Solution: Error while Integrating Glassfish 4.1 with Apache 2.4 via mod_jk . Shows Blank Page

When you try to use Apache 2.4 as frontend to glassfish 4.1  via mod_jk, you may encounter an error  in a form of Blank page in browser. It may be due to default listener port setting to 8009. Simply... change this default listener port.

It is widely advisable to use Apache Front ending with Glassfish server. One of the reasons is not to expose web container directly in public hosted websites.

The Apache module mod_jk is used to connect Apache and Glassfish. A wide documentation is available on internet about it. One may prefer the link... http://goo.gl/5pE3rl

I have experienced a peculiar behavior of Glassfish 4.1 during setup. It had not started with its default port 8080 after fresh installation.It gave an error which indicates that port 8080 was in used.But the fact was, none of the application or service was using port 8080 in system.

In order to start the Glassfish 4.1 in  server, I changed the port in domain.xml file to 8090 & it started.But problems didn’t stop here. I spent hours to achieve Apache and Glassfish integration via mod_jk which I have done several times in past years. The connection to Glassfish via mod_jk appeared to be rejected and browser showed blank page. There was no relevant log entry in JK Log file as well no activity in Glassfish console window. A clear indication that connectivity of Apache and Glassfish was not established at all.

First I checked firewall related aspects but there was no such issue.I changed the "docroot"  path in Apache virtual host setting to investigate further, but in vain.I tried with different versions of mod_jk. I rebuilt the latest mod_jk too but it also didn't worked. Finally it appeared to me that like 8080, there might be problem in system with default port 8009 too, on which Glassfish listen for http requests from Apache via mod_jk.

 

I changed the mentioned port 8009  in “workers.properties” file to 48009 in Apache’s config folder. I also changed the port in JK listener setting of Glassfish via Admin GUI. And when I restarted the both the servers and tried to connect... Voila.... It worked in no time. It showed Glassfish's default welcome page when I simply put server host name in URI without port number of 8090.

Do inform me... If you faced the same problem and this solution worked for you too..

Happy  " Apache Front ending with Glassfish "

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Windows 10 : Last OS upgrade of Windows : D-day 29 July 2015

So Microsoft has announced the date of  release of its last version or upgrade of Windows Operating system as July 29, 2015.

As more and more computing environment is becoming "service oriented " and users don't bother any more about the shrink wrapped products, it is obvious that Microsoft too has to switch its product positioning strategy in the coming times to remain relevant in operating system space.

The graphics and imaging software giant Adobe already transformed their products into services and offering via Adobe CC cloud. Adobe was once a leading software product vendor supplying its products in CD and DVD. Now you have to hook to cloud to use Adobe products... err... means Services.

Google is already offering its software as a services on web since long. It silently and regularly updates the features of it software like Chrome browser etc.

So it is obvious that the product based deployments of operating system will have to change its form in which they have been offered so far.

Not to be surprised that Windows 10,which is code named as " Threshold" and being offered as service is a new but inevitable chapter in the history of Microsoft. This new WAAS ( windows as a services) will have new Apps, new components, new technical capabilities for mobile platforms etc. A lot has yet to emerge.  The 10 will be the last version , after that only components updates will be offered by Microsoft.

No doubt with Windows 10, Microsoft is following the on going trend, set by mobile devices market an cloud computing.

How to : Connect MYSQL and phpMyAdmin

Due to security measures you cannot connect phpMyAdmin to MYSQL "out of the box". You require to set MYSQL root password first!

After installing XAMPP,if you try to connect to MYSQL using phpMyAdmin from Tools menu, you may be greeted with this message  Access denied for user: 'root'@'localhost' (Using password: NO)

The following steps will help to resolve this problem.

1. First Set the MYSQL root password from command line

2. Then edit "config.inc.php" file

3. Take some additional steps

Step 1.Set the MYSQL root password from command line

Suppose XAMPP is installed in c:\XAMPP

Switch to folder c:\XAMPP\MYSQL\bin

Run the following command

$ MYSQL -u root -p

you will be in MYSQL prompt. It clearly indicates that the  password was set initially as blank. Now the password need to be set first. Lets set the password as "linux".

2) First switch to MYSQL database. issue the following command

MYSQL> use MYSQL;

3) In order to change password for user "root", enter the following update command:

MYSQL> update user set password=PASSWORD("linux") where User='root';

4) Then run following commands to reload the privileges

MYSQL> flush privileges;

MYSQL> quit

Up to this stage we have set the MYSQL root password to "linux" from blank password. Now we have to tell about this change to config.inc.php file.

Step 2. Edit "config.inc.php" file

Switch to folder C:\xampp\phpMyAdmin

open config.inc.php file in text editor,go to block which has comment /* Authentication type and info */ .There you can set the root password as follows

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = 'config';

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = 'root';

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = 'linux';

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['extension'] = 'mysql';

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowNoPassword'] = true;

 Restart the XAMPP. Hope you will be able to connect to phpMyAdmin (tools-> phpMyAdmin)

3. Additional Steps: 

Check seurity of database

3.1. Click on Security tab to confirm that MYSQL root is protected. (http://localhost/security/). you should now able to see following.

The MYSQL admin user root has no longer no password                :    Secure

Done! Not only you get rid off from error but also secure MYSQL too.

Allow MYSQL to import larger sized file

3.2. By default MYSQL permit you to import file size upto 8MB .(MYSQL maximum import ax 8,192KiB). Must get rid off at this initial stage itself

Open php.ini file from c:\xampp\php folder and search for "post_max_size ". Change the value to 32.

Happy MYSQLing with phpMyAdmin

Drive letter to Tape drive? How to assign drive letter to Tape drive in MS Windows?

Normally you cannot assign drive letter to Tape drive. By using LTFS, you will be able to assign drive letter to LTO tape drive.

Users are dealing with the media like Hard disk, CD/DVD/BD disks, floppy disks etc. In MS windows environment, a Drive Letter is assigned to accesses these media. In *NIX environment, these drives get access by mounting to mount point.

Here arises the question. Why cannot we use Tape drive in the same manner as we use other drives i.e by assigning the drive letter in MS Windows? Tape drive is one of the oldest storage mediums, while USB/SSD based drives are recent ones. One can access USB/SSD by assigning drive letters, but for tape it cannot be done (normally) …why?

To get answer,consider the following points:

(1) The way data being stored thus accessed on Tape drive is different then HDD/CD/DVD. In tape drive, data access is Linear or Sequential while in other drives it is Random.

(2) The way Meta information, for data access purpose is stored on the media. While HDD, CD/DVD and other media starts storing the information about their files and folders at beginning of disk (In case of HDD it may be in form of FAT/NTFS area, Root directory etc and in case of CD/DVD it is in form of TOC in lead-in area). This arrangement facilitates random access, thus assigning drive letter serves its purpose of Single point of reference. Tape doesn't have such Meta information for all of its data at the beginning. The file name, location etc information of file and folders is spread out, throughout the tape, stored normally at the end of each data block. To get list of files and folders in tape, all data blocks need to be accessed that too in linear way and then at the end of each data block, such information can be found. There is no such consolidated index of stored data in tape , no Single point of reference. Only tape backup/restore software creates such information after scanning the whole tape and stores in their own database..Above all, being the proprietary in nature, the tape drive get accessed and controlled by their special drivers and application software, which only can communicate and control tape drive. Windows cannot access tape as Nativity as it accesses other drives, thus eliminates the drive letter assignment.

The Tape industry is quite aware about it since long. Finally, the open source"Linear tape file system", LTFS is arrived in March 2011. Note that LTFS is not a panacea , it has limitations too: It works with LTO drivers only , that too with LTO-5 onward in full fledge manner. LTFS permits user to assign a drive letter to tape drive in windows and access the tape data in same manner as of HDD, CD/DVD or any other random access drive.

See what wikipedia writes about LTFS (hhttp://goo.gl/ilmmf )

" The Linear Tape File System is a method of storing file metadata on a separate part of the tape. This makes it possible to copy and pastefiles or directories to a tape as if it were just like another disk, but does not change the fundamental sequential access nature of tape."

So if you have tape drive which is not LTO, you have to access it in the same way as you are doing now. But if you are planning to go for LTO-5 and onwards you can access it by assigning drive letter to it using LTFS.

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Know about Light Peak

Light Peak is often termed as "USB3 replacement" or USB 3 Killer. A recent announcement by Intel about early arrival of Light peak interface in mid 2011 raises the hopes of its take-off.

Some facts about Light peak

What is Light peak?

Over a period of time, many types of interfaces like Serial, parallel, SATA, SCSI , USB etc got evolved. These interfaces or buses have many limitation mainly speed and compatibility. Now time has reached where all these interfaces can be replaced with some new generation interfaces. Light peak is one of such intended candidate.

Light peak is an interface based on optical technology, developed and promoted by Intel/Apple, capable to carry data at the rate of 10gigabits/second in both directions.

Why light peak termed as USB 3.0 killer ?
It’s all because of Intel’s stand on USB 3.0 and Light Peak, as of now.

Though USB 3.0 (speed 4.8Gbits/s or 3.2 MB/sec) is almost 10 times faster than USB 2.0 (480 Mbit/s & USb 1.0 is 1.5 Mbit/s ) , Intel has yet to implement it in its various chipset family of motherboards. That’s why majority of modern PCs which are based on Intel chipsets and even Apple’s Macbook has not equipped with USB 3.0 directly.(Though , using PCIe cards one can add USB 3.0 using add-on card). Also many peripherals like External HDD, tape devices, Printers do not get much benefit out of USB 3.0 due to their own technological reasons. Intel is already serving the need of higher speed by providing e-SATA interface hence eclipsing the demand of USB 3.0.Now Light peak is going to see light sooner which is 3 times faster than USB3.0 and capable to be 300 times faster in next decade , hence it is termed as USB 3.0 killer.(Details on USB 3.0: http://goo.gl/VV5Q )

The shining part of USB 3.0 is universally adoptability across the platforms ranging from PC to media players, its backward compatibility with USB 2.0 and 1.0 ,and its simplicity . USB interface is able to fulfill the most of the user’s need.

Point to note that Light peak and USB are not compatible with each other.

How fast Light peak is ?

If one has to express how fast light peak is , one may refer Intel which says " At 10Gb/s, you could transfer a full-length Blu-Ray movie in less than 30 seconds." http://goo.gl/MIUG

Salient features of Light peak

1. Light Peak is based on fiber optic technology hence faster. Data delivery and transmission in fiber optics cable is much better, almost twice as compared to copper wire. The throughput of data is determined by the frequency which cable carries. More the frequency, more the throughput. Fiber optics supports much higher frequencies for data transfer. Additionally, by polarizing the light signals, more data can be sent using fiber optics.(Refer: http://goo.gl/YhOVf )
2. Light peak supports cable lengths of up to 100 meters. Note that USB 3.0 support up 3 meters, USB 2.0 up to 5 meters, and USB 1 up to 3 meters.
3. On performance parameter, Light Peak eclipses every other interface available in market as of now. It is as high as 10 Gbps, it is capable to upscale up 100 Gbps.USB 3.0 supports up to 4.8 Gbps, USB 2.0 , 480 Mbps and USB 1.0 is 1.5 Mbit/s.
4. Light Peak is bi directional and hot pluggable. Support for Multiple protocols is another characteristic.
5. Light peak is perceived as a single universal replacement for available buses like USB/SATA/e-SATA/Firewire/SCSI/HDMI etc.These buses posses limited transfer capabilities & requires multiple connectors which creates compatibility problems.

Questions with Light peak

1. Can Light peak be single replacement of all interfaces or add one more in plethora of interfaces and cables?
2. Is it going to be as simple as USB when comes to implementation?
3. Optical cables are fragile and complex in handling, how nicely light peak will implement it?
4. How would it affect the cost of PC, total cost of ownership etc?
5. And last but not least why cannot both USB 3.0 and Light peak co-exist in user space?

Post Your Comments....

Simple Solution: Extract text from Protected PDF document

Just two stages : First convert PDF page in to TIFF image format and then run OCR software (Optical character recognition) over it to get a Text. Here is step by step guide by using freeware tools.

One of the common hurdles which many users face is “How to copy text from protected PDF file”?

When PDF file gets protected, the feature which permits to copy selected text and later paste it gets disabled.

One can get the text easily from protect PDF file . To achieve it, following two freeware required

1. IrfanView from http://www.irfanview.com : Free for non-commercial use, 32-Bit graphic viewer
2. SimpleOCR from http://www.simpleocr.com : Freeware OCR software

How to Do ?

Step 1: Open PDF document, open desired page and perform Screen Capturing. You can use print Screen key (Prt Scr) of keyboard. This key is situated in the same section where Scroll Lock and Pause/Break keys lies.

Step2: Open IrfanView , and press Control-V to paste the screen shot of PDF page. Alternatively, one may also click on "Edit" menu and choose "Paste" form it

Step 3: This step is optional but better if get performed. Select that area of image which contains the desired Text by dragging a box with the help of mouse.

Step 4. Again optional step: If box is drawn as mentioned in step 3, then click on "Edit" menu and choose “Crop selection”. It will remove unwanted stuff.

Note: Even If you have not perform steps 3 and 4, you can directly go to step 5

Step5: It is an important step: Press Ctrl + G here or click on "Image" menu and select “convert to Grayscale “. This operation will remove the color information from image and it will make it grayscale (similar to black and white)

Step 6: Now it’s time to save file. Click on "File" menu and select “Save as”. Here select “Save as” type as “TIFF”. Save it to desired path.

So up to this stage we have saved the image of entire page of Protected PDF file or Image from protected PDF file (from Step 3 and Step 4) into Grayscale TIFF file format, a must required input to “ SimpleOCR “ software.

How to grab text ?

Step 1: Download and Install SimpleOCR from http:// www.simpleocr.com

Step 2 : Run the SimpleOCR Program. During the start up of SimpleOCR, select "Machine Print option".

As program gets open, click on "Add page", it will ask you for select Source. Choose File option, navigate through the desired path and select the TIFF file of Protected PDF .

Step 3 : Now Software will show you a Preview Screen . Just skip it and click on Continue button. Now one can see TIFF image in software. A new button Convert to text will appear.

Step 4 : Here lies the actual magic. Click on Convert to text button”. This process will run OCR operation on TIFF Image, try to recognize the text and display the text.

(There are some options available here with captured text like one can correct the spelling mistakes from text or skip it.)

Step 5: As text is captured, it can be saved too. Click on File menu, select “Save as” option. This option let you save in either as "MS Doc" document or plain text format. Better select plain text format instead of MS doc and save it to desired location.

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Simple Solution: How to identify CMYK JPG and RGB JPG ?

CMYK JPEG Images could not be displayed properly across the various versions of Internet Explorer. Also it becomes necessary sometimes to identify the type of JPG image.

Yes, JPEG or JPG images are of two types. RGB JPG meant for display of Computer screen and CMYK JPG, primarily meant for printing purpose.

Through naked human eyes it is not possible to detect and identify the type of JPG file. There are various ways which can be used to detect the type of JPG. You can use PHP, ASP, Java to read the Exif Metadata of image to identify the Image. However, it requires you to write a program and understanding of the other basics of image handling tasks.

I did face the need to detect the type of JPG as I started getting Red Mark in IE using java program. If JPG is of CMYK, then you may get Red mark in Internet explorer in place of image. (As image file is missing). Also the thumbnail of CMYK JPG would be a solid blue or black color (or Inverted color) , instead of real image.

How to detect the CMYK JPG image?

Here ImageMagick will help you .

As you know ImageMagick provides is a set of API, libraries for Graphics handling which can be used with various programming language. ImageMagick also comes as a standalone suite for MS windows. The best part is , it comes as portable hence you need not to install it.

As a first step , download the ImageMagick suite from "http://www.imagemagick.org/download/binaries/ImageMagick-6.6.4-Q16-windows.zip "

Extract this zip file.It comes with various command line tools . The tool which matter for us here is “identify.exe” See what its documentation says

The identify program describes the format and characteristics of one or more image files. It also reports if an image is incomplete or corrupt. The information returned includes the image number, the file name, the width and height of the image, whether the image is colormapped or not, the number of colors in the image, the number of bytes in the image, the format of the image (JPEG, PNM, etc.), and finally the number of seconds it took to read and process the image.

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Now we will se how this tool will serve our purpose. Take any RGB JPG image , and copy it to location where “identify.exe" is placed. Now run the following command

D:\ImageMagick-6.6.4-7> Identify –verbose Imagefile.jpg

The Identify command display whole lot of information about image . To get pinpoint information about the type of Image you can Pipe and then filter results by using "Findstr" , a PowerShell command available in windows XP/vista/7. Use this command in following way for image named as "IndiaMap1.jpg".

RGB Colorspace image

D:\ImageMagick-6.6.4-7> Identify –verbose IndiaMap1.jpg |findstr /L “colorspace”

The result would be

Colorspace: RGB

If image is of CMYK type then the value of Colorspace will be “CMYK".

CMYK Colorspace Image

D:\ImageMagick-6.6.4-7> Identify –verboseIndiaMap2.jpg |findstr /L “colorspace”

The result would be

Colorspace: CMYK

You can use this command in following way to get info about multiple image files

D:\ImageMagick-6.6.4-7> Identify –verbose IndiaMap1. jpg IndiaMap2.jpg |findstr /L “colorspace”

Output would be

Colorspace: RGB

Colorspace: CMYK

So with the help of "Identify" command utility of ImageMagick Suite , you can identify the JPG type RGb or CMYK!

Happy identification !

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Bulk SMS, MMS ban in India

A verdict in the Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid title suit case is expected soon in India. As a precautionary measures and to curb rumors, the Indian government has imposed ban on bulk SMS and MMS services till September 29,2010.It is temporary measure.Though India is strongly democratic country , no one take this action of Govt as unusual.

I just tried to see whather it is in force or not. I logged in to my http://www.160by2.com/ website, a free bulk sms sending website. I noticed that they have implemnted Govt order strictly. when I tried to send a message , It showed following screen.

The Same I tried with another site http://www.smsgupshup.com/ . This site let me post the messages , but SMS was not deliverd. I am sure due to ban they wouldnot not deliver too.

I daily recives many SMSes from Google SMS channels. It has also stopped since morning.

Good job done by India's Ministry of Communications & Information Technology.
Peace is the need of the hour... Technology may come later.

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A workaround to Run IE 9 Beta and IE 8 simultaneously on same PC!

Run IE 9 or any other browser without installing it. May be , you don’t want to take a risk to install beta version / platform preview of IE or any browser on your existing windows having stable web browser.

After launching platform preview, Microsoft has recently launched Beta of Internet Explorer ver. 9. It has yet to release a final stable version.
If you want to try IE 9 you need to install it on your system. Being Beta version, chances are that it would affect the stability of your system. And if you are in between the web application development activities, it would be advised not to install at all any beta version. I did also come across the same situation, but fortunately I found what it called “Browser Sand boxing” methods.
Browser sand boxing can be achieved by various ways. However there are many popular ways.
1. Use Sandboxie , a standalone installable software
2. Use online Sandboxing methods
3. Use virtualization

The first method i.e. use of Sandboxie software (http://www.sandboxie.com/index.php?DownloadSandboxie) requires driver to be install on your system. If you don’t have sufficient privileges on your system to disable firewalls or you don’t want to install that driver, you will be refrain from using it. Also Sandboxie is not a freeware , it comes with 30 day evaluation license.

The web based online Sandboxing methods seems to be pretty cool. One such solution provider is http://www.spoon.net/browsers/. Here you will find whole lot of web browsers available. The use of these services also requires plug-in to be installed. Once plug-in is installed you can run many web browser having different version from single desktop. Take a case, you may see the Six different version of IE , Six different versions of Firefox etc on this site. Just click on desired version of browser and it will run in new window.

In fact it is extremely helpful to test your web application in different browsers. You can also test websites’ web pages look and feel across various browsers. The crux is , no need to install any of browser , but you can use it seamlessly.

The only limitation so far is it works with Microsoft Windows, not with Ubuntu or any other Linux. Hope so that it will be available on other platform too.

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@Techfreakindia

Open Adobe Pagemaker 6.5 file in Adobe Pagemaker 7

You can easily open PM65 file in Adobe Pagemaker 7.x. Just save it in Adobe Pagemaker 6.0 version first.
It is well known problem that Adobe Pagemaker 7 failed to open the files from it previous version. Even the version 7.1 doesn't help you to open PM65 files in version 7.
The simple workaround is as follows.
1. Open Pagemaker 6.5
2. Open your publication/document
3. Click Save as , now select Save type as “A Copy in 6.0 format”
4. Open this version 6.0 file in Adobe Pagemaker 7 and save it as Pagemaker 7 file.

That's All.

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Memory utilization by Windows 7 beta

If you have formed "opinion" that windows 7 test version manages Memory in much better way than Vista, then think again.
Since the launch of Windows 7 beta, I am constantly reading about it. Most of the users sounded their opinion that it gives better performance than vista. My own finding reveals something else which I published in previous blog. Another point about Windows 7, which I came across is it better memory management capability. This time, I decided to explore it too.
Since last several years ,for Windows memory management tasks , I rely on a freeware utility known as Meminfo.It is lightweight utility and I uses it mainly to free up the RAM via its Memory Defragmenter feature.( You may get it from http://www.carthagosoft.net/ )

I installed Meminfo in Windows 7 and then restarted the system. After 5 minutes,I checked the Meminfo figures. Oh... No....Windows 7 is using hugh amount of memory that is more than 60%. I have not installed or loaded any application,any anti virus software so far.Meminfo is the only 3rd part software installed by me.The only task which have been doing on regular basis is Updates of windows 7. In last 15 days, I might have updated Windows 7 atleast 3-4 times. Thats all.

So again I switched back to routine tasks, i.e. running of Memory Defragmenter from Meminfo. I defragemented the memory, and this time memory usage by windows 7 was reduced to less than 40%. You can see these in figures below.

Memory utilization(57%) by Clean installed Windows 7

Memory utilization(37%) after Defragmenting the Memory

The question arises are.
1. Why Windows 7 is taking that much memory when it runs from scratch and installation is clean?Is it because Windows 7 is in beta stage?
2.The amount of memory taken by Windows 7 is almost equal to Vista. No significant difference.
3. Why we still need third party memory Defragmenter to optimize the usage of memory?
4. In windows 7 , there is very impressive tool called "Resource Monitor". Why cannot Microsoft provide the Memory optimization features too?
5. We have experienced that three process, SearchProtocalHost.exe ,SearchFilterHost and SearchIndexer.exe slows down Vista system significantly. Does these services are going to play the same role in Windows 7 too? At least figurus reveals the same.
Memeory Utilization : Before and After running Degramentor

Note:We know that the manner in which windows OS manages memory while dealing with read, write task from Hard disk , loading of software , managing application and windows in background is quite different from the startup. The actual memeory management consist handling such tasks only hence memeory managamenet capability should be judged from that apsects.But here , I tried to gauge the memory mamangement ability of plain vanila installation of Windows 7. This ise my primary findings, and I have yet to observe Windows 7 in action .

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Is Windows 7 Faster? Performance of Windows 7 Beta. Is it really matter?

You may have noticed and experienced the faster performance of Windows 7 as compared to Windows Vista. But the figures are trying to tell something else...
As I installed beta version of Windows 7 on pre-installed Windows Vista system , I decided to quantify the performance. First I run the Microsoft's own performance measurement tool in Windows Vista via control panel. Before running this tool, I assured that latest drivers are installed and Windows Vista installation is clean i.e no other software or application is installed
The following Hardware configuration is used.
Motherboard : Intel DG33FB
RAM 1 GB, 800 MHz
HDD 160 GB SATA
Graphics : On board graphics controller Intel G33/G31 Express Chipset Family
Operating Systems
Windows Vista : 32 Bit OS with SP1
Windows 7 : 64 Bit edition
The score with Windows Vista 32 bit OS was 3.1 , while the score obtained with Windows 7 , 64 bit edition was mere 3.2, a difference of mere 0.1 on the scale of 1.0 to 7.9.See the attached Images.

Performance with Windows Vista(32 bit)

Performance with Windows 7 (64 bit)

The only notable difference was on Processor component. While Windows 7(64 bit) Scored 7.1 points , windows Vista(32 bit) scored 5.9. I think that may be due to largely 64 bit vs 32 bit edition.
Point to note that I have not installed the native drivers of chipset and motherboard in Windows 7 as they are not available yet.
No doubt , windows 7 make you feel and experience as Faster and responsive system, but on the front of Statistics and numbers the story is different.
As Windows 7 is in beta edition , I know my observations may not be complete and lacks many factors.

Windows 7 doesn't show Vista Drive

You may not be able to see Windows Vista volume via Windows 7 beta. A simple work around will make your lifer easier... just assign drive letter to it

Firstly ... Wish you all a Very Happy New Year 2009.

MS released its next successor of ill reputed Windows Vista in form of Windows 7 beta on 09-January 2008.Since last several months there was lot of talk about project Vienna and leak of this product on pirated sites. Finally Windows 7 saw a light of release and its actual download starts from 10 Jan 2009.

I downloaded the 64 bit version of Windows 7 ( Windows 6.1.7000). A 3.15 GB download took more than 10 hours to download. I burned the DVD from ISO file and booted my existing Vista PC with this DVD.After successful installation , I greeted by Betta fish (Siamese fighting fish) clad desktop and it was my first tryst with Windows 7.

As usual I started exploring Windows 7 and in background of my mind , I was comparing it vis a vis with Vista. Lot of improvements in explorer shell , improved task bar , control panel impressed me. The most noticeable difference I observed was “responsive” factor. Windows 7 appears to be more responsive than Vista.

So while I was comparing Windows 7 with Vista, I thought why not compare the directory structure of both of the OS. So I decided to open Vista's Windows folder.
To my utmost surprise there was no vista drive in Computer. Though all other drives were visible , Vista OS drive was missing.

So I right clicked on Computer , selected Manage option. Here I selected Disk management. Again to my surprise , Vista drive was very much showing as one of the partition.
To investigate further , I right clicked on Vista drive to see its property. Here I notice the volume label unusual. The Volume label was
------------------------------------------------------------------
\\?\Volume{373C080B-E1B1-11DD-9547-806E6F6E6963}\
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I also noticed that there was no drive letter assigned to this volume. So tried to assigned a drive letter. The moment I assigned the drive letter , this volume label changed to Vista drives volume label at its own.

So my problem get solved. Now Vista drive in appearing in Computer too. So bottom line , IF you are not able to see Vista drive via Windows 7 , just assign a drive letter to it through Disk manager.
Keep Exploring Windows 7

False tips on Blogs /Forums/ Groups to Improve Internet broadband speed in Vista,XP

Do you know, there is myth or misunderstanding about Windows XP and Vista that by default these OS reserves 20% of bandwidth for "themselves" and it can be freed up to improve Internet broadband speed? Here, check and verify Yourself.

How to improve or increase the bandwidth?How to speed up up Internet connection?These are probably one of the most asked question by Internet users. Improvement in bandwidth for broadband Internet connection is something for which no intranet user can say "No" :-)

Windows uses "QOS Packet Scheduler" mechanism to control or limit the bandwidth for “QoS aware applications”. This mechanism has ability to force "Limit Reservable Bandwidth" in system.

See what Microsoft's Help docuement says about it

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By default, the Packet Scheduler limits the system to 20 percent of the bandwidth of a connection, but you can use this setting to override the default. If you enable this setting, you can use the "Bandwidth limit" box to adjust the amount of bandwidth the system can reserve. If you disable this setting or do not configure it, the system uses the default value of 20 percent of the connection.

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Here only, many user finds a way to improve the bandwidth for Internet uses. They feel that if “Packet Scheduler limits” the system is reduced to 0%, entire bandwidth will be free from clutches of Windows and become available for them for better Internet browsing purpose ( means data download).To achieve it, following tweak is suggested.

1. Run gpedit.msc to open group policy editor. Then follow

2. Local Computer Policy--->Computer Configuration--->Administrative Templates--->Network--->QOS Packet Scheduler--->Limit Reservable Bandwidth

It is just incorrect. See what Microsoft itself is saying about its QoS behavior.

Correction of some incorrect claims about Windows XP QoS support

There have been claims in various published technical articles and newsgroup postings that Windows XP always reserves 20 percent of the available bandwidth for QoS. These claims are incorrect. The information in the "Clarification about QoS in end computers that are Running Windows XP" section correctly describes the behavior of Windows XP systems.

(http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q316666)

Explanation:

Remember, QoS limitations are meant for only and only “QoS aware applications”, not all windows applications. The application which are using QoS API or specially written for this purpose, can take advantage of such setting. QoS aware application requires “minimum assured bandwidth” for proper functioning , hence windows provides it by reserving some amount of bandwidth to it. If application don't require this kind of “reservation “, Windows simply allots 100% bandwidth to all applications. Example of QoS aware application is streaming media applications like Windows Media Player or Real media. When you browse a website, note that for sure and certain ,100% bandwidth get available to you for download. But when you click on any link in webpage which later invokes Real player or WMP, in such case, 20% Internet bandwidth get reserved for streaming media operations so that you can have better audio/video experience ,and remaining 80% still available for downloading of data. Hence it doesnot affect Internet browsing experience or reduce bandwidth for Internet purpose. If application is not QoS aware , of course Windows will not bothered about specially “reserved” 20% bandwidth for it ,hence no reservation rule will be enforced. User will get entire 100% to download task.

Hope you will have now better understanding of working of QoS aware application. If it so , you will also realize the tweak suggested to improve bandwidth by changing value to 0% is just INCORRECT.

Date & Time Issue with Mozilla ThunderBird. Bug or Usability Problem?

When mail arrived in Inbox , it doesnot get sorted as per the system date or download date/time , but get sorted as per the date set in sender's PC .

I am using Mozilla Thunderbird ver version 2.0.0.17 (20080914). I observed a typical behavior of this software . It may be a usability issue or it may be a bug too. I set the mail sorting for Inbox. I set Mail sorting as per Date , means the last or latest received mail will be at top position in Inbox.

On 21 November 2008 , I received a mail read return receipt from recipient. As nothing unusual was in it , I just ignored it. On 23 Nov, I observed that the same mail read receipt was occupying the top position , though more than dozens mails has already arrived in Inbox meanwhile. New mails are keep coming , but this particular Return Receipt Email refused to budge from its position.

On careful examination of it, I got the clue. The recipient, which originated the return receipt has set system date on his PC as 28 Nov 2008 and Mozilla Thunderbird is sorting mail as per Date order means as per most recent date and time, hence it is occupying the top slot in Inbox.

Now I decided to do experiment further. I set the system date of my PC to back 10 October and sent mail to myself. This time ,this mail did not positioned at top position in Inbox (which ideally it should be as it was a latest email) , but adjust itself somewhere in between the Inbox , which I found only after scrolling down. The mail was sat in the group of other 10-October mails.

It is clear , Mozilla Thunderbird ver version 2.0.0.17 (20080914) is sorting mails in Inbox , based on sender's date and time not as per receivers system date and time or when it get downloaded. Ideally it should be as per receivers date and time , when it get downloaded.

This particular behavior raises some questions:
1. Why should recipients be a victim of incorrect date and time of Sender?
2. What if someone send mail with old date and time? In this case the mail will be settled at bottom or in between the mailbox and recipient will not come to know about its arrival easily?
3. For better visibility , spammers would set futuristic date say of year 2015 and such mails will always occupy top slots.
4. Most important. It seriously questions the actual arrival date and time of all existing mails as well all incoming mails in Inbox. Now I am not sure about the old mail's date and time. It may be plus or minus from the date which it is displaying.

Is this a bug of software or Usability issue??Any comments.

Mozilla Thunderbird , an alternative to MS Outlook Requires restart

Even after typing correct username and password if you are getting message like “Sending of password did not succeed .Mail server responded Bad login
I am back!! Last few weeks i couldn't write blog. But now i am back and will keep writing as usual.
Normally I use my Webmail account to read my emails instead desktop email clients. It gives me lot of flexibility. But due to some reasons , I have decided to start using desktop email clients.
Obiviously, MS Outlook was the first choice. But this time I decided to do different.I decided to use open source email clients as an alternative to MS outlook.
I started reading on net about it I came across many articles, I found the article ... is very useful.
Finally I convinced with the features of Mozilla Thunderbird.I downloaded it from Mozilla website and installed. The installation was cool.
Next I tried to configure it to communicate with my mail server. I created my account and gave the password.When i tried to connect to mail server using Get Mail link I received the following error.
“Sending of password did not succeed .Mail server responded Bad login”
Earlier I thought it was due to error in password or username. I retyped it , tried again but again it gave the same error.
I tried another trick. I opened the my webmail account in web browser and typed the same user name and password. I succeed as I Log in successfully.
Now I was in catch. The same username and password was working fine with webmail account but giving an error with Mozilla Thunderbird account! What a situation.I resinstalled the Thunderbird but in vain.
I googled for this problem. I read many topics on this problem,but none of the solution was applicable to my problem. At one place I got an hint.The hint was about “bad profile”. I gave a thought for while. I decided to reload the profile first and if it fail to recreate. To reload a profile I choose to restart a system as I restarted Thunderbird many times earlier.
After retstart , I clicked on Get mail icon in Thunderbird and this time Voila! It works. Thunderbird just get connected to mail server as nothning as happend.
Do I need to tell which version of MS windows am I using? Of course it MS Windows Vista with SP1 , Business edition.

File name case sensitivity in Tomcat

Even on windows OS, you may face a problem of file name case sensitive with Tomcat 5.x. You can easily disable this behavior of Tomcat, but at the cost of code security risk.

Last fortnight, I was surprised by a typical error in my java application. The application was working file since many years. I used to run it on Adobe JRun 4 with updater 7 on my Quad Core CPU based server. As no more future development are expected on JRun and this product is going to be phased out from market in near future, I decided to switch to Tomcat
I have some development and deployment experience with Tomcat 3.x and 4.X versions. I thought, it would be cakewalk for me to deploy the existing JRun 4 based application. In less than 10 minutes I deployed the application to Tomcat and I stared testing of it for performance.
Suddenly I got an error when I clicked on one of the link in application. The link was pointing to JPG image file in folder. I thought for a moment that I forgot to copy the images folder. So I checked the location of folder and the file name too. To my surprise, both folder and file were there. I right clicked on folder to see its access permission. The permission was set to Full. I stumped. I cleared the browser cache, restarted the Tomcat, clean the temp folder etc but in vein.
For time being I decided to kept asides this problem & further continued my testing task. I got the same problem many times and this time it was not a surprise to me. On further testing I stared noticing that some of the similar kind of linking to image are working too. Not all links to images are giving an error. Is tomcat crazy, I murmured?
Now I decided to focus on this problem. I stared reading the URI to image files carefully and noticed discrepancy. The filename of image files have different file name cases. While some image naming was all in small letters, in some cases it was either all Capital letters or mix of both. I changed the file name to all small letters and checked the errant link again. This time I was able to see the image, which Tomcat refused to display earlier.
So I got a plain vanilla solution to my problem but this incident left some unanswered questions.
1. Is Tomcat case sensitive to file naming?
2. MS windows are known to be not case sensitive like Unix/Linux. Then why this behavior on windows platform.

Now I forced to look into the documentation of Tomcat. I must admit; this peculiar behavior is well documented. One has to remove the case sensitivity exclusively by considering code security threat in mind , by making changes in “context.xml” file. So here is a remedy for this behavior which may turned out to be a problem.
How to remove file name case sensitivity in Tomcat 5.x?
1.Stop the Tomcat first
2.Switch to your $CATALINA_HOME folder means a folder where Tomcat is installed.
3.Switch to conf folder.
4.Open file named as “context .xml“ in notepad.
(In Tomcat 5.5.2.6 version I found this file as empty, means no tags defined.)
5. Add following line in this file.
AllowLinking = true
The putting of this line will disable case sensitivity checks for file naming. You can use any file name case pattern in your application.
I made the above mentioned changes and restarted the Tomcat. The problem got solved for good.
There is another solution. Besides this tag, you can also use this tag in Conext.xml file.
CaseSensitive = true
Important note:
As tomcat documentation suggests, the setting of value of AllowLinking or caseSensitive to “true” on MS windows platform, may pose problems like “allowing JSP source code disclosure, among other security problems”. Hence be careful.
I have decided to change the entire file naming conventions in my application to lowercase. Though it is tedious as well time taking job, but for the sake of security, I know, I have to do it.

Have you experience the similar Problem? Write your comments…

How to remove Surabaya Virus ? Manually remove; Get rid off of Surabaya Virus.

If you are receiving message “Surabaya in my birthday, Don't kill me, I’m just send message from your computer", trust that you have Surabaya virus. Don’t worry , the manual removal is easy.
Last Sunday, when my friend switch on his pc, he shocked to saw this, message, before Login.
Don't kill me, I’m just send message from your computer",
After he recovered from the shock, he called me and asked for “what could be done”.
Did you attached USB pen drive to your pc , recently? I asked. Yes, an affirmative answer. I copied the data from friend’s pc.
Then don’t worry, I assured him. It is Surabaya virus, which is easy to remove.
Surabaya virus is spread through the largely USB pen drives , via autorun. It affects the autorun.inf of pen drive. When you attach a pen drive, autorun.inf file get run and infects the local hard disks.
Other Symptoms of Surabay virus
1.All folders and files including windows OS folder disappears. Only few folder files with fixed size of 40K appears to user.
2.When you try to change the options for show hidden files, it doesn’t show the previous data.
3. You will not able to run many anti virus & software programmes. Installation also get blocked.
4. There are files like thumb.exe
5. System becomes unresponsive. After login it takes lot of time to user to operate it.
Other notable symptoms
Got to DOS prompt using CMD. On root of drive ,type DIR Prog*. *, It will show you all the content of Programme Files folder, which was not visible earlier in windows GUI.
How to remove it? You can remove it manually.
Follow these steps
First take printout of this process, here onwards.
(A) At Registry Level
Step 1: Open registry by typing “regedit” at command prompt. In registry ,search for word "Surabaya”.
You will see two keys entries as LegalNoticeCaption and LegalNoticeText.It contains the same message, which appears at startup.
Delete these keys. No harm
Step 2: Keep searching for this word “Surabaya”. There will be lot of entries, are attached to Rundll32. Just remove the Rundll Surabaya text portion from registry key. Remember, keep no trace of Surabaya.
Step 3: Now navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\Hideen\SHOWALL You will see that value of CheckedValue is 0 means show all files are disabled. To enable it make it 1.
Quit from registry and got to command prompt. (Start->Run->cmd)
(B) At Command line level
Step 4. Type CD\ to switch to root of drive say C: drive.
Issue the following command
Attrib *. * -S –H –R /D /S ( Put space between /D and /S switches.)
(Note: /S switchProcesses files in all directories in the specified path. /D, Process folders as well.) It will change the attributes of all files in C drive. Surabaya hides all the files by making them Hidden and System files. This command resets the attributes of the files to normal.
While running this command you may receive error for System Volume information folder. Just ignore.
Repeat this command to all drives in your system.
Now you may be able to see all files and folders in your drive.
Step 5 :When you click on infected drive, the autorun.inf file points to some thumb*.exe file. So delete both the files Autorun.inf as well thumb.exe
From command prompt issue following commands.
Del c:\autorun.inf
Del d:\autorun.inf (If D drive present. Do same for E, F: drives)

Del c:\thumb*.exe /S
Del d:\thumb*.exe /S
You may see the command is deleting thumbs.db files too. Don’t worry, these files will get regenerated
Check the Autoexec.bat files in C: drive. Remove the suspicious entries , if any.
Step 6 :Download and install “autoruns” utility. Check the startup programmes in “Logon” and remove the suspicious entries from startup.Restart the system. Now you should not get any message at startup. The virus is removed now. Relax...

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How to extract pages from PDF document

There are lot of PDF extractor or editors are available but most of them are not free.You can use PDF printer to extract PDF pages.

Last week I felt a need to extract a single page from a PDF document,which was having 83 pages.I searched on web for any PDF extractors or editors.I couldn't get the suitable one as most of them are either sharewares or put their own watermark on extracted pages.

The good one are the paid one.

Suddenly an idea clicked in my mind.I realized that Bullzip,a freeware PDF printer is already installed on my system,which I use to convert my MS word documents to PDF.There are whole lot of well established freeware PDF printers like PDF995,CutePDF, PDFcreator, doPDF,Go2PDF etc are available.PDF printer always creates output as PDF file.

Simple method to get PDF page from PDF document

We know that when we issue a print command via GUI,we have various choices like (1) we can print whole document,(2)we can print a Selection in document and (3)we can print the page range in document.To extract a pages from PDF document,I relied on third option i.e. range of pages.I simply loaded the documents in Adobe Acrobat and clicked on Print icon.From the drop down of available Printer list,I selected Bullzip PDF printer,and in print range I entered Pages from 36 to 36.Later I clicked on OK button to print.I entered the PDF file name for page no 36, as c:\page36.pdf and clicked on Save button.Voila!! The single page is now saved as separate file.

Basically,you can use PDF printer to save or extract(?) the page(s) from PDF document,you cannot use it to edit the PDF file or to remove page from PDF document.Instead of single page,you can select the page range too, hence multiple pages can also be extracted to single file.

Happy PDF extraction