Windows 7 – Windows XP Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)

If your Windows XP machine is using :

• Static IP
  You might have to fill the Windows XP’s DNS Server with  the same address as the gateway (your Windows 7(server)’s local IP address).
• DHCP (Automatic IP Address)
  You do not have to fill the DNS server in your Windows XP machine.

Oracle BI SE1 Services

To use Oracle Application Server we should start OC4J which can be done by “Start OC4J” and shutting it down by CTRL+C in the OC4J console.
And to completely shutdown the remaining services that BI uses:

net stop OracleServiceBISE1DB
net stop OracleDBConsolebise1db
net stop “Oracle BI Server”
net stop “Oracle BI Presentation Server”
net stop “Oracle BI Java Host”

This will stop the services and freeing your machine’s memories.

To start the services again just use the following commands:

net start OracleServiceBISE1DB
net start OracleDBConsolebise1db
net start “Oracle BI Server”
net start “Oracle BI Presentation Server”
net start “Oracle BI Java Host”

To make things easier, make .bat files and paste this commands.

**

If you can not start OracleDBConsolebise1db service then you should try this at cmd:

SET ORACLE_SID = bise1db
EMCTL START dbconsole

It will give you the error message, “/oc4j/j2ee/OC4J_DBConsole_118.136.27.180_bise1db not found.”

Go to “/oc4j/j2ee/” copy folder “OC4J_DBConsole_?????_bise1db” and rename it to “OC4J_DBConsole_118.136.27.180_bise1db”. Now start your dbconsole again.

Note: Adjust your ORACLE_SID and the missing folder name to yours

Problem with USB 2.0 Driver

Recently I got my USB Driver downgraded from 2.0 to slower speed (1.1?). I think it happened when I plugged my friend’s external harddrive to my computer and it caused some error. So everytime I plugged my USB storage, the Windows pop this message :

The USB Driver installed at that time :

Now, the solution to fix the Driver back into USB 2.0 Driver:

• Go to your BIOS, make sure the “USB 2.0″ is enabled
• Go to device manager Open the Universal Serial Bus Controllers (like above picture)
• Uninstall the USB Drivers
• Restart
• Your Windows (XP SP1) will install the proper drivers now

Result:

HTS Programming 2

A year and a half ago, I played this hts game. It’s kinda addicting for me : ), learnt new stuffs, etc. And I reached Programming 2, with a little programming skill I tried to finish this and end up not knowing what to do. I didn’t want to skip the level so I didn’t continue to further levels, but I promised to my self to finished this level someday with C or C++. Eventually I just forgot about hts, but a couple days ago I suddenly remembered about this, so I gave it a try again. And I did it ; ). Yey I kept that promise ( although I took a year and a half to keep it ).

#include "CImg.h"
#include <iostream>
#include <curl/curl.h>
#include <stdio.h>

using namespace cimg_library;
using namespace std;

const string morse[] = {
    ".-", "-...", "-.-.", "-..", ".", "..-.", "--.", "....", "..",
    ".---", "-.-", ".-..", "--", "-.", "---", ".--.", "--.-", ".-.",
    "...", "-", "..-", "...-", ".--", "-..-", "-.--", "--..", ".----",
    "..---", "...--", "....-", ".....", "-....", "--...", "---..", "----.",
    "-----"
};

const char alphabet[] = {
    'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'H', 'I', 'J', 'K', 'L', 'M',
    'N', 'O', 'P', 'Q', 'R', 'S', 'T', 'U', 'V', 'W', 'X', 'Y', 'Z',
    '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '0',
};

// Dummy WriteFunction
size_t dummy (void* , size_t size, size_t nmemb, void*){
    return size*nmemb;
}

// Get Ascii value of specific x,y
int getAsciiValue( int x, int y, int& curr, int& prev ){
    int result;

    curr = x + (100*y);
    result =  curr - prev;
    prev = curr;
    return result;
}

// Return a string contains TEXT of the datamorse
string getText( string datamorse ){
    string temp, datatext;
    int i=0,j=0;
    for( i=0; i<datamorse.length(); i++ ){
        if( datamorse.at(i) == ' ' ){
            for( j=0; j<sizeof(alphabet)/sizeof(*alphabet); j++ ){
                if( temp.compare(morse[j]) == 0 ){
                    datatext.push_back(alphabet[j]);
                    temp.clear();
                    break;
                }
            }
        }else{
            temp.push_back(datamorse.at(i));
        }
    }
    return datatext;
}

// I forgot the postdata in curl use char* since it's a C library
// But I made the getText returning String and I'm too lazy to fix it so I just use this function
// to move String value to a char*
void stringToChar ( string stype, char *ctype ){
    int i;
    for( i=0; i<stype.length(); i++ ){
        ctype[i] = stype.at(i);
    }
    ctype[i] = '';
}

int main(){
    CURL *curl, *image;
    CURLcode result, imgresult;
    FILE *fp, *fpResult;
    char *url  = "<span class="linkification-ext">http://www.hackthissite.org/user/login</span>";
    char *url2 = "<span class="linkification-ext">http://www.hackthissite.org/missions/prog/2/</span>";
    char *url3 = "<span class="linkification-ext">http://www.hackthissite.org/missions/prog/2/PNG/</span>";
    char *url4 = "<span class="linkification-ext">http://www.hackthissite.org/missions/prog/2/index.php</span>";
    char *postdata = "username=USERNAME&password=PASSWORD&btn_submit=Login";    //change USERNAME and PASSWORD to yours
    char *cookiefile = "tempcookie";

/*Logging in and retrieving the image*/
    curl = curl_easy_init();
    if( curl ){
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, cookiefile);        //  Enable cookies
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);            // Follow HTTPresponse redirections
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, dummy);        // Disable CURL output to stdout
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, postdata);        // Send Post data
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, url);                    // Setting target url

        // Connect to target (login)
        result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
        if( result ){
            cout << "Cannot connect to site, check your url!\n";
        }

        // Setting new target url
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, url2);
        // Connect to target (mission page)
        result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
        if( result ){
            cout << "Cannot connect to site, check your url!\n";
        }

        // Open file
        fp = fopen("PNG.png", "wb");
        if( fp == NULL ) cout << "File cannot be opened";

        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, NULL);    // Set to default stdout
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, fp);            // store stdout to file
        curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, url3);                // Setting new target Url

        // Grab image
        imgresult = curl_easy_perform(curl);
        if( imgresult ){
            cout << "Cannot grab the image!\n";
        }

        // Close the file
        fclose(fp);
    }
/*End of Logging in and retrieving the image*/

/*Open PNG file, read morsecode, decode and write the TEXT*/
    CImg <unsigned char> img("PNG.png");                        // Open PNG.png
    string datamorse, answer;
    int x=0,y=0;
    int curr=0, prev=0;

    for( y=0; y<30; y++ ){
        for( x=0; x<100; x++ ){
            if( img(x,y,0,0) == 255 ){
                datamorse.push_back(getAsciiValue(x,y,curr,prev));    // If at x,y the pixel has RED value == 255 it gets the AsciiValue and store it to datamorse
            }
        }
    }

    cout << datamorse << endl;
    answer = getText(datamorse);
    cout << answer << endl;
/*End of Open PNG file, read morsecode, decode and write the TEXT*/

/*Answering the Mission*/
    fpResult = fopen("htsresult.htm", "wb");                // Opening file to write the final result
    if( fp == NULL ) cout << "File cannot be opened";

    char tempanswer[answer.length()+2];                        // Make an empty array for tempanswer
        stringToChar(answer, tempanswer);                    // Move answer value to tempanswer
    char postanswer[100] = "solution=";
        strcat(postanswer, tempanswer);                        // "solution="+tempanswer
        strcat(postanswer, "&submitbutton=submit");            // "solution="+tempanswer+"&submitbutton=submit"

    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, url4);                // Setting new target Url
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, fpResult);    // store stdout of the final result to file htsresult.htm
    curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, postanswer);    // Fill Post data with the answer

    // Posting the answer
    result = curl_easy_perform(curl);
    if( result ){
        cout << "Cannot connect to site, check your url!\n";
    }

    // Clean up curl's the resources
    curl_easy_cleanup(curl);
/*End of Answering the Mission*/
    return 0;
}

It will connect to hts site and log in using USERNAME and PASSWORD. Retrieve Programming 2 PNG file, retrieve the morse code, decode it to text, submit the answer. This program will generate PNG.png file and htsresult.htm file which contains your result for that challenge.

Note:

• When compiling be sure to link the necessary library that cURL and CImg need.
• It seems WordPress try to make the url a hyperlink even though I use sourcode tag, just get rid of it all leaving only the url.
  

Using cURL in MinGW

curl is a command line tool for transferring files with URL syntax, supporting FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, TELNET, DICT, LDAP, LDAPS and FILE. curl supports SSL certificates, HTTP POST, HTTP PUT, FTP uploading, HTTP form based upload, proxies, cookies, user+password authentication (Basic, Digest, NTLM, Negotiate, kerberos…), file transfer resume, proxy tunneling and a busload of other useful tricks.

• You can download the curl library for C in the website: http://curl.haxx.se/ . I use curl-7.19.3.zip .
• Extract the file so it’s all in same folder (I assume the folder name as curl).
• Navigate to that folder through command line and use mingw32-make mingw32 command.
• The command will generate files in /curl/lib folder.
• Now you can test it by compiling the example in /curl/docs/examples/
• Navigate to /curl/docs/examples
• Compile using gcc -DCURL_STATICLIB -I ../../include -L ../../lib simple.c -o simple -lcurl -lws2_32 -lwinmm
• Run the executeable file simple and you will see the html file you’ve successfully fetched.

Note:

• Use -DCURL_STATICLIB (I will  post more about this when I know about dynamic/static library)
  
• Make sure the compiler know where to search the curl’s include and lib folder
• Library needed : curl, ws2_32, winmm

Using CImg in MinGW

The CImg Library is an open source C++ toolkit for image processing designed with these properties in mind: Usefulness, Genericity, Portability, Simplicity, Extensibility, Freedom.

You can see the details and download it at http://cimg.sourceforge.net/

To use this, first you need to download the library ( I’m using CImg-1.3.0.zip as I’m writing this post). After your download the library, you will get a bunch of stuff: documentations, examples, resources, etc. The one you need is only the CImg.h.

Move it your MinGW include folder or your can just include it at compile time ( using -I as in i not L ). Now you are ready to code using CImg. : )

#include "CImg.h"

using namespace cimg_library;

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    CImg<unsigned char> img(640,400,1,3);            // Define a 640x400 color image with 8 bits per color component.
    img.fill(0);                                       // Set pixel values to 0 (color : black)
    unsigned char purple[] = { 255,0,255 };         // Define a purple color
    img.draw_text(100,100,"Hello World",purple,0,1,35); // Draw a purple "Hello world" at coordinates (100,100).
    img.display("My first CImg code");               // Display the image in a display window.
    return 0;
}

Note:

• Use cimg_library namespace to help writing your code
• When compiling, be sure the compiler found CImg.h
• When compiling, link it to gdi32 library
• If you want to use CImg to open image file such as (JPEG, PNG, etc) you have to install other library such as ImageMagick that CImg uses. To download ImageMagick visit the site : http://www.imagemagick.org/. I installed version ImageMagick-6.4.9-7-Q16-windows-static.exe

Installing MinGW

Files needed:

• binutils (binutils-2.17.50-20060824-1.tar.gz)
• gcc-core (gcc-core-3.4.5-20060117-3.tar.gz)
• mingw-runtime (mingwrt-3.15.1-mingw32.tar.gz)
• w32api (w32api-3.12-mingw32-dev.tar.gz)

Optional:

• gcc-g++ (gcc-g++-3.4.5-20060117-3.tar.gz)
• mingw32-make (mingw32-make-3.81-20080326-2.tar.gz)
• etc

*the green text are the version that I use when writing this post

To download those files, visit http://www.mingw.org/ and check for the latest releases.

After finished downloading those files, simply extract all the files in a folder. When choosing the “Destination Folder” for the installation, please consider not installing MinGW in a path that contains spaces. (C:/MinGW)

Add your PATH variable with the installation folder (C:/MinGW)

To compile your code

g++ foo.c -o bar.exe

Rangkuman Operation System Programming (sm.5)

• Fork
• Unamed Pipe & Named Pipe
• Shared Memory
• Semaphore

Jika suatu process(parent) menggunakan fungsi fork(), maka suatu process(child) baru akan terbentuk yang merupakan process yang identik dengan parent-process yang memanggilnya. Child-process yang baru terbentuk akan mendapatkan PID baru dan memiliki PPID yang sama dengan PID pada parent-process. Process ini dapat dibedakan dengan menggunakan fungsi getpid() yang akan mengembalikan PID child-process bila dipanggil pada parent-process dan mengembalikan 0 jika dipanggil pada child-process. Setelah itu dapat dilakukan flow-control untuk melakukan tugas masing-masing pada child/parent process.

Tujuan dari melakukan fork() yang saya tangkap untuk saat ini adalah untuk menjalankan/membentuk process melalui suatu process yang berjalan.

Advanced programmers often use multiple cooperating processes in a single application to enable the application to do more than one thing at once, to increase application robustness, and to make use of already-existing programs.

(Unamed&Named) Pipe merupakan salah satu dari metoda IPC(Interprocess Communication). Tujuan dilakukannya IPC adalah agar antara process satu dengan process yang lain dapat salin berkomunikasi seperti pertukaran data dan lainnya. Metoda untuk melakukan IPC ada beberapa seperti Pipe, SharedMemory, Sockets, etc.

Dengan menggunakan Pipe maka dua process yang berbeda dapat (berkomunikasi) bertukar data satu sama lainnya.  Dengan gambaran process membentuk suatu jalur antar process yang mana dari jalur ini dapat ditulis / dibaca data, sehinga terjadi pertukaran antar process. Ada dua jenis pipe yaitu

• UnamedPipe (pipe();)
• NamedPipe (mkfifo();)

dimana masing-masing memiliki karakterisiknya masing-masing.

A pipe’s data capacity is limited. If the writer process writes faster than the reader process consumes the data, and if the pipe cannot store more data, the writer process blocks until more capacity becomes available. If the reader tries to read but no data is available, it blocks until data becomes available.Thus, the pipe automatically synchronizes the two processes.

SharedMemory merupakan salah satu metoda IPC lainnya yang dapat digunakan. Dengan gambaran pertama-tama dengan membentuk shmid(memesan suatu alamat) dengan shmget(), lalu meng-attach suatu pointer kepada shmid tersebut. Process yang ingin ikut menggunakan alamat memory tersebut secara bersamaan dapat meng-attach pula suatu pointer kepada shmid yang sama. Dengan adanya pointer yang menunjuk kepada shared memory maka process-process tersebut dapat mengakses suatu alamat memory yang sama, dengan ini dapat terjadi komunikasi antar process.

Pro and cons
Shared memory segments permit fast bidirectional communication among any number of processes. Each user can both read and write, but a program must establish and follow some protocol for preventing race conditions such as overwriting information before it is read. Unfortunately, Linux does not strictly guarantee exclusive access even if you create a new shared segment with IPC_PRIVATE.
Also, for multiple processes to use a shared segment, they must make arrangements to use the same key.

Seperti yang disebutkan diatas bahwa untuk menggunakan shared memory pada beberapa process, diperlukan suatu protocol untuk membentuk suatu pengaturan agar tidak terjadi race condition dan overlapping dalam penggunaan memory tersebut secara bersamaan, terdapat suatu metoda untuk membantu shared memory membentuk protocol tersebut yaitu dengan menggunakan Semaphore.

Semaphore dapat digambarkan sebagai suatu counter yang dapat dilakukan operasi penjumlahan dan nilainya dijadikan patokan untuk sinkronisasi antar process. Nilai pada semaphore tidak dapat berupa negatif. Contoh penggunaan semaphore adalah pada kasus produsen dan konsumen. Dimana konsumen dapat menggambil barang jika produsen sudah memproduksinya dan menaruhnya pada stock barang. Dengan menggunakan semaphore kita membuat suatu set perintah pada produsen untuk {menghasilkan barang lalu meng-set counter +1} dan pada konsumen {meng-set counter -1 lalu mengambil barang}. Maka jika konsumen berusaha untuk {meng-set counter -1 lalu mengambil barang} pada saat counter = 0, maka process konsumen akan terhenti sementara (paused) hingga produsen {menghasilkan barang lalu meng-set counter +1}. Ketika produsen telah mengerjakan perintah tersebut maka counter = 1, sehingga process konsumen dapat berjalan mengambil barang dan counter pun akan menjadi = 0 lagi.

Contoh (click pada link dibawah untuk mendownloadnya):

• Penggunaan fork dan pipe
• Penggunaan SharedMemory dan Semaphore

P.S: Tulisan diatas berdasarkan pemikiran dan kesimpulan menurut penulis saja. Tidak ada jaminan 100% benar, malah dijamin 100% tidak benar semua, kalau ada yang mau koreksi dipersilahkan dengan senang hati

Playing Warcraft 3 with Garena

In my previous post I’ve posted about VPN using Hamachi, in this post I’m going to guide you playing Warcraft 3 using another VPN, Garena.

Why Garena? Garena is an online portal that makes you play online games with other people from different countries even continents, yet there will be no significant delay ( of course depending on your connection too ). For more information just visit the website : http://www.garena.com .

What you need :

• Warcraft 3
• Manual Patch for v1.22 (if your version is not yet 1.22)
• Garena Client

Steps ( for those who already has v1.22 w3 skip to step 3 ) :

1. Copy your old version of warcraft to a new folder
2. Extract Manual Patch v1.22, copy it’s content(you dont have to copy the maps folder) to your W3 v1.22 folder
3. Install Garena Client
4. Register and Login
5. Select your games (no 1), channel (no 2) and room (no 3)
6. Now that your in a game room click Settings (no 1)*use this image for further numbering
7. After that Setting windows will pop up, set the path to your game .exe (war3.exe in this case)
8. Now click Start Game (no 2) your warcraft should start now, make sure it is v1.22
9. Choose Local Area Network
10. Choose a room and play : )
    <p: |> show your ping to server, the less the better

    Step 11-15 is optional to improve your connection with server

11. After choosing a room, look at the server’s nickname, alt tab to your garena client
12. Search the server’s nickname at player list (no 3)
13. Right click on it and click Tunnel (no 4)
14. Alt tab back to Warcraft3
15. Play : )

Have fun~

Using OpenGL Utility Toolkit with .NET 2003

Since I have to try GLUT, I’ll make this guide how to use them.

Required Files:

• glut32.dll
• glut32.lib
• glut.h
• Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003

You can get glut32.dll, glut32.lib and glut.h from http://www.xmission.com/~nate/glut.html , get glut-3.7.6-bin.zip (117 KB).
Next step is to move the files to these locations :

• glut32.dll -> \WINDOWS\system32
• glut32.lib -> \Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio NET 2003\Vc7\PlatformSDK\Lib
• glut.h -> \Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio NET 2003\Vc7\PlatformSDK\Include\gl

Now that we’ve installed the glut, it’s time to test some simple code.

1. Open your Visual Studio .NET 2003
2. Press Ctrl+Shift+N
3. Select Visual C++ ( Win32 Console Project ) and name your project
   
4. Click Application Settings and Check Empty Project box
   
5. Next step is adding the code, press Ctrl+Shift+A, select C++ File, and name it.
   
6. In the blank .cpp file, type / paste your code
   
7. Run your project
   

I will try to update this Post when I have a better understanding of OpenGL.

End of Post