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• Fiction that includes BASIC programs [closed]

  - by Clinton Blackmore

  Back in what must've been the mid-80s, when every microcomputer included BASIC and Choose Your Own Adventure Books were really popular, there were some novels that had BASIC programs listed in the text, for you to type in and further enjoy. For example, as I recall, in one of these books, the adventurers were infiltrating an undersea base (and eventually wiped the bad guy's data storage [I do believe it was a hard drive, even though they were uncommon then]). One of the programs involved a game were you piloted a submarine and had to avoid or shoot sharks. The code was in BASIC; minor changes (such as 'CLS' - 'HOME') had to be made for your specific computer, and it used good old 40-column text-mode to display the action. IIRC, the plot never depended upon the programs. My question is, does anyone else recall these sorts of books? Do you know any titles that I could look for, or of any online? I am toying with the idea of writing a story like this (no, not in BASIC!), and would really like to see how it was done, back in the day.

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• Thunderbird keeps crashing Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit

  - by maurizio ribera d'alcala'

  I have been using Thunderbird for years under different versions of Ubuntu, including 12.04 since its release. From a couple of days it keeps crashing after a few seconds after start. I tried to reinstall it creating a new profile and copying the old mail, file by file. After one day of normal functioning it started again to crash. Mozilla is receiving the crash reports. Following is the content of the last one: Add-ons: [email protected]:15.0,[email protected]:0.3.11,[email protected]:0.9.3,[email protected]:3.4.1,[email protected]:15.0,[email protected]:0.5.1,{b4447f60-db9c-11da-a94d-0800200c9a66}:0.9.1,{972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd}:15.0 BuildID: 20120827103657 CrashTime: 1347200254 EMCheckCompatibility: true Email: [email protected] FramePoisonBase: 7ffffffff0dea000 FramePoisonSize: 4096 InstallTime: 1346431480 Notes: OpenGL: Tungsten Graphics, Inc -- Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile -- 3.0 Mesa 8.0.2 -- texture_from_pixmap ProductID: {3550f703-e582-4d05-9a08-453d09bdfdc6} ProductName: Thunderbird ReleaseChannel: release SecondsSinceLastCrash: 1109 StartupTime: 1347200242 Theme: classic/1.0 Throttleable: 1 Vendor: Version: 15.0 I started Thunderbird in safe mode and tested all the add-ons. Apparently is the 'Unity Launcher Integration' that creates the problem. I say apparently because I want two wait for two-three days to be sure TB returns to its regular functioning. Is this a bug? can it be solved

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• Cannot Create Bootable USB Drive from .iso file

  - by tarabyte

  I've tried formatting the flash drive as FAT as well as Mac OS journaled through diskutility but still cannot successfully create a bootable drive. I'm following the directions here exactly: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/create-a-usb-stick-on-mac-osx Environment: Macbook Pro trying to create a bootable flash drive for a Macbook Pro. 8GB flash drive. Tested ubuntu-12.04.1 as well as ubuntu 12.20 .iso 64-bit downloads. Nothing to repair in disk utility for this hard drive. Every time I finish step 8 of the tutorial I get "file system not recognized" with the options to "initialize" meaning to reformat my drive, "ignore" or "eject." When I try to re-inspect the flash drive in disk utility after plugging it back in I see that it has some error when I try to verify it but the "repair" button is disabled. I just want to boot to ubuntu when my mac first starts up. Oh the pain. http://lifehacker.com/5934942/how-to-dual-boot-linux-on-your-mac-and-take-back-your-powerhouse-apple-hardware "linux is free insomuch as your time is worthless" - old wise man

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• Facebook App EULA & Restrictions: What can't they do that my web app can?

  - by Adam Tannon

  I have written a nifty little web app (in Java/GWT/JS) and have been experimenting with the idea of making it available through Facebook as a Facebook App as well. After spending some time reading Facebook's developer docs, it seems like I can just create a Facebook App to point at any URL I want and use that as the app/canvas. It accomplishes this via iframes. So, my tentative plan is to just point it towards my (existing) web app so that I don't have to totally re-write it. But then that got me thinking: Facebook must regulate what sorts of things can be done through a Facebook App, vs. what an app can't do. For instance, I can't imagine I can point a Facebook App to point at a URL for a web app that accepts e-commerce payments (that would by-pass Facebook altogether and not allow them to take a cut from the ecom transaction!). Also, I can't imagine that Facebook allows developers to point their Facebook Apps to just any old URL without some sort of a scan, otherwise that would open Facebook up to the horrors of every security threat knownst to humanity. I know for a fact that when you write an iOS native app and put it up on the Apple App Store, that Apple actually scans your source code for violations of their EULA. So my question: does Facebook do the same? If so, what are their terms & conditions for what a Facebook app can/can't do? Suprisingly, I can't find this anywhere!! Thanks in advance!

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• recent unreliable wireless connection

  - by gabkdlly

  Recently, my internet connection over wireless ( via a Netgear KWGR614 router ) has become unreliable, on both a Dell laptop running Ubuntu 10.04 as well as my Desktop running Ubuntu 10.10 . The problem does not seem to occur on a laptop running Windows Vista, nor on a Desktop running Windows 7 ( this machine is connected with an ethernet cable ). The problem does not seem to occur on my Openmoko Freerunner ( running Android 1.5 ), though I hardly ever use this device to connect over WLAN, so the problem may have just slipped by. On my main Ubuntu Desktop, I have tried the following wireless devices: a Longshine PCI card ( an old device with an RTL8180L chip ) a D-Link DWL-510 PCI card ( this device threw warnings in dmesg ) a USB device from MSI ( US54EX ). Usually my wireless network shows up in the network manager with a normal signal strength, even when the connection speed is slow or the connection gets reset ( asking me to click connect to re-authenticate my wireless connection ). I have observed this problem with a Netgear KWGR614 Router ( with the manufacturers firmware ), as well as with a TP-LINK TL-WR741ND router running OpenWrt. Taking a look at my routers logs, I find many instances of the following line: Tuesday,04 Jan 2011 03:53:01 [TCP SYN Flood][Deny access policy matched, dropping packet] I know that the Netgear router is susceptible to denial of service attacks, as I have previously been able to disrupt its operation by putting an nmap scan into a while loop. I use WEP or WPA to encrypt the wireless network. Is it possible that someone is jamming my signal ?

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• How-To Geek is Hiring a Geeky Writer – Here Are the Details

  - by The Geek

  Think you have the perfect combination of geek knowledge and writing skills? We’re looking for an experienced writer to join our team, and here are all the details. We need a new writer to cover topics surrounding Windows 7 or 8, home networking, home routers, security, media, troubleshooting, mobile devices, and many similar topics. We are not looking for writers that focus solely on Linux or tech news writers. Please apply if you have the following qualities: You must be a geek at heart. You must be able to put in plenty of time, work, and dedication. If you’re too busy already, don’t apply. You must be able to write articles that are easy to understand. You must be creative. You must generate ideas for articles on your own, and take suggestions like a pro. You must be at least 18 years old. You must have solid English writing skills. You must be able to write tips, how-to articles, explainers, guides, instructional articles, etc. Again, we are not looking for tech news writers. Here’s a couple of our previous articles so you can get an idea of what we’re looking for in terms of quality and content. Please make sure to look through these before you decide to apply. How-to Article: Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Explainer: HTG Explains: When Do You Need to Update Your Drivers? Explainer: HTG Explains: Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows? How-To Article: How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot Our Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 is Now Available Everywhere

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• what languages are good selling points on resume? [closed]

  - by Thomas Galvin

  I have a good amount of experience with C# and Java at the moment but after education and whatnot I wish to be able in more than just 2 high-level, comparatively limited languages, and from what I've seen languages like C(++) or PHP are in demand at the moment. I've thought about learning the following: C. Very standard, lightweight and available on everything. However very old and mostly procedural. C++. Standard like C but I've read in some places that it encourages bad programming design and use of dodgy libraries - but similar things have been said about C too so I'll take that with a grain of salt. D. Quite new but looks promising, but will it be relevant or applicable in the future though? PHP. With the internet becoming ever more important I think this might be the one to go with, but the code itself isn't very intuitive. CoffeeScript (or plain JavaScript). With Microsoft's new idea of HTML5+JS for everything under the sun this doesn't look like a bad choice. However things do change and I wish to be primarily a software dev, not web dev. So out of the above list, or any others that you could suggest, what would you say I should begin to focus on? What is your opinion on staying with C#?

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• My computer will not reboot after fresh install of ubuntu 12.04LTS

  - by user170715

  I bought a new computer yesterday and it came with Windows 8. When installing Ubuntu, i choose the erase and install option thinking that Ubuntu would install easily like it did for my old laptop... After a successful install and following the instructions telling me to reboot to finish installation and remove installation media. It worked and my computer booted fine, however once I began installing updates via update manager and activating additional driver {ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver (post-release updates)} out of the following: Experimental AMD binary Xorg driver and kernel module ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver (*experimental*beta) ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver (post-release updates) Then reboot to finish making changes I reboot and get an error (Reboot and select proper boot device) At this point I was stuck, so I eventually reinstalled ubuntu and repeated the exacted same steps until right before i rebooted to finish making changes. However this time i used this Boot Repair tool sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair boot-repair After running the program i get a "boot successfully repaired" message. Then I try to reboot again and get the GNU Grub screen where it says would you like to boot: normal recovery memorytest Once it begins loading, you see the code moving across the screen then it pauses when it gets to and doesnt do anything. If someone could tell me how to fix this or get Windows 8 back soon, I'd appreciate it because like i said i just bought it yesterday and now i cant even use it.

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• Dell Upgrade to 12.04 LTS No wifi, graphic card driver and bluetooth Problem?

  - by Mattlinux1

  (Dell inspiron m5040 Upgrade to 12.04 LTS from 11.10 wifi wont work and has two bluetooth icons?) Old title of post! No Wifi/Bluetooth Problem. "Both Fixed", see below comments for bluetooth fix and see bottom answer for wifi fix. My online upgrade of 12.04 LTS, was installed to my laptop the Dell inspiron m5040, when it was done i found that my wifi did not even get picked up anymore and i now have two bluetooth icons at the top?? So what i have been doing for now is at the boot screen. I hit the use previous linux version, this works fine but also has the two bluetooth at the top. Is very thankful for any answers for this fix, Thank You. Ok bluetooth problem solved by – fossfreedom answer by deleting the other bluetooth program running in software center. Now the other problem is Wifi: just have to restart system as it works in previous linux version boot opt, but on the first boot screen opt run ubuntu it will not pick up wifi drivers. Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA wireless driverfor use with Broadcom's BCM4311-, BCM4312-, BCM4313-, BCM4321-,BCM4322-, BCM43224-, and BCM43225-, BCM43227- and BCM43228-basedhardware. And 3D-accelerated proprietary graphics driver for ATI cards. This driver is required to fully utilise the 3D potential of some ATI graphics cards, as well as provide 2D acceleration of newer cards. will not instill is there anyway for me to make a copy of the drivers via usb HDD and then put them on new upgraded version.

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• Glue Records creation

  - by FFrewin

  I need some information on the following issue, as I would like to have it clear on my mind. I have a VPS server. All my sites hosted on this VPS are using as NameServer .gr domain, like ns1.greekdomain.gr & ns2.greekdomain.gr . The .gr domain name is a domain I own with a greek registar. Now, I want to move 2 websites with .co.uk domain names to my VPS. The co.uk domain names are registered with a UK based registar. When I went in the domain management panel, I did changed the nameservers of my domains to my ns.greekdomain.gr ns. However the panel returns an error about invalid nameservers. After digging, I found that my nameservers are not valid because they do not exist as records in the .co.uk registry. And here it starts my big trouble. The .co.uk registart tells me that I have to ask my hosting provider / .gr registar to create a new record to the .uk registry for my nameservers. The .gr registar tells me that my uk registar needs to create a new record for my ns. From Nominet (.co.uk) registry, the one employee tells me that I need to ask my uk registar, the other employee (seemed to not understand what I was asking) told me that they cannot change my nameservers for me, and she told me to contact anyone else (old hosting provider, uk registar, .gr registar) to help me with that. I can't find help from nobody. I try since the last week to transfer my websites to my VPS and I can't. So, the question is who is responsible and who is able to create glue records for my nameservers ?

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• PhysX Capsule Character Controller floating above ground

  - by Jannie

  I am using PhysX Version 3.0.2 in the simulation package I'm working on, and I've encountered some bizarre behavior with the capsule character controller. When I set the controller's height and radius to the appropriate values (r = 0.25, h = 1.86)it behaves correctly (moving along the ground, colliding with other objects, and so on) except that the capsule itself is floating above the ground. The actor will then bump his head when trying to get through a door, since the capsule is the correct height but also floating above the ground. This image should illustrate what I'm going on about: One can clearly see that the rest of the scene has their collision bodies wrapped correctly, it's just the capsule that's going wrong! The stop-gap I've implemented is creating a smaller capsule and giving it an offset, but I need to implement ray-picking for the controller next so the capsule has to surround the character model properly. Here's my character creation code (with height = 1.86f and radius = 0.25f): NxController* D3DPhysXManager::CreateCharacterController( std::string l_stdsControllerName, float l_fHeight, float l_fRadius, D3DXVECTOR3 l_v3Position ) { NxCapsuleControllerDesc l_CapsuleControllerDescription; l_CapsuleControllerDescription.height = l_fHeight; l_CapsuleControllerDescription.radius = l_fRadius; l_CapsuleControllerDescription.position.set( l_v3Position.x, l_v3Position.y, l_v3Position.z ); l_CapsuleControllerDescription.callback = &this->m_ControllerHitReport; NxController* l_pController = this->m_pControllerManager->createController( this->m_pScene, l_CapsuleControllerDescription ); this->m_pControllerMap.insert( l_ControllerValuePair( l_stdsControllerName, l_pController ) ); return l_pController; } Any help at all would be appreciated, I just can't figure this one out! P.S. I've found a couple of (rather old) threads describing the same issue, but it seems they couldn't find a solution either. Here are the links: http://forum-archive.developer.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=6409 http://forum-archive.developer.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=3272 http://www.ogre3d.org/addonforums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=23003

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• Ubuntu 12.04 desktop, VNC viewer not refreshing screen

  - by user73279

  I've had this issues across multiple machines and multiple versions of Ubuntu desktop (all 10.04 or later). Usually it happens with an old laptop I've put Ubuntu on but now it's happening on my primary dev machine (a quad-core PC recently upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 desktop). The problem is this - I can connect to the machine and login with the password, the initial screen looks fine but never refreshes. I can see the monitor for the machine across the room and can see the mouse move and the menus pop up but the image of the screen on the PC in front me running the VNC viewer never updates. So the mouse and keyboard commands are working. Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop Ultra VNC Viewer (also seen with RealVNC's free VNC viewer) Desktop Sharing Static IP on eth0; Dynamic ID on eth1 I think it is an Ubuntu config issue because this PC used to work just fine with 9.04, 10.04, and 11.10 (over the past couple of years). I've also had a couple of laptops that used to have this issue with older Ubuntu's but don't with 12.04. Additional info: The Win7 PC I'm trying to use to control the Ubuntu PC is connected via 2 DLink 8-port gigabit routers. The Ubuntu laptop I usually control via VNC is typically only connected to the network via wireless. The screen refresh is choppy but usable. I've repeated the issue on a Win7 laptop which was connected via ethernet and wireless.

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• Multiple URL's going to same page - Kosher for Google?

  - by Ashoka15

  I hear conflicting answers from people about this, and I'm a developer by trade, and my SEO knowledge is not what it should be. Here's my situation: I run a website that lists hotels, restaurants, bars, shops, etc for a small Asian beach town. Lots of establishments here are hotels with a restaurant and bar, as well as restaurants that are also bars. As en example, a Mexican restaurant that also functions as a full cocktail bar. I first set it up so each establishment has one page, but can create multiple pages based on their other areas of business. This forces people to create TWO listings under the same name, and most just add the exact same information onto each page, making things redundant. I am re-arranging the database so that a establishment has only ONE listing (one unique page referenced by the unique code '12345ABCDEF') that is accessible from browsing under "Restaurants" and "Bars", and has the URL structures: site.com/dining/mexican/12345ABCDEF/business-name.html site.com/bars/cocktail_bars/12345ABCDEF/business-name.html I could easily simplify the URL to just the unique code and name: site.com/12345ABCDEF/business-name.html But, I found that Google has parsed by URL structure and lists like this on their SERP: Home > Dining > Mexican With each pointing to the default page for homepage, restaurants and Mexican restaurants. If I simplify the URL structure, will I lose these associations? Could Google also be picking up this structure from my breadcrumb trail at the top of the page? What is the best way to set up URL's on these pages so I am not penalized by Google for having identical information on two URL's, while still being able to have places show up as they did with the old system?

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• Cannot Boot, How to recover

  - by Kendor

  Am running 11.10 64-bit with Gnome-shell. Something happened late Friday whereby my machine never gets to the login screen. I do get to an Ubuntu splash logo, after that I get a text screen that it hangs on. The screen is referring to issues with mounting various network resources, including VMWare and also some references to my NAS that are in fstab. If I hit "esc" I can get to the GRUB menu and into recovery console. If I try to do a file system check, I run into a similar error screen that I see when trying to boot normally. A possible clue here is that during my last good session I made some mods to the /etc/hosts file to reference another system which I'm connecting to with Synergy. I don't believe I have hardware issues as I'm able to boot properly with a Live USB and connect to my network/Internet. A few more tidbits. I have regular Dejadups backups on my NAS. I have a good Clonezilla whole drive image which is 4-6 weeks old.. My home is encrypted. I thought I'd try blowing away my hosts file via live USB, but when I mounted the hard drive everything was read-only and I couldn't figure out how to replace it. P.S. I logged in via CLI and modded the host file to remove the entry I'd made, to no avail. System continue to gets stuck on the following: CIFS VFS: default security mechanism requested. The default security mechanism will be upgraded from ntlm to ntlmv2 in kernel version 3.1s Would love some sober advice on how to attack this.

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• Newbie tips, please [closed]

  - by eXeP

  So, I just got a new computer and I want to put Ubuntu on my old laptop. I just need few tips before installing it. 1.Programs, where to download, how to download, what is the "ending" (windows has .exe) 2. How much is command line involved? And where to get the most usual commands? 3.Few programs you recommend (graphics editing, IDE, video player, web browser) 4. Do I have to download drivers when installing new OS? I plan on getting fully rid of Windows. I have no idea of the name of my graphics card, so how do I can get to know what it is if I have to download drivers? (I don't know the name because it's not on the original box, or anywhere on the internet, believe me) 5. When installing new OS does it destroy everything else on the hard drive? 6. Anti-virus, do I need one? I'm not super paranoid, and I don't visit "shady" sites. Please note that I have never used linux, or any other OS than Windows and sorry for my bad english. If this is the wrong place to post this, then please remove this. Thank you.

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• Is StackOverflow making me stupid? [closed]

  - by Ayush Goyal

  Possible Duplicate: When stuck, how quickly should one resort to Stack Overflow? Its good that solution to almost every programming problem is available at my disposal, either someone has asked it before or programming gurus are waiting for me to post it..sometimes its just the matter of seconds after posting the question and someone points out the error-causing-line or proposes alternate (easier, lightweight and efficient) solution. But today it struck me "is this making me dumb?" In good (umm..not so good) old days I used to figure out the source of my problem and then work it out myself, though it used to eat up lot of time but it helped in developing my logical thinking as it used to make an impression in my mind due to which I tend to avoid that situation in future codes. Now, as soon as I encounter a problem I just give it a shot or two and head towards the community. Many times after looking at the solution it turns out that answer was all in front of me..all I needed was to take a break, hover it once and its solved. Both the approaches make me feel guilty, for wasting time when I could have asked and solved it within minutes OR being too lazy to look over it again before posting the code snippet.

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• Why does my VertexDeclaration apparently not contain Position0?

  - by Phil

  I'm trying to get my code from calling each individual draw call down to using at least a VertexBuffer, and preferably an indexBuffer, but now that I'm attempting to test my code, I'm getting the error: The current vertex declaration does not include all the elements required by the current vertex shader. Position0 is missing. Which makes absolutely no sense to me, as my VertexDeclaration is: public readonly static VertexDeclaration VertexDeclaration = new VertexDeclaration( new VertexElement(0, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Position, 0), new VertexElement(sizeof(float) * 3, VertexElementFormat.Color, VertexElementUsage.Color, 0), new VertexElement(sizeof(float) * 3 + 4, VertexElementFormat.Vector3, VertexElementUsage.Normal, 0) ); Which clearly contains the information. I am attempting to draw with the following lines: VertexBuffer vb = new VertexBuffer(GraphicsDevice, VertexPositionColorNormal.VertexDeclaration, c.VertexList.Count, BufferUsage.WriteOnly); IndexBuffer ib = new IndexBuffer(GraphicsDevice, typeof(int), c.IndexList.Count, BufferUsage.WriteOnly); vb.SetData<VertexPositionColorNormal>(c.VertexList.ToArray()); ib.SetData<int>(c.IndexList.ToArray()); GraphicsDevice.DrawIndexedPrimitives(PrimitiveType.TriangleList, 0, 0, vb.VertexCount, 0, c.IndexList.Count/3); Where c is a Chunk class containing an 8x8x8 array of boxes. Full code is available at https://github.com/mrbaggins/Box/tree/ProperMeshing/box/box. Relevant locations are Chunk.cs (Contains the VertexDeclaration) and Game1.cs (Draw() is in Lines 230-250). Not much else of relevance to this problem anywhere else. Note that large commented sections are from old version of drawing.

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• Designing business objects, and gui actions

  - by fozz

  Developing a product ordering system using Java SE 6. The previous implementations used combo boxes, text fields, and check boxes. Preforming validation on action events from the GUI. The validation includes limiting existing combo boxes items, or even availability. The issue in the old system was that the action was received and all rules were applied to the entire business object. This resulted in a huge event change as options were changed multiple times. To be honest I have no idea how an infinite loop wasn't produced. Through the next iteration I stepped in and attempted to limit the chaos by controlling the order in which the selections could be made. Making configuration of BO's a top down approach. I implemented custom box models, action events, beans/binding, and an MVC pattern. However I still am unable to fully isolate action even chains. I'm thinking that I've approached the whole concept backwards in an attempt to stay closest to what was already in place. So the question becomes what do I design instead? I'm currently considering an implementation of Interfaces, Beans, Property Change Listeners to manage the back and forth. Other thoughts were validation exceptions, dynamic proxies.... I'm sure there are a ton of different ways. To say that one way is right is crazy, and I'm sure it will take a blending of multiple patterns. My knowledge of swing/awt validation is limited, previously I did backend logic only. Other considerations are were some sort of binding(jgoodies or otherwise) to directly bind GUI state to BO's.

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• Why did the web win the space of remote applications and X not?

  - by Martin Josefsson

  The X Window System is 25 years old, it had it's birthday yesterday (on the 15'th). As you probably are aware of, one of it's most important features is the separation of the server side and the client side in a way that neither Microsoft's, Apples or Wayland's windowing systems have. Back in the days (sorry for the ambiguous phrasing) many believed X would dominate over other ways to make windows because of this separation of server and client, allowing the application to be ran on a server somewhere else while the user clicks and types on her own computer at home. This use obviously still exists, but is marginalized at best. When we write and use programs that run on a server we almost always use the web with it's html/css/js. Why did the web win, and X not? The technologies used for the web (said html/css/js) are a mess. Combined with all the back-end-frameworks (Rails, Django and all) it really is a jungle to navigate thru. Still the web thrives with creativity and progress, while remote X apps do not.

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• How to sell logistical procedures that require less time to perform but more finesse?

  - by foampile

  I am working with a group where part of the responsibilities is managing a certain set of configuration files which, of course, have the same skeleton/structure across different environments but different values (like server, user, this setting, that setting etc.). Pretty classic scenario... The problem is that everyone just goes and modifies final, environment-specific files and basically repeats the work for every environment. Personally, I am offended to have to peform repeatable, mundane tasks in this day and age when we have technologies to automate it all. So I devised a very simple procedure of abstracting the files into templates, stubbing env-specific values with parameters and then wrote a simple Perl script that, given a template and an environment matrix with env-specific values for each param, produces the final file. So this is nothing special, cutting-edge or revolutionary -- I am pretty sure that 20 years ago efficient places did their CM like that. However, that requires that changes are made at the template level and then distributed across different environments using the script and not making changes in the final environment-specific files. This is where I am encountering resentment as they feel "comfortable" doing it their old, manual, repeated labor way. Personally, I don't have a problem with them working hard rather than smart but the problem is when I have to build on top of someone else's changes, I have to merge their changes into my template from a specific file, which takes time and is grueling. So my question is how to go about selling my method, which makes it so much faster in an environment that is resentful to change and where most things have to be done at the level of the least competent team member?

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• How (and when) to move users to mysqli and PDO_MYSQL?

  - by cj

  An important discussion on the PHP "internals" development mailing list is taking place. It's one that you should take some note of. It concerns the next step in transitioning PHP applications away from the very old mysql extension and towards adopting the much better mysqli extension or PDO_MYSQL driver for PDO. This would allow the mysql extension to, at some as-yet undetermined time in the future, be removed. Both mysqli and PDO_MYSQL have been around for many years, and have various advantages: http://php.net/manual/en/mysqlinfo.api.choosing.php The initial RFC for this next step is at https://wiki.php.net/rfc/mysql_deprecation I would expect the RFC to change substantially based on current discussion. The crux of that discussion is the timing of the next step of deprecation. There is also discussion of the carrot approach (showing users the benfits of moving), and stick approach (displaying warnings when the mysql extension is used). As always, there is a lot of guesswork going on as to what MySQL APIs are in current use by PHP applications, how those applications are deployed, and what their upgrade cycle is. This is where you can add your weight to the discussion - and also help by spreading the word to move to mysqli or PDO_MYSQL. An example of such a 'carrot' is the excellent summary at Ulf Wendel's blog: http://blog.ulf-wendel.de/2012/php-mysql-why-to-upgrade-extmysql/ I want to repeat that no time frame for the eventual removal of the mysql extension is set. I expect it to be some years away.

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• Moving from a static site to a CMS with new URLs and meta-data for pages

  - by Chris J

  Hi I am in the process of rebuilding a site from static pages to a CMS which will be using mod_rewrite to generate new page URLs. In this process our marketing people and myself have decided to tidy up the descriptions, keywords and titles. Eg: a page which who's URL is currently "website-name/about_us.html" and has a title of "website-name - something not quite page specific" will change to "website-name/about-us/" and title: "about us - website-name" and may have a few keywords and the description changed. Our goal with updating the meta data is to improve our page rankings and try to keep in line with some best practices for SEO. Though our current page rankings are quite good in many aspects, there is room for improvement. All of the pages will also have content changes (like rearranging heading tags, new menu on all pages, new content in footer, extra pieces of dynamic content relating to other pages). In this new site process I plan to use 301 redirects for all the old URLs pointing to the new URLs. My question is what can I expect to happen to the page rankings in Google, in the sort term and long term? Will this be like kicking off a new site which will have to build up trust over time or will the original page rankings have affect?

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• I'm applying for a position at a startup. To whom should I address my cover letter?

  - by sapphiremirage

  One of the co-founders answered questions about the company when the job was posted, but I feel like I shouldn't assume that he's the one who is in charge of hiring. Since it's relatively new and has a lot of name overlap with other things already on the web, it's hard to find any information about the company online, much less the name of their hiring manager. I'm not even certain that they do have a hiring manager, since I seem to remember that they are just an 8 person team. I've heard that "To whom it may concern" is tacky, and normally I would say something along the lines of "Dear Head of Human Resources", but that clearly doesn't work in this case. Any idea what my salutation should be? Later Edits: Final Version: To Joe Programmer and/or the AwesomeStartup.com hiring team, (+ a few words in first paragraph explaining why I am addressing Joe Programmer) I've already sent the email, so nothing you say here will save me. However, feel free to comment on my decision if you think your words be useful to future generations. Old Version (left here because some people responded to it): To the hiring manager for internships at Awesomestartup.com, Additionally, because so many people made comments about the content of my letter: I did spent several hours writing the cover letter itself and making sure that it was awesome. After spending such a long time working on the important part, I asked this question because I wanted to make sure that it wouldn't get passed over by some human who was having a bad day and decided that my salutation was inappropriate. Not likely when the most likely reader of that email is a programmer type, I know, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt not to be sloppy.

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• How to avoid to be employed by companies which are candidates to DailyWTF stories?

  - by MainMa

  I'm reading The Daily WTF archives and especially those stories about IT-related companies which have a completely wrong approach of software development, the job of a developer, etc. Some stories are totally horrible: a company don't have a local network for security reasons, another one has a source control server which can only be accessed by the manager, etc. Add to it all those stories about managers who don't know anything about their work and make stupid decisions without listening to anybody. The thing is that I don't see how to know if you will be employed by such company during an interview. Of course, sometimes, an interviewer tells weird things which gives you an idea that something goes very wrong with the company (in my case, the last manager said I should work 100% of my time through Remote Desktop, connected to on an old and slooooow machine, because "it avoids several people to modify the same source code"; maybe I should explain him what SVN is). But in most cases, you will be unable to get enough information during the interview to get the exact image of a company. So how to avoid being employed by this sort of companies? I thought about asking to see some documents like documentation guide or code style guidelines. The problem is that I live in France, and here, most of the companies don't have those documents at all, and in the rare cases where those documents exist, they are outdated, poorly written, never used, or do force you to make things that don't make any sense. I also thought about asking to see how programmers actually work. But seeing that they have dual screens or "late-modern-artsy-fartsy furnishings" doesn't mean that they don't have people making weird decisions, making it impossible to work there. Have you been in such situations? What have you tried? Have it worked?

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• Where is Oracle Utilities Application Framework V3?

  - by Anthony Shorten

  You may of noticed that the latest version of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework is V4.0.1. The last release of the Framework was V2.2. So what happened to V3? The short answer is that there is no V3 of the framework. The long answer is that the Oracle Utilities Application Framework has long been associated with Oracle Utilities Customer Care And Billing and Oracle Enterprise Taxation Management only. As more and more of the Oracle Tax And Utilities products are migrated onto the framework the association betweent eh original products on the framework is less appropriate. Therefore it was decided to pick a version number to emphasize the decouplinf of the releases of the Framework with any particular product. To illustrate this, the Oracle Mobile Workforce Management (MWM) V2.0.0 product uses Oracle Utilities Applicaton Framework V4.0.1. If we used the old numberings schema then MWM would be V4.0.1 which makes no sense, given the last release of MWM was V1.x The framework has its own development team and product management. It basicaly has its own schedule (though it is influenced by the products that use it still - which makes sense). So that s the reasoning around the version numbering change for the framework.

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