XML Developers Contest

Are you a student studying computer related course, a computer professional or one who loves computer programming ? Then I have a good news for you. IDUG is currently sponsoring a contest especially for you. Yes, its a developers (students, professionals and hobbyists) contest to increase awareness and familiarity with XQuery, XML and DB2.

The contest consists of five different categories of varying skill levels and you could enter in either of the 5 categories or join in all of the categories. The 5 categories are as follows :

i. Video Contest - Upload your video regarding the creative use of XML, XQuery or DB2.

ii. Gadget Contest - Develop a downloadable gadget or widget leveraging DB2.

iii. Query Contest: - Using XQuery, you need to answer a series of questions. All correct answers (answer and query structure) entered to win larger prizes.

iv. Ported App Contest - Port an an existing application to use XML, XQuery or DB2. You could enter as an individual or you could form your team.

v. Develop an application - Develop a useful and user-friendly application using XML, XQuery or DB2. You could enter as an individual or assemble a team.

For each contest category that you join, you will be able to earn participation points. Also, a XML Grand Master status will be awarded to the one who amasses the most participation points.

By joining the contest, you can gain some well-deserved recognition for your skills. Oh yeah, have I mentioned that there's thousands of dollars in prizes to be won, ranging from Wiis to complimentary technical conferences.

So hurry, join IDUG contest now. Good Luck !

Things you should know about the Internet

It has been more than a decade when Internet became popular, but would you like to know more about it. The internet has greatly influenced our lives today and it became a new medium for us to express our thoughts. Even businesses had made use of it for advertising purposes, shopping portals and for many other innovations that had greatly benefitted us. It has also provided jobs to a lot of people especially to those working at home. Read more about the internet by clicking tbe link below.

10 Things You Should Know About the Internet

Tips in securing your passwords or PIN

Nowadays, its quite common to have so many passwords to keep as every time you register to have a new email account perhaps would require you to register and have a unique password for that particular email account. What if you have 5 or 15 accounts for your email, blogger accounts to gaming site accounts, most probably you would be using a pattern in order to remember all these passwords. Aaaahhhh PASSWORD, the most vital info in todays computer age. From using our ATM card PINs to logging to your favorite friendster account, passwords keep your personal information from people who are privy to steal your personal information. Yet the vast majority of people who accesses the internet uses the same passwords for different sites that they have registered.



Here's some suggestion that you may apply to secure your password or PIN use.
a. Give careful thought when creating your password whether it is for online gaming site or your email account. Passwords keep your data private.

b. Never choose anything obvious information such as your name, address or date of birth, spouse name or your child's name.

c. Never use the same password for multiple web sites or accounts

d. Passwords that include the combination of letters and numbers such as 'rx8c64m39' are more secure. Having an alpha-numeric passwords ensures that no one could easily guess your password and hackers will likely move on to try to find other less secure accounts, but again, avoid those easily-guessed alpha-numeric passwords such as '5678lisa'.

e. If you write your password on a piece of paper, ensure that you keep this piece of info in a safe place. Your best bet is to have a password management software that will help you secure ALL your passwords from. Password management softwares operates on a simple concept, all your passwords are contained within it, protected by a master password. Most of these password management programs utilizes 128-bit encryption to keep data secure. Now you only have to memorize ONE complex master password.

f. Do not let other people know of your password or PIN. Not even to your boyfriend or girlriend, if he or she does not have business in accessing accounts, its safer to keep your password to yourself.

g. Change your passwords once in a while.


In summary, make your passwords unique and as complex as you can manage to remember. The better they are, the less you will have to worry about the security of your private personal data - the perfect password is only good as long as just YOU know what it is.

Photo credit : John Shakespeare / www.theage.com.au

Creating a New Hard Drive Partition

I found one useful FREE software that could be a good alternative to Partition Magic. This software is called EASEUS Partition Manager.


Creating a New Hard Drive Partition

As Partition Magic alternative, EASEUS Partition Manager is an excellent partition management freeware for home users only. It not only provides with convenient user-interface simplifying your tasks but also enables you to configure and manage partitions of hard drive.

With the help of EASEUS Partition Manager, you can create, delete, format partitions on your hard disk quickly and easily. The most attractive feature is that it can resize/move your partitions by using the free spaces without destroying data.

Here are some of the main functions of EASEUS Partition Manager:
a. Resize/ Move partitions
b. Support hardware RAID
c. Create partitions
d. Delete/ (delete all) partitions
e. Label partitions
f. Format partitions
g. View Disk/Partition property
h. Set Active
i. Hide/Unhide partitions

Why not have a try and see how powerful these functions of this free partition software are? You could download EASEUS Partition Manager here.



Note : It is always a good practice to backup your data before using the tool.

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Bart PE and DriveImage XML

Just this weekend while surfing the net, I have found 2 free very good softwares that could be useful if ever you need to recover data from an operating system that has failed due to software or physical hardware corruption. These free softwares are as follows :

1. Bart PE or Bart's Preinstalled Environment - this software is very suitable for PC maintenance tasks. It will give you a complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface (800x600) and FAT/NTFS/CDFS filesystem support. Very handy for burn-in testing systems with no OS, rescuing files to a network share, virus scan and so on. It is a real replacement for those dos based boot disk that we use.

2. DriveImage XML - is a hard disk backup and restoration software similar to Norton Ghost but this software is FREE, the software enables you create a complete backup image of any drive or partition, You can restore later restore the image to same or another partition, you can also clone a drive to another. The program also includes an image explorer similar to Norton Ghost Image Explorer that lets you explore previously created backup images and extract individual files. This software could be plugin to BartPE and could be very useful in backup and recovery procedures.

If you want to learn more about this 2 useful free softwares, just click the link I provided below :
a. Bart PE
b. DriveImage XML


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Safety Tips In Using Your Laptops

Safely using your laptop will help ensure that your laptop works properly and you don't get hurt. Improper use or not being aware of safety issues can cause your laptop irreparable damage. These safety tips should be added to your weekly laptop maintenance routine and will help you stay productive and safe no matter where you are working.

1. Shut It Down
Unlike a desktop computer a laptop computer needs to be shut down when not in use. Shutting down when not in use prevents the laptop from overheating and it also needs the rest.

2. Adjusting Power Settings
Adjusting your power options will help your laptop from heating up when not in use even if for short periods of time. You can set your hard drive and display to turn off after a set time period. Another option is to set the laptop to go into standby or hibernate mode.

3. Before You Pack It Up
Make sure that you before you put your laptop into its carrying bag that it is shut down. A notebook that has been left on can melt. When enclosed in a notebook bag there is no air circulation and the results can be worse than melting. Don't find out the hard way and just be sure to turn off your laptop.

4. Vent Maintenance
Part of your weekly routine should be to inspect and clean the air vents in your laptop. Forced air dusters can be used to keep the air vents clean and free from debris. It's important to know that you should never push anything into the air vents.

5. Checking the Fan
Overheating problems can be caused by the laptop fan not working properly. Always check the laptop manufacturer's online support and your warranty information. It may be possible to download software to test your laptop fan.

6. BIOS Updates
Some laptops control the fans through the BIOS. Check online with the laptop manufacturer for BIOS updates. If you aren't comfortable updating the BIOS yourself, have someone in your IT dept. or have an outside Computer Technician do it for you.

7. Avoid Lap Burn
Using a laptop desk or cooler will prevent you from being burned when using your laptop. A good laptop desk will have large enough vents for allowing air circulation between you and the laptop. Some laptop desks have additional fans which use power from the laptop itself to stay cool.

8. Soft Spots
It's a wise idea not to use any soft material as a buffer between you and your laptop. Always operate your laptop on a hard surface, preferably one that allows ventilation. Soft materials can block the airflow vents and cause it to overheat. If it is not possible to avoid using a soft surface, an optional heat sink base should be used to maintain cooling.

9. Unplug Accessories
Whenever your laptop will not be in use, even for short periods of time remember to unplug any accessories. Not only do they use power but they could cause the laptop to overheat. It's especially important to unplug any accessories before packing your laptop in its carrying case. While you may believe it will make it quicker to use, it could damage your laptop, the accessory and/or your laptop bag.

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PC keeps on rebooting

My friend's PC keeps on rebooting after a certain period of time (ie. every 5 or 10 minutes). She confirmed to me that this strange restart problem only happen 2 days ago and that her PC was functioning normally before that. After checking that there was no loose wire connections on the PC, I suspected that there might be a virus that had infected her PC, I tried to download antivirus from the internet but then the PC would restart in the middle of the download or even before we could successfully connect to the internet Luckily the windows system restore option was enabled so I then tried to restore the PCs operating system to previous week state. The PC then rebooted after restoration of previous weeks image and the strange restart problem never occured again.

Here's the step that I did to restore the PC to its previous backup image using Windows System Restore.

1. Log on to Windows as Administrator.

2. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click System Restore. System Restore starts.

3. On the Welcome to System Restore page, click Restore my computer to an earlier time (if it is not already selected), and then click Next.

4. On the Select a Restore Point page, click the most recent system checkpoint in the On this list, click a restore point list, and then click Next.
A System Restore message may appear that lists configuration changes that System Restore will make. Click OK.

5. On the Confirm Restore Point Selection page, click Next.
System Restore restores the previous Windows XP configuration, and then restarts the computer.

6. Log on to the computer as Administrator. The System Restore Restoration Complete page appears. Click OK.


So how do you ensure that the System Restore option in Windows was enabled in your PC or laptop ? To ensure that it was turn on do the following steps :
1. Click Start.

2. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.

3. Click the System Restore tab.

4. Uncheck "Turn off System Restore" or "Turn off System Restore on all drives."

5. Click Apply, and then click OK.


Does your PC has some strange problems after downloading some softwares or music from the internet ? You may want to consider Window's System Restore as one of your option. Its really a great feature of Windows.


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Own a part of Olympic history!

Lenovo, worldwide partner of the Olympic Torch Relay and the exclusive computing equipment supplier for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, is offering limited-edition Lenovo 3000 V200 notebook PCs inspired by the Lenovo-designed Olympic torch leading into the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Bid on a limited-edition Lenovo 3000 V200 notebook PC!
Like the “Cloud of Promise” on which the design is based, the notebook cover features striking swirls of silver against a pure red base color, a contrast representative of the traditional Chinese concern for balance and harmony. Several of these one-of-a-kind notebooks will be autographed by Olympic athletes and featured in a series of auctions around the world:

• Argentina*
• Australia
• Brazil*
• Canada


• China
• France
• Hong Kong
• India*


• Japan
• Russia*
• United Kingdom
• United States
*Limited-edition notebook PCs from these countries are unsigned.

All proceeds will be distributed through the Lenovo Hope Fund.

Overall auction campaign runs from February 8 to August 8, 2008. A total of three limited-edition, country-specific notebook PCs will be available from each country listed above during the campaign.

View the complete auction schedule and sign up for email reminders.