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• Suggestions for Troubleshooting WIndows 7 lockups

  - by Craig L

  I've got a Dell Latitude E6500 that was working fine under Vista x64. I got one of the new Seagate 500GB Hybrid SSD/HD 2.5 drives and thought.. hmm.. let's try Win 7 x64 on it. Bottom line: It works great for hours and then it will hard lock. I don't mean BSOD (or whatever the Win7 equivalent is). I mean my screen is displaying a static image (if there is a clock displayed, it will be frozen at the time the lockup occurred) and the mouse and keyboard do not work. Control-Alt-Delete will not work. I have to hold down the power button to reboot. The event log records NOTHING at the time the lockup occurs. Obviously something is happening to the system to cause the lockup, but the default Windows 7 x64 doesn't log it. How can I log the things Windows doesn't normally log in Event Viewer ?

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• Programming for the iPhone

  - by Bobby Alexander

  Whats the best way to get started on iPhone development if you are an expeienced C++ or C# programmer? Most books either assume you know nothing or something. What are the steps to achieve this? For eg: first learn objective C (let's say), next learn cocoa... I am interested in books/resources. I read Getting started with iPhone development from Oreilly (the missing manuals book) but that just provided an over view on the programming and concentrated more on getting your app into the app store. I need need resources that will help be start coding. Other questions: How much of objective C do you need to know? How do go ahead with learning the cocoa framework? Can I directly start on cocoa touch or do I need to know the MAC cocoa framework first? Inputs from someone who was in the same situation (Know c++/c# but no clue about mac programming/objective c/cocoa) would help greatly.

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• How to swap ctrl and caps lock using xmodmap

  - by Maruti

  Or any other tool, but I prefer xmodmap. I tried this: remove Lock = Caps_Lock remove Control = Control_L keysym Control_L = Caps_Lock keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L add Lock = Caps_Lock add Control = Control_L I also tried this: xmodmap -e "keycode 66 = Control_L" But neither seem to fully work. Here's the event log for pressing caps lock: KeyPress event, serial 28, synthetic NO, window 0x1a00001, root 0x12d, subw 0x0, time 914826, (679,342), root:(680,362), state 0x12, keycode 66 (keysym 0xffe3, Control_L), same_screen YES, XKeysymToKeycode returns keycode: 37 // 37 is the control key code XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False I'm running Ubuntu 10.10 with awesome window manager.

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• Exchange Server 2007 Transport Errors -- SMTP Session Hangs

  - by devviedev

  Hello, I was doing some changes to the server (writing an Transport Agent). After trying to install it, I started to get some errors. Now, when connecting to the SMTP server the session hangs just after finishing the DATA section. I'm not sure what happened, I disabled my transport agent and uninstalled it, then restarted the server. The problem persists. In the Event Viewer, four of the same errors show up: Source: FSCTransportScanner Category: Scan Error Event ID: 5021 Description: Unable to retrieve internet monitor interface. What could have happened?

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• 8 Reasons to Attend Oracle OpenWorld 2012

  - by kgee

  Every year, the Oracle Hardware team recognizes the unique buzz that accompanies the season of OpenWorld. During the late nights kept possible by the grace of caffeine combined with the stress and eagerness for the event to run smoothly, we like to remind ourselves of why all our hard work is going to pay off. So, now that we've registered, here are some of our top reasons that we’re excited for Oracle OpenWorld 2012: The KeynotesJust to name a few...Larry Ellison, Mark Hurd, Thomas Kurian, John Fowler and many more are speaking live. We're expecting to walk away from the keynotes with a new frame of reference on a vast array of hot topics. NetworkingWhether it's through means of the OpenWorld Lounges, social media, or bars and cafes around Moscone Center, we'll be surrounded by people who are experts in the hardware field. Hardware SessionsThere are enough sessions to satisfy every Oracle hardware knowledge need. Hardware Experts in GeneralSo many experts that we wish we could be in two places at once sometimes. Pearl Jam & Kings of LeonRock out with these two legendary bands at the Oracle Appreciation Event! Oracle Music FestivalJoss Stone, Macy Gray, the Hives, and Jimmy Cliff will be welcome escapes at the end of each day at OpenWorld, and are just a couple more reasons these all nighters before OpenWorld are worth it. ORACLE TEAM USA and the America's Cup trophyAfter the sailors take on San Francisco Bay for Fleet Week, we’ll be soliciting them for autographs and taking pictures with them at OpenWorld. Location, Location, LocationThe Moscone Center is beautiful and in the best location in San Francisco. We know the OpenWorld hype will get to us sometimes, and it's nice to know that we have pretty much everything San Francisco has to offer at our finger tips. Why are you excited for #OOW? Tell us why!

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• Using Behavior Trees and Events together

  - by weichsem

  I am beginning to work with behavior trees and am unsure how events should be handled within the tree. Lets say we have a space game where the player is dogfighting with a handful of other ships, some friendly some not. The player destroys a ship and the rest of the hostile ships should then start to retreat. How was should the shipWasDestroyed event effect the other ship's behavior trees so that they start running the retreat behavior? One way I could think of doing this is have all the conditions I care about be high level nodes that effectively state change the ship. This would mean I'd have to check all of these state change conditions on every frame the behavior tree was run, even if they are very rare occurrences. I'd prefer not doing this for performance and complexity reasons. From looking at the Halo papers on behavior trees it seems that they handled this by dynamically placing nodes into the tree when the event occurred. It seems like calculating where the new node should go could be problematic depending on the current state of the running behavior. How is this normally handled?

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• CQRS applicability when some commands need to block the UI

  - by regularfry

  I am working on an app which I would dearly love to transition from a fairly traditional layered architecture to CQRS, for a number of reasons, not least fo which is that having a robust event log will make adding a couple of feature requests I can see barrelling towards me trivial to accomodate. Now, I have a conceptual problem: of around 40 commands the user can initiate, there are three which the user needs to be sure have successfully completed before the UI lets them do anything else. Everything else fits into the "submit a request, query for success later" model, except for these three commands. How is this handled in CQRS-land? Do I separate the three blocking commands to effectively a third service, so I have Commands, Queries, and BlockingCommands? Do I have a two-stage event processor with an in-request blocking first stage which only gets used for the blocking commands? Does the existence of these three commands mean that the whole idea of applying CQRS is invalid? Should I just pretend they aren't blocking and poll for success in the UI? I'm sure this must come up on other projects, how is it usually handled?

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• A Tour of the 20 Built-in Apps on Windows 8 and What They Can Do

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Windows 8’s new touch-first Modern interface includes quite a few apps. Before you start looking at the Windows Store to find new apps, take a look at the included apps and what they can do. These apps share a few things in common. They all have a minimal feel that emphasizes content, most have support for live tiles that show updated information on the Start screen, and most push Microsoft’s online services. How To Delete, Move, or Rename Locked Files in Windows HTG Explains: Why Screen Savers Are No Longer Necessary 6 Ways Windows 8 Is More Secure Than Windows 7

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• Understanding Data Binding for Windows Phone 7

  - by nikhil

  I want to develop a simple app for the Windows Phone 7 platform. It's basically a vocabulary based game that involves the user moving word tiles from one area to another to score points. I want to know what is the best way of tying the UI to the game's backend? I saw the Windows Phone 7 jumpstart videos, there they touch up on Data Binding but don't really go into any depth. I'm a newbie and don't have any experience with designing the architecture for a phone app, It'd be great if someone could explain what steps I should be taking or guide me to a resource from where I could learn more.

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• Mounting NFS directory causes creating Zero byte files

  - by Alaa

  I have two Servers, Server X (IP 192.168.1.1) and Server Y (IP 192.168.1.2), both of them are ubuntu 9.1 i have created varnish load balancer on them for my drupal website (pressflow 6.22) I have mounted a directory of imagecache from server X to Y as below @X:/etc/exports == /var/www/proj/htdocs/sites/default/files/images 192.168.1.2(rw,async,no_subtree_check) @Y:/etc/fstab == 192.168.1.1:/var/www/proj/htdocs/sites/default/files/images var/www/proj/htdocs/sites/default/files/images nfs defaults 0 0 also i made this on server X X:/var/www/proj/htdocs/sites/default/files$ chmod -R 777 images i tried to touch, rm, vim, and cat files in images directory that has been mounted on Y and everything went fine. now, ALWAYS when server Y's imagecache tries to create an image in images directory, the image is created with ZERO byte file size. anyone face the same before? any idea of how to fix this problem or what might cause it? Thanks for your help

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• Instruct Ubuntu to boot TORAM from flash drive using unetbootin

  - by Goyuix

  I have used UNetbootin to create an installable / live bootable flash drive from Ubuntu 12.04. However that didn't preserve the normal Ubuntu boot menu which allows to me to enter advanced options. It has a custom menu that I can pick from predefined choices like "Install Ubuntu" and "Try Ubuntu without installing". What I would like is to be able to boot from the USB flash drive, but then be able to remove it from the computer once the desktop has loaded. The laptop I would like to use this on does not have a CD/DVD drive. What do I need to modify on the flash drive to add an option to "Try Ubuntu (RAM)" that passes the TORAM=yes parameter to the initrd options? Are their other things I need to touch/change as well? Bonus: I would guess the answer would also allow for other options like acpi=off as well, but if it is different I would appreciate having that answer too.

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• Restoring windows path on Windows 7

  - by Renso

  Issue:You changed the windows path and made a mistake and now want to reset it.Solution:In short, you can't. If you restore to the system default, you will loose any paths that were appended when you or the manufacturer installed software and drivers. Each time you install some sort of software or driver, MS Office, Turbotax, etc., it creates/appends to the path so that it points to it's start-up program.Too late now, but you should create a restore point BEFORE you touch the windows path if you are not sure what you are doing:http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/700-system-restore.html http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2083-system-repair-disc-create.html At a minimum you need the following:%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\AT worst you can reset it to the above, and go through each application as you use them and run into problems to fix the path. The REPAIR option when you select to change/uninstall a program can help with that.

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• Prevent APT from overwriting JCE jars

  - by Doc

  My server runs a Java application that requires I replace a few java library files with ones I downloaded on my own. This has to do with JCE security extensions and isn't really relevant to my question. I've found that these library files tend to get overwritten by apt when it later updates my java package. Is there a apt-friendly way of masking these specific files so apt won't touch them? Potential Solutions I'm considering just removing the write flag from the files, though I'm expecting this will cause apt to spew its guts everywhere when it later tries to overwrite them? Perhaps there's a java custom library directory I don't know of, where I can park my files and they'll be loaded instead of the package's defaults? The last-resort option I'm considering is writing a cron job to periodically replace the files with my versions. I hate this option.

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• Observable Adapter

  - by Roman Schindlauer

  .NET 4.0 introduced a pair of interfaces, IObservable<T> and IObserver<T>, supporting subscriptions to and notifications for push-based sequences. In combination with Reactive Extensions (Rx), these interfaces provide a convenient and uniform way of describing event sources and sinks in .NET. The StreamInsight CTP refresh in November 2009 included an Observable adapter supporting “reactive” event inputs and outputs.   While we continue to believe it enables an important programming model, the Observable adapter was not included in the final (RTM) release of Microsoft StreamInsight 1.0. The release takes a dependency on .NET 3.5 but for timing reasons could not take a dependency on .NET 4.0. Shipping a separate copy of the observable interfaces in StreamInsight – as we did in the CTP refresh – was not a viable option in the RTM release.   Within the next months, we will be shipping another preview of the Observable adapter that targets .NET 4.0. We look forward to gathering your feedback on the new adapter design! We plan to include the Observable adapter implementation into the product in a future release of Microsoft StreamInsight. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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• Today's Links (6/28/2011)

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Connecting People, Processes, and Content: An Online Event | Brian Dirking Dirking shares information on an Oracle Online Forum coming up on July 19. Social Relationships don't count until they count | Steve Jones "It's actually the interactions that matter to back up the social experience rather than the existence of a social link," says Jones. ORACLENERD: KScope 11: Cary Millsap Commenting on Cary Millsap's KScope presentation on Agile, Oracle ACE Chet Justice says, "I fight with methodology on a daily basis, mostly resulting in me hitting my head against the closest wall." The Sage Kings of Antiquity | Richard Veryard "Given that the empirical evidence for enterprise architecture is fairly weak, anecdotal and inconclusive, we are still more dependent than we might like on the authority of experts," says Veryard, "whether this be semi-anonymous committees (such as TOGAF) or famous consultants (such as Zachman)." Oracle Business Intelligence Blog: New BI Mobile Demos "These are short videos that showcase some of the capabilities in our mobile app," says Abhinav Agarwal. "One focuses on the Oracle BI platform, while the other showcases what is possible with the mobile app accessing Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, like Financial Analytics." MySQL HA Events in the UK, Germany & France | Oracle's MySQL Blog Oracle is running MySQL High Availability breakfast seminars in London (June 29), Düsseldorf (July 13) and Paris (September 7). "During these free seminars, we will review the various options and technologies at your disposal to implement highly available and highly scalable MySQL infrastructures, as well as best practices in terms of architectures," says Bertrand Matthelié. VENNSTER BLOG: User Experience in Fusion apps "When I heard about the Fusion Applications User Experience efforts, I was skeptical," says Oracle ACE Director Lonneke Dikmans of Vennster "My view of Oracle and User Experience has changed drastically today." Power Your Cloud with Oracle Fusion Middleware Running in over 50 cities across the globe, this event is aimed at Architects, IT Managers, and technical leaders like you who are using Fusion Middleware or trying to learn more about middleware in the context of Cloud computing.

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• Drawing a sprite or text causes the OpenGl rendering to 'disappear' in SFML

  - by Ken

  I'm using some SFML built in functions to draw sprites and text as an overlay on top of some OpenGL rending in an SFML RenderWindow. The opengl rendering appears fine until I add the code to draw the sprites or text. The sprite or text drawing causes the OpenGL stuff to disappear. The follow code show what I'm trying to do sf::RenderWindow window(sf::VideoMode(viewport.width,viewport.height,32), "SFML Window"); glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); glLoadIdentity(); glOrtho(0,viewport.width,0,viewport.height,0,1); while (window.pollEvent(Event)) { //event handling... //begin drawing glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glBegin(GL_TRIANGLES); glColor3f(col.x,col.y,col.z); for(int i=0;i<3;i++) glVertex2f(pos.x+verts[i].x,pos.y+verts[i].y); glEnd(); // adding this line causes all the previous opengl triangles not to appear window.draw("Sometext"); window.display(); }

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• Almost time to hit the road again

  - by Chris Williams

  I’ve had a few months of not much traveling, but now that the weather is improving… conference season is starting up again. That means it’s time for me to start hitting the road. In June, I have Tech Ed 2010 in New Orleans, LA. I lived in New Orleans for several years, both as military and civilian and I have a few friends still down there. I haven’t been there since before Hurricane Katrina, so I have mixed feelings about returning… but I am still looking forward to it. Also in June, I have Codestock in Knoxville, TN. Codestock is one of my favorite events, primarily because of the excellent people that speak there and also attend sessions. It’s a great mix of people and technologies. Sometime in July or August, I’m headed to Austin, TX for a couple days. I don’t know the exact date yet, but if you have an event down there in that timeframe, let me know and maybe we can sort something out. In September, I’m heading to Seattle for my first PAX (Penny Arcade Expo.)  I’m going strictly as an attendee and it looks like a LOT of fun. Really excited to check it out. Also in September, I’m headed to Omaha for the Heartland Developers Conference. This is a FANTASTIC event, and certainly one of my local favorites. (I guess local is relative, it’s about a 6 hour drive.) In addition to speaking on WP7, I’ll be doing a series of hands on labs on XNA they day before the conference starts, so that should be a lot of fun as well.   In addition to all this stuff, I have my own XNA User Group to take care of. In August, Andy “The Z-Man” Dunn is coming to speak and check out the various food on a stick offerings at the Minnesota State Fair!

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• How to design a separated tutorial mode?

  - by Sylpheed

  I'm working on a "social" game that's about 90% completion. One of the remaining features is the tutorial mode. Basically, the tutorial mode will restrict the user to access some parts of UI and limit the features (like store items). The tutorial will only progress if a certain event is triggered, specifically following the tutorial. The code is ready and we already have an "almost" working game. The problem is I haven't foreseen the tutorial mode while I was doing those 90%. My requirement is there shouldn't be any loading/transition from tutorial mode to normal mode. This means I have to pick up the progress from the tutorial (no re-rendering of assets and stuff). How should I design this in a way where I won't touch anything from my old code? I want it to be as easy as just plugging it in. I don't want to jam the tutorial in my old code since this will lead to many bugs.

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• AMD FX 8350 potentially overheating

  - by rhughes

  I am worried that my CPU is overheating when running at maximum capacity. I have not overclocked the machine. The machine often powers down after a couple of minutes of max CPU usage. I get the following events in the Event Log after the crash: Log Name: System Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power Date: 11/10/2013 12:05:40 Event ID: 41 Task Category: (63) Level: Critical Keywords: (2) User: SYSTEM Computer: home-pc Description: The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly. What can I do to confirm this or further narrow down this issue? Due to the sudden nature of the crash, no MEMORY.DMP is created I believe. I am happy to post any extra information that is needed.

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• The NEW MySQL for Developers Course

  - by Antoinette O'Sullivan

  Just Released - The new MySQL for Developers training course.  This 5 day course covers everything a developer needs to know when planning, designing and implementing applications using MySQL, with realistic examples using languages such as Java and PHP. This course gives an in-depth coverage of statements that access and modify data, and shows the student how to design and create other MySQL objects such as triggers, views, and stored procedures. You can take this course: From your desk as a live virtual offering. There are over 800 events on the schedule so you should find one in a timezone near you. The virtual events are also delivered in many languages including English, German, Korean, Latin American Spanish, ... In a classroom. Here is a sample of events on the schedule:  Location  Date  Delivery Language  Prague, Czech Republic 8 October 2012 Czech  Warsaw, Poland 5 November 2012 Polish  Wien, Austria  12 November 2012 German  London, England 15 October 2012 English  Bern, Switzerland  11 April 2013 German  Zurich, Switzerland 14 November 2012 German  Milan, Italy 19 November 2012  Italian  Rome, Italy  15 October 2012  Italian  Gummersbach, Germany  11 February 2013 German  Hamburg, Germany  12 November 2012  German Munich, Germany  10 June 2013  German  Lisbon, Portugal 26 November 2012 European Portuguese  Porto, Portugal 18 February 2013 European Portuguese  Nairobi, Kenya  19 November 2012  English  Madrid, Spain  10 December 2012  Spanish Petaling Jaya, Malaysia  15 October 2012  English  Bangkok, Thailand  29 October 2012  English For further information on the Authentic MySQL Curriculum, to register for an event or express interest in an additional event, go to http://oracle.com/education/mysql.

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• Register now for the FREE Tech Days Online Conference January 20th

  - by Eric Nelson

  The perfect solution to the “January blues” is a good solid few hours learning about great technology. The 'Build an app for that' Online Conference is exactly that, featuring demo-rich sessions on building applications for the browser, Windows 7, and Windows Phone 7. There are three tracks letting you choose which sessions are most relevant to you - whether you're just considering client development with Silverlight, or you've already got stuck in to an advanced project. We'll also explore new form factors such as Phone and Slate, and how to develop touch-based applications. Finally we'll cover the important subject of how to create beautifully designed user interfaces. Register now Agenda:

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• VCE at the VCS!?!?

  - by John Murphy

  VCE stands for Value Chain Execution, VCS stands for Value Chain Summit and in February in San Francisco, VCE will be fully represented at the VCS. The Value Chain Summit is Oracle's first large scale Supply Chain Management event specifically aimed at both current and prospective users of Oracle Supply Chain Management applications. This inaugural event is Feb 4-6, 2013 in downtown San Francisco.  Over 1000 attendees will meet to discuss and see what's new in product releases, what recent business trends are impacting supply chains, how technology is evolving, where supply chains are headed, and what companies are doing about it.  As the market leader in Value Chain Execution applications, VCE sessions and demonstrations will provide attendees direct access to the most sophisticated logistics applications in the world.  Already a user of VCE applications?   That's all the more reason to attend as sessions are specifically designed to address the latest features in the upcoming 6.3 release.  Detailed content will be shared by development and strategy personnel so you can get all the answers you need to improve your use of the VCE applications you currently have deployed.   Please join us in San Francisco in February!  

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• Android application Database Framework

  - by Marek Sebera

  When creating mobile (specially Android) application, I usually come to touch with similar pattern of working with data. Usually I need to fetch some remote data (covered by authorization process) to local cache. And on next request: Check networking Check presence of cache file Check version of cache file (if networking) Get new version and save cache (if networking and file not in cache, or outdated) Data store is no-SQL JSON Document-Based (and yes, I know about CouchDB Android version, but it doesn't fit my needs yet.) Process of authorizing to data source and code for check version of local cache is adapted to application. But the other code (handling network, saving cache, handling exceptions,...) is always the same. Is there any Data Store helper I can use, which provides functions I described above?

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• How to disable autocmd or augroup in vim?

  - by Andrew Vit

  Given I have a group of commands such as: augroup MyGroup autocmd CursorMoved * silent call MyCommandOne() augroup END I want to disable all the autocommands in MyGroup for a time and then re-enable it later. Is there anything I can do with the group? Specifically, is there a way to disable the whole group at once? If not, what can I do to disable individual commands? Looking at the help, I only see a few options: augroup! will delete the whole group: I don't think this is right since I will want to re-enable it again. (But maybe there's a way to easily redefine the group again?) :noautocmd will only disable the callbacks for a one-off invocation of a command. (And it disables all autocmds, not specified ones) eventignore addresses the event binding, not the command: it sounds like it disables all bound commands for a given event, not just one command or a group I can specify. How is this done?

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• My Feelings About Microsoft Surface

  - by Valter Minute

  Advice: read the title carefully, I’m talking about “feelings” and not about advanced technical points proved in a scientific and objective way I still haven’t had a chance to play with a MS Surface tablet (I would love to, of course) and so my ideas just came from reading different articles on the net and MS official statements. Remember also that the MVP motto begins with “Independent” (“Independent Experts. Real World Answers.”) and this is just my humble opinion about a product and a technology. I know that, being an MS MVP you can be called an “MS-fanboy”, I don’t care, I hope that people can appreciate my opinion, even if it doesn’t match theirs. The “Surface” brand can be confusing for techies that knew the “original” surface concept but I think that will be a fresh new brand name for most of the people out there. But marketing department are here to confuse people… so I can understand this “recycle” of an existing name. So Microsoft is entering the hardware arena… for me this is good news. Microsoft developed some nice hardware in the past: the xbox, zune (even if the commercial success was quite limited) and, last but not least, the two arc mices (old and new model) that I use and appreciate. In the past Microsoft worked with OEMs and that model lead to good and bad things. Good thing (for microsoft, at least) is market domination by windows-based PCs that only in the last years has been reduced by the return of the Mac and tablets. Google is also moving in the hardware business with its acquisition of Motorola, and Apple leveraged his control of both the hardware and software sides to develop innovative products. Microsoft can scare OEMs and make them fly away from windows (but where?) or just lead the pack, showing how devices should be designed to compete in the market and bring back some of the innovation that disappeared from recent PC products (look at the shelves of your favorite electronics store and try to distinguish a laptop between the huge mass of anonymous PCs on displays… only Macs shine out there…). Having to compete with MS “official” hardware will force OEMs to develop better product and bring back some real competition in a market that was ruled only by prices (the lower the better even when that means low quality) and no innovative features at all (when it was the last time that a new PC surprised you?). Moving into a new market is a big and risky move, but with Windows 8 Microsoft is playing a crucial move for its future, trying to be back in the innovation run against apple and google. MS can’t afford to fail this time. I saw the new devices (the WinRT and Pro) and the specifications are scarce, misleading and confusing. The first impression is that the device looks like an iPad with a nice keyboard cover… Using “HD” and “full HD” to define display resolution instead of using the real figures and reviving the “ClearType” brand (now dead on Win8 as reported here and missed by people who hate to read text on displays, like myself) without providing clear figures (couldn’t you count those damned pixels?) seems to imply that MS was caught by surprise by apple recent “retina” displays that brought very high definition screens on tablets.Also there are no specifications about the processors used (even if some sources report NVidia Tegra for the ARM tablet and i5 for the x86 one) and expected battery life (a critical point for tablets and the point that killed Windows7 x86 based tablets). Also nothing about the price, and this will be another critical point because other platform out there already provide lots of applications and have a good user base, if MS want to enter this market tablets pricing must be competitive. There are some expansion ports (SD and USB), so no fixed storage model (even if the specs talks about 32-64GB for RT and 128-256GB for pro). I like this and don’t like the apple model where flash memory (that it’s dirt cheap used in thumdrives or SD cards) is as expensive as gold (or cocaine to have a more accurate per gram measurement) when mounted inside a tablet/phone. For big files you’ll be able to use external media and an SD card could be used to store files that don’t require super-fast SSD-like access times, I hope. To be honest I really don’t like the marketplace model and the limitation of Windows RT APIs (no local database? from a company that based a good share of its success on VB6+Access!) and lack of desktop support on the ARM (even if the support is here and has been used to port office). It’s a step toward the consumer market (where competitors are making big money), but may impact enterprise (and embedded) users that may not appreciate Windows 8 new UI or the limitations of the new app model (if you aren’t connected you are dead ). Not having compatibility with the desktop will require brand new applications and honestly made all the CPU cycles spent to convert .NET IL into real machine code in the past like a huge waste of time… as soon as a new processor architecture is supported by Windows you still have to rewrite part of your application (and MS is pushing HTML5+JS and native code more than .NET in my perception). On the other side I believe that the development experience provided by Visual Studio is still miles (or kilometres) ahead of the competition and even the all-uppercase menu of VS2012 hasn’t changed this situation. The new metro UI got mixed reviews. On my side I should say that is very pleasant to use on a touch screen, I like the minimalist design (even if sometimes is too minimal and hides stuff that, in my opinion, should be visible) but I should also say that using it with mouse and keyboard is like trying to pick your nose with boxing gloves… Metro is also very interesting for embedded devices where touch screen usage is quite common and where having an application taking all the screen is the norm. For devices like kiosks, vending machines etc. this kind of UI can be a great selling point. I don’t need a new tablet (to be honest I’m pretty happy with my wife’s iPad and with my PC), but I may change my opinion after having a chance to play a little bit with those new devices and understand what’s hidden under all this mysterious and generic announcements and specifications!

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