versions of some Python scripts - including versions 0.21 and 0.11 of "erdr2pml.py" (based on "ereader2html"). Unfortunately, unless I'm missing something, these programs are attempting to also "convert" - instead of just "decrypting". As such, the outputs are missing embedded images and/or footnotes. I.E., there is a linked, underlined, and super-scripted "a" after some text - but the content of the footnote no longer exists. I can validate this by inspecting the generated *.pmlz file, and nowhere does it contain the original footnotes that are still visible in the original *.pdb file. I'm hoping to find a process that focuses on the decryption only, instead of attempting any type of a content conversion - or if a content conversion is required / involved, that it maintains all of the features and content of the original. (Again, I'm confident that if/once a version is obtained that calibre can import, I'll be able to fulfill the rest of my requirements.)

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  • GeForce 8800GT not even giving basic output

    - by Sam
    My Dad bought a GeForce 8800GT graphics card quite a long time ago now. It has never worked in his PC. Print out from a dxdiag: System Information Time of this report: 4/13/2010, 19:52:40 Machine name: USER-PC Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium (6.0, Build 6001) Service Pack 1 (6001.vistasp1_gdr.091208-0542) Language: English (Regional Setting: English) System Manufacturer: To Be Filled By O.E.M. System Model: To Be Filled By O.E.M. BIOS: Default System BIOS Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.3GHz Memory: 2046MB RAM Page File: 1045MB used, 3296MB available Windows Dir: C:\Windows DirectX Version: DirectX 10 DX Setup Parameters: Not found DxDiag Version: 6.00.6001.18000 32bit Unicode DxDiag Notes Display Tab 1: No problems found. Sound Tab 1: No problems found. Sound Tab 2: No problems found. Sound Tab 3: No problems found. Input Tab: No problems found. DirectX Debug Levels Direct3D: 0/4 (retail) DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail) DirectInput: 0/5 (retail) DirectMusic: 0/5 (retail) DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail) DirectSound: 0/5 (retail) DirectShow: 0/6 (retail) Display Devices Card name: ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc. Chip type: ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x94C3) DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz) Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_94C3&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_00 Display Memory: 1012 MB Dedicated Memory: 245 MB Shared Memory: 767 MB Current Mode: 1280 x 960 (32 bit) (75Hz) Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor Driver Name: atiumdag.dll,atiumdva.dat,atitmmxx.dll Driver Version: 7.14.0010.0523 (English) DDI Version: 10 Driver Attributes: Final Retail Driver Date/Size: 8/22/2007 02:43:14, 3021312 bytes That info is from the current card that is installed in it and has been installed since its purchase roughly 3-4 years ago. When I physically install the card I put it into a purple slot on the motherboard that the old card was in (if I go into the device manager and select properties on the current card it confirms that the slot is a "PCI Slot 16 (PCI bus 2, device 0, function 0)") and boot up the computer but get absolutely no output. The screen that we have registers that it is connected to something (by not displaying the screen it does when the cable is unplugged) but just remains blank, no output at all. I recently took the card to my University and one of my friends who is better with hardware issues than I am tried it in his system and it worked perfectly. No issues whatsoever. I do not have a spec list for his system but I could get one if you need it. If you need any more information on this issue I will be happy to supply you with it as I am starting to get very annoyed with this problem ^_^

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  • Passwordless ssh failed when login using username

    - by Aczire
    I was trying to setup Hadoop and was stumbled on passwordless ssh to localhost. I am getting a password prompt when trying to connect using ssh username@hostname format. But there is no problem connecting to the machine like ssh localhost or ssh hostname.com. Tried ssh-copy-id user@hostname but it did not work. Using CentOS 6.3 as normal user, I neither have root access or am a sudoer so editing any files like sshd_config is not possible (not even cat the sshd_config file contents). I hope the user login is possible since I can do login without password to localhost, right? Please advise, Here is the ssh debug output. [[email protected] ~]$ ssh -v [email protected] OpenSSH_5.3p1, OpenSSL 1.0.0-fips 29 Mar 2010 debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: Applying options for * debug1: Connecting to hostname.com [::1] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /home/user/.ssh/identity type -1 debug1: identity file /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/user/.ssh/id_dsa type 2 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.3 debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.3 pat OpenSSH* debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.3 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY debug1: Host 'hostname.com' is known and matches the RSA host key. debug1: Found key in /home/user/.ssh/known_hosts:1 debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic,password debug1: Next authentication method: gssapi-keyex debug1: No valid Key exchange context debug1: Next authentication method: gssapi-with-mic debug1: Unspecified GSS failure. Minor code may provide more information Credentials cache file '/tmp/krb5cc_500' not found debug1: Unspecified GSS failure. Minor code may provide more information Credentials cache file '/tmp/krb5cc_500' not found debug1: Unspecified GSS failure. Minor code may provide more information debug1: Unspecified GSS failure. Minor code may provide more information debug1: Next authentication method: publickey debug1: Offering public key: /home/user/.ssh/id_dsa debug1: Server accepts key: pkalg ssh-dss blen 434 Agent admitted failure to sign using the key. debug1: Trying private key: /home/user/.ssh/identity debug1: Trying private key: /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa debug1: Next authentication method: password [email protected]'s password:

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  • Is Gmail Being Blocked by my ISP?

    - by james
    EDIT: I thought I pinpointed the problem. Just now I tried to go to the firefox addons page which uses https and gmail also uses https. So I thought I am unable to load https pages on this computer. So I went to a bank site which uses https but that loads just fine. Sigh.... I asked this over at superuser but they weren't able to help, so I was hoping the sysadmins here will be able to advise as to what's wrong. Although the issue here is with a PC and not a server it still deals with networking so I hope it's not too irrelevant. The Issue: I have a desktop on which I cannot access Gmail and also youtube sign in (I believe since youtube is owned by google they both use the same sign in system). On other computers that uses the same connection via a wireless router I can access both gmail and youtube sign in just fine. On this computer which doesn't have a wireless card and so I have to connect via Ethernet cable (connected to a USB converter since the Ethernet port doesn't work anymore) I can access all sites and services including things like aol and hotmail. But only when it comes to gmail, do I get complete and utter throttling. I even turned off my AV ad Firewall momentarily and no luck. The gmail log in page starts to load and by mid point it just stays there loading and loading and loading... never ends. I tried everything, I reset the modem and router multiple times. I reinstalled my operating system from a vista to a windows 7 hoping that a complete reinstall would solve the issue, but no luck. And yes, I am going to call my ISP but not to solve this issue, but to cancel them. I want to upgrade to cable from DSL anyway. I didn't mention my ISP because I'm not sure if that is within the rules (if it's okay some one let me know and I will). P.S. All this happened one day, before that gmail was perfectly accessible in this computer. I can't remember anything special happening on that day prior to this. The only thing I can think of is, my ISP or Google itself is blocking this computer based on it's mac address, but I don't know if that's even done. Additional info: PC: Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit Connection Type: DSL Connecting Medium: Ethernet cable via USB converter I should mention I can access gmail and youtube just fine through a IP proxy service.

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  • Is Gmail Being Blocked by my ISP?

    - by james
    I asked this over at superuser but they weren't able to help, so I was hoping the sysadmins here will be able to advise as to what's wrong. Although the issue here is with a PC and not a server it still deals with networking so I hope it's not too irrelevant. The Issue: I have a desktop on which I cannot access Gmail and also youtube sign in (I believe since youtube is owned by google they both use the same sign in system). On other computers that uses the same connection via a wireless router I can access both gmail and youtube sign in just fine. On this computer which doesn't have a wireless card and so I have to connect via Ethernet cable (connected to a USB converter since the Ethernet port doesn't work anymore) I can access all sites and services including things like aol and hotmail. But only when it comes to gmail, do I get complete and utter throttling. I even turned off my AV ad Firewall momentarily and no luck. The gmail log in page starts to load and by mid point it just stays there loading and loading and loading... never ends. I tried everything, I reset the modem and router multiple times. I reinstalled my operating system from a vista to a windows 7 hoping that a complete reinstall would solve the issue, but no luck. And yes, I am going to call my ISP but not to solve this issue, but to cancel them. I want to upgrade to cable from DSL anyway. I didn't mention my ISP because I'm not sure if that is within the rules (if it's okay some one let me know and I will). P.S. All this happened one day, before that gmail was perfectly accessible in this computer. I can't remember anything special happening on that day prior to this. The only thing I can think of is, my ISP or Google itself is blocking this computer based on it's mac address, but I don't know if that's even done. Additional info: PC: Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit Connection Type: DSL Connecting Medium: Ethernet cable via USB converter EDIT: I should mention I can access gmail and youtube just fine through a IP proxy service.

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  • DCHP and Router load testing

    - by John H
    I manage a campground wifi network with an average of 10 - 60 active users. I have encountered issues where the router starts acting flaky (failing to assign DHCP or failing to pass traffic) without any clear warning (low cpu utilization, etc). I upgraded the router a couple times and ended up with a Netgear ProSafe VPN router that seems to be handling the traffic. The interesting thing is that the Netgear has lower specs than the Buffalo router it replaced, indicating the issue is with the DD-WRT firmware. While I'll be pursuing this issue on the dd-wrt forums, I need a way to test routers. My vision is having 1-2 computers connected on the LAN side and 1-2 computers connected on the WAN side. I want the LAN computers to be generating various type of traffic and connections, as well as requesting DCHP addresses. A few notes: The wireless aspect should be a non-issue. Most clients would connect to a wireless bridge and come into the router through a network cable. I had a monitoring server with Nagios running check_dhcp against the router. This server was connected directly by a network cable, eliminating wifi bridges and other devices from the equation. This question is somewhat related, but not exactly: Load testing wireless LANs I am going to look at IxChariot. While I'd ideally like to use a 1 computer on each side running Linux and preferably free software, I can entertain running Windows, multiple computers, or non-free software. Total bandwidth doesn't seem to be the issue. I can transfer large files all day. Even on the busiest days, the users seemed to only pull ~5Mbps. There is very little "LAN to LAN traffic" and most of it might never have reached the main router. The issue I need to test for seems to be tied to active users, or more appropriately, active sessions. I know active users or active clients is a meaningless term from a router standpoint and wouldn't mind having more appropriate terms to use. Summary: I need a way to test a routers ability in handling traffic from a large number of clients. My current strategy is to purchase a router, deploy it, and see how it fails in the live environment.

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  • Seriousness of a "Smart" disk error. How long will it last?

    - by Workshop Alex
    I have an 1 TB data disk and the bios and Windows are reporting a "Smart" error. At least, I get a Smart event but it doesn't indicate how serious the failure could be. My system is about 6 months old, including the disk so the warranty will cover the damage. Unfortunately, I lack a second disk of 1 TB in size which I can use to make a full backup. The most important data on this disk is safe, but there's a lot of work data which can be regenerated but this would cost a lot of time. So I ordered an USB disk of 1 TB which will arrive in three days. By then I can make a full backup of the data and afterwards, it can crash. But will the disk live that long? (Well, I won't use the PC as long as I can't make a backup.) How serious is such a Smart event? I know it's serious enough to have it replaced, but will it live for another week or could it die any moment?Update: I purchased an 1 TB external disk and spent most of the day making a backup of the 1 TB disk. It survived that. I then received a new disk, since it was still under warranty and replaced the hard disk. Then I had to spend most of a day again to put back the backup. I need to send back the faulty disk and now have an additional external disk, which could always be practical. :-) The Smart Error report did not cause any failures on the original disk. I won't advise to ignore these warnings, but the disk still has enough life in it to last a few more days. (Just make sure you have a good back-up.) And oh, the horror of having to make a complete backup such a huge disk. :-) If your data is important, make sure you have something that supports incremental backups and lots of space. (In my case, the data wasn't very important, just practical to have on-disk together.)

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  • Sony VGN-NR260E "External Device Boot"

    - by user72158
    [A LITTLE BACKGROUND] On all modern Dell computers pushing the F12 on bios boot will allow for a screen that lets you choose what boot option you need. For example if I want to boot off of a USB flash drive to boot into a live Linux distribution in order to clean virus's on netbooks that do not have CD drives to boot from I would push F12 and choose USB device from the list of options. If this does not show up then I can always go to the F2 bios setup and choose flash drive to be the first option. When I restart the computer it will boot into the flash device. I understand that I can purchase an external USB CD drive and then boot from that. I do not want to use that option. The reason for using a flash device instead of a CD is: A: This USB flash device has several different boot OS's on it that are used. B: The antivirus disks are updated often and burning cd's and throwing away others is wasteful compared to simply updating a flash drive. There is nothing wrong with the flash drive. It works perfect on many other PC's. [PROBLEM] Booting this flashdrive has been working for years on hundreds of computers... I just have this ONE computer that I cannot figure out how to get it to boot on... I have a Sony Vaio that will not boot to this device. I've tried pushing every key combo I can think of (F12, Esc, Del, F10...) and none of these key combinations will bring up the boot menu. I chose F2 and went into the bios and changed the first boot device to USB flash device. This did not work either. There is an astrix next to the device and the note states: "This Drive is available when External Device Boot is Enable." [WHAT I NEED] I need to know How to enable External Device Boot on the Sony Vaio VGN-NR260E laptop. OR How to bring up the Boot Menu to allow me to boot off a flash device. Thanks for anyone that can help!

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  • Start a software company offshore

    - by Mascarpone
    Hello Everybody, I own a small, very young, EU based (Italy) company, and among other things, we sell IT solutions. I have a degree in applied mathematics, and I mainly deal with user interfaces, embedded systems, automation and web applications. You can say that I'm an enlightened entrepreneur because I work only with open source software (OS, IDE, I release under BSD , ... everything is free as in freedom), I give high importance to post sales services and customer satisfaction, plus I think I'm the best boss someone could desire (LOL), as I have google in mind when I think about IT workers rights. But the most beautiful thing is that, although everybody advised us not to use open source, is that we are quite profitable!!! (for the sixth trimester in a row). Now I offshore most of the work to an Indian company. I divide the work in modules and I outsource the longer or more trivial ones. I spend a lot of time defining the specifications and I leave the hard work to them. Using productivity bonuses, a lot of prototypes and third-party audits I think that my software has reached a very good quality level. I would like to start my own software development company, in order to improve control over process and cut costs. Obviously I can't afford the cost of labor in the EU, so I thought about opening a company in Asia. What I need Is: 1) Cheap labor - I can afford to give productivity bonuses and higher than average wages and stay profitable just because labor is cheap. 2) Many talents - I need a good level of tertiary education, and a good number of graduates, so I can hire junior developers and train and teach them according to my needs and philosophies (e.g.: open source mind) 3) Good infrastructure - buildings, transport, internet, .... everything that a company might need. I thought about 3 possible candidates: 1) India - I already work with indian people, I know that they are realiable and speak a good english. Big cities are too expensive, but maybe a small city like lucknow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucknow could suits my needs. 2) China - They say it's cheaper than India, but I everytime I worked with a chineese company the language was a big barrier. They work hard, are somewhat skilled and cheap but maybe it's a risky path. Plus I feel a little uncofortable with their lack of human rights. 3) Philippines - Same as china: cheaper than india, but maybe less educated. Where do you think it's the best place to start a software company? Any reading or book to advise? thank you very much

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  • Can this USB3 behaviour be anything else than a hardware failure?

    - by Jonas Wielicki
    While my motherboard is half a year old now (ASUS M5A99X EVO), I only recently made use of the USB3 boards (after purchase of USB3 external harddrive). However, I am encountering issues. I am running linux 3.6.7-4.fc16.x86_64. Initially, the harddrive worked fine with USB3 (amazing ˜160MB/s), but I had some problems after putting after putting the harddrive to sleep manually after use (backup) with hdparm -Y. After some time, the device disappears from lsusb and i see the following in dmesg: [ 1924.091107] xhci_hcd 0000:05:00.0: xHCI host not responding to stop endpoint command. [ 1924.091114] xhci_hcd 0000:05:00.0: Assuming host is dying, halting host. [ 1924.091147] xhci_hcd 0000:05:00.0: HC died; cleaning up [ 1924.091233] usb 11-1: USB disconnect, device number 2 [ 1924.091272] sd 6:0:0:0: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery Testing with my (USB3 capable) notebook, I could not immediately reproduce the behaivour. I put the drive to sleep with hdparm -Y and waited for like an hour, but it was still listed in lsusb and responded after a few seconds delay when I tried after the hour of waiting. After an hour, on the desktop, the device would've usually vanished. Googling for this issue, I came across hints that playing around with IOMMU settings and upgrading the BIOS might help. I upgraded the BIOS and tried both with and without IOMMU enabled, got similar results. Most disturbing is, that one of the two USB 3.0 hubs sometimes also disappears from lsusb (or does not show up after boot at all). I've also heard that there are some hardware issues with ASUS USB3 ports. Applying mechanic force to the capble doesn't push the issue to one side or the other. Also, udev seems to reenumerate all devices if I plug the HDD into the USB 3.0 port without success (I can notice from my keyboard layout being changed to the default, which I do not use normally). The drive is externally powered and the external power supply is plugged in (it also stays powered when unplugging from USB, although it will spin down then). So before I try to return the board, I wanted to find out whether this can be anything else than a failure on the motherboard?

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  • Alienware m15x (older model) BSOD investigation

    - by Crishu
    A frined of mine asked me to help him with an Alienware m15x laptop that had a little service history. It was bought in june 2008, serviced in january 2009 for a random fps drop problem, Alienware returned it saying nothing was wrong. The laptop still had hiccups, but after juggling a few drivers and settings, the fps drops weren't as noticeable. Eventually it died in Sept. 2009. It would not boot up locking itself on a white/gray screen. (i think it was overheating .. clocking in 100 degrees Celsius). So back to Alienware it went. They replaced the GPU and all was fine. Up until these blue screens started showing up. One other thing that was updated was the HDD and a Windows 7 reinstall, in August. From then on it seems to have started its BSOD. Could this be the culprit? Why? 0_o The original Windows was Vista but it was upgraded with a digital download/purchase of Windows 7 Home Premium and activated after installing windows. No errors on the old HDD, just on the latest installation. LE:Due note that now the old HDD is used to see if issues re-occur. So please, I am in need of someone who can interpret these windows dump files: Minidump I may have come to some conflicting conclusions. So if someone can clarify each dump/date and the probable cause/error it had; and a final conclusion or solution, we would be very grateful. Also please consult report for other system info I omitted: same link,code: XRWIVLWG If I missed something or if you have any other questions I'll be happy to answer them. Thank you. Good day. Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9300 @ 2.50GHz Network Adapter Properties: Broadcom NetLink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN Video Adapter Properties: Driver Description NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX Driver Date 19.08.2009 Driver Version 8.16.11.8681 Driver Provider NVIDIA INF File oem19.inf Hardware ID PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_060C&SUBSYS_0770152D&REV_A2 Location Information @system32\DRIVERS\pci.sys,#65536;PCI bus %1, device %2, function %3;(1,0,0) PCI Device NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX [NoDB] BIOS String Version 62.92.34.0.8 Installed Drivers nvd3dum (8.16.11.8681), nvwgf2um, nvwgf2um Hard Dik Drive: Model ID ST9120823ASG (**older one 120gb**) Model ID WD32000BEKT (new 320gb with fresh OS)

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  • Have a server, need to figure out a method of backup

    - by PolishHurricane
    My company has an older Dell 2650 server running ArchLinux x64: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/2650_specs.pdf (2 x 2.4GHz Intel Xeon w/around 3287 RAM according to "free -m") We use it to host our internal company site and to post some information from our orders to and we'd like the ability to keep it up as much as possible. What we require: - It needs to always be functional from 8am to 4pm for our data entry person to use it and others to do other things required on it. - If it goes down, we need a quick way to get the machine running again. - If it goes down, we would like to have the data backed up. Some of the major problems include: - The servers old and it may have memory issues - We don't know when one of the hard drives could fail - Our power goes out here once in a while We have a battery backup, but that's pretty much it and it's not for long term. If the server does go down, we have another system in place to store order information that comes in while it's down and repost it when it's back, but we need it up during the day. So we're wondering, what should we get for options? These are the things we thought of, sort of: Setup RAID 1, but that would involve wiping everything right? If we do that, how would we transfer the data over without messing up the server? We could buy an extra server or 2 off eBay for $100, the same model, is that practical or should we get something else? Should we buy a PC or another better server and host off that because it is if anything easier to exchange parts? Should we keep extra parts handy incase it implodes? Should we buy/use backup software? We hear drobo's are cool, but suck. Perhaps there is a software solution to this problem that backs up to another machine or gets us up and running again quickly. Also, if we are to purchase hardware, what is decent? Does anybody know of one for ArchLinux/Linux? We both know a ton about computers but we're kind of unsure what step to take with this, especially with this type of server. Thanks

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  • Expendable, Redundant, Easily recoverable

    - by MeIr
    I am desperate at this point, I have been looking for "Big storage" solution for a while on my own and I can't find anything that would suite my needs. But now push came to shove. Current situation: I have about 6TB data storage (already full) - Drobo. Yesterday Drobo died on me and it put me into bad situation - I can't recover my data without buying another Drobo. From extensive research online I realized that Drobo is not the safest bet and by now it seems very poor choice. I ordered new Drobo to try to get my data back, however I don't want to be in the same situation later and continuing using Drobo promises this event to re-occur. What I am looking for: 1) Inexpensive setup. 2) Dynamically extendable - add more drives and/or replace a drive with bigger capacity. 3) Redundant - setup against 1-3 drive failure, will depend on total number of drives. For the sake of argument let's assume for every 4 drives one should be able to fail without data loss. 4) Easy data recovery - let's say unforeseen happens, I would like to be able to recover information without buying new tools or replacements - example: new Drobo. 5) Should be USB or Network Attach Storage 6) No demand on speed. Doesn't have to be fast, I am not doing video editing on the setup. However if option exists, would be nice to have a decent speed. After thoughts: I reviewed few options and FreeNAS looks nice, but it doesn't have #2 - Dynamic extendability. There are work around with Pools but it seems a bit complicated and unnecessary. More over it seems like data safety is a big question - saw some horror stories. Please advise on what options I have and what seems like an optimal solution (if any). I don't care if it has to be Windows or Linux box or any other OS and/or software that has to run on top, but simple solution is more attractive. Thank you! P.S: Feel free to ignore "After thoughts".

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  • count specific values in a multidimensional array

    - by user1680701
    I have an odd set of arrays that I need to count how many times specific values show in the results. Currently I have this bit of code. $nested_arrays = shopp_orders( '2011-11-30 00:00:00', '2012-11-30 12:59:59', false, '', 2 ); print_r($nested_arrays); This code pulls multiple arrays (serialized data) from the database and outputs like this Array ( [30] => Purchase Object ( [purchased] => Array ( ) [columns] => Array ( ) [message] => Array ( ) [data] => Array ( ) [invoiced] => [authorized] => [captured] => [refunded] => [voided] => [balance] => 0 [downloads] => [shipable] => [shipped] => [stocked] => [_position:DatabaseObject:private] => 0 [_properties:DatabaseObject:private] => Array ( ) [_ignores:DatabaseObject:private] => Array ( [0] => _ ) [_map:protected] => Array ( ) [_table] => wp_shopp_demo_shopp_purchase [_key] => id [_datatypes] => Array ( [id] => int [customer] => int [shipping] => int [billing] => int [currency] => int [ip] => string [firstname] => string [lastname] => string [email] => string [phone] => string [company] => string [card] => string [cardtype] => string [cardexpires] => date [cardholder] => string [address] => string [xaddress] => string [city] => string [state] => string [country] => string [postcode] => string [shipname] => string [shipaddress] => string [shipxaddress] => string [shipcity] => string [shipstate] => string [shipcountry] => string [shippostcode] => string [geocode] => string [promos] => string [subtotal] => float [freight] => float [tax] => float [total] => float [discount] => float [fees] => float [taxing] => list [txnid] => string [txnstatus] => string [gateway] => string [paymethod] => string [shipmethod] => string [shipoption] => string [status] => int [data] => string [secured] => string [created] => date [modified] => date ) [_lists] => Array ( [taxing] => Array ( [0] => exclusive [1] => inclusive ) ) [id] => 30 [customer] => 12 [shipping] => 23 [billing] => 23 [currency] => 0 [ip] => 24.125.58.205 [firstname] => test [lastname] => test [email] => [email protected] [phone] => 1234567890 [company] => [card] => 1111 [cardtype] => Visa [cardexpires] => 1420070400 [cardholder] => test [address] => 123 Any Street [xaddress] => [city] => Danville [state] => VA [country] => US [postcode] => 24541 [shipname] => [shipaddress] => 123 Any Street [shipxaddress] => [shipcity] => Danville [shipstate] => VA [shipcountry] => US [shippostcode] => 24541 [geocode] => [promos] => Array ( ) [subtotal] => 49.37 [freight] => 9.98 [tax] => 9.874 [total] => 69.22 [discount] => 0 [fees] => 0 [taxing] => exclusive [txnid] => [txnstatus] => authed [gateway] => TestMode [paymethod] => credit-card-test-mode [shipmethod] => ItemRates-0 [shipoption] => Fast Shipping [status] => 0 [secured] => [created] => 1354096946 [modified] => 1354096946 ) [29] => Purchase Object ( [purchased] => Array ( ) [columns] => Array ( ) [message] => Array ( ) [data] => Array ( ) [invoiced] => [authorized] => [captured] => [refunded] => [voided] => [balance] => 0 [downloads] => [shipable] => [shipped] => [stocked] => [_position:DatabaseObject:private] => 0 [_properties:DatabaseObject:private] => Array ( ) [_ignores:DatabaseObject:private] => Array ( [0] => _ ) [_map:protected] => Array ( ) [_table] => wp_shopp_demo_shopp_purchase [_key] => id [_datatypes] => Array ( [id] => int [customer] => int [shipping] => int [billing] => int [currency] => int [ip] => string [firstname] => string [lastname] => string [email] => string [phone] => string [company] => string [card] => string [cardtype] => string [cardexpires] => date [cardholder] => string [address] => string [xaddress] => string [city] => string [state] => string [country] => string [postcode] => string [shipname] => string [shipaddress] => string [shipxaddress] => string [shipcity] => string [shipstate] => string [shipcountry] => string [shippostcode] => string [geocode] => string [promos] => string [subtotal] => float [freight] => float [tax] => float [total] => float [discount] => float [fees] => float [taxing] => list [txnid] => string [txnstatus] => string [gateway] => string [paymethod] => string [shipmethod] => string [shipoption] => string [status] => int [data] => string [secured] => string [created] => date [modified] => date ) [_lists] => Array ( [taxing] => Array ( [0] => exclusive [1] => inclusive ) ) [id] => 29 [customer] => 13 [shipping] => 26 [billing] => 25 [currency] => 0 [ip] => 70.176.223.40 [firstname] => Bryan [lastname] => Crawford [email] => [email protected] [phone] => 4802323049 [company] => ggg [card] => 1111 [cardtype] => Visa [cardexpires] => 1356998400 [cardholder] => ggg [address] => 1300 W Warner Rd [xaddress] => [city] => Gilbert [state] => AZ [country] => US [postcode] => 85224 [shipname] => [shipaddress] => 1300 W Warner Rd [shipxaddress] => [shipcity] => Gilbert [shipstate] => AZ [shipcountry] => US [shippostcode] => 85224 [geocode] => [promos] => Array ( ) [subtotal] => 29.95 [freight] => 9.98 [tax] => 0 [total] => 39.93 [discount] => 0 [fees] => 0 [taxing] => exclusive [txnid] => [txnstatus] => authed [gateway] => TestMode [paymethod] => credit-card-test-mode [shipmethod] => ItemRates-0 [shipoption] => Fast Shipping [status] => 0 [secured] => [created] => 1353538691 [modified] => 1353538691 ) ) This is order data from only two orders. I need to count how many times each state, each city, shipmethod, etc occur in the array. I tried the following but it only counted the 2 large arrays. function count_nested_array_keys(array &$a, array &$res=array()) { $i = 0; foreach ($a as $key=>$value) { if (is_array($value)) { $i += count_nested_array_keys($value, &$res); } else { if(!isset($res[$key])) $res[$key] = 0; $res[$key]++; $i++; } } return $i; } $total_item_count = count_nested_array_keys($nested_arrays, $count_per_key); echo "count per key: ", print_r($count_per_key), "\n"; If someone could show me how to count how many times each state value occurs, example, VA = 2 NC = 1 I can take it from there. Thank You.

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  • How To Switch Back to Outlook 2007 After the 2010 Beta Ends

    - by Matthew Guay
    Are you switching back to Outlook 2007 after trying out Office 2010 beta?  Here’s how you can restore your Outlook data and keep everything working fine after the switch. Whenever you install a newer version of Outlook, it will convert your profile and data files to the latest format.  This makes them work the best in the newer version of Outlook, but may cause problems if you decide to revert to an older version.  If you installed Outlook 2010 beta, it automatically imported and converted your profile from Outlook 2007.  When the beta expires, you will either have to reinstall Office 2007 or purchase a copy of Office 2010. If you choose to reinstall Office 2007, you may notice an error message each time you open Outlook. Outlook will still work fine and all of your data will be saved, but this error message can get annoying.  Here’s how you can create a new profile, import all of your old data, and get rid of this error message. Banish the Error Message with a New Profile To get rid of this error message, we need to create a new Outlook profile.  First, make sure your Outlook data files are backed up.  Your messages, contacts, calendar, and more are stored in a .pst file in your appdata folder.  Enter the following in the address bar of an Explorer window to open your Outlook data folder, and replace username with your user name: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook Copy the Outlook Personal Folders (.pst) files that contain your data. Its name is usually your email address, though it may have a different name.  If in doubt, select all of the Outlook Personal Folders files, copy them, and save them in another safe place (such as your Documents folder). Now, let’s remove your old profile.  Open Control Panel, and select Mail.  In Windows Vista or 7, simply enter “Mail” in the search box and select the first entry. Click the “Show Profiles…” button. Now, select your Outlook profile, and click Remove.  This will not delete your data files, but will remove them from Outlook. Press Yes to confirm that you wish to remove this profile. Open Outlook, and you will be asked to create a new profile.  Enter a name for your new profile, and press Ok. Now enter your email account information to setup Outlook as normal. Outlook will attempt to automatically configure your account settings.  This usually works for accounts with popular email systems, but if it fails to find your information you can enter it manually.  Press finish when everything’s done. Outlook will now go ahead and download messages from your email account.  In our test, we used a Gmail account that still had all of our old messages online.  Those files are backed up in our old Outlook data files, so we can save time and not download them.  Click the Send/Receive button on the bottom of the window, and select “Cancel Send/Receive”. Restore Your Old Outlook Data Let’s add our old Outlook file back to Outlook 2007.  Exit Outlook, and then go back to Control Panel, and select Mail as above.  This time, click the Data Files button. Click the Add button on the top left. Select “Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst)”, and click Ok. Now, select your old Outlook data file.  It should be in the folder that opens by default; if not, browse to the backup copy we saved earlier, and select it. Press Ok at the next dialog to accept the default settings. Now, select the data file we just imported, and click “Set as Default”. Now, all of your old messages, appointments, contacts, and everything else will be right in Outlook ready for you.  Click Ok, and then open Outlook to see the change. All of the data that was in Outlook 2010 is now ready to use in Outlook 2007.  You won’t have to wait to re-download all of your emails from the server since everything’s still here ready to be used.  And when you open Outlook, you won’t see any error messages, either! Conclusion Migrating your Outlook profile back to Outlook 2007 is fairly easy, and with these steps, you can avoid seeing an error message every time you open Outlook.  With all your data in tact, you’re ready to get back to work instead of getting frustrated with Outlook.  Many of us use webmail and keep all of our messages in the cloud, but even on broadband connections it can take a long time to download several gigabytes of emails. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Opening Attachments in Outlook 2007 by KeyboardQuickly Create Appointments from Tasks with Outlook 2007’s To-Do BarFix For Outlook 2007 Constantly Asking for Password on VistaPin Microsoft Outlook to the Desktop BackgroundOur Look at the LinkedIn Social Connector for Outlook TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job? Find Downloads and Add-ins for Outlook

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  • Remove Office 2010 Beta and Reinstall Office 2007

    - by Matthew Guay
    Have you tried out the Office 2010 beta, but want to go back to Office 2007?  Here’s a step-by-step tutorial on how to remove your Office 2010 beta and reinstall your Office 2007. The Office 2010 beta will expire on October 31, 2010, at which time you may see a dialog like the one below.  At that time, you will need to either upgrade to the final release of Office 2010, or reinstall your previous version of Office. Our computer was running the Office 2010 Home and Business Click to Run beta, and after uninstalling it we reinstalled Office 2007 Home and Student.  This was a Windows Vista computer, but the process will be exactly the same on Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7.  Additionally, the process to reinstall Office 2007 will be exactly the same regardless of the edition of Office 2007 you’re using. However, please note that if you are running a different edition of Office 2010, especially the 64 bit version, the process may be slightly different.  We will cover this scenario in another article. Remove Office 2010 Click to Run Beta: To remove Office 2010 Click to Run Beta, open Control Panel and select Uninstall a Program. If your computer is running Windows 7, enter “Uninstall a program” in your Start menu search. Scroll down, select “Microsoft Office Click-to-Run 2010 (Beta)”, and click the Uninstall button on the toolbar.  Note that there will be two entries for Office, so make sure to select the “Click-to-Run” entry. This will automatically remove all of Office 2010 and its components.  Click Yes to confirm you want to remove it. Office 2010 beta uninstalled fairly quickly, and a reboot will be required.  Once your computer is rebooted, Office 2010 will be entirely removed. Reinstall Office 2007 Now, you’re to the easy part.  Simply insert your Office 2007 CD, and it should automatically startup the setup.  If not, open Computer and double-click on your CD drive.   Now, double-click on setup.exe to start the installation. Enter your product key, and click Continue…   Click Install Now, or click Customize if you want to change the default installation settings. Wait while Office 2007 installs…it takes around 15 to 20 minutes in our experience.  Once it’s finished  close the installer. Now, open one of the Office applications.  A popup will open asking you to activate Office.  Make sure you’re connected to the internet, and click next; otherwise, you can select to activate over the phone if you do not have internet access. This should only take a minute, and Office 2007 will be activated and ready to run. Everything should work just as it did before you installed Office 2010.  Enjoy! Office Updates Make sure to install the latest updates for Office 2007, as these are not included in your disk.  Check Windows Update (search for Windows Update in the Start menu search), and install all of the available updates for Office 2007, including Service Pack 2. Conclusion This is a great way to keep using Office even if you don’t decide to purchase Office 2010 after it is released.  Additionally, if you’re were using another version of Office, such as Office 2003, then reinstall it as normal after following the steps to remove Office 2010. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add or Remove Apps from the Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 SuiteDetect and Repair Applications In Microsoft Office 2007Save and Restore Your Microsoft Office SettingsDisable Office 2010 Beta Send-a-Smile from StartupHow to See the About Dialog and Version Information in Office 2007 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 If Web Browsers Were Modes of Transportation Google Translate (for animals) Out of 100 Tweeters Roadkill’s Scan Port scans for open ports Out of band Security Update for Internet Explorer 7 Cool Looking Screensavers for Windows

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  • XNA Notes 007

    - by George Clingerman
    Every week I keep wondering if there’s going to be enough activity in the community to keep doing these notes on a weekly basis and every week I’m reminded of just how awesome and active the XNA community is. There’s engines being made, tutorials being created, games being crafted. There’s information being shared, questions being answered and then there’s another whole community around the Xbox LIVE Indie Games themselves. It’s really incredibly to just watch all that’s going on and I’m glad I’m playing a small part in all of this. So here’s what I noticed happening in the XNA community last week. If there’s things I’m missing, always feel free to let me know. I love learning about new corners of the XNA community that I wasn’t aware of or just have been missing! XNA Developers: Uditha Bandara held an XNA Game Development Workshops at Singapore Universities http://uditha.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/xna-game-development-workshops-at-singapore-universities-event-update/ Binary Tweed gives his talks about Indie City and gives his opinion on the false promise of digital distribution http://www.develop-online.net/news/37053/OPINION-The-false-promise-of-digital-distribution Kris Steele posts his Trivia or Die postmortem http://www.krissteele.net/blogdetails.aspx?id=246 @MadNinjaSkills (James Johnston) posts his feelings on testing for XBLIG http://www.ezmuze.co.uk/101 Simon (@DDReaper) posts hints and tips for XNA developers to help get the size of their projects down http://twitter.com/#!/DDReaper/status/38279440924545024 http://xna-uk.net/blogs/darkgenesis/archive/2011/02/17/look-at-the-size-of-that-thing.aspx Michael B. McLaughlin proving why he should be an XNA MVP posts the list of commonly used value types in XNA games http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/02/17/list-of-commonly-used-value-types-in-xna-games.aspx http://twitter.com/#!/mikebmcl/status/38166541354811392 Paul Powell (@ITSligoPaul) posts about a common sprite batch as a game service http://itspaulsblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/xna-common-sprite-batch-as-game-service.html @SigilXNA (John Defenbaugh) posts his new level editor video for the sequel to Opac’s Journey http://twitter.com/SigilXNA/statuses/36548174373982209 http://twitter.com/#!/SigilXNA/status/36548174373982209 http://youtu.be/QHbmxB_2AW8 @jwatte updates kW Animation for XNA 4.0 http://www.enchantedage.com/xna-animation @DSebJ posts Blender to SunBurn http://twitter.com/#!/DSebJ/status/36564920224976896 http://dsebj.evolvingsoftware.com/?p=187 Ads and WP7 Games - @mechaghost shares his revenue data for his ad based games http://www.occasionalgamer.com/2011/02/09/ads-and-wp7-games/ Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): Steven Hurdle posts day 100 of his quest to find a fantastic XBLIG purchase every day http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/02/17/day-100-radiangames-ballistic/ Xbox 360 Indie Game Buying Guide - 12 games for $60 including several Xbox LIVE Indie games! (although if the XNA community was asked we could have recommended 60 games for $60...) http://www.indiegamemag.com/xbox360-indie-games-buying-guide/ The best selling Xbox LIVE Indie games of 2010 http://www.1up.com/news/xbox-live-most-popular-games I’d buy that for a dollar! - the California Literary Review points out a few gems on the XBLIG marketplace (and other places) where you can game on the cheap. http://calitreview.com/14125 Armless Octopus Episode 39 - The Indie Gem Octocast http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/02/17/armless-octocast-episode-39-the-indie-gem-octocast/ Ska Studios posts a plethora of updates http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/02/11/good-morning-gato-49/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/02/14/vampire-smile-valentines/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/02/16/the-dishwasher-vs-finds-a-home/ Kotaku posts about the Xbox LIVE Indie Game that makes you go Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew http://kotaku.com/#!5760632/the-game-that-makes-you-go-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew GameMarx continues to be active and doing a ton for the XBLIG community reviews and Top 5 indie games of the week 2/4-2/10 http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/22/ep-9-february-11-2010.aspx a new podcast Xbox Indie New Releases http://twitter.com/#!/gamemarx/status/36888849107910656 http://www.gamemarx.com/news/2011/02/13/a-new-podcast-xbox-indie-new-releases.aspx @MasterBlud uploads Indocalypse XBLIG Collections #2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzCZSv075mc&feature=youtu.be&a http://twitter.com/#!/MasterBlud/status/37100029697064960 Just Press Start interviews Michael Hicks from MichaelArts, 18 year old creator of Honor in Vengeance http://justpressstart.net/?p=465 Achievement Locked interviews Kris Steele of FunInfused Games http://xboxindies.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/interview-fun-infused-games/ XNA Game Development: XNA -UK launches their XAP test service to help the XNA community http://xna-uk.net/blogs/news/archive/2011/02/18/xna-uk-xap-test-service-now-live.aspx Transmute shows off a video of the standard character editor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqH6gErG948&feature=youtu.be Microsoft Tech Student introduces their first tech student of the month.  Meet Daniel Van Tassel from the University of Utah and learn how he created an Xbox LIVE Indie Game using XNA Studio http://blogs.msdn.com/b/techstudent/archive/2010/12/22/introducing-our-first-tech-student-of-the-month-daniel-van-tassel.aspx XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 3 - Animation (transforms) http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/XNA-for-Silverlight-developers-Part-3-Animation-transforms.aspx XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 4 - Animation (frame based) http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/XNA-for-Silverlight-developers-Part-4-Animation-frame-based.aspx @suhinini tweets about an XNA Sprite Font generation tool http://twitter.com/#!/suhinini/status/36841370131890176 http://www.nubik.com/SpriteFont/ XNATouch 1.5 is out and in it’s words is faster, simpler, more reliable and has the XNA 4.0 API http://monogame.codeplex.com/releases/view/60815 IndieCity is hosting marketing workshops for Indie Developers (UK and US) http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/75197/457654.aspx#457654 New York Students - Learn XNA and Silverlight for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/72753/456964.aspx#456964 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/andrewparsons/archive/2011/01/13/learn-to-build-your-own-games-for-xbox-360-and-windows-phone-7.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/andrewparsons/archive/2011/01/13/build-a-game-in-48-hours-win-a-kinect-or-windows-phone-7.aspx Extra Credits: Videogame Music http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2019-Videogame-Music Steve Pavlina posts an article with useful information for all XNA/XBLIG developers http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2011/02/completion-vs-perfection/

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  • Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5

    - by pinaldave
    Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 We have now reached the end of our series about developer training.  I hope you have come away thinking that training is the best way to advance in your company and that you are looking for training opportunities right now.  If you’re still not convinced here are a few things to keep in mind:  Training benefits the employer and the employee. A well trained employee is a happy employee, and a happy employee is more efficient and productive. Training an employee might be expensive, but it is less expensive than hiring a new person. Whether you are looking at him from the employee’s or the company’s point of view, there are always advantages to training. A Broader View This series is definitely written for Developer Training but it is not limited to developers only. There are IT Pro, System Admins, DBAs as well many other technology professionals; this article series is for all professionals in the world. The concepts and take away will remain common across all the platform and regardless of technology affiliation. Pass the Knowledge If I have to pick one advise which is extremely important related to training, I will pick – pass the knowledge. Once you have decided in favor of training, there is more to it than simply showing up and staying awake.  It is always a good idea to take notes – at the very least it will help you stay awake, but they will often serve as a good way to remember your training when you go back to work.  You can also use them to pass your new knowledge on to fellow employees, which can be very fun and rewarding. Right Place, Right Time and Right Training There are so many ways to get developer training.  In-person and on the job training is easy to come by and is the most usual type of training, but don’t overlook my favorite type of training: On Demand.  Being able to learn at your own pace, own place and on your own time will make training a realistic goal for almost every employee. I can think of nothing more important in life than furthering your education.  Especially when you work in a field that is constantly changing – like technology.  Whether you like it or not, training is incredibly important.  That is why I feel it is so important to receive training.  And because there are so many different training formats – live, online, through books, through people – I am certain that we all can find a way to be trained that best suits our goals and personalities. The Teacher Within If you think of anyone who is a master of the technology field or an incredibly successful developer (the obvious examples that spring to mind are Steve Jobs or Bill Gates), you will also find a teacher.  Both these individuals spent their lives developing better technology, but also educating other developers and the public about how to use these technologies and how it can change your life for the better.  I think that we all should strive to be like these wonderful teachers.  We might not be able to change the world, but we can certainly change a few lives around us. Even if we never turn into trainers ourselves , being trained as a student can be a good exercise.  We learn a lot and become better employees – and it would not be a stretch to say that this makes us better individuals, as well. Final Say I think learning and growing in your chosen field is not only a good idea, career-wise, but can be fun, too!  I for one never feel more alive than when I am learning about something I am really passionate about.  I think my job title – technology evangelist – explains how enthusiastic I am about this subject.  But please don’t think that I am thinking of this as someone who wants to train and educate others (although this is also one of my passions).  I am also a passionate student.  I enjoy learning new things and am always on the lookout for new ways to learn and new people to learn from. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • How to Access a Windows Desktop From Your Tablet or Phone

    - by Chris Hoffman
    iPads and Android tablets can’t run Windows apps locally, but they can access a Windows desktops remotely — even with a physical keyboard. In a pinch, the same tricks can be used to access a Windows desktop from a smartphone. Microsoft recently launched their own official Remote Desktop app for iOS and Android devices. Microsoft’s official apps are primarily useful for businesses — if you’re a typical home user, you’ll want to use a different remote desktop solution. Microsoft’s Remote Desktop App Microsoft now offers official Remote Desktop apps for iPad and iPhone as well as Android tablets and smartphones. The apps use Microsoft’s RDP protocol to connect to remote Windows systems. They’re essentially just new clients for the Remote Desktop feature that has been included in Windows for more than a decade. There are big problems with these apps if you’re an average home user. Microsoft’s Remote Desktop server is not available on standard or Home versions of Windows, only Professional and Enterprise editions. If you do have the appropriate edition of Windows, you’ll have to set up port-forwarding and a dynamic DNS service if you want to access your Windows desktop from outside your local network. You could also set up a VPN — either way you’ll need to do some footwork. This app is a gift to businesses who are already using Remote Desktop and enthusiasts who have the more expensive versions of Windows and don’t mind the configuration process. To set this up, follow our guide to setting up Remote Desktop for Internet access and connect using the Remote Desktop app instead of traditional Remote Desktop clients. TeamViewer If you have the standard edition of Windows or you just don’t want to mess around with port-forwarding and dynamic DNS configuration, you’ll want to skip Remote Desktop and use something else. We like TeamViewer for this. Just as it’s a great way to remotely troubleshoot your relatives’ computers, it’s also a great way to remotely access your own computer. It doesn’t have the same limitations Microsoft’s Remote Desktop system has — it’s completely free for personal use, runs on any edition of Windows, and is easy to set up. There’s no messing around with port-forwarding or dynamic DNS configuration. To get started, just download and run the TeamViewer program on your computer. You can get started with it immediately, but you’ll want to set up unattended access to connect remotely without using the codes displayed on your screen. To connect, just install the TeamViewer mobile app and log in with the details the TeamViewer window displays. TeamViewer also offers software that runs on Mac and Linux, so you can remote-control other types of computers from your tablet. Other Options Microsoft’s Remote Desktop app and TeamViewer aren’t the only options, of course. There are a variety of different apps and services built for this. Splashtop is another fairly popular remote desktop solution that some people report as being faster. Unfortunately, it’s not entirely free — the iPad and iPhone app costs $20 at regular price. To use it over the Internet, you’ll have to purchase an additional “Anywhere Access Pack.” If you’re frustrated with TeamViewer’s speed and you don’t mind spending money, you may want to try Splashtop instead. As always, you could use any VNC server along with a VNC client app. VNC is the do-it-yourself solution — it’s an open protocol. Unlike Microsoft’s RDP protocol, you can install a VNC server of your own, configure it how you like, and use any mobile VNC client app. This is more flexible because you can install a VNC server on any edition of Windows or even non-Windows operating systems, but it otherwise has all the same issues — you have to worry about port-forwarding, setting up dynamic DNS, and securing your VNC server. Keep an eye on Chrome Remote Desktop. Chrome already offers a built-in remote desktop feature that allows you to remotely control your PC from another Windows, Mac, Linux, or Chrome OS device. Google is rumored to be building an Android app for Chrome Remote Desktop, which would allow you to easily access a computer running Chrome from Android tablets. Google’s solution is much more user-friendly for average people than Microsoft’s Remote Desktop solution, which is clearly geared towards businesses. Chrome Remote Desktop just requires signing in with a Google account. Remote desktop solutions like Microsoft’s Remote Desktop app and TeamViewer are also available for Windows tablets. On Windows RT devices like the Surface RT and Surface 2, they allow you to use the full Windows desktop that’s unavailable on your tablet.     

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  • 2010 Collaboration Summit Impressions

    - by Elena Zannoni
    It's a bit late, but there you have it anyway. April 14 to 16 I attended the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in SFO. I was running two tracks, one on tracing and one on tools. You can see the tracks and the slides here: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/slides I was pretty busy both days, Thursday with a whole day tracing track, Friday with a half day toolchain track. The sessions were well attended, the rooms were full, with people spilling in the hallways. Some new things were presented, like Kernelshark, by Steve Rostedt, a GUI (yes, believe it or not, a GUI) written in GTK. It is very nice, showing a timeline for traced kernel events, and you can zoom in and filter at will. It works on the latest kernels, and it requires some new things/fixes in GTK. I don't recall exactly what version of GTK though. Dominique Toupin from Ericsson presented something about user requirements for tracing. Mostly though about who's who in the embedded world, and eclipse. Masami and Mathieu presented an update on their work. See their slides. The interesting thing to me was of course the new version of uprobes w/o underlying utrace presented by Jim Keniston. At the end of the session we had a discussion about the future of utrace. Roland wasn't there, butTom Tromey (also from RedHat) collected the feedback. Basically we are at a standstill now that utrace has been rejected yet again. There wasn't much advise that anybody could give, except jokingly, we decided that the only way in is to make it a part of perf events. There needs to be another refactoring, but most of all, this "killer app" that would be enabled because of utrace hasn't materialized yet. We think that having a good debugging story on Linux is enough of a killer app, for instance allowing multiple tracers, and not relying on SIGCHLD etc. I think this wasn't completely clear to the kernel community. Trying to achieve debugging via a gdb stub inside the kernel interfacing to utrace and that is controlled via the gdb remote protocol also lost its appeal (thankfully, since the gdb remote protocol is archaic). Somebody would have to be creative in how to submit utrace. It doesn't have to be called utrace (it was really a random choice, for lack of a letter that was not already used in front of the word "trace"). So basically, I think the ideas behind utrace are sound, and the necessity of a new interface is acknowledged. But I believe the integration/submission process with the kernel folks has to restart from scratch, clean slate. We'll see. There are many conferences and meetings coming up in the near future where things can be discussed further. On the second day, Friday, we had the tools talks. It was interesting to observe the more "kernel" oriented people's behavior towards the gcc etc community. The first talk was by Mark Mitchell, about Gcc and its new plugin architecture. After that, Paolo talked about the new C++1x standard, which will be finalized in 2011. Many features are already implemented in the libstdc++ library and gcc and usable today. We had a few minutes (really, the half day track was quite short) where Bradley Kuhn from the Software Freedom Law Center explained the GPLv3 exception for gcc (due to the new gcc plugin architecture and the availability of the intermediate results from the compilation, which is a new thing). I will not try to explain, but basically you cannot take the result of the preprocessing and then use that in your own proprietary compiler. After, we had a talk by Ian Taylor about the new Gold linker. One good thing in that area is that they are trying to make gold the new default linker (for instance Fedora will use gold as the distro linker). However gold is very different from binutils' old linker. It doesn't use a linker script, for instance. The kernel has been linked with gold many times as an exercise (the ground work was done by Kris Van Hees), but this needs to be constantly tested/monitored because the kernel linker script is very complex, and uses esoteric features (Wenji is now monitoring that each kernel RC can be built with gold). It was positive that people are now aware of gold and the need for it to be ported to more architectures. It seems that the porting is very easy, with little arch dependent code. Finally Tom Tromey presented about gdb and the archer project. Archer is a development branch of gdb mostly done by RedHat, where they are focusing on better c++ printing, c++ expression parsing, and plugins. The archer work is merged regularly in the gdb mainline. In general it was a good conference. I did miss most of the first day, because that's when I flew in. But I caught a couple of talks. Nothing earth shattering, except for Google giving each person registered a free Android phone. Yey.

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  • SQL SERVER – Solution – Puzzle – Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once

    - by pinaldave
    Earlier I asked puzzle why statistics are not updated. Read the complete details over here: Statistics are not Updated but are Created Once In the question I have demonstrated even though statistics should have been updated after lots of insert in the table are not updated.(Read the details SQL SERVER – When are Statistics Updated – What triggers Statistics to Update) In this example I have created following situation: Create Table Insert 1000 Records Check the Statistics Now insert 10 times more 10,000 indexes Check the Statistics – it will be NOT updated Auto Update Statistics and Auto Create Statistics for database is TRUE Now I have requested two things in the example 1) Why this is happening? 2) How to fix this issue? I have many answers – here is the how I fixed it which has resolved the issue for me. NOTE: There are multiple answers to this problem and I will do my best to list all. Solution: Create nonclustered Index on column City Here is the working example for the same. Let us understand this script and there is added explanation at the end. -- Execution Plans Difference -- Estimated Execution Plan Vs Actual Execution Plan -- Create Sample Database CREATE DATABASE SampleDB GO USE SampleDB GO -- Create Table CREATE TABLE ExecTable (ID INT, FirstName VARCHAR(100), LastName VARCHAR(100), City VARCHAR(100)) GO CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_ExecTable1 ON ExecTable (City); GO -- Insert One Thousand Records -- INSERT 1 INSERT INTO ExecTable (ID,FirstName,LastName,City) SELECT TOP 1000 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name) RowID, 'Bob', CASE WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%2 = 1 THEN 'Smith' ELSE 'Brown' END, CASE WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 1 THEN 'New York' WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 5 THEN 'San Marino' WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 3 THEN 'Los Angeles' WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 7 THEN 'La Cinega' WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 13 THEN 'San Diego' WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 17 THEN 'Las Vegas' ELSE 'Houston' END FROM sys.all_objects a CROSS JOIN sys.all_objects b GO -- Display statistics of the table sp_helpstats N'ExecTable', 'ALL' GO -- Select Statement SELECT FirstName, LastName, City FROM ExecTable WHERE City  = 'New York' GO -- Display statistics of the table sp_helpstats N'ExecTable', 'ALL' GO -- Replace your Statistics over here DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS('ExecTable', IX_ExecTable1); GO -------------------------------------------------------------- -- Round 2 -- Insert One Thousand Records -- INSERT 2 INSERT INTO ExecTable (ID,FirstName,LastName,City) SELECT TOP 1000 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name) RowID, 'Bob', CASE WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%2 = 1 THEN 'Smith' ELSE 'Brown' END, CASE WHEN ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 1 THEN 'New York' WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 5 THEN 'San Marino' WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 3 THEN 'Los Angeles' WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 7 THEN 'La Cinega' WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 13 THEN 'San Diego' WHEN  ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY a.name)%20 = 17 THEN 'Las Vegas' ELSE 'Houston' END FROM sys.all_objects a CROSS JOIN sys.all_objects b GO -- Select Statement SELECT FirstName, LastName, City FROM ExecTable WHERE City  = 'New York' GO -- Display statistics of the table sp_helpstats N'ExecTable', 'ALL' GO -- Replace your Statistics over here DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS('ExecTable', IX_ExecTable1); GO -- Clean up Database DROP TABLE ExecTable GO When I created non clustered index on the column city, it also created statistics on the same column with same name as index. When we populate the data in the column the index is update – resulting execution plan to be invalided – this leads to the statistics to be updated in next execution of SELECT. This behavior does not happen on Heap or column where index is auto created. If you explicitly update the index, often you can see the statistics are updated as well. You can see this is for sure happening if you follow the tell of John Sansom. John Sansom‘s suggestion: That was fun! Although the column statistics are invalidated by the time the second select statement is executed, the query is not compiled/recompiled but instead the existing query plan is reused. It is the “next” compiled query against the column statistics that will see that they are out of date and will then in turn instantiate the action of updating statistics. You can see this in action by forcing the second statement to recompile. SELECT FirstName, LastName, City FROM ExecTable WHERE City = ‘New York’ option(RECOMPILE) GO Kevin Cross also have another suggestion: I agree with John. It is reusing the Execution Plan. Aside from OPTION(RECOMPILE), clearing the Execution Plan Cache before the subsequent tests will also work. i.e., run this before round 2: ————————————————————– – Clear execution plan cache before next test DBCC FREEPROCCACHE WITH NO_INFOMSGS; ————————————————————– Nice puzzle! Kevin As this was puzzle John and Kevin both got the correct answer, there was no condition for answer to be part of best practices. I know John and he is finest DBA around – his tremendous knowledge has always impressed me. John and Kevin both will agree that clearing cache either using DBCC FREEPROCCACHE and recompiling each query every time is for sure not good advice on production server. It is correct answer but not best practice. By the way, if you have better solution or have better suggestion please advise. I am open to change my answer and publish further improvement to this solution. On very separate note, I like to have clustered index on my Primary Key, which I have not mentioned here as it is out of the scope of this puzzle. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Statistics

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  • Clean up after Visual Studio

    - by psheriff
    As programmer’s we know that if we create a temporary file during the running of our application we need to make sure it is removed when the application or process is complete. We do this, but why can’t Microsoft do it? Visual Studio leaves tons of temporary files all over your hard drive. This is why, over time, your computer loses hard disk space. This blog post will show you some of the most common places where these files are left and which ones you can safely delete..NET Left OversVisual Studio is a great development environment for creating applications quickly. However, it will leave a lot of miscellaneous files all over your hard drive. There are a few locations on your hard drive that you should be checking to see if there are left-over folders or files that you can delete. I have attempted to gather as much data as I can about the various versions of .NET and operating systems. Of course, your mileage may vary on the folders and files I list here. In fact, this problem is so prevalent that PDSA has created a Computer Cleaner specifically for the Visual Studio developer.  Instructions for downloading our PDSA Developer Utilities (of which Computer Cleaner is one) are at the end of this blog entry.Each version of Visual Studio will create “temporary” files in different folders. The problem is that the files created are not always “temporary”. Most of the time these files do not get cleaned up like they should. Let’s look at some of the folders that you should periodically review and delete files within these folders.Temporary ASP.NET FilesAs you create and run ASP.NET applications from Visual Studio temporary files are placed into the <sysdrive>:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework[64]\<vernum>\Temporary ASP.NET Files folder. The folders and files under this folder can be removed with no harm to your development computer. Do not remove the "Temporary ASP.NET Files" folder itself, just the folders underneath this folder. If you use IIS for ASP.NET development, you may need to run the iisreset.exe utility from the command prompt prior to deleting any files/folder under this folder. IIS will sometimes keep files in use in this folder and iisreset will release the locks so the files/folders can be deleted.Website CacheThis folder is similar to the ASP.NET Temporary Files folder in that it contains files from ASP.NET applications run from Visual Studio. This folder is located in each users local settings folder. The location will be a little different on each operating system. For example on Windows Vista/Windows 7, the folder is located at <sysdrive>:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WebsiteCache. If you are running Windows XP this folder is located at <sysdrive>:\ Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\WebsiteCache. Check these locations periodically and delete all files and folders under this directory.Visual Studio BackupThis backup folder is used by Visual Studio to store temporary files while you develop in Visual Studio. This folder never gets cleaned out, so you should periodically delete all files and folders under this directory. On Windows XP, this folder is located at <sysdrive>:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\My Documents\Visual Studio 200[5|8]\Backup Files. On Windows Vista/Windows 7 this folder is located at <sysdrive>:\Users\<UserName>\Documents\Visual Studio 200[5|8]\.Assembly CacheNo, this is not the global assembly cache (GAC). It appears that this cache is only created when doing WPF or Silverlight development with Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Studio 2010. This folder is located in <sysdrive>:\ Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\assembly\dl3 on Windows Vista/Windows 7. On Windows XP this folder is located at <sysdrive>:\ Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Local Settings\Application Data\assembly. If you have not done any WPF or Silverlight development, you may not find this particular folder on your machine.Project AssembliesThis is yet another folder where Visual Studio stores temporary files. You will find a folder for each project you have opened and worked on. This folder is located at <sysdrive>:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Visual Studio\[8|9].0\ProjectAssemblies on Windows XP. On Microsoft Vista/Windows 7 you will find this folder at <sysdrive>:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Visual Studio\[8|9].0\ProjectAssemblies.Remember not all of these folders will appear on your particular machine. Which ones do show up will depend on what version of Visual Studio you are using, whether or not you are doing desktop or web development, and the operating system you are using.SummaryTaking the time to periodically clean up after Visual Studio will aid in keeping your computer running quickly and increase the space on your hard drive. Another place to make sure you are cleaning up is your TEMP folder. Check your OS settings for the location of your particular TEMP folder and be sure to delete any files in here that are not in use. I routinely clean up the files and folders described in this blog post and I find that I actually eliminate errors in Visual Studio and I increase my hard disk space.NEW! PDSA has just published a “pre-release” of our PDSA Developer Utilities at http://www.pdsa.com/DeveloperUtilities that contains a Computer Cleaner utility which will clean up the above-mentioned folders, as well as a lot of other miscellaneous folders that get Visual Studio build-up. You can download a free trial at http://www.pdsa.com/DeveloperUtilities. If you wish to purchase our utilities through the month of November, 2011 you can use the RSVP code: DUNOV11 to get them for only $39. This is $40 off the regular price.NOTE: You can download this article and many samples like the one shown in this blog entry at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Select “Tips and Tricks”, then “Developer Machine Clean Up” from the drop down list.Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **We frequently offer a FREE gift for readers of my blog. Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for your FREE gift!

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  • PASS Summit 2010 Recap

    - by AjarnMark
    Last week I attended my eighth PASS Summit in nine years, and every year it is a fantastic event!  I was fortunate my first year to have a contact (Bill Graziano (blog | Twitter) from SQLTeam) that I was expecting to meet, and who got me started on a good track of making new contacts.  Each year I have made a few more, and renewed friendships from years past.  Many of the attendees agree that the pure networking opportunities are one of the best benefits of attending the Summit.  And there’s a lot of great technical stuff, too, some of the things that stick out for me this year include… Pre-Con Monday: PowerShell with Allen White (blog | Twitter).  This was the first time that I attended a pre-con.  For those not familiar with the concept, the regular sessions for the conference are 75-90 minutes long.  For an extra fee, you can attend a full-day session on a single topic during a pre- or post-conference training day.  I had been meaning for several months to dive in and learn PowerShell, but just never seemed to find (or make) the time for it, so when I saw this was one of the all-day sessions, and I was planning to be there on Monday anyway, I decided to go for it.  And it was well worth it!  I definitely came out of there with a good foundation to build my own PowerShell scripts, plus several sample scripts that he showed which already cover the first four or five things I was planning to do with PowerShell anyway.  This looks like the right tool for me to build an automated version of our software deployment process, which right now contains many repeated steps.  Thanks Allen! Service Broker with Denny Cherry (blog | Twitter).  I remembered reading Denny’s blog post on Using Service Broker instead of Replication, and ever since then I have been thinking about using this to populate a new reporting-focused Data Repository that we will be building in the near future.  When I saw he was doing this session, I thought it would be great to get more information and be able to ask the author questions.  When I brought this idea back to my boss, he really liked it, as we had previously been discussing doing nightly data loads, with an option to manually trigger a mid-day load if up-to-the-minute data was needed for something.  If we go the Service Broker route, we can keep the Repository current in near real-time.  Hooray! DBA Mythbusters with Paul Randal (blog | Twitter).  Even though I read every one of the posts in Paul’s blog series of the same name, I had to go see the legend in person.  It was great, and I still learned something new! How to Conduct Effective Meetings with Joe Webb (blog | Twitter).  I always like to sit in on a session that Joe does.  I met Joe several years ago when both he and Bill Graziano were on the PASS Board of Directors together, and we have kept in touch.  Joe is very well-spoken and has great experience with both SQL Server and business.  And we could certainly use some pointers at my work (probably yours, too) on making our meetings more effective and to run on-time.  Of course, now that I’m the Chapter Leader for the Professional Development virtual chapter, I also had to sit in on this ProfDev session and recruit Joe to do a presentation or two for the chapter next year. Query Optimization with David DeWitt.  Anyone who has seen Dr. David DeWitt present the 3rd keynote at a PASS Summit over the last three years knows what a great time it is to sit and listen to him make some really complicated and advanced topic easy to understand (although it still makes your head hurt).  It still amazes me that the simple two-table join query from pubs that he used in his example can possibly have 22 million possible physical query plans.  Ouch! Exhibit Hall:  This year I spent more serious time in the exhibit hall than any year past.  I have talked my boss into making a significant (for us) investment in monitoring tools next year, and this was a great opportunity to talk with all the big-hitters.  Readers of mine may recall that I fell in love with the SQL Sentry Power Suite several months ago and wrote a blog entry about it just from the trial version.  Well as things turned out, short-term budget priorities shifted, and we weren’t able to make the purchase then.  I have it in the budget for next year, but since I was going to the Summit, my boss wanted me to look at the other options to see if this was really the one that we wanted.  I spent a couple of hours talking with representatives from Red-Gate, Idera, Confio, and Quest about their offerings, and giving them each the same 3 scenarios that I wanted to be able to accomplish based on the questions and issues that arise in our company.  It was interesting to discover the different approaches or “world view” that each vendor takes to the subject of performance monitoring and troubleshooting.  I may write a separate article that goes into this in more depth, but the product that best aligned with our point of view, and met the current needs we have is still the SQL Sentry Power Suite.  I’m not saying that the others are bad or wrong or anything like that, just that the way they tackled the issue did not align as well with our particular needs as does SQL Sentry’s product.  And that was something I learned too, when you go shopping for these products, you really need to know what you want to get from them.  It’s best if you have a few example scenarios from work that you can use to test out how well each tool fits your particular needs. Overall, another GREAT event.  I can’t wait to get the DVDs so I can sit in on a bunch of other sessions that I couldn’t get to because I was in one of the ones above.  And I can hardly wait until next year!

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  • Measuring Usability with Common Industry Format (CIF) Usability Tests

    - by Applications User Experience
    Sean Rice, Manager, Applications User Experience A User-centered Research and Design Process The Oracle Fusion Applications user experience was five years in the making. The development of this suite included an extensive and comprehensive user experience design process: ethnographic research, low-fidelity workflow prototyping, high fidelity user interface (UI) prototyping, iterative formative usability testing, development feedback and iteration, and sales and customer evaluation throughout the design cycle. However, this process does not stop when our products are released. We conduct summative usability testing using the ISO 25062 Common Industry Format (CIF) for usability test reports as an organizational framework. CIF tests allow us to measure the overall usability of our released products.  These studies provide benchmarks that allow for comparisons of a specific product release against previous versions of our product and against other products in the marketplace. What Is a CIF Usability Test? CIF refers to the internationally standardized method for reporting usability test findings used by the software industry. The CIF is based on a formal, lab-based test that is used to benchmark the usability of a product in terms of human performance and subjective data. The CIF was developed and is endorsed by more than 375 software customer and vendor organizations led by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), a US government entity. NIST sponsored the CIF through the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards-making processes. Oracle played a key role in developing the CIF. The CIF report format and metrics are consistent with the ISO 9241-11 definition of usability: “The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use.” Our goal in conducting CIF tests is to measure performance and satisfaction of a representative sample of users on a set of core tasks and to help predict how usable a product will be with the larger population of customers. Why Do We Perform CIF Testing? The overarching purpose of the CIF for usability test reports is to promote incorporation of usability as part of the procurement decision-making process for interactive products. CIF provides a common format for vendors to report the methods and results of usability tests to customer organizations, and enables customers to compare the usability of our software to that of other suppliers. CIF also enables us to compare our current software with previous versions of our software. CIF Testing for Fusion Applications Oracle Fusion Applications comprises more than 100 modules in seven different product families. These modules encompass more than 400 task flows and 400 user roles. Due to resource constraints, we cannot perform comprehensive CIF testing across the entire product suite. Therefore, we had to develop meaningful inclusion criteria and work with other stakeholders across the applications development organization to prioritize product areas for testing. Ultimately, we want to test the product areas for which customers might be most interested in seeing CIF data. We also want to build credibility with customers; we need to be able to make the case to current and prospective customers that the product areas tested are representative of the product suite as a whole. Our goal is to test the top use cases for each product. The primary activity in the scoping process was to work with the individual product teams to identify the key products and business process task flows in each product to test. We prioritized these products and flows through a series of negotiations among the user experience managers, product strategy, and product management directors for each of the primary product families within the Oracle Fusion Applications suite (Human Capital Management, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management, Financials, Projects, and Procurement). The end result of the scoping exercise was a list of 47 proposed CIF tests for the Fusion Applications product suite.  Figure 1. A participant completes tasks during a usability test in Oracle’s Usability Labs Fusion Supplier Portal CIF Test The first Fusion CIF test was completed on the Supplier Portal application in July of 2011.  Fusion Supplier Portal is part of an integrated suite of Procurement applications that helps supplier companies manage orders, schedules, shipments, invoices, negotiations and payments. The user roles targeted for the usability study were Supplier Account Receivables Specialists and Supplier Sales Representatives, including both experienced and inexperienced users across a wide demographic range.  The test specifically focused on the following functionality and features: Manage payments – view payments Manage invoices – view invoice status and create invoices Manage account information – create new contact, review bank account information Manage agreements – find and view agreement, upload agreement lines, confirm status of agreement lines upload Manage purchase orders (PO) – view history of PO, request change to PO, find orders Manage negotiations – respond to request for a quote, check the status of a negotiation response These product areas were selected to represent the most important subset of features and functionality of the flow, in terms of frequency and criticality of use by customers. A total of 20 users participated in the usability study. The results of the Supplier Portal evaluation were favorable and exceeded our expectations. Figure 2. Fusion Supplier Portal Next Studies We plan to conduct two Fusion CIF usability studies per product family over the next nine months. The next product to be tested will be Self-service Procurement. End users are currently being recruited to participate in this usability study, and the test sessions are scheduled to begin during the last week of November.

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