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• Slow WLAN file transfer between server and tablet

  - by user266985

  My file server is running Ubuntu 12.04 and I'm sharing files from it over samba. It is connected via gigabit ethernet. My desktop, running Windows 8.1, is also connected via gigabit ethernet. I can transfer files between the two and completely saturate that gigabit pipe. However, I just got a Surface Pro 2, and I'm trying to stream HD movies from my server to the device over WiFi. For some reason, I can't break much past 1.5MB/s transferring files over the network. I've tried streaming through XBMC and a standard file copy; no difference. To add the confusion, if I connect to my guest network and then use my VPN server (installed on the router) to access the file server, I get around 3.2MB/s. I've been running diagnostics to determine the root and I think I've found it but I have no idea what is causing it or how to fix it. Router: Asus RT-N66U Surface Pro 2 Network Card: Marvell Avastar 350N (Driver 19/09/2013 v14.69.24044.150) InSSIDer: Link Score: 100 Co-Channels: 0 Overlapping: 0 5GHz Network Channel: 48+44 iperf File Server as Server; Surface Pro 2 as Client - TCP Performance: Acceptable ------------------------------------------------------------ Server listening on TCP port 5001 TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 4] local 192.168.0.90 port 5001 connected with 192.168.0.56 port 57367 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 4] 0.0- 1.0 sec 10.1 MBytes 84.7 Mbits/sec [ 4] 1.0- 2.0 sec 10.4 MBytes 87.6 Mbits/sec [ 4] 2.0- 3.0 sec 10.6 MBytes 88.8 Mbits/sec [ 4] 3.0- 4.0 sec 10.7 MBytes 89.5 Mbits/sec [ 4] 4.0- 5.0 sec 10.1 MBytes 84.4 Mbits/sec [ 4] 5.0- 6.0 sec 10.2 MBytes 85.8 Mbits/sec [ 4] 6.0- 7.0 sec 7.04 MBytes 59.1 Mbits/sec [ 4] 7.0- 8.0 sec 10.8 MBytes 90.2 Mbits/sec [ 4] 8.0- 9.0 sec 10.6 MBytes 89.1 Mbits/sec [ 4] 9.0-10.0 sec 8.62 MBytes 72.3 Mbits/sec [ 4] 0.0-10.0 sec 99.2 MBytes 83.1 Mbits/sec iperf Surface Pro 2 as Server, File Server as Client Performance: Poor ------------------------------------------------------------ Client connecting to 192.168.0.56, TCP port 5001 TCP window size: 22.9 KByte (default) ------------------------------------------------------------ [ 3] local 192.168.0.90 port 40233 connected with 192.168.0.56 port 5001 [ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth [ 3] 0.0- 1.0 sec 1.50 MBytes 12.6 Mbits/sec [ 3] 1.0- 2.0 sec 1.50 MBytes 12.6 Mbits/sec [ 3] 2.0- 3.0 sec 1.50 MBytes 12.6 Mbits/sec [ 3] 3.0- 4.0 sec 1.25 MBytes 10.5 Mbits/sec [ 3] 4.0- 5.0 sec 1.62 MBytes 13.6 Mbits/sec [ 3] 5.0- 6.0 sec 1.50 MBytes 12.6 Mbits/sec [ 3] 6.0- 7.0 sec 1.38 MBytes 11.5 Mbits/sec [ 3] 7.0- 8.0 sec 1.50 MBytes 12.6 Mbits/sec [ 3] 8.0- 9.0 sec 1.50 MBytes 12.6 Mbits/sec [ 3] 9.0-10.0 sec 1.62 MBytes 13.6 Mbits/sec [ 3] 0.0-10.1 sec 15.0 MBytes 12.4 Mbits/sec For some reason, it gets capped and I haven't got a clue why. Any suggestions? Edit: My link speed is reported as 270Mbps by Windows. I'm less than two metres from the router with a clear line of sight.

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• How to reliably map vSphere disks <-> Linux devices

  - by brianmcgee

  Task at hand After a virtual disk has been added to a Linux VM on vSphere 5, we need to identify the disks in order to automate the LVM storage provision. The virtual disks may reside on different datastores (e.g. sas or flash) and although they may be of the same size, their speed may vary. So I need a method to map the vSphere disks to Linux devices. Ideas Through the vSphere API, I am able to get the device info: Data Object Type: VirtualDiskFlatVer2BackingInfo Parent Managed Object ID: vm-230 Property Path: config.hardware.device[2000].backing Properties Name Type Value ChangeId string Unset contentId string "d58ec8c12486ea55c6f6d913642e1801" datastore ManagedObjectReference:Datastore datastore-216 (W5-CFAS012-Hybrid-CL20-004) deltaDiskFormat string "redoLogFormat" deltaGrainSize int Unset digestEnabled boolean false diskMode string "persistent" dynamicProperty DynamicProperty[] Unset dynamicType string Unset eagerlyScrub boolean Unset fileName string "[W5-CFAS012-Hybrid-CL20-004] l****9-000001.vmdk" parent VirtualDiskFlatVer2BackingInfo parent split boolean false thinProvisioned boolean false uuid string "6000C295-ab45-704e-9497-b25d2ba8dc00" writeThrough boolean false And on Linux I may read the uuid strings: [root@lx***** ~]# lsscsi -t [1:0:0:0] cd/dvd ata: /dev/sr0 [2:0:0:0] disk sas:0x5000c295ab45704e /dev/sda [3:0:0:0] disk sas:0x5000c2932dfa693f /dev/sdb [3:0:1:0] disk sas:0x5000c29dcd64314a /dev/sdc As you can see, the uuid string of disk /dev/sda looks somehow familiar to the string that is visible in the VMware API. Only the first hex digit is different (5 vs. 6) and it is only present to the third hyphen. So this looks promising... Alternative idea Select disks by controller. But is it reliable that the ascending SCSI Id also matches the next vSphere virtual disk? What happens if I add another DVD-ROM drive / USB Thumb drive? This will probably introduce new SCSI devices in between. Thats the cause why I think I will discard this idea. Questions Does someone know an easier method to map vSphere disks and Linux devices? Can someone explain the differences in the uuid strings? (I think this has something to do with SAS adressing initiator and target... WWN like...) May I reliably map devices by using those uuid strings? How about SCSI virtual disks? There is no uuid visible then... This task seems to be so obvious. Why doesn't Vmware think about this and simply add a way to query the disk mapping via Vmware Tools?

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• Low FPS in some games, but hardware not fully used

  - by Mario De Schaepmeester

  I just did a little funny experiment in the game/sim "Train Simulator 2013". I normally have good FPS in it (around 30) at full settings. What I did was make a really, really long train so that the calculations the sim needed to make were enormous (the sim is quite realistic, it takes all things into account like speed/acceleration, G-forces, comfort levels, possible wheel slip and many more, and most of those things on each carriage seperately). This resulted in only 14FPS as reported by the game, but it felt more like 8FPS or so. I have a Logitech G15 keyboard which has an LCD, and it allows me to monitor CPU/RAM and video card load on it. The strange thing is, all CPU cores were busy, but the total load was only about 60% maximum at all times. The video card was only on 30% load (possibly an important note, the memory was full, which is however not unusual for the game in question). The RAM had plenty of room and there weren't many operations as it didn't grow or shrink much. I just have the feeling that the game would run smoother if it used more of my hardware power. Why is it not doing so? I had the same in another game, The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind when using more than 100 mods (that all use scripting) and a few high res texture mods, + a full-on graphics improvement program. The engine is very old (2003), and so I thought this might be the cause (not being optimised for multithreading). I had thought of possible causes, like: The operating system doesn't let the games use all the resources. It doesn't make use of multi-threading appropriately. To eliminate the former, I tried a CPU stress tool and that got 100% CPU juice as I let it run, so the OS is not the problem. I gave its thread the "higher" priority though. My actual question In both games, I did things the engine was not really built to do or support. Can those games' framerate be limited cause of their own engine not being able to cope? What is the real reason and more importantly, can I help it? And in any case, could something actually be wrong with my hardware? It's all reasonably new, a couple of months, and I (almost) never experience any other trouble. Modern and much more demanding games work absolutely fine. Specs CPU: AMD Phenom II 965 X4 @ 3.4gHz RAM: 8GB of DDR3 RAM Video: MSI GTX560 (nVidia chip) with 1GB of GDDR5 memory OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit Nothing overclocked.

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• How does an NTP host switch among the various modes?

  - by James A. Rosen

  The NTPv3 RFC describes five operating modes: Symmetric Active (1): A host operating in this mode sends periodic messages regardless of the reachability state or stratum of its peer. By operating in this mode the host announces its willingness to synchronize and be synchronized by the peer. Symmetric Passive (2): This type of association is ordinarily created upon arrival of a message from a peer operating in the symmetric active mode and persists only as long as the peer is reachable and operating at a stratum level less than or equal to the host; otherwise, the association is dissolved. However, the association will always persist until at least one message has been sent in reply. By operating in this mode the host announces its willingness to synchronize and be synchronized by the peer. Client (3): A host operating in this mode sends periodic messages regardless of the reachability state or stratum of its peer. By operating in this mode the host, usually a LAN workstation, announces its willingness to be synchronized by, but not to synchronize the peer. Server (4): This type of association is ordinarily created upon arrival of a client request message and exists only in order to reply to that request, after which the association is dissolved. By operating in this mode the host, usually a LAN time server, announces its willingness to synchronize, but not to be synchronized by the peer. Broadcast (5): A host operating in this mode sends periodic messages regardless of the reachability state or stratum of the peers. By operating in this mode the host, usually a LAN time server operating on a high-speed broadcast medium, announces its willingness to synchronize all of the peers, but not to be synchronized by any of them. It seems to me, though, that any host except a leaf node would probably be in several modes. For example, I might have a local area network with three NTP servers, each in Symmetric Active (1) mode with respect to one another. They would also each be clients (3) of one of the many public stratum two time servers. Lastly, they would all server as servers (4) to the many local clients. Is the point that they're only in a given mode for a moment during the synchronization? If so, how does a host know to switch? I'm only looking for enough depth here to discuss the issue in an educated manner, not to write a custom time server.

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• Exchange Server 2007 Send and Receive Connectors

  - by Mistiry

  I have gotten awesome advice from users on here for getting Exchange on Windows SBS 2008 set up. I think this is the final piece and I'm ready for roll-out! I need to set up Exchange so that it RECEIVES mail from our existing mail server as a Forward [aliases on the existing mail server to forward mail from [email protected] to [email protected]] (not using the POP3 Connector), and SENDS mail through that server as well (sends from [email protected] to [email protected] and then out to the world, showing in the headers as from [email protected] or at absolute least have the reply-to set as this). Alternatively, as long as the .net email address doesn't show in the From and replies are directed to the .com account, email can go from Exchange to the outside world without directing through the existing mail server. External Domain: domain.com Internal Domain: domain.local Internet Domain Name Set in SBS Console: domain.net When I go to http://remote.domain.net I get the Remote Web Workspace, and can login to both Sharepoint and OWA. I can send an email from OWA to a GMail account. I receive it from [email protected], which is an alias of [email protected]. I cannot, however, send an email from OWA to ANY domain.com email addresses. I am also not receiving any email to this Exchange account (except for NDRs). When I try sending an email to a domain.com account, here is the error (I had to replace all < and with { and }): Delivery has failed to these recipients or distribution lists: [email protected] The recipient's e-mail address was not found in the recipient's e-mail system. Microsoft Exchange will not try to redeliver this message for you. Please check the e-mail address and try resending this message, or provide the following diagnostic text to your system administrator. Generating server: IFEXCHANGE.domain.local [email protected] #550 5.1.1 RESOLVER.ADR.RecipNotFound; not found ## Original message headers: Received: from IFEXCHANGE.domain.local ([fe80::4d34:abc5:f7fd:e51a]) by IFEXCHANGE.domain.local ([fe80::4d34:abc5:f7fd:e51a%10]) with mapi; Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:14:14 -0400 Content-Type: application/ms-tnef; name="winmail.dat" Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary From: John Doe {[email protected]} To: "[email protected]" {[email protected]} Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:14:12 -0400 Subject: asdf Thread-Topic: asdf Thread-Index: AQHLPjf+h6hA5MJ1JUu1WS4I4CiWeA== Message-ID: {E4E10393768D784D8760A51938BA456A029934BA30@IFEXCHANGE.domain.local} Accept-Language: en-US Content-Language: en-US X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: {E4E10393768D784D8760A51938BA456A029934BA30@IFEXCHANGE.domain.local} MIME-Version: 1.0 I hope I explained the situation well enough for someone to be able to explain to me what I'm missing. If I could, I'd be putting a 10K bounty, but unfortunately I've got only 74 reputation (hey, I'm a newbie here!). I'm pretty sure the obvious "RecipNotFound" error is why its not working, my question is how to resolve this. The email account exists, it receives mail just fine, yet when I send it from the Exchange server it fails. EDIT In OC-Hub Transport, the Email Address Policies has 2 entries. "Windows SBS Email Address Policy" is set up to: Include All Recipient Types, no conditions, and SMTP %[email protected]. "Default Policy" set to: Include All Recipient Types, no conditions, and SMTP @domain.net. Three Authoritative Accepted domains domain.com domain.local (Default) domain.net Remote Domains tab has two entries. Default with domain * Windows SBS Company Web Domain with domain companyweb.

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• Network speeds being report as 4x higher than actual in Windows 7 SP1

  - by Synetech

  Ever since installing Windows 7 SP1, I have noticed that all programs that display my network transfer rate have been exactly 4x higher than they actually are. For example, when I download something from a high-bandwidth web site or through torrents with lots of sources, the download rate indicated is is ~5MBps (~40Mbps) even though my Internet connection has a maximum of only 1.5MBps (12Mbps). It is the same situation with the upstream bandwidth: the connection maximum is 64KBps, but I’m seeing up to 256KBps. I have tried several different programs for monitoring bandwidth throughput and they all give the same results. I also tried different times and different days, and they always show the rate as being four times too high. My initial thought was that my ISP had increased the speeds (without my noticing), which they have done before. However, I checked my ISP’s site and they have not increased the speeds. Moreover, when I look at the speeds in the program actually doing the transfer (eg Chrome, µTorrent, etc.), the numbers are in line with the expected values at the same time that bandwidth monitoring programs are showing the high numbers. The only significant change (and pretty much the only change at all) that has occurred to my system since the change was the installation of SP1 for Windows 7. As such, it is my belief that some sort of change exists in SP1 whereby software that accesses the bandwidth via a specific API receives (erroneously?) high numbers while others that have access to the raw data continue to receive the correct values. I booted into Windows XP and downloaded some things via HTTP and torrent and in both cases, the numbers were as expected (like they were in Windows 7 before installing SP1). I then booted back into 7SP1 and once again, the numbers were four times higher than possible. Therefore it is definitely something in SP1 that has changed how local bandwidth is calculated/returned. There is definitely something wonky with Windows 7 SP1’s network speed calculation. I tried Googling this, but (for multiple reasons), have had a difficult time finding anything relevant. Has anybody else noticed this behavior? Does anybody know of any bugs or changes in SP1 that could account for it?

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• Looking for a new, free firewall (Sunbelt has a huge hole)

  - by Jason

  I've been using Sunbelt Personal Firewall v. 4.5 (previously Kerio). I've discovered that blocking Firefox connections in the configuration doesn't stop EXISTING Firefox connections. (See my post here yesterday http://superuser.com/questions/132625/sunbelt-firewall-4-5-wont-block-firefox) The "stop all traffic" may work on existing connections - but I'm done testing, as I need to be able to be selective, at any time. I was using the free version, so the "web filtering" option quit working after some time (mostly blocking ads and popups), but I didn't use that anyway. I used the last free version of Kerio before finally having to go to Sunbelt, because Kerio had an unfixed bug where you'd eventually get the BSOD and have to reset Kerio's configuration and start over (configure everything again). So I'm looking for a new Firewall. I don't like ZoneAlarm at all (no offense to all it's users that may be here - personal taste). I need the following: (Sunbelt has all these, except *) - 1. Be able to block in/out to localhost (trusted)/internet selectively for each application with a click (so there's 4 click boxes for each application) [*that effects everything immediately, regardless of what's already connected]. When a new application attempts a connection, you get an allow/deny/remember windows. - 2. Be able to easily set up filter rules for 'individual application'/'all applications,' by protocol, port/address (range), local, remote, in, out. [*Adding a filter rule also doesn't block existing connections in Sunbelt. That needs to work too.] - 3. Have an easy-to-get-to way to "stop all traffic" (like a right click option on the running icon in the task bar). - 4. Be able to set trusted/internet in/out block/allowed (4 things per item) for each of IGMP, ping, DNS, DHCP, VPN, and broadcasts. - 5. Define locahost as trusted/untrusted, define adapter connections as trusted/untrusted. - 6. Block incoming connetions during boot-up and shutdown. - 7. Show existing connections, including local & remote ip/port, protocol, current speed, total bytes transferred, and local ports opened for Listening. - 8. An Intrusion Prevention System which blocks (optionally select each one) known intrustions (long list). - 9. Block/allow applications from starting other applications (deny/allow/remember window). Wish list: A way of knowing what svchost.exe is doing - who is actually using it/calling it. I allowed it for localhost, and selectively allowed it for internet each time the allow/deny window came up. Thanks for any help/suggestions. (I'm using Windows XP SP3.)

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• SQL Express 2008 R2 on Amazon EC2 instance: tons of free memory, poor performance

  - by gravyface

  The old SQL Express 2005 was running on a low-end single Xeon CPU Dell server, RAID 5 7200 disks, 2 GB RAM (SBS 2003). I have not done any baseline measurements on the old physical server, but the Web app is used by half a dozen people (maybe 2 concurrently), so I figured "how bad can an Amazon EC2 instance be?". It's pretty horrible: a difference of 8 seconds of load time on one screen. First of all, I'm not a SQL guru, but here's what I've tried: Had a Small Instance, now running a c1.medium (High Cpu Medium) Windows 2008 32-bit R2 EBS-backed instance running IIS 7.5 and SQL Express 2008 R2. No noticeable improvement. Changed Page File from fixed 256 to Automatic. Setup a Striped Mirror from within Disk Management with two attached 1 GB EBS volumes. Moved database and transaction log, left everything else on the boot EBS volume. No noticeable change. Looked at memory, ~1000 MB of physical memory free (1.7 GB total). Changed SQL instance to use a minimum of 1024 RAM; restarted server, no change in memory usage. SQL still only using ~28MB of RAM(!). So I'm thinking: this database is tiny (28MB), why isn't the whole thing cached in RAM? Surely that would speed up performance. The transaction log is 241 MB. Seems kind of large in comparison -- has this not been committed? Is it a cause of performance degradation? I recall something about Recovery Models and log sizes somewhere in my travels, but not positive. Another thing: the old server was running SQL Express 2005. Not sure if that has any impact, but I tried changing the compatibility level from SQL 2000 to 2008, but that had no effect. Anyways, what else can I try here? Seems ridiculous to throw more virtual hardware at this thing. I know I/O is going to be rough on EBS volumes, but surely others are successfully running small .NET/SQL apps on reasonably priced instances?

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• Nginx common configuration that I might have missed

  - by ApPeL

  I recently moved from Apache Mod_wsgi to Nginx, and I have seen a major improvement on speed a lowering on memory usage and I am generally very happy with the it. I am not a server expert, so please be gentle. I am wondering if there are any small configuration that I might have missed, that will cause me some issues in the long run... Please see my nginx.conf file user nginx nginx; worker_processes 4; error_log /var/log/nginx/error_log info; events { worker_connections 1024; use epoll; } http { include /etc/nginx/mime.types; default_type application/octet-stream; log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] ' '"$request" $status $bytes_sent ' '"$http_referer" "$http_user_agent" ' '"$gzip_ratio"'; client_header_timeout 10m; client_body_timeout 10m; send_timeout 10m; connection_pool_size 256; client_header_buffer_size 1k; large_client_header_buffers 4 2k; request_pool_size 4k; gzip on; gzip_min_length 1100; gzip_buffers 4 8k; gzip_types text/plain; output_buffers 1 32k; postpone_output 1460; sendfile on; tcp_nopush on; tcp_nodelay on; keepalive_timeout 75 20; ignore_invalid_headers on; index index.html; server { listen 80; server_name localhost; location /media/ { root /www/django_test1/myapp; # Notice this is the /media folder that we create above } location /mediaadmin/ { alias /opt/python2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/media/; # Notice this is the /media folder that we create above } location / { # host and port to fastcgi server fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:8080; fastcgi_param SERVER_ADDR $server_addr; fastcgi_param SERVER_PORT $server_port; fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $server_name; fastcgi_param SERVER_PROTOCOL $server_protocol; fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_script_name; fastcgi_param REQUEST_METHOD $request_method; fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string; fastcgi_param CONTENT_TYPE $content_type; fastcgi_param CONTENT_LENGTH $content_length; fastcgi_pass_header Authorization; fastcgi_intercept_errors off; client_max_body_size 100M; } access_log /var/log/nginx/localhost.access_log main; error_log /var/log/nginx/localhost.error_log; } }

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• Google Rules for Retail

  - by David Dorf

  In the book What Would Google Do?, Jeff Jarvis outlines ten "Google Rules" that define how Google acts.  These rules help define how Web 2.0 businesses operate today and into the future.  While there's a chapter in the book on applying these rules to the retail industry, it wasn't very in-depth.  So I've decided to more directly apply the rules to retail, along with some notable examples of success.  The table below shows Jeff's Google Rule, some Industry Examples, and New Retailer Rules that I created. 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} table.MsoTableGrid {mso-style-name:"Table Grid"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-priority:59; mso-style-unhide:no; border:solid black 1.0pt; mso-border-themecolor:text1; mso-border-alt:solid black .5pt; mso-border-themecolor:text1; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-border-insideh:.5pt solid black; mso-border-insideh-themecolor:text1; mso-border-insidev:.5pt solid black; mso-border-insidev-themecolor:text1; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Google Rule Industry Examples New Retailer Rule New Relationship Your worst customer is your friend; you best customer is your partner Newegg.com lets manufacturers respond to customer comments that are critical of the product, and their EggXpert site lets customers help other customers. Listen to what your customers are saying about you.  Convert the critics to fans and the fans to influencers. New Architecture Join a network; be a platform Tesco and BestBuy released APIs for their product catalogs so third-parties could create new applications. Become a destination for information. New Publicness Life is public, so is business Zappos and WholeFoods founders are prolific tweeters/bloggers, sharing their opinions and connecting to customers.  It's not always pretty, but it's genuine. Be transparent.  Share both your successes and failures with your customers. New Society Elegant organization Wet Seal helps their customers assemble outfits and show them off to each other.  Barnes & Noble has a community site that includes a bookclub. Communities of your customers already exist, so help them organize better. New Economy Mass market is dead; long live the mass of niches lululemon found a niche for yoga inspired athletic wear.  Threadless uses crowd-sourcing to design short-runs of T-shirts. Serve small markets with niche products. New Business Reality Decide what business you're in When Lowes realized catering to women brought the men along, their sales increased. Customers want experiences to go with the products they buy. New Attitude Trust the people and listen In 2008 Starbucks launched MyStartbucksIdea to solicit ideas from their customers. Use social networks as additional data points for making better merchandising decisions. New Ethic Be honest and transparent; don't be evil Target is giving away reusable shopping bags for Earth Day.  Kohl's has outfitted 67 stores with solar arrays. Being green earns customers' respect and lowers costs too. New Speed Life is live H&M and Zara keep up with fashion trends. Be prepared to pounce on you customers' fickle interests. New Imperatives Encourage, enable and protect innovation 1-800-Flowers was the first do sales in Facebook and an early adopter of mobile commerce.  The Sears Personal Shopper mobile app finds products based on a photo. Give your staff permission to fail so innovation won't be stifled. Jeff will be a keynote speaker at Crosstalk, our upcoming annual user conference, so I'm looking forward to hearing more of his perspective on retail and the new economy.

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• Looking For iPhone 4S Alternatives? Here Are 3 Smartphones You Should Consider

  - by Gopinath

  If you going to buy iPhone 4S on a two year contract in USA, Europe or Australia you may not find it expensive. But if you are planning to buy it in any other parts of the world, you will definitely feel the heat of ridiculous iPhone 4S price. In India iPhone 4S costs approximately costs $1000 which is 30% more than the price tag of an unlocked iPhone sold in USA. Personally I love iPhones as there is no match for the user experience provided by Apple as well as the wide range of really meaning applications available for iPhone. But it breaks heart to spend $1000 for a phone and I’m forced to look at alternates available in the market. Here are the four iPhone 4S alternates available in almost all the countries where we can buy iPhone 4S Google Galaxy Nexus The Galaxy Nexus is Google’s own Android smartphone manufactured by Samsung and sold under the brand name of Google Nexus. Galaxy Nexus is the pure Android phone available in the market without any bloat software or custom user interfaces like other Androids available in the market. Galaxy Nexus is also the first Android phone to be shipped with the latest version of Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. This phone is the benchmark for the rest of Android phones that are going to enter the market soon. In the words of Google this smartphone is called as “Galaxy Nexus: Simple. Beautiful. Beyond Smart.”.  BGR review summarizes the phone as This is almost comical at this point, but the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is my favourite Android device in the world. Easily replacing the HTC Rezound, the Motorola DROID RAZR, and Samsung Galaxy S II, the Galaxy Nexus champions in a brand new version of Android that pushes itself further than almost any other mobile OS in the industry. Samsung Galaxy S II The one single company that is able to sell more smartphones than Apple is Samsung. Samsung recently displaced Apple from the top smartphone seller spot and occupied it with loads of pride. Samsung’s Galaxy S II fits as one the best alternatives to Apple’s iPhone 4S with it’s beautiful design and remarkable performance. Engadget summarizes Samsung Galaxy S2 review as It’s the best Android smartphone yet, but more importantly, it might well be the best smartphone, period. Of course, a 4.3-inch screen size won’t suit everyone, no matter how stupendously thin the device that carries it may be, and we also can’t say for sure that the Galaxy S II would justify a long-term iOS user foresaking his investment into one ecosystem and making the leap to another. Nonetheless, if you’re asking us what smartphone to buy today, unconstrained by such externalities, the Galaxy S II would be the clear choice. Sometimes it’s just as simple as that. Nokia Lumia 800 Here comes unexpected Windows Phone in to the boxing ring. May be they are not as great as Androids available in the market today, but they are picking up very quickly. Especially the Nokia Lumia 800 seems to be first ever Windows Phone 7 aimed at competing serious with Androids and iPhones available in the market. There are reports that Nokia Lumia 800 is outselling all Androids in UK and few high profile tech blogs are calling it as the king of Windows Phone. Considering this phone while evaluating the alternative of iPhone 4S will not disappoint you. We assure. Droid RAZR Remember the Motorola Driod that swept entire Android market share couple of years ago? The first two version of Motorola Droids were the best in the market and they out performed almost every other Android phone those days. The invasion of Samsung Androids, Motorola lost it charm. With the recent release of Droid RAZR, Motorola seems to be in the right direction to reclaiming the prestige. Droid RAZR is the thinnest smartphone available in the market and it’s beauty is not just skin deep. Here is a review of the phone from Engadget blog the RAZR’s beauty is not only skin deep. The LTE radio, 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM make sure this sleek number is ready to run with the big boys. It kept pace with, and in some cases clearly outclassed its high-end competition. Despite its deficiencies in the display department and underwhelming battery life, the RAZR looks to be a perfectly viable alternative when considering the similarly-pricey Rezound and Galaxy Nexus Further Reading So we have seen the four alternates of iPhone 4S available in the market and I personally love to buy a Samsung smartphone if I’m don’t have money to afford an iPhone 4S. If you are interested in deep diving into the alternates, here few links that help you do more research Apple iPhone 4S vs. Samsung Galaxy Nexus vs. Motorola Droid RAZR: How Their Specs Compare by Huffington Post Nokia Lumia 800 vs. iPhone 4S vs. Nexus Galaxy: Spec Smackdown by PC World Browser Speed Test: Nokia Lumia 800 vs. iPhone 4S vs. Samsung Galaxy S II – by Gizmodo iPhone 4S vs Samsung Galaxy S II by pocket lint Apple iPhone 4S vs. Samsung Galaxy S II by techie buzz This article titled,Looking For iPhone 4S Alternatives? Here Are 3 Smartphones You Should Consider, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• Ajax Control Toolkit and Superexpert

  - by Stephen Walther

  Microsoft has asked my company, Superexpert Consulting, to take ownership of the development and maintenance of the Ajax Control Toolkit moving forward. In this blog entry, I discuss our strategy for improving the Ajax Control Toolkit. Why the Ajax Control Toolkit? The Ajax Control Toolkit is one of the most popular projects on CodePlex. In fact, some have argued that it is among the most successful open-source projects of all time. It consistently receives over 3,500 downloads a day (not weekends -- workdays). A mind-boggling number of developers use the Ajax Control Toolkit in their ASP.NET Web Forms applications. Why does the Ajax Control Toolkit continue to be such a popular project? The Ajax Control Toolkit fills a strong need in the ASP.NET Web Forms world. The Toolkit enables Web Forms developers to build richly interactive JavaScript applications without writing any JavaScript. For example, by taking advantage of the Ajax Control Toolkit, a Web Forms developer can add modal dialogs, popup calendars, and client tabs to a web application simply by dragging web controls onto a page. The Ajax Control Toolkit is not for everyone. If you are comfortable writing JavaScript then I recommend that you investigate using jQuery plugins instead of the Ajax Control Toolkit. However, if you are a Web Forms developer and you don’t want to get your hands dirty writing JavaScript, then the Ajax Control Toolkit is a great solution. The Ajax Control Toolkit is Vast The Ajax Control Toolkit consists of 40 controls. That’s a lot of controls (For the sake of comparison, jQuery UI consists of only 8 controls – those slackers J). Furthermore, developers expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work on browsers both old and new. For example, people expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work with Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 9 and every version of Internet Explorer in between. People also expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work on the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome. And, people expect the Ajax Control Toolkit to work with different operating systems. Yikes, that is a lot of combinations. The biggest challenge which my company faces in supporting the Ajax Control Toolkit is ensuring that the Ajax Control Toolkit works across all of these different browsers and operating systems. Testing, Testing, Testing Because we wanted to ensure that we could easily test the Ajax Control Toolkit with different browsers, the very first thing that we did was to set up a dedicated testing server. The dedicated server -- named Schizo -- hosts 4 virtual machines so that we can run Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Internet Explorer 9 at the same time (We also use the virtual machines to host the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari). The five developers on our team (plus me) can each publish to a separate FTP website on the testing server. That way, we can quickly test how changes to the Ajax Control Toolkit affect different browsers. QUnit Tests for the Ajax Control Toolkit Introducing regressions – introducing new bugs when trying to fix existing bugs – is the concern which prevents me from sleeping well at night. There are so many people using the Ajax Control Toolkit in so many unique scenarios, that it is difficult to make improvements to the Ajax Control Toolkit without introducing regressions. In order to avoid regressions, we decided early on that it was extremely important to build good test coverage for the 40 controls in the Ajax Control Toolkit. We’ve been focusing a lot of energy on building automated JavaScript unit tests which we can use to help us discover regressions. We decided to write the unit tests with the QUnit test framework. We picked QUnit because it is quickly becoming the standard unit testing framework in the JavaScript world. For example, it is the unit testing framework used by the jQuery team, the jQuery UI team, and many jQuery UI plugin developers. We had to make several enhancements to the QUnit framework in order to test the Ajax Control Toolkit. For example, QUnit does not support tests which include postbacks. We modified the QUnit framework so that it works with IFrames so we could perform postbacks in our automated tests. At this point, we have written hundreds of QUnit tests. For example, we have written 135 QUnit tests for the Accordion control. The QUnit tests are included with the Ajax Control Toolkit source code in a project named AjaxControlToolkit.Tests. You can run all of the QUnit tests contained in the project by opening the Default.aspx page. Automating the QUnit Tests across Multiple Browsers Automated tests are useless if no one ever runs them. In order for the QUnit tests to be useful, we needed an easy way to run the tests automatically against a matrix of browsers. We wanted to run the unit tests against Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari automatically. Expecting a developer to run QUnit tests against every browser after every check-in is just too much to expect. It takes 20 seconds to run the Accordion QUnit tests. We are testing against 8 browsers. That would require the developer to open 8 browsers and wait for the results after each change in code. Too much work. Therefore, we built a JavaScript Test Server. Our JavaScript Test Server project was inspired by John Resig’s TestSwarm project. The JavaScript Test Server runs our QUnit tests in a swarm of browsers (running on different operating systems) automatically. Here’s how the JavaScript Test Server works: 1. We created an ASP.NET page named RunTest.aspx that constantly polls the JavaScript Test Server for a new set of QUnit tests to run. After the RunTest.aspx page runs the QUnit tests, the RunTest.aspx records the test results back to the JavaScript Test Server. 2. We opened the RunTest.aspx page on instances of Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Internet Explorer 9, FireFox, Chrome, Opera, Google, and Safari. Now that we have the JavaScript Test Server setup, we can run all of our QUnit tests against all of the browsers which we need to support with a single click of a button. A New Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit Each Month The Ajax Control Toolkit Issue Tracker contains over one thousand five hundred open issues and feature requests. So we have plenty of work on our plates J At CodePlex, anyone can vote for an issue to be fixed. Originally, we planned to fix issues in order of their votes. However, we quickly discovered that this approach was inefficient. Constantly switching back and forth between different controls was too time-consuming. It takes time to re-familiarize yourself with a control. Instead, we decided to focus on two or three controls each month and really focus on fixing the issues with those controls. This way, we can fix sets of related issues and avoid the randomization caused by context switching. Our team works in monthly sprints. We plan to do another release of the Ajax Control Toolkit each and every month. So far, we have competed one release of the Ajax Control Toolkit which was released on April 1, 2011. We plan to release a new version in early May. Conclusion Fortunately, I work with a team of smart developers. We currently have 5 developers working on the Ajax Control Toolkit (not full-time, they are also building two very cool ASP.NET MVC applications). All the developers who work on our team are required to have strong JavaScript, jQuery, and ASP.NET MVC skills. In the interest of being as transparent as possible about our work on the Ajax Control Toolkit, I plan to blog frequently about our team’s ongoing work. In my next blog entry, I plan to write about the two Ajax Control Toolkit controls which are the focus of our work for next release.

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• March 21st Links: ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, AJAX, Visual Studio, Silverlight

  - by ScottGu

  Here is the latest in my link-listing series. If you haven’t already, check out this month’s "Find a Hoster” page on the www.asp.net website to learn about great (and very inexpensive) ASP.NET hosting offers.  [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu] ASP.NET URL Routing in ASP.NET 4: Scott Mitchell has a nice article that talks about the new URL routing features coming to Web Forms applications with ASP.NET 4.  Also check out my previous blog post on this topic. Control of Web Control ClientID Values in ASP.NET 4: Scott Mitchell has a nice article that describes how it is now easy to control the client “id” value emitted by server controls with ASP.NET 4. Web Deployment Made Awesome: Very nice MIX10 talk by Scott Hanselman on the new web deployment features coming with VS 2010, MSDeploy, and .NET 4.  Makes deploying web applications much, much easier. ASP.NET 4’s Browser Capabilities Support: Nice blog post by Stephen Walther that talks about the new browser definition capabilities support coming with ASP.NET 4. Integrating Twitter into an ASP.NET Website: Nice article by Scott Mitchell that demonstrates how to call and integrate Twitter from within your ASP.NET applications. Improving CSS with .LESS: Nice article by Scott Mitchell that describes how to optimize CSS using .LESS – a free, open source library. ASP.NET MVC Upgrading ASP.NET MVC 1 applications to ASP.NET MVC 2: Eilon Lipton from the ASP.NET team has a nice post that describes how to easily upgrade your ASP.NET MVC 1 applications to ASP.NET MVC 2.  He has an automated tool that makes this easy. Note that automated MVC upgrade support is also built-into VS 2010.  Use the tool in this blog post for updating existing MVC projects using VS 2008. Advanced ASP.NET MVC 2: Nice video talk by Brad Wilson of the ASP.NET MVC team.  In it he describes some of the more advanced features in ASP.NET MVC 2 and how to maximize your productivity with them. Dynamic Select Lists with ASP.NET MVC and jQuery: Michael Ceranski has a nice blog post that describes how to dynamically populate dropdownlists on the client using AJAX. AJAX Microsoft AJAX Minifier: We recently shipped an updated minifier utility that allows you to shrink/minify both JavaScript and CSS files – which can improve the performance of your web applications.  You can run this either manually as a command-line tool or now automatically integrate it using a Visual Studio build task.  You can download it for free here. Visual Studio VS 2010 Tip: Quickly Closing Documents: Nice blog post that describes some techniques for optimizing how windows are closed with the new VS 2010 IDE. Collpase to Definitions with Outlining: Nice tip from Zain on how to collapse your code editor to outline mode using Ctrl + M, Ctrl + O.  Also check out his post on copy/paste with outlining here. $299 VS 2010 Upgrade Offer for VS 2005/2008 Standard Users: Soma blogs about a nice VS 2010 upgrade offer you can take advantage of if you have VS 2005 or VS 2008 Standard editions.  For $299 you can upgrade to VS 2010 Professional edition. Dependency Graphics: Jason Zander (who runs the VS team) has a nice blog post that covers the new dependency graph support within VS 2010.  This makes it easier to visualize the dependencies within your application.  Also check out this video here. Layer Validation: Jason Zander has a nice blog post that talks about the new layer validation features in VS 2010.  This enables you to enforce cleaner layering within your projects and solutions.  VS 2010 Profiler Blog: The VS 2010 Profiler Team has their own blog and on it you can find a bunch of nice posts from the last few months that talk about a lot of the new features coming with VS 2010’s Profiler support.  Some really nice features coming. Silverlight Silverlight 4 Training Course: Nice free set of training courses from Microsoft that can help bring you up to speed on all of the new Silverlight 4 features and how to build applications with them.  Updated and current with the recently released Silverlight 4 RC build and tools. Getting Started with Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 Development: Nice blog post by Tim Heuer that summarizes how to get started building Windows Phone 7 applications using Silverlight.  Also check out my blog post from last week on how to build a Windows Phone 7 Twitter application using Silverlight. A Guide to What Has Changed with the Silverlight 4 RC: Nice summary post by Tim Heuer that describes all of the things that have changed between the Silverlight 4 Beta and the Silverlight 4 RC. Path Based Layout - Part 1 and Part 2: Christian Schormann has a nice blog post about a really cool new feature in Expression Blend 4 and Silverlight 4 called Path Layout. Also check out Andy Beaulieu’s blog post on this. Hope this helps, Scott

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• Oracle Announces New Oracle Exastack Program for ISV Partners

  - by pfolgado

  Oracle Exastack Program Enables ISV Partners to Leverage a Scalable, Integrated Infrastructure to Deliver Their Applications Tuned and Optimized for High-Performance News Facts Enabling Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and other members of Oracle Partner Network (OPN) to rapidly build and deliver faster, more reliable applications to end customers, Oracle today introduced Oracle Exastack Ready, available now, and Oracle Exastack Optimized, available in fall 2011 through OPN. The Oracle Exastack Program focuses on helping ISVs run their solutions on Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud -- integrated systems in which the software and hardware are engineered to work together. These products provide partners with a lower cost and high performance infrastructure for database and application workloads across on-premise and cloud based environments. Leveraging the new Oracle Exastack Program in which applications can qualify as Oracle Exastack Ready or Oracle Exastack Optimized, partners can use available OPN resources to optimize their applications to run faster and more reliably -- providing increased performance to their end users. By deploying their applications on Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, ISVs can reduce the cost, time and support complexities typically associated with building and maintaining a disparate application infrastructure -- enabling them to focus more on their core competencies, accelerating innovation and delivering superior value to customers. After qualifying their applications as Oracle Exastack Ready, partners can note to customers that their applications run on and support Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud component products including Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server. Customers can be confident when choosing a partner's Oracle Exastack Optimized application, knowing it has been tuned by the OPN member on Oracle Exadata Database Machine or Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud with a goal of delivering optimum speed, scalability and reliability. Partners participating in the Oracle Exastack Program can also leverage their Oracle Exastack Ready and Oracle Exastack Optimized applications to advance to Platinum or Diamond level in OPN. Oracle Exastack Programs Provide ISVs a Reliable, High-Performance Application Infrastructure With the Oracle Exastack Program ISVs have several options to qualify and tune their applications with Oracle Exastack, including: Oracle Exastack Ready: Oracle Exastack Ready provides qualifying partners with specific branding and promotional benefits based on their adoption of Oracle products. If a partner application supports the latest major release of one of these products, the partner may use the corresponding logo with their product marketing materials: Oracle Solaris Ready, Oracle Linux Ready, Oracle Database Ready, and Oracle WebLogic Ready. Oracle Exastack Ready is available to OPN members at the Gold level or above. Additionally, OPN members participating in the program can leverage their Oracle Exastack Ready applications toward advancement to the Platinum or Diamond levels in the OPN Specialized program and toward achieving Oracle Exastack Optimized status. Oracle Exastack Optimized: When available, for OPN members at the Gold level or above, Oracle Exastack Optimized will provide direct access to Oracle technical resources and dedicated Oracle Exastack lab environments so OPN members can test and tune their applications to deliver optimal performance and scalability on Oracle Exadata Database Machine or Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. Oracle Exastack Optimized will provide OPN members with specific branding and promotional benefits including the use of the Oracle Exastack Optimized logo. OPN members participating in the program will also be able to leverage their Oracle Exastack Optimized applications toward advancement to Platinum or Diamond level in the OPN Specialized program. Oracle Exastack Labs and ISV Enablement: Dedicated Oracle Exastack lab environments and related technical enablement resources (including Guided Learning Paths and Boot Camps) will be available through OPN for OPN members to further their knowledge of Oracle Exastack offerings, and qualify their applications for Oracle Exastack Optimized or Oracle Exastack Ready. Oracle Exastack labs will be available to qualifying OPN members at the Gold level or above. Partners are eligible to participate in the Oracle Exastack Ready program immediately, which will help them meet the requirements to attain Oracle Exastack Optimized status in the future. Guidelines for Oracle Exastack Optimized, as well as Oracle Exastack Labs will be available in fall 2011. Supporting Quotes "In order to effectively differentiate their software applications in the marketplace, ISVs need to rapidly deliver new capabilities and performance improvements," said Judson Althoff, Oracle senior vice president of Worldwide Alliances and Channels and Embedded Sales. "With Oracle Exastack, ISVs have the ability to optimize and deploy their applications with a complete, integrated and cloud-ready infrastructure that will help them accelerate innovation, unlock new features and functionality, and deliver superior value to customers." "We view performance as absolutely critical and a key differentiator," said Tom Stock, SVP of Product Management, GoldenSource. "As a leading provider of enterprise data management solutions for securities and investment management firms, with Oracle Exadata Database Machine, we see an opportunity to notably improve data processing performance -- providing high quality 'golden copy' data in a reduced timeframe. Achieving Oracle Exastack Optimized status will be a stamp of approval that our solution will provide the performance and scalability that our customers demand." "As a leading provider of Revenue Intelligence solutions for telecommunications, media and entertainment service providers, our customers continually demand more readily accessible, enriched and pre-analyzed information to minimize their financial risks and maximize their margins," said Alon Aginsky, President and CEO of cVidya Networks. "Oracle Exastack enables our solutions to deliver the power, infrastructure, and innovation required to transform our customers' business operations and stay ahead of the game." Supporting Resources Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Oracle Exastack Oracle Exastack Datasheet Judson Althoff blog Connect with the Oracle Partner community at OPN on Facebook, OPN on LinkedIn, OPN on YouTube, or OPN on Twitter

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• SQLAuthority News – A Successful Community TechDays at Ahmedabad – December 11, 2010

  - by pinaldave

  We recently had one of the best community events in Ahmedabad. We were fortunate that we had SQL Experts from around the world to have presented at this event. This gathering was very special because besides Jacob Sebastian and myself, we had two other speakers traveling all the way from Florida (Rushabh Mehta) and Bangalore (Vinod Kumar).There were a total of nearly 170 attendees and the event was blast. Here are the details of the event. Pinal Dave Presenting at Community Tech Days On the day of the event, it seemed to be the coldest day in Ahmedabad but I was glad to see hundreds of people waiting for the doors to be opened some hours before. We started the day with hot coffee and cookies. Yes, food first; and it was right after my keynote. I could clearly see that the coffee did some magic right away; the hall was almost full after the coffee break. Jacob Sebastian Presenting at Community Tech Days Jacob Sebastian, an SQL Server MVP and a close friend of mine, had an unusual job of surprising everybody with an innovative topic accompanied with lots of question-and-answer portions. That’s definitely one thing to love Jacob, that is, the novelty of the subject. His presentation was entitled “Best Database Practices for the .Net”; it really created magic on the crowd. Pinal Dave Presenting at Community Tech Days Next to Jacob Sebastian, I presented “Best Database Practices for the SharePoint”. It was really fun to present Database with the perspective of the database itself. The main highlight of my presentation was when I talked about how one can speed up the database performance by 40% for SharePoint in just 40 seconds. It was fun because the most important thing was to convince people to use the recommendation as soon as they walk out of the session. It was really amusing and the response of the participants was remarkable. Pinal Dave Presenting at Community Tech Days My session was followed by the most-awaited session of the day: that of Rushabh Mehta. He is an international BI expert who traveled all the way from Florida to present “Self Service BI” session. This session was funny and truly interesting. In fact, no one knew BI could be this much entertaining and fascinating. Rushabh has an appealing style of presenting the session; he instantly got very much interaction from the audience. Rushabh Mehta Presenting at Community Tech Days We had a networking lunch break in-between, when we talked about many various topics. It is always interesting to get in touch with the Community and feel a part of it. I had a wonderful time during the break. Vinod Kumar Presenting at Community Tech Days After lunch was apparently the most difficult session for the presenter as during this time, many people started to fall sleep and get dizzy. This spot was requested by Microsoft SQL Server Evangelist Vinod Kumar himself. During our discussion he suggested that if he gets this slot he would make sure people are up and more interactive than during the morning session. Just like always, this session was one of the best sessions ever. Vinod is true to his word as he presented the subject of “Time Management for Developer”. This session was the biggest hit in the event because the subject was instilled in the mind of every participant. Vinod Kumar Presenting at Community Tech Days Vinod’s session was followed by his own small session. Due to “insistent public demand”, he presented an interesting subject, “Tricks and Tips of SQL Server“. In 20 minutes he has done another awesome job and all attendees wanted more of the tricks. Just as usual he promised to do that next time for us. Vinod’s session was succeeded by Prabhjot Singh Bakshi’s session. He presented an appealing Silverlight concept. Just the same, he did a great job and people cheered him. Prabhjot Presenting at Community Tech Days We had a special invited speaker, Dhananjay Kumar, traveling all the way from Pune. He always supports our cause to help the Community in empowering participants. He presented the topic about Win7 Mobile and SharePoint integration. This was something many did not even expect to be possible. Kudos to Dhananjay for doing a great job. Dhananjay Kumar Presenting at Community Tech Days All in all, this event was one of the best in the Community Tech Days series in Ahmedabad. We were fortunate that legends from the all over the world were present here to present to the Community. I’d say never underestimate the power of the Community and its influence over the direction of the technology. Vinod Kumar Presenting trophy to Pinal Dave Vinod Kumar Presenting trophy to Pinal Dave This event was a very special gathering to me personally because of your support to the vibrant Community. The following awards were won for last year’s performance: Ahmedabad SQL Server User Group (President: Jacob Sebastian; Leader: Pinal Dave) – Best Tier 2 User Group Best Development Community Individual Contributor – Pinal Dave Speakers I was very glad to receive the award for our entire Community. Attendees at Community Tech Days I want to say thanks to Rushabh Mehta, Vinod Kumar and Dhananjay Kumar for visiting the city and presenting various technology topics in Community Tech Days. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: MVP, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• Framework 4 Features: Summary of Security enhancements

  - by Anthony Shorten

  In the last log entry I mentioned one of the new security features in Oracle Utilities Application Framework 4.0.1. Security is one of the major "tent poles" (to borrow a phrase from Steve Jobs) in this release of the framework. There are a number of security related enhancements requested by customers and as a result of internal reviews that we have introduced. Here is a summary of some of the security enchancements we have added in this release: Security Cache Changes - Security authorization information is automatically cached on the server for performance reasons (security is checked for every single call the product makes for all modes of access). Prior to this release the cache auto-refreshed every 30 minutes (or so). This has beem made more nimble by supporting a cache refresh every minute (or so). This means authorization changes are reflected quicker than before. Business Level security - Business Services are configurable services that are based upon Application Services. Typically, the business service inherited its security profile from its parent service. Whilst this is sufficient for most needs, it is now required to further specify security on the Business Service definition itself. This will allow granular security and allow the same application service to be exposed as different Business Services with their own security. This is particularly useful when you base a Business Service on a query zone. User Propogation - As with other client server applications, the database connections are pooled and shared as needed. This means that a common database user is used to access the database from the pool to allow sharing. Unfortunently, this means that tracability at the database level is that much harder. In Oracle Utilities Application Framework V4 the end userid is now propogated to the database using the CLIENT_IDENTIFIER as part of the Oracle JDBC connection API. This not only means that the common database userid is still used but the end user is indentifiable for the duration of the database call. This can be used for monitoring or to hook into Oracle's database security products. This enhancement is only available to Oracle Database customers. Enhanced Security Definitions - Security Administrators use the product browser front end to control access rights of defined users. While this is sufficient for most sites, a new security portal has been introduced to speed up the maintenance of security information. Oracle Identity Manager Integration - With the popularity of Oracle's Identity Management Suite, the Framework now provides an integration adapter and Identity Manager Generic Transport Connector (GTC) to allow users and group membership to be provisioned to any Oracle Utilities Application Framework based product from Oracle's Identity Manager. This is also available for Oracle Utilties Application Framework V2.2 customers. Refer to My Oracle Support KBid 970785.1 - Oracle Identity Manager Integration Overview. Audit On Inquiry - Typically the configurable audit facility in the Oracle Utilities Application Framework is used to audit changes to records. In Oracle Utilities Application Framework the Business Services and Service Scripts could be configured to audit inquiries as well. Now it is possible to attach auditing capabilities to zones on the product (including base package ones). Time Zone Support - In some of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework based products, the timezone of the end user is a factor in the processing. The user object has been extended to allow the recording of time zone information for use in product functionality. JAAS Suport - Internally the Oracle Utilities Application Framework uses a number of techniques to validate and transmit security information across the architecture. These various methods have been reconciled into using Java Authentication and Authorization Services for standardized security. This is strictly an internal change with no direct on how security operates externally. JMX Based Cache Management - In the last bullet point, I mentioned extra security applied to cache management from the browser. Alternatively a JMX based interface is now provided to allow IT operations to control the cache without the browser interface. This JMX capability can be initiated from a JSR120 compliant JMX console or JMX browser. I will be writing another more detailed blog entry on the JMX enhancements as it is quite a change and an exciting direction for the product line. Data Patch Permissions - The database installer provided with the product required lower levels of security for some operations. At some sites they wanted the ability for non-DBA's to execute the utilities in a controlled fashion. The framework now allows feature configuration to allow delegation for patch execution. User Enable Support - At some sites, the use of temporary staff such as contractors is commonplace. In this scenario, temporary security setups were required and used. A potential issue has arisen when the contractor left the company. Typically the IT group would remove the contractor from the security repository to prevent login using that contractors userid but the userid could NOT be removed from the authorization model becuase of audit requirements (if any user in the product updates financials or key data their userid is recorded for audit purposes). It is now possible to effectively diable the user from the security model to prevent any use of the useridwhilst retaining audit information. These are a subset of the security changes in Oracle Utilities Application Framework. More details about the security capabilities of the product is contained in My Oracle Support KB Id 773473.1 - Oracle Utilities Application Framework Security Overview.

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• SQL SERVER – Database Dynamic Caching by Automatic SQL Server Performance Acceleration

  - by pinaldave

  My second look at SafePeak’s new version (2.1) revealed to me few additional interesting features. For those of you who hadn’t read my previous reviews SafePeak and not familiar with it, here is a quick brief: SafePeak is in business of accelerating performance of SQL Server applications, as well as their scalability, without making code changes to the applications or to the databases. SafePeak performs database dynamic caching, by caching in memory result sets of queries and stored procedures while keeping all those cache correct and up to date. Cached queries are retrieved from the SafePeak RAM in microsecond speed and not send to the SQL Server. The application gets much faster results (100-500 micro seconds), the load on the SQL Server is reduced (less CPU and IO) and the application or the infrastructure gets better scalability. SafePeak solution is hosted either within your cloud servers, hosted servers or your enterprise servers, as part of the application architecture. Connection of the application is done via change of connection strings or adding reroute line in the c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file on all application servers. For those who would like to learn more on SafePeak architecture and how it works, I suggest to read this vendor’s webpage: SafePeak Architecture. More interesting new features in SafePeak 2.1 In my previous review of SafePeak new I covered the first 4 things I noticed in the new SafePeak (check out my article “SQLAuthority News – SafePeak Releases a Major Update: SafePeak version 2.1 for SQL Server Performance Acceleration”): Cache setup and fine-tuning – a critical part for getting good caching results Database templates Choosing which database to cache Monitoring and analysis options by SafePeak Since then I had a chance to play with SafePeak some more and here is what I found. 5. Analysis of SQL Performance (present and history): In SafePeak v.2.1 the tools for understanding of performance became more comprehensive. Every 15 minutes SafePeak creates and updates various performance statistics. Each query (or a procedure execute) that arrives to SafePeak gets a SQL pattern, and after it is used again there are statistics for such pattern. An important part of this product is that it understands the dependencies of every pattern (list of tables, views, user defined functions and procs). From this understanding SafePeak creates important analysis information on performance of every object: response time from the database, response time from SafePeak cache, average response time, percent of traffic and break down of behavior. One of the interesting things this behavior column shows is how often the object is actually pdated. The break down analysis allows knowing the above information for: queries and procedures, tables, views, databases and even instances level. The data is show now on all arriving queries, both read queries (that can be cached), but also any types of updates like DMLs, DDLs, DCLs, and even session settings queries. The stats are being updated every 15 minutes and SafePeak dashboard allows going back in time and investigating what happened within any time frame. 6. Logon trigger, for making sure nothing corrupts SafePeak cache data If you have an application with many parts, many servers many possible locations that can actually update the database, or the SQL Server is accessible to many DBAs or software engineers, each can access some database directly and do some changes without going thru SafePeak – this can create a potential corruption of the data stored in SafePeak cache. To make sure SafePeak cache is correct it needs to get all updates to arrive to SafePeak, and if a DBA will access the database directly and do some changes, for example, then SafePeak will simply not know about it and will not clean SafePeak cache. In the new version, SafePeak brought a new feature called “Logon Trigger” to solve the above challenge. By special click of a button SafePeak can deploy a special server logon trigger (with a CLR object) on your SQL Server that actually monitors all connections and informs SafePeak on any connection that is coming not from SafePeak. In SafePeak dashboard there is an interface that allows to control which logins can be ignored based on login names and IPs, while the rest will invoke cache cleanup of SafePeak and actually locks SafePeak cache until this connection will not be closed. Important to note, that this does not interrupt any logins, only informs SafePeak on such connection. On the Dashboard screen in SafePeak you will be able to see those connections and then decide what to do with them. Configuration of this feature in SafePeak dashboard can be done here: Settings -> SQL instances management -> click on instance -> Logon Trigger tab. Other features: 7. User management ability to grant permissions to someone without changing its configuration and only use SafePeak as performance analysis tool. 8. Better reports for analysis of performance using 15 minute resolution charts. 9. Caching of client cursors 10. Support for IPv6 Summary SafePeak is a great SQL Server performance acceleration solution for users who want immediate results for sites with performance, scalability and peak spikes challenges. Especially if your apps are packaged or 3rd party, since no code changes are done. SafePeak can significantly increase response times, by reducing network roundtrip to the database, decreasing CPU resource usage, eliminating I/O and storage access. SafePeak team provides a free fully functional trial www.safepeak.com/download and actually provides a one-on-one assistance during such trial. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

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• How to Find Office 2003 Commands in Office 2010

  - by Matthew Guay

  Are you new to the ribbon interface in Office 2010?  Here’s how you can get up to speed and learn where everything is quickly and easily. Microsoft has made an interactive guide to Office 2010’s new interface to help users learn their way around the new version.  If you’ve already used Office 2007, then Office 2010 will be very easy to transition to, but if you’re still using Office 2003 you may find the learning curve more steep.  With this interactive guide, upgrading your Office skills doesn’t have to be hard. Learn Your Way Around the Office Ribbon Open the Office 2010 interactive guides site (link below) in your browser, and select the Office app you want to explore. The guides are powered by Silverlight, so if you don’t already have it installed you will be prompted to do so. Once the guide has loaded, click Start to begin. Select any menu or toolbar item in the Office 2003 mockup.  A tooltip will appear to show you how to find this option in Word 2010. If you click the item, the interface will switch to an Office 2010 mockup and will interactively show you how to access this feature.  The Thumbnails view isn’t available by default in Word 2010, so it shows us how to add it to the ribbon.  When you’ve figured this command out, click anywhere to go back to the Office 2003 mockup and find another item. Currently the guides are available for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but the site says that guides for the other Office apps will be available soon.  Here’s the PowerPoint guide showing where the Rehearse Timings option is in PowerPoint 2010. Install the Interactive Guides to Your Computer You can also install the guides to your computer so you can easily access them even if you’re not online.  Open the guide you want to install, and click the Install button in the top right corner of the guide. Choose where you want the shortcuts, and click Ok. Here’s the Interactive Word 2010 guide installed on our computer.  The downloaded version seemed to work faster in our tests, likely because all the content was already saved to the computer.  If you decide you don’t need it any more, click Uninstall in the top right corner. Download Office Cheat Sheets If you’d like a cheat-sheet of Office commands that have changed or are new in Office 2010, Microsoft’s got that for you, too.  You can download Office reference workbooks (link below) that show how to access each item that was in Office 2003’s menus.  Here’s the Word guide showing where each of Word 2003’s commands from the help menu are in Word 2010. Learn Your Way Around Office 2007, Too! Microsoft offers similar interactive guides for learning the ribbon in Office 2007, so if you’re still using Office 2007 but can’t find a command, feel free to check it out as well (link below).  Guides are available for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook 2007.  You can also download cheat sheets for Office 2007 at this site as well.  Here’s the tutorial showing us where the font options are in PowerPoint 2007. Conclusion We have found the ribbon interface to be a great addition to Office, but if you’ve got years of Office 2003 experience under your belt you may find it difficult to locate your favorite commands.  These tutorials can help you use your old Office knowledge to learn Office 2010 or 2007 in a quick and easy way! Links Office 2010 interactive guide Download Office 2010 reference workbooks Office 2007 interactive guide Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Find Commands and Functions in Office 2007 the Easy WayMake Excel 2007 Always Save in Excel 2003 FormatMake Word 2007 Always Save in Word 2003 FormatAdd or Remove Apps from the Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 SuiteCreate a Customized Tab on the Office 2010 Ribbon TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird

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• Mobile HCM: It’s not the future, it is right now

  - by Natalia Rachelson

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* 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:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} A guest post by Steve Boese, Director Product Strategy, Oracle I’ll bet you reached for your iPhone or Android or BlackBerry and took a quick look at email or Facebook or last night’s text messages before you even got out of bed this morning. Come on, admit it, it’s ok, you are among friends here. See, feel better now? But seriously, the incredible growth and near-ubiquity of increasingly powerful, capable, and for many of us, essential in our daily lives mobile devices has profoundly changed the way we communicate, consume information, socialize, and more and more, conduct business and get our work done. And if you doubt that profound change has happened, just think for a moment about the last time you misplaced your iPhone.  The shivers, the cold sweats, the panic... We have all been there. And indeed your personal experiences with mobile technology echoes throughout the world - here are a few data points to consider: Market research firm IDC estimates 1.8 billion mobile phones will be shipped in 2012. A recent Pew study reports 46% of Americans own a smartphone of some kind. And finally in the USA, ownership of tablets like the iPad has doubled from 10% to 19% in the last year. So truly for the Human Resources leader, the question is no longer, ‘Should HR explore ways to exploit mobile devices and their always-on nature to better support and empower the modern workforce?’, but rather ‘How can HR best take advantage of smartphone and tablet capability to provide information, enable transactions, and enhance decision making?’. Because even though moving HCM applications to mobile devices seems inherently logical given today’s fast-moving and mobile workforces, and its promise to deliver incredible value to the organization, HR leaders also have to consider many factors before devising their Mobile HCM strategy and embarking on mobile HR technology projects. Here are just some of the important considerations for HR leaders as you build your strategies and evaluate mobile HCM solutions: Does your organization provide mobile devices to the workforce today, and if so, will the current set of deployed devices have the necessary capability and ecosystems to support your mobile HCM initiatives? Will you allow workers to use or bring their own mobile devices, (commonly abbreviated as ‘BYOD’), and if so are your IT and Security organizations in agreement and capable of supporting that strategy? Do you know which workers need access to mobile HCM applications? Often mobile HCM capability flows down in an organization, with executives and other ‘road-warrior’ types having the most immediate needs, followed by field sales staff, project managers, and even potential job candidates. But just as an organization will have to spend time understanding ‘who’ should have access to mobile HCM technology, the ‘what’ of the way the solutions should be deployed to these groups will also vary. What works and makes sense for the executive, (company-wide dashboards and analytics on an iPad), might not be as relevant for a retail store manager, (employee schedules, location-level sales and inventory data, transaction approvals, etc.). With Oracle Fusion HCM, we are taking an approach to mobile HR that encompasses not just the mobile solution needs for the various types of worker, but also incorporates the fundamental attributes of great mobile applications - the ability to support end-to-end transactions, apps that respond with lightning-fast speed, with functions that are embedded in a worker’s daily activities, and features that can be mashed-up easily with other business areas like Finance and CRM. Finally, and perhaps most importantly for the Oracle Fusion HCM team, delivering mobile experiences that truly enhance, enable, and empower the mobile workforce, and deliver on the design mantras of the best-in-class consumer applications, continues to shape and drive design decisions. Mobile is no longer the future, it is right now, and the cutting-edge HR leader of today will need to consider how mobile fits her HCM technology strategy from here on out. You can learn more about our ideas and plans for Oracle Fusion HCM mobile solutions at https://fusiontap.oracle.com/.

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• “Being Agile” Means No Documentation, Right?

  - by jesschadwick

  Ask most software professionals what Agile is and they’ll probably start talking about flexibility and delivering what the customer wants.  Some may even mention the word “iterations”.  But inevitably, they’ll say at some point that it means less or even no documentation.  After all, doesn’t creating, updating, and circulating painstakingly comprehensive documentation that everyone and their mother have officially signed off on go against the very core of Agile?  Of course it does!  But really, they’re missing the point! Read The Agile Manifesto. (No, seriously - read it now. It’s short. I’ll wait.)  It’s essentially a list of values.  More specifically, it’s a right-side/left-side weighted list of values:  “Value this over that”. Many people seem to get the impression that this is really a “good vs. bad” list and that those values on the right side are evil and should essentially be tossed on the floor.  This leads to the conclusion that in order to be Agile we must throw away our fancy expensive tools, document as little as possible, and scoff at the idea of a project plan.  This conclusion is quite convenient because it essentially means “less work, more productivity!” (particularly in regards to the documentation and project planning).  I couldn’t disagree with this conclusion more. My interpretation of the Manifesto targets “over” as the operative word.  It’s not just a list of right vs. wrong or good vs. bad.  It’s a list of priorities.  In other words, none of the concepts on the list should be removed from your development lifecycle – they are all important… just not equally important.  This is not a unique interpretation, in fact it says so right at the end of the manifesto! So, the next time your team sits down to tackle that big new project, don’t make the first order of business to outlaw all meetings, documentation, and project plans.  Instead, collaborate with both your team and the business members involved (you do have business members sitting in the room, directly involved in the project planning, right?) and determine the bare minimum that will allow all of you to work and communicate in the best way possible.  This often means that you can pick and choose which parts of the Agile methodologies and process work for your particular project and end up with an amalgamation of Waterfall, Agile, XP, SCRUM and whatever other methodologies the members of your team have been exposed to (my favorite is “SCRUMerfall”). The biggest implication of this is that there is no one way to implement Agile.  There is no checklist with which you can tick off boxes and confidently conclude that, “Yep, we’re Agile™!”  In fact, depending on your business and the members of your team, moving to Agile full-bore may actually be ill-advised.  Such a drastic change just ends up taking everyone out of their comfort zone which they inevitably fall back into by the end of the project.  This often results in frustration to the point that Agile is abandoned altogether because “we just need to ship something!”  Needless to say, this is far more devastating to a project. Instead, I offer this approach: keep it simple and take it slow.  If your business members or customers are only involved at the beginning phases and nowhere to be seen until the project is delivered, invite them to your daily meetings; encourage them to keep up to speed on what’s going on on a daily basis and provide feedback.  If your current process is heavy on the documentation, try to reduce it as opposed to eliminating it outright.  If you need a “TPS Change Request” signed in triplicate with a 5-day “cooling off period” before a change is implemented, try a simple bug tracking system!  Tighten the feedback loop! Finally, at the end of every “iteration” (whatever that means to you, as long as it’s relatively frequent), take as much time as you can spare (even if it’s an hour or so) and perform some kind of retrospective.  Learn from your mistakes.  Figure out what’s working for you and what’s not, then fix it.  Before you know it you’ve got a handful of iterations and/or projects under your belt and you sit down with your team to realize that, “Hey, this is working - we’re pretty Agile!”  After all, Agile is a Zen journey.  It’s a destination that you aim for, not force, and even if you never reach true “enlightenment” that doesn’t mean your team can’t be exponentially better off from merely taking the journey.

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• Create a Persistent Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  Don’t feel like reinstalling an antivirus program every time you boot up your Ubuntu flash drive? We’ll show you how to create a bootable Ubuntu flash drive that will remember your settings, installed programs, and more! Previously, we showed you how to create a bootable Ubuntu flash drive that would reset to its initial state every time you booted it up. This is great if you’re worried about messing something up, and want to start fresh every time you start tinkering with Ubuntu. However, if you’re using the Ubuntu flash drive to diagnose and solve problems with your PC, you might find that a lot of problems require guess-and-test cycles. It would be great if the settings you change in Ubuntu and the programs you install stay installed the next time you boot it up. Fortunately, Universal USB Installer, a great little program from Pen Drive Linux, can do just that! Note: You will need a USB drive at least 2 GB large. Make sure you back up any files on the flash drive because this process will format the drive, removing any files currently on it. Once Ubuntu has been installed on the flash drive, you can move those files back if there is enough space. Put Ubuntu on your flash drive Universal-USB-Installer.exe does not need to be installed, so just double click on it to run it wherever you downloaded it. Click Yes if you get a UAC prompt, and you will be greeted with this window. Click I Agree. In the drop-down box on the next screen, select Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop i386. Don’t worry if you normally use 64-bit operating systems – the 32-bit version of Ubuntu 9.10 will still work fine. Some useful tools do not have 64-bit versions, so unless you’re planning on switching to Ubuntu permanently, the 32-bit version will work best. If you don’t have a copy of the Ubuntu 9.10 CD downloaded, then click on the checkbox to Download the ISO. You’ll be prompted to launch a web browser; click Yes. The download should start immediately. When it’s finished, return the the Universal USB Installer and click on Browse to navigate to the ISO file you just downloaded. Click OK and the text field will be populated with the path to the ISO file. Select the drive letter that corresponds to the flash drive that you would like to use from the dropdown box. If you’ve backed up the files on this drive, we recommend checking the box to format the drive. Finally, you have to choose how much space you would like to set aside for the settings and programs that will be stored on the flash drive. Considering that Ubuntu itself only takes up around 700 MB, 1 GB should be plenty, but we’re choosing 2 GB in this example because we have lots of space on this USB drive. Click on the Create button and then make yourself a sandwich – it will take some time to install no matter how fast your PC is. Eventually it will finish. Click Close. Now you have a flash drive that will boot into a fully capable Ubuntu installation, and any changes you make will persist the next time you boot it up! Boot into Ubuntu If you’re not sure how to set your computer to boot using the USB drive, then check out the How to Boot Into Ubuntu section of our previous article on creating bootable USB drives, or refer to your motherboard’s manual. Once your computer is set to boot using the USB drive, you’ll be greeted with splash screen with some options. Press Enter to boot into Ubuntu. The first time you do this, it may take some time to boot up. Fortunately, we’ve found that the process speeds up on subsequent boots. You’ll be greeted with the Ubuntu desktop. Now, if you change settings like the desktop resolution, or install a program, those changes will be permanently stored on the USB drive! We installed avast! Antivirus, and on the next boot, found that it was still in the Accessories menu where we left it. Conclusion We think that a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive is a great tool to have around in case your PC has problems booting otherwise. By having the changes you make persist, you can customize your Ubuntu installation to be the ultimate computer repair toolkit! Download Universal USB Installer from Pen Drive Linux Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy WayCreate a Bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash DriveReset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CDHow-To Geek on Lifehacker: Control Your Computer with Shortcuts & Speed Up Vista SetupHow To Setup a USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 7 TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Test Drive Windows 7 Online Download Wallpapers From National Geographic Site Spyware Blaster v4.3 Yes, it’s Patch Tuesday Generate Stunning Tag Clouds With Tagxedo Install, Remove and HIDE Fonts in Windows 7

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• Silverlight 5 Hosting :: Features in Silverlight 5 and Release Date

  - by mbridge

  Silverlight 5 is finally announced in the Silverlight FireStarter Event on the 2nd December, 2010. This new version of Silverlight which was earlier labeled as 'Future of Microsoft Silverlight' has now come much closer to go live as the first Silverlight 5 Beta version is expected to be shipped during the early months of 2011. However for the full fledged and the final release of Silverlight 5, we have to wait many more months as the same is likely to be made available within the Q3 2011. As would have been usually expected, this latest edition would feature many new capabilities thereby extending the developer productivity to a whole new dimension of premium media experience and feature-rich business applications. It comes along with many new feature updates as well as the inclusion of new technologies to improve the standard of the Silverlight applications which are now fine-tuned to produce next generation business and media solutions that is capable to meet the requirements of the advanced web-based app development. The Silverlight 5 is all set to replace the previous fourth version which now includes more than forty new features while also dropping various deprecated elements that was prevalent earlier. It has brought around some major performance enhancements and also included better support for various other tools and technologies. Following are some of the changes that are registered to be available under the Silverlight 5 Beta edition which is scheduled to be launched during the Q1 2011. Silverlight 5 : Premium Media Experiences The media features of Silverlight 5 has seen some major enhancements with a lot of optimizations being made to deliver richer solutions. It's capability has now been extended to make things easier, faster and capable of performing the desired tasks in the most efficient manner. The Silverlight media solutions has already been a part of many companies in the recent days where various on-demand Silverlight services were featured but with the arrival of the next generation premium media solution of Silverlight 5, it is expected to register new heights of success and global user acclamation for using it with many esteemed web-based projects and media solutions. - The most happening element in the new Silverlight 5 will be its support for utilizing the GPU based hardware acceleration which is intended to lower down the CPU load to a significant extent and thereby allowing faster rendering of media contents without consuming much resources. This feature is believed to be particularly helpful for low configured machines to run full HD media content without any lagging caused due to processor load. It will hence be one great feature to revolutionize the new generation high quality media contents to be available within the web in a more efficient manner with its hardware decoded video playback capabilities. - With the inclusion of hardware video decoding to minimize the processor load, the Silverlight 5 also comes with another optimization enhancement to also reduce the power consumption level by making new methods to deal with the power-saver settings. With this optimization in effect, the computer would be automatically allowed to switch to sleep mode while no video playback is in progress and also to prevent any screensavers to popup and cause annoyances during any video playback. There would also be other power saver options which will be made available to best suit the users requirements and purpose. - The Silverlight trickplay feature is another great way to tweak any silverlight powered media content as is used for many video tutorial sites or for dealing with any sort of presentations. This feature enables the user to modify the playback speed to either slowdown or speedup during the playback durations based on the requirements without compromising on the quality of output. Normally such manipulations always makes the content's audio to go off-pitch, but the same will not be the case with TrickPlay and the audio would seamlessly progress with the video without skipping any of its part. - In addition to all of the above, the new Silverlight 5 will be featuring wireless control of all the media contents by making use of remote controllers. With the use of such remote devices, it will be easier to handle the various media playback controls thereby providing more freedom while experiencing the premium media services. Silverlight 5 : Business Application Development The application development standard has been extended with more possibilities by bringing forth new and useful technologies and also reviving the existing methods to work better than what it was used to. From the UI improvements to advanced technical aspects, the Silverlight 5 scores high on all grounds to produce great next generation business delivered applications by putting in more creativity and resourceful touch to all the apps being produced with it. - The WPF feature of Silverlight is made more effective by introducing new standards of Databinding which is intended to improve the productivity standards of the Silverlight application developer. It brings in a lot of convenience in debugging the databinding components or expressions and hence making things work in a flawless manner. Some additional features related to databinding includes that of Ancestor RelativeSource, Implicit DataTemplates and Model View ViewModel (MVVM) support with DataContextChanged event and many other new features relating it. - It now comes with a refined text and printing service which facilitates better clarity of the text rendering and also many positive changes which are being applied to the layout pattern. New supports has been added to include OpenType font, multi-column text, linked-text containers and character leading support to name a few among the available features.This also includes some important printing aspects like that of Postscript Vector Printing API which allows to program our printing tasks in a user defined way and Pivot functionality for visualization concerns of informations. - The Graphics support is the key improvements being incorporated which now enables to utilize three dimensional graphics pattern using GPU acceleration. It can manage to provide some really cool visualizations being curved to provide media contents within the business apps with also the support for full HD contents at 1080p quality. - Silverlight 5 includes the support for 64-bit operating systems and relevant browsers and is also optimized to provide better performance. It can support the background thread for the networking which can reduce the latency of the network to a considerable extent. The Out-of-Browser functionality adds the support for utilizing various libraries and also the Win32 API. It also comes with testing support with VS 2010 which is mostly an automated procedure and has also enabled increased security aspects of all the Silverlight 5 developed applications by using the improved version of group policy support.

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• 2 Days of Share &amp; Point

  - by Mark Rackley

  Groovy man… SharePoint Saturday Ozarks is back for 2010, bigger and better than before. Join us for a far out time and learn more about SharePoint in one day than you could in a year from the man… Yes! SharePoint Saturday Ozarks is back! SharePoint Saturday Ozarks is the largest SharePoint conference in Arkansas, Southern Missouri, and the very north east tip of Oklahoma. Last year we had a great turn out with 20 speakers, 5 MVPs, and attendees coming from Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana, Ohio, Alabama, Michigan, and Washington. Hey Man… what’s SharePoint Saturday anyway? Sounds like a conspiracy man… Not to worry, SharePoint Saturday is not an arm of the government bent on mind control or any attempt what-so-ever to bring you down man. SharePoint Saturday is grass roots effort started by Michael Lotter (http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/pages/about.aspx). It is a FREE one day event where the best SharePoint speakers gather to present their love, hatred, and frustrations of SharePoint to those lucky individuals who attend. Lessons are learned, contacts are made, prizes are won, food is eaten, assorted beverages are consumed until wee hours of the morning. SharePoint Saturday started with just a few sporadic one day events here and there. However, over the past year SharePoint Saturday has exploded and it’s hard to find a weekend where there is NOT a SharePoint Saturday event happing in some corner of the globe. There are even occasions where there are two SharePoint Saturdays on the same day! Many people are pleasantly surprised at the caliber of speakers at these SharePoint Saturday events. For the most part, these speakers are more eloquent, practiced, and practical than those speakers you find at the major multi-day conferences. These guys aren’t even paid to speak.. they do it out of love man… SharePoint Saturday Ozarks 2009 Alumni We had a star studded cast last year with many returning this year! Just check out the fun that they had… John Ferringer – Admin rockstar… I can still sense the awesomeness   SharePoint poster children Mike Watson & Laura Rogers     Lori Gowin spreading the SharePoint Love Eric Shupps is a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll       Cathy Dew, Sean McDonough, and JD Wade relaxing between gigs Actually, you can see real photos from last year’s SharePoint Saturday ozarks here:  picasaweb.google.com/mrackley/SharePointSaturdayOzarks#    What’s new for SharePoint Saturday Ozarks 2010 SharePoint Saturday Ozarks 2010 will totally blow your mind man. We’re getting the band back to together with many returning speakers and few new faces. Joel Oleson will be speaking this year, maybe he’ll grace us with his song stylings. Sadly, once again, Andrew Connell will not be able to attend SharePoint Saturday Ozarks, however he did feel the need to show his support in his own way. Prizes this year currently include books, software, a Zune HD, and much more! Wait Man… You said 2 days? I thought it was a one day event? Correct you are my herbal smelling friend… SharePoint Saturday Ozarks 2010 will spread the love an additional day this year. The first day will be all about the SharePoint love, on day 2 we will be taking a leisurely float down the Buffalo National River for those interested in a truly unique experience (no banjos allowed please).   Here are the details: WHAT 4 – 5 hour float down the Buffalo National River WHEN & WHERE Sunday June 13th. We will be leaving at 10am from the Parking Lot of: Gordon’s Motel & Canoe Rental Old Highway 7 Jasper, AR 72641 (870) 446-5252 Jasper is about 30 minutes south of Harrison, AR on Highway 7 South. You are responsible for bumming a ride to/from Gordon’s Motel, but they will be shuttling us to/from the river and providing canoes and a boxed lunch. WHAT ELSE? The float trip is dependent on the weather of course, we won’t be floating down the river in a thunderstorm, however I planned SPS Ozarks around a time of year ideal for floating. We aren’t talking class 5 rapids here, you don’t need any real skill, but you need to be okay with possibly tipping your canoe over once or twice. You can bring your own assorted beverages with you, but glass containers are not allowed on the river. I suggest a small cooler with extra snacks and drinks. Also bring clothing you can get wet in (these SharePoint people can get ornery). HOW DO I SIGN UP? When you register for SharePoint Saturday Ozarks, you will have the option to also sign up for the float trip. Seats are limited though! If you do not intend to go, please do not take someone else’s place.  The cost for the float trip will be about $35 dollars per person (which you are responsible for unless we find a sponsor). The price includes shuttle to/from river, canoe, life jackets, paddles, and boxed lunch. Far out man… how do I register??? You can register for SharePoint Saturday Ozarks by going to http://spsozarks.eventbrite.com/ We are limited to 200 people for the conference and 50 people for the float trip, so register today before we are sold out. Lodging for SharePoint Saturday Ozarks will once again take place at the Hotel Seville: Annex Suites are available for $103.20 This is So Groovy.. How can I help? I’m glad you asked! We are still looking for a few sponsors and one or two more speakers. If you are interested please let me know!  You can find out more information at http://www.sharepointsaturday.org/ozarks Hey… wait a minute…. what exactly IS SharePoint man??? Come to SharePoint Saturday Ozarks and find out!!  See you guys there!

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

  - by Chris Hoffman

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

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• A Guided Tour of Complexity

  - by JoshReuben

  I just re-read Complexity – A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell , protégé of Douglas Hofstadter ( author of “Gödel, Escher, Bach”) http://www.amazon.com/Complexity-Guided-Tour-Melanie-Mitchell/dp/0199798109/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339744329&sr=8-1 here are some notes and links:   Evolved from Cybernetics, General Systems Theory, Synergetics some interesting transdisciplinary fields to investigate: Chaos Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory – small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible. System Dynamics / Cybernetics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Dynamics – study of how feedback changes system behavior Network Theory - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_theory – leverage Graph Theory to analyze symmetric  / asymmetric relations between discrete objects Algebraic Topology - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algebraic_topology – leverage abstract algebra to analyze topological spaces There are limits to deterministic systems & to computation. Chaos Theory definitely applies to training an ANN (artificial neural network) – different weights will emerge depending upon the random selection of the training set. In recursive Non-Linear systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_system – output is not directly inferable from input. E.g. a Logistic map: Xt+1 = R Xt(1-Xt) Different types of bifurcations, attractor states and oscillations may occur – e.g. a Lorenz Attractor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_system Feigenbaum Constants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feigenbaum_constants express ratios in a bifurcation diagram for a non-linear map – the convergent limit of R (the rate of period-doubling bifurcations) is 4.6692016 Maxwell’s Demon - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon - the Second Law of Thermodynamics has only a statistical certainty – the universe (and thus information) tends towards entropy. While any computation can theoretically be done without expending energy, with finite memory, the act of erasing memory is permanent and increases entropy. Life & thought is a counter-example to the universe’s tendency towards entropy. Leo Szilard and later Claude Shannon came up with the Information Theory of Entropy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory) whereby Shannon entropy quantifies the expected value of a message’s information in bits in order to determine channel capacity and leverage Coding Theory (compression analysis). Ludwig Boltzmann came up with Statistical Mechanics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_mechanics – whereby our Newtonian perception of continuous reality is a probabilistic and statistical aggregate of many discrete quantum microstates. This is relevant for Quantum Information Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_information and the Physics of Information - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information. Hilbert’s Problems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_problems pondered whether mathematics is complete, consistent, and decidable (the Decision Problem – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entscheidungsproblem – is there always an algorithm that can determine whether a statement is true).  Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems  proved that mathematics cannot be both complete and consistent (e.g. “This statement is not provable”). Turing through the use of Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine symbol processors that can prove mathematical statements) and Universal Turing Machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Turing_machine Turing Machines that can emulate other any Turing Machine via accepting programs as well as data as input symbols) that computation is limited by demonstrating the Halting Problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem (is is not possible to know when a program will complete – you cannot build an infinite loop detector). You may be used to thinking of 1 / 2 / 3 dimensional systems, but Fractal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal systems are defined by self-similarity & have non-integer Hausdorff Dimensions !!!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fractals_by_Hausdorff_dimension – the fractal dimension quantifies the number of copies of a self similar object at each level of detail – eg Koch Snowflake - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_snowflake Definitions of complexity: size, Shannon entropy, Algorithmic Information Content (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_information_theory - size of shortest program that can generate a description of an object) Logical depth (amount of info processed), thermodynamic depth (resources required). Complexity is statistical and fractal. John Von Neumann’s other machine was the Self-Reproducing Automaton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine  . Cellular Automata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton are alternative form of Universal Turing machine to traditional Von Neumann machines where grid cells are locally synchronized with their neighbors according to a rule. Conway’s Game of Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life demonstrates various emergent constructs such as “Glider Guns” and “Spaceships”. Cellular Automatons are not practical because logical ops require a large number of cells – wasteful & inefficient. There are no compilers or general program languages available for Cellular Automatons (as far as I am aware). Random Boolean Networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_network are extensions of cellular automata where nodes are connected at random (not to spatial neighbors) and each node has its own rule –> they demonstrate the emergence of complex  & self organized behavior. Stephen Wolfram’s (creator of Mathematica, so give him the benefit of the doubt) New Kind of Science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science proposes the universe may be a discrete Finite State Automata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine whereby reality emerges from simple rules. I am 2/3 through this book. It is feasible that the universe is quantum discrete at the plank scale and that it computes itself – Digital Physics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics – a simulated reality? Anyway, all behavior is supposedly derived from simple algorithmic rules & falls into 4 patterns: uniform , nested / cyclical, random (Rule 30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_30) & mixed (Rule 110 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110 localized structures – it is this that is interesting). interaction between colliding propagating signal inputs is then information processing. Wolfram proposes the Principle of Computational Equivalence - http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrincipleofComputationalEquivalence.html - all processes that are not obviously simple can be viewed as computations of equivalent sophistication. Meaning in information may emerge from analogy & conceptual slippages – see the CopyCat program: http://cognitrn.psych.indiana.edu/rgoldsto/courses/concepts/copycat.pdf Scale Free Networks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network have a distribution governed by a Power Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law - much more common than Normal Distribution). They are characterized by hubs (resilience to random deletion of nodes), heterogeneity of degree values, self similarity, & small world structure. They grow via preferential attachment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_attachment – tipping points triggered by positive feedback loops. 2 theories of cascading system failures in complex systems are Self-Organized Criticality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organized_criticality and Highly Optimized Tolerance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_optimized_tolerance. Computational Mechanics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_mechanics – use of computational methods to study phenomena governed by the principles of mechanics. This book is a great intuition pump, but does not cover the more mathematical subject of Computational Complexity Theory – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_complexity_theory I am currently reading this book on this subject: http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Complexity-Christos-H-Papadimitriou/dp/0201530821/ref=pd_sim_b_1   stay tuned for that review!

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