Sumit Bhasin : Sumit Bhasin

Downloading entire websites using Wget

2009-06-11T15:01:42Z

18
05
2009

Wget is a good tool for downloading resources from the internet. The basic usage is wget url:

wget http://linuxreviews.org/

The power of wget is that you may download sites recursive, meaning you also get all pages (and images and other data) linked on the front page:

wget -r http://linuxreviews.org/

But many sites do not want you to download their entire site. To
prevent this, they check how browsers identify. Many sites refuses you
to connect or sends a blank page if they detect you are not using a
web-browser. You might get a message like:


	Sorry, but the download manager you are using to view this site is not supported.
	We do not support use of such download managers as flashget, go!zilla, or getright

Wget has a very useful -U option for such websites. Use -U [your-browser] to tell the site you are using some commonly accepted browser:

wget -r -p -U Mozilla http://www.thesiteyouwannadnld.com/restricedplace.html

The most important command line options are --limit-rate= and --wait=.
You should add �wait=20 to pause 20 seconds between retrievals, this
makes sure you are not manually added to a blacklist. �limit-rate
defaults to bytes, add K to set KB/s. Example:

wget --wait=20 --limit-rate=20K -r -p -U Mozilla http://www.stupidsite.com/restricedplace.html

A web-site owner will probably get upset if you attempt to download his entire site using a simple wget http://foo.bar
command. However, the web-site owner will not even notice you if you
limit the download transfer rate and pause between fetching files.

Use �no-parent

--no-parent is a very handy option that guarantees wget
will not download anything from the folders beneath the folder you want
to acquire. Use this to make sure wget does not fetch more than it
needs to if just just want to download the files in a folder.

Facebooker ROR setup steps

2009-04-24T13:17:24Z

Create a rails application:

rails facebooker_tutorial

Install Facebooker Plugin:

script/plugin install git://github.com/mmangino/facebooker.git or

cd RAILS_ROOT/vendor/plugins; git clone git://github.com/mmangino/facebooker.git or

Grab the tarball from http://github.com/mmangino/facebooker/tree/master and stick it in vendor/plugins manually

Create a controller:

ruby script/generate controller getting_started

Setup your application on Facebook.

This should take you to the new app page.
- Enter in Your Application Name. This name will appear anywhere your application mentioned.
- Enter in you Callback URL. Make this the base URL of your server. Note: For FBML apps, like this one, the url must be web accessible.
- Enter in your Canvas Page URL. This will be the path that users see in their browser.

Setup facebooker environment via RAILS_ROOT/config/facebooker.yml, You can copy the template file from the facebooker source.


				# File: config/facebooker-mock.yml
				# The api key, secret key, and canvas page name are required to get started
				# Tunnel configuration is only needed if you are going to use the facebooker:tunnel Rake tasks
				# Your callback url in Facebook should be set to http://public_host:public_port
				development:
				api_key: 442c6504bd2362d8a7fba7303cd583ca 
				secret_key: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
				canvas_page_name: facebooker_tutorial    
				callback_url: http://staging.travelerstable.com:8888
				tunnel:
				public_host_username: fooberryfoo 
				public_host: staging.travelerstable.com
				public_port: 8888
				local_port: 3000    
				test:
				api_key: 
				secret_key: 
				canvas_page_name: 
				tunnel:
				public_host_username: 
				public_host: 
				public_port: 4007
				local_port: 3000
				production:
				api_key: 
				secret_key: 
				canvas_page_name: 
				tunnel:
				public_host_username: 
				public_host: 
				public_port: 4007
				local_port: 3000

Enter in the callback url that you specified in the facebook application settings.

Enter in your Canvas Page Name. This the last part of the path you entered in the Canvas Page URL

Okay create a view for you getting_started controller. And put anything you want in there.

EDIT: app/views/getting_started/add_facebook_application.fbml.erb. Like this:


				# File: app/views/getting_started/_steps.html.erb
				<div id="tutorial_steps">
				<ol>
				<li> Create a rails application: <p class="command_line"> rails facebooker_tutorial</p></li>    
				<li> Install Facebooker Plugin: <p class="command_line"> script/plugin install git://github.com/mmangino/facebooker.git or </p>
				<p> cd RAILS_ROOT/vendor/plugins; git clone git://github.com/mmangino/facebooker.git or </p>
				<p>    Grab the tarball from <%= link_to("http://github.com/mmangino/facebooker/tree/master", "http://github.com/mmangino/facebooker/tree/master") %> and stick it in vendor/plugins manually
				</p></li>
				<li> Create a controller:        <p class="command_line"> ruby script/generate controller getting_started</p></li>
				<li>
				Setup your application on <%= link_to("Facebook", "http://www.facebook.com/developers/editapp.php?new", :target => "fb_tut_external") %>.
				<p class="descriptive_text">
				This should take you to the new app page. 
				<%= image_tag("getting_started/add_application.jpg") %> 
				<ul>     
				<li> Enter in Your Application Name.  This name will appear anywhere your application mentioned. </li>
				<li> Enter in you Callback URL.  Make this the base URL of your server. <em> Note: For FBML apps, like this one, the url must be web accessible.</em></li>
				<li> Enter in your Canvas Page URL.  This will be the path that users see in their browser. </li>
				</ul>
				</p>        
				</li>
				<li>
				Setup facebooker environment via RAILS_ROOT/config/facebooker.yml, <em> You can copy the template file from the facebooker source.</em> 
				<div style="width:90%;margin: 10px auto;"> 
				<%= highlight_file("config/facebooker-mock.yml") %>
				</div>  
				<ul> 
				<li>Enter in the callback url that you specified in the facebook application settings.</li>
				<li>Enter in your Canvas Page Name. <em>This the last part of the path you entered in the Canvas Page URL </em></li> 
				</ul>
				</li>
				<li>Okay create a view for you getting_started controller.  And put anything you want in there.
				<p>EDIT: app/views/getting_started/add_facebook_application.fbml.erb.  Like this: </p>
				<%= highlight_file("app/views/getting_started/_steps.html.erb") %>
				</li>
				<li> 
				Add a default route for your application.  
				<div style="width:90%;margin: 10px auto;"> 
				<%= highlight_code("map.connect '', :controller => 'getting_started', :action => 'add_facebook_application'") %>
				</div>
				</li>
				<li>
				Start up rails <p class="command_line">ruby script/server  </p>
				</li>
				<li>
				Check out your app at <%= link_to(url =  url_for(:controller =>  params[:controller ], :action => params[:action], :only_path => false), url  ) %>
				</li>
				<li>Now create a view accessible straight from the web and put whatever you want in there. <p>EDIT: app/views/getting_started/add_facebook_application.html.erb</p></li>
				<li> Try from the web <%= link_to(url =  url_for(:controller =>  params[:controller ], :action => params[:action], :canvas => false, :only_path => false), url  ) %>  -- Here you are accessing you app straight from the web!!</li>     
				</ol>            
				</div>

Add a default route for your application.


				map.connect '', :controller => 'getting_started', :action => 'add_facebook_application'

Start up rails

ruby script/server

Check out your app at http://fbtt.shacknet.nu/

Now create a view accessible straight from the web and put whatever you want in there.

EDIT: app/views/getting_started/add_facebook_application.html.erb

Try from the web http://fbtt.shacknet.nu/ -- Here you are accessing you app straight from the web!!

iPhone on Rails - Creating an iPhone optimised version of your Rails site using iUI and Rails 2

2009-04-13T13:53:49Z

iPhone on Rails - Creating an iPhone optimised version of your Rails site using iUI and Rails 2

After upgrading trawlr.com to Rails 2 I thought I�d make use of some of the new features and attempt to create an iPhone version of the site.

With Rails 2 you can create a mime type specifically for the iPhone and then use that format in a respond_to block (along with views such as index.iphone.erb).

Before you start � iPhoney

iPhoney is an indispensable Mac-only tool for aiding the development of an iPhone specific site.

Looking for a way to see how your web creations will look on iPhone?
Look no further. iPhoney gives you a pixel-accurate web browsing
environment�powered by Safari�that you can use when developing web
sites for iPhone. It�s the perfect 320 by 480-pixel canvas for your
iPhone development. And it�s free. iPhoney is not an iPhone simulator
but instead is designed for web developers who want to create 320 by
480 (or 480 by 320) websites for use with iPhone. It gives you a canvas
on which to test the visual quality of your designs.

Ensure iPhoney�s user agent is set to iPhone User Agent in the menu.

iPhone mime type

Create an iPhone mime type alias using Rails 2 initializers.

config/initializers/mime_types


Mime::Type.register_alias "text/html", :iphone

Detecting iPhone user agents

Apple recommends that rather than redirecting iPhone users to an
iPhone-optimised version of your site you should instead show the
original site with a link to the alternative.

This can be achieved via user agent sniffing; looking for Mobile Safari (as Apple suggests), rather that iPhone or iPod touch, to allow for future device support.

Adding a helper method to application_helper.rb allows a notification message to be shown for only iPhone users (try accessing www.trawlr.com from an iPhone).

app/helpers/application_helper.rb


# Request from an iPhone or iPod touch? (Mobile Safari user agent)
def iphone_user_agent?
request.env["HTTP_USER_AGENT"] && request.env["HTTP_USER_AGENT"][/(Mobile/.+Safari)/]
end

In your view, show a message for iPhone user agents directing them to the iPhone version.


<% if iphone_user_agent? # Show message for iPhone users -%>
<div class="message">
<p>Using an iPhone? <a href="http://iphone.trawlr.com/">Use the optimised version</a>.</p>
</div>
<% end -%>

iPhone subdomain

Instead of forcing users straight to our iPhone version, we offer them the option by using a separate subdomain (iphone.trawlr.com) with a link back to the regular site if they wish. When developing locally I modified my /etc/hosts file as follows so that I could use http://iphone.localhost.com:3000/.

/etc/hosts


127.0.0.1 iphone.localhost.com

You may need to flush the DNS cache after making the changes.


sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

Adjust format for iPhone

I chose to require login for all requests to the iPhone version of the site.


class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
before_filter :adjust_format_for_iphone
before_filter :iphone_login_required
private
# Set iPhone format if request to iphone.trawlr.com
def adjust_format_for_iphone
request.format = :iphone if iphone_request?
end
# Force all iPhone users to login
def iphone_login_required
if iphone_request?
redirect_to login_path unless logged_in?
end
end
# Return true for requests to iphone.trawlr.com
def iphone_request?
return (request.subdomains.first == "iphone" || params[:format] == "iphone")
end
end

Note that sessions_controller.rb (handles login) requires skip_before_filter :iphone_login_required.

Using iUI and creating iPhone views

The iUI framework, based
on Joe Hewitt�s iPhone navigation work, hugely simplifies iPhone web
development. All you need to do is include the iUI JavaScript and CSS
files along with included images and create your views in a particular
structure to have native iPhone behaviour such as sliding menus and AJAX page loading.

Rails 2 makes it trivial to create different views depending upon
the format, including layouts. Our iPhone layout includes a few
specifics for iUI and a viewport meta tag for the device.

app/views/layouts/application.iphone.erb


<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta id="viewport" name="viewport" content="width=320; initial-scale=1.0; maximum-scale=1.0; user-scalable=0;"/>
<title><%= @page_title -%></title>
<%= stylesheet_link_tag 'iui' %>
<%= javascript_include_tag 'iui' %>
</head>
<body>
<div class="toolbar">
<h1 id="pageTitle"></h1>
<a id="backButton" class="button" href="#"></a>
</div>
<%= yield %>
</body>
</html>

When creating your iPhone views you should follow the iUI style
guide, an example page is given below. Standard hyperlinks are loaded
using AJAX and slide into view, navigating back is handled by iUI. Links may be prefixed with target="_self" to replace the entire page or target="_replace" to replace the element with the response (using AJAX).

index.iphone.erb


<ul title="Home" selected="true">
<li><%= link_to 'Example action', example_path %></li>
<li><%= link_to 'Logout', logout_path, :method => :delete, :target => '_self' %></li>
</ul>

show.iphone.erb


<div class="panel" title="Example" selected="true">
<h2>Example Content</h2>
<p>Here's some content</p>
</div>

It�s important to remember that iUI will load content using AJAX, thus you only need to render a layout (such as application.iphone.erb) for the first request or page of your iPhone site. All following requests should use render :layout => false (unless loaded into a new page with target="_replace"). If you experience any wierd rendering issues it�ll most likely be due to this irregularity.


respond_to do |format|
format.iphone do  # action.iphone.erb
render :layout => false
end
end

Show, don�t tell

Why not try iphone.trawlr.com for yourself? It�ll work for your iPhone or any web browser. You�ll need to register via the normal site if you don�t already have an account (quick, no email registration required)!

References

The following resources on the new Rails 2 iPhone format ability and
iUI library were extremely helpful; the documentation from Apple not so
much!

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/

http://www.railspikes.com/2007/11/8/iphone-subdomains-with-rails

http://blog.nicksieger.com/articles/2007/09/18/railsconf-europe-david-heinemeier-hansson

http://www.joehewitt.com/blog/introducing_iui.php

http://code.google.com/p/iui/

Yes, I�m still loving the iPhone!

linux command tips

2009-02-04T06:23:59Z

This is a linux command line reference for common operations.

Examples marked with � are valid/safe to paste without modification into a terminal, so

you may want to keep a terminal window open while reading this so you can cut & paste.

All these commands have been tested both on Fedora and Ubuntu.

Command		Description
�	apropos whatis	Show commands pertinent to string. See also threadsafe
�	man -t man \| ps2pdf - > man.pdf	make a pdf of a manual page
�	which command	Show full path name of command
�	time command	See how long a command takes
�	time cat	Start stopwatch. Ctrl-d to stop. See also sw
�	nice info	Run a low priority command (The "info" reader in this case)
�	renice 19 -p $$	Make shell (script) low priority. Use for non interactive tasks
dir navigation
�	cd -	Go to previous directory
�	cd	Go to $HOME directory
�	(cd dir && command)	Go to dir, execute command and return to current dir
�	pushd .	Put current dir on stack so you can popd back to it
file searching
�	alias l='ls -l --color=auto'	quick dir listing
�	ls -lrt	List files by date. See also newest and find_mm_yyyy
�	ls /usr/bin \| pr -T9 -W$COLUMNS	Print in 9 columns to width of terminal
�	find -name '*.[ch]' \| xargs grep -E 'expr'	Search 'expr' in this dir and below. See also findrepo
�	find -type f -print0 \| xargs -r0 grep -F 'example'	Search all regular files for 'example' in this dir and below
�	find -maxdepth 1 -type f \| xargs grep -F 'example'	Search all regular files for 'example' in this dir
�	find -maxdepth 1 -type d \| while read dir; do echo $dir; echo cmd2; done	Process each item with multiple commands (in while loop)
�	find -type f ! -perm -444	Find files not readable by all (useful for web site)
�	find -type d ! -perm -111	Find dirs not accessible by all (useful for web site)
�	locate -r 'file[^/]*.txt'	Search cached index for names. This re is like glob file.txt
�	look reference	Quickly search (sorted) dictionary for prefix
�	grep --color reference /usr/share/dict/words	Highlight occurances of regular expression in dictionary
archives and compression
�	gpg -c file	Encrypt file
�	gpg file.gpg	Decrypt file
�	tar -c dir/ \| bzip2 > dir.tar.bz2	Make compressed archive of dir/
�	bzip2 -dc dir.tar.bz2 \| tar -x	Extract archive (use gzip instead of bzip2 for tar.gz files)
�	tar -c dir/ \| gzip \| gpg -c \| ssh user@remote 'dd of=dir.tar.gz.gpg'	Make encrypted archive of dir/ on remote machine
�	find dir/ -name '*.txt' \| tar -c --files-from=- \| bzip2 > dir_txt.tar.bz2	Make archive of subset of dir/ and below
�	find dir/ -name '*.txt' \| xargs cp -a --target-directory=dir_txt/ --parents	Make copy of subset of dir/ and below
�	( tar -c /dir/to/copy ) \| ( cd /where/to/ && tar -x -p )	Copy (with permissions) copy/ dir to /where/to/ dir
�	( cd /dir/to/copy && tar -c . ) \| ( cd /where/to/ && tar -x -p )	Copy (with permissions) contents of copy/ dir to /where/to/
�	( tar -c /dir/to/copy ) \| ssh -C user@remote 'cd /where/to/ && tar -x -p'	Copy (with permissions) copy/ dir to remote:/where/to/ dir
�	dd bs=1M if=/dev/sda \| gzip \| ssh user@remote 'dd of=sda.gz'	Backup harddisk to remote machine
rsync (Network efficient file copier: Use the --dry-run option for testing)
�	rsync -P rsync://rsync.server.com/path/to/file file	Only get diffs. Do multiple times for troublesome downloads
�	rsync --bwlimit=1000 fromfile tofile	Locally copy with rate limit. It's like nice for I/O
�	rsync -az -e ssh --delete ~/public_html/ remote.com:'~/public_html'	Mirror web site (using compression and encryption)
�	rsync -auz -e ssh remote:/dir/ . && rsync -auz -e ssh . remote:/dir/	Synchronize current directory with remote one
ssh (Secure SHell)
�	ssh $USER@$HOST command	Run command on $HOST as $USER (default command=shell)
�	ssh -f -Y $USER@$HOSTNAME xeyes	Run GUI command on $HOSTNAME as $USER
�	scp -p -r $USER@$HOST: file dir/	Copy with permissions to $USER's home directory on $HOST
�	ssh -g -L 8080:localhost:80 root@$HOST	Forward connections to $HOSTNAME:8080 out to $HOST:80
�	ssh -R 1434:imap:143 root@$HOST	Forward connections from $HOST:1434 in to imap:143
wget (multi purpose download tool)
�	(cd cli && wget -nd -pHEKk http://www.pixelbeat.org/cmdline.html)	Store local browsable version of a page to the current dir
�	wget -c http://www.example.com/large.file	Continue downloading a partially downloaded file
�	wget -r -nd -np -l1 -A '*.jpg' http://www.example.com/dir/	Download a set of files to the current directory
�	wget ftp://remote/file[1-9].iso/	FTP supports globbing directly
�	wget -q -O- http://www.pixelbeat.org/timeline.html \| grep 'a href' \| head	Process output directly
�	echo 'wget url' \| at 01:00	Download url at 1AM to current dir
�	wget --limit-rate=20k url	Do a low priority download (limit to 20KB/s in this case)
�	wget -nv --spider --force-html -i bookmarks.html	Check links in a file
�	wget --mirror http://www.example.com/	Efficiently update a local copy of a site (handy from cron)
networking (Note ifconfig, route, mii-tool, nslookup commands are obsolete)
�	ethtool eth0	Show status of ethernet interface eth0
�	ethtool --change eth0 autoneg off speed 100 duplex full	Manually set ethernet interface speed
�	iwconfig eth1	Show status of wireless interface eth1
�	iwconfig eth1 rate 1Mb/s fixed	Manually set wireless interface speed
�	iwlist scan	List wireless networks in range
�	ip link show	List network interfaces
�	ip link set dev eth0 name wan	Rename interface eth0 to wan
�	ip link set dev eth0 up	Bring interface eth0 up (or down)
�	ip addr show	List addresses for interfaces
�	ip addr add 1.2.3.4/24 brd + dev eth0	Add (or del) ip and mask (255.255.255.0)
�	ip route show	List routing table
�	ip route add default via 1.2.3.254	Set default gateway to 1.2.3.254
�	tc qdisc add dev lo root handle 1:0 netem delay 20msec	Add 20ms latency to loopback device (for testing)
�	tc qdisc del dev lo root	Remove latency added above
�	host pixelbeat.org	Lookup DNS ip address for name or vice versa
�	hostname -i	Lookup local ip address (equivalent to host `hostname`)
�	whois pixelbeat.org	Lookup whois info for hostname or ip address
�	netstat -tupl	List internet services on a system
�	netstat -tup	List active connections to/from system
windows networking (Note samba is the package that provides all this windows specific networking support)
�	smbtree	Find windows machines. See also findsmb
�	nmblookup -A 1.2.3.4	Find the windows (netbios) name associated with ip address
�	smbclient -L windows_box	List shares on windows machine or samba server
�	mount -t smbfs -o fmask=666,guest //windows_box/share /mnt/share	Mount a windows share
�	echo 'message' \| smbclient -M windows_box	Send popup to windows machine (off by default in XP sp2)
text manipulation (Note sed uses stdin and stdout. Newer versions support inplace editing with the -i option)
�	sed 's/string1/string2/g'	Replace string1 with string2
�	sed 's/(.*)1/12/g'	Modify anystring1 to anystring2
�	sed '/ #/d; /^ $/d'	Remove comments and blank lines
�	sed ':a; /\$/N; s/\n//; ta'	Concatenate lines with trailing
�	sed 's/[ t]*$//'	Remove trailing spaces from lines
�	sed 's/([\`\"$\\])/\1/g'	Escape shell metacharacters active within double quotes
�	seq 10 \| sed "s/^/��/; s/ *(.{7,})/1/"	Right align numbers
�	sed -n '1000p;1000q'	Print 1000th line
�	sed -n '10,20p;20q'	Print lines 10 to 20
�	sed -n 's/.<title>(.)</title>.*/1/ip;T;q'	Extract title from HTML web page
�	sed -i 42d ~/.ssh/known_hosts	Delete a particular line
�	sort -t. -k1,1n -k2,2n -k3,3n -k4,4n	Sort IPV4 ip addresses
�	echo 'Test' \| tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]'	Case conversion
�	tr -dc '[:print:]' < /dev/urandom	Filter non printable characters
�	history \| wc -l	Count lines
set operations (Note you can export LANG=C for speed. Also these assume no duplicate lines within a file)
�	sort file1 file2 \| uniq	Union of unsorted files
�	sort file1 file2 \| uniq -d	Intersection of unsorted files
�	sort file1 file1 file2 \| uniq -u	Difference of unsorted files
�	sort file1 file2 \| uniq -u	Symmetric Difference of unsorted files
�	join -a1 -a2 file1 file2	Union of sorted files
�	join file1 file2	Intersection of sorted files
�	join -v2 file1 file2	Difference of sorted files
�	join -v1 -v2 file1 file2	Symmetric Difference of sorted files
math
�	echo '(1 + sqrt(5))/2' \| bc -l	Quick math (Calculate φ). See also bc
�	echo 'pad=20; min=64; (10010^6)/((pad+min)8)' \| bc	More complex (int) e.g. This shows max FastE packet rate
�	echo 'pad=20; min=64; print (100E6)/((pad+min)*8)' \| python	Python handles scientific notation
�	echo 'pad=20; plot [64:1518] (100106)/((pad+x)8)' \| gnuplot -persist	Plot FastE packet rate vs packet size
�	echo 'obase=16; ibase=10; 64206' \| bc	Base conversion (decimal to hexadecimal)
�	echo $((0x2dec))	Base conversion (hex to dec) ((shell arithmetic expansion))
�	units -t '100m/9.69s' 'miles/hour'	Unit conversion (metric to imperial)
�	units -t '500GB' 'GiB'	Unit conversion (SI to IEC prefixes)
�	units -t '1 googol'	Definition lookup
�	seq 100 \| (tr 'n' +; echo 0) \| bc	Add a column of numbers. See also add and funcpy
calendar
�	cal -3	Display a calendar
�	cal 9 1752	Display a calendar for a particular month year
�	date -d fri	What date is it this friday. See also day
�	[ $(date -d "tomorrow" +%d) = "01" ] \|\| exit	exit a script unless it's the last day of the month
�	date --date='25 Dec' +%A	What day does xmas fall on, this year
�	date --date='@2147483647'	Convert seconds since the epoch (1970-01-01 UTC) to date
�	TZ=':America/Los_Angeles' date	What time is it on West coast of US (use tzselect to find TZ)
�	echo "mail -s 'get the train' P@draigBrady.com < /dev/null" \| at 17:45	Email reminder
�	echo "DISPLAY=$DISPLAY xmessage cooker" \| at "NOW + 30 minutes"	Popup reminder
locales
�	printf "%'dn" 1234	Print number with thousands grouping appropriate to locale
�	BLOCK_SIZE='1 ls -l	get ls to do thousands grouping appropriate to locale
�	echo "I live in `locale territory`"	Extract info from locale database
�	LANG=en_IE.utf8 locale int_prefix	Lookup locale info for specific country. See also ccodes
�	locale \| cut -d= -f1 \| xargs locale -kc \| less	List fields available in locale database
recode (Obsoletes iconv, dos2unix, unix2dos)
�	recode -l \| less	Show available conversions (aliases on each line)
�	recode windows-1252.. file_to_change.txt	Windows "ansi" to local charset (auto does CRLF conversion)
�	recode utf-8/CRLF.. file_to_change.txt	Windows utf8 to local charset
�	recode iso-8859-15..utf8 file_to_change.txt	Latin9 (western europe) to utf8
�	recode ../b64 < file.txt > file.b64	Base64 encode
�	recode /qp.. < file.txt > file.qp	Quoted printable decode
�	recode ..HTML < file.txt > file.html	Text to HTML
�	recode -lf windows-1252 \| grep euro	Lookup table of characters
�	echo -n 0x80 \| recode latin-9/x1..dump	Show what a code represents in latin-9 charmap
�	echo -n 0x20AC \| recode ucs-2/x2..latin-9/x	Show latin-9 encoding
�	echo -n 0x20AC \| recode ucs-2/x2..utf-8/x	Show utf-8 encoding
CDs
�	gzip < /dev/cdrom > cdrom.iso.gz	Save copy of data cdrom
�	mkisofs -V LABEL -r dir \| gzip > cdrom.iso.gz	Create cdrom image from contents of dir
�	mount -o loop cdrom.iso /mnt/dir	Mount the cdrom image at /mnt/dir (read only)
�	cdrecord -v dev=/dev/cdrom blank=fast	Clear a CDRW
�	gzip -dc cdrom.iso.gz \| cdrecord -v dev=/dev/cdrom -	Burn cdrom image (use dev=ATAPI -scanbus to confirm dev)
�	cdparanoia -B	Rip audio tracks from CD to wav files in current dir
�	cdrecord -v dev=/dev/cdrom -audio *.wav	Make audio CD from all wavs in current dir (see also cdrdao)
�	oggenc --tracknum='track' track.cdda.wav -o 'track.ogg'	Make ogg file from wav file
disk space (See also FSlint)
�	ls -lSr	Show files by size, biggest last
�	du -s * \| sort -k1,1rn \| head	Show top disk users in current dir. See also dutop
�	df -h	Show free space on mounted filesystems
�	df -i	Show free inodes on mounted filesystems
�	fdisk -l	Show disks partitions sizes and types (run as root)
�	rpm -q -a --qf '%10{SIZE}t%{NAME}n' \| sort -k1,1n	List all packages by installed size (Bytes) on rpm distros
�	dpkg-query -W -f='${Installed-Size;10}t${Package}n' \| sort -k1,1n	List all packages by installed size (KBytes) on deb distros
�	dd bs=1 seek=2TB if=/dev/null of=ext3.test	Create a large test file (taking no space). See also truncate
monitoring/debugging
�	tail -f /var/log/messages	Monitor messages in a log file
�	strace -c ls >/dev/null	Summarise/profile system calls made by command
�	strace -f -e open ls >/dev/null	List system calls made by command
�	ltrace -f -e getenv ls >/dev/null	List library calls made by command
�	lsof -p $$	List paths that process id has open
�	lsof ~	List processes that have specified path open
�	tcpdump not port 22	Show network traffic except ssh. See also tcpdump_not_me
�	ps -e -o pid,args --forest	List processes in a hierarchy
�	ps -e -o pcpu,cpu,nice,state,cputime,args --sort pcpu \| sed '/^ 0.0 /d'	List processes by % cpu usage
�	ps -e -orss=,args= \| sort -b -k1,1n \| pr -TW$COLUMNS	List processes by mem usage. See also ps_mem.py
�	ps -C firefox-bin -L -o pid,tid,pcpu,state	List all threads for a particular process
�	ps -p 1,2	List info for particular process IDs
�	last reboot	Show system reboot history
�	free -m	Show amount of (remaining) RAM (-m displays in MB)
�	watch -n.1 'cat /proc/interrupts'	Watch changeable data continuously
system information (see also sysinfo) ('#' means root access is required)
�	uname -a	Show kernel version and system architecture
�	head -n1 /etc/issue	Show name and version of distribution
�	cat /proc/partitions	Show all partitions registered on the system
�	grep MemTotal /proc/meminfo	Show RAM total seen by the system
�	grep "model name" /proc/cpuinfo	Show CPU(s) info
�	lspci -tv	Show PCI info
�	lsusb -tv	Show USB info
�	mount \| column -t	List mounted filesystems on the system (and align output)
�	grep -F capacity: /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info	Show state of cells in laptop battery
#	dmidecode -q \| less	Display SMBIOS/DMI information
#	smartctl -A /dev/sda \| grep Power_On_Hours	How long has this disk (system) been powered on in total
#	hdparm -i /dev/sda	Show info about disk sda
#	hdparm -tT /dev/sda	Do a read speed test on disk sda
#	badblocks -s /dev/sda	Test for unreadable blocks on disk sda
interactive (see also linux keyboard shortcuts)
�	readline	Line editor used by bash, python, bc, gnuplot, ...
�	screen	Virtual terminals with detach capability, ...
�	mc	Powerful file manager that can browse rpm, tar, ftp, ssh, ...
�	gnuplot	Interactive/scriptable graphing
�	links	Web browser
�	xdg-open http://www.pixelbeat.org/	open a file or url with the registered desktop application
miscellaneous
�	alias hd='od -Ax -tx1z -v'	Handy hexdump. (usage e.g.: � hd /proc/self/cmdline \| less)
�	alias realpath='readlink -f'	Canonicalize path. (usage e.g.: � realpath ~/../$USER)
�	set \| grep $USER	Search current environment
�	touch -c -t 0304050607 file	Set file timestamp (YYMMDDhhmm)
�	python -m SimpleHTTPServer	Serve current directory tree at http://$HOSTNAME:8000/

Eclipse performance tweaks

2009-01-05T06:19:55Z

Eclipse performance tweaks

Oct

Eclipse is a pretty powerful IDE. It has been in use in Java, Ruby on Rails, Python
and even C++. It can, however, be quite the RAM hog. This does not mean
that Eclipse needs to be slow, however. There are ways make your
development life with Eclipse just that bit more bearable at the cost
of some minor conveniences.

Here's a couple of tips on how to squeeze that extra speed out of
Eclipse. (Do note that for some of these tips you might need to restart
Eclipse in order to effect the changes.)

Close unused projects

Close those projects which you don't need to work on. If I have
projects which I don't need to work on more than a few days, I'd close
them, keeping opened projects to the basic minimum. Fewer open projects
mean fewer files Eclipse need to manage.

Disable folding

Disable Automatic Folding in Windows > Preferences > Java > Editor > Folding. Untick the 'Enable Folding' check box.

Disable Content Assist

Those cool widgets which pop up and assist your coding can be real
nice, but they can slow Eclipse down by magnitudes.
To disable Content Assist, go to Windows > Preferences > Java
> Editor > Content Assist > Untick the "Enable Auto
Activation" check box.

I know this tip will disable the uber cool Content Assist by not
popping up automatically while you type or dot a method invokation, but
you can still access this manually by hitting CTRL+SPACE whenever you
need help. Try it! Before you know it, it'll be second nature.

Remove/undeploy unused contexts and applications.

This is not really an Eclipse tip per-se but often when developing Web
apps, you'll be running a servlet container or application server (Apache Tomcat, BEA Weblogic, IBM Websphere
etc) at the same time. Remove unused contexts and applications from
your app server. Sample and pre-installed applications would be guilty
of this. Less contexts/applications used, less RAM used by your server.
You can always redeploy anything you need again. Simple, no?

Change Heap memory used by Eclipse.

By default, Eclipse gets allocated a pitiful amount of memory by the
Java VM. The result is the ever-frustrating OutOfMemoryException. You
can change this amount by modifying certain configuration parameters
when launching Eclipse.

On Windows:

If you're launching Eclipse from command line, include the -Xms and
-Xmx parameters with values larger than 64MB for Xms and 128MB for Xmx.

e.g: -Xms128m -Xmx256m

On Mac OSX:

Edit the /Eclipse.app/Contents/Info.plist file and modify the Xms and Xmx settings.

Sometimes, increasing the above setting to huge amounts would still
yeild errors such as PermGen errors. This PermGen error comes when the
VM runs out of PermSpace, which is an area where the VM stores java
class definitions and structures of data. To combat this, you can add
the switch -XX:MaxPermSize=128m.

Having said this, sometimes, with framework such as Spring
with Hibernate, you can still get errors. I've had success switching
Java Runtimes Environments instead. BEA JRockit seem to work well where Sun's JRE fail with PermGen in these instances.

Do take care to be aware of your computer's limitations. What memory
you allocate to Eclipse would mean less memory for your computer
overall. This could mean making things worse instead. I'd recommend
running Eclipse on no less than 1GB of RAM if you intend to tweak
Eclipse's memory settings. YMMV.

MyEclipse Tip: Disable validators

MyEclipse is a
full-featured IDE based on Eclipse and has a powerful runtime
validators to validate everything from JSP files to DTD to even
JavaScript. These comes with a cost of performance however.

Disable by:

Windows > Preferences > MyEclipse > Validation;

Tick on the 'Suspend all validators' check box.

Project Lifecycle Models

2008-12-24T10:47:49Z

Business
eSolutions provides System Development Project Management services,
Problem Project Diagnostic and Recovery services and Project
Management Training and Facilitation courses covering strategy,
project management, project estimating, business requirements, risk
management and quality assurance. We can help you define a lifecycle
methodology customized to your organizational strengths and development
risks. Our mission is to help our clients produce quality systems
on time and on budget.

Project lifecycle models are not interchangeable. To deliver a quality
system, it's critical to know the risks facing your project and
to use a model that reduces those risks. The
following describes standard project lifecycle models, and reviews
their strengths and weaknesses. These standard models can be adapted
to fit the industry issues, corporate culture, time constraints
and team vulnerabilities which comprise your environment. Contact
Us to help.

Pure
Waterfall � Spiral
� Modified Waterfall �
Evolutionary Prototyping
� Code-and-Fix

Staged
Delivery � Evolutionary
Delivery � Design-to-Schedule
� Design-to-Tools � Off-the-Shelf

What
model do you use? Or, more appropriately, what model should you
be using? Here's a summary to help you decide.

Pure
Waterfall

This
is the classical system development model. It consists of discontinuous
phases:

�
- �
  1. Concept
  2. Requirements
  3. Architectural
    design
  4. Detailed
    design
  5. Coding
    and development
  6. Testing
    and implementation

Strengths	Weaknesses
Minimizes planning overhead since it can be done up front. Structure minimizes wasted effort, so it works well for technically weak or inexperienced staff.	Inflexible Only the final phase produces a non-documentation deliverable. Backing up to address mistakes is difficult.

Pure
Waterfall Summary

The pure waterfall performs well for products
with clearly understood requirements or when working with well
understood technical tools, architectures and infrastructures.
It's weaknesses frequently make it inadvisable when rapid development
is needed. In those cases, modified models may be more effective.

�

Spiral

The
spiral is a risk-reduction oriented model that breaks a software
project up into mini-projects, each addressing one or more major
risks. After major risks have been addressed, the spiral model terminates
as a waterfall model. Spiral iterations involve six steps:

�
- �
  1. Determine
    objectives, alternatives and constraints.
  2. Identify
    and resolve risks.
  3. Evaluate
    alternatives.
  4. Develop
    the deliverables for that iteration and verify that they are
    correct.
  5. Plan
    the next iteration.
  6. Commit
    to an approach for the next iteration.

Strengths	Weaknesses
Early iterations of the project are the cheapest, enabling the highest risks to be addressed at the lowest total cost. This ensures that as costs increase, risks decrease. Each iteration of the spiral can be tailored to suit the needs of the project.	It is complicated and requires attentive and knowledgeable management to pull it off.

Spiral
Summary

For projects with risky elements, it's beneficial
to run a series of risk-reduction iterations which can be followed
by a waterfall or other non-risk-based lifecycle.

�

Modified
Waterfall

The
modified waterfall uses the same phases as the pure waterfall, but
is not done on a discontinuous basis. This enables the phases to
overlap when needed. The pure waterfall can also split into subprojects
at an appropriate phase (such as after the architectural design
or detailed design).

Strengths	�	Weaknesses
More flexibility than the pure waterfall model. If there is personnel continuity between the phases, documentation can be substantially reduced. Inplementation of easy areas do not need to wait for the hard ones.	�	Milestones are more ambiguous than for the pure waterfall. Activities performed in parallel are subject to miscommunication and mistaken assumptions. Unforseen interdependencies can create problems.

Modified
Waterfall Summary

Risk reduction spirals can be added to the
top of the waterfall to reduce risks prior to the waterfall
phases. The waterfall can be further modified using options
such as prototyping, JADs or CRC sessions or other methods of
requirements gathering done in overlapping phases.

Evolutionary
Prototyping

Evolutionary
prototyping uses multiple iterations of requirements gathering and
analysis, design and prototype development. After each iteration,
the result is analyzed by the customer. Their response creates the
next level of requirements and defines the next iteration.

Strengths	�	Weaknesses
Customers can see steady progress. This is useful when requirements are changing rapidly, when the customer is reluctant to commit to a set of requirements, or when no one fully understands the application area.	�	It is impossible to know at the outset of the project how long it will take. There is no way to know the number of iterations that will be required.

Evolutionary
Prototyping Summary

The manager must be vigilant to ensure it
does not become an excuse to do code-and-fix development.

Code-and-Fix

If
you don't use a methodology, it's likely you are doing code-and-fix.
Code-and-fix rarely produces useful results. It is very dangerous
as there is no way to assess progress, quality or risk.

Strengths	�	Weaknesses
No time spent on "overhead" like planning, documentation, quality assurance, standards enforcement or other non-coding activities. Requires little experience.	�	Dangerous. No means of assessing quality or identifying risks. Fundamental flaws in approach do not show up quickly, often requiring work to be thrown out.

Code-and-Fix
Summary

Code-and-fix is only appropriate for small
throwaway projects like proof-of-concept, short-lived demos
or throwaway prototypes.

Staged
Delivery

Although
the early phases cover the deliverables of the pure waterfall, the
design is broken into deliverables stages for detailed design, coding,
testing and deployment.

Strengths	�	Weaknesses
Can put useful functionality into the hands of customers earlier than if the product were delivered at the end of the project.	�	Doesn't work well without careful planning at both management and technical levels.

Staged
Delivery Summary

For staged delivery, management must ensure
that stages are meaningful to the customer. The technical team
must account for all dependencies between different components
of the system.

Evolutionary
Delivery

Evolutionary
delivery straddles evolutionary prototyping and staged delivery.

Strengths	�	Weaknesses
Enables customers to refine interface while the architectural structure is as planned.	�	Doesn't work well without careful planning at both management and technical levels.

Evolutionary
Delivery Summary

For evolutionary delivery, the initial emphasis should be
on the core components of the system. This should consist
of lower level functions which are unlikely to be changed
by customer feedback.

Design-to-Schedule

Like
staged delivery, design-to-schedule is a staged release model. However,
the number of stages to be accomplished are not known at the outset
of the project.

Strengths	�	Weaknesses
Produces date-driven functionality, ensuring there is a product at the critical date. Covers for highly suspect estimates.	�	Won't be able to predict the full range of functionality.

Design-to-Schedule
Summary

In design-to-schedule delivery, it is critical
to prioritize features and plan stages so that the early stages
contain the highest-priority features. Leave the lower priority
features for later.

Design-to-Tools

When
using a design-to-tools approach, the capability goes into a product
only if it is directly supported by existing software tools. If
it isn't supported, it gets left out. Besides architectural and
functional packages, these tools can be code and class libraries,
code generators, rapid-development languages and any other software
tools that dramatically reduce implementation time.

Strengths	�	Weaknesses
When time is a constraint, may be able to implement more total functionality than possible when building everything "from scratch".	�	You lose a lot of control over the product. You may become "locked in" to a vendor. If it is for long-term functionality, vendor lock-in can become a weak link. May not be able to implement all features desired or in the manner desired.

Design-to-Tools
Summary

Consider the tradeoffs of time-to-market
versus lock-in and functionality compromises. This may be an
appropriate approach for a high-risk element of the overall
project or architecture.

Off-the-Shelf

Following
requirements definition, analysis must be done to compare the package
to the business, functional and architectural requirements.

Strengths	�	Weaknesses
Available immediately and usually at far lesser cost.	�	Will rarely satisfy all system requirements.

Off-the-Shelf
Summary

It is critical to know how the desired features
compare with the packaged set and if the package can be customized.

These
standard models can be adapted to fit the industry issues, corporate
culture, time constraints and team vulnerabilities which comprise
your environment. We can customize a methodology to fit your needs
or help you with a special or problem project.

openldap repair tips

2008-12-13T07:08:01Z

Make sure the server is running

Follow these steps carefully:

# rm /opt/insight/var/started

# /opt/insight/etc/rc/slapd stop

# ps -ea | grep slapd

/* if the slapd process is still running then... */

# killall -9 slapd

# cd /opt/insight/var

# mv openldap-data/ openldap-data.broken

# mkdir openldap-data

# cd openldap-data.old/

# cp DB_CONFIG ../openldap-data

# cd ../openldap-data

# /opt/insight/etc/rc/slapd start

# cat ../openldap-data.old/slapcat.ldif |/opt/insight/sbin/slapadd -c

# /opt/insight/etc/rc/slapd stop

# ps -ea | grep slapd

/* if the slapd process is still running then... */

# killall -9 slapd

# /opt/insight/etc/rc/slapd recover

# /opt/insight/etc/rc/slapd start

# touch /opt/insight/var/started

# /opt/insight/sbin/slapindex

Repair the Insight Service Account password:

Locate the current service account password:

# grep bind_pw /opt/insight/etc/postfix/ldap-recipient.cf

bind_pw = mypass

The service account password in the example above is "mypass".

To set this in the LDAP database:

# /opt/insight/bin/ldapmodify -x -D "cn=manager" -w managerpassword

dn: cn=Insight Service Account

changetype: modify

userpassword: mypass

(enter blank line)

modifying entry "dn: cn=Insight Service Account"

(hit CTRL-C to exit)

repair

-----

If you are experiencing LDAP errors (for example, all authentication fails or the oxadmin interface reports "Can not connect to LDAP Server!") and you have tried restarting the LDAP server by running /etc/init.d/ldap restart, then you should try running the following recovery procedure:

(1) Stop the LDAP server:

/etc/init.d/ldap stop

(2) Perform the recovery:

(a) if you are running Open-Xchange on SLES 9, use the following command:

db_recover -h /var/lib/ldap

(b) if you are using Red Hat, use the following command:

/usr/sbin/slapd_db_recover -h /var/lib/ldap

(3) Reboot the machine.

In the event that the problems persist after running the above procedure, use the following procedure.

(1) Stop the ldap server

/etc/init.d/ldap stop

Just to be sure the server is stopped,

killall slapd

(2) Make a backup of your existing directory structure:

tar -cvzf ldap.tar.gz /var/lib/ldap/*

Put it someplace safe in case something goes wrong with this procedure.

(3) Perform a recovery:

(a) if you are using SLES, use the following command:

db_recover -h /var/lib/ldap -v

(b) if you are using Red Hat, use the following command:

/usr/sbin/slapd_db_recover -h /var/lib/ldap

(4) Dump the directory structure to a text file

slapcat -l ldap.ldif

(sometimes it is needed to delete all bdb files, _but_ "dn2id" and "id2entry", being able to "slapcat" the files)

(5) Verify that the resultant file (ldap.ldif) contains directory entries. If it does not, or if slapcat returned errors in step 4, try running db_recover in catastrophic mode:

db_recover -h /var/lib/ldap -v -c

(6) Delete the corrupted LDAP directory with the following command:

rm -fr /var/lib/ldap/*

(7) Recreate the DB_CONFIG file, which contains some basic informations for the bdb backend:

echo -en "set_cachesize 0 15000000 1nset_lg_bsize 2097152n" >/var/lib/ldap/DB_CONFIG

This file only exists on SLES9 as default.

(8) Reload the LDAP directory from the ldap.ldif file you produced in step 4 with the following command:

slapadd -l ldap.ldif

(9) The files have to be owned by the user "ldap", hence we have to run

chown -R ldap: /var/lib/ldap

(10) Start the LDAP server

/etc/init.d/ldap start

Test: If the command "ldapsearch -x uid=mailadmin" returns any results, everything went well.

WAP

2008-12-08T11:12:54Z

WML is to WAP what HTML is to HTTP. However,
because of the lack of bandwidth and the minimum capability of WML
browsers embedded in mobile phones, WML has been developed into a much
slimmer language, shedding all the features of HTML that would be
useless for wireless devices. Let's take a closer look at WML.

Shuffle the deck

The WML parallel of an HTML page is termed a deck. So when you try
to access a WAP site using any WAP-enabled device, what is actually
getting to your device is a deck. A deck can be broken down into cards.
In fact, what is visible at a glance is one card and not an entire
deck. These cards can link to other cards, and navigating to other
cards is possible programmatically as well as in response to user
input.

A deck is the smallest unit that can be sent by the server to a WAP client, and it can contain one or more cards. Listing A contains a sample WML file.

Listing A

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.1//EN" "http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml_1.1.xml">
<wml>
<card title="Main Page" id="first">
<p align="center">BUILDER.com <br/>
My kind of technology hangout.
</p>
<p align="center">
<a href="#second">Click Here</a>
</p>
</card>
<card title="OS Chooser" id="second">
<p align="center">
<a href="#first">
<img alt="Image" src="MyImage.wbmp"/>
</a>
</p>
<p align="center">
Which is the best OS around?
</p>
<p align="center">
<select name="OS" multiple="false">
<option value="Windows">Windows</option>
<option value="Unix">Unix</option>
<option value="Linux">Linux</option>
<option value="DOS">DOS</option>
</select>
</p>
<p align="center">
<a href="#third">
Submit
</a>
</p>
</card>
<card id="third">
<p>
<u>$(OS)</u>...I am not so sure!
</p>
</card>
</wml>

This example is a basic WML deck containing three cards. The
card with the id "first" is, not surprisingly, the one that is
displayed first. Although the other cards also come to the client as
part of the deck, they are not initially visible. On clicking the Click
Here link, the second card is visible. It has an image and an embedded
list box.

What is interesting is the use of $(OS) in the third card. OS
here refers to the list box name on the second card. Hence, based on
selection made on the second card, the message on the third card can
change.

The WAP toolbox

If you are wondering how in the world you are going to check out
how this WML content would be displayed on a mobile phone, fret not.
More than a handful of WAP simulators and development tools exist. The
best of the lot seems to be the WAP Toolkit provided by Nokia. Since Nokia is ubiquitous in the mobile market, you surely want your WML pages to be displayed properly on its handset.

If you are using Macromedia Dreamweaver, a pretty nifty way to
get your WML pages done in no time would be to get hold of the Nokia
WML Studio plug-in for Dreamweaver. It makes WML development with
Dreamweaver a cinch.

Most of the leading handset providers, such as Ericsson and
Motorola, have toolkits that can simulate how your page will look on
their respective handsets. If you are looking for a basic editor that
will quickly get some pages up, Coffee Cup Wireless Web Builder is a
solid product that includes an easy-to-use WML page creator.

Jazz up your WML

Pure text pages are boring. To spice up your WML pages, you need
well-placed but sparingly used WBMP images. WBMP is the WAP image
standard format. Creating WBMP images is definitely not a tough task,
but you can get tons of images that suit your purpose from the Net. If
you are still keen on creating your own images, try your hand at the
WBMP image maker included with the Coffee Cup Wireless Web Builder.

Gathering data

Dynamic pages that send data to the server are pretty much
essential for you to do anything worthwhile on the Net these days, so
WML needs the capability to submit user data.

There is no direct HTML

tag parallel in WML. To
submit data, you use postfields, and you use the $ sign to fetch user
input and pass it on to the specified href. Listing B provides an example.

Listing B

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.1//EN" "http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml_1.1.xml">
<wml>
<card title="Login Page" id="first">
<p>Login: <input name="login"/></p>
<p>Password: <input name="password"/></p>
<p>
<anchor>Submit to Servlet
<go href="http://localhost:8080/AbcServlet" method="get">
<postfield name="loginName" value="$(login)"/>
<postfield name="loginPass" value="$(password)"/>
<postfield name="msg" value="HELLO"/>
</go>
</anchor>
</p>
<p>
<a href="#card2">
Next Card
</a>
</p>
</card>
<card id="card2" title=" Builder C2">
<p align="center">
Welcome <u>$(login)</u>
</p>
</card>
</wml>
Upon clicking Submit to Servlet, the data that's been entered in the
Login and Password fields would be passed on to the specified servlet.
So if I enter Harshad in the Login field and Oak as my password, on
submission, my query string should look something like

http://localhost:8080/AbcServlet?

loginName=Harshad&loginPass=Oak&msg=HELLO

WAP yourself into shape

Get going with WML and make your presence felt in the wireless
world. A significant advantage of having WAP expertise is that although
it is pretty easy to latch on to, it still is rather rare in the
technical marketplace.

Getting Started with Hibernate

2008-09-29T08:48:38Z

Getting Started with Hibernate

http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~aps/syllabi/2004_2005/issws/h03/hibernate.html

JAva script

2008-09-25T11:46:18Z

Put all of the code examples from the links below between these script tags.

E-Mail format checking script.


			 if (document.formname.fieldname.value.length >0) {
			i=document.formname.fieldname.value.indexOf("@")
			j=document.formname.fieldname.value.indexOf(".",i)
			k=document.formname.fieldname.value.indexOf(",")
			kk=document.formname.fieldname.value.indexOf(" ")
			jj=document.formname.fieldname.value.lastIndexOf(".")+1
			len=document.formname.fieldname.value.length
			if ((i>0) && (j>(1+1)) && (k==-1) && (kk==-1) && (len-jj >=2) && (len-jj<=3)) {
			}
			else {
			alert("Please enter an exact email address.n" +
			document.formname.fieldname.value + " is invalid.");
			return false;
			}
			}

Check if field has special characters.


			  var iChars = "!@#$%^&*()+=-[]\';,./{}|":<>?";
			for (var i = 0; i < document.formname.fieldname.value.length; i++) {
			if (iChars.indexOf(document.formname.fieldname.value.charAt(i)) != -1) {
			alert ("Your username has special characters. nThese are not allowed.n Please remove them and try again.");
			return false;
			}
			}

Check if certian radio buttons have not been selected.


			    if (!document.formname.fieldname[0].checked &&
			!document.formname.fieldname[1].checked &&
			!document.formname.fieldname[2].checked &&
			!document.formname.fieldname[3].checked) {
			alert("Please choose a group designation.n");
			return false;
			}

Check if textbox has any characters in it.


			     if (document.formname.fieldname.value.length == 0) {
			alert("Please fill out your name.n");
			return false;
			}

Check if multiple checkboxes have not been selected.Replace false with true to see if all are selected.


			     if (document.formname.fieldname.checked == false &&
			document.formname.fieldname.checked == false &&
			document.formname.fieldname.checked == false) {
			alert("Please select at least one checkbox.n");
			return false;
			}

Check drop down has been selected. Set drop down's value to Not_Selected for this to work.


			     if (document.formname.fieldname.value == 'Not_Selected') {
			alert("Please provide us with a selection.n");
			return false;
			}

Scan values in a field and if they are all letters then alert. The
second block of code does the same but for numbers


			//alert on finding all letters
			var noalpha = /^[a-zA-Z]*$/;
			if (noalpha.test(document.formname.fieldname.value)) {
			alert("Please enter at least one number in the "username" field.");
			return false;
			}
			//alert on finding all numbers
			var nonums = /^[0-9]*$/;
			if (nonums.test(document.formname.fieldname.value)) {
			alert("Please enter at least one letter in the "username" field.");
			return false;
			}

Remove special characters from a string.


			function clearText() {
			document.formname.fieldname.value=filterNum(document.formname.fieldname.value)
			function filterNum(str) {
			re = /$|,|@|#|~|`|%|*|^|&|(|)|+|=|[|-|_|]|[|}|{|;|:|'|"|<|>|?|||\|!|$|./g;
			// remove special characters like "$" and "," etc...
			return str.replace(re, "");
			}
			}

Detect special characters in text box. Or any character you subsitute for the special characters.


			     var iChars = "!@#$%^&*()+=-[]\';,./{}|":<>?";
			for (var i = 0; i < document.formname.fieldname.value.length; i++) {
			if (iChars.indexOf(document.formname.fieldname.value.charAt(i)) != -1) {
			alert ("The box has special characters. nThese are not allowed.n");
			return false;
			}
			}

Brainbench Question

2008-09-11T08:21:57Z

http://saloon.javaranch.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=61&t=001239
http://srkrishnakumar.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!5F5205D90714FE9D!215.entry

H!B

2008-09-10T09:20:34Z

Things to ask a potential US employer

1. Has the company filed any H1s in past? What is their success ratio? Why were their H1s denied (if any)?

2. Are they asking to sign any bond - while you are outside US or when you enter US?

3.
Are they asking for any security deposit aka H1 filing fees (this is
illegal)? If so, how will the transaction take place? How soon will the
money be refunded? What will happen in case your name is not selected
in lottery or your visa is denied because of company's credentials?

4. Do they have direct clients or are they non-preferred/middle vendors?

5. Will they provide company's tax returns, client letter, project details at the time of visa interview?

6. Will they ask you to fake your resume for marketing?

7. Do they pay anything while on bench?

8.
How much is the salary? Consultants/contractors are usually paid in the
range of 55K-65K USD although the client is billed at a very high rate.
So make sure you get a good offer.

9. What are other benefits like insurance, 401K, holidays?

Tracking your application

Assuming there is lottery this year, there is no way to find out
whether your application was selected in lottery or not, but you can
track it once it has been selected. So here is how the process works -

1.
If > 65K applications reach USCIS on Apr-01, they will do random
selection. If quota is reached on the first day itself, they will also
accept all applications received on Apr-02. Any application received
prior to Apr-01 will not be selected.

2. No check will be cashed
by USCIS at this moment. With a computer generated program they will
randomly select 65K applications.

3. People who are not selected
will be informed about their non-selection. This usually happens during
next few months. Their checks will be returned to the petitioner (i.e.
the company or the lawyer). NOTE - If your employer says that he cannot
refund money as he is still waiting for the refund from USCIS then he
is a big liar - USCIS doesn't cash the checks for applications that are
not selected.

4. For applications that are selected, USCIS sends
out 797-C to the employer/attorney. This has a tracking number using
which application status can be tracked. Good employers share this
number with the employee.

5. If approved, the employer will receive 797-A and 797-B. He will send out 797-A to you for visa stamping.

6.
If rejected, USCIS will issue RFE. Employer/attorney will have few
months to reply to the RFE. If their answer satisfies USCIS, then visa
issued (step 5) else it's rejected. No money is refunded for rejected
applications. You can track latest information using the receipt number
(step 4).

7. Premium processing doesn't improve your chances of
selection. It just means that USCIS is bound to provide the employer a
status on your case within 15 days or it has to refund all the money as
penalty.

Moral of the story - file your H1 through an employer
who you can trust and can be sure that he refunds money in case your
application is not selected in lottery.

Knowing about past H1s

To know which company filed how many H1s in past go to the link http://www.flcdatacenter.com/CaseH1B.aspx

Note:

1. It lists the LCAs filed by the company. It doesn't say whether the H1 was stamped or not.

2.
It includes both fresh H1s and H1 transfers. You need to know the date
on which quota was filed and compare it with filing date to know if
it's a H1 transfer or fresh H1.

3. It doesn't differentiate between general quota and advanced degree quota.

4.
For years when lottery happened, it lists even those applications that
were not selected in lottery. That is why 2007 is a huge file.

5. It doesn't differentiate between expedited and non-expedited applications.

6. The salary mentioned is the minimum salary employer is bound to pay. The actual salary of the employee can be more than this.

If you need a break-up, here it is

1. Filing fee - $185

2. Training fee - $1,500 (if number of employees > 25), $750 (if number of employees <= 25)

3. Fraud Prevention Fee - $500

4. Premium Processing Fee (the expedited process) - $1000

5. Attorney Fee - variable varies from $300 - $1000

1-4 need to be paid by the employer, but 5 can be paid either by the employer or the employee.

JDBC VS HIBERNATE

2008-09-09T06:57:25Z

JDBC�	Hibernate�
With JDBC, developer has to write code to map an object model's data representation to a relational data model and its corresponding database schema. �	Hibernate is flexible and powerful ORM solution to map Java classes to database tables. Hibernate itself takes care of this mapping using XML files so developer does not need to write code for this.�
With JDBC, the automatic mapping of Java objects with database tables and vice versa conversion is to be taken care of by the developer manually with lines of code. �	Hibernate provides transparent persistence and developer does not need to write code explicitly to map database tables tuples to application objects during interaction with RDBMS.
JDBC supports only native Structured Query Language (SQL). Developer has to find out the efficient way to access database, i.e. to select effective query from a number of queries to perform same task. �	Hibernate provides a powerful query language Hibernate Query Language (independent from type of database) that is expressed in a familiar SQL like syntax and includes full support for polymorphic queries. Hibernate also supports native SQL statements. It also selects an effective way to perform a database manipulation task for an application. �
Application using JDBC to handle persistent data (database tables) having database specific code in large amount. The code written to map table data to application objects and vice versa is actually to map table fields to object properties. As table changed or database changed then it�s essential to change object structure as well as to change code written to map table-to-object/object-to-table.�	Hibernate provides this mapping itself. The actual mapping between tables and application objects is done in XML files. If there is change in Database or in any table then the only need to change XML file properties. �
With JDBC, it is developer�s responsibility to handle JDBC result set and convert it to Java objects through code to use this persistent data in application. So with JDBC, mapping between Java objects and database tables is done manually.	Hibernate reduces lines of code by maintaining object-table mapping itself and returns result to application in form of Java objects. It relieves programmer from manual handling of persistent data, hence reducing the development time and maintenance cost.
With JDBC, caching is maintained by hand-coding.	Hibernate, with Transparent Persistence, cache is set to application work space. Relational tuples are moved to this cache as a result of query. It improves performance if client application reads same data many times for same write. Automatic Transparent Persistence allows the developer to concentrate more on business logic rather than this application code. �
In JDBC there is no check that always every user has updated data. This check has to be added by the developer.	Hibernate enables developer to define version type field to application, due to this defined field Hibernate updates version field of database table every time relational tuple is updated in form of Java class object to that table. So if two users retrieve same tuple and then modify it and one user save this modified tuple to database, version is automatically updated for this tuple by Hibernate. When other user tries to save updated tuple to database then it does not allow saving it because this user does not have updated data.

10 reasons computers crash, and how to fix them

2008-09-06T08:05:29Z

10 reasons computers crash, and how to fix them

"Fatal error:
the system has become unstable or is busy," it says. "Enter to return
to Windows or press Control-Alt-Delete to restart your computer. If you
do this you will lose any unsaved information in all open applications."

You
have just been struck by the Blue Screen of Death. Anyone who uses
Micr@s@ft Windows will be familiar with this. What can you do? More
importantly, how can you prevent it happening?

1 Hardware conflict

The
number one reason why Windows crashes is hardware conflict. Each
hardware device communicates to other devices through an interrupt
request channel (IRQ). These are supposed to be unique for each device.

For
example, a printer usually connects internally on IRQ 7. The keyboard
usually uses IRQ 1 and the floppy disk drive IRQ 6. Each device will
try to hog a single IRQ for itself.

If there are a lot of
devices, or if they are not installed properly, two of them may end up
sharing the same IRQ number. When the user tries to use both devices at
the same time, a crash can happen. The way to check if your computer
has a hardware conflict is through the following route:

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager.

Often
if a device has a problem a yellow '!' appears next to its description
in the Device Manager. Highlight Computer (in the Device Manager) and
press Properties to see the IRQ numbers used by your computer. If the
IRQ number appears twice, two devices may be using it.

Sometimes
a device might share an IRQ with something described as 'IRQ holder for
PCI steering'. This can be ignored. The best way to fix this problem is
to remove the problem device and reinstall it.

Sometimes you may have to find more recent drivers on the internet to make the device function properly. A good resource is http://www.driverguide.com.
If the device is a soundcard, or a modem, it can often be fixed by
moving it to a different slot on the motherboard (be careful about
opening your computer, as you may void the warranty).

When
working inside a computer you should switch it off, unplug the mains
lead and touch an unpainted metal surface to discharge any static
electricity.

To be fair to Micr@s@ft, the problem with IRQ
numbers is not of its making. It is a legacy problem going back to the
first PC designs using the IBM 8086 chip. Initially there were only
eight IRQs. Today there are 16 IRQs in a PC. It is easy to run out of
them. There are plans to increase the number of IRQs in future designs.

2 Bad Ram

Ram
(random-access memory) problems might bring on the blue screen of death
with a message saying Fatal Exception Error. A fatal error indicates a
serious hardware problem. Sometimes it may mean a part is damaged and
will need replacing.

But a fatal error caused by Ram might be
caused by a mismatch of chips. For example, mixing 70-nanosecond (70ns)
Ram with 60ns Ram will usually force the computer to run all the Ram at
the slower speed. This will often crash the machine if the Ram is
overworked.

One way around this problem is to enter the BIOS
settings and increase the wait state of the Ram. This can make it more
stable. Another way to troubleshoot a suspected Ram problem is to
rearrange the Ram chips on the motherboard, or take some of them out.
Then try to repeat the circumstances that caused the crash. When
handling Ram try not to touch the gold connections, as they can be
easily damaged.

Parity error messages also refer to Ram. Modern
Ram chips are either parity (ECC) or non parity (non-ECC). It is best
not to mix the two types, as this can be a cause of trouble.

EMM386
error messages refer to memory problems but may not be connected to bad
Ram. This may be due to free memory problems often linked to old
Dos-based programmes.

3 BIOS settings

Every
motherboard is supplied with a range of chipset settings that are
decided in the factory. A common way to access these settings is to
press the F2 or delete button during the first few seconds of a boot-up.

Once
inside the BIOS, great care should be taken. It is a good idea to write
down on a piece of paper all the settings that appear on the screen.
That way, if you change something and the computer becomes more
unstable, you will know what settings to revert to.

A common
BIOS error concerns the CAS latency. This refers to the Ram. Older EDO
(extended data out) Ram has a CAS latency of 3. Newer SDRam has a CAS
latency of 2. Setting the wrong figure can cause the Ram to lock up and
freeze the computer's display.

Micr@s@ft Windows is better at
allocating IRQ numbers than any BIOS. If possible set the IRQ numbers
to Auto in the BIOS. This will allow Windows to allocate the IRQ
numbers (make sure the BIOS setting for Plug and Play OS is switched to
'yes' to allow Windows to do this.).

4 Hard disk drives

After
a few weeks, the information on a hard disk drive starts to become
piecemeal or fragmented. It is a good idea to defragment the hard disk
every week or so, to prevent the disk from causing a screen freeze. Go
to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Defragmenter

This
will start the procedure. You will be unable to write data to the hard
drive (to save it) while the disk is defragmenting, so it is a good
idea to schedule the procedure for a period of inactivity using the
Task Scheduler.

The Task Scheduler should be one of the small icons on the bottom right of the Windows opening page (the desktop).

Some
lockups and screen freezes caused by hard disk problems can be solved
by reducing the read-ahead optimisation. This can be adjusted by going
to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System Icon-Performance-File System-Hard Disk.

Hard
disks will slow down and crash if they are too full. Do some
housekeeping on your hard drive every few months and free some space on
it. Open the Windows folder on the C drive and find the Temporary
Internet Files folder. Deleting the contents (not the folder) can free
a lot of space.

Empty the Recycle Bin every week to free more
space. Hard disk drives should be scanned every week for errors or bad
sectors. Go to

* Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-ScanDisk

Otherwise assign the Task Scheduler to perform this operation at night when the computer is not in use.

5 Fatal OE exceptions and VXD errors

Fatal OE exception errors and VXD errors are often caused by video card problems.

These can often be resolved easily by reducing the resolution of the video display. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Display-Settings

Here
you should slide the screen area bar to the left. Take a look at the
colour settings on the left of that window. For most desktops, high
colour 16-bit depth is adequate.

If the screen freezes or you
experience system lockups it might be due to the video card. Make sure
it does not have a hardware conflict. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Device Manager

Here,
select the + beside Display Adapter. A line of text describing your
video card should appear. Select it (make it blue) and press
properties. Then select Resources and select each line in the window.
Look for a message that says No Conflicts.

If you have video
card hardware conflict, you will see it here. Be careful at this point
and make a note of everything you do in case you make things worse.

The
way to resolve a hardware conflict is to uncheck the Use Automatic
Settings box and hit the Change Settings button. You are searching for
a setting that will display a No Conflicts message.

Another useful way to resolve video problems is to go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Performance-Graphics

Here
you should move the Hardware Acceleration slider to the left. As ever,
the most common cause of problems relating to graphics cards is old or
faulty drivers (a driver is a small piece of software used by a
computer to communicate with a device).

Look up your video card's manufacturer on the internet and search for the most recent drivers for it.

6 Viruses

Often
the first sign of a virus infection is instability. Some viruses erase
the boot sector of a hard drive, making it impossible to start. This is
why it is a good idea to create a Windows start-up disk. Go to

* Start-Settings-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs

Here, look for the Start Up Disk tab. Virus protection requires constant vigilance.

A
virus scanner requires a list of virus signatures in order to be able
to identify viruses. These signatures are stored in a DAT file. DAT
files should be updated weekly from the website of your antivirus
software manufacturer.

An excellent antivirus programme is Mc@fee VirusScan by Network Associates ( http://www.nai.com). Another is N0rt0n AntiVirus 2000, made by Symantec ( http://www.symantec.com).

7 Printers

The action of sending a document to print creates a bigger file, often called a postscript file.

Printers
have only a small amount of memory, called a buffer. This can be easily
overloaded. Printing a document also uses a considerable amount of CPU
power. This will also slow down the computer's performance.

If
the printer is trying to print unusual characters, these might not be
recognised, and can crash the computer. Sometimes printers will not
recover from a crash because of confusion in the buffer. A good way to
clear the buffer is to unplug the printer for ten seconds. Booting up
from a powerless state, also called a cold boot, will restore the
printer's default settings and you may be able to carry on.

8 Software

A
common cause of computer crash is faulty or badly-installed software.
Often the problem can be cured by uninstalling the software and then
reinstalling it. Use N0rt0n Uninstall or Uninstall Shield to remove an
application from your system properly. This will also remove references
to the programme in the System Registry and leaves the way clear for a
completely fresh copy.

The System Registry can be corrupted by
old references to obsolete software that you thought was uninstalled.
Use Reg Cleaner by Jouni Vuorio to clean up the System Registry and
remove obsolete entries. It works on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98
SE (Second Edition), Windows Millennium Edition (ME), NT4 and Windows
2000.

Read the instructions and use it carefully so you don't do
permanent damage to the Registry. If the Registry is damaged you will
have to reinstall your operating system. Reg Cleaner can be obtained
from http://www.jv16.org

Often
a Windows problem can be resolved by entering Safe Mode. This can be
done during start-up. When you see the message "Starting Windows" press
F4. This should take you into Safe Mode.

Safe Mode loads a minimum of drivers. It allows you to find and fix problems that prevent Windows from loading properly.

Sometimes
installing Windows is difficult because of unsuitable BIOS settings. If
you keep getting SUWIN error messages (Windows setup) during the
Windows installation, then try entering the BIOS and disabling the CPU
internal cache. Try to disable the Level 2 (L2) cache if that doesn't
work.

Remember to restore all the BIOS settings back to their former settings following installation.

9 Overheating

Central
processing units (CPUs) are usually equipped with fans to keep them
cool. If the fan fails or if the CPU gets old it may start to overheat
and generate a particular kind of error called a kernel error. This is
a common problem in chips that have been overclocked to operate at
higher speeds than they are supposed to.

One remedy is to get a bigger better fan and install it on top of the CPU. Specialist cooling fans/heatsinks are available from http://www.computernerd.com or http://www.coolit.com

CPU
problems can often be fixed by disabling the CPU internal cache in the
BIOS. This will make the machine run more slowly, but it should also be
more stable.

10 Power supply problems

With
all the new construction going on around the country the steady supply
of electricity has become disrupted. A power surge or spike can crash a
computer as easily as a power cut.

If this has become a nuisance
for you then consider buying a uninterrupted power supply (UPS). This
will give you a clean power supply when there is electricity, and it
will give you a few minutes to perform a controlled shutdown in case of
a power cut.

It is a good investment if your data are critical, because a power cut will cause any unsaved data to be lost

23 Ways To speed up WinXp

2008-09-06T08:03:45Z

Here are 23 suggestions that will - some require buying and upgrading
stuff. Each can enhance the performance and reliability of your
customers' PCs. Best of all, most of them will cost you nothing.

1.)
To decrease a system's boot time and increase system performance, use
the money you save by not buying defragmentation software -- the
built-in Windows defragmenter works just fine -- and instead equip the
computer with an Ultra-133 or Serial ATA hard drive with 8-MB cache
buffer.

2.) If a PC has less than 512 MB of RAM, add more
memory. This is a relatively inexpensive and easy upgrade that can
dramatically improve system performance.

3.) Ensure that Windows
XP is utilizing the NTFS file system. If you're not sure, here's how to
check: First, double-click the My Computer icon, right-click on the C:
Drive, then select Properties. Next, examine the File System type; if
it says FAT32, then back-up any important data. Next, click Start,
click Run, type CMD, and then click OK. At the prompt, type CONVERT C:
/FS:NTFS and press the Enter key. This process may take a while; it's
important that the computer be uninterrupted and virus-free. The file
system used by the bootable drive will be either FAT32 or NTFS. I
highly recommend NTFS for its superior security, reliability, and
efficiency with larger disk drives.

4.) Disable file indexing.
The indexing service extracts information from documents and other
files on the hard drive and creates a "searchable keyword index." As
you can imagine, this process can be quite taxing on any system.

The
idea is that the user can search for a word, phrase, or property inside
a document, should they have hundreds or thousands of documents and not
know the file name of the document they want. Windows XP's built-in
search functionality can still perform these kinds of searches without
the Indexing service. It just takes longer. The OS has to open each
file at the time of the request to help find what the user is looking
for.

Most people never need this feature of search. Those who do
are typically in a large corporate environment where thousands of
documents are located on at least one server. But if you're a typical
system builder, most of your clients are small and medium businesses.
And if your clients have no need for this search feature, I recommend
disabling it.

Here's how: First, double-click the My Computer
icon. Next, right-click on the C: Drive, then select Properties.
Uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file
searching." Next, apply changes to "C: subfolders and files," and click
OK. If a warning or error message appears (such as "Access is denied"),
click the Ignore All button.

5.) Update the PC's video and
motherboard chipset drivers. Also, update and configure the BIOS. For
more information on how to configure your BIOS properly, see this
article on my site.

6.) Empty the Windows Prefetch folder every
three months or so. Windows XP can "prefetch" portions of data and
applications that are used frequently. This makes processes appear to
load faster when called upon by the user. That's fine. But over time,
the prefetch folder may become overloaded with references to files and
applications no longer in use. When that happens, Windows XP is wasting
time, and slowing system performance, by pre-loading them. Nothing
critical is in this folder, and the entire contents are safe to delete.

7.)
Once a month, run a disk cleanup. Here's how: Double-click the My
Computer icon. Then right-click on the C: drive and select Properties.
Click the Disk Cleanup button -- it's just to the right of the Capacity
pie graph -- and delete all temporary files.

8.) In your Device
Manager, double-click on the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers device, and
ensure that DMA is enabled for each drive you have connected to the
Primary and Secondary controller. Do this by double-clicking on Primary
IDE Channel. Then click the Advanced Settings tab. Ensure the Transfer
Mode is set to "DMA if available" for both Device 0 and Device 1. Then
repeat this process with the Secondary IDE Channel.

9.) Upgrade
the cabling. As hard-drive technology improves, the cabling
requirements to achieve these performance boosts have become more
stringent. Be sure to use 80-wire Ultra-133 cables on all of your IDE
devices with the connectors properly assigned to the matching
Master/Slave/Motherboard sockets. A single device must be at the end of
the cable; connecting a single drive to the middle connector on a
ribbon cable will cause signaling problems. With Ultra DMA hard drives,
these signaling problems will prevent the drive from performing at its
maximum potential. Also, because these cables inherently support "cable
select," the location of each drive on the cable is important. For
these reasons, the cable is designed so drive positioning is explicitly
clear.

10.) Remove all spyware from the computer. Use free
programs such as AdAware by Lavasoft or SpyBot Search & Destroy.
Once these programs are installed, be sure to check for and download
any updates before starting your search. Anything either program finds
can be safely removed. Any free software that requires spyware to run
will no longer function once the spyware portion has been removed; if
your customer really wants the program even though it contains spyware,
simply reinstall it. For more information on removing Spyware visit
this Web Pro News page.

11.) Remove any unnecessary programs
and/or items from Windows Startup routine using the MSCONFIG utility.
Here's how: First, click Start, click Run, type MSCONFIG, and click OK.
Click the StartUp tab, then uncheck any items you don't want to start
when Windows starts. Unsure what some items are? Visit the WinTasks
Process Library. It contains known system processes, applications, as
well as spyware references and explanations. Or quickly identify them
by searching for the filenames using Google or another Web search
engine.

12.) Remove any unnecessary or unused programs from the Add/Remove Programs section of the Control Panel.

13.)
Turn off any and all unnecessary animations, and disable active
desktop. In fact, for optimal performance, turn off all animations.
Windows XP offers many different settings in this area. Here's how to
do it: First click on the System icon in the Control Panel. Next, click
on the Advanced tab. Select the Settings button located under
Performance. Feel free to play around with the options offered here, as
nothing you can change will alter the reliability of the computer --
only its responsiveness.

14.) If your customer is an advanced
user who is comfortable editing their registry, try some of the
performance registry tweaks offered at Tweak XP.

15.) Visit
Microsoft's Windows update site regularly, and download all updates
labeled Critical. Download any optional updates at your discretion.

16.)
Update the customer's anti-virus software on a weekly, even daily,
basis. Make sure they have only one anti-virus software package
installed. Mixing anti-virus software is a sure way to spell disaster
for performance and reliability.

17.) Make sure the customer has
fewer than 500 type fonts installed on their computer. The more fonts
they have, the slower the system will become. While Windows XP handles
fonts much more efficiently than did the previous versions of Windows,
too many fonts -- that is, anything over 500 -- will noticeably tax the
system.

18.) Do not partition the hard drive. Windows XP's NTFS
file system runs more efficiently on one large partition. The data is
no safer on a separate partition, and a reformat is never necessary to
reinstall an operating system. The same excuses people offer for using
partitions apply to using a folder instead. For example, instead of
putting all your data on the D: drive, put it in a folder called "D
drive." You'll achieve the same organizational benefits that a separate
partition offers, but without the degradation in system performance.
Also, your free space won't be limited by the size of the partition;
instead, it will be limited by the size of the entire hard drive. This
means you won't need to resize any partitions, ever. That task can be
time-consuming and also can result in lost data.

19.) Check the
system's RAM to ensure it is operating properly. I recommend using a
free program called MemTest86. The download will make a bootable CD or
diskette (your choice), which will run 10 extensive tests on the PC's
memory automatically after you boot to the disk you created. Allow all
tests to run until at least three passes of the 10 tests are completed.
If the program encounters any errors, turn off and unplug the computer,
remove a stick of memory (assuming you have more than one), and run the
test again. Remember, bad memory cannot be repaired, but only replaced.

20.)
If the PC has a CD or DVD recorder, check the drive manufacturer's Web
site for updated firmware. In some cases you'll be able to upgrade the
recorder to a faster speed. Best of all, it's free.

21.) Disable
unnecessary services. Windows XP loads a lot of services that your
customer most likely does not need. To determine which services you can
disable for your client, visit the Black Viper site for Windows XP
configurations.

22.) If you're sick of a single Windows Explorer
window crashing and then taking the rest of your OS down with it, then
follow this tip: open My Computer, click on Tools, then Folder Options.
Now click on the View tab. Scroll down to "Launch folder windows in a
separate process," and enable this option. You'll have to reboot your
machine for this option to take effect.

23.) At least once a
year, open the computer's cases and blow out all the dust and debris.
While you're in there, check that all the fans are turning properly.
Also inspect the motherboard capacitors for bulging or leaks. For more
information on this leaking-capacitor phenomena, you can read numerous
articles on my site.

Following any of these suggestions
should result in noticeable improvements to the performance and
reliability of your customers' computers.

Sumit Bhasin : Sumit Bhasin

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