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• How to handle encryption key conflicts when synchronizing data?

  - by Rafael

  Assume that there is data that gets synchronized between several devices. The data is protected with a symmetric encryption algorithm and a key. The key is stored on each device and encrypted with a password. When a user changes the password only the key gets re-encrypted. Under normal circumstances, when there is a good network connection to other peers, the current key gets synchronized and all data on the new device gets encrypted with the same key. But how to handle situations where a new device doesn’t have a network connection and e.g. creates its own new, but incompatible key? How to keep the usability as high as possible under such circumstances? The application could detect that there is no network and hence refuse to start. That’s very bad usability in my opinion, because the application isn’t functional at all in this case. I don’t consider this a solution. The application could ignore the missing network connection and create a new key. But what to do when the application gains a network connection? There will be several incompatible keys and some parts of the underlying data could only be encrypted with one key and other parts with another key. The situation would get worse if there would be more keys than just two and the application would’ve to ask every time for a password when another object that should get decrypted with another key would be needed. It is very messy and time consuming to try to re-encrypt all data that is encrypted with another key with a main key. What should be the main key at all in this case? The oldest key? The key with the most encrypted objects? What if the key got synchronized but not all objects that got encrypted with this particular key? How should the user know for which particular password the application asks and why it takes probably very long to re-encrypt the data? It’s very hard to describe encryption “issues” to users. So far I didn’t find an acceptable solution, nor some kind of generic strategy. Do you have some hints about a concrete strategy or some books / papers that describe synchronization of symmetrically encrypted data with keys that could cause conflicts?

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• WIF, ADFS 2 and WCF&ndash;Part 1: Overview

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  A lot has been written already about passive federation and integration of WIF and ADFS 2 into web apps. The whole active/WS-Trust feature area is much less documented or covered in articles and blogs. Over the next few posts I will try to compile all relevant information about the above topics – but let’s start with an overview. ADFS 2 has a number of endpoints under the /services/trust base address that implement the WS-Trust protocol. They are grouped by the WS-Trust version they support (/13 and /2005), the client credential type (/windows*, /username*, /certificate*) and the security mode (*transport, *mixed and message). You can see the endpoints in the MMC console under the Service/Endpoints page. So in other words, you use one of these endpoints (which exactly depends on your configuration / system setup) to request tokens from ADFS 2. The bindings behind the endpoints are more or less standard WCF bindings, but with SecureConversation (establishSecurityContext) disabled. That means that whenever you need to programmatically talk to these endpoints – you can (easily) create client bindings that are compatible. Another option is to use the special bindings that come with WIF (in the Microsoft.IdentityModel.Protocols.WSTrust.Bindings namespace). They are already pre-configured to be compatible with the ADFS endpoints. The downside of these bindings is, that you can’t use them in configuration. That’s definitely a feature request of mine for the next version of WIF. The next important piece of information is the so called Federation Service Identifier. This is the value that you (at least by default) have to use as a realm/appliesTo whenever you are requesting a token for ADFS (e.g. in  IdP –> RSTS scenario). Or (even more) technically speaking, ADFS 2 checks for this value in the audience URI restriction in SAML tokens. You can get to this value by clicking the “Edit Federation Service Properties” in the MMC when the Service tree-node is selected. OK – I will come back to this basic information in the following posts. Basically I want to go through the following scenarios: ADFS in the IdP role ADFS in the R-STS role (with a chained claims provider) Using the WCF bindings for automatic token issuance Using WSTrustChannelFactory for manual token handling Stay tuned…

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• At $20/month Windows Azure host my website with 99.97% uptime

  - by Gopinath

  Couple of years ago a reliable and decent performing Windows hosting was not affordable to many enthusiastic developers who want to try a startup idea or build a hobby site. I tried to start an ASP.NET website few years ago to provide services like – Mobile Tracing, Vehicle Tracing. But due to high cost of Windows hosting I developed those services using PHP (not an easy task for .NET developer) and hosted on them Linux servers.  But with recent evolution of Windows Azure, hosting ASP.NET websites on highly reliable servers is affordable. Today anyone can host a high responsive and available ASP.NET website for just $20/month using Windows Azure. My website coziie.com is running on Windows Azure and serves close to quarter millions visitors a month with 99.97% of uptime and most of the page load times are less than 3 seconds. All I spend to run this website is just around $20, if you translate it to India rupees its roughly Rs.1000. The web sever of coziie.com is powered by a single Extra Small Web role instance and the backend is powered by a SQL Azure instance. Azure is quite impressive to provide 99.97% of uptime. Response times during peak are around 3 seconds and on nomarl loads it is around 1.5 seconds. Here is the report of uptime provided by Royal Pingdom over last one year For just $20/month Windows Azure takes care of the following apart from hosting Patches up Windows OS to the latest version Upgrades ASP.NET to the latest version – coziie.com is running on ASP.NET MVC 3 and soon I’ll upgrade it to ASP.NET MVC 4 Hosts data on latest and best version Sql Server database SQL Azure maintains 3 copies of database and automatically recovers in case of server failures and disasters. I never worry about database backups/restore. Provides staging environment for deploying applications for testing purpose and move them to production – I upgrade  twice a month on average With Windows Azure I no longer focus on server maintenance or data backups. They are taken up by Microsoft team and I just focus on building my website. Wish there is a low cost Linux version of Windows Azure so that I can stop worrying about server maintenance of this blog!! If you are looking for a Windows hosting, look no further than Windows Azure. If you find $20/month is a bit expensive to start with you may explore Azure Website (sort of shared hosted environment) which is free to start with and as your traffic grows you can move to paid hosting.

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• Finding furthermost point in game world

  - by user13414

  I am attempting to find the furthermost point in my game world given the player's current location and a normalized direction vector in screen space. My current algorithm is: convert player world location to screen space multiply the direction vector by a large number (2000) and add it to the player's screen location to get the distant screen location convert the distant screen location to world space create a line running from the player's world location to the distant world location loop over the bounding "walls" (of which there are always 4) of my game world check whether the wall and the line intersect if so, where they intersect is the furthermost point of my game world in the direction of the vector Here it is, more or less, in code: public Vector2 GetFurthermostWorldPoint(Vector2 directionVector) { var screenLocation = entity.WorldPointToScreen(entity.Location); var distantScreenLocation = screenLocation + (directionVector * 2000); var distantWorldLocation = entity.ScreenPointToWorld(distantScreenLocation); var line = new Line(entity.Center, distantWorldLocation); float intersectionDistance; Vector2 intersectionPoint; foreach (var boundingWall in entity.Level.BoundingWalls) { if (boundingWall.Intersects(line, out intersectionDistance, out intersectionPoint)) { return intersectionPoint; } } Debug.Assert(false, "No intersection found!"); return Vector2.Zero; } Now this works, for some definition of "works". I've found that the further out my distant screen location is, the less chance it has of working. When digging into the reasons why, I noticed that calls to Viewport.Unproject could result in wildly varying return values for points that are "far away". I wrote this stupid little "test" to try and understand what was going on: [Fact] public void wtf() { var screenPositions = new Vector2[] { new Vector2(400, 240), new Vector2(400, -2000), }; var viewport = new Viewport(0, 0, 800, 480); var projectionMatrix = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView(MathHelper.PiOver4, viewport.Width / viewport.Height, 1, 200000); var viewMatrix = Matrix.CreateLookAt(new Vector3(400, 630, 600), new Vector3(400, 345, 0), new Vector3(0, 0, 1)); var worldMatrix = Matrix.Identity; foreach (var screenPosition in screenPositions) { var nearPoint = viewport.Unproject(new Vector3(screenPosition, 0), projectionMatrix, viewMatrix, worldMatrix); var farPoint = viewport.Unproject(new Vector3(screenPosition, 1), projectionMatrix, viewMatrix, worldMatrix); Console.WriteLine("For screen position {0}:", screenPosition); Console.WriteLine(" Projected Near Point = {0}", nearPoint.TruncateZ()); Console.WriteLine(" Projected Far Point = {0}", farPoint.TruncateZ()); Console.WriteLine(); } } The output I get on the console is: For screen position {X:400 Y:240}: Projected Near Point = {X:400 Y:629.571 Z:599.0967} Projected Far Point = {X:392.9302 Y:-83074.98 Z:-175627.9} For screen position {X:400 Y:-2000}: Projected Near Point = {X:400 Y:626.079 Z:600.7554} Projected Far Point = {X:390.2068 Y:-767438.6 Z:148564.2} My question is really twofold: what am I doing wrong with the unprojection such that it varies so wildly and, thus, does not allow me to determine the corresponding world point for my distant screen point? is there a better way altogether to determine the furthermost point in world space given a current world space location, and a directional vector in screen space?

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• Them and us

  - by Plip

  As much as we try and create inclusive societies throughout the globe time and time again we revert to our tribal and clan origins back in the distant past, be those line split across the obvious like  Nationality, Religion or even the Football teams we follow. Microsoft to me has always been a “them”. I was always on the outside looking in, free to say as I wished and have an external objective viewpoint. Now, after my first week (well four days but who’s counting) Microsoft is an “us” for me. So when I look up in the Atrium of Building 1 at Microsoft’s UK headquarters I see banners like the one above and I already genuinely feel a part of this much bigger community. I looked up at that and I felt a sense of pride to be part of something bigger, something which is out there touching peoples lives everywhere (for the good and the bad). My objectivity has made me who I am today. I’m open to other ideas and concepts, I’ve worked hard to be understanding across the board be it from technology through to cultural differences in my life and it’s vital to me that I preserve that so I now have to learn how I balance the “them” of Microsoft to the “us” of Microsoft and maintain the objectivity. It’s my job to advise people on the best way to do things, which won’t always mean “Use Microsoft Technology X”, sometimes it’ll be my responsibility to say “Don’t use Microsoft Technology X”. My first and foremost responsibility is to the customer, to give them the best advice that I can and I want to maintain that. Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be tarred by some as a Microsoft guy, for many years I’ve had just that, but those out there in the non Microsoft communities I’ve engaged in I think know that I’m the first to say when I think something is a bit naff. So, here’s my ask to you ‘the community’. Keep me honest. If I start to sound like a fanboi I want you to find me and give me a slap. It’s all too easy to forget reality sometimes and I want to make sure I stay well and truly routed in that reality. Also, no matter how much I embed myself within Microsoft I fear I will never understand Microsoft’s marketing team. In the Gents just under the WP7 banner shown above I was faced with this. Draw your own conclusions on what it’s message is.

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• Techniques to re-factor garbage and maintain sanity?

  - by Incognito

  So I'm sitting down to a nice bowl of c# spaghetti, and need to add something or remove something... but I have challenges everywhere from functions passing arguments that doesn't make sense, someone who doesn't understand data structures abusing strings, redundant variables, some comments are red-hearings, internationalization is on a per-every-output-level, SQL doesn't use any kind of DBAL, database connections are left open everywhere... Are there any tools or techniques I can use to at least keep track of the "functional integrity" of the code (meaning my "improvements" don't break it), or a resource online with common "bad patterns" that explains a good way to transition code? I'm basically looking for a guidebook on how to spin straw into gold. Here's some samples from the same 500 line function: protected void DoSave(bool cIsPostBack) { //ALWAYS a cPostBack cIsPostBack = true; SetPostBack("1"); string inCreate ="~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"; parseValues = new string []{"","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","","",""}; if (!cIsPostBack) { //....... //.... //.... if (!cIsPostBack) { } else { } //.... //.... strHPhone = StringFormat(s1.Trim()); s1 = parseValues[18].Replace(encStr," "); strWPhone = StringFormat(s1.Trim()); s1 = parseValues[11].Replace(encStr," "); strWExt = StringFormat(s1.Trim()); s1 = parseValues[21].Replace(encStr," "); strMPhone = StringFormat(s1.Trim()); s1 = parseValues[19].Replace(encStr," "); //(hundreds of lines of this) //.... //.... SQL = "...... lots of SQL .... "; SqlCommand curCommand; curCommand = new SqlCommand(); curCommand.Connection = conn1; curCommand.CommandText = SQL; try { curCommand.ExecuteNonQuery(); } catch {} //.... } I've never had to refactor something like this before, and I want to know if there's something like a guidebook or knowledgebase on how to do this sort of thing, finding common bad patterns and offering the best solutions to repair them. I don't want to just nuke it from orbit,

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• Drawing 2D Grid in 3D View - Need help with method

  - by Deukalion

  I'm trying to draw a simple 2D grid for an editor, to able to navigate more clearly around the 3D space, but I can't render it: Grid2D class, creates a grid of a certain size at a location and should just draw lines. public class Grid2D : IShape { private VertexPositionColor[] _vertices; private Vector2 _size; private Vector3 _location; private int _faces; public Grid2D(Vector2 size, Vector3 location, Color color) { float x = 0, y = 0; if (size.X < 1f) { size.X = 1f; } if (size.Y < 1f) { size.Y = 1f; } _size = size; _location = location; List<VertexPositionColor> vertices = new List<VertexPositionColor>(); _faces = 0; for (y = -size.Y; y <= size.Y; y++) { vertices.Add(new VertexPositionColor(location + new Vector3(-size.X, y, 0), color)); vertices.Add(new VertexPositionColor(location + new Vector3(size.X, y, 0), color)); _faces++; } for (x = -size.X; x <= size.X; x++) { vertices.Add(new VertexPositionColor(location + new Vector3(x, -size.Y, 0), color)); vertices.Add(new VertexPositionColor(location + new Vector3(x, size.Y, 0), color)); _faces++; } _vertices = vertices.ToArray(); } public void Render(GraphicsDevice device) { device.DrawUserPrimitives<VertexPositionColor>(PrimitiveType.LineList, _vertices, 0, _faces); } } Like this: +----+----+----+----+ | | | | | +----+----+----+----+ | | | | | +----+----+----+----+ | | | | | +----+----+----+----+ | | | | | +----+----+----+----+ Anyone knows what I'm doing wrong? If I add a Shape without texture, it's set automatically to VertexColorEnabled and TextureEnabled = false. This is how I render it: foreach (RenderObject render in _renderObjects) { render.Effect.Projection = projection; render.Effect.View = view; render.Effect.World = world; foreach (EffectPass pass in render.Effect.CurrentTechnique.Passes) { pass.Apply(); try { // Could be a Grid2D render.Shape.Render(_device); } catch { throw; } } } Exception is thrown: The current vertex shader declaration does not include all the elements required by the current Vertex Shader. Normal0 is missing. Simply put, I can't figure out how to draw a few lines. I want to draw them one at a time and I guess that's the problem I haven't figured out, and even when I tried rendering vertices[i], vertices[i+1] and primitiveCount = 1, vertices = 2, and so on it didn't work either. Any suggestions?

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• Any ideas on reducing lag in terrain generation?

  - by l5p4ngl312

  Ok so here's the deal. I've written an isometric engine that generates terrain based on camera values using 2D perlin noise. I planned on doing 3D but first I need to work out the lag issues I'm having. I will try to explain how I am doing this so that maybe someone can spot where I am going wrong. I know it should not be this laggy. There is the abstract class Block which right now just contains render(). BlockGrass, etc. extend this class and each has code in the render function to create a textured quad at the given position. Then there is the class Chunk which has the function Generate() and setBlocksInArea(). Generate uses 2D perlin noise to make a height map and stores the heights in a 2D array. It stores the positions of each block it generates in blockarray[x][y][z]. The chunks are 8x8x128. In the main game class there is a 3D array called blocksInArea. The blocks in this array are what gets rendered. When a chunk generates, it adds its blocks to this array at the correct index. It is like this so chunks can be saved to the hard drive (even though they aren't yet) but there can still be optimization with the rendering that you wouldn't have if you rendered each chunk separately. Here's where the laggy part comes in: When the camera moves to a new chunk, a row of chunks generates on the end of the axis that the camera moved on. But it still has to move the other chunks up/down in the blocksInArea (render) array. It does this by calculating the new position in the array and doing the Chunk.setBlocksInArea(): for(int x = 0; x < 8; x++){ for(int y = 0; y < 8; y++){ nx = x+(coordX - camCoordX)*8 ny = y+(coordY - camCoordY)*8 for(int z = 0; z < height[x][y]; z++){ blockarray[x][y][z] = Game.blocksInArea[nx][ny][z]; } } } My reasoning was that this would be much faster than doing the perlin noise all over again, but there are still little spikes of lag when you move in between chunks. Edit: Would it be possible to create a 3 dimensional array list so that shifting of chunks within the array would not be neccessary?

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• 2D game - Missile shooting problem on Android

  - by Niksa

  Hello, I have to make a tank that sits still but moves his turret and shoots missiles. As this is my first Android application ever and I haven't done any game development either, I've come across a few problems... Now, I did the tank and the moving turret once I read the Android tutorial for the LunarLander sample code. So this code is based on the LunarLander code. But I'm having trouble doing the missile firing then SPACE button is being pressed. private void doDraw(Canvas canvas) { canvas.drawBitmap(backgroundImage, 0, 0, null); // draws the tank canvas.drawBitmap(tank, x_tank, y_tank, new Paint()); // draws and rotates the tank turret canvas.rotate((float) mHeading, (float) x_turret + mTurretWidth, y_turret); canvas.drawBitmap(turret, x_turret, y_turret, new Paint()); // draws the grenade that is a regular circle from ShapeDrawable class bullet.setBounds(x_bullet, y_bullet, x_bullet + width, y_bullet + height); bullet.draw(canvas); } UPDATE GAME method private void updateGame() throws InterruptedException { long now = System.currentTimeMillis(); if (mLastTime > now) return; double elapsed = (now - mLastTime) / 1000.0; mLastTime = now; // dUP and dDown, rotates the turret from 0 to 75 degrees. if (dUp) mHeading += 1 * (PHYS_SLEW_SEC * elapsed); if (mHeading >= 75) mHeading = 75; if (dDown) mHeading += (-1) * (PHYS_SLEW_SEC * elapsed); if (mHeading < 0) mHeading = 0; if (dSpace){ // missile Logic, a straight trajectorie for now x_bullet -= 1; y_bullet -= 1; //doesn't work, has to be updated every pixel or what? } boolean doKeyDown(int keyCode, KeyEvent msg) { boolean handled = false; synchronized (mSurfaceHolder) { if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_SPACE){ dSpace = true; handled = true; } if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_UP){ dUp = true; handled = true; } if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_DOWN){ dDown = true; handled = true; } return handled; } } } a method run that runs the game... public void run() { while (mRun) { Canvas c = null; try { c = mSurfaceHolder.lockCanvas(null); synchronized (mSurfaceHolder) { if (mMode == STATE_RUNNING) updateGame(); doDraw(c); } } catch (InterruptedException e) { // TODO Auto-generated catch block e.printStackTrace(); } finally { // do this in a finally so that if an exception is thrown // during the above, we don't leave the Surface in an // inconsistent state if (c != null) { mSurfaceHolder.unlockCanvasAndPost(c); } } } } So the question would be, how do I make that the bullet is fired on a single SPACE key press from the turret to the end of the screen? Could you help me out here, I seem to be in the dark here... Thanks, Niksa

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• ZFS for Database Log Files

  - by user12620111

  I've been troubled by drop outs in CPU usage in my application server, characterized by the CPUs suddenly going from close to 90% CPU busy to almost completely CPU idle for a few seconds. Here is an example of a drop out as shown by a snippet of vmstat data taken while the application server is under a heavy workload. # vmstat 1  kthr      memory            page            disk          faults      cpu  r b w   swap  free  re  mf pi po fr de sr s3 s4 s5 s6   in   sy   cs us sy id  1 0 0 130160176 116381952 0 16 0 0 0 0  0  0  0  0  0 207377 117715 203884 70 21 9  12 0 0 130160160 116381936 0 25 0 0 0 0 0  0  0  0  0 200413 117162 197250 70 20 9  11 0 0 130160176 116381920 0 16 0 0 0 0 0  0  1  0  0 203150 119365 200249 72 21 7  8 0 0 130160176 116377808 0 19 0 0 0 0  0  0  0  0  0 169826 96144 165194 56 17 27  0 0 0 130160176 116377800 0 16 0 0 0 0  0  0  0  0  1 10245 9376 9164 2  1 97  0 0 0 130160176 116377792 0 16 0 0 0 0  0  0  0  0  2 15742 12401 14784 4 1 95  0 0 0 130160176 116377776 2 16 0 0 0 0  0  0  1  0  0 19972 17703 19612 6 2 92  14 0 0 130160176 116377696 0 16 0 0 0 0 0  0  0  0  0 202794 116793 199807 71 21 8  9 0 0 130160160 116373584 0 30 0 0 0 0  0  0 18  0  0 203123 117857 198825 69 20 11 This behavior occurred consistently while the application server was processing synthetic transactions: HTTP requests from JMeter running on an external machine. I explored many theories trying to explain the drop outs, including: Unexpected JMeter behavior Network contention Java Garbage Collection Application Server thread pool problems Connection pool problems Database transaction processing Database I/O contention Graphing the CPU %idle led to a breakthrough: Several of the drop outs were 30 seconds apart. With that insight, I went digging through the data again and looking for other outliers that were 30 seconds apart. In the database server statistics, I found spikes in the iostat "asvc_t" (average response time of disk transactions, in milliseconds) for the disk drive that was being used for the database log files. Here is an example:                     extended device statistics     r/s    w/s   kr/s   kw/s wait actv wsvc_t asvc_t  %w  %b device     0.0 2053.6    0.0 8234.3  0.0  0.2    0.0    0.1   0  24 c3t60080E5...F4F6d0s0     0.0 2162.2    0.0 8652.8  0.0  0.3    0.0    0.1   0  28 c3t60080E5...F4F6d0s0     0.0 1102.5    0.0 10012.8  0.0  4.5    0.0    4.1   0  69 c3t60080E5...F4F6d0s0     0.0   74.0    0.0 7920.6  0.0 10.0    0.0  135.1   0 100 c3t60080E5...F4F6d0s0     0.0  568.7    0.0 6674.0  0.0  6.4    0.0   11.2   0  90 c3t60080E5...F4F6d0s0     0.0 1358.0    0.0 5456.0  0.0  0.6    0.0    0.4   0  55 c3t60080E5...F4F6d0s0     0.0 1314.3    0.0 5285.2  0.0  0.7    0.0    0.5   0  70 c3t60080E5...F4F6d0s0 Here is a little more information about my database configuration: The database and application server were running on two different SPARC servers. Storage for the database was on a storage array connected via 8 gigabit Fibre Channel Data storage and log file were on different physical disk drives Reliable low latency I/O is provided by battery backed NVRAM Highly available: Two Fibre Channel links accessed via MPxIO Two Mirrored cache controllers The log file physical disks were mirrored in the storage device Database log files on a ZFS Filesystem with cutting-edge technologies, such as copy-on-write and end-to-end checksumming Why would I be getting service time spikes in my high-end storage? First, I wanted to verify that the database log disk service time spikes aligned with the application server CPU drop outs, and they did: At first, I guessed that the disk service time spikes might be related to flushing the write through cache on the storage device, but I was unable to validate that theory. After searching the WWW for a while, I decided to try using a separate log device: # zpool add ZFS-db-41 log c3t60080E500017D55C000015C150A9F8A7d0 The ZFS log device is configured in a similar manner as described above: two physical disks mirrored in the storage array. This change to the database storage configuration eliminated the application server CPU drop outs: Here is the zpool configuration: # zpool status ZFS-db-41   pool: ZFS-db-41  state: ONLINE  scan: none requested config:         NAME                                     STATE         ZFS-db-41                                ONLINE           c3t60080E5...F4F6d0  ONLINE         logs           c3t60080E5...F8A7d0  ONLINE Now, the I/O spikes look like this:                     extended device statistics                  r/s    w/s   kr/s   kw/s wait actv wsvc_t asvc_t  %w  %b device     0.0 1053.5    0.0 4234.1  0.0  0.8    0.0    0.7   0  75 c3t60080E5...F8A7d0s0                     extended device statistics                  r/s    w/s   kr/s   kw/s wait actv wsvc_t asvc_t  %w  %b device     0.0 1131.8    0.0 4555.3  0.0  0.8    0.0    0.7   0  76 c3t60080E5...F8A7d0s0                     extended device statistics                  r/s    w/s   kr/s   kw/s wait actv wsvc_t asvc_t  %w  %b device     0.0 1167.6    0.0 4682.2  0.0  0.7    0.0    0.6   0  74 c3t60080E5...F8A7d0s0     0.0  162.2    0.0 19153.9  0.0  0.7    0.0    4.2   0  12 c3t60080E5...F4F6d0s0                     extended device statistics                  r/s    w/s   kr/s   kw/s wait actv wsvc_t asvc_t  %w  %b device     0.0 1247.2    0.0 4992.6  0.0  0.7    0.0    0.6   0  71 c3t60080E5...F8A7d0s0     0.0   41.0    0.0   70.0  0.0  0.1    0.0    1.6   0   2 c3t60080E5...F4F6d0s0                     extended device statistics                  r/s    w/s   kr/s   kw/s wait actv wsvc_t asvc_t  %w  %b device     0.0 1241.3    0.0 4989.3  0.0  0.8    0.0    0.6   0  75 c3t60080E5...F8A7d0s0                     extended device statistics                  r/s    w/s   kr/s   kw/s wait actv wsvc_t asvc_t  %w  %b device     0.0 1193.2    0.0 4772.9  0.0  0.7    0.0    0.6   0  71 c3t60080E5...F8A7d0s0 We can see the steady flow of 4k writes to the ZIL device from O_SYNC database log file writes. The spikes are from flushing the transaction group. Like almost all problems that I run into, once I thoroughly understand the problem, I find that other people have documented similar experiences. Thanks to all of you who have documented alternative approaches. Saved for another day: now that the problem is obvious, I should try "zfs:zfs_immediate_write_sz" as recommended in the ZFS Evil Tuning Guide. References: The ZFS Intent Log Solaris ZFS, Synchronous Writes and the ZIL Explained ZFS Evil Tuning Guide: Cache Flushes ZFS Evil Tuning Guide: Tuning ZFS for Database Performance

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• OpenGL VertexBuffer won'e render in GLFW3

  - by sm81095

  So I have started to try to learn OpenGL, and I decided to use GLFW to assist in window creation. The problem is, since GLFW3 is so new, there are no tutorials on it yet and how to use it with modern OpenGL (3.3, specifically). Using the GLFW3 tutorial found on the website, which uses older OpenGL rendering (glBegin(GL_TRIANGLES), glVertex3f()), and such, I can get a triangle to render to the screen. The problem is, using new OpenGL, I can't get the same triangle to render to the screen. I am new to OpenGL, and GLFW3 is new to most people, so I may be completely missing something obvious, but here is my code: static const GLuint g_vertex_buffer_data[] = { -1.0f, -1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f }; int main(void) { GLFWwindow* window; if(!glfwInit()) { fprintf(stderr, "Failed to initialize GLFW."); return -1; } glfwWindowHint(GLFW_SAMPLES, 4); glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MAJOR, 3); glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MINOR, 3); glfwWindowHint(GLFW_OPENGL_FORWARD_COMPAT, GL_TRUE); glfwWindowHint(GLFW_OPENGL_PROFILE, GLFW_OPENGL_CORE_PROFILE); window = glfwCreateWindow(800, 600, "Test Window", NULL, NULL); if(!window) { glfwTerminate(); fprintf(stderr, "Failed to create a GLFW window"); return -1; } glfwMakeContextCurrent(window); glewExperimental = GL_TRUE; GLenum err = glewInit(); if(err != GLEW_OK) { glfwTerminate(); fprintf(stderr, "Failed to initialize GLEW"); fprintf(stderr, (char*)glewGetErrorString(err)); return -1; } GLuint VertexArrayID; glGenVertexArrays(1, &VertexArrayID); glBindVertexArray(VertexArrayID); GLuint programID = LoadShaders("SimpleVertexShader.glsl", "SimpleFragmentShader.glsl"); GLuint vertexBuffer; glGenBuffers(1, &vertexBuffer); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertexBuffer); glBufferData(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, sizeof(g_vertex_buffer_data), g_vertex_buffer_data, GL_STATIC_DRAW); while(!glfwWindowShouldClose(window)) { glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glUseProgram(programID); glEnableVertexAttribArray(0); glBindBuffer(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER, vertexBuffer); glVertexAttribPointer(0, 3, GL_FLOAT, GL_FALSE, 0, (void*)0); glDrawArrays(GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 3); glDisableVertexAttribArray(0); glfwSwapBuffers(window); glfwPollEvents(); } glDeleteBuffers(1, &vertexBuffer); glDeleteProgram(programID); glfwDestroyWindow(window); glfwTerminate(); exit(EXIT_SUCCESS); } I know it is not my shaders, they are super simple and I've checked them against GLFW 2.7 so I know that they work. I'm assuming that I've missed something crucial to using the OpenGL context with GLFW3, so any help locating the problem would be greatly appreciated.

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• Support ARMv7 instruction set in Windows Embedded Compact applications

  - by Valter Minute

  On of the most interesting new features of Windows Embedded Compact 7 is support for the ARMv5, ARMv6 and ARMv7 instruction sets instead of the ARMv4 “generic” support provided by the previous releases. This means that code build for Windows Embedded Compact 7 can leverage features (like the FPU unit for ARMv6 and v7) and instructions of the recent ARM cores and improve their performances. Those improvements are noticeable in graphics, floating point calculation and data processing. The ARMv7 instruction set is supported by the latest Cortex-A8, A9 and A15 processor families. Those processor are currently used in tablets, smartphones, in-car navigation systems and provide a great amount of processing power and a low amount of electric power making them very interesting for portable device but also for any kind of device that requires a rich user interface, processing power, connectivity and has to keep its power consumption low. The bad news is that the compiler provided with Visual Studio 2008 does not provide support for ARMv7, building native applications using just the ARMv4 instruction set. Porting a Visual Studio “Smart Device” native C/C++ project to Platform Builder is not easy and you’ll lack many of the features that the VS2008 application development environment provides. You’ll also need access to the BSP and OSDesign configuration for your device to be able to build and debug your application inside Platform Builder and this may prevent independent software vendors from using the new compiler to improve their applications performances. Adeneo Embedded now provides a whitepaper and a Visual Studio plug-in that allows usage of the new ARMv7 enabled compiler to build applications inside Visual Studio 2008. I worked on the whitepaper and the tools, with the help of my colleagues and now the results can be downloaded from Adeneo Embedded’s website: http://www.adeneo-embedded.com/OS-Technologies/Windows-Embedded (Click on the “WEC7 ARMv7 Whitepaper tab to access the download links, free registration required) A very basic benchmark showed a very good performance improvement in integer and floating-point operations. Obviously your mileage may vary and we can’t promise the same amount of improvement on any application, but with a small effort on your side (even smaller if you use the plug-in) you can try on your own application. ARMv7 support is provided using Platform Builder’s compiler and VS2008 application debugger is not able to debut ARMv7 code, so you may need to put in place some workaround like keeping ARMv4 code for debugging etc.

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• Disk drive for / not ready on boot after upgrade from 10.04 to 12.04

  - by Mathieu M-Gosselin

  After upgrading (using the Upgrade button from the update manager) from 10.04.4 to 12.04.1, I cannot boot anymore. Upon booting, I am greeted with the Ubuntu logo and the error "The disk drive for / is not ready yet or not present". I have the option to wait, to skip and to access a basic shell. Waiting overnight did nothing, skipping just gives me the same error for /tmp, /home, then for a UUID and finally it just goes to a black screen with a white "_" in the top left corner. My setup is a dual boot one with XP on a single hard drive, I use separate partitions for / and /home. Back in the day I installed 8.04 directly from the CD while leaving a partition for XP, which I installed after. This setup had never caused any such issues, even when upgrading from 8.04 to 10.04. I have done plenty of research regarding this issue, as many others seem to have had similar issues after doing the same upgrade as me. However, while for most what fixed the problem was running: apt-get -f install after remounting / in read-write, it didn't do it for me. I got dependency errors (see here), which I also investigated. I found https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/python-defaults/+bug/990740 where most people say the solution that worked is (prior to running the above command) running: apt-get install -o APT::Immediate-Configure=false -f apt python-minimal but that also got me a lot of dependencies errors as output (see here), similar to #34 in the above thread. I also read that running: dpkg --configure -a could help, at first it wouldn't run because it had trouble parsing /var/lib/dpkg/status since there was an extra blank line in a package description (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dpkg/+bug/916799) but I removed it using vim (and then reran the command). It still gives me output that looks like an error, though. Here it is: http://paste.ubuntu.com/1338074/. I also tried re-running the above apt-get commands after that, to no avail. I'm running out of things to try in the hope of getting this fixed, your help would be very much appreciated! Thank you in advance.

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• One Year Oracle SocialChat - The Movie

  - by mprove

  Tweet | Like | Watch on Vimeo You’ve just watched – hopefully – my first short movie. Thank you! Here is a bit of the back stage story. About 6 weeks ago colleagues from SNBC (Social Network and Business Collaboration) announced a Social Use Case Competition. It was expected to submit a video of 2 to 5 minutes duration on the Social Enterprise (our internal phrase for Enterprise 2.0). Hmm – I had a few vague ideas, but no script – no actors – no experience in film making. Really the best conditions to try something! I chose our weekly SocialChats as my main topic. But if you don’t do Danish Dogma cinema, you still need a script. Hence I played around with the SocialChat’s archive, and all of a sudden a script and even the actors appeared in front of me. The words that you have just seen are weekly topics. Slightly abridged and rearranged to form a story. Exciting, next phase. How to get it on digital celluloid? I have to confess I am still impressed by epic. (Keep in mind, epic was done in 2004.) And my actors – words – call for a typographic style already. The main part was done over a weekend with Apple Keynote. And I even found a wonderful matching soundtrack among my albums: Didge Goes World by Delago. I picked parts of Second Day and Seventh Day. Literally, the rhythm was set, and I "just" had to complete the movie. Tools used – apart from trial and error: Keynote, Pixelmator, GarageBand, iMovie. Finally I want to mention that I am extremely thankful to BSC Music for granting permissions to use the tracks for this short film! Without this sound it would have been just an ordinary slide show. – Internal note: The next SocialChat is on Death by PowerPoint vs. Presentation Zen. CU this Friday 3pm Greenwich / 7am Pacific.

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• Fixing a NoClassDefFoundError

  - by Chris Okyen

  I have some code: package ftc; import java.util.Scanner; public class Fer_To_Cel { public static void main(String[] argv) { // Scanner object to get the temp in degrees Farenheit Scanner keyboard = new Scanner(System.in); boolean isInt = true; // temporarily put as true in case the user enters a valid int the first time int degreesF = 0; // initialy set to 0 do { try { // Input the temperature text. System.out.print("\nPlease enter a temperature (integer number, no fractional part) in degrees Farenheit: "); degreesF = Integer.parseInt(keyboard.next()); // Get user input and Assign the far. temperature variable, which is casted from String to int. } // Let the user know in a user friendly notice that the value entered wasnt an int ( give int value range ) , and then give error log catch(java.lang.Exception e) { System.out.println("Sorry but you entered a non-int value ( needs to be between ( including ) -2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647 ).. \n"); e.printStackTrace(); isInt = false; } } while(!isInt); System.out.println(""); // print a new line. final int degreesC = (5*(degreesF-32)/9); // convert the degrees from F to C and store the resulting expression in degreesC // Print out a newline, then print what X degrees F is in Celcius. System.out.println("\n" + degreesF + " degrees Farenheit is " + degreesC + " degrees Celcius"); } } And The following error: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_06\bin>java Fer_To_Cel Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Fer_To_Cel (wrong name: ftc/Fer_To_Cel) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:791) at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:14 at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:449) at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:71) at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:361) at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:355) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:354) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:423) at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:308) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:356) at sun.launcher.LauncherHelper.checkAndLoadMain(LauncherHelper.java:480) The code compiled without compile errors, but presented errors during execution. Which leads me to two questions. I know Errors can be termed Compiler, Runtime and Logic Errors, but the NoClassDefFoundError inherits java.lang.LinkageError. Does that make it a Linker error, being niether of the three types of errors I listed, If I am right this is the answer. For someone else who obtains the singular .java file and compiles it, would this be the only way to solve this problem? Or can I (should I ) do/have done something to fix this problem? Basically, based on a basis of programming, is this a fault of me as the writer? Could this be done once on, my half and be distributed and not needed be done again?

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• Deploy from NetBeans IDE by Twisting an External Dial

  - by Geertjan

  Via this code in a NetBeans module, i.e., a registered NetBeans ModuleInstall class, you can twist the Tinkerforge Rotary Poti Bricklet to deploy the current application in the IDE: import com.tinkerforge.BrickMaster; import com.tinkerforge.BrickletLCD20x4; import com.tinkerforge.BrickletRotaryPoti; import com.tinkerforge.IPConnection; import javax.swing.Action; import javax.swing.JMenuItem; import org.netbeans.api.project.Project; import org.netbeans.api.project.ProjectUtils; import org.openide.awt.Actions; import org.openide.modules.ModuleInstall; import org.openide.util.Utilities; public class Installer extends ModuleInstall { private static final String HOST = "localhost"; private static final int PORT = 4223; private static final String MASTERBRICKUID = "abc"; private static final String LCDUID = "abc"; private static final String ROTIUID = "abc"; private static IPConnection ipc; private static BrickMaster master = new BrickMaster(MASTERBRICKUID); private static BrickletLCD20x4 lcd = new BrickletLCD20x4(LCDUID); private static BrickletRotaryPoti poti = new BrickletRotaryPoti(ROTIUID); @Override public void restored() { try { ipc = new IPConnection(HOST, PORT); ipc.addDevice(master); ipc.addDevice(lcd); ipc.addDevice(poti); poti.setPositionCallbackPeriod(50); poti.addListener(new BrickletRotaryPoti.PositionListener() { @Override public void position(final short position) { lcd.backlightOn(); lcd.clearDisplay(); final Action runAction = Actions.forID("Project","org.netbeans.modules.project.ui.RunMainProject"); //The action must be invoked from menu item or toolbar button, //see line 147 in org.netbeans.modules.project.ui.actions.LookupSensitiveAction: JMenuItem jmi = new JMenuItem(runAction); //When position is 100 (range is -150 to 150), deploy the app //and print info about the project to the LCD display: if (position == 100) { jmi.doClick(); Project p = Utilities.actionsGlobalContext().lookup(Project.class); lcd.writeLine((short) 0, (short) 0, "Deployed:"); lcd.writeLine((short) 1, (short) 0, ProjectUtils.getInformation(p).getDisplayName()); } else { lcd.writeLine((short) 0, (short) 0, "Position: " + position); } } }); } catch (Exception e) { } } }

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• How to interview a natural scientist for a dev position?

  - by Silas

  I already did some interviews for my company, mostly computer scientists for dev positions but also some testers and project managers. Now I have to fill a vacancy in our research group within the R&D department (side note: “research” means that we try to solve problems in our professional domain/market niche using software in research projects together with universities, other companies, research centres and end user organisations. It’s not computer science research; we’re not going to solve the P=NP problem). Now we invited a guy holding an MSc in chemistry (with a lot of physics in his CV, too), who never had any computer science lesson. I already talked with him about half an hour at a local university’s career days and there’s no doubt the guy is smart. Also his marks are excellent and he graduated with distinction. For his BSc he needed to teach himself programming in Mathematica and told me believably that he liked programming a lot. Also he solved some physical chemistry problem that I probably don’t understand using his own software, implemented in Mathematica, for his MSc thesis. It includes a GUI and a notable size of 8,000 LoC. He seems to be very attracted by what we’re doing in our research group and to be honest it’s quite difficult for an SME like us to get good people. I also am very interested in hiring him since he could assist me in writing project proposals, reports, doing presentations and so on. He would probably fit to our team, too. The only question left is: How can I check if he will get the programming skills he needs to do software implementation in our projects since this will be a significant part of the job? Of course I will ask him what it is, that is fascinating him about programming. I’ll also ask how he proceeded to write his natural science software and how he structured it. I’ll ask about how he managed to obtain the skills and information about software development he needed. But is there something more I could ask? Something more concrete perhaps? Should I ask him to explain his Mathematica solution? To be clear: I’m not looking for knowledge in a particular language or technology stack. We’re a .NET shop in product development but I want to have a free choice for our research projects. So I’m interested in the meta-competence being able to learn whatever is actually needed. I hope this question is answerable and not open-ended since I really like to know if there is a default way to check for the ability to get further programming skills on the job. If something is not clear to you please give me some comments and let me improve my question.

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• Releasing the new Sample Browser Phone app

  - by Jialiang

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Jialiang/archive/2014/06/05/releasing-the-new-sample-browser-phone-app.aspx Starting its journey in 2010, Sample Browser is achieving its tetralogy by releasing a Windows Phone version Sample Browser today. The new Windows Phone app is the fourth milestone of Sample Browser since we released the desktop version and the Visual Studio version in 2012 and the Windows Store version in 2013. This time, by providing a sample browser designed for a ‘walking’ platform in response to MVPs’ suggestions during last year’s MVP Global Summit, we are literally putting a world of code samples "at developers’ fingertips”. If you like to have a code gallery of over 7000 quality code samples in your pocket, then click here to download our Windows Phone Sample Browser and start a fantastic mobile experience. With Windows Phone version Sample Browser and the Internet, you can search for code samples on MSDN at anytime and anywhere you want, 24/7 and–even to bed. You can also check code sample details and share them with your friends. Compared to the other 3 pieces in the tetralogy (desktop version, Visual Studio version, and the Windows Store version), the Windows Phone version Sample Browser sells itself for convenience and instant connectivity. For those who need to reach code samples under mobile circumstances where no PCs is available, Windows Phone version Sample Browser will definitely be the right service you are seeking for. Aside from sharing samples via emails as the other 3 do, the Windows Phone version Sample Browser also allows you to share the sample via SMS and Near Field Communication (NFC).   What's Next Currently, the Windows Phone Sample Browser only supports online MSDN code searching, but we already plan to upgrade Sample Browser to allow users to do ‘Bing code search’, and add and manage their private code snippets.  We will also upgrade the app to universal app. Universal App is a new concept brought up in the Microsoft Build Developer Conference 2014. It is a new development model that allows for a single app to be deployed across multiple Windows devices such as Windows Phone, Windows 8.1, and XBox. Therefore, once we finish upgrading Sample Browser to a universal app, you can synchronize your own code snippets across different devices; You can also mark a code sample as favorite on your Windows Phone and continue to study the sample when you are on your desktop. By then, sharing data between platforms will be a piece of cake. Also, the user experience of Sample Browser on different platforms will be more consistent.  The best is yet to come!   We sincerely suggest you give Sample Browser a try (click here to download). If you love what you see in Sample Browser, please recommend it to your friends and colleagues. If you encounter any problems or have any suggestions for us, please contact us at [email protected]. Your precious opinions and comments are more than welcome.

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• Speaker Notes...

  - by wulfers

  At a .Net User Group meeting this week, I experienced two poorly prepared speakers floundering through presentations….  As a Lead Technologist at the company I work for, I have experience training technical staff and also giving presentations at code camps.  Here are a few guidelines for aspiring speakers you might find helpful…   1.       Do not stand in front of your audience and read your slides.  This is  offensive to your audience and not what they came for...  Your slides are there to reinforce the information you are presenting and to give the audience a little clarification on some terms you may use and as a visual aid for some complicated issues. 2.       Have someone review your presentation (slides, notes, …) who speaks the language you will be presenting in fluently.  Also record at least ten minutes of your presentation and have that same person review that.  One of the speakers this week used the word “Basically” fifty times in less than thirty minutes…  I started to flinch every time he used the term. 3.       Be Prepared  -  before the presentation begins.  Don’t make any last minute changes to your presentation or demo code the night before.  Don’t patch your laptop or demo servers the night before.  If possible create a virtual image that you only use for presentations and use that (refreshed before every presentation). 4.       Know the level of expertise of your audience.  Speaking above or below their abilities will make or break your presentation. 5.       Deliver what you promise. The presentation this week was supposed to be on BDD (Behavior Driven Develpment).  The presenter completely ran off track and 90% of the discussion was how his team mistakenly used TDD (Test Driven Development), and was unhappy with the results.  Based on his loss of focus we only heard a rushed 10 minute presentation on DBB which was a disservice to the audience. 6.       Practice your presentation with your own small team before you try this on a room full of people you don’t know.  A side benefit of doing this with your own team is that you can get candid feedback from your team and also get kudos for training your own team.  I find I can also turn my presentations into technical white papers and get a third benefit from the work I’ve put into a presentation. 7.       Sharpen your own saw.  Pick a topic that is fairly current.  Something you would like to learn about and would benefit your current career path. 8.       Have fun doing it.

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• JGridView (Part 2)

  - by Geertjan

  The second sample in the JGrid download is a picture viewer that needs to be seen to be believed. Here it is, integrated into a NetBeans Platform application (click to enlarge it): When you mouse over the images, they change, showing several different images instantaneously. Here's the explorer view above, mainly making use of code from the sample: public class JGridView extends JScrollPane { @Override public void addNotify() { super.addNotify(); final ExplorerManager em = ExplorerManager.find(this); if (em != null) { final JGrid grid = new JGrid(); Node root = em.getRootContext(); final Node[] nodes = root.getChildren().getNodes(); final PicViewerObject[] pics = new PicViewerObject[nodes.length]; for (int i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++) { Node node = nodes[i]; pics[i] = node.getLookup().lookup(PicViewerObject.class); } grid.getCellRendererManager().setDefaultRenderer(new PicViewerRenderer()); grid.setModel(new DefaultListModel() { @Override public int getSize() { return pics.length; } @Override public Object getElementAt(int i) { return pics[i]; } }); grid.setFixedCellDimension(160); grid.addMouseMotionListener(new MouseAdapter() { int lastIndex = -1; @Override public void mouseMoved(MouseEvent e) { if (lastIndex >= 0) { Object o = grid.getModel().getElementAt(lastIndex); if (o instanceof PicViewerObject) { Rectangle r = grid.getCellBounds(lastIndex); if (r != null && !r.contains(e.getPoint())) { ((PicViewerObject) o).setMarker(false); grid.repaint(r); } } } int index = grid.getCellAt(e.getPoint()); if (index >= 0) { Object o = grid.getModel().getElementAt(index); if (o instanceof PicViewerObject) { Rectangle r = grid.getCellBounds(index); if (r != null) { ((PicViewerObject) o).setFraction(((float) e.getPoint().x - (float) r.x) / (float) r.width); ((PicViewerObject) o).setMarker(true); lastIndex = index; grid.repaint(r); } } } } }); grid.getSelectionModel().addListSelectionListener(new ListSelectionListener() { @Override public void valueChanged(ListSelectionEvent e) { //Somehow compare the selected item //with the list of books and find a matching book: int selectedIndex = grid.getSelectedIndex(); for (int i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++) { int picId = pics[i].getId(); if (selectedIndex == picId) { try { em.setSelectedNodes(new Node[]{nodes[i]}); } catch (PropertyVetoException ex) { Exceptions.printStackTrace(ex); } } } } }); setViewportView(grid); } } } The next step is to create a generic JGridView that will handle any kind of object automatically.

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• Is there an API for determining congressional districts?

  - by ardavis

  I'm looking to determine the congressional district based on an address my user is providing. This will avoid having the user to look it up themselves. Does an API of this sort exist? Note Through my attempts to find one, I've only come across these: http://www.govtrack.us/developers/api (not sure how to submit an an address or zip code however) The following resources are available in the API ...Bills and resolutions in the U.S. Congress since 1973 (the 93rd Congress). ...A (bill, person) pair indicating cosponsorship, with join and withdrawn dates. ...Members of Congress and U.S. Presidents since the founding of the nation. ...Terms held in office by Members of Congress and U.S. Presidents. Each term corresponds with an election, meaning each term in the House covers two years (one 'Congress'), as President four years, and in the Senate six years (three 'Congresses'). ...Roll call votes in the U.S. Congress since 1789. How people voted is accessed through the Vote_voter API. ...How people voted on roll call votes in the U.S. Congress since 1789. See the Vote API. Filter on the vote field to get the results of a particular vote... http://www.opencongress.org/api (seems to be a way to find congress information, but not districts) This API provides programmers with structured access to all the data on OpenCongress, everything from official bill info to news and blog coverage to user-generated votes on bills and much more... This API defaults to returning XML. All queries can also return JSON... https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/opendems-discuss/CeKyi_aANaE (similar question, no resolution) I've been looking over Open Dems, and seeing what's exposed at this point and what isn't. I work with Democrats Abroad, and am interested in using stuff from the lab for their sites. I quickly looked over the Precinct API, which does both more and less than what I'd need. An ideal resource would be any way of translating addresses into CD at the very least (getting state district data would be good as well), since that would make it easier for DA's membership to make a difference in races like last month's NY26 race... Update I'm looking at the source for the govtrack.us website and the 'doGeoCode' function may be useful. view-source:http://www.govtrack.us/congress/members If no one has any suggestions, I will try to go off of what they are doing.

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• Problem getting GOBI 2000 HS to work

  - by Zypher

  I've been trying to get my integrated GOBI WWAN card to work under 10.10 for a while now. I was able to get the network manager to see the card after installing the gobi-loader package. I was able to setup the connection, but i cannot establish a connection to Verizon. Below is the output from /var/log/daemon.log as i try to connect. Oct 19 14:29:42 gbeech-x201 AptDaemon: INFO: Quiting due to inactivity Oct 19 14:29:42 gbeech-x201 AptDaemon: INFO: Shutdown was requested Oct 19 14:33:45 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> Activation (ttyUSB0) starting connection 'Verizon connection' Oct 19 14:33:45 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> (ttyUSB0): device state change: 3 -> 4 (reason 0) Oct 19 14:33:45 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> Activation (ttyUSB0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) scheduled... Oct 19 14:33:45 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> Activation (ttyUSB0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) started... Oct 19 14:33:45 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> (ttyUSB0): device state change: 4 -> 6 (reason 0) Oct 19 14:33:45 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> Activation (ttyUSB0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) complete. Oct 19 14:33:45 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> Activation (ttyUSB0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) scheduled... Oct 19 14:33:45 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> Activation (ttyUSB0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) started... Oct 19 14:33:45 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> (ttyUSB0): device state change: 6 -> 4 (reason 0) Oct 19 14:33:45 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> Activation (ttyUSB0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) complete. Oct 19 14:34:46 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <warn> CDMA connection failed: (32) No service Oct 19 14:34:46 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> (ttyUSB0): device state change: 4 -> 9 (reason 0) Oct 19 14:34:46 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> Marking connection 'Verizon connection' invalid. Oct 19 14:34:46 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <warn> Activation (ttyUSB0) failed. Oct 19 14:34:46 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> (ttyUSB0): device state change: 9 -> 3 (reason 0) Oct 19 14:34:46 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> (ttyUSB0): deactivating device (reason: 0). Oct 19 14:34:46 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> Policy set 'Auto SO-GUEST' (wlan0) as default for IPv4 routing and DNS. Oct 19 14:34:46 gbeech-x201 NetworkManager[1105]: <info> Policy set 'Auto SO-GUEST' (wlan0) as default for IPv4 routing and DNS.

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• Fail to start windows after Ubuntu 11.10 install

  - by user49995

  Computer: HP Pavilion dv7-6140eo OS: Originally Win7 I recently decided to try out Ubuntu, and I decided to dual-boot it with Windows 7. First I googled some how-to's, then I downloaded Ubuntu onto a memory stick and made a second partition (I originally only had one partition that I shrunk and used the unallocated space to install onto during the Ubuntu install). During the install I set format type to xt4 (or something, it was the default option), chose the "in the beginning" option and set the last option as "\". The install was successful. Although, when I restarted my computer I weren't able to choose which operating system to start; it went right into windows. After showing the windows logo for half a second before rebooting, I get a blue screen (see bottom of the page). Trying to fix it, I deleted the newly made partition I had just installed Ubuntu onto (seeing it wasn't working either). This made no difference. I proceeded with installing Ubuntu again, so I would at least have a functioning computer, and now Ubuntu works fine (on it now). The only difference on start-up is that I get a Grub window asking me to between several options including Linux and Windows 7 (loader). Now, if I choose Windows 7, I get the message "Windows was unable to start. A recent software or hardware change might be the cause". It recommends me to choose the first option of the two it provides; to start start-up repair tool. The second option being starting windows normally. If I start windows normally, the same thing happens as earlier. My computer does not have a windows installation CD. Although, it has (at least it used to, if I haven't screwed that too up) a 17gb recovery partition. In addition I made an image of the computer onto a external hard drive when I first got it. Though, I have no idea how to use either. If anyone has any idea how I can make windows work again or reinstall it (already backed up my files) it would be greatly appreciated. I still prefer to dual boot between the two functioning operating systems, but I will settle for a functioning windows 7. Thanks a lot for any replies. Blue screen: A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps: Check for viruses on your computer. Remove and newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configures and terminated. Run CMKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer. Technical information: **STOP: 0x0000007B (0xFFFFF880009A97E8,0xFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0x0000000000000000,0x0000000000000000

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• Traditional POS is Dead

  - by David Dorf

  Traditional POS is dead -- I've heard that one before. Here's an excerpt from Joe Skorupa's blog over at RIS where he relayed ten trends that were presented at NRF. 7. Mobile POS signals death of traditional POS. Shoppers don't love self-checkout, but they prefer it to long queues or dealing with associates. Fixed POS is expensive and bulky. Mobile POS frees floor space for other purposes and converts associates from being cashiers to being sales assistants that provide new levels of customer service and incremental basket sales. In addition to unplugging the POS, new alternatives are starting to take hold - thin client, POS as a service, and replacing POS software with e-commerce platforms. I'll grant that in some situations for some retailers there might be an opportunity to to ditch the traditional POS, but for the majority of retailers that's just not practical. Take it from a guy that had to wake up at 3am after every Thanksgiving to monitor POS systems across the US on Black Friday. If a retailer's website goes down on Black Friday, they will take a significant hit. If a retailer's chain-wide POS system goes down on Black Friday, that retailer will cease to exist. Mobile POS works great for Apple because the majority of purchases are one or two big-ticket items that don't involve cash. There's still a traditional POS in every store to fall back on (its just hidden). Try this at home: Choose your favorite e-commerce site and add an item to the cart while timing how long it takes. Now multiply that by 15 to represent the 15 items you might buy at store like Target. The user interface isn't optimized for bulk purchases, and that's how it should be. The webstore and POS are designed for different purposes. Self-checkout is a great addition to POS and so is mobile checkout. But they add capabilities to POS, not replace it. Centralized architectures, even those based in the cloud, are quite viable as long as there's resiliency in the registers. You cannot assume perfect access to the network, so a POS must always be able to sell regardless of connectivity. Clearly the different selling channels should be sharing common functionality. Things like calculating tax, accepting coupons, and processing electronic payments can be shared, usually through a service-oriented architecture. This lowers costs and providers greater consistency, both of which help retailers. On paper these technologies look really good and we should continue to push boundaries, but I'm not ready to call the patient dead just yet.

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• Update Errors in Xubuntu 12.10

  - by wil

  I updated by computer from 12.04 to 12.10 and after I finished updating when I turned on my computer I am unable to update my computer. I tried install a new copy of 13.04 but my cpu doesn't support pae. I have a IBM Thinkpad T42 with a 1.7 gigahertx Cpu. When updating through terminal This is the output. sudo apt-get upgrade: [sudo] password for wil: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these. The following packages have unmet dependencies: linux-image-extra-3.5.0-34-generic : Depends: linux-image-3.5.0-34-generic but it is not installed linux-image-generic : Depends: linux-image-3.5.0-34-generic but it is not installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f. sudo apt-get upgrade -f: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies... Done The following NEW packages will be installed: linux-image-3.5.0-34-generic 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. 3 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 0 B/11.8 MB of archives. After this operation, 25.9 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y (Reading database ... 191530 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking linux-image-3.5.0-34-generic (from .../linux-image-3.5.0-34-generic_3.5.0-34.55_i386.deb) ... This kernel does not support a non-PAE CPU. dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-3.5.0-34-generic_3.5.0-34.55_i386.deb (--unpack): subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1 No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d . run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 3.5.0-34-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-34-generic run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-update-grub 3.5.0-34-generic /boot/vmlinuz-3.5.0-34-generic Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-3.5.0-34-generic_3.5.0-34.55_i386.deb E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) wil@wil-ThinkPad-T42:~/Desktop$

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