Search Results

Search found 19115 results on 765 pages for 'region specific'.

Page 727/765 | < Previous Page | 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734  | Next Page >

• How To Start Your Own Professional Blog with WordPress

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to start your own blog or website?  With a free WordPress  account, it’s free and easy to get started creating your own professional quality blog site. This is the first part in a series on how to create your own professional quality blog site. No, we’re not talking about some cheapo looking blog from Blogger or something on Facebook, but creating a quality blog you can be proud of and present to millions of readers online. WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms, powering hundreds of high-profile websites and blogs around the world.  It’s both powerful and easy to use, which makes it great whether you’re just starting out or are a blogging pro.  To start out with your blogging project WordPress is completely free, and you can use the online interface or install the WordPress software on your own server and blog from there. Getting Started You can start a blog in just a few minutes.  Head over to WordPress.com and click Sign up now on the right-hand side of the main page. Enter a username and password, check that you agree with the legal terms, select the “Gimme a blog” bullet, and click Next. WordPress may inform you that your username is already taken, simply choose a new one and try again. Next, choose a domain for your blog.  This will be the address for your site, and cannot be changed, so be sure to choose exactly what you want.  If you’d prefer your address to be yourname.com instead of yourname.wordpress.com, you can add your own domain for a fee after your blog is setup…but we’ll cover that later. Once you click signup, you will be sent a confirmation email.  While you wait for the email to arrive you can go ahead and enter in your name and a short bio about yourself. When you receive your confirmation email, click the link.  Congratulations; you now have your own blog! You can view your new blog immediately, though the default theme isn’t very interesting without your content and pictures. Back on the page you opened from the email, click Login to access your blog’s administration page and to start adding stuff to your blog.  You can also access your blog’s admin page anytime by from yourname.wordpress.com/admin, substituting your own blog name for yourname. Enter your username and password, then click Log in to get started. Adding Content to your WordPress.com Blog When you sign in to your WordPress blog, you’ll first see the WordPress Admin page.  Here you can see recent posts and comments, and you can see stats of how many people have visited your site.  You can also access all of your blog tools and settings right from this page. To add a new post to your blog, click the Posts link on the left, then click “Add New” either on the left menu or on the top of the Edit Posts page.  Or, if you want to edit the default first post, hover over it and select Edit. Or click the New Posts button on the top of the page.  This menu bar is always visible whenever you’re logged in, so it’s an easy way to add a post. The editor lets you easily write anything you want in a Microsoft Word-style editor.  You can format your text, add lists, links, quotes, and more.  When you’re ready to share your content with the world, click Publish on the right side. To add pictures or other files, click the picture icon beside “Upload/Insert”.  Your free blog account can store up to 3Gb of pictures and documents which will definitely give you a good start. Click Select Files, and then choose the pictures or documents you want to add to your post. When the pictures have uploaded, you can add a caption and choose how to position the picture.  When you’re finished, select “Insert into Post”.   Or, if you want to add a video, click the video button.  You have to add a paid upgrade to upload videos directly, but you can add YouTube and other online videos for free. Click the “From URL” tab, and then paste the link to the YouTube video and click Insert into post. If you’re a code geek, click the HTML tab in the editor and edit the HTML of your blog post the geeky way. Once you’ve added all your content and edited it the way you want, click the Publish button on the right of the editor.  Or, you can click Preview to make sure it looks right, and then click Publish. Here’s our blog with the new blog post containing a picture and video.  While you’re getting to know you’re way around the controls in WordPress, the Preview feature will be your best friend while you try to organize the content to your liking.   Conclusion It only takes a couple minutes to get started blogging at WordPress.com. Whether you want to write about your daily life, share pictures of your children, or review the latest books and gadgets, WordPress.com is a great place to get started for free.  But we’ve only covered a small portion of the WordPress features…but this should get you started. Check back for more WordPress and blogging coverage coming up soon! Links Signup for a free WordPress.com account Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress BlogHow-To Geek SoftwareProtecting Your WordPress Admin Panel From Hackers With .htaccessMake a Backup Copy of your Production Wordpress Blog on UbuntuLinux QuickTip: Downloading and Un-tarring in One Step 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 Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job? Find Downloads and Add-ins for Outlook Recycle !

  Read the article

• ASP.NET MVC 3 Hosting :: New Features in ASP.NET MVC 3

  - by mbridge

  Razor View Engine The Razor view engine is a new view engine option for ASP.NET MVC that supports the Razor templating syntax. The Razor syntax is a streamlined approach to HTML templating designed with the goal of being a code driven minimalist templating approach that builds on existing C#, VB.NET and HTML knowledge. The result of this approach is that Razor views are very lean and do not contain unnecessary constructs that get in the way of you and your code. ASP.NET MVC 3 Preview 1 only supports C# Razor views which use the .cshtml file extension. VB.NET support will be enabled in later releases of ASP.NET MVC 3. For more information and examples, see Introducing “Razor” – a new view engine for ASP.NET on Scott Guthrie’s blog. Dynamic View and ViewModel Properties A new dynamic View property is available in views, which provides access to the ViewData object using a simpler syntax. For example, imagine two items are added to the ViewData dictionary in the Index controller action using code like the following: public ActionResult Index() {          ViewData["Title"] = "The Title";          ViewData["Message"] = "Hello World!"; } Those properties can be accessed in the Index view using code like this: <h2>View.Title</h2> <p>View.Message</p> There is also a new dynamic ViewModel property in the Controller class that lets you add items to the ViewData dictionary using a simpler syntax. Using the previous controller example, the two values added to the ViewData dictionary can be rewritten using the following code: public ActionResult Index() {     ViewModel.Title = "The Title";     ViewModel.Message = "Hello World!"; } “Add View” Dialog Box Supports Multiple View Engines The Add View dialog box in Visual Studio includes extensibility hooks that allow it to support multiple view engines, as shown in the following figure: Service Location and Dependency Injection Support ASP.NET MVC 3 introduces improved support for applying Dependency Injection (DI) via Inversion of Control (IoC) containers. ASP.NET MVC 3 Preview 1 provides the following hooks for locating services and injecting dependencies: - Creating controller factories. - Creating controllers and setting dependencies. - Setting dependencies on view pages for both the Web Form view engine and the Razor view engine (for types that derive from ViewPage, ViewUserControl, ViewMasterPage, WebViewPage). - Setting dependencies on action filters. Using a Dependency Injection container is not required in order for ASP.NET MVC 3 to function properly. Global Filters ASP.NET MVC 3 allows you to register filters that apply globally to all controller action methods. Adding a filter to the global filters collection ensures that the filter runs for all controller requests. To register an action filter globally, you can make the following call in the Application_Start method in the Global.asax file: GlobalFilters.Filters.Add(new MyActionFilter()); The source of global action filters is abstracted by the new IFilterProvider interface, which can be registered manually or by using Dependency Injection. This allows you to provide your own source of action filters and choose at run time whether to apply a filter to an action in a particular request. New JsonValueProviderFactory Class The new JsonValueProviderFactory class allows action methods to receive JSON-encoded data and model-bind it to an action-method parameter. This is useful in scenarios such as client templating. Client templates enable you to format and display a single data item or set of data items by using a fragment of HTML. ASP.NET MVC 3 lets you connect client templates easily with an action method that both returns and receives JSON data. Support for .NET Framework 4 Validation Attributes and IvalidatableObject The ValidationAttribute class was improved in the .NET Framework 4 to enable richer support for validation. When you write a custom validation attribute, you can use a new IsValid overload that provides a ValidationContext instance. This instance provides information about the current validation context, such as what object is being validated. This change enables scenarios such as validating the current value based on another property of the model. The following example shows a sample custom attribute that ensures that the value of PropertyOne is always larger than the value of PropertyTwo: public class CompareValidationAttribute : ValidationAttribute {     protected override ValidationResult IsValid(object value,              ValidationContext validationContext) {         var model = validationContext.ObjectInstance as SomeModel;         if (model.PropertyOne > model.PropertyTwo) {            return ValidationResult.Success;         }         return new ValidationResult("PropertyOne must be larger than PropertyTwo");     } } Validation in ASP.NET MVC also supports the .NET Framework 4 IValidatableObject interface. This interface allows your model to perform model-level validation, as in the following example: public class SomeModel : IValidatableObject {     public int PropertyOne { get; set; }     public int PropertyTwo { get; set; }     public IEnumerable<ValidationResult> Validate(ValidationContext validationContext) {         if (PropertyOne <= PropertyTwo) {            yield return new ValidationResult(                "PropertyOne must be larger than PropertyTwo");         }     } } New IClientValidatable Interface The new IClientValidatable interface allows the validation framework to discover at run time whether a validator has support for client validation. This interface is designed to be independent of the underlying implementation; therefore, where you implement the interface depends on the validation framework in use. For example, for the default data annotations-based validator, the interface would be applied on the validation attribute. Support for .NET Framework 4 Metadata Attributes ASP.NET MVC 3 now supports .NET Framework 4 metadata attributes such as DisplayAttribute. New IMetadataAware Interface The new IMetadataAware interface allows you to write attributes that simplify how you can contribute to the ModelMetadata creation process. Before this interface was available, you needed to write a custom metadata provider in order to have an attribute provide extra metadata. This interface is consumed by the AssociatedMetadataProvider class, so support for the IMetadataAware interface is automatically inherited by all classes that derive from that class (notably, the DataAnnotationsModelMetadataProvider class). New Action Result Types In ASP.NET MVC 3, the Controller class includes two new action result types and corresponding helper methods. HttpNotFoundResult Action The new HttpNotFoundResult action result is used to indicate that a resource requested by the current URL was not found. The status code is 404. This class derives from HttpStatusCodeResult. The Controller class includes an HttpNotFound method that returns an instance of this action result type, as shown in the following example: public ActionResult List(int id) {     if (id < 0) {                 return HttpNotFound();     }     return View(); } HttpStatusCodeResult Action The new HttpStatusCodeResult action result is used to set the response status code and description. Permanent Redirect The HttpRedirectResult class has a new Boolean Permanent property that is used to indicate whether a permanent redirect should occur. A permanent redirect uses the HTTP 301 status code. Corresponding to this change, the Controller class now has several methods for performing permanent redirects: - RedirectPermanent - RedirectToRoutePermanent - RedirectToActionPermanent These methods return an instance of HttpRedirectResult with the Permanent property set to true. Breaking Changes The order of execution for exception filters has changed for exception filters that have the same Order value. In ASP.NET MVC 2 and earlier, exception filters on the controller with the same Order as those on an action method were executed before the exception filters on the action method. This would typically be the case when exception filters were applied without a specified order Order value. In MVC 3, this order has been reversed in order to allow the most specific exception handler to execute first. As in earlier versions, if the Order property is explicitly specified, the filters are run in the specified order. Known Issues When you are editing a Razor view (CSHTML file), the Go To Controller menu item in Visual Studio will not be available, and there are no code snippets.

  Read the article

• WiX 3 Tutorial: Custom EULA License and MSI localization

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  In this part of the ongoing Wix tutorial series we’ll take a look at how to localize your MSI into different languages. We’re still the mighty SuperForm: Program that takes care of all your label color needs. :) Localizing the MSI With WiX 3.0 localizing an MSI is pretty much a simple and straightforward process. First let look at the WiX project Properties->Build. There you can see "Cultures to build" textbox. Put specific cultures to build into the testbox or leave it empty to build all of them. Cultures have to be in correct culture format like en-US, en-GB or de-DE. Next we have to tell WiX which cultures we actually have in our project. Take a look at the first post in the series about Solution/Project structure and look at the Lang directory in the project structure picture. There we have de-de and en-us subfolders each with its own localized stuff. In the subfolders pay attention to the WXL files Loc_de-de.wxl and Loc_en-us.wxl. Each one has a <String Id="LANG"> under the WixLocalization root node. By including the string with id LANG we tell WiX we want that culture built. For English we have <String Id="LANG">1033</String>, for German <String Id="LANG">1031</String> in Loc_de-de.wxl and for French we’d have to create another file Loc_fr-FR.wxl and put <String Id="LANG">1036</String>. WXL files are localization files. Any string we want to localize we have to put in there. To reference it we use loc keyword like this: !(loc.IdOfTheVariable) => !(loc.MustCloseSuperForm) This is our Loc_en-us.wxl. Note that German wxl has an identical structure but values are in German. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><WixLocalization Culture="en-us" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/localization" Codepage="1252"> <String Id="LANG">1033</String> <String Id="ProductName">SuperForm</String> <String Id="LicenseRtf" Overridable="yes">\Lang\en-us\EULA_en-us.rtf</String> <String Id="ManufacturerName">My Company Name</String> <String Id="AppNotSupported">This application is is not supported on your current OS. Minimal OS supported is Windows XP SP2</String> <String Id="DotNetFrameworkNeeded">.NET Framework 3.5 is required. Please install the .NET Framework then run this installer again.</String> <String Id="MustCloseSuperForm">Must close SuperForm!</String> <String Id="SuperFormNewerVersionInstalled">A newer version of !(loc.ProductName) is already installed.</String> <String Id="ProductKeyCheckDialog_Title">!(loc.ProductName) setup</String> <String Id="ProductKeyCheckDialogControls_Title">!(loc.ProductName) Product check</String> <String Id="ProductKeyCheckDialogControls_Description">Plese Enter following information to perform the licence check.</String> <String Id="ProductKeyCheckDialogControls_FullName">Full Name:</String> <String Id="ProductKeyCheckDialogControls_Organization">Organization:</String> <String Id="ProductKeyCheckDialogControls_ProductKey">Product Key:</String> <String Id="ProductKeyCheckDialogControls_InvalidProductKey">The product key you entered is invalid. Please call user support.</String> </WixLocalization>   As you can see from the file we can use localization variables in other variables like we do for SuperFormNewerVersionInstalled string. ProductKeyCheckDialog* strings are to localize a custom dialog for Product key check which we’ll look at in the next post. Built in dialog text localization Under the de-de folder there’s also the WixUI_de-de.wxl file. This files contains German translations of all texts that are in WiX built in dialogs. It can be downloaded from WiX 3.0.5419.0 Source Forge site. Download the wix3-sources.zip and go to \src\ext\UIExtension\wixlib. There you’ll find already translated all WiX texts in 12 Languages. Localizing the custom EULA license Here it gets ugly. We can override the default EULA license easily by overriding WixUILicenseRtf WiX variable like this: <WixVariable Id="WixUILicenseRtf" Value="License.rtf" /> where License.rtf is the name of your custom EULA license file. The downside of this method is that you can only have one license file which means no localization for it. That’s why we need to make a workaround. License is checked on a dialog name LicenseAgreementDialog. What we have to do is overwrite that dialog and insert the functionality for localization. This is a code for LicenseAgreementDialogOverwritten.wxs, an overwritten LicenseAgreementDialog that supports localization. LicenseAcceptedOverwritten replaces the LicenseAccepted built in variable. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?><Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi"> <Fragment> <UI> <Dialog Id="LicenseAgreementDialogOverwritten" Width="370" Height="270" Title="!(loc.LicenseAgreementDlg_Title)"> <Control Id="LicenseAcceptedOverwrittenCheckBox" Type="CheckBox" X="20" Y="207" Width="330" Height="18" CheckBoxValue="1" Property="LicenseAcceptedOverwritten" Text="!(loc.LicenseAgreementDlgLicenseAcceptedCheckBox)" /> <Control Id="Back" Type="PushButton" X="180" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Text="!(loc.WixUIBack)" /> <Control Id="Next" Type="PushButton" X="236" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Default="yes" Text="!(loc.WixUINext)"> <Publish Event="SpawnWaitDialog" Value="WaitForCostingDlg">CostingComplete = 1</Publish> <Condition Action="disable"> <![CDATA[ LicenseAcceptedOverwritten <> "1" ]]> </Condition> <Condition Action="enable">LicenseAcceptedOverwritten = "1"</Condition> </Control> <Control Id="Cancel" Type="PushButton" X="304" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Cancel="yes" Text="!(loc.WixUICancel)"> <Publish Event="SpawnDialog" Value="CancelDlg">1</Publish> </Control> <Control Id="BannerBitmap" Type="Bitmap" X="0" Y="0" Width="370" Height="44" TabSkip="no" Text="!(loc.LicenseAgreementDlgBannerBitmap)" /> <Control Id="LicenseText" Type="ScrollableText" X="20" Y="60" Width="330" Height="140" Sunken="yes" TabSkip="no"> <!-- This is original line --> <!--<Text SourceFile="!(wix.WixUILicenseRtf=$(var.LicenseRtf))" />--> <!-- To enable EULA localization we change it to this --> <Text SourceFile="$(var.ProjectDir)\!(loc.LicenseRtf)" /> <!-- In each of localization files (wxl) put line like this: <String Id="LicenseRtf" Overridable="yes">\Lang\en-us\EULA_en-us.rtf</String>--> </Control> <Control Id="Print" Type="PushButton" X="112" Y="243" Width="56" Height="17" Text="!(loc.WixUIPrint)"> <Publish Event="DoAction" Value="WixUIPrintEula">1</Publish> </Control> <Control Id="BannerLine" Type="Line" X="0" Y="44" Width="370" Height="0" /> <Control Id="BottomLine" Type="Line" X="0" Y="234" Width="370" Height="0" /> <Control Id="Description" Type="Text" X="25" Y="23" Width="340" Height="15" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes" Text="!(loc.LicenseAgreementDlgDescription)" /> <Control Id="Title" Type="Text" X="15" Y="6" Width="200" Height="15" Transparent="yes" NoPrefix="yes" Text="!(loc.LicenseAgreementDlgTitle)" /> </Dialog> </UI> </Fragment></Wix>   Look at the Control with Id "LicenseText” and read the comments. We’ve changed the original license text source to "$(var.ProjectDir)\!(loc.LicenseRtf)". var.ProjectDir is the directory of the project file. The !(loc.LicenseRtf) is where the magic happens. Scroll up and take a look at the wxl localization file example. We have the LicenseRtf declared there and it’s been made overridable so developers can change it if they want. The value of the LicenseRtf is the path to our localized EULA relative to the WiX project directory. With little hacking we’ve achieved a fully localizable installer package.   The final step is to insert the extended LicenseAgreementDialogOverwritten license dialog into the installer GUI chain. This is how it’s done under the <UI> node of course.   <UI> <!-- code to be discussed in later posts –> <!-- BEGIN UI LOGIC FOR CLEAN INSTALLER --> <Publish Dialog="WelcomeDlg" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="LicenseAgreementDialogOverwritten">1</Publish> <Publish Dialog="LicenseAgreementDialogOverwritten" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="WelcomeDlg">1</Publish> <Publish Dialog="LicenseAgreementDialogOverwritten" Control="Next" Event="NewDialog" Value="ProductKeyCheckDialog">LicenseAcceptedOverwritten = "1" AND NOT OLDER_VERSION_FOUND</Publish> <Publish Dialog="InstallDirDlg" Control="Back" Event="NewDialog" Value="ProductKeyCheckDialog">1</Publish> <!-- END UI LOGIC FOR CLEAN INSTALLER –> <!-- code to be discussed in later posts --></UI> For a thing that should be simple for the end developer to do, localization can be a bit advanced for the novice WiXer. Hope this post makes the journey easier and that next versions of WiX improve this process. WiX 3 tutorial by Mladen Prajdic navigation WiX 3 Tutorial: Solution/Project structure and Dev resources WiX 3 Tutorial: Understanding main wxs and wxi file WiX 3 Tutorial: Generating file/directory fragments with Heat.exe  WiX 3 Tutorial: Custom EULA License and MSI localization WiX 3 Tutorial: Product Key Check custom action WiX 3 Tutorial: Building an updater WiX 3 Tutorial: Icons and installer pictures WiX 3 Tutorial: Creating a Bootstrapper

  Read the article

• How To Run XP Mode in VirtualBox on Windows 7 (sort of)

  - by Matthew Guay

  A few weeks ago we showed you how to run XP Mode on a Windows 7 computer without Hardware Virtualization using VMware. Some of you have been asking if it can be done in Virtual Box as well. The answer is “Yes!” and here we’ll show you how. Editor Update: Apparently there isn’t a way to activate XP Mode through VirtualBox using this method. You will however, be able to run it for 30 days. We have a new updated article on how to Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite Plugin.   Earlier we showed you how to run XP mode on windows 7 machines without hardware virtualization capability. Since then, a lot of you have been asking to a write up a tutorial about doing the same thing using VirtualBox.  This makes it another great way to run XP Mode if your computer does not have hardware virtualization.  Here we’ll see how to import the XP Mode from Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate into VirtualBox so you can run XP in it for free. Note: You need to have Windows 7 Professional or above to use XP Mode in this manner. In our tests we were able to get it to run on Home Premium as well, but you’ll be breaking Windows 7 licensing agreements. Getting Started First, download and install XP Mode (link below).  There is no need to download Virtual PC if your computer cannot run it, so just download the XP Mode from the link on the left. Install XP mode; just follow the default prompts as usual. Now, download and install VirtualBox 3.1.2 or higher(link below).  Install as normal, and simply follow the default prompts. VirtualBox may notify you that your network connection will be reset during the installation.  Press Yes to continue. During the install, you may see several popups asking you if you wish to install device drivers for USB and Network interfaces.  Simply click install, as these are needed for VirtualBox to run correctly. Setup only took a couple minutes, and doesn’t require a reboot. Setup XP Mode in VirtualBox: First we need to copy the default XP Mode so VirtualBox will not affect the original copy.  Browse to C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode, and copy the file “Windows XP Mode base.vhd”.  Paste it in another folder of your choice, such as your Documents folder. Once you’ve copied the file, right-click on it and click Properties. Uncheck the “Read-only” box in this dialog, and then click Ok. Now, in VirtualBox, click New to create a new virtual machine. Enter the name of your virtual machine, and make sure the operating system selected is Windows XP. Choose how much memory you want to allow the virtual machine to use.  VirtualBox’ default is 192 Mb ram, but for better performance you can select 256 or 512Mb. Now, select the hard drive for the virtual machine.  Select “Use existing hard disk”, then click the folder button to choose the XP Mode virtual drive. In this window, click Add, and then browse to find the copy of XP Mode you previously made. Make sure the correct virtual drive is selected, then press Select. After selecting the VHD your screen should look like the following then click Next. Verify the settings you made are correct. If not, you can go back and make any changes. When everything looks correct click Finish. Setup XP Mode Now, in VirtualBox, click start to run XP Mode. The Windows XP in this virtual drive is not fully setup yet, so you will have to go through the setup process.   If you didn’t uncheck the “Read-only” box in the VHD properties before, you may see the following error.  If you see it, go back and check the file to makes sure it is not read-only. When you click in the virtual machine, it will capture your mouse by default.  Simply press the right Ctrl key to release your mouse so you can go back to using Windows 7.  This will only be the case during the setup process; after the Guest Additions are installed, the mouse will seamlessly move between operating systems. Now, accept the license agreement in XP.   Choose your correct locale and keyboard settings. Enter a name for your virtual XP, and an administrative password. Check the date, time, and time zone settings, and adjust them if they are incorrect.  The time and date are usually correct, but the time zone often has to be corrected. XP will now automatically finish setting up your virtual machine, and then will automatically reboot. After rebooting, select your automatic update settings. You may see a prompt to check for drivers; simply press cancel, as all the drivers we need will be installed later with the Guest Additions. Your last settings will be finalized, and finally you will see your XP desktop in VirtualBox. Please note that XP Mode may not remain activated after importing it into VirtualBox. When you activate it, use the key that is located at C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode\key.txt.  Note: During our tests we weren’t able to get the activation to go through. We are looking into the issue and will have a revised article showing the correct way to get XP Mode in VirutalBox working correctly soon.    Now we have one final thing to install – the VirtualBox Guest Additions.  In the VirtualBox window, click “Devices” and then select “Install Guest Additions”. This should automatically launch in XP; if it doesn’t, click Start, then My Computer, and finally double-click on the CD drive which should say VirtualBox Guest Additions. Simply install with the normal presets. You can select to install an experimental 3D graphics driver if you wish to try to run games in XP in VirtualBox; however, do note that this is not fully supported and is currently a test feature. You may see a prompt informing you that the drivers have not passed Logo testing; simply press “Continue Anyway” to proceed with the installation.   When installation has completed, you will be required to reboot your virtual machine. Now, you can move your mouse directly from Windows XP to Windows 7 without pressing Ctrl. Integrating with Windows 7 Once your virtual machine is rebooted, you can integrate it with your Windows 7 desktop.  In the VirtualBox window, click Machine and then select “Seamless Mode”.   In Seamless mode you’ll have the XP Start menu and taskbar sit on top of your Windows 7 Start and Taskbar. Here we see XP running on Virtual Box in Seamless Mode. We have the old XP WordPad sitting next to the new Windows 7 version of WordPad. Another view of everything running seamlessly together on the same Windows 7 desktop. Hover the pointer over the XP taskbar to pull up the Virtual Box menu items. You can exit out of Seamless Mode from the VirtualBox menu or using “Ctrl+L”. Then you go back to having it run separately on your desktop again. Conclusion Running XP Mode in a Virtual Machine is a great way to experience the feature on computers without Hardware Virtualization capabilities. If you prefer VMware Player, then you’ll want to check out our articles on how to run XP Mode on Windows 7 machines without Hardware Virtualization, and how to create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Premium and Vista. Download VirtualBox Download XP Mode Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite PluginUsing Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility ModeMake Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows VistaForce Windows 7 / Vista to Boot Into Safe Mode Without Using the F8 KeyHow To Run Chrome OS in VirtualBox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

  Read the article

• How To Run XP Mode in VirtualBox on Windows 7 (sort of)

  - by Matthew Guay

  A few weeks ago we showed you how to run XP Mode on a Windows 7 computer without Hardware Virtualization using VMware. Some of you have been asking if it can be done in Virtual Box as well. The answer is “Yes!” and here we’ll show you how. Editor Update: Apparently there isn’t a way to activate XP Mode through VirtualBox using this method. You will however, be able to run it for 30 days. We have a new updated article on how to Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite Plugin.   Earlier we showed you how to run XP mode on windows 7 machines without hardware virtualization capability. Since then, a lot of you have been asking to a write up a tutorial about doing the same thing using VirtualBox.  This makes it another great way to run XP Mode if your computer does not have hardware virtualization.  Here we’ll see how to import the XP Mode from Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate into VirtualBox so you can run XP in it for free. Note: You need to have Windows 7 Professional or above to use XP Mode in this manner. In our tests we were able to get it to run on Home Premium as well, but you’ll be breaking Windows 7 licensing agreements. Getting Started First, download and install XP Mode (link below).  There is no need to download Virtual PC if your computer cannot run it, so just download the XP Mode from the link on the left. Install XP mode; just follow the default prompts as usual. Now, download and install VirtualBox 3.1.2 or higher(link below).  Install as normal, and simply follow the default prompts. VirtualBox may notify you that your network connection will be reset during the installation.  Press Yes to continue. During the install, you may see several popups asking you if you wish to install device drivers for USB and Network interfaces.  Simply click install, as these are needed for VirtualBox to run correctly. Setup only took a couple minutes, and doesn’t require a reboot. Setup XP Mode in VirtualBox: First we need to copy the default XP Mode so VirtualBox will not affect the original copy.  Browse to C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode, and copy the file “Windows XP Mode base.vhd”.  Paste it in another folder of your choice, such as your Documents folder. Once you’ve copied the file, right-click on it and click Properties. Uncheck the “Read-only” box in this dialog, and then click Ok. Now, in VirtualBox, click New to create a new virtual machine. Enter the name of your virtual machine, and make sure the operating system selected is Windows XP. Choose how much memory you want to allow the virtual machine to use.  VirtualBox’ default is 192 Mb ram, but for better performance you can select 256 or 512Mb. Now, select the hard drive for the virtual machine.  Select “Use existing hard disk”, then click the folder button to choose the XP Mode virtual drive. In this window, click Add, and then browse to find the copy of XP Mode you previously made. Make sure the correct virtual drive is selected, then press Select. After selecting the VHD your screen should look like the following then click Next. Verify the settings you made are correct. If not, you can go back and make any changes. When everything looks correct click Finish. Setup XP Mode Now, in VirtualBox, click start to run XP Mode. The Windows XP in this virtual drive is not fully setup yet, so you will have to go through the setup process.   If you didn’t uncheck the “Read-only” box in the VHD properties before, you may see the following error.  If you see it, go back and check the file to makes sure it is not read-only. When you click in the virtual machine, it will capture your mouse by default.  Simply press the right Ctrl key to release your mouse so you can go back to using Windows 7.  This will only be the case during the setup process; after the Guest Additions are installed, the mouse will seamlessly move between operating systems. Now, accept the license agreement in XP.   Choose your correct locale and keyboard settings. Enter a name for your virtual XP, and an administrative password. Check the date, time, and time zone settings, and adjust them if they are incorrect.  The time and date are usually correct, but the time zone often has to be corrected. XP will now automatically finish setting up your virtual machine, and then will automatically reboot. After rebooting, select your automatic update settings. You may see a prompt to check for drivers; simply press cancel, as all the drivers we need will be installed later with the Guest Additions. Your last settings will be finalized, and finally you will see your XP desktop in VirtualBox. Please note that XP Mode may not remain activated after importing it into VirtualBox. When you activate it, use the key that is located at C:\Program Files\Windows XP Mode\key.txt.  Note: During our tests we weren’t able to get the activation to go through. We are looking into the issue and will have a revised article showing the correct way to get XP Mode in VirutalBox working correctly soon.    Now we have one final thing to install – the VirtualBox Guest Additions.  In the VirtualBox window, click “Devices” and then select “Install Guest Additions”. This should automatically launch in XP; if it doesn’t, click Start, then My Computer, and finally double-click on the CD drive which should say VirtualBox Guest Additions. Simply install with the normal presets. You can select to install an experimental 3D graphics driver if you wish to try to run games in XP in VirtualBox; however, do note that this is not fully supported and is currently a test feature. You may see a prompt informing you that the drivers have not passed Logo testing; simply press “Continue Anyway” to proceed with the installation.   When installation has completed, you will be required to reboot your virtual machine. Now, you can move your mouse directly from Windows XP to Windows 7 without pressing Ctrl. Integrating with Windows 7 Once your virtual machine is rebooted, you can integrate it with your Windows 7 desktop.  In the VirtualBox window, click Machine and then select “Seamless Mode”.   In Seamless mode you’ll have the XP Start menu and taskbar sit on top of your Windows 7 Start and Taskbar. Here we see XP running on Virtual Box in Seamless Mode. We have the old XP WordPad sitting next to the new Windows 7 version of WordPad. Another view of everything running seamlessly together on the same Windows 7 desktop. Hover the pointer over the XP taskbar to pull up the Virtual Box menu items. You can exit out of Seamless Mode from the VirtualBox menu or using “Ctrl+L”. Then you go back to having it run separately on your desktop again. Conclusion Running XP Mode in a Virtual Machine is a great way to experience the feature on computers without Hardware Virtualization capabilities. If you prefer VMware Player, then you’ll want to check out our articles on how to run XP Mode on Windows 7 machines without Hardware Virtualization, and how to create an XP Mode for Windows 7 Home Premium and Vista. Download VirtualBox Download XP Mode Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite PluginUsing Windows 7 or Vista Compatibility ModeMake Safari Stop Crashing Every 20 Seconds on Windows VistaForce Windows 7 / Vista to Boot Into Safe Mode Without Using the F8 KeyHow To Run Chrome OS in VirtualBox TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

  Read the article

• Unity completely broken after upgrade to 12.10?

  - by NlightNFotis

  I am facing a very frustrating issue with my computer right now. I successfully upgraded to Ubuntu 12.10 this afternoon, but after the upgrade, the graphical user interface seems completely broken. To be more specific, I can not get the Unity bar to appear on the right. I have tried many things, including (but not limited to) purging and then reinstalling the fglrx drivers, apt-get install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop, apt-get install --reinstall unity, tried to remove the Xorg and Compiz configurations, checked to see if the Ubuntu Unity wall was enabled (it was) in ccsm, all to no avail. Could someone help me troubleshoot and essentially fix this issue? NOTE: This is the output when I try to enable unity via a terminal: compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: core compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: core unity-panel-service: no process found compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: reset compiz (core) - Error: Failed to load plugin: reset compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: ccp compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: ccp compizconfig - Info: Backend : gsettings compizconfig - Info: Integration : true compizconfig - Info: Profile : unity compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: composite compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: composite compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: opengl X Error of failed request: BadRequest (invalid request code or no such operation) Major opcode of failed request: 153 (GLX) Minor opcode of failed request: 19 (X_GLXQueryServerString) Serial number of failed request: 22 Current serial number in output stream: 22 compiz (core) - Info: Unity is not supported by your hardware. Enabling software rendering instead (slow). compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: opengl Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 compiz (core) - Error: Plugin initScreen failed: opengl compiz (core) - Error: Failed to start plugin: opengl compiz (core) - Info: Unloading plugin: opengl compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: decor compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: decor compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: imgpng compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: imgpng compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: vpswitch compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: vpswitch compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: resize compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: resize Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: compiztoolbox compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: compiztoolbox compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded. compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: move compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: move compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: gnomecompat compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: gnomecompat compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: mousepoll compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: mousepoll compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: wall compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: wall compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded. compiz (core) - Error: Plugin init failed: wall compiz (core) - Error: Failed to start plugin: wall compiz (core) - Info: Unloading plugin: wall compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: regex compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: regex compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: snap compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: snap compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: unitymtgrabhandles compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: unitymtgrabhandles compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded. compiz (core) - Error: Plugin init failed: unitymtgrabhandles compiz (core) - Error: Failed to start plugin: unitymtgrabhandles compiz (core) - Info: Unloading plugin: unitymtgrabhandles compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: place compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: place compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: grid compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: grid Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: animation compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: animation compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded. compiz (core) - Error: Plugin init failed: animation compiz (core) - Error: Failed to start plugin: animation compiz (core) - Info: Unloading plugin: animation compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: fade compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: fade compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded. compiz (core) - Error: Plugin init failed: fade compiz (core) - Error: Failed to start plugin: fade compiz (core) - Info: Unloading plugin: fade compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: session compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: session compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: expo compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: expo compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded. compiz (core) - Error: Plugin init failed: expo compiz (core) - Error: Failed to start plugin: expo compiz (core) - Info: Unloading plugin: expo compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: ezoom compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: ezoom compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded. compiz (core) - Error: Plugin init failed: ezoom compiz (core) - Error: Failed to start plugin: ezoom compiz (core) - Info: Unloading plugin: ezoom compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: workarounds compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: workarounds compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded. Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 compiz (core) - Info: Loading plugin: scale compiz (core) - Info: Starting plugin: scale compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded. compiz (core) - Error: Plugin init failed: scale compiz (core) - Error: Failed to start plugin: scale compiz (core) - Info: Unloading plugin: scale Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0 Segmentation fault (core dumped)

  Read the article

• Add keyboard languages to XP, Vista, and Windows 7

  - by Matthew Guay

  Do you regularly need to type in multiple languages in Windows?  Here we’ll show you the easy way to add and change input languages to your keyboard in XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Windows Vista and 7 come preinstalled with support for viewing a wide variety of languages, so adding an input language is fairly simply.  Adding an input language is slightly more difficult in XP, and requires installing additional files if you need an Asian or Complex script language.  First we show how to add an input language in Windows Vista and 7; it’s basically the same in both versions.  Then, we show how to add a language to XP, and also how to add Complex Script support.  Please note that this is only for adding an input language, which will allow you to type in the language you select.  This does not change your user interface language. Change keyboard language in Windows 7 and Vista It is fairly simple to add or change a keyboard language in Windows 7 or Vista.  In Windows 7, enter “keyboard language” in the Start menu search box, and select “Change keyboards or other input methods”. In Windows Vista, open Control Panel and enter “input language” in the search box and select “Change keyboards or other input methods”.  This also works in Windows 7. Now, click Change Keyboards to add another keyboard language or change your default one. Our default input language is US English, and our default keyboard is the US keyboard layout.  Click Add to insert another input language while still leaving your default input language installed. Here we selected the standard Thai keyboard language (Thai Kedmanee), but you can select any language you want.  Windows offers almost any language you can imagine, so just look for the language you want, select it, and click Ok. Alternately, if you want, you can click Preview to see your layout choice before accepting it.  This is only the default characters, not ones that will be activated with Shift or other keys (many Asian languages use many more characters than English, and require the use of Shift and other keys to access them all).  Once your finished previewing, click close and then press Ok on the previous dialog. Now you will see both of your keyboard languages in the Installed services box.  You can click Add to go back and get more, or move your selected language up or down (to change its priority), or simply click Apply to add the new language. Also, you can now change the default input language from the top menu.  This is the language that your keyboard will start with when you boot your computer.  So, if you mainly use English but also use another language, usually it is best to leave English as your default input language. Once you’ve pressed Apply or Ok, you will see a new icon beside your system tray with the initials of your default input language. If you click it, you can switch between input languages.  Alternately you can switch input languages by pressing Alt+Shift on your keyboard. Some complex languages, such as Chinese, may have extra buttons to change input modes to accommodate their large alphabet. If you would like to change the keyboard shortcut for changing languages, go back to the Input Languages dialog, and select the “Advanced Key Settings” tab.  Here you can change settings for Caps Lock and change or add key sequences to change between languages. Also, the On-Screen keyboard will display the correct keyboard language (here the keyboard is displaying Thai), which can be a helpful reference if your physical keyboard doesn’t have your preferred input language printed on it.  To open this, simply enter “On-Screen keyboard” in the start menu search, or click All Programs>Accessories>On-Screen keyboard. Change keyboard language in Windows XP The process for changing the keyboard language in Windows XP is slightly different.  Open Control Panel, and select “Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options”.   Select “Add other languages”. Now, click Details to add another language.  XP does not include support for Asian and complex languages by default, so if you need to add one of those languages we have details for that below. Click Add to add an input language. Select your desired language from the list, and choose your desired keyboard layout if your language offers multiple layouts.  Here we selected Canadian French with the default layout. Now you will see both of your keyboard languages in the Installed services box.  You can click Add to go back and add more, or move your selected language up or down (to change its priority), or simply click Apply to add the new language. Once you’ve pressed Apply or Ok, you will see a new icon beside your system tray with the initials of your default input language. If you click it, you can switch between input languages.  Alternately you can switch input languages by pressing Alt+Shift on your keyboard. If you would like to change the keyboard shortcut for changing languages, go back to the Input Languages dialog, and click the “Key Settings” button on the bottom of the dialog.  Here you can change settings for Caps Lock and change or add key sequences to change between languages. Add support to XP for Asian and Complex script languages Windows XP does not include support for Asian and Complex script languages by default, but you can easily add them to your computer.  This is useful if you wish to type in one of these languages, or simply want to read text written in these languages, since XP will not display these languages correctly if they are not installed.  If you wish to install Chinese, Japanese, and/or Korean, check the “Install files for East Asian languages” box.  Or, if you need to install a complex script language (including Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, the Indic languages, Thai, and Vietnamese), check the “Install files for complex script and right-to-left languages” box.   Choosing either of these options will open a prompt reminding you that this option will take up more disk space.  Support for complex languages will require around 10Mb of hard drive space, but East Asian language support may require 230 Mb or more free disk space.  Click Ok, and click apply to install your language files. You may have to insert your XP CD into your CD drive to install these files.  Insert the disk, and then click Ok. Windows will automatically copy the files, including fonts for these languages… …and then will ask you to reboot your computer to finalize the settings.  Click Yes, and then reopen the “Add other languages” dialog when your computer is rebooted, and add a language as before.     Now you can add Complex and/or Asian languages to XP, just as above.  Here is the XP taskbar language selector with Thai installed. Conclusion Unfortunately we haven’t found a way to add Asian and complex languages in XP without having an XP disc. If you know of a way, let us know in the comments. (No downloading the XP disc from torrent site answers please) Adding an input language is very important for bilingual individuals, and can also be useful if you simply need to occasionally view Asian or Complex languages in XP.  And by following the correct instructions for your version of Windows, it should be very easy to add, change, and remove input languages. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Show Keyboard Shortcut Access Keys in Windows VistaKeyboard Ninja: 21 Keyboard Shortcut ArticlesAnother Desktop Cube for Windows XP/VistaThe "Up" Keyboard Shortcut for Windows 7 or Vista ExplorerWhat is ctfmon.exe And Why Is It Running? TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

  Read the article

• How to Upgrade Your Netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like more features and flash in Windows on your netbook?  Here’s how you can easily upgrade your netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium the easy way. Most new netbooks today ship with Windows 7 Starter, which is the cheapest edition of Windows 7.  It is fine for many computing tasks, and will run all your favorite programs great, but it lacks many customization, multimedia, and business features found in higher editions.  Here we’ll show you how you can quickly upgrade your netbook to more full-featured edition of Windows 7 using Windows Anytime Upgrade.  Also, if you want to upgrade your laptop or desktop to another edition of Windows 7, say Professional, you can follow these same steps to upgrade it, too. Please note: This is only for computers already running Windows 7.  If your netbook is running XP or Vista, you will have to run a traditional upgrade to install Windows 7. Upgrade Advisor First, let’s make sure your netbook can support the extra features, such as Aero Glass, in Windows 7 Home Premium.  Most modern netbooks that ship with Windows 7 Starter can run the advanced features in Windows 7 Home Premium, but let’s check just in case.  Download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (link below), and install as normal. Once it’s installed, run it and click Start Check.   Make sure you’re connected to the internet before you run the check, or otherwise you may see this error message.  If you see it, click Ok and then connect to the internet and start the check again. It will now scan all of your programs and hardware to make sure they’re compatible with Windows 7.  Since you’re already running Windows 7 Starter, it will also tell you if your computer will support the features in other editions of Windows 7. After a few moments, the Upgrade Advisor will show you want it found.  Here we see that our netbook, a Samsung N150, can be upgraded to Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate. We also see that we had one issue, but this was because a driver we had installed was not recognized.  Click “See all system requirements” to see what your netbook can do with the new edition. This shows you which of the requirements, including support for Windows Aero, your netbook meets.  Here our netbook supports Aero, so we’re ready to go upgrade. For more, check out our article on how to make sure your computer can run Windows 7 with Upgrade Advisor. Upgrade with Anytime Upgrade Now, we’re ready to upgrade our netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium.  Enter “Anytime Upgrade” in the Start menu search,and select Windows Anytime Upgrade. Windows Anytime Upgrade lets you upgrade using product key you already have or one you purchase during the upgrade process.  And, it installs without any downloads or Windows disks, so it works great even for netbooks without DVD drives. Anytime Upgrades are cheaper than a standard upgrade, and for a limited time, select retailers in the US are offering Anytime Upgrades to Windows 7 Home Premium for only $49.99 if purchased with a new netbook.  If you already have a netbook running Windows 7 Starter, you can either purchase an Anytime Upgrade package at a retail store or purchase a key online during the upgrade process for $79.95.  Or, if you have a standard Windows 7 product key (full or upgrade), you can use it in Anytime upgrade.  This is especially nice if you can purchase Windows 7 cheaper through your school, university, or office. Purchase an upgrade online To purchase an upgrade online, click “Go online to choose the edition of Windows 7 that’s best for you”.   Here you can see a comparison of the features of each edition of Windows 7.  Note that you can upgrade to either Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate.  We chose home Premium because it has most of the features that home users want, including Media Center and Aero Glass effects.  Also note that the price of each upgrade is cheaper than the respective upgrade from Windows XP or Vista.  Click buy under the edition you want.   Enter your billing information, then your payment information.  Once you confirm your purchase, you will directly be taken to the Upgrade screen.  Make sure to save your receipt, as you will need the product key if you ever need to reinstall Windows on your computer. Upgrade with an existing product key If you purchased an Anytime Upgrade kit from a retailer, or already have a Full or Upgrade key for another edition of Windows 7, choose “Enter an upgrade key”. Enter your product key, and click Next.  If you purchased an Anytime Upgrade kit, the product key will be located on the inside of the case on a yellow sticker. The key will be verified as a valid key, and Anytime Upgrade will automatically choose the correct edition of Windows 7 based on your product key.  Click Next when this is finished. Continuing the Upgrade process Whether you entered a key or purchased a key online, the process is the same from here on.  Click “I accept” to accept the license agreement. Now, you’re ready to install your upgrade.  Make sure to save all open files and close any programs, and then click Upgrade. The upgrade only takes about 10 minutes in our experience but your mileage may vary.  Any available Microsoft updates, including ones for Office, Security Essentials, and other products, will be installed before the upgrade takes place. After a couple minutes, your computer will automatically reboot and finish the installation.  It will then reboot once more, and your computer will be ready to use!  Welcome to your new edition of Windows 7! Here’s a before and after shot of our desktop.  When you do an Anytime Upgrade, all of your programs, files, and settings will be just as they were before you upgraded.  The only change we noticed was that our pinned taskbar icons were slightly rearranged to the default order of Internet Explorer, Explorer, and Media Player.  Here’s a shot of our desktop before the upgrade.  Notice that all of our pinned programs and desktop icons are still there, as well as our taskbar customization (we are using small icons on the taskbar instead of the default large icons). Before, with the Windows 7 Starter background and the Aero Basic theme: And after, with Aero Glass and the more colorful default Windows 7 background.   All of the features of Windows 7 Home Premium are now ready to use.  The Aero theme was activate by default, but you can now customize your netbook theme, background, and more with the Personalization pane.  To open it, right-click on your desktop and select Personalize. You can also now use Windows Media Center, and can play-back DVD movies using an external drive. One of our favorite tools, the Snipping Tool, is also now available for easy screenshots and clips. Activating you new edition of Windows 7 You will still need to activate your new edition of Windows 7.  To do this right away, open the start menu, right-click on Computer, and select Properties.   Scroll to the bottom, and click “Activate Windows Now”. Make sure you’re connected to the internet, and then select “Activate Windows online now”. Activation may take a few minutes, depending on your internet connection speed. When it is done, the Activation wizard will let you know that Windows is activated and genuine.  Your upgrade is all finished! Conclusion Windows Anytime Upgrade makes it easy, and somewhat cheaper, to upgrade to another edition of Windows 7.  It’s useful for desktop and laptop owners who want to upgrade to Professional or Ultimate, but many more netbook owners will want to upgrade from Starter to Home Premium or another edition.  Links Download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Windows Team Blog: Anytime Upgrade Special with new PC purchase Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium EditionAnother Blog You Should Subscribe ToMysticgeek Blog: Turn Vista Home Premium Into Ultimate (Part 3) – Shadow CopyUpgrade Ubuntu from Breezy to DapperHow to Upgrade the Windows 7 RC to RTM (Final Release) 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 Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar Manage Photos Across Different Social Sites With Dropico Test Drive Windows 7 Online Download Wallpapers From National Geographic Site Spyware Blaster v4.3 Yes, it’s Patch Tuesday

  Read the article

• Scan a Windows PC for Viruses from a Ubuntu Live CD

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  Getting a virus is bad. Getting a virus that causes your computer to crash when you reboot is even worse. We’ll show you how to clean viruses from your computer even if you can’t boot into Windows by using a virus scanner in a Ubuntu Live CD. There are a number of virus scanners available for Ubuntu, but we’ve found that avast! is the best choice, with great detection rates and usability. Unfortunately, avast! does not have a proper 64-bit version, and forcing the install does not work properly. If you want to use avast! to scan for viruses, then ensure that you have a 32-bit Ubuntu Live CD. If you currently have a 64-bit Ubuntu Live CD on a bootable flash drive, it does not take long to wipe your flash drive and go through our guide again and select normal (32-bit) Ubuntu 9.10 instead of the x64 edition. For the purposes of fixing your Windows installation, the 64-bit Live CD will not provide any benefits. Once Ubuntu 9.10 boots up, open up Firefox by clicking on its icon in the top panel. Navigate to http://www.avast.com/linux-home-edition. Click on the Download tab, and then click on the link to download the DEB package. Save it to the default location. While avast! is downloading, click on the link to the registration form on the download page. Fill in the registration form if you do not already have a trial license for avast!. By the time you’ve filled out the registration form, avast! will hopefully be finished downloading. Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications in the top-left corner of the screen, then expanding the Accessories menu and clicking on Terminal. In the terminal window, type in the following commands, pressing enter after each line. cd Downloadssudo dpkg –i avast* This will install avast! on the live Ubuntu environment. To ensure that you can use the latest virus database, while still in the terminal window, type in the following command: sudo sysctl –w kernel.shmmax=128000000 Now we’re ready to open avast!. Click on Applications on the top-left corner of the screen, expand the Accessories folder, and click on the new avast! Antivirus item. You will first be greeted with a window that asks for your license key. Hopefully you’ve received it in your email by now; open the email that avast! sends you, copy the license key, and paste it in the Registration window. avast! Antivirus will open. You’ll notice that the virus database is outdated. Click on the Update database button and avast! will start downloading the latest virus database. To scan your Windows hard drive, you will need to “mount” it. While the virus database is downloading, click on Places on the top-left of your screen, and click on your Windows hard drive, if you can tell which one it is by its size. If you can’t tell which is the correct hard drive, then click on Computer and check out each hard drive until you find the right one. When you find it, make a note of the drive’s label, which appears in the menu bar of the file browser. Also note that your hard drive will now appear on your desktop. By now, your virus database should be updated. At the time this article was written, the most recent version was 100404-0. In the main avast! window, click on the radio button next to Selected folders and then click on the “+” button to the right of the list box. It will open up a dialog box to browse to a location. To find your Windows hard drive, click on the “>” next to the computer icon. In the expanded list, find the folder labelled “media” and click on the “>” next to it to expand it. In this list, you should be able to find the label that corresponds to your Windows hard drive. If you want to scan a certain folder, then you can go further into this hierarchy and select that folder. However, we will scan the entire hard drive, so we’ll just press OK. Click on Start scan and avast! will start scanning your hard drive. If a virus is found, you’ll be prompted to select an action. If you know that the file is a virus, then you can Delete it, but there is the possibility of false positives, so you can also choose Move to chest to quarantine it. When avast! is done scanning, it will summarize what it found on your hard drive. You can take different actions on those files at this time by right-clicking on them and selecting the appropriate action. When you’re done, click Close. Your Windows PC is now free of viruses, in the eyes of avast!. Reboot your computer and with any luck it will now boot up! Alternatives to avast! If avast! and a liberal amount of Googling doesn’t fix your problem, it’s possible that a different virus scanner will fix your obscure issue. Here are a list of other virus scanners available for Ubuntu that are either free or offer free trials. See their support forums for help on installing these virus scanners. Avira AntiVir Personal for Linux / Solaris Panda Antivirus for Linux Installation and usage guide from Ubuntu F-PROT Antivirus for Linux ClamAV installation and usage guide from Ubuntu NOD32 Antivirus for Linux Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2010 Bitdefender Antivirus for Unices Conclusion Running avast! from a Ubuntu Live CD can clean the vast majority of viruses from your Windows PC. This is another reason to always have a Ubuntu Live CD ready just in case something happens to your Windows installation! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Secure Computing: Windows Live OneCareHow To Remove Antivirus Live and Other Rogue/Fake Antivirus MalwareUse the Windows Key for the "Start" Menu in Ubuntu LinuxScan Files for Viruses Before You Download With Dr.WebAsk the Readers: Share Your Tips for Defeating Viruses and Malware 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 The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition Penolo Lets You Share Sketches On Twitter Visit Woolyss.com for Old School Games, Music and Videos Add a Custom Title in IE using Spybot or Spyware Blaster When You Need to Hail a Taxi in NYC

  Read the article

• Netflix, jQuery, JSONP, and OData

  - by Stephen Walther

  At the last MIX conference, Netflix announced that they are exposing their catalog of movie information using the OData protocol. This is great news! This means that you can take advantage of all of the advanced OData querying features against a live database of Netflix movies. In this blog entry, I’ll demonstrate how you can use Netflix, jQuery, JSONP, and OData to create a simple movie lookup form. The form enables you to enter a movie title, or part of a movie title, and display a list of matching movies. For example, Figure 1 illustrates the movies displayed when you enter the value robot into the lookup form.   Using the Netflix OData Catalog API You can learn about the Netflix OData Catalog API at the following website: http://developer.netflix.com/docs/oData_Catalog The nice thing about this website is that it provides plenty of samples. It also has a good general reference for OData. For example, the website includes a list of OData filter operators and functions. The Netflix Catalog API exposes 4 top-level resources: Titles – A database of Movie information including interesting movie properties such as synopsis, BoxArt, and Cast. People – A database of people information including interesting information such as Awards, TitlesDirected, and TitlesActedIn. Languages – Enables you to get title information in different languages. Genres – Enables you to get title information for specific movie genres. OData is REST based. This means that you can perform queries by putting together the right URL. For example, if you want to get a list of the movies that were released after 2010 and that had an average rating greater than 4 then you can enter the following URL in the address bar of your browser: http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog/Titles?$filter=ReleaseYear gt 2010&AverageRating gt 4 Entering this URL returns the movies in Figure 2. Creating the Movie Lookup Form The complete code for the Movie Lookup form is contained in Listing 1. Listing 1 – MovieLookup.htm <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Netflix with jQuery</title> <style type="text/css"> #movieTemplateContainer div { width:400px; padding: 10px; margin: 10px; border: black solid 1px; } </style> <script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="App_Scripts/Microtemplates.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </head> <body> <label>Search Movies:</label> <input id="movieName" size="50" /> <button id="btnLookup">Lookup</button> <div id="movieTemplateContainer"></div> <script id="movieTemplate" type="text/html"> <div> <img src="<%=BoxArtSmallUrl %>" /> <strong><%=Name%></strong> <p> <%=Synopsis %> </p> </div> </script> <script type="text/javascript"> $("#btnLookup").click(function () { // Build OData query var movieName = $("#movieName").val(); var query = "http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog" // netflix base url + "/Titles" // top-level resource + "?$filter=substringof('" + escape(movieName) + "',Name)" // filter by movie name + "&$callback=callback" // jsonp request + "&$format=json"; // json request // Make JSONP call to Netflix $.ajax({ dataType: "jsonp", url: query, jsonpCallback: "callback", success: callback }); }); function callback(result) { // unwrap result var movies = result["d"]["results"]; // show movies in template var showMovie = tmpl("movieTemplate"); var html = ""; for (var i = 0; i < movies.length; i++) { // flatten movie movies[i].BoxArtSmallUrl = movies[i].BoxArt.SmallUrl; // render with template html += showMovie(movies[i]); } $("#movieTemplateContainer").html(html); } </script> </body> </html> The HTML page in Listing 1 includes two JavaScript libraries: <script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="App_Scripts/Microtemplates.js" type="text/javascript"></script> The first script tag retrieves jQuery from the Microsoft Ajax CDN. You can learn more about the Microsoft Ajax CDN by visiting the following website: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/cdn.ashx The second script tag is used to reference Resig’s micro-templating library. Because I want to use a template to display each movie, I need this library: http://ejohn.org/blog/javascript-micro-templating/ When you enter a value into the Search Movies input field and click the button, the following JavaScript code is executed: // Build OData query var movieName = $("#movieName").val(); var query = "http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog" // netflix base url + "/Titles" // top-level resource + "?$filter=substringof('" + escape(movieName) + "',Name)" // filter by movie name + "&$callback=callback" // jsonp request + "&$format=json"; // json request // Make JSONP call to Netflix $.ajax({ dataType: "jsonp", url: query, jsonpCallback: "callback", success: callback }); This code Is used to build a query that will be executed against the Netflix Catalog API. For example, if you enter the search phrase King Kong then the following URL is created: http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog/Titles?$filter=substringof(‘King%20Kong’,Name)&$callback=callback&$format=json This query includes the following parameters: $filter – You assign a filter expression to this parameter to filter the movie results. $callback – You assign the name of a JavaScript callback method to this parameter. OData calls this method to return the movie results. $format – you assign either the value json or xml to this parameter to specify how the format of the movie results. Notice that all of the OData parameters -- $filter, $callback, $format -- start with a dollar sign $. The Movie Lookup form uses JSONP to retrieve data across the Internet. Because WCF Data Services supports JSONP, and Netflix uses WCF Data Services to expose movies using the OData protocol, you can use JSONP when interacting with the Netflix Catalog API. To learn more about using JSONP with OData, see Pablo Castro’s blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/pablo/archive/2009/02/25/adding-support-for-jsonp-and-url-controlled-format-to-ado-net-data-services.aspx The actual JSONP call is performed by calling the $.ajax() method. When this call successfully completes, the JavaScript callback() method is called. The callback() method looks like this: function callback(result) { // unwrap result var movies = result["d"]["results"]; // show movies in template var showMovie = tmpl("movieTemplate"); var html = ""; for (var i = 0; i < movies.length; i++) { // flatten movie movies[i].BoxArtSmallUrl = movies[i].BoxArt.SmallUrl; // render with template html += showMovie(movies[i]); } $("#movieTemplateContainer").html(html); } The movie results from Netflix are passed to the callback method. The callback method takes advantage of Resig’s micro-templating library to display each of the movie results. A template used to display each movie is passed to the tmpl() method. The movie template looks like this: <script id="movieTemplate" type="text/html"> <div> <img src="<%=BoxArtSmallUrl %>" /> <strong><%=Name%></strong> <p> <%=Synopsis %> </p> </div> </script>   This template looks like a server-side ASP.NET template. However, the template is rendered in the client (browser) instead of the server. Summary The goal of this blog entry was to demonstrate how well jQuery works with OData. We managed to use a number of interesting open-source libraries and open protocols while building the Movie Lookup form including jQuery, JSONP, JSON, and OData.

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Shrinking NDF and MDF Files – Readers’ Opinion

  - by pinaldave

  Previously, I had written a blog post about SQL SERVER – Shrinking NDF and MDF Files – A Safe Operation. After that, I have written the following blog post that talks about the advantage and disadvantage of Shrinking and why one should not be Shrinking a file SQL SERVER – SHRINKFILE and TRUNCATE Log File in SQL Server 2008. On this subject, SQL Server Expert Imran Mohammed left an excellent comment. I just feel that his comment is worth a big article itself. For everybody to read his wonderful explanation, I am posting this blog post here. Thanks Imran! Shrinking Database always creates performance degradation and increases fragmentation in the database. I suggest that you keep that in mind before you start reading the following comment. If you are going to say Shrinking Database is bad and evil, here I am saying it first and loud. Now, the comment of Imran is written while keeping in mind only the process showing how the Shrinking Database Operation works. Imran has already explained his understanding and requests further explanation. I have removed the Best Practices section from Imran’s comments, as there are a few corrections. Comments from Imran - Before I explain to you the concept of Shrink Database, let us understand the concept of Database Files. When we create a new database inside the SQL Server, it is typical that SQl Server creates two physical files in the Operating System: one with .MDF Extension, and another with .LDF Extension. .MDF is called as Primary Data File. .LDF is called as Transactional Log file. If you add one or more data files to a database, the physical file that will be created in the Operating System will have an extension of .NDF, which is called as Secondary Data File; whereas, when you add one or more log files to a database, the physical file that will be created in the Operating System will have the same extension as .LDF. The questions now are, “Why does a new data file have a different extension (.NDF)?”, “Why is it called as a secondary data file?” and, “Why is .MDF file called as a primary data file?” Answers: Note: The following explanation is based on my limited knowledge of SQL Server, so experts please do comment. A data file with a .MDF extension is called a Primary Data File, and the reason behind it is that it contains Database Catalogs. Catalogs mean Meta Data. Meta Data is “Data about Data”. An example for Meta Data includes system objects that store information about other objects, except the data stored by the users. sysobjects stores information about all objects in that database. sysindexes stores information about all indexes and rows of every table in that database. syscolumns stores information about all columns that each table has in that database. sysusers stores how many users that database has. Although Meta Data stores information about other objects, it is not the transactional data that a user enters; rather, it’s a system data about the data. Because Primary Data File (.MDF) contains important information about the database, it is treated as a special file. It is given the name Primary Data file because it contains the Database Catalogs. This file is present in the Primary File Group. You can always create additional objects (Tables, indexes etc.) in the Primary data file (This file is present in the Primary File group), by mentioning that you want to create this object under the Primary File Group. Any additional data file that you add to the database will have only transactional data but no Meta Data, so that’s why it is called as the Secondary Data File. It is given the extension name .NDF so that the user can easily identify whether a specific data file is a Primary Data File or a Secondary Data File(s). There are many advantages of storing data in different files that are under different file groups. You can put your read only in the tables in one file (file group) and read-write tables in another file (file group) and take a backup of only the file group that has read the write data, so that you can avoid taking the backup of a read-only data that cannot be altered. Creating additional files in different physical hard disks also improves I/O performance. A real-time scenario where we use Files could be this one: Let’s say you have created a database called MYDB in the D-Drive which has a 50 GB space. You also have 1 Database File (.MDF) and 1 Log File on D-Drive and suppose that all of that 50 GB space has been used up and you do not have any free space left but you still want to add an additional space to the database. One easy option would be to add one more physical hard disk to the server, add new data file to MYDB database and create this new data file in a new hard disk then move some of the objects from one file to another, and put the file group under which you added new file as default File group, so that any new object that is created gets into the new files, unless specified. Now that we got a basic idea of what data files are, what type of data they store and why they are named the way they are, let’s move on to the next topic, Shrinking. First of all, I disagree with the Microsoft terminology for naming this feature as “Shrinking”. Shrinking, in regular terms, means to reduce the size of a file by means of compressing it. BUT in SQL Server, Shrinking DOES NOT mean compressing. Shrinking in SQL Server means to remove an empty space from database files and release the empty space either to the Operating System or to SQL Server. Let’s examine this through an example. Let’s say you have a database “MYDB” with a size of 50 GB that has a free space of about 20 GB, which means 30GB in the database is filled with data and the 20 GB of space is free in the database because it is not currently utilized by the SQL Server (Database); it is reserved and not yet in use. If you choose to shrink the database and to release an empty space to Operating System, and MIND YOU, you can only shrink the database size to 30 GB (in our example). You cannot shrink the database to a size less than what is filled with data. So, if you have a database that is full and has no empty space in the data file and log file (you don’t have an extra disk space to set Auto growth option ON), YOU CANNOT issue the SHRINK Database/File command, because of two reasons: There is no empty space to be released because the Shrink command does not compress the database; it only removes the empty space from the database files and there is no empty space. Remember, the Shrink command is a logged operation. When we perform the Shrink operation, this information is logged in the log file. If there is no empty space in the log file, SQL Server cannot write to the log file and you cannot shrink a database. Now answering your questions: (1) Q: What are the USEDPAGES & ESTIMATEDPAGES that appear on the Results Pane after using the DBCC SHRINKDATABASE (NorthWind, 10) ? A: According to Books Online (For SQL Server 2000): UsedPages: the number of 8-KB pages currently used by the file. EstimatedPages: the number of 8-KB pages that SQL Server estimates the file could be shrunk down to. Important Note: Before asking any question, make sure you go through Books Online or search on the Google once. The reasons for doing so have many advantages: 1. If someone else already has had this question before, chances that it is already answered are more than 50 %. 2. This reduces your waiting time for the answer. (2) Q: What is the difference between Shrinking the Database using DBCC command like the one above & shrinking it from the Enterprise Manager Console by Right-Clicking the database, going to TASKS & then selecting SHRINK Option, on a SQL Server 2000 environment? A: As far as my knowledge goes, there is no difference, both will work the same way, one advantage of using this command from query analyzer is, your console won’t be freezed. You can do perform your regular activities using Enterprise Manager. (3) Q: What is this .NDF file that is discussed above? I have never heard of it. What is it used for? Is it used by end-users, DBAs or the SERVER/SYSTEM itself? A: .NDF File is a secondary data file. You never heard of it because when database is created, SQL Server creates database by default with only 1 data file (.MDF) and 1 log file (.LDF) or however your model database has been setup, because a model database is a template used every time you create a new database using the CREATE DATABASE Command. Unless you have added an extra data file, you will not see it. This file is used by the SQL Server to store data which are saved by the users. Hope this information helps. I would like to as the experts to please comment if what I understand is not what the Microsoft guys meant. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Readers Contribution, Readers Question, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• ActiveX component can't create Object Error? Check 64 bit Status

  - by Rick Strahl

  If you're running on IIS 7 and a 64 bit operating system you might run into the following error using ASP classic or ASP.NET with COM interop. In classic ASP applications the error will show up as: ActiveX component can't create object   (Error 429) (actually without error handling the error just shows up as 500 error page) In my case the code that's been giving me problems has been a FoxPro COM object I'd been using to serve banner ads to some of my pages. The code basically looks up banners from a database table and displays them at random. The ASP classic code that uses it looks like this: <% Set banner = Server.CreateObject("wwBanner.aspBanner") banner.BannerFile = "wwsitebanners" Response.Write(banner.GetBanner(-1)) %> Originally this code had no specific error checking as above so the ASP pages just failed with 500 error pages from the Web server. To find out what the problem is this code is more useful at least for debugging: <% ON ERROR RESUME NEXT Set banner = Server.CreateObject("wwBanner.aspBanner") Response.Write(err.Number & " - " & err.Description) banner.BannerFile = "wwsitebanners" Response.Write(banner.GetBanner(-1)) %> which results in: 429 - ActiveX component can't create object which at least gives you a slight clue. In ASP.NET invoking the same COM object with code like this: <% dynamic banner = wwUtils.CreateComInstance("wwBanner.aspBanner") as dynamic; banner.cBANNERFILE = "wwsitebanners"; Response.Write(banner.getBanner(-1)); %> results in: Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {B5DCBB81-D5F5-11D2-B85E-00600889F23B} failed due to the following error: 80040154 Class not registered (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80040154 (REGDB_E_CLASSNOTREG)). The class is in fact registered though and the COM server loads fine from a command prompt or other COM client. This error can be caused by a COM server that doesn't load. It looks like a COM registration error. There are a number of traditional reasons why this error can crop up of course. The server isn't registered (run regserver32 to register a DLL server or /regserver on an EXE server) Access permissions aren't set on the COM server (Web account has to be able to read the DLL ie. Network service) The COM server fails to load during initialization ie. failing during startup One thing I always do to check for COM errors fire up the server in a COM client outside of IIS and ensure that it works there first - it's almost always easier to debug a server outside of the Web environment. In my case I tried the server in Visual FoxPro on the server with: loBanners = CREATEOBJECT("wwBanner.aspBanner") loBanners.cBannerFile = "wwsitebanners" ? loBanners.GetBanner(-1) and it worked just fine. If you don't have a full dev environment on the server you can also use VBScript do the same thing and run the .vbs file from the command prompt: Set banner = Server.CreateObject("wwBanner.aspBanner") banner.BannerFile = "wwsitebanners" MsgBox(banner.getBanner(-1)) Since this both works it tells me the server is registered and working properly. This leaves startup failures or permissions as the problem. I double checked permissions for the Application Pool and the permissions of the folder where the DLL lives and both are properly set to allow access by the Application Pool impersonated user. Just to be sure I assigned an Admin user to the Application Pool but still no go. So now what? 64 bit Servers Ahoy A couple of weeks back I had set up a few of my Application pools to 64 bit mode. My server is Server 2008 64 bit and by default Application Pools run 64 bit. Originally when I installed the server I set up most of my Application Pools to 32 bit mainly for backwards compatibility. But as more of my code migrates to 64 bit OS's I figured it'd be a good idea to see how well code runs under 64 bit code. The transition has been mostly painless. Until today when I noticed the problem with the code above when scrolling to my IIS logs and noticing a lot of 500 errors on many of my ASP classic pages. The code in question in most of these pages deals with this single simple COM object. It took a while to figure out that the problem is caused by the Application Pool running in 64 bit mode. The issue is that 32 bit COM objects (ie. my old Visual FoxPro COM component) cannot be loaded in a 64 bit Application Pool. The ASP pages using this COM component broke on the day I switched my main Application Pool into 64 bit mode but I didn't find the problem until I searched my logs for errors by pure chance. To fix this is easy enough once you know what the problem is by switching the Application Pool to Enable 32-bit Applications: Once this is done the COM objects started working correctly again. 64 bit ASP and ASP.NET with DCOM Servers This is kind of off topic, but incidentally it's possible to load 32 bit DCOM (out of process) servers from ASP.NET and ASP classic even if those applications run in 64 bit application pools. In fact, in West Wind Web Connection I use this capability to run a 64 bit ASP.NET handler that talks to a 32 bit FoxPro COM server which allows West Wind Web Connection to run in native 64 bit mode without custom configuration (which is actually quite useful). It's probably not a common usage scenario but it's good to know that you can actually access 32 bit COM objects this way from ASP.NET. For West Wind Web Connection this works out well as the DCOM interface only makes one non-chatty call to the backend server that handles all the rest of the request processing. Application Pool Isolation is your Friend For me the recent incident of failure in the classic ASP pages has just been another reminder to be very careful with moving applications to 64 bit operation. There are many little traps when switching to 64 bit that are very difficult to track and test for. I described one issue I had a couple of months ago where one of the default ASP.NET filters was loading the wrong version (32bit instead of 64bit) which was extremely difficult to track down and was caused by a very sneaky configuration switch error (basically 3 different entries for the same ISAPI filter all with different bitness settings). It took me almost a full day to track this down). Recently I've been taken to isolate individual applications into separate Application Pools rather than my past practice of combining many apps into shared AppPools. This is a good practice assuming you have enough memory to make this work. Application Pool isolate provides more modularity and allows me to selectively move applications to 64 bit. The error above came about precisely because I moved one of my most populous app pools to 64 bit and forgot about the minimal COM object use in some of my old pages. It's easy to forget. To 64bit or Not Is it worth it to move to 64 bit? Currently I'd say -not really. In my - admittedly limited - testing I don't see any significant performance increases. In fact 64 bit apps just seem to consume considerably more memory (30-50% more in my pools on average) and performance is minimally improved (less than 5% at the very best) in the load testing I've performed on a couple of sites in both modes. The only real incentive for 64 bit would be applications that require huge data spaces that exceed the 32 bit 4 gigabyte memory limit. However I have a hard time imagining an application that needs 4 gigs of memory in a single Application Pool :-). Curious to hear other opinions on benefits of 64 bit operation. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in COM   ASP.NET  FoxPro  

  Read the article

• Real Excel Templates I

  - by Tim Dexter

  As promised, I'm starting to document the new Excel templates that I teased you all with a few weeks back. Leslie is buried in 11g documentation and will not get to officially documenting the templates for a while. I'll do my best to be professional and not ramble on about this and that, although the weather here has finally turned and its 'scorchio' here in Colorado today. Maybe our stand of Aspen will finally come into leaf ... but I digress. Preamble These templates are not actually that new, I helped in a small way to develop them a few years back with Excel 'meistress' Shirley for a company that was trying to use the Report Manager(RR) Excel FSG outputs under EBS 12. The functionality they needed was just not there in the RR FSG templates, the templates are actually XSL that is created from the the RR Excel template builder and fed to BIP for processing. Think of Excel from our RTF templates and you'll be there ie not really Excel but HTML masquerading as Excel. Although still under controlled release in EBS they have now made their way to the standlone release and are willing to share their Excel goodness. You get everything you have with hte Excel Analyzer Excel templates plus so much more. Therein lies a question, what will happen to the Analyzer templates? My understanding is that both will come together into a single Excel template format some time in the post-11g release world. The new XLSX format for Exce 2007/10 is also in the mix too so watch this space. What more do these templates offer? Well, you can structure data in the Excel output. Similar to RTF templates you can create sheets of data that have master-detail n relationships. Although the analyzer templates can do this, you have to get into macros whereas BIP will do this all for you. You can also use native XSL functions in your data to manipulate it prior to rendering. BP functions are not currently supported. The most impressive, for me at least, is the sheet 'bursting'. You can split your hierarchical data across multiple sheets and dynamically name those sheets. Finally, you of course, still get all the native Excel functionality. Pre-reqs You must be on 10.1.3.4.1 plus the latest rollup patch, 9546699. You can patch upa BIP instance running with OBIEE, no problem You need Excel 2000 or above to build the templates Some patience - there is no Excel template builder for these new templates. So its all going to have to be done by hand. Its not that tough but can get a little 'fiddly'. You can not test the template from Excel , it has to be deployed and then run. Limitations The new templates are definitely superior to the Analyzer templates but there are a few limitations. Re-grouping is not supported. You can only follow a data hierarchy not bend it to your will unless you want to get into macros. No support for BIP functions. The templates support native XSL functions only. No template builder Getting Started The templates make the use of named cells and groups of cells to allow BIP to find the insertion point for data points. It also uses a hidden sheet to store calculation mappings from named cells to XML data elements. To start with, in the great BIP tradition, we need some sample XML data. Becasue I wanted to show the master-detail output we need some hierarchical data. If you have not yet gotten into the data templates, now is a good time, I wrote a post a while back starting from the simple to more complex. They generate ideal data sets for these templates. Im working with the following data set: <EMPLOYEES> <LIST_G_DEPT> <G_DEPT> <DEPARTMENT_ID>10</DEPARTMENT_ID> <DEPARTMENT_NAME>Administration</DEPARTMENT_NAME> <LIST_G_EMP> <G_EMP> <EMPLOYEE_ID>200</EMPLOYEE_ID> <EMP_NAME>Jennifer Whalen</EMP_NAME> <EMAIL>JWHALEN</EMAIL> <PHONE_NUMBER>515.123.4444</PHONE_NUMBER> <HIRE_DATE>1987-09-17T00:00:00.000-06:00</HIRE_DATE> <SALARY>4400</SALARY> </G_EMP> </LIST_G_EMP> <TOTAL_EMPS>1</TOTAL_EMPS> <TOTAL_SALARY>4400</TOTAL_SALARY> <AVG_SALARY>4400</AVG_SALARY> <MAX_SALARY>4400</MAX_SALARY> <MIN_SALARY>4400</MIN_SALARY> </G_DEPT> ... <LIST_G_DEPT> <EMPLOYEES> Simple enough to follow and bread and butter stuff for an RTF template. Building the Template For an Excel template we need to start by thinking about how we want to render the data. Come up with a sample output in Excel. Its all dummy data, nothing marked up yet with one row of data for each level. I have the department name and then a repeating row for the employees. You can apply Excel formatting to the layout. The total is going to be derived from a data element. We'll get to Excel functions later. Marking Up Cells Next we need to start marking up the cells with custom names to map them to data elements. The cell names need to follow a specific format: For data grouping, XDO_GROUP_?group_name? For data elements, XDO_?element_name? Notice the question mark delimter, the group_name and element_name are case sensitive. The next step is to find how to name cells; the easiest method is to highlight the cell and then type in the name. You can also find the Name Manager dialog. I use 2007 and its available on the ribbon under the Formulas section Go thorugh the process of naming all the cells for the element values you have. Using my data set from above.You should end up with something like this in your 'Name Manager' dialog. You can update any mistakes you might have made through this dialog. Creating Groups In the image above you can see there are a couple of named group cells. To create these its a simple case of highlighting the cells that make up the group and then naming them. For the EMP group, highlight the employee row and then type in the name, XDO_GROUP?G_EMP? Notice the 10,000 total is outside of the G_EMP group. Its actually named, XDO_?TOTAL_SALARY?, a query calculated value. For the department group, we need to include the department name cell and the sub EMP grouping and name it, XDO_GROUP?G_DEPT? Notice, the 10,000 total is included in the G_DEPT group. This will ensure it repeats at the department level. Lastly, we do need to include a special sheet in the workbook. We will not have anything meaningful in there for now, but it needs to be present. Create a new sheet and name it XDO_METADATA. The name is important as the BIP rendering engine will looking for it. For our current example we do not need anything other than the required stuff in our XDO_METADATA sheet but, it must be present. Easy enough to hide it. Here's what I have: The only cell that is important is the 'Data Constraints:' cell. The rest is optional. To save curious users getting distracted, hide the metadata sheet. Deploying & Running Templates We should now have a usable Excel template. Loading it into a report is easy enough using the browser UI, just like an RTF template. Set the template type to Excel. You will now be able to run the report and hopefully get something like this. You will not get the red highlighting, thats just some conditional formatting I added to the template using Excel functionality. Your dates are probably going to look raw too. I got around this for now using an Excel function on the cell: =--REPLACE(SUBSTITUTE(E8,"T"," "),LEN(E8)-6,6,"") Google to the rescue on that one. Try some other stuff out. To avoid constantly loading the template through the UI. If you have BIP running locally or you can access the reports repository, once you have loaded the template the first time. Just save the template directly into the report folder. I have put together a sample report using a sample data set, available here. Just drop the xml data file, EmpbyDeptExcelData.xml into 'demo files' folder and you should be good to go. Thats the basics, next we'll start using some XSL functions in the template and move onto the 'bursting' across sheets.

  Read the article

• 14+ Real Estate WordPress Themes

  - by Aditi

  If you are looking for a great WordPress real estate theme. Below is a list of some of the best wordpress real estate themes, so you can find one, which is the best suited for you and be at par with increasing industry demands in real estates business.We have covered only the best themes available. The Themes are flexible & can be used by anybody in real estate business. If you are realtor, agent, appraiser or realty these can be modified as per your use. Estate It is an immensely powerful and simple to manage business theme. It offers advanced SEO control, clean code and styling modification features. It has new “Properties” management facility when installed – proving it’s far more than just a WordPress theme. It offers flexible page templates, an advanced search facility that allows you to drill down into properties based on very specific criteria, Google Maps integration and smart property images management. It is a complete web solution. It also has IDX functionality due to dsIDXpress plugin integration, which allows multi-listing services. Price: $200 View Demo Download ElegantEstate It makes your WordPress blog into a full-feature real estate website. The theme makes browsing your listings easy, and adds special integration features for property info, photos, Google Maps and more. Help increase sales by establishing an elegant and professional online presence today. It has opera compatibility, Netscape compatibility, Safari compatibility, WordPress 3.0 compatibility. It comes with five color schemes, threaded comments, optional blog-style structure, Gravatar ready, firefox compatible, IE8 + IE7 + IE6 compatible, advertisement ready, widget ready sidebars, theme options page, custom thumbnail images, PSD files, valid XHTML + CSS, smooth table less design, ePanel theme options, page templates, complete localization and many more features. Price: $39 (Package includes more than 55 themes) View Demo Download Open House Open House is fully compatible with WordPress 3.0+ and a highly customizable Real Estate WordPress theme. It has Google Maps Integration with Street View. It has a professional look for Agents and Realtors both. It is best suited for all markets and countries with theme localization, translation and internationalization. It provides for English, Spanish and Portuguese language files in the Developer Package. It has custom scripts, which makes it easy to add/delete/modify listings. It also includes photo gallery with a lightbox effect, gorgeous photo fade animations and automatic Google Maps integration. The theme can be used as a single or multi-agent website with individual Agent-Realtor pages with listings and biography information, Agent photo uploader, financing calculator.There is Multi Category search for potential customers to locate the house they want. Price: $39.95 essential | $69.95 standard | $99.95 premium View Demo Download Residence Real Estate It is a WordPress 3.0+ compatible stunning real estate theme. It has a dynamic real estate framework management module for easy edit-delete-add more features options, which makes this theme super easy to customize to the market needs. It allows you to add your own labels and values in your own language and switch the theme to your own language with English and Spanish files included with the ability to add your own language. It offers Multi-Category search with breadcrumb filtered results, easy photo gallery management with drag-drop sorting of images. It allows you to build your own multi-category search section menu with custom labels-choices and unlimited dropdown menus. They have been presented in a professional module with search results in breadcrumb navigation. Price: $39.95 essential | $69.95 standard | $99.95 premium View Demo Download Smooth Smooth is a WordPress Real Estate theme. It is a complete theme, which comes with Multi Category Search, Google Maps Integration, Agent Photo and Logo uploader that offers a professional and extremely affordable solution for Realtors and Agents to showcase their properties with ease. You can add your listings with the extremely easy and flexible Dynamic Real Estate Framework, edit-add-modify-delete all features, labels and values within the WordPress administration and upload unlimited photos to your galleries with latest WordPress 3.0+ features. It is a complete solution for real estate sites. Price: $39.95 essential | $69.95 standard | $99.95 premium View Demo Download Homeowners It is another WordPress Real Estate theme, which is a fast loading optimized theme with Google Maps Integration, fully compatible with WordPress 3.0 features and all Real Estate markets. It has a professional clean look and it is full of features extremely easy to modify. It also provides for 12 new styles provided. English, Spanish and Portuguese language files are provided in the Developer Package. Homeowners WordPress Real Estate features custom scripts that make add/delete/modify listings an easy task with an included photo gallery with a lightbox effect and automatic Google Map integration with street view (New) Agents will have access only to their own listings and add the listing management for their account making this theme an ideal affordable solution for Realtors and Real Estate agencies. The theme can be used as a single or multi-agent website with individual Agent-Realtor pages with listings and biography information, Agent photo uploader, financing calculator. Multi category search has also been provided. Price: $39.95 essential | $69.95 standard | $99.95 premium View Demo Download Real Agent Real Estate This theme is a WordPress 3.0+ compatible clean grid based real estate theme. It has a dynamic real estate framework management module for easy edit-delete-add more features options. It is easy to customize according to market. It allows you to add your own labels and values in your own language switch the theme to your own language with English and Spanish files included with the ability to add your own language. Multi-Category search with breadcrumb filtered results, easy photo gallery management with drag-drop sorting of images. You can upload property photos in bulk with the native WordPress uploader and the new image editing and resizing options in WordPress 3.0+. The theme features 5 different color styles, blue, black, red, green and purple with professional layouts, logo and agent photo uploaders. This theme is best suited for individual or multiple agents both. Price: $39.95 essential | $69.95 standard | $99.95 premium View Demo Download Agent Press The AgentPress theme is an ideal solution for real estate agents. It offers multiple page templates that can be used to create a complete real estate website. You can create from single property templates to a custom homepage easily with it. It is compatible to WordPress 3.0 and 3.1. It has custom background/header, property template, 6 layout options, fixed width, threaded comments and many more features. Price: $99.95 View Demo Download Real Estate It is one of the best Real Estate themes. It offers single click auto install of the site, Allow user to pay & submit properties on your site, Multi-agent site with profiles, Strategically built real estate site with professional design, User dashboard to edit/renew their submissions, Auto generated Google Maps and Image Slideshows and many more unique features. Once the users search property as per their criteria, the properties are listed with all the necessary parameters that let them select the property of their choice. Users can also add the property to favorite so they can check the property later from their member area dashboard. Admin may display different sidebar on this page and add widgets of their choice. This theme is full of custom, dynamic widgets such as top agents, finance calculator, user login; advertise blocks, testimonials and so on. There is a property details page where users can see the actual property. The agent details is displayed with the full contact details and appropriate links so the visitor can get all info about the property being sold, seller and may contact them by filling out a simple form. The email will be sent directly to the person who listed the property. Price: $89.95 Single | $159.95 Developer View Demo Download Broker Real Estate It is also a WordPress 3.0+ compatible real estate theme. It has a featured property slideshow, dynamic real estate framework management module for easy edit-delete-add more features. You can add your own labels and values in your own language. It offers multi-category search with breadcrumb-filtered results, easy photo gallery management with drag-drop sorting of images. You can also build your own multi-category search section menu with custom labels-choices and unlimited dropdown menus. Price: $39.95 essential | $69.95 standard | $99.95 premium View Demo Download Decasa It has custom search panel that lets your user easily browse your properties by keyword search or category select drop downs. It offers the property exposé, which is a user-friendly overview over the most important details of each real estate object. You can easily add this data through a post settings meta box on the post edit screen. You can easily create a real estate image gallery. Its theme options panel makes it easy to make the basic theme settings. It supports the new WordPress post thumbnail feature. When uploading an image file the theme will automatically create all the necessary image size. You can also create your own custom menu easily and fast with drag and drop without touching any code. Price: 39 € View Demo Download RealtorPress A real estate premium WordPress theme from PremiumPress. Versatile WordPress Theme that can be used by individual agents or real estate companies. The theme allows you to easily add property listings via the custom backend admin area or import CSV spreadsheets. It features customisable search options, Google maps integration, real estate data custom field creator, image management tools and more. Price: $79 | Premium Collection: $259 (all PremiumPress themes) View Demo Download Related posts:21+ WordPress Photo Blog & Portfolio Themes 14+ WordPress Portfolio Themes Professional WordPress Business Themes

  Read the article

• Our Look at Opera 10.50 Web Browser

  - by Asian Angel

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

  Read the article

• Working with Silverlight DataGrid RowDetailsTemplate

  - by mohanbrij

  In this post I am going to show how we can use the Silverlight DataGrid RowDetails Template, Before I start I assume that you know basics of Silverlight and also know how you create a Silverlight Projects. I have started with the Silverlight Application, and kept all the default options before I created a Silverlight Project. After this I added a Silverlight DataGrid control to my MainForm.xaml page, using the DragDrop feature of Visual Studio IDE, this will help me to add the default namespace and references automatically. Just to give you a quick look of what exactly I am going to do, I will show you in the screen below my final target, before I start explaining rest of my codes. Before I start with the real code, first I have to do some ground work, as I am not getting the data from the DB, so I am creating a class where I will populate the dummy data. EmployeeData.cs public class EmployeeData { public string FirstName { get; set; } public string LastName { get; set; } public string Address { get; set; } public string City { get; set; } public string State { get; set; } public string Country { get; set; } public EmployeeData() { } public List<EmployeeData> GetEmployeeData() { List<EmployeeData> employees = new List<EmployeeData>(); employees.Add ( new EmployeeData { Address = "#407, PH1, Foyer Appartment", City = "Bangalore", Country = "India", FirstName = "Brij", LastName = "Mohan", State = "Karnataka" }); employees.Add ( new EmployeeData { Address = "#332, Dayal Niketan", City = "Jamshedpur", Country = "India", FirstName = "Arun", LastName = "Dayal", State = "Jharkhand" }); employees.Add ( new EmployeeData { Address = "#77, MSR Nagar", City = "Bangalore", Country = "India", FirstName = "Sunita", LastName = "Mohan", State = "Karnataka" }); return employees; } } The above class will give me some sample data, I think this will be good enough to start with the actual code. now I am giving below the XAML code from my MainForm.xaml First I will put the Silverlight DataGrid, <data:DataGrid x:Name="gridEmployee" CanUserReorderColumns="False" CanUserSortColumns="False" RowDetailsVisibilityMode="VisibleWhenSelected" HorizontalAlignment="Center" ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" Height="200" AutoGenerateColumns="False" Width="350" VerticalAlignment="Center"> Here, the most important property which I am going to set is RowDetailsVisibilityMode="VisibleWhenSelected" This will display the RowDetails only when we select the desired Row. Other option we have in this is Collapsed and Visible. Which will either make the row details always Visible or Always Collapsed. but to get the real effect I have selected VisibleWhenSelected. Now I am going to put the rest of my XAML code. <data:DataGrid.Columns> <!--Begin FirstName Column--> <data:DataGridTextColumn Width="150" Header="First Name" Binding="{Binding FirstName}"/> <!--End FirstName Column--> <!--Begin LastName Column--> <data:DataGridTextColumn Width="150" Header="Last Name" Binding="{Binding LastName}"/> <!--End LastName Column--> </data:DataGrid.Columns> <data:DataGrid.RowDetailsTemplate> <!-- Begin row details section. --> <DataTemplate> <Border BorderBrush="Black" BorderThickness="1" Background="White"> <Grid> <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <ColumnDefinition Width="0.2*" /> <ColumnDefinition Width="0.8*" /> </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition /> <RowDefinition /> <RowDefinition /> <RowDefinition /> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <!-- Controls are bound to FullAddress properties. --> <TextBlock Text="Address : " Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="0" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Address}" Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="0" /> <TextBlock Text="City : " Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="1" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding City}" Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" /> <TextBlock Text="State : " Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="2" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding State}" Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="2" /> <TextBlock Text="Country : " Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="3" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Country}" Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="3" /> </Grid> </Border> </DataTemplate> <!-- End row details section. --> </data:DataGrid.RowDetailsTemplate>   In the code above, first I am declaring the simple dataGridTextColumn for FirstName and LastName, and after this I am creating the RowDetailTemplate, where we are just putting the code what we usually do to design the Grid. I mean nothing very much RowDetailTemplate Specific, most of the code which you will see inside the RowDetailsTemplate is plain and simple, where I am binding rest of the Address Column. And that,s it. Once we will bind the DataGrid, you are ready to go. In the code below from MainForm.xaml.cs, I am just binding the DataGrid public partial class MainPage : UserControl { public MainPage() { InitializeComponent(); BindControls(); } private void BindControls() { EmployeeData employees = new EmployeeData(); gridEmployee.ItemsSource = employees.GetEmployeeData(); } } Once you will run, you can see the output I have given in the screenshot above. In this example I have just shown the very basic example, now it up to your creativity and requirement, you can put some other controls like checkbox, Images, even other DataGrid, etc inside this RowDetailsTemplate column. I am attaching my sample source code with this post. I have used Silverlight 3 and Visual Studio 2008, but this is fully compatible with you Silverlight 4 and Visual Studio 2010. you may just need to Upgrade the attached Sample. You can download from here.

  Read the article

• PowerShell Script to Deploy Multiple VM on Azure in Parallel #azure #powershell

  - by Marco Russo (SQLBI)

  This blog is usually dedicated to Business Intelligence and SQL Server, but I didn’t found easily on the web simple PowerShell scripts to help me deploying a number of virtual machines on Azure that I use for testing and development. Since I need to deploy, start, stop and remove many virtual machines created from a common image I created (you know, Tabular is not part of the standard images provided by Microsoft…), I wanted to minimize the time required to execute every operation from my Windows Azure PowerShell console (but I suggest you using Windows PowerShell ISE), so I also wanted to fire the commands as soon as possible in parallel, without losing the result in the console. In order to execute multiple commands in parallel, I used the Start-Job cmdlet, and using Get-Job and Receive-Job I wait for job completion and display the messages generated during background command execution. This technique allows me to reduce execution time when I have to deploy, start, stop or remove virtual machines. Please note that a few operations on Azure acquire an exclusive lock and cannot be really executed in parallel, but only one part of their execution time is subject to this lock. Thus, you obtain a better response time also in these scenarios (this is the case of the provisioning of a new VM). Finally, when you remove the VMs you still have the disk containing the virtual machine to remove. This cannot be done just after the VM removal, because you have to wait that the removal operation is completed on Azure. So I wrote a script that you have to run a few minutes after VMs removal and delete disks (and VHD) no longer related to a VM. I just check that the disk were associated to the original image name used to provision the VMs (so I don’t remove other disks deployed by other batches that I might want to preserve). These examples are specific for my scenario, if you need more complex configurations you have to change and adapt the code. But if your need is to create multiple instances of the same VM running in a workgroup, these scripts should be good enough. I prepared the following PowerShell scripts: ProvisionVMs: Provision many VMs in parallel starting from the same image. It creates one service for each VM. RemoveVMs: Remove all the VMs in parallel – it also remove the service created for the VM StartVMs: Starts all the VMs in parallel StopVMs: Stops all the VMs in parallel RemoveOrphanDisks: Remove all the disks no longer used by any VMs. Run this script a few minutes after RemoveVMs script. ProvisionVMs # Name of subscription $SubscriptionName = "Copy the SubscriptionName property you get from Get-AzureSubscription"   # Name of storage account (where VMs will be deployed) $StorageAccount = "Copy the Label property you get from Get-AzureStorageAccount"   function ProvisionVM( [string]$VmName ) {     Start-Job -ArgumentList $VmName {         param($VmName) $Location = "Copy the Location property you get from Get-AzureStorageAccount" $InstanceSize = "A5" # You can use any other instance, such as Large, A6, and so on $AdminUsername = "UserName" # Write the name of the administrator account in the new VM $Password = "Password"      # Write the password of the administrator account in the new VM $Image = "Copy the ImageName property you get from Get-AzureVMImage" # You can list your own images using the following command: # Get-AzureVMImage | Where-Object {$_.PublisherName -eq "User" }         New-AzureVMConfig -Name $VmName -ImageName $Image -InstanceSize $InstanceSize |             Add-AzureProvisioningConfig -Windows -Password $Password -AdminUsername $AdminUsername|             New-AzureVM -Location $Location -ServiceName "$VmName" -Verbose     } }   # Set the proper storage - you might remove this line if you have only one storage in the subscription Set-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $SubscriptionName -CurrentStorageAccount $StorageAccount   # Select the subscription - this line is fundamental if you have access to multiple subscription # You might remove this line if you have only one subscription Select-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $SubscriptionName   # Every line in the following list provisions one VM using the name specified in the argument # You can change the number of lines - use a unique name for every VM - don't reuse names # already used in other VMs already deployed ProvisionVM "test10" ProvisionVM "test11" ProvisionVM "test12" ProvisionVM "test13" ProvisionVM "test14" ProvisionVM "test15" ProvisionVM "test16" ProvisionVM "test17" ProvisionVM "test18" ProvisionVM "test19" ProvisionVM "test20"   # Wait for all to complete While (Get-Job -State "Running") {     Get-Job -State "Completed" | Receive-Job     Start-Sleep 1 }   # Display output from all jobs Get-Job | Receive-Job   # Cleanup of jobs Remove-Job *   # Displays batch completed echo "Provisioning VM Completed" RemoveVMs # Name of subscription $SubscriptionName = "Copy the SubscriptionName property you get from Get-AzureSubscription"   function RemoveVM( [string]$VmName ) {     Start-Job -ArgumentList $VmName {         param($VmName)         Remove-AzureService -ServiceName $VmName -Force -Verbose     } }   # Select the subscription - this line is fundamental if you have access to multiple subscription # You might remove this line if you have only one subscription Select-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $SubscriptionName   # Every line in the following list remove one VM using the name specified in the argument # You can change the number of lines - use a unique name for every VM - don't reuse names # already used in other VMs already deployed RemoveVM "test10" RemoveVM "test11" RemoveVM "test12" RemoveVM "test13" RemoveVM "test14" RemoveVM "test15" RemoveVM "test16" RemoveVM "test17" RemoveVM "test18" RemoveVM "test19" RemoveVM "test20"   # Wait for all to complete While (Get-Job -State "Running") {     Get-Job -State "Completed" | Receive-Job     Start-Sleep 1 }   # Display output from all jobs Get-Job | Receive-Job   # Cleanup Remove-Job *   # Displays batch completed echo "Remove VM Completed" StartVMs # Name of subscription $SubscriptionName = "Copy the SubscriptionName property you get from Get-AzureSubscription"   function StartVM( [string]$VmName ) {     Start-Job -ArgumentList $VmName {         param($VmName)         Start-AzureVM -Name $VmName -ServiceName $VmName -Verbose     } }   # Select the subscription - this line is fundamental if you have access to multiple subscription # You might remove this line if you have only one subscription Select-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $SubscriptionName   # Every line in the following list starts one VM using the name specified in the argument # You can change the number of lines - use a unique name for every VM - don't reuse names # already used in other VMs already deployed StartVM "test10" StartVM "test11" StartVM "test11" StartVM "test12" StartVM "test13" StartVM "test14" StartVM "test15" StartVM "test16" StartVM "test17" StartVM "test18" StartVM "test19" StartVM "test20"   # Wait for all to complete While (Get-Job -State "Running") {     Get-Job -State "Completed" | Receive-Job     Start-Sleep 1 }   # Display output from all jobs Get-Job | Receive-Job   # Cleanup Remove-Job *   # Displays batch completed echo "Start VM Completed"   StopVMs # Name of subscription $SubscriptionName = "Copy the SubscriptionName property you get from Get-AzureSubscription"   function StopVM( [string]$VmName ) {     Start-Job -ArgumentList $VmName {         param($VmName)         Stop-AzureVM -Name $VmName -ServiceName $VmName -Verbose -Force     } }   # Select the subscription - this line is fundamental if you have access to multiple subscription # You might remove this line if you have only one subscription Select-AzureSubscription -SubscriptionName $SubscriptionName   # Every line in the following list stops one VM using the name specified in the argument # You can change the number of lines - use a unique name for every VM - don't reuse names # already used in other VMs already deployed StopVM "test10" StopVM "test11" StopVM "test12" StopVM "test13" StopVM "test14" StopVM "test15" StopVM "test16" StopVM "test17" StopVM "test18" StopVM "test19" StopVM "test20"   # Wait for all to complete While (Get-Job -State "Running") {     Get-Job -State "Completed" | Receive-Job     Start-Sleep 1 }   # Display output from all jobs Get-Job | Receive-Job   # Cleanup Remove-Job *   # Displays batch completed echo "Stop VM Completed" RemoveOrphanDisks $Image = "Copy the ImageName property you get from Get-AzureVMImage" # You can list your own images using the following command: # Get-AzureVMImage | Where-Object {$_.PublisherName -eq "User" }   # Remove all orphan disks coming from the image specified in $ImageName Get-AzureDisk |     Where-Object {$_.attachedto -eq $null -and $_.SourceImageName -eq $ImageName} |     Remove-AzureDisk -DeleteVHD -Verbose  

  Read the article

• Upgrading Team Foundation Server 2008 to 2010

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  I am sure you will have seen my posts on upgrading our internal Team Foundation Server from TFS2008 to TFS2010 Beta 2, RC and RTM, but what about a fresh upgrade of TFS2008 to TFS2010 using the RTM version of TFS. One of our clients is taking the plunge with TFS2010, so I have the job of doing the upgrade. It is sometimes very useful to have a team member that starts work when most of the Sydney workers are heading home as I can do the upgrade without impacting them. The down side is that if you have any blockers then you can be pretty sure that everyone that can deal with your problem is asleep I am starting with an existing blank installation of TFS 2010, but Adam Cogan let slip that he was the one that did the install so I thought it prudent to make sure that it was OK. Verifying Team Foundation Server 2010 We need to check that TFS 2010 has been installed correctly. First, check the Admin console and have a root about for any errors. Figure: Even the SQL Setup looks good. I don’t know how Adam did it! Backing up the Team Foundation Server 2008 Databases As we are moving from one server to another (recommended method) we will be taking a backup of our TFS2008 databases and resorting them to the SQL Server for the new TFS2010 Server. Do not just detach and reattach. This will cause problems with the version of the database. If you are running a test migration you just need to create a backup of the TFS 2008 databases, but if you are doing the live migration then you should stop IIS on the TFS 2008 server before you backup the databases. This will stop any inadvertent check-ins or changes to TFS 2008. Figure: Stop IIS before you take a backup to prevent any TFS 2008 changes being written to the database. It is good to leave a little time between taking the TFS 2008 server offline and commencing the upgrade as there is always one developer who has not finished and starts screaming. This time it was John Liu that needed 10 more minutes to make his changes and check-in, so I always give it 30 minutes and see if anyone screams. John Liu [SSW] said:   are you doing something to TFS :-O MrHinsh [SSW UK][VS ALM MVP] said:   I have stopped TFS 2008 as per my emails John Liu [SSW] said:   haven't finish check in @_@   can we have it for 10mins? :) MrHinsh [SSW UK][VS ALM MVP] said:   TFS 2008 has been started John Liu [SSW] said:   I love you! -IM conversation at TFS Upgrade +25 minutes After John confirmed that he had everything done I turned IIS off again and made a cup of tea. There were no more screams so the upgrade can continue. Figure: Backup all of the databases for TFS and include the Reporting Services, just in case.   Figure: Check that all the backups have been taken Once you have your backups, you need to copy them to your new TFS2010 server and restore them. This is a good way to proceed as if we have any problems, or just plain run out of time, then you just turn the TFS 2008 server back on and all you have lost is one upgrade day, and not 10 developer days. As per the rules, you should record the number of files and the total number of areas and iterations before the upgrade so you have something to compare to: TFS2008 File count: Type Count 1 1845 2 15770 Areas & Iterations: 139 You can use this to verify that the upgrade was successful. it should however be noted that the numbers in TFS 2010 will be bigger. This is due to some of the sorting out that TFS does during the upgrade process. Restore Team Foundation Server 2008 Databases Restoring the databases is much more time consuming than just attaching them as you need to do them one at a time. But you may be taking a backup of an operational database and need to restore all your databases to a particular point in time instead of to the latest. I am doing latest unless I encounter any problems. Figure: Restore each of the databases to either a latest or specific point in time.     Figure: Restore all of the required databases Now that all of your databases are restored you now need to upgrade them to Team Foundation Server 2010. Upgrade Team Foundation Server 2008 Databases This is probably the easiest part of the process. You need to call a fire and forget command that will go off to the database specified, find the TFS 2008 databases and upgrade them to 2010. During this process all of the 6 main TFS 2008 databases are merged into the TfsVersionControl database, upgraded and then the database is renamed to TFS_[CollectionName]. The rename is only the database and not the physical files, so it is worth going back and renaming the physical file as well. This keeps everything neat and tidy. If you plan to keep the old TFS 2008 server around, for example if you are doing a test migration first, then you will need to change the TFS GUID. This GUID is unique to each TFS instance and is preserved when you upgrade. This GUID is used by the clients and they can get a little confused if there are two servers with the same one. To kick of the upgrade you need to open a command prompt and change the path to “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Tools” and run the “import” command in  “tfsconfig”. TfsConfig import /sqlinstance:<Previous TFS Data Tier>                  /collectionName:<Collection Name>                  /confirmed Imports a TFS 2005 or 2008 data tier as a new project collection. Important: This command should only be executed after adequate backups have been performed. After you import, you will need to configure portal and reporting settings via the administration console. EXAMPLES -------- TfsConfig import /sqlinstance:tfs2008sql /collectionName:imported /confirmed TfsConfig import /sqlinstance:tfs2008sql\Instance /collectionName:imported /confirmed OPTIONS: -------- sqlinstance         The sql instance of the TFS 2005 or 2008 data tier. The TFS databases at that location will be modified directly and will no longer be usable as previous version databases.  Ensure you have back-ups. collectionName      The name of the new Team Project Collection. confirmed           Confirm that you have backed-up databases before importing. This command will automatically look for the TfsIntegration database and verify that all the other required databases exist. In this case it took around 5 minutes to complete the upgrade as the total database size was under 700MB. This was unlike the upgrade of SSW’s production database with over 17GB of data which took a few hours. At the end of the process you should get no errors and no warnings. The Upgrade operation on the ApplicationTier feature has completed. There were 0 errors and 0 warnings. As this is a new server and not a pure upgrade there should not be a problem with the GUID. If you think at any point you will be doing this more than once, for example doing a test migration, or merging many TFS 2008 instances into a single one, then you should go back and rename the physical TfsVersionControl.mdf file to the same as the new collection. This will avoid confusion later down the line. To do this, detach the new collection from the server and rename the physical files. Then reattach and change the physical file locations to match the new name. You can follow http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1122 for a more detailed explanation of how to do this. Figure: Stop the collection so TFS does not take a wobbly when we detach the database. When you try to start the new collection again you will get a conflict with project names and will require to remove the Test Upgrade collection. This is fine and it just needs detached. Figure: Detaching the test upgrade from the new Team Foundation Server 2010 so we can start the new Collection again. You will now be able to start the new upgraded collection and you are ready for testing. Do you remember the stats we took off the TFS 2008 server? TFS2008 File count: Type Count 1 1845 2 15770 Areas & Iterations: 139 Well, now we need to compare them to the TFS 2010 stats, remembering that there will probably be more files under source control. TFS2010 File count: Type Count 1 19288 Areas & Iterations: 139 Lovely, the number of iterations are the same, and the number of files is bigger. Just what we were looking for. Testing the upgraded Team Foundation Server 2010 Project Collection Can we connect to the new collection and project? Figure: We can connect to the new collection and project.   Figure: make sure you can connect to The upgraded projects and that you can see all of the files. Figure: Team Web Access is there and working. Note that for Team Web Access you now use the same port and URL as for TFS 2010. So in this case as I am running on the local box you need to use http://localhost:8080/tfs which will redirect you to http://localhost:8080/tfs/web for the web access. If you need to connect with a Visual Studio 2008 client you will need to use the full path of the new collection, http://[servername]/tfs/[collectionname] and this will work with all of your collections. With Visual Studio 2005 you will only be able to connect to the Default collection and in both VS2008 and VS2005 you will need to install the forward compatibility updates. Visual Studio Team System 2005 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010 Visual Studio Team System 2008 Service Pack 1 Forward Compatibility Update for Team Foundation Server 2010 To make sure that you have everything up to date, make sure that you run SSW Diagnostics and get all green ticks. Upgrade Done! At this point you can send out a notice to everyone that the upgrade is complete and and give them the connection details. You need to remember that at this stage we have 2008 project upgraded to run under TFS 2010 but it is still running under that same process template that it was running before. You can only “enable” 2010 features in a process template you can’t upgrade. So what to do? Well, you need to create a new project and migrate things you want to keep across. Souse code is easy, you can move or Branch, but Work Items are more difficult as you can’t move them between projects. This instance is complicated more as the old project uses the Conchango/EMC Scrum for Team System template and I will need to write a script/application to get the work items across with their attachments in tact. That is my next task! Technorati Tags: TFS 2010,TFS 2008,VS ALM

  Read the article

• Create a Bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash Drive

  - by Trevor Bekolay

  The Ubuntu Live CD isn’t just useful for trying out Ubuntu before you install it, you can also use it to maintain and repair your Windows PC. Even if you have no intention of installing Linux, every Windows user should have a bootable Ubuntu USB drive on hand in case something goes wrong in Windows. Creating a bootable USB flash drive is surprisingly easy with a small self-contained application called UNetbootin. It will even download Ubuntu for you! Note: Ubuntu will take up approximately 700 MB on your flash drive, so choose a flash drive with at least 1 GB of free space, formatted as FAT32. This process should not remove any existing files on the flash drive, but to be safe you should backup the files on your flash drive. Put Ubuntu on your flash drive UNetbootin doesn’t require installation; just download the application and run it. Select Ubuntu from the Distribution drop-down box, then 9.10_Live from the Version drop-down box. If you have a 64-bit machine, then select 9.10_Live_x64 for the Version. At the bottom of the screen, select the drive letter that corresponds to the USB drive that you want to put Ubuntu on. If you select USB Drive in the Type drop-down box, the only drive letters available will be USB flash drives. Click OK and UNetbootin will start doing its thing. First it will download the Ubuntu Live CD. Then, it will copy the files from the Ubuntu Live CD to your flash drive. The amount of time it takes will vary depending on your Internet speed, an when it’s done, click on Exit. You’re not planning on installing Ubuntu right now, so there’s no need to reboot. If you look at the USB drive now, you should see a bunch of new files and folders. If you had files on the drive before, they should still be present. You’re now ready to boot your computer into Ubuntu 9.10! How to boot into Ubuntu When the time comes that you have to boot into Ubuntu, or if you just want to test and make sure that your flash drive works properly, you will have to set your computer to boot off of the flash drive. The steps to do this will vary depending on your BIOS – which varies depending on your motherboard. To get detailed instructions on changing how your computer boots, search for your motherboard’s manual (or your laptop’s manual for a laptop). For general instructions, which will suffice for 99% of you, read on. Find the important keyboard keys When your computer boots up, a bunch of words and numbers flash across the screen, usually to be ignored. This time, you need to scan the boot-up screen for a few key words with some associated keys: Boot menu and Setup. Typically, these will show up at the bottom of the screen. If your BIOS has a Boot Menu, then read on. Otherwise, skip to the Hard: Using Setup section. Easy: Using the Boot Menu If your BIOS offers a Boot Menu, then during the boot-up process, press the button associated with the Boot Menu. In our case, this is ESC. Our example Boot Menu doesn’t have the ability to boot from USB, but your Boot Menu should have some options, such as USB-CDROM, USB-HDD, USB-FLOPPY, and others. Try the options that start with USB until you find one that works. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work – you can just restart and try again. Using the Boot Menu does not change the normal boot order on your system, so the next time you start up your computer it will boot from the hard drive as normal. Hard: Using Setup If your BIOS doesn’t offer a Boot Menu, then you will have to change the boot order in Setup. Note: There are some options in BIOS Setup that can affect the stability of your machine. Take care to only change the boot order options. Press the button associated with Setup. In our case, this is F2. If your BIOS Setup has a Boot tab, then switch to it and change the order such that one of the USB options occurs first. There may be several USB options, such as USB-CDROM, USB-HDD, USB-FLOPPY, and others; try them out to see which one works for you. If your BIOS does not have a boot tab, boot order is commonly found in Advanced CMOS Options. Note that this changes the boot order permanently until you change it back. If you plan on only plugging in a bootable flash drive when you want to boot from it, then you could leave the boot order as it is, but you may find it easier to switch the order back to the previous order when you reboot from Ubuntu. Booting into Ubuntu If you set the right boot option, then you should be greeted with the UNetbootin screen. Press enter to start Ubuntu with the default options, or wait 10 seconds for this to happen automatically. Ubuntu will start loading. It should go straight to the desktop with no need for a username or password. And that’s it! From this live desktop session, you can try out Ubuntu, and even install software that is not included in the live CD. Installed software will only last for the duration of your session – the next time you start up the live CD it will be back to its original state. Download UNetbootin from sourceforge.net Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Create a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy WayReset 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 7Speed up Your Windows Vista Computer with ReadyBoost TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional New Stinger from McAfee Helps Remove ‘FakeAlert’ Threats Google Apps Marketplace: Tools & Services For Google Apps Users Get News Quick and Precise With Newser Scan for Viruses in Ubuntu using ClamAV Replace Your Windows Task Manager With System Explorer Create Talking Photos using Fotobabble

  Read the article

• Tips on installing Visual Studio 2010 SP1

  - by Jon Galloway

  Visual Studio SP1 went up on MSDN downloads (here) on March 8, and will be released publicly on March 10 here. Release announcements: Soma: Visual Studio 2010 enhancements Jason Zander: Announcing Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 I started on this post with tips on installing VS2010 SP1 when I realized I’ve been writing these up for Visual Studio and .NET framework SP releases for a while (e.g. VS2008 / .NET 3.5 SP1 post, VS2005 SP1 post). Looking back the years of Visual Studio SP installs (and remembering when we’d get up to SP6 for a Visual Studio release), I’m happy to see that it just keeps getting easier. Service Packs are a lot less finicky about requiring beta software to be uninstalled, install more quickly, and are just generally a lot less scary. If I can’t have a jetpack, at least my future provided me faster, easier service packs. Disclaimer: These tips are just general things I've picked up over the years. I don't have any inside knowledge here. If you see anything wrong, be sure to let me know in the comments. You may want to check the readme file before installing - it's short, and it's in that new-fangled HTML format. On with the tips! Before starting, uninstall Visual Studio features you don't use Visual Studio service packs (and other Microsoft service packs as well) install patches for the specific features you’ve got installed. This is a big reason to always do a custom install when you first install Visual Studio, but it’s not difficult to update your existing installation. Here’s the quick way to do that: Tap the windows key and type “add or remove programs” and press enter (or click on the “Add or remove programs” link if you must).   Type “Visual Studio 2010” in the search box in the upper right corner, click on the Visual Studio program (the one with the VS infinity looking logo) and click on Uninstall/Change. Click on Add or Remove Features The next part’s up to you – what features do you actually use? I’ve been doing primarily ASP.NET MVC development in C# lately, so I selected Visual C# and Visual Web Developer. Remember that you can install features later if needed, and can also install the express versions if you want. Selecting everything just because it’s there - or you paid for it – means that you install updates for everything, every time. When you’ve made your changes, click on the Update button to uninstall unused features. Shut down all instances of Visual Studio It probably goes without saying that you should close a program down before installing it, partly to avoid the file-in-use-reboot-after-install horror. Additional "hunch / works on my machine" quality tip: On one computer I saw a note in the setup log about Visual Studio a prompt for user input to close Visual Studio, although I never saw the prompt. Just to  be sure, I'd personally open up Task Manager and kill any devenv.exe processes I saw running, as it couldn't hurt. Use the web installer I use the Web Installers whenever possible. There’s no point in downloading the DVD unless you’re doing multiple installs or won’t have internet access. The DVD IS is 1.5GB, since it needs to be able to service every possible supported installation option on both x86 and x64. The web installer is 776 KB (smaller than calc.exe), so you can start the installation right away. Like other web installers, the real benefit is that it only installs the updates you need (hence the reason for step 1 – uninstalling unused components). Instead of 1.5GB, my download was roughly 530MB. If you’re installing from MSDN (this link takes you right to the Visual Studio installs), select the first one on the list: The first step in the installation process is to analyze the machine configuration and tell you what needs to be installed. Since I've trimmed down my features, that's a pretty short list. The time's not far off where I may not install SQL Server on my dev machines, just using SQL Server Compact - that would shorten the list further. When I hit next, you can see that the download size has shrunk considerably. When I start the install, note that the installation begins while other components are downloading - another benefit of the web install. On my mid-range desktop machine, the install took 25 minutes. What if it takes longer? According to Heath Stewart (Visual Studio installer guru), average SP1 installs take roughly 45 minutes. An installation which takes hours to complete may be a sign of a problem: see his post Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 installing for over 2 hours could be a sign of a problem. Why so long? Yes, even 25 minutes is a while. Heath's got another blog post explaining why the update can take longer than the initial install (see: A patch may take as long or longer to install than the target product) which explains all the additional steps and complexities a patch needs to deal with, as well as some mitigation steps that deployment authors can take to mitigate the impact. Other things to know about Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Installs over Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Beta That's nice. Previous Visual Studio versions did a number of annoying things when you installed SP's over beta's - fail with weird errors, get part way through and tell you needed to cancel and uninstall first, etc. I've installed this on two machines that had random beta stuff installed without tears. That Readme file you didn't read I mentioned the readme file earlier (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=210711 ). Some interesting things I picked up in there: 2.1.3. Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 installation may fail when a USB drive or other removeable drive is connected 2.1.4. Visual Studio must be restarted after Visual Studio 2010 SP1 tooling for SQL Server Compact (Compact) 4.0 is installed 2.2.1. If Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 is uninstalled, Visual Studio 2010 must be reinstalled to restore certain components 2.2.2. If Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 is uninstalled, Visual Studio 2010 must be reinstalled before SP1 can be installed again 2.4.3.1. Async CTP If you installed the pre-SP1 version of Async CTP but did not uninstall it before you installed Visual Studio 2010 SP1, then your computer will be in a state in which the version of the C# compiler in the .NET Framework does not match the C# compiler in Visual Studio. To resolve this issue: After you install Visual Studio 2010 SP1, reinstall the SP1 version of the Async CTP from here. Hardware acceleration for Visual Studio is disabled on Windows XP Visual Studio 2010 SP1 disables hardware acceleration when running on Windows XP (only on XP). You can turn it back on in the Visual Studio options, under Environment / General, as shown below. See Jason Zander's post titled Performance Troubleshooting Article and VS2010 SP1 Change.

  Read the article

• Parallelism in .NET – Part 5, Partitioning of Work

  - by Reed

  When parallelizing any routine, we start by decomposing the problem.  Once the problem is understood, we need to break our work into separate tasks, so each task can be run on a different processing element.  This process is called partitioning. Partitioning our tasks is a challenging feat.  There are opposing forces at work here: too many partitions adds overhead, too few partitions leaves processors idle.  Trying to work the perfect balance between the two extremes is the goal for which we should aim.  Luckily, the Task Parallel Library automatically handles much of this process.  However, there are situations where the default partitioning may not be appropriate, and knowledge of our routines may allow us to guide the framework to making better decisions. First off, I’d like to say that this is a more advanced topic.  It is perfectly acceptable to use the parallel constructs in the framework without considering the partitioning taking place.  The default behavior in the Task Parallel Library is very well-behaved, even for unusual work loads, and should rarely be adjusted.  I have found few situations where the default partitioning behavior in the TPL is not as good or better than my own hand-written partitioning routines, and recommend using the defaults unless there is a strong, measured, and profiled reason to avoid using them.  However, understanding partitioning, and how the TPL partitions your data, helps in understanding the proper usage of the TPL. I indirectly mentioned partitioning while discussing aggregation.  Typically, our systems will have a limited number of Processing Elements (PE), which is the terminology used for hardware capable of processing a stream of instructions.  For example, in a standard Intel i7 system, there are four processor cores, each of which has two potential hardware threads due to Hyperthreading.  This gives us a total of 8 PEs – theoretically, we can have up to eight operations occurring concurrently within our system. In order to fully exploit this power, we need to partition our work into Tasks.  A task is a simple set of instructions that can be run on a PE.  Ideally, we want to have at least one task per PE in the system, since fewer tasks means that some of our processing power will be sitting idle.  A naive implementation would be to just take our data, and partition it with one element in our collection being treated as one task.  When we loop through our collection in parallel, using this approach, we’d just process one item at a time, then reuse that thread to process the next, etc.  There’s a flaw in this approach, however.  It will tend to be slower than necessary, often slower than processing the data serially. The problem is that there is overhead associated with each task.  When we take a simple foreach loop body and implement it using the TPL, we add overhead.  First, we change the body from a simple statement to a delegate, which must be invoked.  In order to invoke the delegate on a separate thread, the delegate gets added to the ThreadPool’s current work queue, and the ThreadPool must pull this off the queue, assign it to a free thread, then execute it.  If our collection had one million elements, the overhead of trying to spawn one million tasks would destroy our performance. The answer, here, is to partition our collection into groups, and have each group of elements treated as a single task.  By adding a partitioning step, we can break our total work into small enough tasks to keep our processors busy, but large enough tasks to avoid overburdening the ThreadPool.  There are two clear, opposing goals here: Always try to keep each processor working, but also try to keep the individual partitions as large as possible. When using Parallel.For, the partitioning is always handled automatically.  At first, partitioning here seems simple.  A naive implementation would merely split the total element count up by the number of PEs in the system, and assign a chunk of data to each processor.  Many hand-written partitioning schemes work in this exactly manner.  This perfectly balanced, static partitioning scheme works very well if the amount of work is constant for each element.  However, this is rarely the case.  Often, the length of time required to process an element grows as we progress through the collection, especially if we’re doing numerical computations.  In this case, the first PEs will finish early, and sit idle waiting on the last chunks to finish.  Sometimes, work can decrease as we progress, since previous computations may be used to speed up later computations.  In this situation, the first chunks will be working far longer than the last chunks.  In order to balance the workload, many implementations create many small chunks, and reuse threads.  This adds overhead, but does provide better load balancing, which in turn improves performance. The Task Parallel Library handles this more elaborately.  Chunks are determined at runtime, and start small.  They grow slowly over time, getting larger and larger.  This tends to lead to a near optimum load balancing, even in odd cases such as increasing or decreasing workloads.  Parallel.ForEach is a bit more complicated, however. When working with a generic IEnumerable<T>, the number of items required for processing is not known in advance, and must be discovered at runtime.  In addition, since we don’t have direct access to each element, the scheduler must enumerate the collection to process it.  Since IEnumerable<T> is not thread safe, it must lock on elements as it enumerates, create temporary collections for each chunk to process, and schedule this out.  By default, it uses a partitioning method similar to the one described above.  We can see this directly by looking at the Visual Partitioning sample shipped by the Task Parallel Library team, and available as part of the Samples for Parallel Programming.  When we run the sample, with four cores and the default, Load Balancing partitioning scheme, we see this: The colored bands represent each processing core.  You can see that, when we started (at the top), we begin with very small bands of color.  As the routine progresses through the Parallel.ForEach, the chunks get larger and larger (seen by larger and larger stripes). Most of the time, this is fantastic behavior, and most likely will out perform any custom written partitioning.  However, if your routine is not scaling well, it may be due to a failure in the default partitioning to handle your specific case.  With prior knowledge about your work, it may be possible to partition data more meaningfully than the default Partitioner. There is the option to use an overload of Parallel.ForEach which takes a Partitioner<T> instance.  The Partitioner<T> class is an abstract class which allows for both static and dynamic partitioning.  By overriding Partitioner<T>.SupportsDynamicPartitions, you can specify whether a dynamic approach is available.  If not, your custom Partitioner<T> subclass would override GetPartitions(int), which returns a list of IEnumerator<T> instances.  These are then used by the Parallel class to split work up amongst processors.  When dynamic partitioning is available, GetDynamicPartitions() is used, which returns an IEnumerable<T> for each partition.  If you do decide to implement your own Partitioner<T>, keep in mind the goals and tradeoffs of different partitioning strategies, and design appropriately. The Samples for Parallel Programming project includes a ChunkPartitioner class in the ParallelExtensionsExtras project.  This provides example code for implementing your own, custom allocation strategies, including a static allocator of a given chunk size.  Although implementing your own Partitioner<T> is possible, as I mentioned above, this is rarely required or useful in practice.  The default behavior of the TPL is very good, often better than any hand written partitioning strategy.

  Read the article

• Parallelism in .NET – Part 3, Imperative Data Parallelism: Early Termination

  - by Reed

  Although simple data parallelism allows us to easily parallelize many of our iteration statements, there are cases that it does not handle well.  In my previous discussion, I focused on data parallelism with no shared state, and where every element is being processed exactly the same. Unfortunately, there are many common cases where this does not happen.  If we are dealing with a loop that requires early termination, extra care is required when parallelizing. Often, while processing in a loop, once a certain condition is met, it is no longer necessary to continue processing.  This may be a matter of finding a specific element within the collection, or reaching some error case.  The important distinction here is that, it is often impossible to know until runtime, what set of elements needs to be processed. In my initial discussion of data parallelism, I mentioned that this technique is a candidate when you can decompose the problem based on the data involved, and you wish to apply a single operation concurrently on all of the elements of a collection.  This covers many of the potential cases, but sometimes, after processing some of the elements, we need to stop processing. As an example, lets go back to our previous Parallel.ForEach example with contacting a customer.  However, this time, we’ll change the requirements slightly.  In this case, we’ll add an extra condition – if the store is unable to email the customer, we will exit gracefully.  The thinking here, of course, is that if the store is currently unable to email, the next time this operation runs, it will handle the same situation, so we can just skip our processing entirely.  The original, serial case, with this extra condition, might look something like the following: foreach(var customer in customers) { // Run some process that takes some time... DateTime lastContact = theStore.GetLastContact(customer); TimeSpan timeSinceContact = DateTime.Now - lastContact; // If it's been more than two weeks, send an email, and update... if (timeSinceContact.Days > 14) { // Exit gracefully if we fail to email, since this // entire process can be repeated later without issue. if (theStore.EmailCustomer(customer) == false) break; customer.LastEmailContact = DateTime.Now; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Here, we’re processing our loop, but at any point, if we fail to send our email successfully, we just abandon this process, and assume that it will get handled correctly the next time our routine is run.  If we try to parallelize this using Parallel.ForEach, as we did previously, we’ll run into an error almost immediately: the break statement we’re using is only valid when enclosed within an iteration statement, such as foreach.  When we switch to Parallel.ForEach, we’re no longer within an iteration statement – we’re a delegate running in a method. This needs to be handled slightly differently when parallelized.  Instead of using the break statement, we need to utilize a new class in the Task Parallel Library: ParallelLoopState.  The ParallelLoopState class is intended to allow concurrently running loop bodies a way to interact with each other, and provides us with a way to break out of a loop.  In order to use this, we will use a different overload of Parallel.ForEach which takes an IEnumerable<T> and an Action<T, ParallelLoopState> instead of an Action<T>.  Using this, we can parallelize the above operation by doing: Parallel.ForEach(customers, (customer, parallelLoopState) => { // Run some process that takes some time... DateTime lastContact = theStore.GetLastContact(customer); TimeSpan timeSinceContact = DateTime.Now - lastContact; // If it's been more than two weeks, send an email, and update... if (timeSinceContact.Days > 14) { // Exit gracefully if we fail to email, since this // entire process can be repeated later without issue. if (theStore.EmailCustomer(customer) == false) parallelLoopState.Break(); else customer.LastEmailContact = DateTime.Now; } }); There are a couple of important points here.  First, we didn’t actually instantiate the ParallelLoopState instance.  It was provided directly to us via the Parallel class.  All we needed to do was change our lambda expression to reflect that we want to use the loop state, and the Parallel class creates an instance for our use.  We also needed to change our logic slightly when we call Break().  Since Break() doesn’t stop the program flow within our block, we needed to add an else case to only set the property in customer when we succeeded.  This same technique can be used to break out of a Parallel.For loop. That being said, there is a huge difference between using ParallelLoopState to cause early termination and to use break in a standard iteration statement.  When dealing with a loop serially, break will immediately terminate the processing within the closest enclosing loop statement.  Calling ParallelLoopState.Break(), however, has a very different behavior. The issue is that, now, we’re no longer processing one element at a time.  If we break in one of our threads, there are other threads that will likely still be executing.  This leads to an important observation about termination of parallel code: Early termination in parallel routines is not immediate.  Code will continue to run after you request a termination. This may seem problematic at first, but it is something you just need to keep in mind while designing your routine.  ParallelLoopState.Break() should be thought of as a request.  We are telling the runtime that no elements that were in the collection past the element we’re currently processing need to be processed, and leaving it up to the runtime to decide how to handle this as gracefully as possible.  Although this may seem problematic at first, it is a good thing.  If the runtime tried to immediately stop processing, many of our elements would be partially processed.  It would be like putting a return statement in a random location throughout our loop body – which could have horrific consequences to our code’s maintainability. In order to understand and effectively write parallel routines, we, as developers, need a subtle, but profound shift in our thinking.  We can no longer think in terms of sequential processes, but rather need to think in terms of requests to the system that may be handled differently than we’d first expect.  This is more natural to developers who have dealt with asynchronous models previously, but is an important distinction when moving to concurrent programming models. As an example, I’ll discuss the Break() method.  ParallelLoopState.Break() functions in a way that may be unexpected at first.  When you call Break() from a loop body, the runtime will continue to process all elements of the collection that were found prior to the element that was being processed when the Break() method was called.  This is done to keep the behavior of the Break() method as close to the behavior of the break statement as possible. We can see the behavior in this simple code: var collection = Enumerable.Range(0, 20); var pResult = Parallel.ForEach(collection, (element, state) => { if (element > 10) { Console.WriteLine("Breaking on {0}", element); state.Break(); } Console.WriteLine(element); }); If we run this, we get a result that may seem unexpected at first: 0 2 1 5 6 3 4 10 Breaking on 11 11 Breaking on 12 12 9 Breaking on 13 13 7 8 Breaking on 15 15 What is occurring here is that we loop until we find the first element where the element is greater than 10.  In this case, this was found, the first time, when one of our threads reached element 11.  It requested that the loop stop by calling Break() at this point.  However, the loop continued processing until all of the elements less than 11 were completed, then terminated.  This means that it will guarantee that elements 9, 7, and 8 are completed before it stops processing.  You can see our other threads that were running each tried to break as well, but since Break() was called on the element with a value of 11, it decides which elements (0-10) must be processed. If this behavior is not desirable, there is another option.  Instead of calling ParallelLoopState.Break(), you can call ParallelLoopState.Stop().  The Stop() method requests that the runtime terminate as soon as possible , without guaranteeing that any other elements are processed.  Stop() will not stop the processing within an element, so elements already being processed will continue to be processed.  It will prevent new elements, even ones found earlier in the collection, from being processed.  Also, when Stop() is called, the ParallelLoopState’s IsStopped property will return true.  This lets longer running processes poll for this value, and return after performing any necessary cleanup. The basic rule of thumb for choosing between Break() and Stop() is the following. Use ParallelLoopState.Stop() when possible, since it terminates more quickly.  This is particularly useful in situations where you are searching for an element or a condition in the collection.  Once you’ve found it, you do not need to do any other processing, so Stop() is more appropriate. Use ParallelLoopState.Break() if you need to more closely match the behavior of the C# break statement. Both methods behave differently than our C# break statement.  Unfortunately, when parallelizing a routine, more thought and care needs to be put into every aspect of your routine than you may otherwise expect.  This is due to my second observation: Parallelizing a routine will almost always change its behavior. This sounds crazy at first, but it’s a concept that’s so simple its easy to forget.  We’re purposely telling the system to process more than one thing at the same time, which means that the sequence in which things get processed is no longer deterministic.  It is easy to change the behavior of your routine in very subtle ways by introducing parallelism.  Often, the changes are not avoidable, even if they don’t have any adverse side effects.  This leads to my final observation for this post: Parallelization is something that should be handled with care and forethought, added by design, and not just introduced casually.

  Read the article

• Enabling Kerberos Authentication for Reporting Services

  - by robcarrol

  Recently, I’ve helped several customers with Kerberos authentication problems with Reporting Services and Analysis Services, so I’ve decided to write this blog post and pull together some useful resources in one place (there are 2 whitepapers in particular that I found invaluable configuring Kerberos authentication, and these can be found in the references section at the bottom of this post). In most of these cases, the problem has manifested itself with the Login failed for User ‘NT Authority\Anonymous’ (“double-hop”) error. By default, Reporting Services uses Windows Integrated Authentication, which includes the Kerberos and NTLM protocols for network authentication. Additionally, Windows Integrated Authentication includes the negotiate security header, which prompts the client to select Kerberos or NTLM for authentication. The client can access reports which have the appropriate permissions by using Kerberos for authentication. Servers that use Kerberos authentication can impersonate those clients and use their security context to access network resources. You can configure Reporting Services to use both Kerberos and NTLM authentication; however this may lead to a failure to authenticate. With negotiate, if Kerberos cannot be used, the authentication method will default to NTLM. When negotiate is enabled, the Kerberos protocol is always used except when: Clients/servers that are involved in the authentication process cannot use Kerberos. The client does not provide the information necessary to use Kerberos. An in-depth discussion of Kerberos authentication is beyond the scope of this post, however when users execute reports that are configured to use Windows Integrated Authentication, their logon credentials are passed from the report server to the server hosting the data source. Delegation needs to be set on the report server and Service Principle Names (SPNs) set for the relevant services. When a user processes a report, the request must go through a Web server on its way to a database server for processing. Kerberos authentication enables the Web server to request a service ticket from the domain controller; impersonate the client when passing the request to the database server; and then restrict the request based on the user’s permissions. Each time a server is required to pass the request to another server, the same process must be used. Kerberos authentication is supported in both native and SharePoint integrated mode, but I’ll focus on native mode for the purpose of this post (I’ll explain configuring SharePoint integrated mode and Kerberos authentication in a future post). Configuring Kerberos avoids the authentication failures due to double-hop issues. These double-hop errors occur when a users windows domain credentials can’t be passed to another server to complete the user’s request. In the case of my customers, users were executing Reporting Services reports that were configured to query Analysis Services cubes on a separate machine using Windows Integrated security. The double-hop issue occurs as NTLM credentials are valid for only one network hop, subsequent hops result in anonymous authentication. The client attempts to connect to the report server by making a request from a browser (or some other application), and the connection process begins with authentication. With NTLM authentication, client credentials are presented to Computer 2. However Computer 2 can’t use the same credentials to access Computer 3 (so we get the Anonymous login error). To access Computer 3 it is necessary to configure the connection string with stored credentials, which is what a number of customers I have worked with have done to workaround the double-hop authentication error. However, to get the benefits of Windows Integrated security, a better solution is to enable Kerberos authentication. Again, the connection process begins with authentication. With Kerberos authentication, the client and the server must demonstrate to one another that they are genuine, at which point authentication is successful and a secure client/server session is established. In the illustration above, the tiers represent the following: Client tier (computer 1): The client computer from which an application makes a request. Middle tier (computer 2): The Web server or farm where the client’s request is directed. Both the SharePoint and Reporting Services server(s) comprise the middle tier (but we’re only concentrating on native deployments just now). Back end tier (computer 3): The Database/Analysis Services server/Cluster where the requested data is stored. In order to enable Kerberos authentication for Reporting Services it’s necessary to configure the relevant SPNs, configure trust for delegation for server accounts, configure Kerberos with full delegation and configure the authentication types for Reporting Services. Service Principle Names (SPNs) are unique identifiers for services and identify the account’s type of service. If an SPN is not configured for a service, a client account will be unable to authenticate to the servers using Kerberos. You need to be a domain administrator to add an SPN, which can be added using the SetSPN utility. For Reporting Services in native mode, the following SPNs need to be registered --SQL Server Service SETSPN -S mssqlsvc/servername:1433 Domain\SQL For named instances, or if the default instance is running under a different port, then the specific port number should be used. --Reporting Services Service SETSPN -S http/servername Domain\SSRS SETSPN -S http/servername.domain.com Domain\SSRS The SPN should be set for the NETBIOS name of the server and the FQDN. If you access the reports using a host header or DNS alias, then that should also be registered SETSPN -S http/www.reports.com Domain\SSRS --Analysis Services Service SETSPN -S msolapsvc.3/servername Domain\SSAS Next, you need to configure trust for delegation, which refers to enabling a computer to impersonate an authenticated user to services on another computer: Location Description Client 1. The requesting application must support the Kerberos authentication protocol. 2. The user account making the request must be configured on the domain controller. Confirm that the following option is not selected: Account is sensitive and cannot be delegated. Servers 1. The service accounts must be trusted for delegation on the domain controller. 2. The service accounts must have SPNs registered on the domain controller. If the service account is a domain user account, the domain administrator must register the SPNs. In Active Directory Users and Computers, verify that the domain user accounts used to access reports have been configured for delegation (the ‘Account is sensitive and cannot be delegated’ option should not be selected): We then need to configure the Reporting Services service account and computer to use Kerberos with full delegation:   We also need to do the same for the SQL Server or Analysis Services service accounts and computers (depending on what type of data source you are connecting to in your reports). Finally, and this is the part that sometimes gets over-looked, we need to configure the authentication type correctly for reporting services to use Kerberos authentication. This is configured in the Authentication section of the RSReportServer.config file on the report server. <Authentication> <AuthenticationTypes>           <RSWindowsNegotiate/> </AuthenticationTypes> <EnableAuthPersistence>true</EnableAuthPersistence> </Authentication> This will enable Kerberos authentication for Internet Explorer. For other browsers, see the link below. The report server instance must be restarted for these changes to take effect. Once these changes have been made, all that’s left to do is test to make sure Kerberos authentication is working properly by running a report from report manager that is configured to use Windows Integrated authentication (either connecting to Analysis Services or SQL Server back-end). Resources: Manage Kerberos Authentication Issues in a Reporting Services Environment http://download.microsoft.com/download/B/E/1/BE1AABB3-6ED8-4C3C-AF91-448AB733B1AF/SSRSKerberos.docx Configuring Kerberos Authentication for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=23176 How to: Configure Windows Authentication in Reporting Services http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc281253.aspx RSReportServer Configuration File http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms157273.aspx#Authentication Planning for Browser Support http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms156511.aspx

  Read the article

• jQuery Templates and Data Linking (and Microsoft contributing to jQuery)

  - by ScottGu

  The jQuery library has a passionate community of developers, and it is now the most widely used JavaScript library on the web today. Two years ago I announced that Microsoft would begin offering product support for jQuery, and that we’d be including it in new versions of Visual Studio going forward. By default, when you create new ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC projects with VS 2010 you’ll find jQuery automatically added to your project. A few weeks ago during my second keynote at the MIX 2010 conference I announced that Microsoft would also begin contributing to the jQuery project.  During the talk, John Resig -- the creator of the jQuery library and leader of the jQuery developer team – talked a little about our participation and discussed an early prototype of a new client templating API for jQuery. In this blog post, I’m going to talk a little about how my team is starting to contribute to the jQuery project, and discuss some of the specific features that we are working on such as client-side templating and data linking (data-binding). Contributing to jQuery jQuery has a fantastic developer community, and a very open way to propose suggestions and make contributions.  Microsoft is following the same process to contribute to jQuery as any other member of the community. As an example, when working with the jQuery community to improve support for templating to jQuery my team followed the following steps: We created a proposal for templating and posted the proposal to the jQuery developer forum (http://forum.jquery.com/topic/jquery-templates-proposal and http://forum.jquery.com/topic/templating-syntax ). After receiving feedback on the forums, the jQuery team created a prototype for templating and posted the prototype at the Github code repository (http://github.com/jquery/jquery-tmpl ). We iterated on the prototype, creating a new fork on Github of the templating prototype, to suggest design improvements. Several other members of the community also provided design feedback by forking the templating code. There has been an amazing amount of participation by the jQuery community in response to the original templating proposal (over 100 posts in the jQuery forum), and the design of the templating proposal has evolved significantly based on community feedback. The jQuery team is the ultimate determiner on what happens with the templating proposal – they might include it in jQuery core, or make it an official plugin, or reject it entirely.  My team is excited to be able to participate in the open source process, and make suggestions and contributions the same way as any other member of the community. jQuery Template Support Client-side templates enable jQuery developers to easily generate and render HTML UI on the client.  Templates support a simple syntax that enables either developers or designers to declaratively specify the HTML they want to generate.  Developers can then programmatically invoke the templates on the client, and pass JavaScript objects to them to make the content rendered completely data driven.  These JavaScript objects can optionally be based on data retrieved from a server. Because the jQuery templating proposal is still evolving in response to community feedback, the final version might look very different than the version below. This blog post gives you a sense of how you can try out and use templating as it exists today (you can download the prototype by the jQuery core team at http://github.com/jquery/jquery-tmpl or the latest submission from my team at http://github.com/nje/jquery-tmpl).  jQuery Client Templates You create client-side jQuery templates by embedding content within a <script type="text/html"> tag.  For example, the HTML below contains a <div> template container, as well as a client-side jQuery “contactTemplate” template (within the <script type="text/html"> element) that can be used to dynamically display a list of contacts: The {{= name }} and {{= phone }} expressions are used within the contact template above to display the names and phone numbers of “contact” objects passed to the template. We can use the template to display either an array of JavaScript objects or a single object. The JavaScript code below demonstrates how you can render a JavaScript array of “contact” object using the above template. The render() method renders the data into a string and appends the string to the “contactContainer” DIV element: When the page is loaded, the list of contacts is rendered by the template.  All of this template rendering is happening on the client-side within the browser:   Templating Commands and Conditional Display Logic The current templating proposal supports a small set of template commands - including if, else, and each statements. The number of template commands was deliberately kept small to encourage people to place more complicated logic outside of their templates. Even this small set of template commands is very useful though. Imagine, for example, that each contact can have zero or more phone numbers. The contacts could be represented by the JavaScript array below: The template below demonstrates how you can use the if and each template commands to conditionally display and loop the phone numbers for each contact: If a contact has one or more phone numbers then each of the phone numbers is displayed by iterating through the phone numbers with the each template command: The jQuery team designed the template commands so that they are extensible. If you have a need for a new template command then you can easily add new template commands to the default set of commands. Support for Client Data-Linking The ASP.NET team recently submitted another proposal and prototype to the jQuery forums (http://forum.jquery.com/topic/proposal-for-adding-data-linking-to-jquery). This proposal describes a new feature named data linking. Data Linking enables you to link a property of one object to a property of another object - so that when one property changes the other property changes.  Data linking enables you to easily keep your UI and data objects synchronized within a page. If you are familiar with the concept of data-binding then you will be familiar with data linking (in the proposal, we call the feature data linking because jQuery already includes a bind() method that has nothing to do with data-binding). Imagine, for example, that you have a page with the following HTML <input> elements: The following JavaScript code links the two INPUT elements above to the properties of a JavaScript “contact” object that has a “name” and “phone” property: When you execute this code, the value of the first INPUT element (#name) is set to the value of the contact name property, and the value of the second INPUT element (#phone) is set to the value of the contact phone property. The properties of the contact object and the properties of the INPUT elements are also linked – so that changes to one are also reflected in the other. Because the contact object is linked to the INPUT element, when you request the page, the values of the contact properties are displayed: More interesting, the values of the linked INPUT elements will change automatically whenever you update the properties of the contact object they are linked to. For example, we could programmatically modify the properties of the “contact” object using the jQuery attr() method like below: Because our two INPUT elements are linked to the “contact” object, the INPUT element values will be updated automatically (without us having to write any code to modify the UI elements): Note that we updated the contact object above using the jQuery attr() method. In order for data linking to work, you must use jQuery methods to modify the property values. Two Way Linking The linkBoth() method enables two-way data linking. The contact object and INPUT elements are linked in both directions. When you modify the value of the INPUT element, the contact object is also updated automatically. For example, the following code adds a client-side JavaScript click handler to an HTML button element. When you click the button, the property values of the contact object are displayed using an alert() dialog: The following demonstrates what happens when you change the value of the Name INPUT element and click the Save button. Notice that the name property of the “contact” object that the INPUT element was linked to was updated automatically: The above example is obviously trivially simple.  Instead of displaying the new values of the contact object with a JavaScript alert, you can imagine instead calling a web-service to save the object to a database. The benefit of data linking is that it enables you to focus on your data and frees you from the mechanics of keeping your UI and data in sync. Converters The current data linking proposal also supports a feature called converters. A converter enables you to easily convert the value of a property during data linking. For example, imagine that you want to represent phone numbers in a standard way with the “contact” object phone property. In particular, you don’t want to include special characters such as ()- in the phone number - instead you only want digits and nothing else. In that case, you can wire-up a converter to convert the value of an INPUT element into this format using the code below: Notice above how a converter function is being passed to the linkFrom() method used to link the phone property of the “contact” object with the value of the phone INPUT element. This convertor function strips any non-numeric characters from the INPUT element before updating the phone property.  Now, if you enter the phone number (206) 555-9999 into the phone input field then the value 2065559999 is assigned to the phone property of the contact object: You can also use a converter in the opposite direction also. For example, you can apply a standard phone format string when displaying a phone number from a phone property. Combining Templating and Data Linking Our goal in submitting these two proposals for templating and data linking is to make it easier to work with data when building websites and applications with jQuery. Templating makes it easier to display a list of database records retrieved from a database through an Ajax call. Data linking makes it easier to keep the data and user interface in sync for update scenarios. Currently, we are working on an extension of the data linking proposal to support declarative data linking. We want to make it easy to take advantage of data linking when using a template to display data. For example, imagine that you are using the following template to display an array of product objects: Notice the {{link name}} and {{link price}} expressions. These expressions enable declarative data linking between the SPAN elements and properties of the product objects. The current jQuery templating prototype supports extending its syntax with custom template commands. In this case, we are extending the default templating syntax with a custom template command named “link”. The benefit of using data linking with the above template is that the SPAN elements will be automatically updated whenever the underlying “product” data is updated.  Declarative data linking also makes it easier to create edit and insert forms. For example, you could create a form for editing a product by using declarative data linking like this: Whenever you change the value of the INPUT elements in a template that uses declarative data linking, the underlying JavaScript data object is automatically updated. Instead of needing to write code to scrape the HTML form to get updated values, you can instead work with the underlying data directly – making your client-side code much cleaner and simpler. Downloading Working Code Examples of the Above Scenarios You can download this .zip file to get with working code examples of the above scenarios.  The .zip file includes 4 static HTML page: Listing1_Templating.htm – Illustrates basic templating. Listing2_TemplatingConditionals.htm – Illustrates templating with the use of the if and each template commands. Listing3_DataLinking.htm – Illustrates data linking. Listing4_Converters.htm – Illustrates using a converter with data linking. You can un-zip the file to the file-system and then run each page to see the concepts in action. Summary We are excited to be able to begin participating within the open-source jQuery project.  We’ve received lots of encouraging feedback in response to our first two proposals, and we will continue to actively contribute going forward.  These features will hopefully make it easier for all developers (including ASP.NET developers) to build great Ajax applications. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. [In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu]

  Read the article

• Complete Guide to Symbolic Links (symlinks) on Windows or Linux

  - by Matthew Guay

  Want to easily access folders and files from different folders without maintaining duplicate copies?  Here’s how you can use Symbolic Links to link anything in Windows 7, Vista, XP, and Ubuntu. So What Are Symbolic Links Anyway? Symbolic links, otherwise known as symlinks, are basically advanced shortcuts. You can create symbolic links to individual files or folders, and then these will appear like they are stored in the folder with the symbolic link even though the symbolic link only points to their real location. There are two types of symbolic links: hard and soft. Soft symbolic links work essentially the same as a standard shortcut.  When you open a soft link, you will be redirected to the folder where the files are stored.  However, a hard link makes it appear as though the file or folder actually exists at the location of the symbolic link, and your applications won’t know any different. Thus, hard links are of the most interest in this article. Why should I use Symbolic Links? There are many things we use symbolic links for, so here’s some of the top uses we can think of: Sync any folder with Dropbox – say, sync your Pidgin Profile Across Computers Move the settings folder for any program from its original location Store your Music/Pictures/Videos on a second hard drive, but make them show up in your standard Music/Pictures/Videos folders so they’ll be detected my your media programs (Windows 7 Libraries can also be good for this) Keep important files accessible from multiple locations And more! If you want to move files to a different drive or folder and then symbolically link them, follow these steps: Close any programs that may be accessing that file or folder Move the file or folder to the new desired location Follow the correct instructions below for your operating system to create the symbolic link. Caution: Make sure to never create a symbolic link inside of a symbolic link. For instance, don’t create a symbolic link to a file that’s contained in a symbolic linked folder. This can create a loop, which can cause millions of problems you don’t want to deal with. Seriously. Create Symlinks in Any Edition of Windows in Explorer Creating symlinks is usually difficult, but thanks to the free Link Shell Extension, you can create symbolic links in all modern version of Windows pain-free.  You need to download both Visual Studio 2005 redistributable, which contains the necessary prerequisites, and Link Shell Extension itself (links below).  Download the correct version (32 bit or 64 bit) for your computer. Run and install the Visual Studio 2005 Redistributable installer first. Then install the Link Shell Extension on your computer. Your taskbar will temporally disappear during the install, but will quickly come back. Now you’re ready to start creating symbolic links.  Browse to the folder or file you want to create a symbolic link from.  Right-click the folder or file and select Pick Link Source. To create your symlink, right-click in the folder you wish to save the symbolic link, select “Drop as…”, and then choose the type of link you want.  You can choose from several different options here; we chose the Hardlink Clone.  This will create a hard link to the file or folder we selected.  The Symbolic link option creates a soft link, while the smart copy will fully copy a folder containing symbolic links without breaking them.  These options can be useful as well.   Here’s our hard-linked folder on our desktop.  Notice that the folder looks like its contents are stored in Desktop\Downloads, when they are actually stored in C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\Downloads.  Also, when links are created with the Link Shell Extension, they have a red arrow on them so you can still differentiate them. And, this works the same way in XP as well. Symlinks via Command Prompt Or, for geeks who prefer working via command line, here’s how you can create symlinks in Command Prompt in Windows 7/Vista and XP. In Windows 7/Vista In Windows Vista and 7, we’ll use the mklink command to create symbolic links.  To use it, we have to open an administrator Command Prompt.  Enter “command” in your start menu search, right-click on Command Prompt, and select “Run as administrator”. To create a symbolic link, we need to enter the following in command prompt: mklink /prefix link_path file/folder_path First, choose the correct prefix.  Mklink can create several types of links, including the following: /D – creates a soft symbolic link, which is similar to a standard folder or file shortcut in Windows.  This is the default option, and mklink will use it if you do not enter a prefix. /H – creates a hard link to a file /J – creates a hard link to a directory or folder So, once you’ve chosen the correct prefix, you need to enter the path you want for the symbolic link, and the path to the original file or folder.  For example, if I wanted a folder in my Dropbox folder to appear like it was also stored in my desktop, I would enter the following: mklink /J C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\Dropbox C:\Users\Matthew\Documents\Dropbox Note that the first path was to the symbolic folder I wanted to create, while the second path was to the real folder. Here, in this command prompt screenshot, you can see that I created a symbolic link of my Music folder to my desktop.   And here’s how it looks in Explorer.  Note that all of my music is “really” stored in C:\Users\Matthew\Music, but here it looks like it is stored in C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\Music. If your path has any spaces in it, you need to place quotes around it.  Note also that the link can have a different name than the file it links to.  For example, here I’m going to create a symbolic link to a document on my desktop: mklink /H “C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\ebook.pdf”  “C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\Before You Call Tech Support.pdf” Don’t forget the syntax: mklink /prefix link_path Target_file/folder_path In Windows XP Windows XP doesn’t include built-in command prompt support for symbolic links, but we can use the free Junction tool instead.  Download Junction (link below), and unzip the folder.  Now open Command Prompt (click Start, select All Programs, then Accessories, and select Command Prompt), and enter cd followed by the path of the folder where you saved Junction. Junction only creates hard symbolic links, since you can use shortcuts for soft ones.  To create a hard symlink, we need to enter the following in command prompt: junction –s link_path file/folder_path As with mklink in Windows 7 or Vista, if your file/folder path has spaces in it make sure to put quotes around your paths.  Also, as usual, your symlink can have a different name that the file/folder it points to. Here, we’re going to create a symbolic link to our My Music folder on the desktop.  We entered: junction -s “C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\Music” “C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music” And here’s the contents of our symlink.  Note that the path looks like these files are stored in a Music folder directly on the Desktop, when they are actually stored in My Documents\My Music.  Once again, this works with both folders and individual files. Please Note: Junction would work the same in Windows 7 or Vista, but since they include a built-in symbolic link tool we found it better to use it on those versions of Windows. Symlinks in Ubuntu Unix-based operating systems have supported symbolic links since their inception, so it is straightforward to create symbolic links in Linux distros such as Ubuntu.  There’s no graphical way to create them like the Link Shell Extension for Windows, so we’ll just do it in Terminal. Open terminal (open the Applications menu, select Accessories, and then click Terminal), and enter the following: ln –s file/folder_path link_path Note that this is opposite of the Windows commands; you put the source for the link first, and then the path second. For example, let’s create a symbolic link of our Pictures folder in our Desktop.  To do this, we entered: ln -s /home/maguay/Pictures /home/maguay/Desktop   Once again, here is the contents of our symlink folder.  The pictures look as if they’re stored directly in a Pictures folder on the Desktop, but they are actually stored in maguay\Pictures. Delete Symlinks Removing symbolic links is very simple – just delete the link!  Most of the command line utilities offer a way to delete a symbolic link via command prompt, but you don’t need to go to the trouble.   Conclusion Symbolic links can be very handy, and we use them constantly to help us stay organized and keep our hard drives from overflowing.  Let us know how you use symbolic links on your computers! Download Link Shell Extension for Windows 7, Vista, and XP Download Junction for XP Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Symlinks in Windows VistaHow To Figure Out Your PC’s Host Name From the Command PromptInstall IceWM on Ubuntu LinuxAdd Color Coding to Windows 7 Media Center Program GuideSync Your Pidgin Profile Across Multiple PCs with Dropbox 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 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 Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734  | Next Page >