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C++ : Convert String to WChar and Vice Versa. ( WCHAR[260] ) to std::string etc. )

2009-01-28T18:57:00.005+11:00

Visual Studio 2005, 2008 C++.

//String to WCHAR
std::wstring s2ws(const std::string& s)
{
int len;
int slength = (int)s.length() + 1;
len = MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, 0, s.c_str(), slength, 0, 0);
wchar_t* buf = new wchar_t[len];
MultiByteToWideChar(CP_ACP, 0, s.c_str(), slength, buf, len);
std::wstring r(buf);
delete[] buf;
return r;
}

//WCHAR to String
std::string ws2s(const std::wstring& s)
{
int len;
int slength = (int)s.length() + 1;
len = WideCharToMultiByte(CP_ACP, 0, s.c_str(), slength, 0, 0, 0, 0);
char* buf = new char[len];
WideCharToMultiByte(CP_ACP, 0, s.c_str(), slength, buf, len, 0, 0);
std::string r(buf);
delete[] buf;
return r;
}

Ref: MSDN

Restart Windows Server 2003 from the command line

2008-07-15T12:20:00.003+10:00

By Derek Schauland , Special to ZDNet Asia
Tuesday, January 22, 2008 03:01 PM

There is a quick workaround that restarts the Windows Server 2003 computer, without having to handle power cords or the power switch.

The Windows Server 2003 computer you are working on will not shut down. You don't have any luck using the Start menu or the [Ctrl][Alt][Delete] methods, and you need to restart the server as quickly as possible. There is a quick workaround that gets the job done--and you don't even have to handle power cords or the power switch.

From the command line, you can shut down or reboot any Windows Server 2003 computer (or even Windows XP or Vista machines) with the Shutdown.exe command. (Note: The exe file extension is optional for the Shutdown command.) Shutdown.exe contains a number of switches that allow you to specify different actions for the server when the Shutdown command executes. The Shutdown.exe switches are as follows:

/?	Displays the Help listing
/i	Displays the graphical user interface (GUI); it must be the first option
/l	Logs off the current user; it cannot be used with the /d or /m options
/s	Shuts down the computer
/r	Shuts down and restarts the computer
/g	Shuts down and restarts the computer and then restarts any registered applications
/a	Aborts system Shutdown
/p	Turns off the local computer with no timeout or warning
/h	Hibernates the local machine
/e	Documents the reason for shutting down the computer
/m	Specifies the target computer; it is used with \\computername
/t xxx	Where xxx is the number of seconds before Shutdown
/c "comment"	Where "comment" is the reason for the Shutdown or restart
/f	Forces running applications to close without warning users
/d [p\|u:]xx:yy	Provides the reason for the Shutdown action: p = planned; u= unplanned; xx supplies the major reason code; yy = supplies the minor reason code

When you enter a Shutdown with no arguments, the Help listing will display. The Help listing also includes the reason codes available for use with the /d switch. The reason codes are shown below:

Reasons on this computer:
E=Expected	U=Unexpected	P=Planned	c=Customer Defined
Type	Major	Minor	Title

U	0	0	Other(Unplanned)
E	0	0	Other(Unplanned)
EP	0	0	Other(Planned)
U	0	5	Other Failure: System Unresponsive
E	1	1	Hardware: Maintenance(Unplanned)
EP	1	1	Hardware: Maintenance(Planned)
E	1	2	Hardware: Installation(Unplanned)
EP	1	2	Hardware: Installation(Planned)
P	2	3	Operating System: Upgrade (Planned)
E	2	4	Operating System: Reconfiguration (Unplanned)
EP	2	4	Operating System: Reconfiguration(Planned)
P	2	16	Operating System: Service Pack (Planned)
U	2	17	Operating System: Hotfix (Unplanned)
P	2	17	Operating System: Hotfix(Planned)
U	2	18	Operating System: Security Fix(Unplanned)
P	2	18	Operating System: Security Fix(Planned)
E	4	1	Application: Maintenance(Unplanned)
EP	4	1	Application: Maintenance(Planned)
EP	4	2	Application: Installation(Planned)
E	4	5	Application: Unresponsive
E	4	6	Application: Unstable
U	5	15	System Failure: Stop Error
E	5	19	Security Issue
U	5	19	Security Issue
EP	5	19	Security Issue
E	5	20	Loss of Network Connectivity (Unplanned)
U	6	11	Power Failure: Cord Unplugged
U	6	12	Power Failure: Environment
P	7	0	Legacy API Shutdown

You can use many of these switches in conjunction with one another when issuing the Shutdown command. A usage example for the Shutdown command follows:

Shutdown /r /c "Hanging Application or service" /t 30

This example would restart the local machine storing the comment provided with the /c switch. Windows would wait 30 seconds before initiating the restart. You might also create a batch file to use when it is necessary to restart a server in a remote location. The batch file might look like this:

Shutdown /m \\computername /r /c "Remote Restart" /t 45

By saving this command in a batch file, it can save you time if you routinely restart the same remote server.

Inspirational...

2007-10-17T12:43:00.002+10:00

http://www.healthbolt.net/2007/09/20/professors-gives-final-lecture/
http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/TenWays/story?id=3680950&page=1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119084081673940375.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Being Stupid And Litigious Is No Way To Go Through Life - Michael Arrington

2007-10-15T12:57:00.002+10:00

In the past we’ve posted communications whenever someone has threatened to sue us. I think it’s entertaining, and it hopefully makes people think twice before firing up the legal machine with ridiculous claims. So when YouTube sent us a cease and desist letter, I posted it. And when that asshole Shannon Terry threatened to sue us out of existence, I posted that too.

Now the most ridiculous claim yet. Richard Figueroa, who claims to have the rights to this image of Ashton Kutcher, is demanding that we pay him $150,000 immediately or else he’ll sue us for $1.5 million.

Hi Michael, My name is Richard Figueroa and I am contacting you on behalf of the image you are using of Ashton Kutcher that Beth Boldt had taken. Beth is upset that your company has been using his image to generate traffic and revenue to your company without her permission.We are asking that you pay Beth $150,000,00 for the image that you have been using to generate business. If you choose not to settle this bill now we will ask for $1,500,000 in damages in loss of income form the image you have been borrowing for creating traffic to your website with here picture.if you google Beth Boldt you will get an idea of who she is in the modeling and entertainment industry.We would like to settle this quietly without the media getting involved however if you choose not to agree on these terms we will file a lawsuit against your company for copyright violation and we all know how that’s going to turn out since she’s the photographer of the image you are using.
So here is her invoice: Please make check out to Beth Boldt in the amount of ($150,000,00) send it to
[deleted contact information]
And after payment is made you may not use the image of Ashton anymore unless you want to negotiate a contract.

Thank you
Richard Figueroa
BethBoldt

Here’s the problem: we never used that image of Ashton Kutcher on any of our websites. The one image we did use (in this post) was supplied by Ooma (Kutcher is the creative director for Ooma), and Ooma says they own that image.

The problem turns out to be that if you do a search on Google (or “the Google” as Figueroa calls it), the image in question appears at the top of the results and is linked to TechCrunch. Why? Well we did some digging and it turns out that someone linked to the image in a comment to one of our posts.

I explained all of this to Figueroa on the phone but he insisted that Google bought us and that we need to remove the image from Google immediately. Sadly, Google has not acquired us, and I have no easy method for removing images from Google’s servers.

Normally I’d just let something like this drop since this guy doesn’t understand anything about copyright law or the Internet, but he has also been calling and emailing our advertisers and threatening to sue them, too (listen to the voicemail below). They are understandably concerned, and Heather and I now have to spend time today calming everyone down.

Don’t be this guy.

The voicemail below is to one of our advertisers. Listen to a second one, sent to Ooma, here.

Update: Starting at comment #79 below it looks like Richard weighs in with a number of comments. In comment no. 113 he tried to post my phone number and get people to call me and complain but I just deleted it.

Update 2: Richard has been calling me this evening saying people are crank calling him and that he will take “legal activation” against everyone who calls him. I’ve removed the phone number above. Please stop calling him because he just calls me afterwards.

Update 3: So the link to TechCrunch on Google’s search results is gone and the picture now links to Yahoo Answers. Richard still isn’t happy and is demanding I link that search result to him. I’m just speechless.

Windows Live SkyDrive Doubles Storage to 1GB, Still Can’t Keep Up With Gmail

2007-10-15T12:52:00.001+10:00

Microsoft doubled the online storage consumers can get for free in Windows Live SkyDrive. It’s hard to get excited about that when Gmail is already giving me 2.9 GB of storage, with more on the way—4GB by the end of the month, and 6GB by early January, according to one estimate.

Keep that free storage coming. We’ll use it.

Update: Since there’s been such a curiously strong reaction to this post (some of which I suspect is concerted), I’ll just clarify a few things. First of all, the original post—barely more than a paragraph long—is not meant as an in-depth review or article. It is an off-hand observation. Nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes blog posts are like that.

The observation is that on the same day that SkyDrive doubled its storage to 1GB, Google also announced that the 2.9 GB of storage available on Gmail is going to continue to climb significantly (two days after the original post, for instance, it’s at 3.1 GB). Yes, I understand that Web-based file storage and Web-based e-mail are two different things. But as a consumer, that 2.9 GB (now 3.1 GB) of storage on Gmail is my point of reference, and it makes me wonder why SkyDrive is being so stingy. If I were a Hotmail (er, Windows Live Mail) user, I might have noted that SkyDrive cannot even keep up with its own sister e-mail service, which offers 5GB of storage.

Obviously, these are not apples-to-apples comparisons. There may be good reasons why an online file storage system cannot offer as much storage as an online e-mail system (other than the fact that it may be an orphan project starved of resources inside a large corporation). So it would be more fair to compare SkyDrive to other online file-storage services, like Xdrive (which offers 5GB of free storage) or MediaMax (which offers a whopping 25GB of free storage). Any way you slice it, SkyDrive still comes up lacking.

Exclusive: MapQuest Plays Catch-Up With Launch of Beta - Erick Schonfeld

2007-10-15T12:51:00.001+10:00

AOL’s MapQuest may be the market-leading map site by a long shot (with 50 million monthly visitors versus 30 million for Google Maps), but it is still playing catch-up when it comes to features, functionality, and mash-up capabilities. Today, it finally took a big step into the modern Web era with the launch of MapQuest Beta. This is not just a sandbox where MapQuest can safely play with the newest Web 2.0 toys. It’s the new face of MapQuest and by the end of the year will take over the main site, which still remains a very 1.0, page-based destination. MapQuest Beta, in contrast, is built on Ajax, and is thus more of a single-pane experience. I got a sneak peek.

Here’s a screen shot of the new MapQuest:

. . . versus what you see today:

Despite the improvement, the new MapQuest is still pretty bare bones at this point. You can see the map and driving directions in different panes on the same page, and can also create routes for multiple cities (same as on Google Maps). Or, you can collapse the directions pane so that the map covers the entire page. The search and navigation has been simplified to a one-box approach. You can save maps and routes, and share them with people. And you can print out the exact map image easily at the zoom level you want. There is nothing earth-shattering here, but it adds up to a much-needed upgrade for MapQuest. You can read more details here on the new MapQuest Beta blog.

Over the next few months, though, expect to see new features rolled out at a rapid clip, about every two weeks You will soon be able to drag the location pins around to read what’s underneath (they will remain connected to the spot they are marking by a thin line). The maps will become embeddable in other sites. Live traffic updates will be added. And people will be able to annotate the maps. Again, many of these features are already available on Google Maps or Yahoo Maps.

But MapQuest still has the biggest market share, and that share is not yet declining (see chart). Given all the innovation going on with online maps these days, that market share is extremely vulnerable. Now MapQuest will be based on a new technology architecture that hopefully will allow it to respond more nimbly to the incredible diversity of map features and applications that are out there. Still, don’t expect it to do anything too crazy. It’s got 50 million mainstream users that it does not want to alienate. My prediction is that it will remain very much focussed on driving directions and other routing applications, which is its strength. I don’t think we’ll be seeing too many geo-tagged videos on MapQuest. Instead, it will deploy Web 2.0 features to improve its core mapping functions and deepen the loyalty of its existing users. Imagine how grateful they will be when they realize they no longer need to be stuck with a user interface from 1999.

Greenpeace: iPhone Not Good For The Environment - Duncan Riley

2007-10-15T12:48:00.001+10:00

International environmental group Greenpeace has launched an attack on Steve Jobs’ claims that Apple is a company with green credentials by releasing an analysis of the iPhone that finds toxic chemicals that have or are in the process of being eliminated by other mobile phone manufacturers.

According to Greenpeace, the iPhone contains toxic brominated compounds (indicating the prescence of brominated flame retardants (BFRs)) and hazardous PVCs.

Two of the “phthalate plasticisers” found at high levels in the iPhone headphone cable are classified in Europe as ‘toxic to reproduction, category 2′ and are banned from use in all toys or childcare articles sold in Europe.The report noted that Nokia is totally PVC free and that Motorola and Sony Ericsson already have products on the market with BFR free components.

Greenpeace called upon Apple to truly revolutionize the mobile phone by producing an environmentally friendly handset for the iPhone’s European launch.

Listen online - Radio Mirchi

2007-09-24T03:16:00.000+10:00

2006-10-12T21:15:00.001+10:00

Browse the most popular sites on the web.

1.	Yahoo! Personalized content and search options. Chatrooms, free e-mail, clubs, and pager. yahoo.com

2.	Google India Indian version of this popular search engine. Search the whole web or only webpages from India. Interfaces offered in English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi and Tamil. google.co.in

3.	Google Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages. The company's focus is developing search technology. google.com

4.	Orkut Social networking and discussion site operated by Google. orkut.com

5.	Rediff.com India Ltd. Online portal with free e-mail and many other services. rediff.com


6.	YouTube YouTube is a way to get your videos to the people who matter to you. Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide! youtube.com

7.	Blogger.com Free, automated weblog publishing tool that sends updates to a site via FTP. blogger.com

8.	Windows Live Search engine from Microsoft. live.com

9.	Rapidshare.com rapidshare.com

10.	Microsoft Network (MSN) Dialup access and content provider. msn.com

11.	Wikipedia An online collaborative encyclopedia. wikipedia.org

12.	Naukri.com India's No. 1 job site. naukri.com

13.	Cricinfo International cricket news, live scores, photos, columns and player profiles. Provides archive scorecards, statistics database, ratings and email newsletter. Part of ESPN International. UK. cricinfo.com

14.	Indiatimes Portal site; includes news stories under subject headings, and links to other information sources. indiatimes.com

15.	MoneyControl.com MoneyControl.com is India s leading financial information source. It s the official site for CNBC TV18, and provides news, views, and analysis on equity / stock markets, commodities, personal finance, mutual funds, insurance and loans. moneycontrol.com

16.	Facebook A social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study, and live around them. facebook.com

17.	Microsoft Corporation Main site for product information, support, and news. microsoft.com

18.	Sify.com India s leading portal for news, business, shopping, sports, movies, vedic astrology, food, and bollywood videos for Indians and NRIs. The largest Indian Community sify.com

19.	Megaupload Megaupload is a "leading website of the world" for transferring files easily, with complete security and free of charge. megaupload.com


21.	Xboard.us xboard.us

22.	Monsterindia.com monsterindia.com

23.	Masala Talk Chat about Bollywood, movies, and music. masalatalk.com

24.	A World of Music - Raaga.com Hindi, Tamil and Telugu songs. raaga.com

25.	ICICI Bank Offers a wide range of banking products and financial services to corporate and retail customers. icicibank.com

26.	Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Offers online rail ticket booking, and checking of ticket reservation status. Includes train schedules, availability of tickets, and a travel planner. irctc.co.in

27.	ImageVenue hosting World s most popular free image hosting for bloggers and message board users. imagevenue.com

28.	Zapak.com zapak.com

29.	The Internet Movie Database Features plot summaries, reviews, cast lists, and theatre schedules. imdb.com

30.	Bharatstudent.com bharatstudent.com

31.	ICICI Direct Online share and mutual funds trading facility by the ICICI group. icicidirect.com

32.	EBay India Online shopping mall to buy and sell by auction. Includes classifieds listing of products. ebay.in

33.	Santabanta.com An Indian entertainment portal. santabanta.com

34.	Flickr Picture galleries available with social networking, chat, groups, and photo ratings. flickr.com

35.	Times Jobs & Careers A database of jobs advertised in India for positions in India and abroad. From the Times of India Group. timesjobs.com