What is HTML5 WebSocket?

If web pages use WebSockets protocol APIs than two-way communication with a remote host becomes possible. WebSockets interface supports full-duplex communication channel that operates through a single socket over the web.

HTML5 WebSocket reduces unnecessary web trafic and latency compared to (Ajax) polling and (Ajax) long-polling solutions used to simulate full-duplex connection by maintaining two connections.

Another nice feature of WebSocket is its ability to traverse firewalls and proxies. The communicaiton with a specific host and port are mediated by a tunneling connection to the proxy. WebSocket can detect the presence of proxy and all this happens automatically.

A HTTP connection switches to Websocket in a process called WebSocket handshake. The browser requests this handshake pointing to the WebSockets' site:

GET ws://echo.websocket.org/?encoding=text HTTP/1.1
Origin: http://websocket.org
Cookie: __utma=99as
Connection: Upgrade
Host: echo.websocket.org
Sec-WebSocket-Key: uRovscZjNol/umbTt5uKmw==
Upgrade: websocket
Sec-WebSocket-Version: 13

Here is a complete picture of the communication between web browser and an applicaiton through a WebSocket Server Gateway.

Read more here.

Where can I download Microsoft Network Monitor?

Microsoft Network Monitor has been replaced by Microsoft Message Analyzer that works with Windows 10.

This paragraph from Microsoft Documentation:
Microsoft Message Analyzer is a new tool for capturing, displaying, and analyzing protocol messaging traffic, events, and other system or application messages in network troubleshooting and other diagnostic scenarios. Message Analyzer also enables you to load, aggregate, and analyze data from log and saved trace files. It is the successor to Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4 and is a key component in the Protocol Engineering Framework (PEF) that was created by Microsoft to improve protocol design, development, implementation testing and verification, documentation, and support. With Message Analyzer, you can choose to capture local and remote traffic live or load archived message collections from multiple data sources simultaneously.

You can down load it from here:
After download run this file in the download
MessageAnaalyzer64.msi

MicrosoftMsgAnalyzer_02.jpg

Is there a place to learn SQL Programming in Honolulu?

Yes. At the Honolulu Community College's PCATT.

Classes will be starting promptly on January 28. You still have time to register.

Register here: http://ce.uhcc.hawaii.edu/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=load&courseId=78659

What is NAT?

NAT is Network Address Translation. A network device such as a firewall or router assigns public address to one or more computers inside a private network.

In Home computers, for example, if you have a number of connected (wired/wireless) computers then each of them can have a public address. These computers can share resources like files/folders inside the private network. A router is involved in routing the traffic between them.

Here is an example of 3 computers (wi-fi) forming the internal network with the router as the default gateway.

NAT conserves the number of public addresses. In the example you would have required 3 public addresses to connect to Internet.
 

What is a .nar file?

NAR extension refers to Nikon Capture Advanced Raw file.

You might have found it in the pictures you might have recently captured and saved to your Camera Roll. Perhaps you might not have associated these (.nar files) with the cute effect you might have observed. You click on one of these images and it comes to life briefly (Live Images)  before settling to a still that you have been used to all along. These are live pictures.

If you try to attach it with a message you will get two options, an image or a video. I sent it out to my wife to her iPhone 6S and she got a video. The video effect on iPhone 6S is Ok but not like it is on Windows 10 Phone Lumia 950. You have got to see it to know how it looks. This is developing area  of  rich capture.

Read all about it here:
http://allaboutwindowsphone.com/news/item/21078_Rich_Capture_finally_fixed_for.php

How is this done?
Briefly, a number of shots are taken successively and combined smartly to produce a file that produces this effect. The same idea is extended to provide a better illumination for the captured object than in the original.

Is it possible to access a Microsoft Report Server in Microsoft Edge?

What I have found so far is that you cannot access the Report Server using the Microsoft Edge browser.

Microsoft Edge, or simply Edge is the default browser in Windows 10. It is not designed to start with elevated permissions.

When you try to access Reporting Services Server  in the default Edge browser on Windows 10 and you end up with access denied message. The message as says , /  does not have sufficient permissions. One could use another browser such as Firefox but Reporting Services server cannot be accessed even when the browser is launched with elevated permissions. Firefox did not have problems in accessing the Report Server in SSRS 2012.

The way out for this in using the IE 11 browser that comes with Windows 10.

Is it possible to charge a car wirelessly?

It is possible. Electrical vehicles require battery charging. One of the main problems faced by the vehicle industry is that there are not enough battery charging stations. Batteries can be charged hooked up to power sources that convert alternating current to direct current, or they can be wirelessly charged.

You might have heard of Faraday's laws of induction and this is the principle used in quite a few of the recent things you have seen:

Wireless chargers for cell phones
Induction cooktops
RF Tags

In fact Induction heating has been in use for a long time in metallurgical industries and in Induction Motors for rotating machines and a linear type called Linear Induction Motor.

You may even be owning a smart phone battery charger that uses the induction principle. In order to adopt all formats of devices from different vendors you need a standard and standard exists for wire-less charging. There are two standards so far, the Qi Wireless Charging Standard and the A4WP standard. Do the standards cover all shapes and sizes? perhaps not. These standards not only cover the core functionality of transferring power by induction but also digital intelligence to some extent.

What about charging a car wirelessly? Well it appears to have been worked out as well. Will it be available for all electric cars? That needs to be seen.

Read these articles as well:
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/big-town/cutting-cord-hevo-power-takes-wireless-vehicle-chargers-spin-article-1.1726734

http://www.cnet.com/paid-content/news/cutting-the-cord-on-electric-vehicles/.

How do I find details about my battery in my Windows 10 laptop / tablet?

In both cases you can get the information about your battery (especially if you want to replace it) using the power configuration command as in:
---------
C:\Users\powercfg /?
You get the help for power configuration as shown here:
------------
C:\Users\Jayaram>powercfg /?
POWERCFG /COMMAND [ARGUMENTS]
Description:
  Enables users to control power settings on a local system.
  For detailed command and option information, run "POWERCFG /? "
Command List:
  /LIST, /L          Lists all power schemes.
  /QUERY, /Q         Displays the contents of a power scheme.
  /CHANGE, /X        Modifies a setting value in the current power scheme.
  /CHANGENAME        Modifies the name and description of a power scheme.
  /DUPLICATESCHEME   Duplicates a power scheme.
  /DELETE, /D        Deletes a power scheme.
  /DELETESETTING     Deletes a power setting.
  /SETACTIVE, /S     Makes a power scheme active on the system.
  /GETACTIVESCHEME   Retrieves the currently active power scheme.
  /SETACVALUEINDEX   Sets the value associated with a power setting
                     while the system is powered by AC power.
  /SETDCVALUEINDEX   Sets the value associated with a power setting
                     while the system is powered by DC power.
  /IMPORT            Imports all power settings from a file.
  /EXPORT            Exports a power scheme to a file.
  /ALIASES           Displays all aliases and their corresponding GUIDs.
  /GETSECURITYDESCRIPTOR
                     Gets a security descriptor associated with a specified
                     power setting, power scheme, or action.
  /SETSECURITYDESCRIPTOR
                     Sets a security descriptor associated with a
                     power setting, power scheme, or action.
  /HIBERNATE, /H     Enables and disables the hibernate feature.
  /AVAILABLESLEEPSTATES, /A
                     Reports the sleep states available on the system.
  /DEVICEQUERY       Returns a list of devices that meet specified criteria.
  /DEVICEENABLEWAKE  Enables a device to wake the system from a sleep state.
  /DEVICEDISABLEWAKE Disables a device from waking the system from a sleep
                     state.
  /LASTWAKE          Reports information about what woke the system from the
                     last sleep transition.
  /WAKETIMERS        Enumerates active wake timers.
  /REQUESTS          Enumerates application and driver Power Requests.
  /REQUESTSOVERRIDE  Sets a Power Request override for a particular Process,
                     Service, or Driver.
  /ENERGY            Analyzes the system for common energy-efficiency and
                     battery life problems.
  /BATTERYREPORT     Generates a report of battery usage.
  /SLEEPSTUDY        Generates a diagnostic connected standby report.
  /SRUMUTIL          Dumps Energy Estimation data from System Resource Usage Monitor (SRUM).
-----
One of the arguments is 'batteryreport'.
Now if you type as shown here:
--
C:\Users\Jayaram>powercfg /batteryreport
Battery life report will get saved to C:\Users\Jayaram\battery-report.html.

Type as shown below, the HTML file will be launched in a browser.
C:\Users\Jayaram>battery-report.html
C:\Users\Jayaram>

Your battery report is saved to a html file.  This file is launched when you run the command, battery-report.html as above.
Here is the generated file (only partly shown):

These are the main sections in the report:

Battery details
Installed Batteries
Recent Usage
Battery Usage
Usage History
Battery Capacity History
Battery Life Estimates

It may be interesting to run this file once in 3 months and keep a record. When you are not using you can switch off (for long expected durations of inactivity), or let it sleep (for shorter durations of inactivity). Adjust your battery saver settings in Windows 10 Settings.

What is SQL Server Utility?

It is an utility that helps comparing your SQL Server Performance to Policies and help identifying problems, if any.

SQL Server Utility also goes by the name SQL Server Utility Control Point and it collects configuration and performance information from managed instances of SQL Server every 15 minutes. This information is stored in the Utility Management Data Warehouse(UMDW) on the UCP with the file name sysutility_mdw. SQL Server performance is compared with the established policies and problems are flagged.

If you have multiple SQL Server Instances or data-tier applications consider creating a SQL Server Utility Control Point (UCP).

What is MirrorLink protocol?

MirrorLink Protocol which is presently in version 1.1 allows third-party apps to on board screens in automobiles. It is an interoperability standard to interface smartphones with the car's in vehicle infotainment (IVI) system.  This allows drivers to access more mobile apps from dashboards. This may not be as distracting as you think it will be, due to the fact that there are resrictions on how it is implemented. The Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) is behind MirrorLink.

Apps should follow CCC guidelines to get their apps on dashboards. App developers would need the CCC approval which defines two categories, base category and drive category. The drive category apps will be those that can be used while the car in motion.

Here are some MirrorLink enabled displays taken from this site.

Is there a tool to convert an image file to a picture file with.ico extension?

I am sure there are quite a few if you look in the Internet.

This site has a 3 step online program to convert pictures into .ico format.
http://www.pic2icon.com/format_conversion.php

Should I reply a call from 71891729910?

I do not think you should.

There is something wrong about this number. The telephone operator (AT&T) in my case flagged it as an international call. AT &T advised me to call the donotcall.gov site. I do not know anyone from this area code (assuming it is 718).

This web site flags it as something that may be related to terrorist, but I am not sure.
http://stopting.us/en/number/71891729910

I called up www.donotcall.gov and added my telephone numbers.

Is it related to terrorists? I am not sure. I did not answer although for the last two, three days he/she attempting to talk to me.

How do you find Object_name and Object_Id for columns in SQL Server?

In SQL Server 2012, sys.columns is a view you can find in the node System Views in the msdb database.

The various columns in sys.views are shown in this next image. You can find everything about the Columns in this view.



If you know the ObjectID of the Column of a table in the database, you can find its name from this query, the intellisense gives you an idea of this selection.

SysColumnName.png

A typical query and its output are as shown for finding the column name from ObjectID.

SysColumnName_02.png

If you know the Column_Name then you can find Column_ID, the intellisense gives you an idea of this selection.

SysColumnID.png

A typical query and its output are as shown for finding Column ID from Column Name.

SysColumnID_02.png

Starting from table name you can get the columns from these queries:

You can also get the ObjectID of the table from this query:

Use Northwind
go
Select *
From sys.tables
where tables.name='Employees'
go

The above query returns one value=245575913
Using the above you can get a whole lot of information for the columns from this query:

Select *
from sys.columns
where Columns.object_id=245575913

How do you create a columnstore index in SQL Server Management Studio?

ColumnStore index is  described in this post .

Of course you need Enterprise edition of SQL Server 2012 ColumnStore Index as on no other version it is supported.

However, if you have a developers edition of SQL Server 2012 you can see a few basic steps as described here.

Here are some step-by-step screen shots to create the  index

We will be creating the ColumnStore index for the Employees table which has already the following indexes.

In order to create a ColumnStore Index (only one per table) right click Indexes node and choose the Non-Clustered Columnstore Index as shown.

This brings up the New Index window as shown. The windows comes up with a default name for the index which you change or modify.

Modify or change name and click on the Add... button as there should be at least one column for the index. When you click on Add... button, the Select Columns from 'dbo.Employees' windows is displayed as shown.

Place check mark for the columns to be included. Here in three columns will be added. Preferably the data types of columns are either int or nvarchar. The one likely to be advantageous are those that are repeated in the table. Here Country, City and Reports to column are added.

Click OK and the information gets into the New Index window.

Click OK on the New Index window and the index is created as shown in the Indexes node in Object Explorer.

 You can look for this in sys.indexes as shown