graphics card - Page 271

How to diagnose computer lockups and freezes?

- by Scott Mitchell

I built a desktop computer a couple years back with the following specs: CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Yorkfield 2.5GHz 6 MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80580Q9300 Motherboard: EVGA 122-CK-NF68-T1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard Video Card: Two EVGA 256-P2-N758-TR GeForce 8600GT SCC 256 MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card PSU: SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-550HT 550W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply Memory: Two G.SKILL 4 GB (2 x 2 GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ Since its inception, the machine has periodically locked up, the regularity having varied over the years from once a day to once a month. Typically, lockups happen once every few days. By "lockup" I mean my computer just freezes. The screen locks up, I can't move the mouse. Hitting keys on my keyboard that normally turn LEDs on or off on the keyboard (such as Caps Lock) no longer turn the LEDs on or off. If there was music playing at the time of the lockup, noise keeps coming out of the speakers, but it's just the current frequency/note that plays indefinitely. There is no BSOD. When such a lockup occurs I have to do a hard reboot by either turning off the computer or hitting the reset button. I have the most recent version of the NVIDIA hardware drivers, and update them semi-regularly, but that hasn't seemed to help. I am currently using Windows 7 x64, but was previously using Windows Server 2003 x64 and having the same lockup issues. My guess is that it's somehow video driver or motherboard related, but I don't know how to go about diagnosing this problem to narrow down which of the two is the culprit. Additional information re: cooling Regarding cooling... I've not installed any after-market cooling systems aside from two regular fans I scavenged from an older computer. The fan atop the CPU is the one that shipped with it. One of the two scavenged fans I added it located at the bottom tower of the corner, in an attempt to create some airflow from front to back. The second fan is pointed directly at the two video cards. SpeedFan installation and readings Per studiohack's suggestion, I installed SpeedFan, which provided the following temperature readings: GPU: 63C GPU: 65C System: 76C CPU: 64C AUX: 36C Core 0: 78C Core 1: 76C Core 2: 79C Core 3: 79C Update #3: Another Lockup :-( Well, I had another lockup last night. :-( SpeedFan reported the CPU temp at 38 C when it happened, and there was no spike in temperature leading up to the freeze. One thing I notice is that the freeze seems more likely to happen if I am watching a video. In fact, of the last 5 freezes over the past month, 4 of them have been while watching a video on Flickr. Not necessarily the same video, but a video nevertheless. I don't know if this is just coincidence or if it means anything. (As an aside, each night before bedtime my 2 year old daughter sits on my lap and watches some home videos on Flickr and, in the last month, has learned the phrase, "Uh oh, computer broke.") Update #4: MemTest86 and 3DMark06 Test Results: Per suggestions in the comments, I ran the MemTest86 overnight and it cycled through the 8 GB of memory 5 times without error. I also ran the 3DMark06 test without a problem (see my scores at http://3dmark.com/3dm06/15163549). So... what now? :-) Any further suggestions on what to check? Is there some way to get a stack trace or something when the computer locks like that? Resolution I have never did figure out the particular problems, but based on the suggestions here and elsewhere, I'm presuming it was a motherboard issue. In any event, I recently upgraded my system, buying a new motherbeard, PSU, CPU, and RAM, and that new rig has been working splendidly the past several weeks. I am using the same graphic cards as in the old setup, so I think it's safe to reason that they weren't the cause of the problem.

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Bridging a non-persistent PPP connection to wireless (or wired) in Windows XP

- by phooze

I have a 3G modem-like device (eMobile's D01NX, PC card style, for any Japan nerds out there) that I use to connect my PC to the Internet. I'd like to bridge this connection with another computer either via an ad-hoc wireless network, or a simple cross-over cable (either are options). However, when I open "Network Connections", I do not see the PPP connection (otherwise I could click both and bridge). I believe this is because there is software (provided by the vendor) that is handling the card directly and registering a PPP connection dynamically. When connected, an ipconfig at the command line yields: Ethernet adapter wireless: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Autoconfiguration IP Address. . . : 169.254.5.169 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.0.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : Ethernet adapter lan: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected PPP adapter {B59EEDDE-A22B-48DF-93E5-04842B641257}: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 114.xx.xxx.xx Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 114.xx.xxx.xx (I've commented out my IP address for privacy reasons, but what does appear there is a functional Internet IP address.) When I disconnect the adapter with the vendor software, the PPP connection disappears completely from the ipconfig list. Any ideas on how to do this?

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Problems with XP, Office, and PC in general - any ideas?

- by molecule

Hi all This may not make a whole lot of sense so pls bear with me... I am about to perform a routine check on one of my user's PC. Some background - the PC has a Xeon processor and 4Gb of RAM and running XP SP3 He has 2xHDD and pagefile is hosted on the secondary HDD (D:) and min/max values are set to 4096. NO pagefile on C: This user has 6 monitors so he has an NVIDIA Quadro NVS440 hosting 4xmonitors and an NVIDIA Quadro NVS290 hosting 2xmonitors. There is a video card driver from NVIDIA which is compatible with both NVS440 and NVS290 and he is on the latest version of that driver. (Note: Make of video cards are different - one is from leadtek and the other from Nvidia) He is a heavy Bloomberg, Outlook, Word, and Excel user and runs two Citrix applications. Other apps are FoxIt PDF and IE. Problems - Outlook and Excel frequently crashes - I am going to perform an Outlook and Excel repair and also check/remove unnecessary addins - will he lose any customizations if I repaired and chose "Restore my shortcuts while repairing" and do not select "Discard my customized settings and restore default settings". Does repair really repair anything? FYI - It stopped crashing ever since i moved a large spreadsheet he has open to his local HDD instead of over the network. This spreadsheet "refreshes" constantly as it is pulling live data to update cells and I suspect it was auto-saving so frequently that it caused crashes if saving over the network. At times, his right click completely fails to respond. His left click works fine but he can't right click on anything in any Window and even on the desktop. Sometimes, he needs to start to close certain applications such as Adobe and the right click will start functioning again. I removed Adobe and installed FoxIt as I figured it was a resource issue but I do not think so as he does have sufficient resources when the problem is happening. Sometimes he can't bring task manager up until he kills certain apps. Definitely sounds like a resource issue but I am not confident that is the root cause. Also not sure if this is related to one of the apps installed but his Start bar flickers (does not completely disappear) intermittently from time to time. The taskbar icons which are hidden appear and then get hidden again as if it was having "fits". I have performed reg scans, malware scans etc but problems do not go away. I am planning to perform sfc /scannow and office repair but would like to know if anyone has any other suggestions. What about setting a "small" pagefile on C:. I have heard that this is recommended and may be the reason why a minidmp file was not generated when he encountered a blue screen. Also, any feedback on his video cards? Do you think different models would cause problems? The drivers seem to work but he only has 2.5Gb out of 4Gb available RAM as I believe the video card chomped up a portion of this. I have recommended creating a new profile for him but due to the amount of customisations he has and the amount of time and effort it will take to get him up and running again, he prefers to bear with the problem than to go down that path. However, at least once a week, his PC acts up and I can't think of any other tools or techniques to rectify his problems. I guess we are at a stage where we just want to "stabilize" things so he won't encounter issues that frequently. Any feedback is very much appreciated.

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Computer not POSTing "randomly"?

- by smoth190

I have a custom built PC that is exhibiting some...odd... behavior, something I've never seen before. It was working fine one day, and the next day, it wouldn't start. Seeing as I wanted an upgrade anyway, I purchased a new motherboard that was compatible with all my parts. While replacing the motherboard, I accidentally damaged the CPU. Well, I wanted a new one anyway... so I got a new one. Seeing as I was replacing a ton of parts already, I bought a new PSU because the old one was super loud. When I slapped it all together, it starts up, lights, fans, drives, they all start. But I get no display from the monitor. No beeps, which I believe means it doesn't POST. I figured it was the RAM, because after removing the sound card and graphics card, there was nothing else that I hadn't replaced. When I remove both sticks of RAM, I get a continuous beeping, and according to the mobo handbook, means no RAM. So I think the mobo is functional, or atleast partly. I bought new RAM, but it still didn't work. I tried 3 monitors, with both VGA and DIV. So it's probably not the monitor, either. Now, let me get to the random part. Every 20 or so boots (I should also mention, for about 3 out of 5 boots I have to unplug the PC because it won't powerdown via the button), it will POST and I'll get display. Then, after about 2 or 3 resets, it won't work again. This confuses me so much, because even when I change nothing, it will/will not work. My thought is that maybe it has something to do with the RAM not clearing or something. I also reset the CMOS battery, incase that had anything to do with it, but no eval. I found some weird suggestion online about holding the power button for 30 seconds while it was unplugged. That did nothing, but I didn't expect it would... I've replaced just about the entire computer, and all the parts are compatible. Done about everything I can think of, but nothing has worked. Hopefully someone can help me here. And as I side note: When I do get my computer to boot, it says my hardware has changed and I have to re-activate windows. But it says I have to call Microsoft to do it. So I get this fancy automated voice that asks me to enter in a code into windows, then it asks me "How many computers have you activated with this copy of Windows?". Well, I had it on my computer before I replaced everything, so I said 1. Then he yelled at me for violating my 1-use license. I dunno what's going on there, do I have to re-purchase Windows 7? And they wonder why people pirate software... That's just a bonus question, though. Specs: 8GB of DDR2 RAM (Corsair) AMD CPU (I don't know what GHz or model because I can't find the box... (I think its 4 cores of 2.8Ghz) ASRock A785GM-LE Motherboard

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Windows 8.1 Update 1 Disk Usage 100%

- by Gookjin Jeong

Background Information / Computer Specs I have a 14-inch Samsung Series 5 Ultra. Core i5 CPU, 750GB HDD, 8GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000. I've had the computer for about 1.5 years with no major problems. Problem The issue appeared at the beginning of April this year, when I updated the OS to Windows 8.1 Update 1 (not from 8 to 8.1). After being on continually (except for at night, when I put it on sleep mode) for about 48 hours, the disk usage as seen by Task Manager hits 100%. When this happens, everything from opening/closing applications to typing and even bringing up the start screen by pressing the Windows key becomes extremely slow. The only way to make the disk usage decrease is to restart the computer. Then the problem repeats. I've used my current laptop (as well as my previous laptops) this way -- putting it on sleep mode at night and restarting it only when Windows needs to install updates -- for a long time. So I know the 100% disk usage is not due to the way I use the computer. The thing that causes the spike varies. Sometimes it's System, sometimes it's one of the various applications I installed (e.g. Chrome, Evernote, Spotify, Wunderlist, iTunes, etc.), and sometimes it's Antimalware Service Executable, etc. Tried Solutions I think I tried almost every solution out there for this problem: Running the check disk command (chkdsk /b /f /v /scan c:) from Admin Command Prompt Running Windows Memory Diagnostic Disabling Superfetch and Windows Search from services.msc Running "Fix problems with Windows Update" from Control Panel -- Troubleshooting Updating and rolling back the graphics driver (Intel HD 4000) Disabling "Use hardware acceleration when available" from Chrome settings Disabling Intel Rapid Storage Technology Running the SFC /SCANNOW command as recommended here Running a quick scan & a full scan from Windows Defender (no threats found) Taking the hard drive out and putting it back Refreshing the computer, from the Update and recovery -- Recovery option in Windows settings NONE of the above worked for me. I was about to give up but then noticed that one of the main culprits of the disk usage spike, as shown in the "Disk Activity" section of the Resource Monitor, was C:\System (pagefile.sys). I googled around and found that one of the recommended solutions was to disable pagefile. I then went to **Control Panel -- System and Security -- System -- Advanced system settings -- Advanced tab -- Performance settings -- Advanced tab -- "Change" under Virtual memory and discovered that the number for "Currently allocated" at the bottom was 1280MB, although the number for "Recommended" was 4533MB. I immediately changed it to 4533MB and checked my family members' computers to see what the numbers were like. All of theirs had a currently allocated space that was only slightly smaller than the recommended space. See screenshot below: This might fix the problem. I'll have to wait a couple more days.But if it doesn't, what in the world should I do next? I'm guessing the hard drive isn't failing because This computer is less than 2 years old; and Speccy says that the status of the HDD is good. Update 5/27/2014 The "4533MB" solution did not work. I had to reboot the computer about 30 minutes ago because the disk usage again hit 100%. When I opened Resource Monitor the C:\System (pagefile.sys) again was shown to be the culprit. I have now disabled pagefile entirely via the same window shown above in the screenshot. The number for "currently allocated" is now 0MB. Will update again in a couple days, or if the problem occurs again, whichever comes sooner.

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Windows 7 is stuck at "Starting Windows" when I attempt to boot computer

- by Eli

Basically, whenever I turn on my computer, it gets to the Starting Windows phase and just stays there. The startup animation still plays, yet it gets nowhere. I have tried booting into safe mode, however it gets stuck at loading CLASSPNP.SYS. It then freezes there and doesn't continue booting. I have tried booting into recovery mode from the hard drive, and it freezes after displaying the background image. I have tried booting from a recovery CD, which works, and I was able to use system restore. However, using system restore did not fix it, and it still is stuck at the Starting Windows screen. I have tried booting a Windows CD (Windows 8 Retail Installer) to see if I could upgrade it to fix this issue, however that froze at a blank screen after it got past the boot logo. I have tried changing around the BIOS settings (including resetting), to no avail. I have tried re-plugging the internal PSU cables (this is a custom-built desktop), yet this has changed nothing. I can boot into a loopback Ubuntu install on the same drive, which works fine, other than the fact that it has issues with some of the USB ports and the network card. This system has worked fine for the past few months, completely stable, and nothing in the configuration has changed before this error started happening. Startup Repair on the Windows recovery CD doesn't find any issues. Unplugging my secondary hard drive or swapping around memory doesn't change anything. The hard drive itself is fine, it hasn't shown any signs of failure and once again, boots my other OS fine. If anyone could help with this, that would be great. I can't seem to find any possible solution to this. If it makes any difference, my system specs are as follows: AMD FX-8320 Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 4GB of DDR3 Radeon HD 6870 550w PSU I'd like to not have to reinstall Windows, for I have more than a terabyte of data that I would have to back up if that becomes the only option. EDIT: I have since tried the following: Tried the solution involving restoring files from RegBackup, which changed nothing. Tried testing everything with Hiren's boot CD, everything comes back as fine. Tried disabling everything unnecessary in the BIOS and unplugging everything unneeded, it still hangs. Tried swapping out every possible combination of RAM, it still has the same result. The RAM is not at fault it seems Tried every GPU I own (which is many!) and it still hangs at the exact same place. Tried minimizing the power consumption as much as possible, even using an old PCI graphics card. It still hangs at the same place in the same way, signifying that it's not the PSU at fault. Tried resetting the BIOS again, still nothing. Tried every possible combination of BIOS options, even downclocking everything, it still hangs in the same spot. Tried upgrading the BIOS from version FB to FD, which changed nothing. Based on this, I would conclude the motherboard to be at fault. Are there any other possibilities? I don't want to spend $150 for a new motherboard. EDIT 2: This is what it gets stuck at when I try to boot into safe mode: Note the slight graphical corruption at the top of the screen. No matter how I set up the system, this seems to be there. In addition, either it has stopped booting into safe mode now, or it takes upwards of 2+ hours, and I haven't left it running for that long.

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Our Look at Opera 10.50 Web Browser

- by Asian Angel

Everyone has been talking about the newest version of Opera recently but perhaps you have not looked at it too closely yet. Today we will take a look at 10.50 and let you see what this “new browser” is all about. The New Engines Carakan JavaScript Engine: Runs web applications up to 7 times faster than its predecessor Futhark Vega Graphics Library: Enables super fast and smooth graphics on everything from tab switching to webpage animation Presto 2.5: Provides support for HTML5, CSS2.1 and the latest CSS3 standards A Look at the Features Available If you have installed or used older versions of Opera before then the default look after a clean install will probably seem rather different. The main differences in appearance are mainly located within the “glass border” areas of the browser. The “Speed Dial” setup looks and works just as well as in previous versions. You can set a favorite wallpaper or image as your background and choose the number of “dials” using the “Configure Speed Dial Command”. One of the “standout” differences is the “O Button”. All of the menus have been condensed into this single access point but it only takes a few moments to find what you are looking for. If you have used the style before in earlier versions of Opera some of the items have been moved around. For those who prefer the “Menu Bar” that can be easily restored using the “Show Menu Bar Command”. If desired you can actually “extend” the “Tab Bar” downwards to display thumbnails of your open tabs. Just use your mouse to grab the bottom of the “Tab Bar” and adjust it to suit your personal needs. The only problem with this feature is that it will quickly use up a good sized portion of your available UI and browser window space. The “Password Manager” is ready to access when needed…the background for the button will turn a shiny metallic blue when you open a webpage that you have “Login Information” saved for. One of the new features is a small “Recycle Bin Button” in the upper right corner. Clicking on this will display a list of recently closed tabs letting you have easy access to any tabs that you may have accidentally closed. This is definitely a great feature to have as an easy access button. For those who were used to how the “Zoom Feature” looked before it has a new “look” to it. Instead of the pop-up menu-type listing of “view sizes” present before you now have a slider button that you can use to adjust the zooming level. For our default setup here the “Sidebar Panels” available were: “Bookmarks, Widgets, Unite, Notes, Downloads, History, & Panels”. Additional panels such as “Links, Windows, Search, Info, etc.” are available if you want and/or need them (accessible using the “Panels Plus Sign Button”). The “Opera Link Button” makes it easy for you to synchronize your “Speed Dial, Bookmarks, Personal Bar, Custom Searches, History & Notes”. Note: “Opera Link” requires an account and can be signed up for using the link provided below. Want to share files with your family and friends? “Unite” allows you to do that and more. With “Unite” you can: “Stream Music, Show Photo Galleries, Share Files and/or Folders, & host webpages directly from your browser”. We have a more in-depth look at “Unite” in our article here. Note: Use of “Unite” requires an Opera account. Got a slow internet connection? “Opera Turbo” can help with that by running the web traffic through their “compression servers” to speed up your web browsing. Keep in mind that “Opera Turbo” will not engage if you are accessing a secure website (i.e. your bank’s website) thus preserving your security. Note: “Opera Turbo” can be set up to automatically detect slow internet connections (i.e. crowded Wi-Fi in a cafe). Opera has a built-in “Private Browsing Mode” now for those who prefer anonymous browsing and want to keep the “history records clean” on their computer. To access it go to “Tabs and windows” and select “New private tab” or “New private window” as desired. When you open your new “Private Tab or Window” you will see the following message with details on how Opera will handle browsing information and a large “door hanger symbol”. Notice that the one tab is locked into “Private Browsing Mode” while the others are still working in “Regular Browsing Mode”. Very nice! A miniature version of the “door hanger symbol” will be present on any tab that is locked into “Private Browsing Mode”. If you are using Windows 7 then you will love how things look from your “Taskbar”. Here you can see four very nice looking thumbnails for the tabs that we had open. All that you have to do is click on the desired thumbnail… The “Context Menu” looks just as lovely as the thumbnails and definitely has some terrific functionality built into it. Add Enhanced Aero Capability If you love “Aero” and want more for your new Opera install then we have the perfect theme for you. The theme’s name is Z1-AV69 and once you have downloaded it you will need to place it in the “Skins Subfolder” in Opera’s “Program Files Folder”. Note: For our example we used version 1.10 but version 2.00 is now available (link provided below). Once you have restarted Opera, go to the “O Menu” and select “Appearance”. When the “Appearance Window” opens click on “Z1-Glass Skin” and then click “OK”. All of a sudden you will have more “Aero Goodness” to enjoy. Compare this screenshot with the one at the top of this article…the only part that is not transparent now is the browser window area itself. Want even more “Aero Goodness”? Right click on the “Tab Bar” and set “Tab Bar Placement” to “Left”. Note: You can achieve the same effect by setting the “Tab Bar Placement” to “Right”. With the “Speed Dial” visible you will be able to see your wallpaper with ease. While this is obviously not for everyone it does make for a great visual trick. Portable Versions Perhaps you need this wonderful new version of Opera to go with you wherever you do during the day. Not a problem…just visit the Opera USB website to choose a version that works best for you. You can select from “Zip or Exe” setup files and if needed update an older portable version using a “Zipped Update Files Package”. If you are updating an older version keep in mind that you will need to delete the old “OperaUSB.exe. File” due to changes with the new setup files. During our tests updating older portable versions went well for the most part but we did experience a few “odd UI quirks” here and there…so we recommend setting up a clean install if possible. Conclusion The new 10.50 release is a pleasure to use and is a recommended install for your system. Whether you are considering trying Opera for the first time or have been using it for a bit we think that you will pleased with everything that the 10.50 release has to offer. For those who would like to add User Scripts to Opera be certain to look at our how-to article here. Links Download Opera 10.50 for your location (Windows) Get the latest Snapshot versions for Linux & Mac Sign up for an Opera Link account View In-Depth detail on Opera 10.50’s features Download the Z1-AV69 Aero Theme Download Portable Opera 10.50 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Set the Speed Dial as the Opera Startup PageSet Up User Scripts in Opera BrowserScan Files for Viruses Before You Download With Dr.WebTurn Your Computer into a File, Music, and Web Server with Opera UniteSet the Default Browser on Ubuntu From the Command Line 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

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WatiN screenshot saver

- by Brian Schroer

In addition to my automated unit, system and integration tests for ASP.NET projects, I like to give my customers something pretty that they can look at and visually see that the web site is behaving properly. I use the Gallio test runner to produce a pretty HTML report, and WatiN (Web Application Testing In .NET) to test the UI and create screenshots. I have a couple of issues with WatiN’s “CaptureWebPageToFile” method, though: It blew up the first (and only) time I tried it, possibly because… It scrolls down to capture the entire web page (I tried it on a very long page), and I usually don’t need that Also, sometimes I don’t need a picture of the whole browser window - I just want a picture of the element that I'm testing (for example, proving that a button has the correct caption). I wrote a WatiN screenshot saver helper class with these methods: SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(Watin.Core.IE ie) / SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(Watin.Core.Element element) saves a screenshot of the browser window SaveBrowserWindowScreenshotWithHighlight(Watin.Core.Element element) saves a screenshot of the browser window, with the specified element scrolled into view and highlighted SaveElementScreenshot(Watin.Core.Element element) saves a picture of only the specified element The element highlighting improves on the built-in WatiN method (which just gives the element a yellow background, and makes the element pretty much unreadable when you have a light foreground color) by adding the ability to specify a HighlightCssClassName that points to a style in your site’s stylesheet. This code is specifically for testing with Internet Explorer (‘cause that’s what I have to test with at work), but you’re welcome to take it and do with it what you want… using System; using System.Drawing; using System.Drawing.Imaging; using System.IO; using System.Reflection; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; using System.Text; using System.Threading; using SHDocVw; using WatiN.Core; using mshtml; namespace BrianSchroer.TestHelpers { public static class WatinScreenshotSaver { public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshotWithHighlight (Element element, string screenshotName) { HighlightElement(element, true); SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(element, screenshotName); HighlightElement(element, false); } public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshotWithHighlight(Element element) { HighlightElement(element, true); SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(element); HighlightElement(element, false); } public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(Element element, string screenshotName) { SaveScreenshot(GetIe(element), screenshotName, SaveBitmapForCallbackArgs); } public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(Element element) { SaveScreenshot(GetIe(element), null, SaveBitmapForCallbackArgs); } public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(IE ie, string screenshotName) { SaveScreenshot(ie, screenshotName, SaveBitmapForCallbackArgs); } public static void SaveBrowserWindowScreenshot(IE ie) { SaveScreenshot(ie, null, SaveBitmapForCallbackArgs); } public static void SaveElementScreenshot(Element element, string screenshotName) { // TODO: Figure out how to get browser window "chrome" size and not have to go to full screen: var iex = (InternetExplorerClass) GetIe(element).InternetExplorer; bool fullScreen = iex.FullScreen; if (!fullScreen) iex.FullScreen = true; ScrollIntoView(element); SaveScreenshot(GetIe(element), screenshotName, args => SaveElementBitmapForCallbackArgs(element, args)); iex.FullScreen = fullScreen; } public static void SaveElementScreenshot(Element element) { SaveElementScreenshot(element, null); } private static void SaveScreenshot(IE browser, string screenshotName, Action<ScreenshotCallbackArgs> screenshotCallback) { string fileName = string.Format("{0:000}{1}{2}.jpg", ++_screenshotCount, (string.IsNullOrEmpty(screenshotName)) ? "" : " ", screenshotName); string path = Path.Combine(ScreenshotDirectoryName, fileName); Console.WriteLine(); // Gallio HTML-encodes the following display, but I have a utility program to // remove the "HTML===" and "===HTML" and un-encode the rest to show images in the Gallio report: Console.WriteLine("HTML===<div><b>{0}:</br></b><img src=\"{1}\" /></div>===HTML", screenshotName, new Uri(path).AbsoluteUri); MakeBrowserWindowTopmost(browser); try { var args = new ScreenshotCallbackArgs { InternetExplorerClass = (InternetExplorerClass)browser.InternetExplorer, ScreenshotPath = path }; Thread.Sleep(100); screenshotCallback(args); } catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); } } public static void HighlightElement(Element element, bool doHighlight) { if (!element.Exists) return; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(HighlightCssClassName)) { element.Highlight(doHighlight); return; } string jsRef = element.GetJavascriptElementReference(); if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(jsRef)) return; var sb = new StringBuilder("try { "); sb.AppendFormat(" {0}.scrollIntoView(false);", jsRef); string format = (doHighlight) ? "{0}.className += ' {1}'" : "{0}.className = {0}.className.replace(' {1}', '')"; sb.AppendFormat(" " + format + ";", jsRef, HighlightCssClassName); sb.Append("} catch(e) {}"); string script = sb.ToString(); GetIe(element).RunScript(script); } public static void ScrollIntoView(Element element) { string jsRef = element.GetJavascriptElementReference(); if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(jsRef)) return; var sb = new StringBuilder("try { "); sb.AppendFormat(" {0}.scrollIntoView(false);", jsRef); sb.Append("} catch(e) {}"); string script = sb.ToString(); GetIe(element).RunScript(script); } public static void MakeBrowserWindowTopmost(IE ie) { ie.BringToFront(); SetWindowPos(ie.hWnd, HWND_TOPMOST, 0, 0, 0, 0, TOPMOST_FLAGS); } public static string HighlightCssClassName { get; set; } private static int _screenshotCount; private static string _screenshotDirectoryName; public static string ScreenshotDirectoryName { get { if (_screenshotDirectoryName == null) { var asm = Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(WatinScreenshotSaver)); var uri = new Uri(asm.CodeBase); var fileInfo = new FileInfo(uri.LocalPath); string directoryName = fileInfo.DirectoryName; _screenshotDirectoryName = Path.Combine( directoryName, string.Format("Screenshots_{0:yyyyMMddHHmm}", DateTime.Now)); Console.WriteLine("Screenshot folder: {0}", _screenshotDirectoryName); Directory.CreateDirectory(_screenshotDirectoryName); } return _screenshotDirectoryName; } set { _screenshotDirectoryName = value; _screenshotCount = 0; } } [DllImport("user32.dll")] [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)] private static extern bool SetWindowPos(IntPtr hWnd, IntPtr hWndInsertAfter, int X, int Y, int cx, int cy, uint uFlags); private static readonly IntPtr HWND_TOPMOST = new IntPtr(-1); private const UInt32 SWP_NOSIZE = 0x0001; private const UInt32 SWP_NOMOVE = 0x0002; private const UInt32 TOPMOST_FLAGS = SWP_NOMOVE | SWP_NOSIZE; private static IE GetIe(Element element) { if (element == null) return null; var container = element.DomContainer; while (container as IE == null) container = container.DomContainer; return (IE)container; } private static void SaveBitmapForCallbackArgs(ScreenshotCallbackArgs args) { InternetExplorerClass iex = args.InternetExplorerClass; SaveBitmap(args.ScreenshotPath, iex.Left, iex.Top, iex.Width, iex.Height); } private static void SaveElementBitmapForCallbackArgs(Element element, ScreenshotCallbackArgs args) { InternetExplorerClass iex = args.InternetExplorerClass; Rectangle bounds = GetElementBounds(element); SaveBitmap(args.ScreenshotPath, iex.Left + bounds.Left, iex.Top + bounds.Top, bounds.Width, bounds.Height); } /// <summary> /// This method is used instead of element.NativeElement.GetElementBounds because that /// method has a bug (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2994660&group_id=167632&atid=843727). /// </summary> private static Rectangle GetElementBounds(Element element) { var ieElem = element.NativeElement as WatiN.Core.Native.InternetExplorer.IEElement; IHTMLElement elem = ieElem.AsHtmlElement; int left = elem.offsetLeft; int top = elem.offsetTop; for (IHTMLElement parent = elem.offsetParent; parent != null; parent = parent.offsetParent) { left += parent.offsetLeft; top += parent.offsetTop; } return new Rectangle(left, top, elem.offsetWidth, elem.offsetHeight); } private static void SaveBitmap(string path, int left, int top, int width, int height) { using (var bitmap = new Bitmap(width, height)) { using (Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(bitmap)) { g.CopyFromScreen( new Point(left, top), Point.Empty, new Size(width, height) ); } bitmap.Save(path, ImageFormat.Jpeg); } } private class ScreenshotCallbackArgs { public InternetExplorerClass InternetExplorerClass { get; set; } public string ScreenshotPath { get; set; } } } }

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New Validation Attributes in ASP.NET MVC 3 Future

- by imran_ku07

Introduction: Validating user inputs is an very important step in collecting information from users because it helps you to prevent errors during processing data. Incomplete or improperly formatted user inputs will create lot of problems for your application. Fortunately, ASP.NET MVC 3 makes it very easy to validate most common input validations. ASP.NET MVC 3 includes Required, StringLength, Range, RegularExpression, Compare and Remote validation attributes for common input validation scenarios. These validation attributes validates most of your user inputs but still validation for Email, File Extension, Credit Card, URL, etc are missing. Fortunately, some of these validation attributes are available in ASP.NET MVC 3 Future. In this article, I will show you how to leverage Email, Url, CreditCard and FileExtensions validation attributes(which are available in ASP.NET MVC 3 Future) in ASP.NET MVC 3 application. Description: First of all you need to download ASP.NET MVC 3 RTM Source Code from here. Then extract all files in a folder. Then open MvcFutures project from mvc3-rtm-sources\mvc3\src\MvcFutures folder. Build the project. In case, if you get compile time error(s) then simply remove the reference of System.Web.WebPages and System.Web.Mvc assemblies and add the reference of System.Web.WebPages and System.Web.Mvc 3 assemblies again but from the .NET tab and then build the project again, it will create a Microsoft.Web.Mvc assembly inside mvc3-rtm-sources\mvc3\src\MvcFutures\obj\Debug folder. Now we can use Microsoft.Web.Mvc assembly inside our application. Create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 application. For demonstration purpose, I will create a dummy model UserInformation. So create a new class file UserInformation.cs inside Model folder and add the following code, public class UserInformation { [Required] public string Name { get; set; } [Required] [EmailAddress] public string Email { get; set; } [Required] [Url] public string Website { get; set; } [Required] [CreditCard] public string CreditCard { get; set; } [Required] [FileExtensions(Extensions = "jpg,jpeg")] public string Image { get; set; } } Inside UserInformation class, I am using Email, Url, CreditCard and FileExtensions validation attributes which are defined in Microsoft.Web.Mvc assembly. By default FileExtensionsAttribute allows png, jpg, jpeg and gif extensions. You can override this by using Extensions property of FileExtensionsAttribute class. Then just open(or create) HomeController.cs file and add the following code, public class HomeController : Controller { public ActionResult Index() { return View(); } [HttpPost] public ActionResult Index(UserInformation u) { return View(); } } Next just open(or create) Index view for Home controller and add the following code, @model NewValidationAttributesinASPNETMVC3Future.Model.UserInformation @{ ViewBag.Title = "Index"; Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; } <h2>Index</h2> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> @using (Html.BeginForm()) { @Html.ValidationSummary(true) <fieldset> <legend>UserInformation</legend> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Name) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Name) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Email) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Email) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Email) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Website) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Website) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Website) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.CreditCard) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.CreditCard) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.CreditCard) </div> <div class="editor-label"> @Html.LabelFor(model => model.Image) </div> <div class="editor-field"> @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Image) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Image) </div> <p> <input type="submit" value="Save" /> </p> </fieldset> } <div> @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") </div> Now just run your application. You will find that both client side and server side validation for the above validation attributes works smoothly. Summary: Email, URL, Credit Card and File Extension input validations are very common. In this article, I showed you how you can validate these input validations into your application. I explained this with an example. I am also attaching a sample application which also includes Microsoft.Web.Mvc.dll. So you can add a reference of Microsoft.Web.Mvc assembly directly instead of doing any manual work. Hope you will enjoy this article too. SyntaxHighlighter.all()

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The APEX of Business Value...or...the Business Value of APEX? Oracle Cloud Takes Oracle APEX to New Heights!

- by Gene Eun

The attraction of Oracle Application Express (APEX) has increased tremendously with the recent launch of the Oracle Cloud. APEX already supported departmental development and deployment of business applications with minimal involvement from the IT department. Positioned as the ideal replacement for MS Access, APEX probably has managed better to capture the eye of developers and was used for enterprise application development at least as much as for the kind of tactical applications that Oracle strategically positioned it for. With APEX as PaaS from the Oracle Cloud, a leap is made to a much higher level of business value. Now the IT department is not even needed to make infrastructure available with a database running on it. All the business needs is a credit card. And the business application that is developed, managed and used from the cloud through a standard browser can now just as easily be accessed by users from around the world as by users from the business department itself. As a bonus – the development of the APEX application is also done in the cloud – with no special demands on the location or the enterprise access privileges of the developers. To sum it up: APEX from Oracle Cloud Database Service get the development environment up and running in minutes no involvement from the internal IT department required (not for infrastructure, platform, or development) superior availability and scalability is offered by Oracle users from anywhere in the world can be invited to access the application developers from anywhere in the world can participate in creating and maintaining the application In addition: because the Oracle Cloud platform is the same as the on-premise platform, you can still decide to move the APEX application between the cloud and the local environment – and back again. The REST-ful services that are available through APEX allow programmatic interaction with the database under the APEX application. That means that this database can be synchronized with on premise databases or data stores in (other) clouds. Through the Oracle Cloud Messaging Service, the APEX application can easily enter into asynchronous conversations with other APEX applications, Fusion Middleware applications (ADF, SOA, BPM) and any other type of REST-enabled application. In my opinion, now, for the first time perhaps, APEX offers the attraction to the business that has been suggested before: because of the cloud, all the business needs is a credit card (a budget of $175 per month), an internet-connection and a browser. Not like before, with a PC hidden under a desk or a database running somewhere in the data center. No matter how unattended: equipment is needed, power is consumed, the database needs to be kept running and if Oracle Database XE does not suffice, software licenses are required as well. And this set up always has a security challenge associated with it. The cloud fee for the Oracle Cloud Database Service includes infrastructure, power, licenses, availability, platform upgrades, a collection of reusable application components and the development and runtime environments containing the APEX platform. Of course this not only means that business departments can move quickly without having to convince their IT colleagues to move along – it also means that small organizations that do not even have IT colleagues can do the same. Getting tailored applications or applications up and running to get in touch with users and customers all over the world is now within easy reach for small outfits – without any investment. My misunderstanding For a long time, I was under the impression that the essence of APEX was that the business could create applications themselves – meaning that business ‘people’ would actually go into APEX to create the application. To me APEX was too much of a developers’ tool to see that happen – apart from the odd business analyst who missed his or her calling as an IT developer. Having looked at various other cloud based development offerings – including Force.com, Mendix, WaveMaker, WorkXpress, OrangeScape, Caspio and Cordys- I have come to realize my mistake. All these platforms are positioned for 'the business' but require a fair amount of coding and technical expertise. However, they make the business happy nevertheless, because they allow the business to completely circumvent the IT department. That is the essence. Not having to go through the red tape, not having to wait for IT staff who (justifiably) need weeks or months to provide an environment, not having to deal with administrators (again, justifiably) refusing to take on that 'strange environment'. Being able to think of an initiative and turn into action right away. The business does not have to build the application - it can easily hire some external developers or even that nerdy boy next door. They can get started, get an application up and running and invite users in – especially external users such as customers. They will worry later about upgrades and life cycle management and integration. To get applications up and running quickly and start turning ideas into action and results rightaway. That is the key selling point for all these cloud offerings, including APEX from the Cloud. And it is a compelling story. For APEX probably even more so than for the others. While I consider APEX a somewhat proprietary framework compared with ‘regular’ Java/JEE web development (or even .NET and PHP development), it is still far more open than most cloud environments. APEX is SQL and PL/SQL based – nothing special about those languages – and can run just as easily on site as in the cloud. It has been around since 2004 (that is not including several predecessors that fed straight into APEX) so it can be considered pretty mature. Oracle as a company seems pretty stable – so investments in its technology are bound to last for some time to come. By the way: neither APEX nor the other Cloud DevaaS offerings are targeted at creating applications with enormous life times. They fit into a trend of agile development and rapid life cycle management, with fairly light weight user interfaces that quickly adapt to taste, technology trends and functional requirements and that are easily replaced. APEX and ADF – a match made in heaven?! (or at least in the sky) Note that using APEX only for cloud based database with REST-ful Services is also a perfectly viable scenario: any UI – mobile or browser based – capable of consuming REST-ful services can be created against such a business tier. Creating an ADF Mobile application for example that runs aginst REST-ful services is a best practice for mobile development. Such REST-ful services can be consumed from any service provider – including the Cloud based APEX powered REST-ful services running against the Oracle Cloud Database Service! The ADF Mobile architecture overview can easily be morphed to fit the APEX services in – allowing for a cloud based mobile app: Want to learn more about Oracle Database Cloud Service or Oracle Cloud, just visit cloud.oracle.com or oracle.com/cloud. Repost of a blog entry by Rick Greenwald, Director of Product Management, Oracle Database Cloud Service.

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Java Cloud Service Integration using Web Service Data Control

- by Jani Rautiainen

Java Cloud Service (JCS) provides a platform to develop and deploy business applications in the cloud. In Fusion Applications Cloud deployments customers do not have the option to deploy custom applications developed with JDeveloper to ensure the integrity and supportability of the hosted application service. Instead the custom applications can be deployed to the JCS and integrated to the Fusion Application Cloud instance.This series of articles will go through the features of JCS, provide end-to-end examples on how to develop and deploy applications on JCS and how to integrate them with the Fusion Applications instance.In this article a custom application integrating with Fusion Application using Web Service Data Control will be implemented. v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";} Pre-requisites Access to Cloud instance In order to deploy the application access to a JCS instance is needed, a free trial JCS instance can be obtained from Oracle Cloud site. To register you will need a credit card even if the credit card will not be charged. To register simply click "Try it" and choose the "Java" option. The confirmation email will contain the connection details. See this video for example of the registration. Once the request is processed you will be assigned 2 service instances; Java and Database. Applications deployed to the JCS must use Oracle Database Cloud Service as their underlying database. So when JCS instance is created a database instance is associated with it using a JDBC data source. The cloud services can be monitored and managed through the web UI. For details refer to Getting Started with Oracle Cloud. JDeveloper JDeveloper contains Cloud specific features related to e.g. connection and deployment. To use these features download the JDeveloper from JDeveloper download site by clicking the “Download JDeveloper 11.1.1.7.1 for ADF deployment on Oracle Cloud” link, this version of JDeveloper will have the JCS integration features that will be used in this article. For versions that do not include the Cloud integration features the Oracle Java Cloud Service SDK or the JCS Java Console can be used for deployment. For details on installing and configuring the JDeveloper refer to the installation guide. For details on SDK refer to Using the Command-Line Interface to Monitor Oracle Java Cloud Service and Using the Command-Line Interface to Manage Oracle Java Cloud Service. Create Application In this example the “JcsWsDemo” application created in the “Java Cloud Service Integration using Web Service Proxy” article is used as the base. Create Web Service Data Control In this example we will use a Web Service Data Control to integrate with Credit Rule Service in Fusion Applications. The data control will be used to query data from Fusion Applications using a web service call and present the data in a table. To generate the data control choose the “Model” project and navigate to "New -> All Technologies -> Business Tier -> Data Controls -> Web Service Data Control" and enter following: Name: CreditRuleServiceDC URL: https://ic-[POD].oracleoutsourcing.com/icCnSetupCreditRulesPublicService/CreditRuleService?WSDL Service: {{http://xmlns.oracle.com/apps/incentiveCompensation/cn/creditSetup/creditRule/creditRuleService/}CreditRuleService On step 2 select the “findRule” operation: Skip step 3 and on step 4 define the credentials to access the service. Do note that in this example these credentials are only used if testing locally, for JCS deployment credentials need to be manually updated on the EAR file: Click “Finish” and the proxy generation is done. Creating UI In order to use the data control we will need to populate complex objects FindCriteria and FindControl. For simplicity in this example we will create logic in a managed bean that populates the objects. Open “JcsWsDemoBean.java” and add the following logic: Map findCriteria; Map findControl; public void setFindCriteria(Map findCriteria) { this.findCriteria = findCriteria; } public Map getFindCriteria() { findCriteria = new HashMap(); findCriteria.put("fetchSize",10); findCriteria.put("fetchStart",0); return findCriteria; } public void setFindControl(Map findControl) { this.findControl = findControl; } public Map getFindControl() { findControl = new HashMap(); return findControl; } Open “JcsWsDemo.jspx”, navigate to “Data Controls -> CreditRuleServiceDC -> findRule(Object, Object) -> result” and drag and drop the “result” node into the “af:form” element in the page: On the “Edit Table Columns” remove all columns except “RuleId” and “Name”: On the “Edit Action Binding” window displayed enter reference to the java class created above by selecting “#{JcsWsDemoBean.findCriteria}”: Also define the value for the “findControl” by selecting “#{JcsWsDemoBean.findControl}”. Deploy to JCS For WS DC the authentication details need to be updated on the connection details before deploying. Open “connections.xml” by navigating “Application Resources -> Descriptors -> ADF META-INF -> connections.xml”: Change the user name and password entry from: <soap username="transportUserName" password="transportPassword" To match the access details for the target environment. Follow the same steps as documented in previous article ”Java Cloud Service ADF Web Application”. Once deployed the application can be accessed with URL: https://java-[identity domain].java.[data center].oraclecloudapps.com/JcsWsDemo-ViewController-context-root/faces/JcsWsDemo.jspx When accessed the first 10 rules in the system are displayed: Summary In this article we learned how to integrate with Fusion Applications using a Web Service Data Control in JCS. In future articles various other integration techniques will be covered. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}

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The Data Scientist

- by BuckWoody

A new term - well, perhaps not that new - has come up and I’m actually very excited about it. The term is Data Scientist, and since it’s new, it’s fairly undefined. I’ll explain what I think it means, and why I’m excited about it. In general, I’ve found the term deals at its most basic with analyzing data. Of course, we all do that, and the term itself in that definition is redundant. There is no science that I know of that does not work with analyzing lots of data. But the term seems to refer to more than the common practices of looking at data visually, putting it in a spreadsheet or report, or even using simple coding to examine data sets. The term Data Scientist (as far as I can make out this early in it’s use) is someone who has a strong understanding of data sources, relevance (statistical and otherwise) and processing methods as well as front-end displays of large sets of complicated data. Some - but not all - Business Intelligence professionals have these skills. In other cases, senior developers, database architects or others fill these needs, but in my experience, many lack the strong mathematical skills needed to make these choices properly. I’ve divided the knowledge base for someone that would wear this title into three large segments. It remains to be seen if a given Data Scientist would be responsible for knowing all these areas or would specialize. There are pretty high requirements on the math side, specifically in graduate-degree level statistics, but in my experience a company will only have a few of these folks, so they are expected to know quite a bit in each of these areas. Persistence The first area is finding, cleaning and storing the data. In some cases, no cleaning is done prior to storage - it’s just identified and the cleansing is done in a later step. This area is where the professional would be able to tell if a particular data set should be stored in a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), across a set of key/value pair storage (NoSQL) or in a file system like HDFS (part of the Hadoop landscape) or other methods. Or do you examine the stream of data without storing it in another system at all? This is an important decision - it’s a foundation choice that deals not only with a lot of expense of purchasing systems or even using Cloud Computing (PaaS, SaaS or IaaS) to source it, but also the skillsets and other resources needed to care and feed the system for a long time. The Data Scientist sets something into motion that will probably outlast his or her career at a company or organization. Often these choices are made by senior developers, database administrators or architects in a company. But sometimes each of these has a certain bias towards making a decision one way or another. The Data Scientist would examine these choices in light of the data itself, starting perhaps even before the business requirements are created. The business may not even be aware of all the strategic and tactical data sources that they have access to. Processing Once the decision is made to store the data, the next set of decisions are based around how to process the data. An RDBMS scales well to a certain level, and provides a high degree of ACID compliance as well as offering a well-known set-based language to work with this data. In other cases, scale should be spread among multiple nodes (as in the case of Hadoop landscapes or NoSQL offerings) or even across a Cloud provider like Windows Azure Table Storage. In fact, in many cases - most of the ones I’m dealing with lately - the data should be split among multiple types of processing environments. This is a newer idea. Many data professionals simply pick a methodology (RDBMS with Star Schemas, NoSQL, etc.) and put all data there, regardless of its shape, processing needs and so on. A Data Scientist is familiar not only with the various processing methods, but how they work, so that they can choose the right one for a given need. This is a huge time commitment, hence the need for a dedicated title like this one. Presentation This is where the need for a Data Scientist is most often already being filled, sometimes with more or less success. The latest Business Intelligence systems are quite good at allowing you to create amazing graphics - but it’s the data behind the graphics that are the most important component of truly effective displays. This is where the mathematics requirement of the Data Scientist title is the most unforgiving. In fact, someone without a good foundation in statistics is not a good candidate for creating reports. Even a basic level of statistics can be dangerous. Anyone who works in analyzing data will tell you that there are multiple errors possible when data just seems right - and basic statistics bears out that you’re on the right track - that are only solvable when you understanding why the statistical formula works the way it does. And there are lots of ways of presenting data. Sometimes all you need is a “yes” or “no” answer that can only come after heavy analysis work. In that case, a simple e-mail might be all the reporting you need. In others, complex relationships and multiple components require a deep understanding of the various graphical methods of presenting data. Knowing which kind of chart, color, graphic or shape conveys a particular datum best is essential knowledge for the Data Scientist. Why I’m excited I love this area of study. I like math, stats, and computing technologies, but it goes beyond that. I love what data can do - how it can help an organization. I’ve been fortunate enough in my professional career these past two decades to work with lots of folks who perform this role at companies from aerospace to medical firms, from manufacturing to retail. Interestingly, the size of the company really isn’t germane here. I worked with one very small bio-tech (cryogenics) company that worked deeply with analysis of complex interrelated data. So watch this space. No, I’m not leaving Azure or distributed computing or Microsoft. In fact, I think I’m perfectly situated to investigate this role further. We have a huge set of tools, from RDBMS to Hadoop to allow me to explore. And I’m happy to share what I learn along the way.

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Unable to enable wireless on a Vostro 2520

- by Joe

I have a Vostro 2520 and not sure how to enable wireless on my machine. The details are given below, would appreciate any pointers to resolving this issue. lsmod returns Module Size Used by ath9k 132390 0 ath9k_common 14053 1 ath9k ath9k_hw 411151 2 ath9k,ath9k_common ath 24067 3 ath9k,ath9k_common,ath9k_hw b43 365785 0 mac80211 506816 2 ath9k,b43 cfg80211 205544 4 ath9k,ath,b43,mac80211 bcma 26696 1 b43 ssb 52752 1 b43 ndiswrapper 282628 0 ums_realtek 18248 0 usb_storage 49198 1 ums_realtek uas 18180 0 snd_hda_codec_hdmi 32474 1 snd_hda_codec_cirrus 24002 1 joydev 17693 0 parport_pc 32866 0 ppdev 17113 0 rfcomm 47604 0 bnep 18281 2 bluetooth 180104 10 rfcomm,bnep psmouse 97362 0 dell_wmi 12681 0 sparse_keymap 13890 1 dell_wmi snd_hda_intel 33773 3 snd_hda_codec 127706 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_cirrus,snd_hda_intel snd_hwdep 13668 1 snd_hda_codec snd_pcm 97188 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec snd_seq_midi 13324 0 snd_rawmidi 30748 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq_midi_event 14899 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq 61896 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event snd_timer 29990 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq snd_seq_device 14540 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq wmi 19256 1 dell_wmi snd 78855 16 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_cirrus,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device mac_hid 13253 0 i915 473240 3 drm_kms_helper 46978 1 i915 uvcvideo 72627 0 drm 242038 4 i915,drm_kms_helper videodev 98259 1 uvcvideo soundcore 15091 1 snd dell_laptop 18119 0 dcdbas 14490 1 dell_laptop i2c_algo_bit 13423 1 i915 v4l2_compat_ioctl32 17128 1 videodev snd_page_alloc 18529 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm video 19596 1 i915 serio_raw 13211 0 mei 41616 0 lp 17799 0 parport 46562 3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp r8169 62099 0 sudo lshw -class network *-network UNCLAIMED description: Network controller product: Broadcom Corporation vendor: Broadcom Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:07:00.0 version: 01 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list configuration: latency=0 resources: memory:f7c00000-f7c07fff *-network description: Ethernet interface product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:09:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: 07 serial: 78:45:c4:a3:aa:65 size: 100Mbit/s capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl8168e-3_0.0.4 03/27/12 ip=192.168.1.5 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s resources: irq:41 ioport:e000(size=256) memory:f0004000-f0004fff memory:f0000000-f0003fff rfkill list all 0: dell-wifi: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: yes Hard blocked: yes 1: dell-bluetooth: Bluetooth Soft blocked: yes Hard blocked: yes Output of lspci > 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Ivy Bridge DRAM Controller (rev > 09) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Ivy Bridge > Graphics Controller (rev 09) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel > Corporation Panther Point MEI Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:1a.0 USB > controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host > Controller #2 (rev 04) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Panther > Point High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: > Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4) > 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root > Port 4 (rev c4) 00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point > PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev c4) 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel > Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04) > 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point LPC Controller > (rev 04) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point 6 > port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel > Corporation Panther Point SMBus Controller (rev 04) 07:00.0 Network > controller: Broadcom Corporation Device 4365 (rev 01) 09:00.0 Ethernet > controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express > Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 07) Output of lspci -v 0:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Ivy Bridge DRAM Controller (rev 09) Subsystem: Dell Device 0558 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Ivy Bridge Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem: Dell Device 0558 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 43 Memory at f7800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M] Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] I/O ports at f000 [size=64] Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: i915 Kernel modules: i915 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point MEI Controller #1 (rev 04) Subsystem: Dell Device 0558 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 42 Memory at f7d0a000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: mei Kernel modules: mei 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04) (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Dell Device 0558 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16 Memory at f7d08000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Panther Point High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04) Subsystem: Dell Device 0558 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 44 Memory at f7d00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=04, subordinate=04, sec-latency=0 Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev c4) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=07, subordinate=07, sec-latency=0 Memory behind bridge: f7c00000-f7cfffff Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev c4) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=09, subordinate=09, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 0000e000-0000efff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000f0000000-00000000f00fffff Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04) (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Dell Device 0558 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23 Memory at f7d07000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point LPC Controller (rev 04) Subsystem: Dell Device 0558 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0 Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel modules: iTCO_wdt 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point 6 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0]) Subsystem: Dell Device 0558 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 40 I/O ports at f0b0 [size=8] I/O ports at f0a0 [size=4] I/O ports at f090 [size=8] I/O ports at f080 [size=4] I/O ports at f060 [size=32] Memory at f7d06000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ahci 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Panther Point SMBus Controller (rev 04) Subsystem: Dell Device 0558 Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 11 Memory at f7d05000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256] I/O ports at f040 [size=32] Kernel modules: i2c-i801 07:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation Device 4365 (rev 01) Subsystem: Dell Device 0016 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 10 Memory at f7c00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32K] Capabilities: <access denied> 09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 07) Subsystem: Dell Device 0558 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 41 I/O ports at e000 [size=256] Memory at f0004000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K] Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: r8169 Kernel modules: r8169

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Disk Drive not working

- by user287681

The CD/DVD drive on my sisters' (I'm helping her shift from Win. XP (now officially deprecated by Microsoft) to Ubuntu) system. Now, it may end up being a failed attempt, all together (Almost the whole last year (when she's been on XP) the disk drive hasn't (not even powering on) been working.), I just want to make sure I've explored every remote possibility. Because I figure, "Huh, now that I've got Ubuntu running, instead of XP, that (just) might make a difference.". I have tried using the sudo lshw command in the terminal, to (seemingly) no avil, but, who knows, you might be able to make something out of it. Here's the output: kyra@kyra-Satellite-P105:~$ sudo lshw [sudo] password for kyra: kyra-satellite-p105 description: Notebook product: Satellite P105 () vendor: TOSHIBA version: PSPA0U-0TN01M serial: 96084354W width: 64 bits capabilities: smbios-2.4 dmi-2.4 vsyscall32 configuration: administrator_password=disabled boot=oem-specific chassis=notebook frontpanel_password=unknown keyboard_password=unknown power-on_password=disabled uuid=00900559-F88E-D811-82E0-00163680E992 *-core description: Motherboard product: Satellite P105 vendor: TOSHIBA physical id: 0 version: Not Applicable serial: 1234567890 *-firmware description: BIOS vendor: TOSHIBA physical id: 0 version: V4.70 date: 01/19/20092 size: 92KiB capabilities: isa pci pcmcia pnp upgrade shadowing escd cdboot acpi usb biosbootspecification *-cpu description: CPU product: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5500 @ 1.66GHz vendor: Intel Corp. physical id: 4 bus info: cpu@0 version: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T5 slot: U2E1 size: 1667MHz capacity: 1667MHz width: 64 bits clock: 166MHz capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx x86-64 constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm dtherm cpufreq *-cache:0 description: L1 cache physical id: 5 slot: L1 Cache size: 16KiB capacity: 16KiB capabilities: asynchronous internal write-back *-cache:1 description: L2 cache physical id: 6 slot: L2 Cache size: 2MiB capabilities: burst external write-back *-memory description: System Memory physical id: c slot: System board or motherboard size: 2GiB capacity: 3GiB *-bank:0 description: SODIMM DDR2 Synchronous physical id: 0 slot: M1 size: 1GiB width: 64 bits *-bank:1 description: SODIMM DDR2 Synchronous physical id: 1 slot: M2 size: 1GiB width: 64 bits *-pci description: Host bridge product: Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 100 bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0 version: 03 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz configuration: driver=agpgart-intel resources: irq:0 *-display:0 description: VGA compatible controller product: Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 2 bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0 version: 03 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom configuration: driver=i915 latency=0 resources: irq:16 memory:d0200000-d027ffff ioport:1800(size=8) memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:d0300000-d033ffff *-display:1 UNCLAIMED description: Display controller product: Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 2.1 bus info: pci@0000:00:02.1 version: 03 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list configuration: latency=0 resources: memory:d0280000-d02fffff *-multimedia description: Audio device product: NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1b bus info: pci@0000:00:1b.0 version: 02 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=0 resources: irq:44 memory:d0340000-d0343fff *-pci:0 description: PCI bridge product: NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 1 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1c bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.0 version: 02 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=pcieport resources: irq:40 ioport:3000(size=4096) memory:84000000-841fffff ioport:84200000(size=2097152) *-pci:1 description: PCI bridge product: NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 2 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1c.1 bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.1 version: 02 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=pcieport resources: irq:41 ioport:4000(size=4096) memory:84400000-846fffff ioport:84700000(size=2097152) *-network description: Wireless interface product: PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0 logical name: wlan0 version: 02 serial: 00:13:02:d6:d2:35 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwl3945 driverversion=3.13.0-29-generic firmware=15.32.2.9 ip=10.110.20.157 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abg resources: irq:43 memory:84400000-84400fff *-pci:2 description: PCI bridge product: NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 3 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1c.2 bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.2 version: 02 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pci pciexpress msi pm normal_decode bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=pcieport resources: irq:42 ioport:5000(size=4096) memory:84900000-84afffff ioport:84b00000(size=2097152) *-usb:0 description: USB controller product: NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1d bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.0 version: 02 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: uhci bus_master configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 resources: irq:23 ioport:1820(size=32) *-usb:1 description: USB controller product: NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1d.1 bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.1 version: 02 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: uhci bus_master configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 resources: irq:19 ioport:1840(size=32) *-usb:2 description: USB controller product: NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1d.2 bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.2 version: 02 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: uhci bus_master configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 resources: irq:18 ioport:1860(size=32) *-usb:3 description: USB controller product: NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1d.3 bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.3 version: 02 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: uhci bus_master configuration: driver=uhci_hcd latency=0 resources: irq:16 ioport:1880(size=32) *-usb:4 description: USB controller product: NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1d.7 bus info: pci@0000:00:1d.7 version: 02 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm debug ehci bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=ehci-pci latency=0 resources: irq:23 memory:d0544000-d05443ff *-pci:3 description: PCI bridge product: 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1e bus info: pci@0000:00:1e.0 version: e2 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pci subtractive_decode bus_master cap_list resources: ioport:2000(size=4096) memory:d0000000-d00fffff ioport:80000000(size=67108864) *-pcmcia description: CardBus bridge product: PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller vendor: Texas Instruments physical id: 4 bus info: pci@0000:0a:04.0 version: 00 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pcmcia bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=yenta_cardbus latency=176 maxlatency=5 mingnt=192 resources: irq:17 memory:d0004000-d0004fff ioport:2400(size=256) ioport:2800(size=256) memory:80000000-83ffffff memory:88000000-8bffffff *-firewire description: FireWire (IEEE 1394) product: PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller vendor: Texas Instruments physical id: 4.1 bus info: pci@0000:0a:04.1 version: 00 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm ohci bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=firewire_ohci latency=64 maxlatency=4 mingnt=3 resources: irq:17 memory:d0007000-d00077ff memory:d0000000-d0003fff *-storage description: Mass storage controller product: 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD) vendor: Texas Instruments physical id: 4.2 bus info: pci@0000:0a:04.2 version: 00 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: storage pm bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=tifm_7xx1 latency=64 maxlatency=4 mingnt=7 resources: irq:17 memory:d0005000-d0005fff *-generic description: SD Host controller product: PCIxx12 SDA Standard Compliant SD Host Controller vendor: Texas Instruments physical id: 4.3 bus info: pci@0000:0a:04.3 version: 00 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=sdhci-pci latency=64 maxlatency=4 mingnt=7 resources: irq:17 memory:d0007800-d00078ff *-network description: Ethernet interface product: PRO/100 VE Network Connection vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 8 bus info: pci@0000:0a:08.0 logical name: eth0 version: 02 serial: 00:16:36:80:e9:92 size: 10Mbit/s capacity: 100Mbit/s width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e100 driverversion=3.5.24-k2-NAPI duplex=half latency=64 link=no maxlatency=56 mingnt=8 multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s resources: irq:20 memory:d0006000-d0006fff ioport:2000(size=64) *-isa description: ISA bridge product: 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1f bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.0 version: 02 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: isa bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=lpc_ich latency=0 resources: irq:0 *-ide description: IDE interface product: 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7-M Family) SATA Controller [IDE mode] vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1f.2 bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.2 version: 02 width: 32 bits clock: 66MHz capabilities: ide pm bus_master cap_list configuration: driver=ata_piix latency=0 resources: irq:19 ioport:1f0(size=8) ioport:3f6 ioport:170(size=8) ioport:376 ioport:18b0(size=16) *-serial UNCLAIMED description: SMBus product: NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 1f.3 bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.3 version: 02 width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz configuration: latency=0 resources: ioport:18c0(size=32) *-scsi physical id: 1 logical name: scsi0 capabilities: emulated *-disk description: ATA Disk product: ST9250421AS vendor: Seagate physical id: 0.0.0 bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0 logical name: /dev/sda version: SD13 serial: 5TH0B2HB size: 232GiB (250GB) capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos configuration: ansiversion=5 sectorsize=512 signature=000d7fd5 *-volume:0 description: EXT4 volume vendor: Linux physical id: 1 bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0,1 logical name: /dev/sda1 logical name: / version: 1.0 serial: 13bb4bdd-8cc9-40e2-a490-dbe436c2a02d size: 230GiB capacity: 230GiB capabilities: primary bootable journaled extended_attributes large_files huge_files dir_nlink recover extents ext4 ext2 initialized configuration: created=2014-06-01 17:37:01 filesystem=ext4 lastmountpoint=/ modified=2014-06-01 21:15:21 mount.fstype=ext4 mount.options=rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered mounted=2014-06-01 21:15:21 state=mounted *-volume:1 description: Extended partition physical id: 2 bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0,2 logical name: /dev/sda2 size: 2037MiB capacity: 2037MiB capabilities: primary extended partitioned partitioned:extended *-logicalvolume description: Linux swap / Solaris partition physical id: 5 logical name: /dev/sda5 capacity: 2037MiB capabilities: nofs *-remoteaccess UNCLAIMED vendor: Intel physical id: 1 capabilities: inbound kyra@kyra-Satellite-P105:~$

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Microphone not capturing sound on 12.04 Lenovo G580

- by Yam Marcovic

In both Skype and the Sound Recorder application, I am not capturing any audio from my built-in microphone. I'm not sure why. Otherwise, sound output is working well. I have tried running gstreamer-properties and setting the Default Input plugin to PulseAUdio as well (to match the output), and it didn't help. I have tried running alsamixer -V all and I only get 2 input-related entries: Capture(L R) which is on 100 and not muted (can't be either), and Analog Mic Boost which is on 20db. Extra info: Camera (video) is working well on Skype and Kamerka. Can you please help me get my microphone to work? lspci: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Ivy Bridge DRAM Controller (rev 09) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3977 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort+ >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Ivy Bridge Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3977 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42 Region 0: Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M] Region 2: Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] Region 4: I/O ports at 3000 [size=64] Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: i915 Kernel modules: i915 00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04) (prog-if 30 [XHCI]) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3977 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 41 Region 0: Memory at e0600000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point MEI Controller #1 (rev 04) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3977 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 43 Region 0: Memory at e0614000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: mei Kernel modules: mei 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04) (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3977 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16 Region 0: Memory at e0619000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Panther Point High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3977 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 44 Region 0: Memory at e0610000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00002000-00002fff Memory behind bridge: e0500000-e05fffff Secondary status: 66MHz- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- <SERR- <PERR- BridgeCtl: Parity- SERR- NoISA- VGA- MAbort- >Reset- FastB2B- PriDiscTmr- SecDiscTmr- DiscTmrStat- DiscTmrSERREn- Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev c4) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0 Memory behind bridge: e0400000-e04fffff Secondary status: 66MHz- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- <SERR- <PERR- BridgeCtl: Parity- SERR- NoISA- VGA- MAbort- >Reset- FastB2B- PriDiscTmr- SecDiscTmr- DiscTmrStat- DiscTmrSERREn- Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04) (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3977 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 23 Region 0: Memory at e0618000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Panther Point LPC Controller (rev 04) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3977 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel modules: iTCO_wdt 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Panther Point 6 port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04) (prog-if 01 [AHCI 1.0]) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3977 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz+ UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin B routed to IRQ 40 Region 0: I/O ports at 3088 [size=8] Region 1: I/O ports at 3094 [size=4] Region 2: I/O ports at 3080 [size=8] Region 3: I/O ports at 3090 [size=4] Region 4: I/O ports at 3060 [size=32] Region 5: Memory at e0617000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ahci 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Panther Point SMBus Controller (rev 04) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3977 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Interrupt: pin C routed to IRQ 10 Region 0: Memory at e0615000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256] Region 4: I/O ports at 3040 [size=32] Kernel modules: i2c-i801 01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR8162 Fast Ethernet (rev 08) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3979 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11 Region 0: Memory at e0500000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K] Region 2: I/O ports at 2000 [size=128] Capabilities: <access denied> 02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01) Subsystem: Lenovo Device 31a1 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17 Region 0: Memory at e0400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ath9k Kernel modules: ath9k aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

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How to Recover From a Virus Infection: 3 Things You Need to Do

- by Chris Hoffman

If your computer becomes infected with a virus or another piece of malware, removing the malware from your computer is only the first step. There’s more you need to do to ensure you’re secure. Note that not every antivirus alert is an actual infection. If your antivirus program catches a virus before it ever gets a chance to run on your computer, you’re safe. If it catches the malware later, you have a bigger problem. Change Your Passwords You’ve probably used your computer to log into your email, online banking websites, and other important accounts. Assuming you had malware on your computer, the malware could have logged your passwords and uploaded them to a malicious third party. With just your email account, the third party could reset your passwords on other websites and gain access to almost any of your online accounts. To prevent this, you’ll want to change the passwords for your important accounts — email, online banking, and whatever other important accounts you’ve logged into from the infected computer. You should probably use another computer that you know is clean to change the passwords, just to be safe. When changing your passwords, consider using a password manager to keep track of strong, unique passwords and two-factor authentication to prevent people from logging into your important accounts even if they know your password. This will help protect you in the future. Ensure the Malware Is Actually Removed Once malware gets access to your computer and starts running, it has the ability to do many more nasty things to your computer. For example, some malware may install rootkit software and attempt to hide itself from the system. Many types of Trojans also “open the floodgates” after they’re running, downloading many different types of malware from malicious web servers to the local system. In other words, if your computer was infected, you’ll want to take extra precautions. You shouldn’t assume it’s clean just because your antivirus removed what it found. It’s probably a good idea to scan your computer with multiple antivirus products to ensure maximum detection. You may also want to run a bootable antivirus program, which runs outside of Windows. Such bootable antivirus programs will be able to detect rootkits that hide themselves from Windows and even the software running within Windows. avast! offers the ability to quickly create a bootable CD or USB drive for scanning, as do many other antivirus programs. You may also want to reinstall Windows (or use the Refresh feature on Windows 8) to get your computer back to a clean state. This is more time-consuming, especially if you don’t have good backups and can’t get back up and running quickly, but this is the only way you can have 100% confidence that your Windows system isn’t infected. It’s all a matter of how paranoid you want to be. Figure Out How the Malware Arrived If your computer became infected, the malware must have arrived somehow. You’ll want to examine your computer’s security and your habits to prevent more malware from slipping through in the same way. Windows is complex. For example, there are over 50 different types of potentially dangerous file extensions that can contain malware to keep track of. We’ve tried to cover many of the most important security practices you should be following, but here are some of the more important questions to ask: Are you using an antivirus? – If you don’t have an antivirus installed, you should. If you have Microsoft Security Essentials (known as Windows Defender on Windows 8), you may want to switch to a different antivirus like the free version of avast!. Microsoft’s antivirus product has been doing very poorly in tests. Do you have Java installed? – Java is a huge source of security problems. The majority of computers on the Internet have an out-of-date, vulnerable version of Java installed, which would allow malicious websites to install malware on your computer. If you have Java installed, uninstall it. If you actually need Java for something (like Minecraft), at least disable the Java browser plugin. If you’re not sure whether you need Java, you probably don’t. Are any browser plugins out-of-date? – Visit Mozilla’s Plugin Check website (yes, it also works in other browsers, not just Firefox) and see if you have any critically vulnerable plugins installed. If you do, ensure you update them — or uninstall them. You probably don’t need older plugins like QuickTime or RealPlayer installed on your computer, although Flash is still widely used. Are your web browser and operating system set to automatically update? – You should be installing updates for Windows via Windows Update when they appear. Modern web browsers are set to automatically update, so they should be fine — unless you went out of your way to disable automatic updates. Using out-of-date web browsers and Windows versions is dangerous. Are you being careful about what you run? – Watch out when downloading software to ensure you don’t accidentally click sketchy advertisements and download harmful software. Avoid pirated software that may be full of malware. Don’t run programs from email attachments. Be careful about what you run and where you get it from in general. If you can’t figure out how the malware arrived because everything looks okay, there’s not much more you can do. Just try to follow proper security practices. You may also want to keep an extra-close eye on your credit card statement for a while if you did any online-shopping recently. As so much malware is now related to organized crime, credit card numbers are a popular target.

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Day 3 - XNA: Hacking around with images

- by dapostolov

Yay! Today I'm going to get into some code! My mind has been on this all day! I find it amusing how I practice, daily, to be "in the moment" or "present" and the excitement and anticipation of this project seems to snatch it away from me frequently. WELL!!! (Shakes Excitedly) Let's do this =)! Let's code! For these next few days it is my intention to better understand image rendering using XNA; after said prototypes are complete I should (fingers crossed) be able to dive into my game code using the design document I hammered out the other night. On a personal note, I think the toughest thing right now is finding the time to do this project. Each night, after my little ones go to bed I can only really afford a couple hours of work on this project. However, I hope to utilise this time as best as I can because this is the first time in a while I've found a project that I've been passionate about. A friend recently asked me if I intend to go 3D or extend the game design. Yes. For now I'm keeping it simple. Lastly, just as a note, as I was doing some further research into image rendering this morning I came across some other XNA content and lessons learned. I believe this content could have probably been posted in the first couple of posts, however, I will share the new content as I learn it at the end of each day. Maybe I'll take some time later to fix the posts but for now Installation and Deployment - Lessons Learned I had installed the XNA studio (Day 1) and the site instructions were pretty easy to follow. However, I had a small difficulty with my development environment. You see, I run a virtual desktop development environment. Even though I was able to code and compile all the tutorials the game failed to run...because I lacked a 3D capable card; it was not detected on the virtual box... First Lesson: The XNA runtime needs to "see" the 3D card! No sweat, Il copied the files over to my parent box and executed the program. ERROR. Hmm... Second Lesson (which I should have probably known but I let the excitement get the better of me): you need the XNA runtime on the client PC to run the game, oh, and don't forget the .Net Runtime! Sprite, it ain't just a Soft Drink... With these prototypes I intend to understand and perform the following tasks. learn game development terminology how to place and position (rotate) a static image on the screen how to layer static images on the screen understand image scaling can we reuse images? understand how framerate is handled in XNA how to display text , basic shapes, and colors on the screen how to interact with an image (collision of user input?) how to animate an image and understand basic animation techniques how to detect colliding images or screen edges how to manipulate the image, lets say colors, stretching how to focus on a segment of an image...like only displaying a frame on a film reel what's the best way to manage images (compression, storage, location, prevent artwork theft, etc.) Well, let's start with this "prototype" task list for now...Today, let's get an image on the screen and maybe I can mark a few of the tasks as completed... C# Prototype1 New Visual Studio Project Select the XNA Game Studio 3.1 Project Type Select the Windows Game 3.1 Template Type Prototype1 in the Name textbox provided Press OK. At this point code has auto-magically been created. Feel free to press the F5 key to run your first XNA program. You should have a blue screen infront of you. Without getting into the nitty gritty right, the code that was generated basically creates some basic code to clear the window content with the lovely CornFlowerBlue color. Something to notice, when you move your mouse into the window...nothing. ooooo spoooky. Let's put an image on that screen! Step A - Get an Image into the solution Under "Content" in your Solution Explorer, right click and add a new folder and name it "Sprites". Copy a small image in there; I copied a "Royalty Free" wizard hat from a quick google search and named it wizards_hat.jpg (rightfully so!) Step B - Add the sprite and position fields Now, open/edit Game1.cs Locate the following line: SpriteBatch spriteBatch; Under this line type the following: SpriteBatch spriteBatch; // the line you are looking for... Texture2D sprite; Vector2 position; Step C - Load the image asset Locate the "Load Content" Method and duplicate the following: protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); // your image name goes here... sprite = Content.Load<Texture2D>("Sprites\\wizards_hat"); position = new Vector2(200, 100); base.LoadContent(); } Step D - Draw the image Locate the "Draw" Method and duplicate the following: protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteBlendMode.AlphaBlend); spriteBatch.Draw(sprite, position, Color.White); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } Step E - Compile and Run Engage! (F5) - Debug! Your image should now display on a cornflowerblue window about 200 pixels from the left and 100 pixels from the top. Awesome! =) Pretty cool how we only coded a few lines to display an image, but believe me, there is plenty going on behind the scenes. However, for now, I'm going to call it a night here. Blogging all this progress certainly takes time... However, tomorrow night I'm going to detail what we just did, plus start checking off points on that list! I'm wondering right now if I should add pictures / code to this post...let me know if you want them =) Best Regards, D.

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HTG Explains: Why Does Rebooting a Computer Fix So Many Problems?

- by Chris Hoffman

Ask a geek how to fix a problem you’ve having with your Windows computer and they’ll likely ask “Have you tried rebooting it?” This seems like a flippant response, but rebooting a computer can actually solve many problems. So what’s going on here? Why does resetting a device or restarting a program fix so many problems? And why don’t geeks try to identify and fix problems rather than use the blunt hammer of “reset it”? This Isn’t Just About Windows Bear in mind that this soltion isn’t just limited to Windows computers, but applies to all types of computing devices. You’ll find the advice “try resetting it” applied to wireless routers, iPads, Android phones, and more. This same advice even applies to software — is Firefox acting slow and consuming a lot of memory? Try closing it and reopening it! Some Problems Require a Restart To illustrate why rebooting can fix so many problems, let’s take a look at the ultimate software problem a Windows computer can face: Windows halts, showing a blue screen of death. The blue screen was caused by a low-level error, likely a problem with a hardware driver or a hardware malfunction. Windows reaches a state where it doesn’t know how to recover, so it halts, shows a blue-screen of death, gathers information about the problem, and automatically restarts the computer for you . This restart fixes the blue screen of death. Windows has gotten better at dealing with errors — for example, if your graphics driver crashes, Windows XP would have frozen. In Windows Vista and newer versions of Windows, the Windows desktop will lose its fancy graphical effects for a few moments before regaining them. Behind the scenes, Windows is restarting the malfunctioning graphics driver. But why doesn’t Windows simply fix the problem rather than restarting the driver or the computer itself? Well, because it can’t — the code has encountered a problem and stopped working completely, so there’s no way for it to continue. By restarting, the code can start from square one and hopefully it won’t encounter the same problem again. Examples of Restarting Fixing Problems While certain problems require a complete restart because the operating system or a hardware driver has stopped working, not every problem does. Some problems may be fixable without a restart, though a restart may be the easiest option. Windows is Slow: Let’s say Windows is running very slowly. It’s possible that a misbehaving program is using 99% CPU and draining the computer’s resources. A geek could head to the task manager and look around, hoping to locate the misbehaving process an end it. If an average user encountered this same problem, they could simply reboot their computer to fix it rather than dig through their running processes. Firefox or Another Program is Using Too Much Memory: In the past, Firefox has been the poster child for memory leaks on average PCs. Over time, Firefox would often consume more and more memory, getting larger and larger and slowing down. Closing Firefox will cause it to relinquish all of its memory. When it starts again, it will start from a clean state without any leaked memory. This doesn’t just apply to Firefox, but applies to any software with memory leaks. Internet or Wi-Fi Network Problems: If you have a problem with your Wi-Fi or Internet connection, the software on your router or modem may have encountered a problem. Resetting the router — just by unplugging it from its power socket and then plugging it back in — is a common solution for connection problems. In all cases, a restart wipes away the current state of the software . Any code that’s stuck in a misbehaving state will be swept away, too. When you restart, the computer or device will bring the system up from scratch, restarting all the software from square one so it will work just as well as it was working before. “Soft Resets” vs. “Hard Resets” In the mobile device world, there are two types of “resets” you can perform. A “soft reset” is simply restarting a device normally — turning it off and then on again. A “hard reset” is resetting its software state back to its factory default state. When you think about it, both types of resets fix problems for a similar reason. For example, let’s say your Windows computer refuses to boot or becomes completely infected with malware. Simply restarting the computer won’t fix the problem, as the problem is with the files on the computer’s hard drive — it has corrupted files or malware that loads at startup on its hard drive. However, reinstalling Windows (performing a “Refresh or Reset your PC” operation in Windows 8 terms) will wipe away everything on the computer’s hard drive, restoring it to its formerly clean state. This is simpler than looking through the computer’s hard drive, trying to identify the exact reason for the problems or trying to ensure you’ve obliterated every last trace of malware. It’s much faster to simply start over from a known-good, clean state instead of trying to locate every possible problem and fix it. Ultimately, the answer is that “resetting a computer wipes away the current state of the software, including any problems that have developed, and allows it to start over from square one.” It’s easier and faster to start from a clean state than identify and fix any problems that may be occurring — in fact, in some cases, it may be impossible to fix problems without beginning from that clean state. Image Credit: Arria Belli on Flickr, DeclanTM on Flickr

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Enable wireless on Dell Inspiron 1300

- by Simon

As per subject, I've looked at various resources and attempted ndiswrapper solutions, found a one-click solution that lead to a 404 and this but none works. I've run all updates. Once I managed to lose my wired connection as well and had to reinstall. This is my first hour with Linux. iwconfig gives this before I do anything: lo no wireless extensions. wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:off/any Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=0 dBm Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:on eth0 no wireless extens Thanks for responding lspci returns 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 03) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort+ >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16 Region 0: Memory at dff00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K] Region 1: I/O ports at eff8 [size=8] Region 2: Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] Region 3: Memory at dfec0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K] Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: i915 Kernel modules: intelfb, i915 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Region 0: Memory at dff80000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K] Capabilities: <access denied> 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 03) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 42 Region 0: Memory at dfebc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Bus: primary=00, secondary=0b, subordinate=0b, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00002000-00002fff Memory behind bridge: 30000000-301fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 0000000030200000-00000000303fffff Secondary status: 66MHz- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- <SERR- <PERR- BridgeCtl: Parity- SERR+ NoISA- VGA- MAbort- >Reset- FastB2B- PriDiscTmr- SecDiscTmr- DiscTmrStat- DiscTmrSERREn- Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode]) Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+ Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes Bus: primary=00, secondary=0c, subordinate=0d, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 0000d000-0000dfff Memory behind bridge: dfc00000-dfdfffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000d0000000-00000000d01fffff Secondary status: 66MHz- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- <SERR- <PERR- BridgeCtl: Parity- SERR+ NoISA- VGA- MAbort- >Reset- FastB2B- PriDiscTmr- SecDiscTmr- DiscTmrStat- DiscTmrSERREn- Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: pcieport Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [UHCI]) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16 Region 4: I/O ports at bf80 [size=32] Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd 00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [UHCI]) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin B routed to IRQ 17 Region 4: I/O ports at bf60 [size=32] Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd 00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [UHCI]) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin C routed to IRQ 18 Region 4: I/O ports at bf40 [size=32] Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd 00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [UHCI]) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin D routed to IRQ 19 Region 4: I/O ports at bf20 [size=32] Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd 00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 20 [EHCI]) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16 Region 0: Memory at b0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d3) (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode]) Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=32 I/O behind bridge: 0000f000-00000fff Memory behind bridge: dfb00000-dfbfffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 00000000fff00000-00000000000fffff Secondary status: 66MHz- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort+ <SERR- <PERR- BridgeCtl: Parity- SERR+ NoISA- VGA- MAbort- >Reset- FastB2B- PriDiscTmr- SecDiscTmr- DiscTmrStat- DiscTmrSERREn- Capabilities: <access denied> 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Kernel modules: iTCO_wdt, intel-rng 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP]) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 0 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16 Region 0: I/O ports at 01f0 [size=8] Region 1: I/O ports at 03f4 [size=1] Region 2: I/O ports at 0170 [size=8] Region 3: I/O ports at 0374 [size=1] Region 4: I/O ports at bfa0 [size=16] Kernel driver in use: ata_piix 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c9 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 64 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 18 Region 0: Memory at dfbfc000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: b44 Kernel modules: b44 02:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02) Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1370 WLAN Mini-PCI Card Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx- Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx- Latency: 64 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17 Region 0: Memory at dfbfe000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K] Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge Kernel modules: ssb and the rfkill shows 0: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no Just checking addtional drivers. Says no additional driver installed in this system

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Feedback on meeting of the Linux User Group of Mauritius

Once upon a time in a country far far away... Okay, actually it's not that bad but it has been a while since the last meeting of the Linux User Group of Mauritius (LUGM). There have been plans in the past but it never really happened. Finally, Selven took the opportunity and organised a new meetup with low administrative overhead, proper scheduling on alternative dates and a small attendee's survey on the preferred option. All the pre-work was nicely executed. First, I wasn't sure whether it would be possible to attend. Luckily I got some additional information, like children should come, too, and I was sold to this community gathering. According to other long-term members of the LUGM it was the first time 'ever' that a gathering was organised outside of Quatre Bornes, and I have to admit it was great! LUGM - user group meeting on the 15.06.2013 in L'Escalier Quick overview of Linux & the LUGM With a little bit of delay the LUGM meeting officially started with a quick overview and introduction to Linux presented by Avinash. During the session he told the audience that there had been quite some activity over the island some years ago but unfortunately it had been quiet during recent times. Of course, we also spoke about the acknowledged world dominance of Linux - thanks to Android - and the interesting possibilities for countries like Mauritius. It is known that a couple of public institutions have there back-end infrastructure running on Red Hat Linux systems but the presence on the desktop is still very low. Users are simply hanging on to Windows XP and older versions of Microsoft Office. Following the introduction of the LUGM Ajay joined into the session and it quickly changed into a panel discussion with lots of interesting questions and answers, sharing of first-hand experience either on the job or in private use of Linux, and a couple of ideas about how the LUGM could promote Linux a bit more in Mauritius. It was great to get an insight into other attendee's opinion and activities. Especially taking into consideration that I'm already using Linux since around 1996/97. Frankly speaking, I bought a SuSE 4.x distribution back in those days because I couldn't achieve certain tasks on Windows NT 4.0 without spending a fortune. OpenELEC Mediacenter Next, Selven gave us decent introduction on OpenELEC: Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center (OpenELEC) is a small Linux distribution built from scratch as a platform to turn your computer into an XBMC media center. OpenELEC is designed to make your system boot fast, and the install is so easy that anyone can turn a blank PC into a media machine in less than 15 minutes. I didn't know about it until this presentation. In the past, I was mainly attached to Video Disk Recorder (VDR) as it allows the use of satellite receiver cards very easily. Hm, somehow I'm still missing my precious HTPC that I had to leave back in Germany years ago. It was great piece of hardware and software; self-built PC in a standard HiFi-sized (43cm) black desktop casing with 2 full-featured Hauppauge DVB-s cards, an old-fashioned Voodoo graphics card, WiFi card, Pioneer slot-in DVD drive, and fully remote controlled via infra-red thanks to Debian, VDR and LIRC. With EP Guide, scheduled recordings and general multimedia centre it offered all the necessary comfort in the living room, besides a Nintendo game console; actually a GameCube at that time... But I have to admit that putting OpenELEC on a Raspberry Pi would be a cool DIY project in the near future. LUGM - our next generation of linux users (15.06.2013) Project Evil Genius (PEG) Don't be scared of the paragraph header. Ish gave us a cool explanation why he named it PEG - Project Evil Genius; it's because of the time of the day when he was scripting down his ideas to be able to build, package and provide software applications to various Linux distributions. The main influence came from openSuSE but the platform didn't cater for his needs and ideas, so he started to work out something on his own. During his passionate session he also talked about the amazing experience he had due to other Linux users from all over the world. During the next couple of days Ish promised to put his script to GitHub... Looking forward to that. Check out Ish's personal blog over at hacklog.in. Highly recommended to read. Why India? Simply because the registration fees per year for an Indian domain are approximately 20 times less than for a Mauritian domain (.mu). Exploring the beach of L'Escalier af the meeting 'After-party' at the beach of L'Escalier Puh, after such interesting sessions, ideas around Linux and good conversation during the breaks and over lunch it was time for a little break-out. Selven suggested that we all should head down to the beach of L'Escalier and get some impressions of nature down here in the south of the island. Talking about 'beach' ;-) - absolutely not comparable to the white-sanded ones here in Flic en Flac... There are no lagoons down at the south coast of Mauriitus, and watching the breaking waves is a different experience and joy after all. Unfortunately, I was a little bit worried about the thoughtless littering at such a remote location. You have to drive on natural paths through the sugar cane fields and I was really shocked by the amount of rubbish lying around almost everywhere. Sad, really sad and it concurs with Yasir's recent article on the same topic. Resumé & outlook It was a great event. I met with new people, had some good conversations, and even my children enjoyed themselves the whole day. The location was well-chosen, enough space for each and everyone, parking spaces and even a playground for the children. Also, a big "Thank You" to Selven and his helpers for the organisation and preparation of lunch. I'm kind of sure that this was an exceptional meeting of LUGM and I'm really looking forward to the next gathering of Linux geeks. Hopefully, soon. All images are courtesy of Avinash Meetoo. More pictures are available on Flickr.

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GLSL compiler messages from different vendors [on hold]

- by revers

I'm writing a GLSL shader editor and I want to parse GLSL compiler messages to make hyperlinks to invalid lines in a shader code. I know that these messages are vendor specific but currently I have access only to AMD's video cards. I want to handle at least NVidia's and Intel's hardware, apart from AMD's. If you have video card from different vendor than AMD, could you please give me the output of following C++ program: #include <GL/glew.h> #include <GL/freeglut.h> #include <iostream> using namespace std; #define STRINGIFY(X) #X static const char* fs = STRINGIFY( out vec4 out_Color; mat4 m; void main() { vec3 v3 = vec3(1.0); vec2 v2 = v3; out_Color = vec4(5.0 * v2.x, 1.0); vec3 k = 3.0; float = 5; } ); static const char* vs = STRINGIFY( in vec3 in_Position; void main() { vec3 v(5); gl_Position = vec4(in_Position, 1.0); } ); void printShaderInfoLog(GLint shader) { int infoLogLen = 0; int charsWritten = 0; GLchar *infoLog; glGetShaderiv(shader, GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH, &infoLogLen); if (infoLogLen > 0) { infoLog = new GLchar[infoLogLen]; glGetShaderInfoLog(shader, infoLogLen, &charsWritten, infoLog); cout << "Log:\n" << infoLog << endl; delete [] infoLog; } } void printProgramInfoLog(GLint program) { int infoLogLen = 0; int charsWritten = 0; GLchar *infoLog; glGetProgramiv(program, GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH, &infoLogLen); if (infoLogLen > 0) { infoLog = new GLchar[infoLogLen]; glGetProgramInfoLog(program, infoLogLen, &charsWritten, infoLog); cout << "Program log:\n" << infoLog << endl; delete [] infoLog; } } void initShaders() { GLuint v = glCreateShader(GL_VERTEX_SHADER); GLuint f = glCreateShader(GL_FRAGMENT_SHADER); GLint vlen = strlen(vs); GLint flen = strlen(fs); glShaderSource(v, 1, &vs, &vlen); glShaderSource(f, 1, &fs, &flen); GLint compiled; glCompileShader(v); bool succ = true; glGetShaderiv(v, GL_COMPILE_STATUS, &compiled); if (!compiled) { cout << "Vertex shader not compiled." << endl; succ = false; } printShaderInfoLog(v); glCompileShader(f); glGetShaderiv(f, GL_COMPILE_STATUS, &compiled); if (!compiled) { cout << "Fragment shader not compiled." << endl; succ = false; } printShaderInfoLog(f); GLuint p = glCreateProgram(); glAttachShader(p, v); glAttachShader(p, f); glLinkProgram(p); glUseProgram(p); printProgramInfoLog(p); if (!succ) { exit(-1); } delete [] vs; delete [] fs; } int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { glutInit(&argc, argv); glutInitDisplayMode(GLUT_DOUBLE | GLUT_RGBA); glutInitWindowSize(600, 600); glutCreateWindow("Triangle Test"); glewInit(); GLenum err = glewInit(); if (GLEW_OK != err) { cout << "glewInit failed, aborting." << endl; exit(1); } cout << "Using GLEW " << glewGetString(GLEW_VERSION) << endl; const GLubyte* renderer = glGetString(GL_RENDERER); const GLubyte* vendor = glGetString(GL_VENDOR); const GLubyte* version = glGetString(GL_VERSION); const GLubyte* glslVersion = glGetString(GL_SHADING_LANGUAGE_VERSION); GLint major, minor; glGetIntegerv(GL_MAJOR_VERSION, &major); glGetIntegerv(GL_MINOR_VERSION, &minor); cout << "GL Vendor : " << vendor << endl; cout << "GL Renderer : " << renderer << endl; cout << "GL Version : " << version << endl; cout << "GL Version : " << major << "." << minor << endl; cout << "GLSL Version : " << glslVersion << endl; initShaders(); return 0; } On my video card it gives: Status: Using GLEW 1.7.0 GL Vendor : ATI Technologies Inc. GL Renderer : ATI Radeon HD 4250 GL Version : 3.3.11631 Compatibility Profile Context GL Version : 3.3 GLSL Version : 3.30 Vertex shader not compiled. Log: Vertex shader failed to compile with the following errors: ERROR: 0:1: error(#132) Syntax error: '5' parse error ERROR: error(#273) 1 compilation errors. No code generated Fragment shader not compiled. Log: Fragment shader failed to compile with the following errors: WARNING: 0:1: warning(#402) Implicit truncation of vector from size 3 to size 2. ERROR: 0:1: error(#174) Not enough data provided for construction constructor WARNING: 0:1: warning(#402) Implicit truncation of vector from size 1 to size 3. ERROR: 0:1: error(#132) Syntax error: '=' parse error ERROR: error(#273) 2 compilation errors. No code generated Program log: Vertex and Fragment shader(s) were not successfully compiled before glLinkProgram() was called. Link failed. Or if you like, you could give me other compiler messages than proposed by me. To summarize, the question is: What are GLSL compiler messages formats (INFOs, WARNINGs, ERRORs) for different vendors? Please give me examples or pattern explanation. EDIT: Ok, it seems that this question is too broad, then shortly: How does NVidia's and Intel's GLSL compilers present ERROR and WARNING messages? AMD/ATI uses patterns like this: ERROR: <position>:<line_number>: <message> WARNING: <position>:<line_number>: <message> (examples are above).

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, September 03, 2012

CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, September 03, 2012Popular ReleasesMetodología General Ajustada - MGA: 03.01.03: Cambios Aury: Ajuste del margen del reporte. Visualización de la columna de Supuestos en la parte del módulo de Decisión. Cambios John: Integración de código con cambios enviados por Aury Niño. Generación de instaladores. Soporte técnico por correo electrónico y telefónico.Iveely Search Engine: Iveely Search Engine （0.2.0）: ????ISE?0.1.0??，?????，ISE?0.2.0?????????，???????，????????20???follow?ISE，????，??ISE??????????，??????????，?????????，?????????0.2.0??????，??????????。 Iveely Search Engine ?0.2.0?????????“??????????”，??????，?????????，???????，???????????????????，????、????????????。???0.1.0????????????： 1. ??“????” ??。??????????，?????????，???????????????????。??：????????，????????????，??????????????????。??????。 2. ??“????”??。?0.1.0??????，???????，???????????????，?????????????，????????，?0.2.0?，???????...Thisismyusername's codeplex page.: HTML5 Mulititouch Fruit Ninja Proof of Concept: This is an example of how you could create a game such as Fruit Ninja using HTML5's multitouch capabilities. Sorry this example doesn't have great graphics. If I had my own webpage, I could store some graphics and upload the game there and it might look halfway decent, but since I'm only using a Codeplex page and most mobile devices can't open .zip files, the fruits are just circles. I hope you enjoy reading the source code anyway.GmailDefaultMaker: GmailDefaultMaker 3.0.0.2: Add QQ Mail BugfixSmart Data Access layer: Smart Data access Layer Ver 3: In this version support executing inline query is added. Check Documentation section for detail.TSQL Code Smells Finder: POC 1.01: Proof of concept 1.01 TSQLDomTest.ps1 and Errors.Txt are requiredConfuser: Confuser build 76542: This is a build of changeset 76542.Reactive State Machine: ReactiveStateMachine-beta: TouchStateMachine now supports Microsoft Surface 2.0 SDK. The TouchStateMachine is an extension to the Reactive State Machine. Reactive State Machine uses NuGet for dependency managementSharePoint Column & View Permission: SharePoint Column and View Permission v1.2: Version 1.2 of this project. If you will find any bugs please let me know at enti@zoznam.sk or post your findings in Issue TrackerMihmojsos OS: Mihmojsos OS 3 (Smart Rabbit): !Mihmojsos OS 3 Smart Rabbit Mihmojsos Smart Rabbit is now availableDotNetNuke Translator: 01.00.00 Beta: First release of the project.YNA: YNA 0.2 alpha: Wath's new since 0.1 alpha ? A lot of changes but there are the most interresting : StateManager is now better and faster Mouse events for all YnObjects (Sprites, Images, texts) A really big improvement for YnGroup Gamepad support And the news : Tiled Map support (need refactoring) Isometric tiled map support (need refactoring) Transition effect like "FadeIn" and "FadeOut" (YnTransition) Timers (YnTimer) Path management (YnPath, need more refactoring) Downloads All downloads...Audio Pitch & Shift: Audio Pitch And Shift 5.1.0.2: fixed several issues with streaming modeUrlPager: UrlPager 1.2: Fixed bug in which url parameters will lost after paging; ????????url???bug；Sofire Suite: Sofire v1.5.0.0: Sofire v1.5.0.0 ?? ???????? ?????： 1、?? 2、????EntLib.com????????: EntLib.com???????? v3.0: EntLib eCommerce Solution ???Microsoft .Net Framework?????????????????????。Coevery - Free CRM: Coevery 1.0.0.24: Add a sample database, and installation instructions.Math.NET Numerics: Math.NET Numerics v2.2.1: Major linear algebra rework since v2.1, now available on Codeplex as well (previous versions were only available via NuGet). Since v2.2.0: Student-T density more robust for very large degrees of freedom Sparse Kronecker product much more efficient (now leverages sparsity) Direct access to raw matrix storage implementations for advanced extensibility Now also separate package for signed core library with a strong name (we dropped strong names in v2.2.0) Also available as NuGet packages...Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: AdventureWorks Databases – 2012, 2008R2 and 2008: About this release This release consolidates AdventureWorks databases for SQL Server 2012, 2008R2 and 2008 versions to one page. Each zip file contains an mdf database file and ldf log file. This should make it easier to find and download AdventureWorks databases since all OLTP versions are on one page. There are no database schema changes. For each release of the product, there is a light-weight and full version of the AdventureWorks sample database. The light-weight version is denoted by ...Christoc's DotNetNuke Module Development Template: DotNetNuke Project Templates V1.1 for VS2012: This release is specifically for Visual Studio 2012 Support, distributed through the Visual Studio Extensions gallery at http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/ After you build in Release mode the installable packages (source/install) can be found in the INSTALL folder now, within your module's folder, not the packages folder anymore Check out the blog post for all of the details about this release. http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Resources/Blogs/EntryId/3471/New-Visual-Studio-2012-Projec...New ProjectsBPVote4PPT: BPVote For PowerPointCosmo OS: La semplicità in un OSFinancial Analytic Tools: C#.Net Financial Analytic ToolsGeminiMVC: An Open Source CMS written in ASP.net MVC 4 with speed, extensibility, and ease-of-us in mind.JQuery SharePoint Autocomplete People Picker: This JQUery bundle provides an autocomplete people picker based on SharePoint profiles. It can be hosted on the SharePoint itself or on remote applications.Kerbal Space Program PartModule Library: This project is designed to add various functionalities to custom parts for the space program simulation game Kerbal Space Program.KeyboardRemapper: This tool to remaps keys in the keyboard. If you have more than one keyboard or an additional keypad, you can remap the keys of the each keyboard independentlyKHStudent: ??????Localized DataAnnotations with T4 templates: Simplified DataAnnotations localization using T4 templates.MfcLightToolkit: Supports development for small and simple MFC application. Provides asynchronous programming model like .NET, file download, easy control resizing, and so on.Müslüm ÖZTÜRK Code Lib: Test amaçli olusturulan projemdirPolska: Testproject in how a polish grammerprogram can look like.QueueLessApp: Here is the codeRusIS.CMS: aaaSGPS: Projeto de controle de produtos e serviçosStemmersNet: Stemmers pack for .Net FrameworkTrabajo Final de Ingenieria - Javier Vallejos: Tesis Final de la carrera de Ingenieria - Universidad Abierta Interamericana.TSQL Code Smells Finder: TSQL 'smells' findersXNA and Data Driven Design: This project includes links for XNA and Data Driven DesignXNA and System Testing: This project includes code for XNA and System TestingYUGI-AR Project: an open source project for yugioh based augmented reality???????? ? ?????????????: ???? ??????? ??????? ?????????????? ??????????? ?????????? ??? ? ????? ?????? ? ? ??? ??? ????? ? ??? ?????????? ????????????.

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Character jump animation is not working when i hit the space bar

- by muzzy

i am having an issue with my game in XNA. My jump sprite sheet for my character does not trigger when i hit the space bar. I cant seem to find the problem. Please help me. I am also put the code below to make things easier. namespace WindowsGame4 { public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; // start of new code Texture2D playerWalk; // sprite sheet of walk cycle (14 frames) Texture2D idle; // idle animation Texture2D jump; // jump animation Vector2 playerPos; // to hold x and y position info for the player Point frameDimensions; // to hold width and height values for the frames int presentFrame; // to record which frame we are on at any given time int noOfFrames; // to hold the total number of frames in the spritesheet int elapsedTime; // to know how long each frame has been shown int frameDuration; // to hold info about how long each frame should be shown SpriteEffects flipDirection; // SpriteEffects object int speed; //rate of movement int upMovement; int downMovement; int rightMovement; int leftMovement; int jumpApex; string state; //this is going to be "idle","walking" or "jumping". KeyboardState previousKeyboardState; Vector2 originalPlayerPos; Vector2 movementDirection; Vector2 movementSpeed; public Game1() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; } protected override void Initialize() { // textures will be defined in the LoadContent() method playerPos = new Vector2(0, 200); // starting position for the player is at the left of the screen, and a Y position of 200 frameDimensions = new Point(55, 65); // each frame in the idle sprite sheet is 55 wide by 65 high presentFrame = 0; // start at frame 0 noOfFrames = 5; // there are 5 frames in the idle cycle elapsedTime = 0; // set elapsed time to start at 0 frameDuration = 80; // 80 milliseconds is how long each frame will show for (the higher the number, the slower the animation) flipDirection = SpriteEffects.None; // set the value of flipDirection to none speed = 200; upMovement = -2; downMovement = 2; rightMovement = 1; leftMovement = -1; jumpApex = 100; state = "idle"; previousKeyboardState = Keyboard.GetState(); originalPlayerPos = Vector2.Zero; movementDirection = Vector2.Zero; movementSpeed = Vector2.Zero; base.Initialize(); } protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); playerWalk = Content.Load<Texture2D>("sprites/walkSmall"); // load the walk cycle spritesheet idle = Content.Load<Texture2D>("sprites/idleCycle"); // load the idle cycle sprite sheet jump = Content.Load<Texture2D>("sprites/jump"); // load the jump cycle sprite sheet } protected override void UnloadContent() // we're not using this method at the moment { } protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) // Update method - used it to call a number of other methods { if (Keyboard.GetState().IsKeyDown(Keys.Escape)) { this.Exit(); // Exit the game if the Escape key is pressed } KeyboardState presentKeyboardState = Keyboard.GetState(); UpdateMovement(presentKeyboardState, gameTime); UpdateIdle(presentKeyboardState, gameTime); UpdateJump(presentKeyboardState); UpdateAnimation(gameTime); playerPos += movementDirection * movementSpeed * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; previousKeyboardState = presentKeyboardState; base.Update(gameTime); } private void UpdateAnimation(GameTime gameTime) { elapsedTime += gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.Milliseconds; if (elapsedTime > frameDuration) { elapsedTime -= frameDuration; elapsedTime = elapsedTime - frameDuration; presentFrame++; if (presentFrame > noOfFrames) if (state != "jumping") { presentFrame = 0; } else { presentFrame = 8; } } } protected void UpdateMovement(KeyboardState presentKeyboardState, GameTime gameTime) { if (state == "idle") { movementSpeed = Vector2.Zero; movementDirection = Vector2.Zero; if (presentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { state = "walking"; movementSpeed.X = speed; movementDirection.X = leftMovement; flipDirection = SpriteEffects.FlipHorizontally; } if (presentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { state = "walking"; movementSpeed.X = speed; movementDirection.X = rightMovement; flipDirection = SpriteEffects.None; } } } private void UpdateIdle(KeyboardState presentKeyboardState, GameTime gameTime) { if ((presentKeyboardState.IsKeyUp(Keys.Left) && previousKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left) || presentKeyboardState.IsKeyUp(Keys.Right) && previousKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right) && state != "jumping")) { state = "idle"; } } private void UpdateJump(KeyboardState presentKeyboardState) { if (state == "walking" || state == "idle") { if (presentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space) && !presentKeyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Space)) { presentFrame = 1; DoJump(); } } if (state == "jumping") { if (originalPlayerPos.Y - playerPos.Y > jumpApex) { movementDirection.Y = downMovement; } if (playerPos.Y > originalPlayerPos.Y) { playerPos.Y = originalPlayerPos.Y; state = "idle"; movementDirection = Vector2.Zero; } } } private void DoJump() { if (state != "jumping") { state = "jumping"; originalPlayerPos = playerPos; movementDirection.Y = upMovement; movementSpeed = new Vector2(speed, speed); } } protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) // Draw method { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue); spriteBatch.Begin(); // begin the spritebatch if (state == "walking") { noOfFrames = 14; frameDimensions = new Point(55, 65); Vector2 playerWalkPos = new Vector2(playerPos.X, playerPos.Y - 28); spriteBatch.Draw(playerWalk, playerWalkPos, new Rectangle((presentFrame * frameDimensions.X), 0, frameDimensions.X, frameDimensions.Y), Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, 1, flipDirection, 0); } if (state == "idle") { noOfFrames = 5; frameDimensions = new Point(55, 65); Vector2 idlePos = new Vector2(playerPos.X, playerPos.Y - 28); spriteBatch.Draw(idle, idlePos, new Rectangle((presentFrame * frameDimensions.X), 0, frameDimensions.X, frameDimensions.Y), Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, 1, flipDirection, 0); } if (state == "jumping") { noOfFrames = 9; frameDimensions = new Point(55, 92); Vector2 jumpPos = new Vector2(playerPos.X, playerPos.Y - 28); spriteBatch.Draw(jump, jumpPos, new Rectangle((presentFrame * frameDimensions.X), 0, frameDimensions.X, frameDimensions.Y), Color.White, 0, Vector2.Zero, 1, flipDirection, 0); } spriteBatch.End(); // end the spritebatch commands base.Draw(gameTime); } } }

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Increase moving speed of body

- by Siddharth

How to move ball speedily on the screen using box2d in libGDX? public class Box2DDemo implements ApplicationListener { private SpriteBatch batch; private TextureRegion texture; private World world; private Body groundDownBody, groundUpBody, groundLeftBody, groundRightBody, ballBody; private BodyDef groundBodyDef1, groundBodyDef2, groundBodyDef3, groundBodyDef4, ballBodyDef; private PolygonShape groundDownPoly, groundUpPoly, groundLeftPoly, groundRightPoly; private CircleShape ballPoly; private Sprite sprite; private FixtureDef fixtureDef; private Vector2 ballPosition; private Box2DDebugRenderer renderer; Vector2 vector2; @Override public void create() { texture = new TextureRegion(new Texture( Gdx.files.internal("img/red_ring.png"))); sprite = new Sprite(texture); sprite.setOrigin(sprite.getWidth() / 2, sprite.getHeight() / 2); batch = new SpriteBatch(); world = new World(new Vector2(0.0f, -10.0f), false); groundBodyDef1 = new BodyDef(); groundBodyDef1.type = BodyType.StaticBody; groundBodyDef1.position.x = 0.0f; groundBodyDef1.position.y = 0.0f; groundDownBody = world.createBody(groundBodyDef1); groundBodyDef2 = new BodyDef(); groundBodyDef2.type = BodyType.StaticBody; groundBodyDef2.position.x = 0f; groundBodyDef2.position.y = Gdx.graphics.getHeight(); groundUpBody = world.createBody(groundBodyDef2); groundBodyDef3 = new BodyDef(); groundBodyDef3.type = BodyType.StaticBody; groundBodyDef3.position.x = 0f; groundBodyDef3.position.y = 0f; groundLeftBody = world.createBody(groundBodyDef3); groundBodyDef4 = new BodyDef(); groundBodyDef4.type = BodyType.StaticBody; groundBodyDef4.position.x = Gdx.graphics.getWidth(); groundBodyDef4.position.y = 0f; groundRightBody = world.createBody(groundBodyDef4); groundDownPoly = new PolygonShape(); groundDownPoly.setAsBox(480.0f, 10f); fixtureDef = new FixtureDef(); fixtureDef.density = 0f; fixtureDef.restitution = 1f; fixtureDef.friction = 0f; fixtureDef.shape = groundDownPoly; fixtureDef.filter.groupIndex = 0; groundDownBody.createFixture(fixtureDef); groundUpPoly = new PolygonShape(); groundUpPoly.setAsBox(480.0f, 10f); fixtureDef = new FixtureDef(); fixtureDef.friction = 0f; fixtureDef.restitution = 0f; fixtureDef.density = 0f; fixtureDef.shape = groundUpPoly; fixtureDef.filter.groupIndex = 0; groundUpBody.createFixture(fixtureDef); groundLeftPoly = new PolygonShape(); groundLeftPoly.setAsBox(10f, 320f); fixtureDef = new FixtureDef(); fixtureDef.friction = 0f; fixtureDef.restitution = 0f; fixtureDef.density = 0f; fixtureDef.shape = groundLeftPoly; fixtureDef.filter.groupIndex = 0; groundLeftBody.createFixture(fixtureDef); groundRightPoly = new PolygonShape(); groundRightPoly.setAsBox(10f, 320f); fixtureDef = new FixtureDef(); fixtureDef.friction = 0f; fixtureDef.restitution = 0f; fixtureDef.density = 0f; fixtureDef.shape = groundRightPoly; fixtureDef.filter.groupIndex = 0; groundRightBody.createFixture(fixtureDef); ballPoly = new CircleShape(); ballPoly.setRadius(16f); fixtureDef = new FixtureDef(); fixtureDef.shape = ballPoly; fixtureDef.density = 1f; fixtureDef.friction = 1f; fixtureDef.restitution = 1f; ballBodyDef = new BodyDef(); ballBodyDef.type = BodyType.DynamicBody; ballBodyDef.position.x = (int) 200; ballBodyDef.position.y = (int) 200; ballBody = world.createBody(ballBodyDef); // ballBody.setLinearVelocity(200f, 200f); // ballBody.applyLinearImpulse(new Vector2(250f, 250f), // ballBody.getLocalCenter()); ballBody.createFixture(fixtureDef); renderer = new Box2DDebugRenderer(true, false, false); } @Override public void dispose() { ballPoly.dispose(); groundLeftPoly.dispose(); groundUpPoly.dispose(); groundDownPoly.dispose(); groundRightPoly.dispose(); world.destroyBody(ballBody); world.dispose(); } @Override public void pause() { } @Override public void render() { world.step(1f/30f, 3, 3); Gdx.gl.glClearColor(1f, 1f, 1f, 1f); Gdx.gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); batch.begin(); vector2 = ballBody.getLinearVelocity(); System.out.println("X=" + vector2.x + " Y=" + vector2.y); ballPosition = ballBody.getPosition(); renderer.render(world,batch.getProjectionMatrix()); // int preX = (int) (vector2.x / Math.abs(vector2.x)); // int preY = (int) (vector2.y / Math.abs(vector2.y)); // // if (Math.abs(vector2.x) == 0.0f) // ballBody1.setLinearVelocity(1.4142137f, vector2.y); // else if (Math.abs(vector2.x) < 1.4142137f) // ballBody1.setLinearVelocity(preX * 5, vector2.y); // // if (Math.abs(vector2.y) == 0.0f) // ballBody1.setLinearVelocity(vector2.x, 1.4142137f); // else if (Math.abs(vector2.y) < 1.4142137f) // ballBody1.setLinearVelocity(vector2.x, preY * 5); batch.draw(sprite, (ballPosition.x - (texture.getRegionWidth() / 2)), (ballPosition.y - (texture.getRegionHeight() / 2))); batch.end(); } @Override public void resize(int arg0, int arg1) { } @Override public void resume() { } } I implement above code but I can not achieve higher moving speed of the ball

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Optimizing transition/movement smoothness for a 2D flash game.

- by Tom

Update 6: Fenomenas suggested me to re-create everything as simple as possible. I had my doubts that this would make any difference as the algorithm remains the same, and performance did not seem to be the issue. Anyway, it was the only suggestion I got so here it is: 30 FPS: http://www.feedpostal.com/test/simple/30/SimpleMovement.html 40 FPS: http://www.feedpostal.com/test/simple/40/SimpleMovement.html 60 FPS: http://www.feedpostal.com/test/simple/60/SimpleMovement.html 100 FPS: http://www.feedpostal.com/test/simple/100/SimpleMovement.html The code: package { import flash.display.Sprite; import flash.events.Event; import flash.events.KeyboardEvent; import flash.utils.getTimer; [SWF(width="800", height="600", frameRate="40", backgroundColor="#000000")] public class SimpleMovement extends Sprite { private static const TURNING_SPEED:uint = 180; private static const MOVEMENT_SPEED:uint = 400; private static const RADIAN_DIVIDE:Number = Math.PI/180; private var playerObject:Sprite; private var shipContainer:Sprite; private var moving:Boolean = false; private var turningMode:uint = 0; private var movementTimestamp:Number = getTimer(); private var turningTimestamp:Number = movementTimestamp; public function SimpleMovement() { //step 1: create player object playerObject = new Sprite(); playerObject.graphics.lineStyle(1, 0x000000); playerObject.graphics.beginFill(0x6D7B8D); playerObject.graphics.drawRect(0, 0, 25, 50); //make it rotate around the center playerObject.x = 0 - playerObject.width / 2; playerObject.y = 0 - playerObject.height / 2; shipContainer = new Sprite(); shipContainer.addChild(playerObject); shipContainer.x = 100; shipContainer.y = 100; shipContainer.rotation = 180; addChild(shipContainer); //step 2: install keyboard hook when stage is ready addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, stageReady, false, 0, true); //step 3: install rendering update poll addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, updatePoller, false, 0, true); } private function updatePoller(event:Event):void { var newTime:Number = getTimer(); //turning if (turningMode != 0) { var turningDeltaTime:Number = newTime - turningTimestamp; turningTimestamp = newTime; var rotation:Number = TURNING_SPEED * turningDeltaTime / 1000; if (turningMode == 1) shipContainer.rotation -= rotation; else shipContainer.rotation += rotation; } //movement if (moving) { var movementDeltaTime:Number = newTime - movementTimestamp; movementTimestamp = newTime; var distance:Number = MOVEMENT_SPEED * movementDeltaTime / 1000; var rAngle:Number = shipContainer.rotation * RADIAN_DIVIDE; //convert degrees to radian shipContainer.x += distance * Math.sin(rAngle); shipContainer.y -= distance * Math.cos(rAngle); } } private function stageReady(event:Event):void { //install keyboard hook stage.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, keyDown, false, 0, true); stage.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_UP, keyUp, false, 0, true); } private final function keyDown(event:KeyboardEvent):void { if ((event.keyCode == 87) && (!moving)) //87 = W { movementTimestamp = getTimer(); moving = true; } if ((event.keyCode == 65) && (turningMode != 1)) //65 = A { turningTimestamp = getTimer(); turningMode = 1; } else if ((event.keyCode == 68) && (turningMode != 2)) //68 = D { turningTimestamp = getTimer(); turningMode = 2; } } private final function keyUp(event:KeyboardEvent):void { if ((event.keyCode == 87) && (moving)) moving = false; //87 = W if (((event.keyCode == 65) || (event.keyCode == 68)) && (turningMode != 0)) turningMode = 0; //65 = A, 68 = D } } } The results were as I expected. Absolutely no improvement. I really hope that someone has another suggestion as this thing needs fixing. Also, I doubt it's my system as I have a pretty good one (8GB RAM, Q9550 QuadCore intel, ATI Radeon 4870 512MB). Also, everyone else I asked so far had the same issue with my client. Update 5: another example of a smooth flash game just to demonstrate that my movement definitely is different! See http://www.spel.nl/game/bumpercraft.html Update 4: I traced the time before rendering (EVENT.RENDER) and right after rendering (EVENT.ENTER_FRAME), the results: rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 24 ms rendering took: 18 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 232 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 16 ms rendering took: 12 ms rendering took: 14 ms rendering took: 12 ms The range is 12-16 ms. During these differences, the shocking/warping/flickering movement was already going on. There is also 1 peak of 232ms, at this time there was a relatively big warp. This is however not the biggest problme, the biggest problem are the continuous small warps during normal movement. Does this give anyone a clue? Update 3: After testing, I know that the following factors are not causing my problem: Bitmap's quality - changed with photoshop to an uglier 8 colours optimized graphic, no improvement at all. Constant rotation of image while turning - disabled it, no improvement at all Browser rendering - tried to use the flash player standalone, no improvement at all I am 100% convinced that the problem lies in either my code or in my algorithm. Please, help me out. It has been almost two weeks (1 week that I asked this question on SO) now and I still have to get my golden answer. Update 1: see bottom for full flex project source and a live demo demonstrating my problem. I'm working on a 2d flash game. Player ships are created as an object: ships[id] = new GameShip(); When movement and rotation information is available, this is being directed to the corresponding ship: ships[id].setMovementMode(1); //move forward Now, within this GameShip object movement works using the "Event.ENTER_FRAME" event: addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, movementHandler); The following function is then being run: private final function movementHandler(event:Event):void { var newTimeStamp:uint = UtilLib.getTimeStamp(); //set current timeStamp var distance:Number = (newTimeStamp - movementTimeStamp) / 1000 * movementSpeed; //speed = x pixels forward every 1 second movementTimeStamp = newTimeStamp; //update old timeStamp var diagonalChange:Array = getDiagonalChange(movementAngle, distance); //the diagonal position update based on angle and distance charX += diagonalChange[0]; charY += diagonalChange[1]; if (shipContainer) { //when the container is ready to be worked with shipContainer.x = charX; shipContainer.y = charY; } } private final function getDiagonalChange(angle:Number, distance:Number):Array { var rAngle:Number = angle * Math.PI/180; //convert degrees to radian return [Math.sin(rAngle) * distance, (Math.cos(rAngle) * distance) * -1]; } When the object is no longer moving, the event listener will be removed. The same method is being used for rotation. Everything works almost perfect. I've set the project's target FPS to 100 and created a FPS counter. According to the FPS counter, the average FPS in firefox is around 100, while the top is 1000 and the bottom is 22. I think that the bottom and top FPSs are only happening during the initialization of the client (startup). The problem is that the ship appears to be almost perfectly smooth, while it should be just that without the "almost" part. It's almost as if the ship is "flickering" very very fast, you can't actually see it but it's hard to focus on the object while it's moving with your eyes. Also, every now and then, there seems to be a bit of a framerate spike, as if the client is skipping a couple of frames, you then see it quickly warp. It is very difficult to explain what the real problem is, but in general it's that the movement is not perfectly smooth. So, do you have any suggestions on how to make the movement or transition of objects perfectly smooth? Update 1: I re-created the client to demonstrate my problem. Please check it out. The client: http://feedpostal.com/test/MovementTest.html The Actionscript Project (full source): http://feedpostal.com/test/MovementTest.rar An example of a smooth flash game (not created by me): http://www.gamesforwork.com/games/swf/Mission%20Racing_august_10th_2009.swf It took me a pretty long time to recreate this client side version, I hope this will help with solving the problem. Please note: yes, it is actually pretty smooth. But it is definitely not smooth enough.

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