The Struggles of Being A Completionist At Heart

The Struggles of Being A Completionist At Heart

You could say I was once a completionist. When I was in high school, I remember multiple years in a row my Nanna came over to babysit and said Are you still playing that?! because she saw me playing Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy X again. I was always hunting for some kind of weapon or an enemy in order to explore every inch of the game. You could say I definitely still have completionist tendencies, with my constant urge to get the Platinum Trophy for every game I love. I love playing new games as much as any other gamer, but I also crave the satisfaction and fun that comes from exploring every corner of a game. But with the amount of games that are around these days, its sometimes hard to choose between being a crazy completionist or trying the constant stream of cool games being released every month.

One of the first game series I finished to 100% completion was the original Spyro the Dragon on PS One. I did this on and off throughout my childhood and high school, but there was always a point where I could finish one game and go back to my Spyro game or grind Spyro for a few weeks and forget about any new releases. I could manage to play most of the games I bought that year and give them all a worthy amount of playing time. Since I was only playing PS One games, my backlog was basically non-existent.

Once I got into the Final Fantasy X games, which got me into JRPGs, I was in completionist heaven. JRPGs are known for being full of so many quests, side quests, ultimate weapons, treasure chests, secret Easter Eggs etc. It was this kind of depth that was perfect for my completionist tendencies, along with all the other great things about the JRPG genre, that got me hooked to the genre pretty quickly and made me stick with the genre for a long time. Playing Final Fantasy X and X-2 (which I got 100% in) was a completely new level to the scavenger quest that was mastering a game and I welcomed it for multiple years in a row.

Although I definitely had fun spending so much time playing and replaying those games to try complete them, that time period also opens up the main downside of being a completionist: the time taken away from playing other games. My PS2 was pretty monogamous for the Final Fantasy X games, meaning I missed out on some JRPG essentials such as Wild Arms, Dragon Quest and Star Ocean, just to name a few. I remember seeing some of these games and thinking they looked interesting, but being content enough with my completionist lifestyle not to purchase them. I dont regret my time playing Final Fantasy X, in fact I still love that game very much, but it does add to my current backlog because there was some genuinely good, potentially even better games I didnt even touch then.

Nowadays in the era of PS4, XBox One and all the other available consoles new and old, theres more games to choose from then ever because theres so many old and current home and portable consoles. Its hard for me to come to terms with the fact that theres probably not enough time in the world to ever play all the games I want to play, let alone scavenge through them to completely finish them. Its also however a brilliant time to be gamer because there is so much choice, so when it comes to picking between finding treasure chests or experiencing as many great games as possible, Id rather try play as many games as possible.

Of course, it is down to personal preference in the end. There are plenty of gamers who play games like Disgaea for years and then move on to the next deep game experience to completely finish. With so many games coming out now however, I truly dont think I can get pass the feeling Id be missing out on something. I loved my time playing Final Fantasy X for multiple years and a little more recently playing Persona 4 Golden for 7 months in order to platinum it, but for now Im lowering my completionist habit to play as many great experiences as possible. Maybe one day Ill do it more actively, but I know Id be incredibly sad if I missed releases like Persona 5 because I was busy looking for a hidden locked treasure chest or weapon with higher stats.

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Are you a completionist? How long do you usually spend in a game after youve finished the main story?

Leave a comment below or send me a tweet at @JRPGJungle and lets talk!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Make sure to follow @JRPGJungle on Twitter for updates on content and random, shorter musings on JRPG news and games. Youre awesome! <3

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The Pirate Caribbean Hunt v7 1 Apk Mod a lot of money for android

The Pirate Caribbean Hunt v7 1 Apk Mod a lot of money for android

Description

File format: .apk
Content: The Pirate: Caribbean Hunt v7.1 Apk + Mod (a lot of money) for android
Downloads:
Uploaded: April 05, 2017 at 06:59AM
Updated date:

Direct Download

ZippyShare

Mega.NZ

http://ift.tt/25M0Zor

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The panel encountered a problem while loading Gnome desktop applet

The panel encountered a problem while loading Gnome desktop applet

Last time while I come to desktop after starting my Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) machine, a message appear infront-of me. A dialogue box say:

The panel encountered a problem while loading "OAFHD:GNOME_NotificationAreaApplet".

Do you want to delete the applet from your configuration?

I click on Dont Delete. I restart my computer and everything goes fine. No any warning message shows its ugly face anymore. I searched google if there are anybody facing this kind of problem. I found many result. I understand that this problem occurs when applets start on panels. I add 20 applet on top panel. It is a heavy panel to load quickly. Dont blame me for this practice. I am a Ubuntu guy man. And I leave windows for greed of this kind of customisation ability. But what about the problem?

I found that when you see this kind of crash report, please restart of simply logout and login again. Wish to solve the problem.

You can try some more way to solve it.

• Create a new user and use this account.
• Reinstall gnome-applets and gnome-applets-data from synaptic package manager.
• Logout and login again
• Update/upgrade system. (System should fully patched and updated)
  

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The Image That You See Here Is Not a Photograph

The Image That You See Here Is Not a Photograph

 

You may not believe your eyes but the image above is not a photograph, its just a painting of a non-real person done using airbrush, not Photoshop.

Dru Blair took around 70 hours to paint this beautiful photorealistic image - look at the eyes, skin tones, hair curls.. they look so real.

Dru has the details on how he completed this painting dubbed "Tica" - Photorealism at its best.

Related: Fake or Real Photos

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The power of silence Six ways to make a point by saying nothing reflection behaviour

The power of silence Six ways to make a point by saying nothing reflection behaviour

Continue reading the main story

In todays Magazine

• 7 questions on quizzes
• How can the Titanic be celebrated?
• Is taking rubbish stealing?
• The ear of the leader

Stop.

Close your eyes.

Take a deep breath.

Shut out the world around you.

Those moments when you are immersed in quietness are all too rare in todays world.

Noise pollution is a companion to modern life, with traffic, ringtones and other peoples conversations providing the soundtrack to our daily routines.

A record by the Royal British Legion featuring only silence is hoping to beat Take That to the number one spot this week. 

It reflects the immense power that - for many people - silence can wield, if only we stopped to listen.

Go to BBC to read the original article.

Posted via email from colby pre-posterous

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The one that took a while didnt it

The one that took a while didnt it

Well� the reports of my death are highly exaggerated. Or rather, not so much, as I died a lot lately � but that is not what I meant and you know it.

I should probably fall in line with all the other bloggers out there and pretend that I am slowing down, going to do something different and stopped playing WoW � but what I actually did was start several new projects. New things that are quite fun doing (most of the time) and require more time than I first thought.

Part one, obviously, is still playing my main. Koch is going raiding and is still working on his 100 mounts. Except � I cannot be bothered to do the argent tournament dailies at the moment, even though that would only be 30 more days and it would finish off the 100 nicely. I do try and pop over to the Brunhildar village every day, hoping against hope to find a shiny polar bear in a little cloth bag, instead of a few snowballs, some rancid Jedi-cheese or some water.

There is also still Zul Gurub. A fine area in the north of Stranglethorn and part of the complimentary troll instance that is due every expansion (you know .. like Zul Gurub.in �vanilla� and Zul Aman in �The Burning Crusade� and Zul Frost in �Wrath of the Lich King�. Oh wait� I was not supposed to give out secrets about the expansion of patch 3.3.4.5.2.6.1.a? Forget I said anything). In theory both the raptor boss and the tiger boss are the proud owners of a rare mount. If they had only learnt that handing it over would mean an end to the senseless murder of their friends and countrymen I would already have moved on. As it is� we are currently at a quote of 48 to none against me.

And there is raiding. We�re still playing Icecrown Citadel every Wednesday and it forms the highlight of my week. You know� I actually enjoy raiding on my little tanky-boi. Of course � I have to admit that I do not quite like ICC as much as I liked Ulduar � and I think I would like to go back one of these days and just trundle around in it and see what happens. Kill Yoggy one of these days? Yeah� I�d really like that.

Part two, not so obviously, was playing my second favourite tank � my little druid. She�s coming along nicely now, raiding in ICC every second week and we�ve finally managed to kill Saurfang on an �Alt Raid�. Which was good. Except � I got to raid as dps � and I can�t say I like it.

Now this requires a bit more explanation, I think. I can appreciate that every class is basically a dps class until you get to the endgame (several footnotes and explanations are in order, but bear with me and wait for Part four). Playing a druid as a dps class does not appeal to me very much � this is partly due to the rather complicated sequence of bleeds, the energy mechanic of rogues and kitty-cats that I don�t particularly enjoy and so on and so forth. There are always moments when this is just cool, though. I do run add-ons that notify me of new high scores for damaging attacks and blowing something up in two goes just has a certain satisfying crunch to it as well (wait for part three, if you could).

In the endgame I pretty much switched all my characters to a tanking main-spec and a dps off-spec at best. The bear has its own strengths and weaknesses (interrupting frostbolt on Lady Deathwhisper, says you? Ha, says I!) and of course so do the paladin and the deathknight and the warrior. Of the three, the dps off-spec of the cat is the most complicated for me, though. Several bleeds and self-buffs to juggle, a consistent energy regeneration struggle and no AoE abilities worth mentioning. If only the spec made up for this complexity by insane dps or super-high numbers on every third rotational pass. But sadly no � it�s just a steady ticking of damaging bleeds, slowly draining the life out of your enemy. I don�t like it very much.

Worse � when I got to raid ICC yesterday it was also quite horribly boring. On Marrowgar I had to move from fires on the ground and otherwise tried to optimize my �rotation� � picking up after each bonestorm. On Lady Deathwhisper I had the pleasure of staying on the boss, first bringing down the mana-shield, then beating up the boss herself. It is the best role for me � as continuous target changing would make my dps even less impressive, but it basically meant I stood still and tried to optimize my rotation. On the gunship battle I got to use a cannon � which still amuses me, but then sadly had the same annoyance on Saurfang again. Stand in one location, don�t bother switching targets to the blood beasts and generally try not to mess up my rotation. That�s it.

No juggling threat, no watching for debuffs on the off-tank, no pre-emptively using cooldowns when the healers had to deal with more trouble, no stunning bloodbeasts, no keeping an eye on the threat meter, no spamming heroic strike when rage is above a certain value, falling back to a more simple sequence of events below. It was just �meh� compared to the thrill of tanking.

I don�t know� I�ll try it again, of course, and maybe next time with a different class, to see if smashing hits with a big axe make everything more interesting � but dps-ing was not really for me.

Disclaimer: I had a lot of fun during the raid � but that came from chat and teamspeak, not the engaging game-design as such.

Part three has taken the most time out of my schedule lately. And I admit I started doing it all because of big numbers and DPS. Which ... err� does not sound all that clever after part two, but Booyaah! playing a mage is completely different.

See� I started a new alt. Had a bit of room still, so there is now a spacegoat mage-girl running around Azeroth, decked out in heirlooms with a mad glint in her eye and a pyroblast at the ready. And it�s fun!

I mean � if I don�t miss the pyroblast. I get to blow stuff up � with fire � and then with more fire! None of that wussy slowing and snaring and freezing and things � a hot girl has to use hot spells!

She is currently burning down the forest in Stranglethorn � an old favourite quest area of mine for the sheer killability of it all. Kill things, kill their daddies, kill their mommies and then their elder brothers who joined the army. With fire! It�s brilliant.

Now I admittedly am not very good at this �being a squishy in a sissy robe� yet, but I�m working on it � and enjoying it. And it seems I�m not alone. A lot of people seem to have abandoned their �mains� lately, going back to more relaxed playing times or more alts and such. The auction house is dealing in twink items again � a market that was almost dead for a while after ICC came out. There are frogs that need to be sold, and  patterned bronze bracers and blue pearls.

Well and then there was project four. I stumbled across Pugging Pally a while ago. At first I thought there was a masochist at work. Then I played on for a bit without giving it much thought. Then I still thought there was a masochist at work, but I considered giving it a go. And of course I ended up doing the exactly same thing � don�t tell me you expected anything else after the long-winded introduction.

So I rolled a healer. A paladin healer, in fact, because I think it is the most durable and aggressive healer class I can currently think of. I mean� you actually get to rush in and judge light on your groups target � and when you�re there you might as well plop down a consecration. And you get to wear plate � which is nice, because I have all those plate heirlooms already. Okay� they are useless heirlooms for a healer and I should buy the mail stuff, but I refuse. I will not be a dress-wearing paladin. Hmm. I actually did put on all those cloth items with intellect on and such, but the point still stands � I am a mighty paladin and I will not wear shoulders or chest armour that is not plate and gives +10% experience. Or rather� I would if I could afford the mail ones, but I can�t so I won�t.

There� that summed it up nicely.

So anyway� I had to level the poor little thing to level 15 traditionally � swinging a big enchanted hammer at everything that looked at me funny � in the name of healing and the light. Which worked fine.

Then I got to level 15 and got to join my first instance group. Not entirely surprisingly it turned out to be Ragefire Chasm � and it was with a great tank and decent dps and a pleasant cruise through the whole thing � except sometimes a tad nerve-wracking because I really have no idea how to heal and the tank pulled appropriately large groups to generate enough rage. Clever man orc � but boy that was scary. Almost nearly got all the way to level 16 as well. And I�m still going strong. I will learn how to heal. I seriously want to. It�s an entirely scary business (and I may possibly have tanked one or two mobs by pulling healing aggro and then just continuously healing myself instead of doing the sensible thing and run to the tank screaming) but I shall not be defeated!

Soon�. Soon I will be level 16 and then the good stuff starts. Err� or so I hope.

This healing addons (I downloaded healbot, because I could remember someone mentioning it � it�s not simple and I�m not sure I like it) are a weird business as well. But we shall see. It�s all under control. So far.

Beats grovelling at those blue girls for a bear anyway.

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The Perfect Storm How a Combination of Random Events can lead to Disaster

The Perfect Storm How a Combination of Random Events can lead to Disaster

No, this post isnt about that Wolfgang Peterson & George Clooney movie but it does borrow from the concept in a business sense.

This week we skirted close to disaster but the rest of the business was completely oblivious to the danger.

I wasnt worried, it was all under control but my boss said to me later, "we nearly had the perfect storm today". I thought about his words and realised that he was right.

I was wondering just how many times we, and other businesses nearly have the perfect storm and dont even realise.

What is a Perfect Storm?

In the book and movie of "The Perfect Storm", the storm wasnt a cyclone or any kind of normal severe storm event. It was just a normal storm in which several other conditions were perfect. Its simply the combination of several unlikely events which results in disaster.

Our Experience

Factor 1: Backup

This week weve struggled a bit with backup. We had a faulty tape which meant that we missed out on our backup job for one night. I replaced the tape for the next night and tried to run the backup again. It failed again - this time because the previous nights tape had left a bit of gunk in the drive. I cleaned the drive but although the system was ready for backup, we now had two days worth of "unsaved work".

Factor 2: Backup ISP and Server

Like many critial businesses, we have offsite redundancy. In our case, we have an offsite domino server which is part of our cluster. Our offsite provider had told us a little while ago that they needed to switch ISPs and re-run our infrastructure. We were told a month ago that there was no pressing urgency. Of course last week, on the night of our last successful backup, we were told that it was starting to become urgent.

You can imagine our surprise when we came into work on Thursday to find ourselves disconnected. Our main systems worked, the internet worked, everything was Ok. Its just that our redundant server was no longer accessible.

Factor 3: Board Day

I work at one of those lucky companies who dont have board members in attendance every day. In fact theyre usually only around on monthly basis. Guess what.... the day of the storm was a board day.

A Lucky Escape

We were careful, we took precautions. Earlier in the week wed had some work done on our main production databases but on that day, they were out of bounds.

Like I mentioned earlier, nothing happened. The production servers all stayed up, we eventually got our offsite server back and we got a backup that night. All was well but you have to think...

If anything had gone wrong on the day, we had no backup and no offsite server. We were hosting one of the most critical meetings of the year and the most important people in our company were all onsite watching.

The question is; would you recognize the perfect storm if it started forming near your company?

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The speed of love in the human brain 1 5 of a second

The speed of love in the human brain 1 5 of a second

The findings raise the question: "Does the heart fall in love, or the brain?"

"Thats a tricky question always," says Ortigue. "I would say the brain, but the heart is also related because the complex concept of love is formed by both bottom-up and top-down processes from the brain to the heart and vice versa. For instance, activation in some parts of the brain can generate stimulations to the heart, butterflies in the stomach. Some symptoms we sometimes feel as a manifestation of the heart may sometimes be coming from the brain."

Fascinating, so read on...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101022184957.htm?

Posted via email from colby pre-posterous

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The Pointlessness of Physical Dying Light Is Great A Cyclops Appears

The Pointlessness of Physical Dying Light Is Great A Cyclops Appears

*

Random thought -- Ive been a collector of physical games (meaning discs, cartridges, and so on) for quite a while, but Ive noticed over the last year or two that I havent really been going after it like I used to. Part of it is that more and more of the games that I like (usually smaller, experimental or niche titles) only exist in an electronic download format, but another part of it is the changing nature of the games themselves.

For anyone whos even been even halfway paying attention, the number of games that routinely ship with bugs and glitches these days is absurd. Theres absolutely no question that developers and publishers see "ship it now, patch it later" as a normal, acceptable thing now, and in light of this, I see less and less value in having a physical disc. I mean, what�s the point of owning the plastic when so many games dont work properly without huge day-one patches.

Ive always enjoyed collecting, not only because I like the art and because these games are kind of like trophies on my wall, but because I always thought that at some point in the future Id be able to plug in some old systems and share these games with my kids and grandkids -- or in a worst-case scenario, I�d have something to keep me busy while I hide out in my post-apocalyptic bunker. Thats just not possible anymore. 

Oh sure, there are still plenty of discs to buy and the cases still look just as pretty, but knowing that a large number of them wont work or that theyll have significant problems without being connected to the Internet has taken some spark out of it� The same enjoyment just isnt there.

Its kind of a sad realization after so many years of collecting, but I have to admit that theres no real purpose in dropping cash on what are effectively coasters� Are we to the end of the "functional software in a box" era? Perhaps.

*

Although the Dying Light review for @Gamecritics was handled by @GC_Danny, Ive been eager to play it for a while, and I just started it a few days ago.

Before I began, I was a little dismayed to see so many mediocre or indifferent reviews, and my Twitter feed was full of writers who were not shy about mentioning how bored they were, or how brown the game was. I took note of those criticisms, but at the same time, Dead Island (from the same developers) was a game that I deeply, deeply enjoyed and the critical sphere took great joy in crapping all over that, despite the fact that it went on to become a huge success with fans and spawned several offshoots. 

Suffice it to say, I expected that the same pattern might repeat here and Im glad I didnt listen to the naysaying because Ive been enjoying the hell out of it.

Calling a spade a spade, its quite fair to say that Dying Light is Dead Island 2.0 with parkour added.  However, the parkour is pretty fab. Its great to be able to jump and climb on basically anything in the environment, and outmaneuvering zombies never gets old. Dodging through a crowd, climbing up to the top of a broken-down bus or nearby building, and then dropping Molotovs down from the roof delivers a laugh every time.

Many of the criticisms I read also talked about poor writing and a bad story� Although Im still quite early in the main campaign, I cant see what all the complaining was about. Though the main plot isnt anything revolutionary, it gets the job done more than respectably.

Apart from that, Ive been finding the sidequests to be fascinating. Lots of unusual situations and interesting characters have been popping up, not to mention more than a little comedy. Although Im usually the type of person who goes down the critical path in most games, Ive been having a great deal of fun going from quest to quest and seeing what they have to offer. 

Some of them are simple fetches (and I skip most of those) but a surprising number have a lot of dialogue, and its great to see some of the same characters popping up over and over again. One guy who gets his arm cut off by the main villain pops up later, he remembers that I was there, and he references past events before engaging me in what hes doing now. It�s kind of awesome. By following these quests I get loads of story mini-arcs, and it�s satisfying to see how these characters are faring.

On the other hand, I can see how playing too much of this game at a time could wear someone out, which I suspect led to a lot of the reviewer apathy. Im sure that if I was trying to beat the game on a deadline, eight or ten hours of it a day of it would get old really quickly. Since I�m just playing for fun (what a novel idea!) Ive been pacing myself to doing two or three missions night, and sometimes indulging in some of the random events that pop up as well. (There are lots!)At this pace, it still feels fresh and engaging, and I look forward to playing every night. In fact, it feels almost like going through the adventure in real-time, day by day.

While I�m generally happy overall, the game doesn�t offer a manual save (GRR!) and it doesn�t always autosave when I make it to a safe house � it�s the most insane decision ever.

Another criticism which comes to mind is that the developers need to let go of their preference towards weapon degradation. Weapons fall apart really quickly at the beginning, and while that can be eased over time with certain skills and better gear later on, I dont think the systems here really add all that much to the formula. I mean, I end up carrying 12 weapons in my backpack because Im afraid the one Im using is going to fall apart, so there�s no real tension or risk/reward there. 

I also think less environmental scavenging would be good. I find myself sometimes blowing past areas which have loot just because I dont want to take the time to search or leave myself open to zombie attack, and when I do scavenge, its usually a bunch of the same stuff� I mean, there�s no thrill in finding my 75^th bag of coffee beans, you know? Perhaps fewer opportunities to loot but with greater rewards would be a better way to go, making it feel like more of a special thing and less of a chore.

Overall, Im really, really enjoying Dying Lightand its been delivering pretty much everything that I wanted from it, and even more in some respects. If you�re even remotely inclined towards giving it a try, I say do so.

*

In other games news: Still playing Monster Hunter 4: Ultimate (of course) although after logging about 120 hours, Im slowing down a bit. The battles are getting tougher and its requiring more strategy, so Im waiting for some of my fellow hunters to catch up before doing some of the group stuff.

Also, still playing Marvel Puzzle Quest. Just recruited Cyclops to the team earlier this evening. Its been quite a while since I read any X-books, so I was surprised by his costume. 

I�d never seen this one before and I have absolutely no idea whats going on in the world of the X-Men, but he was always a character that I enjoyed so it was great to see him again. Seems like hes got some nifty powers coming too. 

Speaking of which, my Luke Cage is almost maxed, and although I wasnt sure about him at first, hes become a recent favorite. If you play the game, my build for him is 5/3/5 because he hits like a wrecking ball in yellow and black, and I�d rather have that high offensive output rather than the little bits of defense over time that his red provides.

*

Couple of quick links -- the first one is for Monster Hunter weapon tutorials from @AEvanko. Ive linked to this before, but these tutorials are superb and Im going to continue to share as much information as I can in the hope of getting more people to play Monster Hunter!


The second link is the Persona 5 trailerwhich is so goddamn stylish that it hurts. I wasnt sure how I was feeling about the idea of another Persona game after putting so much time into three and four, but one look at that trailer and I was instantly pumped. Fantastic stuff!

Finally, here are the latest reviews to hit @Gamecritics:

> My review of Rollers of the Realm (Vita)

> @KayinAmohs review of Guilty Gear Xrd Sign (PS4)

> Criminial Girls: Invite Only (Vita) also from @KayinAmoh

Thanks for reading!

*

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The Hafeez terms Indian media reports a conspiracy against Pakistan team

The Hafeez terms Indian media reports a conspiracy against Pakistan team

The Hafeez terms Indian media reports a conspiracy against Pakistan team:

KARACHI: Pakistan�s star all-rounder Mohammad Hafeez has denied Indian media reports which quote him as saying that the team�s chief selector Moin Khan and coach Waqar Younis are sidelining captain Misbah-ul-Haq.

When asked to comment on the Press Trust of india report, a clueless Hafeez told Dawn: �I havent said something like this.This is propaganda aimed toward maligning the pakistan team.�

�Pakistani team, players and management are united, theres not any kind of rift or politics within the dressing room,� the all-rounder same. He same that winning and losing was all a part of the sport however that the conspiracy theories should stop.

Hafeez said his interviews to TV channels were taken out of context. �The Press Trust of india should prove what they need attributed to me,� Hafeez said. �I will bring this to the knowledge of the pakistan Cricket Board as a result of this is a serious allegation,� he added.

A report revealed on leading Indian websites said that �former Asian nation captain and skilled expert mohammad Hafeez triggered off a dialogue over whether or not the national team was facing internal issues and problems within the current ICC cricket World Cup 2015�.

The report went on to say: �Hafeez since being sent back home from Australia by the national team management due to an injury has interacted with the media on several occasions and every time he has had one thing to say, that suggests that chief selector Moin Khan and head coach Waqar Younis are calling the shots within the pakistan team and not captain Misbah-ul-Haq.�

Pakistan�s former take a look at cricketer Jalaluddin was quoted by the Press Trust of Bharat as saying: �I don�t know whats Hafeez�s agenda however the Asian nation Cricket Board has to speak to him and decide whether or not there ar any issues inside the team and Misbah is being sidelined.�

The report took another former paceman Tanvir Ahmed on record wherever it claimed that he supplemental credence to speculations that Hafeez was sent home and not allowed to remain with the team to get over his injury once he had a run in with Waqar over coaching schedules.

�Hafeez had questioned Waqar�s training methods for the players and felt he was exhausting them before actual matches once that each of them had an argument in sydney,� it said.

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The first bug on Oracle Database 12c how to create a PDB by cloning a remote existing pluggable database

The first bug on Oracle Database 12c how to create a PDB by cloning a remote existing pluggable database

In this post I want to describe how to create a PDB by cloning a remote existing pluggable database: at the end of this process you should have a new PDB (in my case PDB103) contained in a target CDB (CDB001) cloned from a source PDB (PDB003) contained in a remote different CDB (CDBTEST).
In my case both source and target databases are located on the same machine.

When I took part at the presentation of the new Oracle Database 12c here in Rome I took some pictures, but I was not ready with my phone when an interesting slide was presented.

While testing the scenario of today I suddenly remembered about that missing pictures: luckily few days later I received from Oracle also the pdf of the event so Im now able to show you the following screenshot:

In 2006 I tested the beta release of Oracle Database 11gR1 because at that time my company needed to test new features for its products.
As you can read from the screenshot many test cases were conducted by Oracle and by beta testers, but a bug is always behind the corner when you consider a complex software solution as the Oracle Database and today Im not able to close my thread with the usual "Thats all" comment.

Anyway lets start describing the content of my current containers. My machine has two container databases named CDB001 and CBTEST.

[oracle@vsi08devpom ~]$ ps -ef|grep smon
oracle 4081 1 0 Jul15 ? 00:01:23 ora_smon_CDB001
oracle 16455 1 0 Jul17 ? 00:01:25 ora_smon_CDBTEST
oracle 26501 26466 0 14:08 pts/1 00:00:00 grep smon

On the target database CDB001 there is only one pluggable database (PDB101)

[oracle@vsi08devpom ~]$ env|grep SID
ORACLE_SID=CDB001
[oracle@vsi08devpom ~]$ sqlplus / as sysdba

SQL@CDB001> select name, open_mode from V$PDBS;

NAME OPEN_MODE
------------------------------ ----------
PDB$SEED READ ONLY
PDB0101 READ WRITE

On the source database CDBTEST there are four pluggable databases (PDBTEST1, PDBTEST2, PDBTEST3 and PDB003)

[oracle@vsi08devpom ~]$ env|grep SID
ORACLE_SID=CDBTEST

SQL@CDBTEST> select NAME, OPEN_MODE FROM V$PDBS;

NAME OPEN_MODE
------------------------------ ----------
PDB$SEED READ ONLY
PDBTEST1 READ WRITE
PDBTEST2 READ WRITE
PDBTEST3 READ WRITE
PDB003 READ WRITE

The PDB003 pluggable database contains few rows into MARCOV.T1 table:

SQL@CDBTEST> alter session set container=PDB003;

Session altered.

SQL@CDBTEST> select count(*) from marcov.T1;

 COUNT(*)
----------
 100

Im going to create a database link into the CDB001 container database connecting to CDBTEST using the ezconnect method.

SQL@CDB001> create database link CDBTEST_AT_VSI08DEVPOM connect to SYSTEM identified by oracle using vsi08devpom.mydomain.it:1521/CDBTEST;

Database link created.

Im able to successfully test the new database link.

SQL@CDB001> select * from cdb_pdbs;

 PDB_ID PDB_NAME DBID CON_UID GUID STATUS CREATION_SCN CON_ID
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- -------------------------------- ------------- ------------ ----------
 3 PDB0101 532253118 532253118 E18E282148FD10A5E0430100007FC94D NORMAL 1734497 1
 2 PDB$SEED 4063453634 4063453634 E18E1CE36B940C96E0430100007FE168 NORMAL 1720746 1

SQL@CDB001> select * from cdb_pdbs@CDBTEST_AT_VSI08DEVPOM;

 PDB_ID PDB_NAME DBID CON_UID GUID STATUS CREATION_SCN CON_ID
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- -------------------------------- ------------- ------------ ----------
 2 PDB$SEED 4063610283 4063610283 E1B2A529DB382EACE0430100007F78B8 NORMAL 217 1
 3 PDBTEST1 3064465721 3064465721 E1B436871D9E4110E0430100007F9BBC NORMAL 1547881 1
 4 PDBTEST2 2395404598 2395404598 E1B43A36FA0B41A9E0430100007F6671 NORMAL 1548944 1
 5 PDBTEST3 2434165039 2434165039 E1B43D98C0DC41F6E0430100007F7CE7 NORMAL 1550036 1
 6 PDB003 1448206714 1448206714 E2B9BE56B8B936CEE045000000000001 NORMAL 2744910 1

Under the directory of the CDB001 container there are the following files and directories:

[oracle@vsi08devpom CDB001]$ pwd
/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDB001
[oracle@vsi08devpom CDB001]$ ll
total 2286044
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 17973248 Aug 5 14:18 control01.ctl
drwxr-x--- 2 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul 15 15:52 PDB0101
drwxr-x--- 2 oracle oinstall 4096 Jul 15 15:48 pdbseed
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 52429312 Aug 5 14:00 redo01.log
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 52429312 Aug 5 14:18 redo02.log
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 52429312 Aug 5 02:20 redo03.log
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 1226842112 Aug 5 14:15 sysaux01.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 828383232 Aug 5 14:15 system01.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 62922752 Aug 5 13:52 temp01.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 94380032 Aug 5 14:15 undotbs01.dbf
-rw-r----- 1 oracle oinstall 5251072 Aug 5 14:06 users01.dbf

As usual to clone the remote pluggable database it must be in READ ONLY mode. The current open mode of PDB003 pluggable database is READ WRITE.

SQL@CDBTEST> select pdb_name, status from CDB_PDBS;

PDB_NAME STATUS
---------- -------------
PDB$SEED NORMAL
PDBTEST1 NORMAL
PDBTEST2 NORMAL
PDBTEST3 NORMAL
PDB003 NORMAL

SQL@CDBTEST> select name, open_mode from V$PDBS;

NAME OPEN_MODE
------------------------------ ----------
PDB$SEED READ ONLY
PDBTEST1 READ WRITE
PDBTEST2 READ WRITE
PDBTEST3 READ WRITE
PDB003 READ WRITE

I need to close and open it in READ ONLY mode.

SQL@CDBTEST> alter pluggable database PDB003 close immediate;

Pluggable database altered.

SQL@CDBTEST> alter pluggable database PDB003 open read only;

Pluggable database altered.

From the target container database I can now issue the following command to clone the pluggable database PDB003 contained in the remote database container CDBTEST.

SQL@CDB001> create pluggable database PDB103 from PDB003@CDBTEST_AT_VSI08DEVPOM file_name_convert=(/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDBTEST/PDB003,/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDB001/PDB103);
create pluggable database PDB103 from PDB003@CDBTEST_AT_VSI08DEVPOM file_name_convert=(/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDBTEST/PDB003,/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDB001/PDB103);
 *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-17628: Oracle error 19505 returned by remote Oracle server
ORA-19505: failed to identify file ""

On the alert log the following error is logged:

ORA-17628 signalled during: create pluggable database PDB103 from PDB003@CDBTEST_AT_VSI08DEVPOM file_name_convert=(/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDBTEST/PDB003,/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDB001/PDB103)...

Because the database link can connect to either the root of the remote container database or directly to the remote pluggable database, I decided, after several failed attempts, to create another database link referencing the remote pluggable database:

SQL@CDB001> create database link PDB003_AT_CDBTEST connect to SYSTEM identified by oracle using vsi08devpom.recupitalia.it:1521/pdb003;

Database link created.

SQL@CDB001> select * from cdb_pdbs@PDB003_AT_CDBTEST;

no rows selected

But even with the different database link the statement continues to fail:

SQL@CDB001> create pluggable database PDB103 from PDB003@PDB003_AT_CDBTEST file_name_convert=(/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDBTEST/PDB003,/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDB001/PDB103);
create pluggable database PDB103 from PDB003@PDB003_AT_CDBTEST file_name_convert=(/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDBTEST/PDB003,/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDB001/PDB103)
 *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-17628: Oracle error 19505 returned by remote Oracle server
ORA-19505: failed to identify file ""

Lets try using a different method to connect the two database containers and create another database link using the following CDBTEST tns entry:

CDBTEST =
 (DESCRIPTION =
 (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = vsi08devpom.mydomain.it)(PORT = 1521))
 (CONNECT_DATA =
 (SERVER = DEDICATED)
 (SERVICE_NAME = CDBTEST)
 )
 )

Creation and testing of the database link using the CDBTEST tns entry.

SQL@CDB001> create database link CDBTEST_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM connect to SYSTEM identified by oracle using CDBTEST;

Database link created.

SQL@CDB001> select * from cdb_pdbs@CDBTEST_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM;

 PDB_ID PDB_NAME DBID CON_UID GUID STATUS CREATION_SCN CON_ID
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- -------------------------------- ------------- ------------ ----------
 2 PDB$SEED 4063610283 4063610283 E1B2A529DB382EACE0430100007F78B8 NORMAL 217 1
 3 PDBTEST1 3064465721 3064465721 E1B436871D9E4110E0430100007F9BBC NORMAL 1547881 1
 4 PDBTEST2 2395404598 2395404598 E1B43A36FA0B41A9E0430100007F6671 NORMAL 1548944 1
 5 PDBTEST3 2434165039 2434165039 E1B43D98C0DC41F6E0430100007F7CE7 NORMAL 1550036 1
 6 PDB003 1448206714 1448206714 E2B9BE56B8B936CEE045000000000001 NORMAL 2744910 1

The statement using the CDBTEST_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM database link still continues to fail:

SQL@CDB001> create pluggable database PDB103 from PDB003@CDBTEST_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM file_name_convert=(/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDBTEST/PDB003,/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDB001/PDB103);
create pluggable database PDB103 from PDB003@CDBTEST_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM file_name_convert=(/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDBTEST/PDB003,/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDB001/PDB103)
 *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-17628: Oracle error 19505 returned by remote Oracle server
ORA-19505: failed to identify file ""

Lets create the latest database link connected to the following tns entry:

PDB003_CDBTEST =
 (DESCRIPTION =
 (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = vsi08devpom.mydomain.it)(PORT = 1521))
 (CONNECT_DATA =
 (SERVER = DEDICATED)
 (SERVICE_NAME = pdb003)
 )
 )

Creation and testing of the database link using the PDB003_CDBTEST tns entry.

SQL@CDB001> create database link PDB003_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM connect to SYSTEM identified by oracle using PDB003_CDBTEST;

Database link created.

SQL@CDB001> select * from cdb_pdbs@PDB003_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM;

no rows selected

The statement continues to fail even using the latest available database link: PDB003_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM

SQL@CDB001> create pluggable database PDB103 from PDB003@PDB003_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM file_name_convert=(/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDBTEST/PDB003,/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDB001/PDB103);
create pluggable database PDB103 from PDB003@PDB003_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM file_name_convert=(/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDBTEST/PDB003,/opt/app/oracle/oradata/CDB001/PDB103)
 *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-17628: Oracle error 19505 returned by remote Oracle server
ORA-19505: failed to identify file ""

The available database links created and used are the following:

SQL@CDB001> select DB_LINK, HOST, OWNER from dba_db_links;

DB_LINK HOST OWNER
------------------------------ --------------------------------------------- -----
CDBTEST_AT_VSI08DEVPOM vsi08devpom.mydomain.it:1521/CDBTEST SYS
PDB003_AT_CDBTEST vsi08devpom.mydomain.it:1521/pdb003 SYS
CDBTEST_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM CDBTEST SYS
PDB003_TNS_AT_VSI08DEVPOM PDB003_CDBTEST SYS

And there is still no way to create a pluggable database to a remote target destination from a local source. You can see on the "SQL Language Reference" which CREATE PLUGGABLE DATABASE syntax is allowed:

SQL@CDBTEST> create pluggable database PDB103@CDB001_AT_VSI08DEVPOM from PDB003;
create pluggable database PDB103@CDB001_AT_VSI08DEVPOM from PDB003;
 *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00922: missing or invalid option

Even tracing the unix Oracle server process with the strace system util I was not able to get useful information to know how successfully complete the statement and why its failing.

The end of the story: after I have contacted My Oracle Support the Oracle engineer confirmed the issue, tracked as bug 15931910 and it is still being worked upon by the development team.
Other platforms could be affected by this bug but I have no reason and time to test it.

So at the moment there is no way to clone a remote pluggable database using a database link, but as a workaround you can follow this post to manually create it to the new target destination

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The Notes UI and Sending a Link to a File Part 2

The Notes UI and Sending a Link to a File Part 2

Thanks to everyone who responded yesterday. Ive considered and tested the responses to find the method which will be simplest for our users.

What follows is a set of instructions....

We start our instructions by identifying the file we want to link to. Often for me, this will be a MPEG, AVI or giant PDF (because why else would you link rather than attach?) but in this example, Im just using a MS Word Document.

You can see my path here is:

M:DeptIT2010DevelopmentExtraNetConcepts

and my file name is

Proposed Extranet Login Systems.doc

Thus; my entire path and filename would be;

M:DeptIT2010DevelopmentExtraNetConceptsProposed Extranet Login Systems.doc

Already by working the actual filespec out were stepping slightly beyond the boundaries of the typical user.

Next, we type our email and highlight the words we want to link to a file;

Then we click the new "LINK" icon in Notes 8.5

This gives us a nice little box in which to type our URL. If this was a web link, it would be easy. Of course, being a file link, its a different story.

You might think that at this point, you could simply paste a link to;

M:DeptIT2010DevelopmentExtraNetConceptsProposed Extranet Login Systems.doc

but youd be wrong. Notes will throw this out to the operating system as a URL. If your browser accepts all kinds of different URLs, (like Google Chrome does - and I presume future browsers will) then it wont know what protocol to use.

Just pasting the path in caused a lot of problems for me.

So... this is what you need to do to modify your URL.

1. Prefix it with file://
2. Change all backslashes to forward slashes (actually this should happen automatically).

Your new URL should look like this;

file://M:/Dept/IT/2010/Development/ExtraNet/Concepts/Proposed Extranet Login Systems.doc

Paste your new URL in and send your email. It should all work. Well, mostly work... If your users have firefox, you might discover that it actually blocks local links for security reasons unless you use these workarounds.

Im not sure whether to provide these instructions for my users or not. In my opinion, its still too difficult for them. I guess it wouldnt be too hard to create a button which did it - or even better, if IBM were to adjust the links button in future versions of Notes to allow browsing and selecting files on local resources.

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The rings of a fish

The rings of a fish

When I cut through my fish with a fork tonight, I saw these rings. Ive never seen rings before...Ive seen fish flake in sections, but I didnt know there could be rings. So, I thought Id pass on what I found interesting.



Mmm, it was yummy, too. A quick version of hollandaise sauce + lemon pepper + garlic salt + parsley + fresh basil, poured on top of pan-fried grouper (lightly coated with flour + cornmeal) and baked. Dang, gotta try that again!

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The location of r studio R markdown template file in a Ubuntu machine

The location of r studio R markdown template file in a Ubuntu machine

This is a log for the file location. Replace this file with your template file, so every time when you start a new Rmd file, RStudio will use this template, rather than the default one.

/usr/lib/rstudio/resources/templates/r_markdown.Rmd

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The Typewriter Revolution A Typists Companion for the 21st Century Richard Polt 9781581573114 Amazon com Books

The Typewriter Revolution A Typists Companion for the 21st Century Richard Polt 9781581573114 Amazon com Books

The Typewriter Revolution: A Typists Companion for the 21st Century: Richard Polt: 9781581573114: Amazon.com: Books: ""

(Via.)

�

First, it was vinyl records, then it was reel to reel tape, now it�s typewriters!

I�m sticking to my Mac Mini, though.

Tom Briant

Editor, MacValley Blog

�

�

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The Last Word Our top picks from the write a caption contest

The Last Word Our top picks from the write a caption contest

The Last Word W/ Lawrence O"Donnell 3/20/17 "TRUMP GUILTY" FBI Comey Investigating Trump-Russia Ties

| March 25, 2017, 12:03AM

| Updated 22 minutes ago.

Listen here, sister. My grandson Donald is fed up with this place. Somebody needs a spanking.

DARLENE FLINT, Sebastopol

Kellyanne Conway told me I should see you about my talking microwave.

JEFF DiCELLO, Santa Rosa

See if your bosses can find those wheels that used to bring me meals.

AL COHEN, Santa Rosa

I have to wear this ridiculous disguise for surveillance duty in the peoples republic of California, some place called Oakmont.

MARUICE FLIESS, Santa Rosa

Source: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinion/6818365-181/the-last-word-our-top

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The Rank of a Matrix

The Rank of a Matrix

Searle (1982)..."Xa = 0 being true for some a unequals 0 means the columns (vectors) in X (matrix) are linearly dependent, whereas it being true only for a (vector) = 0 means they are linearly independent."

When the columns (or rows) of a square matrix are linearly dependent, that matrix has no inverse.  In other words, it is singular.  A zero determinant means the vectors composing of a square matrix are linearly dependent.

The rank of a matrix is the number of linearly independent rows (and columns) in the matrix.

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The North South Divide A comparison of Cycling Infrastructure

The North South Divide A comparison of Cycling Infrastructure

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The Notes UI and Sending a Link to a File

The Notes UI and Sending a Link to a File

Yesterday I found myself explaining to a new but technical user that Notes/Domino is, like Blackberry. An amazingly powerful and capable piece of software capable of everything that the competition is capable of - plus a whole lot more.

....and hampered by what is still one of the worst user interfaces in the world.

Sorry Notes UI team - I know youre doing your best. The same goes for the blackberry team. I know that theyre doing their best too. Its just that the user interfaces have so far yet to go.

So, this morning, the same user asks me how to send a link to a file on our common drives without sending the attachment everywhere.

Hes already cleverly tried attaching the .LNK file, but our policies dont allow that as its considered to be an executable file.

I said to him that I didnt actually know. 18+ years of using the product and I still really dont know how to do this. I know several workarounds but I dont know of any one all-encompassing method.

Its sad.

Even sadder is the fact that as I received the call I was clicking the SEND button on a PDF I was sending around in the required manner.

How did I do it?

I added a button into my mail and dumped a chunk of code which uses the windows ShellExecute API call into the lotusscript section.

I looked around the notes client to see if there was a new way (like that wonderful new way of adding web links). Nope... I couldnt see anything.

I tried Create as hotspot... it spat the dummy about spaces in the file path.

I enclosed in quotes and tried again... this time it almost worked. I changed the beginning of the path to "file://" and it worked - but of course I know that some browsers wont accept file:// urls for security reasons.

Im none the wiser.

I did a web search and found the following;

A set of instructions...

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Using-Lotus-Notes-1427/send-link-via-Lotus.htm

Nope... Im not telling my users to do that. Its too hard and Id rather tell them that they cant do it. Try again.

An External Application

http://www.virtualobjectives.com.au/notesdomino/linkhotspot.htm

Youre kidding right? I mean, kudos to the guys who found an empty market niche but theres no way Im going to accept that we need to install a third party app for this. It should be built in. In any case, the application does a sort of manual DAOS (Domino attachment and object service). It still stores the attachment in a second place - inside a database in the notes/domino system.

My Code

I guess I should make my button code available for everyone - well, everyone who has a designer client - so, not the majority of my users...

1. Add a button.

2. Change it to Run on Client - LotusScript

3. In the declarations section put this code...

Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellExecuteA" (Byval hwnd As Long, Byval lpOperation As String, Byval lpFile As String, Byval lpParameters As String, Byval lpDirectory As String, Byval nShowCmd As Long) As Long

Declare Function GetDesktopWindow Lib "user32" () As Long

CONSTANTS

Const SW_SHOWNORMAL = 1

Const SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED = 3

Const SW_SHOWDEFAULT = 10

4. Create a new subroutine as follows;

Sub RunShellExecute(sTopic As String, sFile As Variant, sParams As Variant, sDirectory As Variant, nShowCmd As Long)

EXAMPLE: Play wav file with associated app RunShellExecute "Play", "c:windowsmediaNotify.wav", 0&, 0&, SW_SHOWNORMAL

EXAMPLE: Play avi file with associated app RunShellExecute "Play", "E:VB GraphicsaviCogs.avi", 0&, 0&, SW_SHOWNORMAL

EXAMPLE: Open txt file with associated app RunShellExecute "Open", "c:My Documents undll.txt", 0&, 0&, SW_SHOWNORMAL

EXAMPLE: Open txt file with notepad RunShellExecute "Play", "C:windows otepad.exe", "c:My Documents undll.txt", 0&, SW_SHOWNORMAL

Dim hWndDesk As Long

Dim success As Long

Const SE_ERR_NOASSOC = &H31

Const vbTextCompare = 1

Dim HashPos As Integer

HashPos = Instr(1, sFile, "##" , vbTextCompare)

If HashPos > 0 Then

sTopic = Left(sFile, HashPos -1 )

sFile = Right(sFile, (Len(sFile) - (HashPos+1)))

End If

The desktop will be the default for error messages

hWndDesk = GetDesktopWindow()

Print "RunShellExecute: " + "Topic=[" + sTopic + "]" + " File=[" + sFile + "]"

Execute the passed operation

success = ShellExecute(hWndDesk, sTopic, sFile, sParams, sDirectory, nShowCmd)

End Sub

5. Write the click routine as follows; (with the LaunchPath pointing to your file).

Sub Click(Source As Button)

Const LaunchPath = "L:VideosITHacking Fraud Example.avi"

RunShellExecute "Open", LaunchPath, 0&, 0&, SW_SHOWNORMAL

End Sub

There.... Easy! ... erm... not.

DAOS

The new Domino attachment and object service helps a lot in this regard. It only stores the attachment once - and without any user-intervention. Its almost a solution but not quite.

You see, in this day and age, we often want to make video and audio recordings of our conferences available to our internal staff without having to store even a single copy on our mail server. After all, sometimes these recordings are several gigabytes because the conferences can last for days.

Sometimes we just want to point people to a particular folder and not to file.

No Answer?

Well, thats it from me. Ive been using Notes/Domino for longer than I was at school and yet I still dont know an easy way to send a link to a file.

Has anyone out there got any ideas?

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The perfect pen for a ThinkPad user

The perfect pen for a ThinkPad user

Its a TomBow Zoom 707

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