What is BPA and how can you recognize it?

BPA is an organic synthetically manufactured compound used together with Polycarbonate plastics that arewidely used. BPA stands for Bisphenol A with the Chemcial formula C15H16O2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A

As it is possibly linked to a variety of health risks, it is better to avoid anything that contains BPA as it can leach easily. Read more here on health related issues with BPA:
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/03/28/is-bpa-free-plastic-safe/

You can find from the bottom of the can or bottle if it is BPA free. It appears if you can avoid PVC you can avoid BPA.

 

How do you bring in Solver to Microsoft Excel?

Microsoft's Mathematical Solver Foundation APIs can run on Excel as an add-in.

Adding Solver to your Excel application is quite easy.

Presently I have Microsoft Excel 2013 which is a subscription (~$10/month) I have for Microsoft Office 365 Business shown here:

Office365.png

Launch a new Excel application from its shortcut. The Book1-Excel window will be open as shown. Note that the Data menu is highlighted here. If Solver is already added you should see it in this menu.

SolverAddIn_0.png

Click File | Options to open the Excel Options window.

Click Add-ins to open the Microsoft Add_ins as shown.

SolverAddin.png

Click on Solver Add-in and click OK to open this picklist Add-ins window.

SolverAddin_2.png

Place check mark for Solver Add-in  and click OK.

The Solver gets into the Data menu as shown. From where you can launch it.

SolverAddin_3.png

What is Windows Phone Recovery Tool?

Windows Phone Recovery Tool is what you need when you get your Windows Phone in a difficult position and you want to go back to the factory set image.


This tool was used to recover a failed Windows Phone 8.1 which could not be reset to its original state using Settings menu. The phone entered a state from which it could not recover. All you could see was repeated 'gears' coming up; Windows logo flashing, and this repeating over and over again.

The Windows Phone recovery tool was downloaded from here to the laptop:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Mobile-Phone-Tools/Others/Windows-Phone-Recovery-Tool.shtml

Click Download button on this page to display

Click on External mirror1 and save the file to the laptop or PC.

 

Windows Phone Recovery Tool 2.1.1 details:

----------------
2.1.1 **
- Bug fixes
** 2.1.0 **
- SW recovery improvements for Lumia Phones that are not detected.
- Bug fixes
** 2.0.3 **
- Support for HTC One Windows Phones.
** 1.2.4 **
- Bug fixes and small improvements.
** 1.1.0 **
- Tool is now localized in 40 different languages.
- Several bug fixes.
** 1.0.6 **
- Bug fixes
** 1.0.4 **
- Bug fixes
** 1.0.3 **
- This is the first official release of the new Windows Phone
Software Recovery Tool. Tool currently supports all WP8 Microsoft
Lumia phones and later also other brands.
- Software recovery allows you to get the phone to latest available
software version. All user data will be erased in the process.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Double click the tool in its saved location.

Connect your phone to the PC (in this case a laptop) with the USB Cable. Do not disconnect or mess with phone till the process is complete. You may need to push the Volume Low and Power buttons on the Windows Phone together till it vibrates.

 

The recovery tool properties for Nokia Lumia.

 

ToolProps.png

 

Click on Lumia icon.

The program is waiting for the phone to be connected. You should really get the phone to connect by pressing the Volume down and Power down/up button till you feel the vibrations.

Click on the Install Software button. Another warning and a disclaimer.

Click Continue. A package will be downloaded and it is a hefty file (1.6GB). This takes quite a bit of time depending on your Internet connection speed.

It is better to start with fully charged battery.

Click Next.

The package installation process begins. The phone selection page is displayed. If it does not you ma have to press hard the Volume down and Power buttons together till you feel the vibration.

Click on Lumia 929 (this is Lumia model number for the Nokia Icon).

The program will try to read the phone information.

By this time your phone starts up with Verizon and Windows splash screens and you will asked to customize. The phone is now restored to the Windows Phone 8.1 Original.

The restore agent will pop-up and guides you through restoring the app settings etc. Your apps, alarms, contacts will all be recovered. The photos/videos are all gone, perhaps uploaded to the OneDrive. If it was uploaded to OneDrive, I am not sure which named location it was uploaded to. Fortunately I had copied all the photos/videos to a 1TB drive.

The version of Windows Phone 8.1 restored was the following:

How do you create a Visual C++ CLR Console Application in Visual Studio 2015?

Common Language Runtime (CLR) applications depend on .NET Framework and are compiled to intermediate code interpreted by CLR at run time. Win32 applications compile/link directly to machine code and is independent of CLR.

You can create Visual C++ CLR Console application using Visual Studio.

Launch VS2015 Express 2015 for Windows Desktop.

Click File | New Project
Expand Visual C++ node and click CLR. The New Project Windows presents the diffrent project Templates as shown:

ClrConsole_01

Click CLR Console Application  shown above and change the Name at the bottom of screen to ClrConsoleApp.

Click OK to create the folder/files for the project template as shown. Accept default location for directory. The project gets created as shown:

ClrConsole_02

Make sure you read the ReadMe.txt file in the project that gives the overview of the project you created.
The References node shows the default references general, data and xml.

Reference System contains fundamental classes and bare classed that define commonly used ValueTypes and reference datatypes, events, handlers etc.

mscorlib: assembly dll that supports .NET Framework development

The template already has the 'Hello World' program. Note that for this program all that you need is the namespace System. The following is the main project file created by the template.
--
// ClrConsoleApp.cpp : main project file.
#include "stdafx.h"
using namespace System;
int main(array ^args)
{
    Console::WriteLine(L"Hello World");
    return 0;
}
-------------
Click Build | Build Solution for F7 (see next image)

ClrConsole_03

 

The build succeeds as it should as shown:

ClrConsole_04

Click Debug | Start Without Debugging. The Console window opens as
shown displaying the result of running the code:

ClrConsole_05
The next image shows the project in the file system of the computer.

ClrConsole_06
Access the project properties to view more details:

ClrConsole_07
The Application.exe file can be run from command line. There is no graphical user interface.

Note that intellisense is available in the VS 2015 IDE as shown here (just added a int variable):

ClrConsole_08

Here is some code added to ClrConsoleApp.cpp
--------------
// ClrConsoleApp.cpp : main project file.
#include "stdafx.h"
using namespace System;
int main(array ^args)
{
    Console::WriteLine(L"Hello World");
    Console::WriteLine("");
 int x = 5;
 Console::WriteLine(x);
 return 0;
}

The code when run produces this:

 

What is Google Cloud SQL?

ISO/IEC 27001 compliant Google Cloud SQL is a fully managed database service on a pay-per-use option providing database infrastructure in the cloud. Google Cloud SQL can easily set up, maintain, manage and administer relational MySQL databases in the cloud. Google Cloud SQL is on Google Cloud Platform.

It is so fully automated you may not need a DBA.

There is no software needed for installation or management and ideal for small and mid-sised businesses. Replication, patch management and database management are all automated.

Data is automatically encrypted adn replicated to many geographic
locations and failovers are handled automatically.

Try it free here:
https://console.developers.google.com/freetrial?_ga=1.252176009.1404788957.1438979658

How do you recover a failed phone OS?

This is about a Nokia Icon, a Verizon specific phone. It had Windows 8.0 when purchased and later a Windows Phone 8.1 preview was installed. When finally Verizon rolled out Windows Phone 8.1, Nokia Icon was upgraded to Windows Phone 8.1.

Recently Windows 10 Technical Preview for Windows Phone became available. (http://hodentekmobile.blogspot.com/2015/07/good-news-for-windows-phone-users-and.html)

This post here describes the step-by-step procedure to download and install the preview.
http://hodentekmobile.blogspot.com/2015/07/installing-windows-10-technical-preview.html)

However it became apparent that the update/install process did not work even after dozens of trials including soft reset etc. The process would start and go through the process of installing at the end of which the error is displayed.

Interested readers may want to follow this link on the Insider's forum:
I seem to satisfy all requirements but I get 0x80070070 error installing Windows Phone 10 Technical Preview on Nokia Icon

The upgrade to Window 10 Technical preview would now involve two steps:

• Recover the original Windows Phone 8.1 to the state it was in when upgraded to Windows Phone 8.1
• Upgrade the phone to the new version namely, Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones (most likely Windows 10 RTM for Nokia Icon may not be available well into 2016, if lucky)

The rest of what follows deals with restoring the phone to its original state, the first step.

After dozens of trials it was decided to restore the Windows Phone to its original state using the Settings/backup on the Windows Phone which will backup
1.apps+settings,
2. text messages, and
3.photos/videos.

After backing up as above the Settings | About| Reset your phone button was clicked. The Windows Phone displayed the usual warnings about a reset operation and went into a series of screen changes which involved the usual screen with 'gears' and sometimes flash of Windows Icon and sometimes just NOKIA in the center of screen. The reset operation did not succeed although the Windows Phone was left connected to the AC mains with the USB cable. After some 14 hours in this state of 'limbo'.
 it was decided to use the 'Windows Phone recovery tool' to recover the Windows Phone to the original settings.

The Windows Phone recovry tool was downloaded from here to the laptop:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Mobile-Phone-Tools/Others/Windows-Phone-Recovery-Tool.shtml

Click Download button on this page to display

Click on External mirror1 and save the file to the laptop or PC.

 Double click the tool in its saved location.

Connect your phone to the PC (in this case a laptop) with the USB Cable. Do not disconnect or mess with phone till the process is complete. You may need to push the Volume Low and Power buttons on the Windows Phone together till it vibrates.

Click on Lumia icon.

The program is waiting for the phone to be connected. You should really get the phone to connect by pressing the Volume down and Power down/up button till you feel the vibrations.

Click on the Install Software button. Another warning and a disclaimer.

Click Continue. A package will be downloaded and it is a hefty file (1.6GB). This takes quite a bit of time depending on your Internet connection speed.

It is better to start with fully charged battery.

Click Next.

The package installation process begins. The phone selection page is displayed. If it does not you ma have to press hard the Volume down and Power buttons together till you feel the vibration.

Click on Lumia 929 (this is Lumia model number for the Nokia Icon).

The program will try to read the phone information.

By this time your phone starts up with Verizon and Windows splash screens and you will asked to customize. The phone is now restored to the Windows Phone 8.1 Original.

The restore agent will pop-up and guides you through restoring the app settings etc. Your apps, alarms, contacts will all be recovered. The photos/videos are all gone, perhaps uploaded to the OneDrive. If it was uploaded to OneDrive, I am not sure which named location it was uploaded to. Fortunately I had copied all the photos/videos to a 1TB drive.

The version of Windows Phone 8.1 restored was the following:

Why Windows Phone operating system is tied to the carrier?

Actually this was my question to one of Microsoft's forum.

Verizon is my carrier and the carrier is slow in rolling out updates (more interested in quick sells). It took a year for Verizon to go from Windows Phone 8 to Windows Phone 8.1 after Window Phone 8.1 went RTM.

Here is my question:
Regarding tying OS with Carrier:
"
I think this is very a bad decision.
I bought my Nokia Icon and I was not aware at that time that it was Verizon Specific. When the Operating System was upgraded to 8.1, Verizon took one year to roll out while they were busy selling the Androids and Apples which were the major phones (in terms of sales) after many writing and complaining.
http://hodentekmobile.blogspot.com/2014/07/windows-phone-81.html
http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2014/11/filed-complain-to-fcc.html"

This is the answer from the forum:

Your question on Microsoft Community has received a reply from TomBrad95.

Title: Why is Operating System tied to Carrier?

Reply

Carriers need to do their own testing before releasing it to the public, most of the carriers in the U.S. take their time with windows phone and some even put it off, there was a discussion from Microsoft saying that they will no longer be required carrier testing and instead releasing straight to users, however I'm unsure whether this is still true or not since there hasn't been an OS release since, we'll find out when windows 10 mobile is released.

Read this reply on Microsoft Community.