SteveOH

I was contacted by a Public Relations individual from uCertify who requested me to review their product.  This was quite some time ago, and since I had never used their product before, decided to test their test preparation software out in addition to others.  This short review will not mention other applications, suites or books for the preparation for this exam, only the uCertify application.

The first thing you’ll notice when you download the program, is that they offer a few things.  First, there’s 100% money back guarantee that you’ll pass the test on the first try.  That’s enticing and speaks volumes on their product.  Unfortunately, the money back guarantee is on the ~$70 you spent on the program, and not the $150+ on the exam, but alas, something is better than nothing.  At the very least, you can use that money and try again on the exam (or buy a different prep book).

Second, they offer 2 flavors of their software: a full and free (demo) version.   The demo version has a few questions, enough to give you an idea of what’s going on, but not enough for you to do anything with (ie. pass the test, study from, etc).

Lastly, I like the fact that they give you directions on how to download and install the application.  That’s very thoughtful for users who may not be highly technical but want to be, and are therefore attempting to get certified in a particular technology (this is becoming more and more common, even though the certification is supposed to be taken after experience has been attained in the work place, to validate your skills).

So let’s run the application.

As a software developer myself, I have to say that I like the initial interface a lot.  Everything is very well place and easy to navigate.  The demo version only has a Diagnostic Test (15 questions), Create a Custom Test and Create a Fixed Time Test available to you in the main navigation section.  The “Enhance your understanding” section on the right hand side has all of the items available, which are basically extras to give you an ‘edge’.  It’s mostly general information, some tips, and other resources you can find on the internet.  You don’t need this section, but it’s nice to have everything in one place anyway.

uCertify has their advertisements all over the place “Buy the full version”, which makes me laugh.  That’s what they’re supposed to do, and they do a pretty good job in keeping it in your face as you go through the demo.

Diagnostic Test:

I ran it with 10 total questions, 10 minute duration and a passing score of 730.  I also selected the “Always show last answer option as ‘None of the above’” which I believe to be crucial in getting you to think critically.  Why?  Because everyone will default themselves to “the answer must not be here” if they can’t figure it out or come up with an answer based on incorrect assumptions.  Since it’s there all the time, and you won’t know when it’s a valid option, you’ll definitely think twice before choosing it.  In my courses, I always have this option available to students.

Well, the first thing I noticed while taking the Diagnostic Quiz is that my settings didn’t stick.  I noticed at the bottom that I was on question 10 of 15 (I said a max of 10) and that the “Always show ‘none of the above’” wasn’t being shown on all questions.  Maybe this is reduced functionality for the demo, but it would have been nice to see that stated.

I found the questions a bit vague.  They’re not meant to confuse you, but require a good understanding of the underlying topic for you to know what they’re referring to.  The application does assist you with some background information and explanation, but I don’t believe it to be enough for a full understanding of the topics, but again, they are quite helpful.

The results page is fairly straight forward.  A little hard to read, maybe alternating row colors would have been nicer on the eyes.  Anyway, it tells you what you did right and wrong.  Clicking on the question will take you to the page of that question, with the answer you gave and why you were right or wrong, along with those ‘Facts’ that help you solidify your understanding.

I really like the Readiness report, which gives you a summary on how you’ve done on all the exams (there are 5 practice tests, a final test, and a diagnostic test – 423 questions in total).  They also provide an adaptive test, but that functionality is not available, so I cannot comment on it.

All in all, I believe this to be a good product.  It’s obvious the uCertify is trying to get you to pass the test, as they provide you with several ways of doing so.  If I were going to use this product, I would read a book prior to build a decent foundation, and then polish my skills and knowledge off with this application and its exams.  If you did that, you would have taken 7 tests in the uCertify application, and an additional 1 or 2 in the Microsoft book, for a total of 8 or 9.  You would iterate through the content and examinations enough to know what you have to study and understand better, and know where your strengths are.

If you used the approach above, it would cost you about $100 (Microsoft Self-Paced Certification Books – really the only books available for MCTS-ASP.NET) and $60 for the uCertify application.  That’s $160 in prep (and maybe 1 – 3 months) and then the cost of the exam, which is about $200 or so (don’t quote me on that).  When you buy the Microsoft books, you get a voucher for a discount on the actual exam, so that helps. I believe it to be worth it.

The feedback from the exams is that you need to really memorize the book’s content and have lots of coding experience (more project experience than just slapping code together).  In that respect, an application such as this one will really help you with that, as they ask you real-world type questions.  The link below is to a site of a gentlemen who gives his experience from taking the exam: here

Rating of the Application:

Visual Appeal: 8
Question Difficulty: 8
Extra Content to Help (ie. Tips): 10
Number of Questions / Exams: 9
Reporting: 9
Exam Preparedness: 8.5
Overall: 8.75

I would say this system will help anyone pass the exam, as long as they have the knowledge.  I would / will use this system in the future.

Take a look for yourself: http://www.ucertify.com/exams/Microsoft/70-536-VB.html

You can receive a 10% discount on any certification course you wish to attend using the code STEVEH.  Thank you to Roger and uCertify for their generosity.

Computerworld (07/23/08) Gaudin, Sharon

As Intel reaches its 40th anniversary, a top company executive looks forward 40 years to the point when human intelligence and machine intelligence starts to merge. Intel CTO Justin Rattner says that perhaps as early as 2012 we will start to see the lines between human and machine intelligence blur, with nanoscale chips or machines moving through our bodies to fix damage organs or unclog arteries. Rattner also says virtual worlds will become increasingly realistic, and robots will develop enough intelligence and human characteristics that they will become companions. Most aspects of our lives will be rather different as we approach the year 2050, with computing becoming less about running applications and more about living lives in which computers are inextricably woven into daily activities. “The intelligent systems will move from being information systems to intelligent systems that will carry out a whole variety of tasks that we just won’t think of as computing tasks,” says Rattner. “The technology will find its way into so many things we do, and we won’t even think about it. The explicit way we’ve done computing in the past will be there, but it will be a very small subset of what we’ll be doing.” Chip advancements will continue throughout the semiconductor industry, though computer chips will extend beyond computers and phones as people seek to become more connected in virtual worlds and computers learn to react to our motions and thoughts.

By ROBERT McMILLAN, IDG News Service\San Francisco Bureau, IDG

Published: July 24, 2008

Hackers have released software that exploits a recently disclosed flaw in the Domain Name System (DNS) software used to route messages between computers on the Internet.

The attack code was released Wednesday by developers of the Metasploit hacking toolkit.

Internet security experts warn that this code may give criminals a way to launch virtually undetectable phishing attacks against Internet users whose service providers have not installed the latest DNS server patches.

Attackers could also use the code to silently redirect users to fake software update servers in order to install malicious software on their computers, said Zulfikar Ramizan, a technical director with security vendor Symantec. “What makes this whole thing really scary is that from an end-user perspective they may not notice anything,” he said.

The bug was first disclosed by IOActive researcher Dan Kaminsky earlier this month, but technical details of the flaw were leaked onto the Internet earlier this week, making the Metasploit code possible. Kaminsky had worked for several months with major providers of DNS software such as Microsoft, Cisco and the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) to develop a fix for the problem. The corporate users and Internet service providers who are the major users of DNS servers have had since July 8 to patch the flaw, but many have not yet installed the fix on all DNS servers.

The attack is a variation on what’s known as a cache poisoning attack. It has to do with the way DNS clients and servers obtain information from other DNS servers on the Internet. When the DNS software does not know the numerical IP (Internet Protocol) address of a computer, it asks another DNS server for this information. With cache poisoning, the attacker tricks the DNS software into believing that legitimate domains, such as idg.com, map to malicious IP addresses.

In Kaminsky’s attack a cache poisoning attempt also includes what is known as “Additional Resource Record” data. By adding this data, the attack becomes much more powerful, security experts say.

An attacker could launch such an attack against an ISP’s (Internet Service Provider) domain name servers and then redirect them to malicious servers. By poisoning the domain name record for www.citibank.com, for example, the attackers could redirect the ISP’s users to a malicious phishing server every time they tried to visit the banking site with their Web browser.

On Monday, security company Matasano accidentally posted details of the flaw on its Web site. Matasano quickly removed the post and apologized for its mistake, but it was too late. Details of the flaw soon spread around the Internet.

Although a software fix is now available for most users of DNS software, it can take time for these updates to work their way through the testing process and actually get installed on the network.

“Most people have not patched yet,” said ISC President Paul Vixie in an e-mail interview earlier this week. “That’s a gigantic problem for the world.”

Metasploit’s code looks “very real,” and uses techniques that were not previously documented said Amit Klein, chief technology officer with Trusteer.

It will probably be used in attacks, he predicted. “Now that the exploit is out there, combined with the fact that not all DNS servers were upgraded… attackers should be able to poison the cache of some ISPs,” he wrote in an e-mail interview. “The thing is we may never know about such attacks, if the attackers… work carefully and cover their tracks properly.”

Copyright 2008 IDG News Service. All Rights Reserved.

Jessica Marshall, Discovery News

 

Poop Power

 

July 24, 2008 — Researchers have identified a climate-energy win-win, but it may put them in deep doo-doo.

That’s what happens when you study poop for a living. Michael Webber and Amanda Cuéllar of the University of Texas at Austin estimate that digesting all of the nation’s livestock manure to produce methane to burn for energy could supply more than 2 percent of the country’s electricity needs.

Meanwhile, the process would avoid the greenhouse gas emissions created by burning the equivalent amount of coal, and it would prevent the release of the super-potent greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide released by normal manure degradation, allowing for a double-whammy of greenhouse gas reduction.

The combined savings could reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from electricity by about 4 percent.

“We wanted to look at what would happen if we took all the manure in the nation, which is currently an environmental liability, and turned it into a commodity as a source of energy,” Webber said. The pair’s work is published today in Environmental Research Letters.

Livestock in the United States unload more than a billion tons of manure each year, most of which ends up in lagoons or other outdoor locations where it decomposes, emitting methane and nitrous oxide, greenhouse gases 21 and 310 times more potent at warming than CO2, respectively.

The proposed approach would send the manure to anaerobic digesters where microorganisms would produce biogas rich in methane that could be captured and burned for energy, releasing the less-potent greenhouse gas CO2. The remaining solids could be used for fertilizer.

This approach would reduce other problems associated with manure ponds, including odor, air pollution, and water pollution from runoff or groundwater contamination, Webber said.

Digesters exist in the United States, and many more are used in Europe. But this is the first time anyone has studied the total potential of biogas production in the United States, he added. “The numbers are big enough that they’re worth paying attention to.”

“This isn’t new technology. It’s not hard to implement,” he added. “It’s decades-old technology that’s ready to go right now. We just haven’t done it. We don’t have incentives.”

But now, the rising cost of energy and increasing drive to reduce greenhouse gases and generate renewable energy make this a better time than ever to consider this approach, Webber said.

“There are a lot of biofeedstocks that are receiving a lot of criticism,” Webber told Discovery News. “This one seems controversy-free. It’s a waste stream right now. It doesn’t fall into the trap of competing with food.”

“They paint a very rosy picture of biogas potential by considering all the animals in the country,” said Christopher Weber of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., who has studied greenhouse gas emissions from livestock.

Webber agrees that not all animals are kept in conditions where it would be easy to collect the manure. Large feedlots would be the best starting point. But his analysis provides an upper limit for what might be possible, he said.

Meat, especially red meat, has received recent attention as a less “green” diet choice than vegetables or fish because of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with its production, including from manure. Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions from manure improves the calculation, but it does not even the playing field, Weber said.

“It would do nothing about the carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide in the production of the grain to feed the animals, which is another large chunk of the greenhouse gases associated with red meat production,” he said. Cows would continue to burp methane as part of their digestion, which is the largest source of methane in beef production.

“All in all, for grain-fed beef, I would think manure is responsible for a total of 20 percent of the life cycle emissions or so; a good start but certainly not enough to make beef on par with vegetables or fish in greenhouse gas production.”

I have verified that this fix works, and that it is, in fact, a bug in the latest release.

EDIT: (8.11.08) Please make sure you change the quotes once you copy in the code.  WordPress will alter them, so you need to copy the code into your files and then delete each quote and retype it.  It should clear a lot of the PHP errors everyone’s getting, since it doesn’t know how to handle them, and is resulting in unpredictable behavior.

EDIT: (8.27.08) The paths to the files are as follows:

JOOMLA/components/com_docman/includes_frontend/upload.http.php
JOOMLA/administrator/components/com_docman/includes/files.php
JOOMLA/administrator/components/com_docman/classes/DOCMAN_file.class.php

Where JOOMLA is the root / home folder of the joomla installation (not to be confused with the root folder of the server).

---

Hello I’ve had the error message “error uploading. directory problem” with DOCman 1.4 RC3, debugged the code and found the solution – it is a bug in RC3:Effect:
- Error message: “error uploading. directory problem”, after step 2 of uploading a new file,Occurrence:
- with docman 1.4 RC3, (not with RC1)
- on windows-based webservers (directory paths with backslash)
- if in PHP configuration “magic_quotes_gpc” is set to “on”

Reason:
Bug in RC3:
“DOCMAN_Utils::stripslashes()” removes backslashes in ['tmp_name'], what should NOT be done!!
- in “com_docman/includes_frontend/upload.http.php”, Line 38
- in “com_docman/includes/files.php”, Line 177:

Solution:
In “com_docman/includes/files.php”, line 177
remove DOCMAN_Utils::stripslashes() function:
- incorrect: $file_upload = mosGetParam(DOCMAN_Utils::stripslashes($_FILES), ‘upload’);
- correct: $file_upload = mosGetParam($_FILES, ‘upload’);

In “com_docman/includes_frontend/upload.http.php”, line 38
remove DOCMAN_Utils::stripslashes() function:
- incorrect: $file = mosGetParam(DOCMAN_Utils::stripslashes($_FILES), ‘upload’);
- correct: $file = mosGetParam($_FILES, ‘upload’);

And instead: In “com_docman/classes/DOCMAN_file.class.php”, line 352
add DOCMAN_Utils::stripslashes() function:
- incorrect: $name = $file['name'];
- correct: $name = DOCMAN_Utils::stripslashes($file['name']);

For more information on ['tmp_name'] and backslashes
- see http://ch2.php.net/features.file-upload#42280 (11-May-2004 03:08)

That worked for me.

Good luck!
Benno

Word 2007 will not start up.  It just won’t.  All I see is the splash screen for 5 seconds, and then a silent crash (no error message).  The error log shows an Event ID 7003, session terminated unexpectedly, and some other helpful messages.

So I combed the internet, spent much more time than I should have troubleshooting, and I finally found what the issue was.

Here’s what the deal is.  Apparently Word scans the default printer of the system and loads printer settings, which allows it to set up the WYSIWYG editing and printing capability.  Which is great, however, if the page configuration of the printer (and other settings of course) don’t jive with it, it will fail (in my particular case, the CPU would stay at around 30% (on a dual core, which is significant) and the memory utilization of winword.exe would increase rapidly from 8000 kb to 230,000 kb, at which point it crashed silently (or graciously as some might say).  The issue is the default printer.  If you have a printer that you must print to (and therefore, cannot simply delete), set the Adobe PDF printer as the default and see how nice it is to have Word 2007 startup correctly.

This is a bug, without question.  If a program simply doesn’t functional as defined, for whatever reason, and the application is not prepared for the situation, it is a unforseen / unplanned error and therefore constitutes a bug.   Hopefully they’ll fix it, because the 20 hours I spent troubleshooting this are gone forever.

Windws XP SP2 introduces a few new twists to TCP/IP in order to babysit users and “reduce the threat” of worms spreading fast without control. In one such attempt, the devs seem to have limited the number of possible TCP connection attempts per second to 10 (from unlimited in SP1). This argumentative feature can possibly affect server and P2P programs that need to open many outbound connections at the same time.Rant: The forward thinking of Microsoft developers here is that you can only infect 10 new systems per second via TCP/IP ?!?… If you also consider that each of those infected computers will infect 10 others at the same rate:
second 1:  1+10 computers
second 2: 10+10*10 computers (110 new ones)
second 3: 10+100*10 computers ( 1110 new ones)
second 4: 10+1000*10 computers (11110 new ones)
….
all the way to 10*60 + 10^60 computers in a single minute (that’s a number with 60 digits, or it would far exceed Earth’s population). Even if we consider that 90% of those computers are unreachable/protected, one would still reach ALL of them within a minute.

In other words, even though it is not going to stop worm spreading, it’s going to delay it a few seconds, limit possible network congestion a bit, and limit the use of your PC to 10 connection attempts per second in the process ! I have no problem with the new default setting limiting outbound connection attempts. Still, users should have the option to easily disable or change this setting. I might be going out on a limb here, but ever since the introduction of Windows XP I can’t help thinking that I dislike all the bult-in Windows “wisardry” in a sense that the system also limits user access. That irritating trend to ease the mental load on end users is somewhat insulting, considering that Windows is to make the more “intelligent” choice instead of the end user, as well as limit their access to tuning such settings…
End of rant.

With the new implementation, if a P2P or some other network program attempts to connect to 100 sites at once, it would only be able to connect to 10 per second, so it would take it 10 seconds to reach all 100. In addition, even though the setting was registry editable in XP SP1, it is now only possible to edit by changing it directly in the system file tcpip.sys. To make matters worse, that file is in use, so you also need to be in Safe mode in order to edit it.

You only need to worry about the number of connection attempts per second if you have noticed a slowdown in network programs requiring a number of connections opened at once. You can check if you’re hitting this limit from the Event Viewer, under System – look for TCP/IP Warnings saying: “TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of concurrent TCP connect attempts”. Keep in mind this is a cap only on incomplete outbound connect attempts per second, not total connections. Still, running servers and P2P programs can definitely be affected by this new limitation. Use the fix as you see fit.

To change or remove the limit, you can use the following program:

Event ID 4226 Patcher – Windows XP SP2 – A patching program for removing or changing the limit imposed on connection attempts in SP2. The patcher has the ability to restore tcpip.sys back to the original… Still, you might want to back up tcpip.sys, use it at your own risk. The author of this patch can be reached @ http://www.lvllord.de/

Should I stay or should I go … with Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 is the question in this particular case. One of my customers is still on Visual Studio 2003 and they are wondering whether to upgrade to VS 2005 or to VS 2008.

Are there reasons for moving to VS 2005 instead of 2008 even though 2008 is so close to release? Minimizing risk is probably the major driver for deciding on VS 2005. After all, it’s been out in the market for almost two years and it’s stable and mature. There’s also the common wisdom that you shouldn’t deploy a Microsoft product that doesn’t have at least one service pack. Mind you that SP1 for Visual Studio didn’t come out until 12 months after the release of the product. Microsoft is no longer in the mode where the Service Pack has to hit 6 months after release because there were quality issues that needed to be fixed.

When it comes to determining to move to the newer Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 there are more points to consider:

1) Stability and maturity of the underlying framework and consequently the applications you’re building on top of the framework.

2) Stability and maturity of new features added with VS 2008

3) Product Support differences.

4) Productivity benefits of VS 2008 compared to VS 2005.

Let’s dive a little deeper and examine each of these points:

1) Enhancements to the .NET Framework are built around the stable core of Version 2.0 that ship with Visual Studio 2005, when additions like generics and partial classes required modifying the CLR.

Version 3.0 added to the core set of .NET 2.0, but does not change the core CLR. New functionality is packed in new assemblies, e.g. System.ServiceModel. There were some minor changes to some of the library assemblies, e.g. System.Runtime.Serialization to accommodate new WCF functionality, but by all and large 3.0 is built around the solid core of the CLR and the BCL of 2.0.

Version 3.5 follows the same approach. The 2.0 CLR/BCL core remains largely untouched. New features are either implemented at the compiler level or in the System. Core assembly. Scott Hanselman (who’s finally joined Microsoft) confirmed this claim by doing some deeper research recently. He compared the core libraries that shipped with VS 2005 and the Beta 2 release of .NET 3.5 and found that the percentage of churn was in the single digits.

Since the .NET Runtime and the core libraries are pretty much the same between VS 2005 and VS 2008, there’s no increased risk for applications that leverage core .NET functionality only.

2) Now that we realized that .NET is very stable at its core, let’s look at the additional functionality that’s new with .NET 3.5. There are quite a number of new features (WCF, WPF, Visual Studio, Linq, too many others), but this particular customer is very interested in the new AJAX features. Again, the core framework code at the ASP.NET Ajax framework level has been in the public as a CTP since 2006 and has been RTM since early 2007. The Visual Studio 2008 release is adding more server side control features (for example control extenders), but the core has been publicly available as a preview release for more than 18 months. Another customer I work with is running one of the world’s largest eCommerce sites on top of AJAX some of these CTP bits without impact to their business.

Visual Studio 2008 adds design time tools and more server controls for richer UIs and better communication between the client-side code and the server. Those features are very helpful and the runtime features have been available in CTPs for a while.
Finally, one more risk mitigation factor to consider is recent announcement that source code (with comments) and debugging symbols are going to be available with Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5. If you’re running into issues, you have the unprecedented ability to trouble shoot and diagnose problems.

With all that, my take would be (if I was an architect that didn’t work for Microsoft) that risk from new framework libraries around ASP.NET AJAX is manageable. In other areas, you get all the fixes for .NET 3.0 SP1, which means there’s actually a benefit of fewer pieces to install. The remaining risk is the new code in System.Core and in some other places. Still, I’d feel good about moving to 2008.

3) Now, you may argue that the tools are still new, and there’s some truth in that. Even though the quality of Visual Studio has been pretty good, much better than in the 90s when I first looked at Microsoft tools, but new code is always new risk. One could argue that VS 2005 + VS 2005 SP1 + .NET 3.0 + .NET 3.0 SP1 + ASP.NET AJAX RTM + AJAX Control Toolkit + ASP.NET AJAX Futures CTP gives me the same capabilities as VS 2008 with more stable, proven code. But consider this: The AJAX Control Toolkit is released under a community license, which means there’s not official product support through the Premier Support channels. The ASP.NET AJAX Futures CTP delivers some of the cool improvements over RTM, but the CTP is an unsupported product. The new controls that ship with VS 2008 are fully supported.

You’re actually increasing risk a little bit by staying with Visual Studio 2005 because of a few unsupported bits and you’re greatly increasing complexity of your install process. With VS 2008 you get the stable service pack code for Visual Studio and .NET 2.0 and 3.0 and you get all that in a single install and you get all that in a single install which reduces complexity and consequently risk and cost of deployment. I give that one to Visual Studio 2008.

4) Yes, there is new code in Visual Studio 2008 and there better be . VS 2005 has been lacking the tool support to take full advantage of the .NET 3.0 platform. VS 2005 shipped with .NET 2.0, remember? The .NET 3.0 release was only a framework release. The tool support for WPF, WCF and ASP.NET AJAX is finally shipping with VS 2008.

The improved Javascript IntelliSense support alone is a great enhancement for somebody like me that delegates mundane tasks like remembering method overloads and signatures to IntelliSense. AJAX was painful because IntelliSense in the code editor was rather limited.

Then there’s the client-side JavaScript debugging Scott Guthrie was talking about. You now can set breakpoints from the start, debug and inspect javascript variables with property grids, visualizers and an immediate window just like you can in with managed code on the server.

Then there are other very helpful new features, like the ability call WCF JSON services, the Web Designer with rich CSS Support or the built-in support to make the back button AJAX aware with the history control and, of course , Linq. There are many other exciting new features, too many others to list here, but the bottom line is, there are numerous reasons why VS 2008 is the better choice for developing AJAX enabled sites.

Finally, you could argue that VS 2008 actually gives you the best of both worlds because VS 2008 lets you target different versions of the .NET Runtime. If you’re feeling very strongly about shipping applications on the 2.0 bits or the 3.0 bits, you can still take advantage of the new productivity enhancements in the IDE but build against the framework version of your choice.That’s a great combination or productivity and stable code to optimize for low risk.

Published Monday, October 08, 2007 9:01 AM by ChristophDotNet

When you fire up Internet Explorer 7 for the first time, the runonce page is launched to allow you to configure various options. Once this page has been completed, it should not show up again (thus the name runonce). However, sometimes IE7 continually opens this page each time the application is opened. To fix this, follow these steps:

1. Open Notepad.

2. Copy and paste the following into Notepad:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
“RunOnceHasShown”=dword:00000001
“RunOnceComplete”=dword:00000001

3. Save the text file as IE7_RunOnceComplete.reg, or anything else for that matter.

4. Double-click the newly created file.

5. When the UAC prompt appears, click Continue.

6. When the confirmation box appears, click Yes.

7. The file will be merged to the registry. A confirmation box will appear, click OK.

8. Restart the computer for the change to take affect.

Specifications

Manufacturer:

Fujitsu

Part number:

FPCM10241

General

Platform Technology

Intel Centrino

System Type

Tablet PC

Built-in Devices

Wireless LAN antenna, SmartCard reader/writer

Width

11.5 in

Depth

9.3 in

Height

1.4 in

Weight

4.2 lbs

Processor

Processor

Intel Pentium M 1.4 GHz

Data bus speed

400 MHz

Processor features

Enhanced SpeedStep technology

Chipset type

Intel 855GM

Cache Memory

Type

L2 cache

Cache size

1 MB

RAM

Installed Size

256 MB / 2 GB(max)

Technology

DDR SDRAM – 266 MHz

Memory specification compliance

DDR266/PC2100

Storage Controller

Storage controller type

IDE

Storage

Floppy Drive

None

Hard Drive

40 GB

Storage Removable

None

Optical Storage (2nd)

2nd optical storage type

None

Display

Display Type

12.1 in TFT active matrix

Max Resolution

1024 x 768

Color support

24-bit (16.7 million colors)

Video

Graphics Processor / Vendor

Intel 855GM – AGP

Video Memory

Shared video memory (UMA)

Audio

Audio output type

Sound card

Audio output compliant standards

AC ’97

Input Device(s)

Input device type

Keyboard, Touchpad, Digitizer, Digital pen, Scroll button

Telecom

Modem

Fax / modem

Max transfer rate

56 Kbps

Protocols & Specifications

ITU V.90

Networking

Networking

Network adapter

Networking / Wireless LAN Supported

Yes

Data link protocol

Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, Fast Ethernet

Networking standards

IEEE 802.11b

Expansion / Connectivity

Expansion Bays

None

Expansion Slots Total (Free)

2 ( 1 ) x Memory, 1 ( 1 ) x CardBus – Type III (2 x type I / II)

Interfaces

2 x Hi-Speed USB – 4 pin USB Type A, 1 x Modem – Phone line – RJ-11, 1 x Network – Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX – RJ-45, 1 x Display / video – VGA – 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15), 1 x Infrared – IrDA, 1 x Headphones – Output – Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm, 1 x Microphone – Input – Mini-phone 3.5 mm, 1 x Docking / port replicator

Miscellaneous

Features

Security lock slot (cable lock sold separately)

Compliant Standards

CUL, TUV, EN55022, EN55024, EN 60950, ICES-003, UL 60950, CISPR 22 Class B, FCC Class B certified, FCC Class C certified

Power

Power device form factor

External

Voltage Required

AC 120/230 V ( 50/60 Hz)

Battery

Technology

Lithium ion

Installed Qty

1

Mfr estimated battery life

4.5 hour(s)

Operating System / Software

OS Provided

Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

Software type

Zinio Reader, Microsoft Reader, NewsStand Reader, Drivers & Utilities, Fujitsu HotKey Utility, Microsoft Internet Explorer, FranklinCovey TabletPlanner (Trial), PowerQuest Drive Image Special Edition

Manufacturer Warranty

Service & support type

1 year warranty

Service & Support Details

Limited warranty – 1 year