Steve Ballmer is Going to Retire

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is going to retire within the next 12 months, the company announced early Friday. This will happen when a replacement is found.

Ballmer said: "There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time. We have embarked on a new strategy with a new organization and we have an amazing Senior Leadership Team. My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our company’s transformation to a devices and services company. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction.”

Microsoft also announced it has appointed a special committee to head up the process of finding a replacement for Ballmer. The company's stock shot up by nearly 9% in pre-market trading following the news.

This news about Ballmer retirement come barely one month after Ballmer led a massive reorganization of the company in an attempt to bring all divisions under one unified vision.

Source

How to create .zip files in Ubuntu Linux

On a Windows machine, creating a zip archive is very easy: you can right-click on a file or folder, open "Send" menu and then click "Compressed ZIP folder". Or, you can use more advanced archivers like 7-Zip archiver, or WinRAR archiver. Their interface is quite self-explanatory, and easy to use.

But sometimes, you need to create a .zip archive on a Linux machine. This is required when doing a website backup, before downloading large number of files and other tasks.

To create .zip files in Ubuntu Linux, in the command line type:

zip -r archive-name directory-name

This will create archive named "archive-name.zip" and add directory-name directory to it, including all subdirectories.

For example, to create an archive of directory /home/user/www, issue the following command:

zip -r ./www1.zip /home/user/www

This will create www1.zip file in the current directory and add the contents of folder /home/user/www including all subdirectories to this archive.

See complete usage of zip command in Linux here

Or, you can order entire custom Linux software development from IQ Direct Inc.

How to use Lightbox popup in Joomla

This article will show how to display lightbox popup with image, input form or any other content using Joomla built-in functionality. 

For example, you can display contacts form on it.

Joomla 2.5 already has built-in Lightbox functions, you can use them any time in any article or module.

Read more: How to use Lightbox popup in Joomla

Fixing MMC cannot open the file COMPMGMT.MSC error

The error appears when you attempt to open Computer Management. The following message appears:

MMC cannot open the file C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\COMPMGMT.MSC.
This may be because the file does not exist, is not an MMC console, or was created by a later version of MMC. This may also be because you do not have sufficient access rights to the file.

The mentioned file exists in the c:\windows\system32 directory and the user is logged on with Administator rights.

Read more: Fixing MMC cannot open the file COMPMGMT.MSC error

Joomla 1.0 and PHP 5.3

Although Joomla 1.0 is no longer supported, there still are vast humber of sites running on that CMS. If you need to transfer Joomla 1.0.x site to webhosting with PHP 5.3.x, you may consider doing the following patches:

Edit configuration.php, and change:
$mosConfig_error_reporting = '-1';
to
$mosConfig_error_reporting = '0';

In the file /includes/Cache/Lite/Function.php  change line №92
$result = call_user_func_array(array($class, $method), $arguments);
to
$result = call_user_func_array(array($class, $method), &$arguments);

and line 100:
$result = call_user_func_array($target, $arguments);
to
$result = call_user_func_array($target, &$arguments);

And make another patch of file includes/joomla.php :
$params =& new mosParameters( $my->params, $file, 'component' );
to
$params = new mosParameters( $my->params, $file, 'component' );

Source: joomlaforum.ru

Joomla system requirements

In this article I've tried to gather system requiremets for different versions of Joomla CMS.

Joomla 2.5 System Requirements

PHP: 5.2.4 or above
MySQL: 5.0.4 or above
Apache: 2.x or above

Joomla 1.5 System Requirements

PHP: 4.3.10 or above (If you have PHP 5.3.x, you have to set error_reporting to E_ALL & ~ E_NOTICE)
MySQL: 3.23.x or above (but 6.x not supported)
Apache: 1.3.x or above

Joomla 1.0 System Requirements

PHP: 4.2.x or above (If you have PHP 5.3.x, you may read this article: Joomla 1.0 and PHP 5.3)
MySQL: 3.23.x or above
Apache: 1.13.19 or above

Source: Joomla Technical Requirements

How to fix JComments CAPTCHA image not showing

If JComments CAPTCHA picture is not showing on your site, you may try the following fix. The error was noticed with Jcomments 2.3.0 and Joomal 2.5.8, Godaddy webhosting. 

1. Open file /administrator/components/com_jcomments/admin.jcomments.php
2. Find line:

$lists["captcha"] = JCommentsHTML::selectList($captcha, 'cfgcaptchaengine', 'class="inputbox"' . $disabledCAPTCHA, 'value', 'text', $config->get('captcha_engine'));

and replace with:

$lists["captcha"] = JCommentsHTML::selectList($captcha, 'cfgcaptchaengine', 'class="inputbox"' . $disabledCAPTCHA, 'value', 'text', $config->get('captcha_engine', 'kcaptcha'));

1. Save changes in file
2. Open JComments settings and re-save current settings

Source: askjoomla.com

Order custom web software development from professionals.

How to fix Android warning: Exported activity does not require permission

Go to your project and open Android Manifest file. Lets assume that your manifest file contains an activity that has the details as follows

<activity 
  android:name=".MainActivity">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
        <data android:scheme="http" android:host="example.com" />
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

Add the following lines as shown below.

<activity
android:name=".MainActivity"
android:exported="false">
<intent-filter>


         <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
         <data android:scheme="http" android:host="example.com" />

    </intent-filter>
</activity>

Wonder why we did this? Well… It means that other (arbitrary) applications the user has on his phone can bind to your Service and call whatever method they please that is exposed through your AIDL interface.

Source: http://syedasaraahmed.wordpress.com/2012/09/27/android-warning-exported-activity-does-not-require-permission/

Save settings on application close and restore settings on startup

In order to restore preferences upon application startup, you can use Android SharedPreferences class.

In onCreate metod call:

SharedPreferences sharedPref = getSharedPreferences("myprefs", 0);

// restore integer value, 1 - default
integer_value = sharedPref.getInt("integer_value", 1);

//same for the string value
string_value = sharedPref.getString("string_value", "this is a default value";

And in order to save values on application exit, write in onStop method:

SharedPreferences sharedPref= getSharedPreferences("myprefs", 0);
SharedPreferences.Editor editor= sharedPref.edit();

editor.putString("string_value", string_value);
editor.putInt("integer_value", integer_value);
editor.commit();

You can actually save other types of data also.

Also see these articles:
1. http://samir-mangroliya.blogspot.in/p/android-shared-preferences.html
2. http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/data-storage.html

Fixing TrustedInstaller.exe constantly crashing error

Recently I encountered an error with TrustedInstaller.exe constantly crashing on my Windows 7 x64 home PC. These crashes were displayed in Windows Event Log:

Details of the crash:

Имя сбойного приложения: TrustedInstaller.exe, версия: 6.1.7601.17514, отметка времени: 0x4ce7989b
Имя сбойного модуля: ntdll.dll, версия: 6.1.7601.17725, отметка времени 0x4ec4aa8e
Код исключения: 0xc0000005
Смещение ошибки: 0x000000000003074a
Идентификатор сбойного процесса: 0x155c
Время запуска сбойного приложения: 0x01cddd155365136f
Путь сбойного приложения: C:\Windows\servicing\TrustedInstaller.exe
Путь сбойного модуля: C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Код отчета: 9183e05c-4908-11e2-893c-005056c00008

This recommendations helped me: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946414
In short, they recommend to open Regedit (Press Start->type in search "Regedit"), then find the following registry keys and delete them:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\COMPONENTS\PendingXmlIdentifier
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\COMPONENTS\NextQueueEntryIndex
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\COMPONENTS\AdvancedInstallersNeedResolving

On my PC there was only PendingXmlIdentifier one. This stopped the TrustedInstaller.exe crashes and helped to solve the problem.

Also, there is an article by chentiangemalc here that describes another cause of crashing and more detailed way to investigate and solve the problem http://chentiangemalc.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/case-of-the-totally-broken-trustedinstaller/

Hope this will also help you.