JMeter - 1 account simulates 100 users to Login Website

Question: I'm having a problem with JMeter result.
I only use 1 account (username/password) simulates 100 users (Thread group > Number of Threads : 100).
My scenario is:
100 users login to a website at same time (Ramp up: 1) > After login successful, I add a Response Assertion to make sure that I'm at Home page.
Result: All Pass, but I notice that a lot of users were moved to Login page (Fail).
I wonder if my Load test scenario was right or not?
Do I have to create 100 accounts and use CSV Configuration to make sure that all 100 users are logged in successful?
Thanks for your help
Comment: I don't think you need to create multiple accounts. But, I would require more details to help you.
Comment: The problem is: when I set Number of thread = 100 and Run the scenario (100 users login at the same time, Ramp up = 1) . The Result tree said that 100 users were logged in successfully, but when I check each user in the result, there are a lot of users can not log in the website, they are still at the Login page.
Answer: You do not actually need 100 accounts to simulate 100 users load. 1 user account is enough. However it completely depends on your application & your test script design.
1 of our applications do not support different sessions for the same user account. It will kill old the session. So, If I follow your approach, only the 100th thread will be active. All other user sessions will be destroyed. So I had to create different user accounts.
Even if your application supports this, you need to design your script carefully.
For ex: Lets assume your test script - logins to the gmail application, deletes the first email. So, if you are using 100 threads for the same account, you need to ensure that you have 100 emails for the account so that all the threads can have some emails to delete.
When you have rampup as 1 second,
1) You are actually Stress testing the server - Server can not handle this huge load. This could be causing the failure.
2) Considering the above example, when 100 users (but 1 account) login to the application at once, there is a chance that more than 1 thread would try to delete same email which could also cause failure.
So, try to have appropriate rampup period as per your requirements, create more accounts / update test script accordingly.
Comment: Dear Vinoth S,
Thanks for your precious advice,
Yesterday I created 100 user's accounts > put data in CSV file and use the CSV Configuration of Jmeter to run my script.
Tomorrow, I will test with 1000 users, here is my plan:
I will use 11 computers: 1 host, 10 slaves to perform Distributed testing.
At each slave, I will put a CSV file which contains 100 accounts (seperate from 1000 users) and my script.
Then, I will use Host to remote 10 slaves.
Is it a good plan or not??? Thanks and hope you have nice weekend
Comment: @hidalgo Could u find an answer for this?
Answer: generally webapplications generates token (like csrftoken) for each request when we hit the application url for security purpose for the first time in browser. it uses the same token in every subsequent request. but you cannot use the same  token for multiple users as the application will not allow the user to login. We have to dynamoically fetch the authentication token in the first request using post processor and send it dynamically in the subsequent request. hope this helps.
let me  know if this helps.


How do I tell whether an app or website has accessed my account password?

Question: Is it possible for apps to access one's Google account login credentials? How can a user determine whether this has occurred?
Comment: Out of my head, I don't know how to check "whether this has occured". But in order to make that occur, an app needs the [`USE_CREDENTIALS`](https://android.izzysoft.de/applists/perms#USE_CREDENTIALS) permission – so you can at least check which apps have that. All others shouldn't be capable of this.
Comment: Go to your Google account and do a security check it will show what all has access to you account
Answer: To determine if an app has accessed your account, you would need to look at that service.
For example, too see if an app is connected to your Google account, while logged into your account in a browser go to https://myaccount.google.com/permissions and you will see all the connected apps, what they are connected to and if they have basic account information permission or not.
Facebook has a similar page available at https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications as does Twitter at https://twitter.com/settings/applications
Other services you may have given an app credentials to likely have a similar page, if not I don't believe there is a way in your Android device to see if an application has actually used any permission or credential you have given it.


Does the pressure valve on the wall need to replaced

Question: Hi I just got my hot water tank replaced and the repair man said that the water pressure was to strong and that I need replace the pressure valve. And that the part costs $500. Is this true or am I getting ripped off sincerely new home owner
Comment: Sounds like a ripoff to me a top of the line brass regulator or the ones I have used are well under 100$ for a 1 inch ported model. Many regulators a rebuild kit can fix the problem for 10-20 bucks.
Comment: In agree with  @EdBeal price comment.  In addition you need a second option.  If they just told you it's "too strong" that's pretty arbitrary.  Do you have a gauge what does it show?
Answer: Having replaced the water heater in my home recently, and also having a surprise needed replacement of the pressure reducing valve too, I can sympathies with your situation.
If you are just replacing the Pressure-Reducing valve for your home, you can find Pressure-Reducing valves from $50 to $150 at your local big box home improvement store. For our project we spent around $95 to match the size of the threads to the previous arrangment.
Also when working on hot water heaters and valves, I learned that this is also the time to have a Expansion tank installed, or replaced. If this is also something in the agenda, you are looking at around $40-90 at the same retail outlet.
Also factor in cost for copper / pex, etc fittings, and any tools that you need and there should be your cost to do it yourself.
Depending on the plumbing in the home, it could take anywhere from minutes to hours (like mine) to replace. I'd recommend having someone confident in the task to complete the job. It's possible to do it on your own, just make sure to do your thorough research.
If possible, request a itemized list of expenses for the project to help you understand the high cost. If unable to be provided with that, I'd recommend shopping around for another plumber as this does seem high.
Comment: I agree ( check out rebuild kits way cheaper).+
Comment: Concerning the need for an expansion tank, could one just depend on the pressure relief valve on the hot water tank to keep the pressure below the point of damage? Or could one plumb in a pressure relief valve somewhere to drip into a drain to relieve pressure?


ASP.NET component that allows online Annotation of PDF files

Question: We are trying to develop an application to view and annotate PDF files in ASP.net.
The function involves capturing x,y coordinates from a click and placing the annotation on that specific location.
Are there available components to do this?
Thanks in advance.
Answer: I am not sure I have enough information to provide a specific answer to your question, but perhaps this info can get you started...
If I understand correctly, you are going to provide some UI that will enable the user to point to the location of the annotation when viewing the document, then you will modify the PDF on the server, and render it with the annotation at the point selected by the user.
Perhaps one way you can capture mouse input to enable the user to select the location of the annotation is to render an image of the PDF document page and show it on the page, and then capture the mouse location on a click event.
Then, if you have the annotation and the desired location, you could use a PDF library to update the PDF and draw your annotation into the document on the specified page at the specified X,Y coordinates.
We are using a PDF generation library that we are very happy with to render PDF documents on the web server, which we deliver to the browser via our ASP.NET application.
You might want to take a look at this product and see if it can meet your needs:
DynamicPDF from ceTe software: http://dynamicpdf.com/
Hope this helps.
Answer: We are also looking at this and found this Java applet which does the job very well.
Answer: We have also looked at jPDFNotes at qoppa, and had good results with it.
Answer: I've used iTextSharp in the past, to annotate PDFs of Piping & Instrumentation diagrams - worked rather well.


Is there a maximum number of files per directory or maximum directory size?

Question: Recently I made a directory with > 20,000 small mp3 files in it. Not all the files successfully copied across from my desktop computer and if I tried to add any more I received an error message similar to - 'Unable to create the file'.  I assumed I had reached some sort of system limit, but I was just guessing.
Samsung galaxy tab.
Comment: In any case creating catalog with a lot of files isn't good idea. In such way you make filesystem sloooooow. Make subfolders and sort files into them. Also it simplifies file searching.
Answer: This, really, isn't an android question, it relates more to file systems.
The limitation is set by the file system. FAT32 can have 65,536 entries. Each file and
subdirectory takes from two to thirteen entries, depending on the
length of its name.
There is one entry that hold the Short (8.3) name of the file name. If the actual name doesn't fit that entry, then there will be one to twelve more entries, each of which holds 13 bytes of the full name.
The size of the file itself, doesn't have make a difference, unless the file is larger the 4GB, which is the maximum file size for a single file in FAT32.
You can read more on the FAT32 Spec if you wish here.
Comment: @George, I assumed FAT32, as he is copying files to his SDCard, while he could use extX, it is unlikely, as FAT32 is how android formats the sdcard. And AFAIK, android does not have an NTFS filesystem module.
Comment: *The size of the file itself, doesn't have make a difference, unless the file is larger the 4GB, which is the maximum file size for a single file in FAT32.*

I've often get problems with files bigger than 2GB on FAT32 FS.
Comment: *FAT32 can have 65,536 entries.*

If article in wikipedia [1] is correct, there are some    moments. 1. There are different items in file system: root entry catalog, directory catalogs and entries in these types of catalogs. 2. It looks like that the number of entries is linked with cluster size. 3. All files in subdirectory is described in this subdirectory's catalog.

Also we don't know what type of FS is using OP. Maybe it is FAT32, maybe ext3, or maybe NTFS (I'm really not sure does Android support it).

[1] -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table
Comment: I've checked NTFS support status. Yes, you are right there isn't support for NTFS in stock firmwares. But if you need so, you can add it by hand. Please, look here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=13337600&postcount=6

Also I agree with you that most common FS for memory cards is FAT32.

But in Android devices there is internal storage. And it can be mounted to desktop PC when you connect Android device to PC. And what FS is used there is question. Another good link: http://leemn.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/galaxy-tab-changing-file-system-to-ext4-and-upgrade-to-modaco-rom-beta1/
Comment: The only file system that android will recognize for the sdcard is FAT32. if you format it as anything, you would have to do other "tricks" with scripts to get it to mount it. I have a partition on my sdcard formated as ext3 back on my G1 so I could do apps2sd, and android does not see it as part of the sdcard. there were external scripts that were used to mount it.
Comment: Where did you find that rachels wrote files on SD but not internal 16GB of Samsung Galaxy Tab? It isn't obvious.
Comment: the internal storage on a galaxy tab or galaxy s device is recognized as an sdcard, and is formatted as FAT32.


Electrolysing vinegar

Question: Yesterday I made a mixture of vinegar and salt and then electrolyzed it. I was just wondering if anyone could tell me what the process created. For instance, would it create ethane?
Comment: Vinegar in water is a slightly acidic solution. My guess would be evolution of hydrogen and oxygen gas at cathode and anode respectively. However, varying concentration and external potential might change the products
Comment: If you have table salt in the solution you will get Chlorine produced in preference to Oxygen at the anode.
Cathode still produces Hydrogen in this case.
Answer: As @Amritansh Singhal said, $\ce{H2}$ would be produced at the cathode from the electrolysis of both the water and some from the acetic acid (main ingredient of vinegar after water) and $\ce{O2}$ would accordingly be produced at the anode.
The question in your comment "Would it create ethane?" is where some more interesting chemistry might take place.  The short answer is "very little at the most" since in the presence of water, the cell potential will be limited by the electrolysis of water as described above.
However, if you could obtain pure acetic acid and produce the proper cell potential, then you could see the Kolbe electrolysis reaction, which would produce ethane.  According to excerpts from this Wikipedia article":

"The Kolbe reaction is formally a decarboxylative dimerisation of two
  carboxylic acids (or carboxylate ions)."

With respect to acetic acid specifically the above article states:

"The reaction mechanism involves a two-stage radical process:
  electrochemical decarboxylation gives a radical intermediate, then two
  such intermediates combine to form a covalent bond. As an example,
  electrolysis of acetic acid yields ethane and carbon dioxide:"
  $$\ce{CH3COOH → CH3COO− → CH3COO· → CH3· + CO2}$$
  followed by:
  $$\ce{2CH3· → CH3CH3}$$

Where the latter product is ethane.
Comment: Yeah, it's going to react with most everything, though particularly another methyl radical.  Reactions with radical intermediates will just tend to have lots of unwanted byproducts unless you have pure reagents, the right conditions, etc.  That's part of the reason for my comment that you would get "very little at the most" unless you could get pure acetic acid, though I appreciate you mentioning that issue explicitly.
Comment: Well $\ce{CH3}\cdot$ is too reactive to survive for any length of time in aqueous solution. I'd guess that you'd only get ethane in very concentrated solutions of acetic acid (e.g glacial acetic acid).

Electrolysing vinegar


Question on Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff (TOV) equation for time-dependent spacetimes

Question: Is there a way to conceive a TOV equation, and therefore the stability analysis for a metric like:
$$ ds^2 = -dt^2 + a^2(t,r)\big(dr^2 + r^2d\Omega ^2\big)~?\tag{1}$$
Answer: The TOV equations apply when you have a static, spherically symmetric spacetime (they describe the hydrostatic equilibrium): they are derived from the Einstein equations under the assumption of static spherical spacetime and perfect fluid, see also this.
If the body is collapsing /exploding /oscillating in a spherically symmetric way, you need to consider the full Einstein equations (they simplify a lot because of spherical symmetry) and provide a model for matter (the simplest possibility is the perfect fluid, like for the TOV). You can find a scheme in Simple equations for general relativistic hydrodynamics in spherical symmetry applied to neutron star collapse. Another scheme is, e.g., the one implemented in the one-dimensional, general-relativistic hydrodynamic code (publicly available) developed in this paper. A simpler case was studied by Snyder and Oppenheimer: calculated the gravitational collapse of a pressure-free sphere of dust particles as described by general relativity.
Edit: I notice now that maybe you are more interested in a FLRW spacetime, while the links in my answer are for a Schwarzschild-like metric (like the one of a non-rotating neutron star/white dwarf).  I am a bit confused on what exactly you are looking for. However, the general comments are still valid: you just have to provide a matter model (I.e. an energy-momentum tensor) and write explicitly Einstein equations for you metric ansatz.


New Mac Machine is asking apple id

Question: New Mac Machine is asking apple id on start up of machine is it really required or mandatory to have an apple id to start with this? if so can i create an apple id without providing any credit card info?.
Please guide this newbe...
Comment: You cannot create an apple ID without putting in your card details. However I believe you shouldn't need to put one in, in order to log in.
Comment: Why not call their customer support? You bought their product, they should fix it for you.
Comment: @geminiCoder You can create an Apple ID ***without*** entering any credit card information, see http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2534.
Comment: To avoid people telling you to press the skip button, please edit in some more details on what exactly you don't get about this one form on setting up OS X. (You will also find that reading the guide on [ask] and sticking to one question per question works best on the Stack Exchange sites.)
Comment: The article on how to create an Apple ID without supplying a credit card is common to iOS and Mac OS X, so I'll point you there and you can feel free to edit this to reopen it if you find the answers here aren't what you sought.
Answer: The AppleID is used for a number of services such as iCloud storage and purchasing apps from the Mac app store. An AppleID isn't required to create an account, however, so you should be able to skip the 'create an AppleID step'.
Answer: You can absolutely skip the Sign in / Create AppleID step, simply click the "Skip" button in the lower right corner of the window:

You can always sign in and/or create an AppleID after the fact.  After skipping the step in the initial setup you WILL be prompted to create an account, however this is a local user account that will be used to administer your Mac, this is in no way attached to AppleID aside from enabling the option to "allow AppleID to reset this password".
Comment: +many points for the proper use of a black stick to focus attention on the **skip** button.
Comment: Is there a way to bypass it in command line?

New Mac Machine is asking apple id


i uninstalled meta mask from my android phone however i have failed to import the old account even though i know the 12 phrase

Question: meta mask app was un installed from android phone. Upon re-installation, the app asks for a 12 phrase to import my account.  i have tried to import with the 12 word pass phrase but this has failed yet the 12 phrase is correct one. How can i restore my old account which has some ETH! please assist
Answer: Once try to import your account on the Chrome Metamask extension. Hope it works this way.


Solving the differential equation $y^3y''+y^4 = \text{Constant}$

Question: As per my knowledge and current understanding of differential equations, we may solve these kind of equations by solving the homogeneous part guessing the non-homogeneous part of the solution. I get the general solution for the homogeneous part, but when I try to make an ansatz for the non-homogeneous part to calculate the particular solution, I fail to eliminate the constant. So, how do I eliminate the constant, and get to the solution of the equation?
Answer: Write $y''+y=Cy^{-3}$ and let $y'=u$ then $y''=uu'$ with independent variable $y$, then $2uu'=2Cy^{-3}-2y$ concludes
$$u^2=-\dfrac{C}{y^2}-y^2+C_0$$
thus
$$y'=\dfrac{\sqrt{-C-y^4+C_0y^2}}{y}$$
or
$$\dfrac{y}{\sqrt{-C-y^4+C_0y^2}}dy=dx$$
gives us the general solution $\color{blue}{\dfrac12\arcsin\dfrac{2y^2-C_0}{\sqrt{C_0^2-4C}}=x+C_1}$.


scikits confusion matrix with cross validation

Question: I am training a svm classifier with cross validation (stratifiedKfold) using the scikits interfaces. For each test set (of k), I get a classification result. I want to have a confusion matrix with all the results.
Scikits has a confusion matrix interface:
    sklearn.metrics.confusion_matrix(y_true, y_pred)
My question is how should I accumulate the y_true and y_pred values. They are arrays  (numpy). Should I define the size of the arrays based on my k-fold parameter? And for each result I should add the y_true and y-pred to the array ????
Comment: I got a solution for this problem. For each iteration( thru my k-fold) I create a "confusion matrix" that I add to the previous one. In this way I get a CN that contains all the values.  With numpy it is easy to build this cumulative matrix (cm += cm)
Comment: But I still have the problem if I want to get an accumulated report about precision/recall(classification_report). Each iteration will have an "y_true", y_pred". How do I get a final report?
Comment: Throughout cross-validation, y_true will be constant. For y_pred, you can follow same procedure like confusion matrix. Take aggregated/total predictions.
Answer: You can either use an aggregate confusion matrix or compute one for each CV partition and compute the mean and the standard deviation (or standard error) for each component in the matrix as a measure of the variability.
For the classification report, the code would need to be modified to accept 2 dimensional inputs so as to pass the predictions for each CV partitions and then compute the mean scores and std deviation for each class.
Comment: How would can you create aggregate confusion matrix?


Aestan Tray Menu Error

Question: i installed the wamp server 2.2e in windows xp. when i start the wamp server it displays the windows error(Aestan Tray Menu has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience). Can anyone advise how to resolve this issue
Answer: Before you install Wamp!
If already installed, then UNINSTALL WAMP(you can backup folders WWW and BIN>mysql>data), and install MS PACKAGES at first:
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package !
 ( or 2010 or 2012 version..
in some cases, maybe .Net Framework is needed too?))
After that, install WAMP!
Comment: Tried that, did not work. :(
Answer: A few things to check:

Have you installed the services? It can be a little temperamental the tray, but look for an install services batch file. This will get the apache and mysql services running
Is your configuration OK? Particularly, check apache's config with httpd -t on the command line (make sure that you're in the apache/bin folder if httpd isn't in your path)
Have you got the correct version (32bit versus 64bit)?
Have you checked your wamp error logs?
Have you got the pre-requisites installed, such as the Microsoft VC++ redistributable?

If you're still having trouble, checkout the official forum (such as this post http://forum.wampserver.com/read.php?2,53095) and post there for some decent help.
Comment: I am getting problem at point 2. How to change apache configuration to start? Please help.
Comment: Click the Aestran tray, scroll to Apache, then click httpd.conf, which will open the config file in an editor. What error do you get when you run `httpd -t`?\
Comment: Thanks for response. Now problem is solved. I tried http://stackoverflow.com/a/14550573/1045444.
Answer: Migh be the same issue (have to install Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package) :
Not able to launch WAMP - Aestan Tray Menu has stopped working
Comment: Nope, issue still exists.
Answer: Try to install .Net framework Latest version.
 Link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=21
Before Installing WAMP make sure that you uninstalled old versions.

Aestan Tray Menu Error


In Marketing Cloud Journey Builder if a lead is converted to a contact is the contact "created"?

Question: I'm using the Marketing Cloud Journey Builder. I want to use "is created" an entry source on a Contact object converted from a lead. Will this enter the contact into the journey?
Answer: You'll have to query the Salesforce_Leads synchronized data extension to get this converted leads data. Below are a number of related questions on this:
Check if a Lead is converted after Salesforce Data entry in Journey Builder
Leads converting to Contacts in Journey Builder
Leads not 'meeting goal' when converted


Create edited boot ISO file of Ubuntu, i386-pc not found

Question: I have a dual boot system with Win10 and Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS (Xenial Xerus) on different partitions. I am trying to configure a Virtual Machine in Windows, which can access the already installed Ubuntu.
I am following the instructions at: Using a Physical Hard Drive Pariition as a VirtualBox VM and as a Bootable Partition
I got to step where I have to copy /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/* to  ~/Desktop/iso/boot/grub. However, these is no i386-pc directory(I think because I have AMD processor), the directories I see in
/usr/lib/grub/:
grub-mkconfig_lib  x86_64-efi  x86_64-efi-signed

As I don't have i386-pc, which files do I need to copy over to create the GRUB Recovery ISO, which the Virtual Machine will use to boot into Ubuntu?
I tried to use x86_64-efi/* to create ISO file and load it to VM, but the VM says:
FATAL: Could not read from from the boot medium! System halted.
Is there any way to create grub boot iso file with edited grub.cfg on my machine?(As in the link was mentioned, it is important to delete windows configuration so that I would not be able to start the OS twice, that would break the whole system)
Laptop Acer E5-553, processor: AMD 9600P, virtualization: on,
Answer: Accidentally I found out that I needed to turn on EFI in the Virtual Box. So the solution will be:

Use x86_64-efi instead of i386-pc, copy all the internal files to
  grub folder and continue the guide.


Check users in a security group in SQL Server

Question: In the Security/Users folder in my database, I have a bunch of security groups, include "MyApplication Users". I need to check if I am (or another user is) in this group, but I have no idea how to query for it or where I could see this information. I tried looking in the properties, but couldn't find anything. Any ideas?
Answer: Checking yourself or the current user:
SELECT IS_MEMBER('[group or role]')

A result of 1 = yes,0 = no, and null = the group or role queried is not valid.
To get a list of the users, try xp_logininfo if extended procs are enabled and the group in question is a windows group :
EXEC master..xp_logininfo
@acctname = '[group]',
@option = 'members'

Comment: If only I had the permissions...
Answer: For a quick view of which groups / roles the current user is a member of;
select
      [principal_id]
    , [name]
    , [type_desc]
    , is_member(name) as [is_member]
from [sys].[database_principals]
where [type] in ('R','G')
order by [is_member] desc,[type],[name]

Answer: To find the AD Group members in the Instance, we can use below query:
xp_logininfo 'DomainName\AD_GroupName', 'members'

By using this query, we can find the below states.
account name, type, privilege, mapped login name, permission path

Comment: Thanks, this is what I need.
Answer: Accepted answer from DeanG is the preferred solution for getting this info within SQL Server

You can use Active Directory tools for this. I like Active Directory Users and Computers that is part of the Remote Server Administration Tools. Follow the link to download and install the tools on Windows 7.
Once installed, you can search for a specific group name:

Then you can see group membership using the Members tab:

If you don't want to use the AD browser packaged with RSA tools, there are several others available.
Comment: To open this window, run the following line in cmd `Rundll32 dsquery.dll OpenQueryWindow`
Answer: You don't.
Instead you use the users and groups to grant/deny privileges, and let the engine enforce them appropiately. Attempting to roll your own security will get you nowhere fast. A banal example is when you will fail to honor the 'one deny trumps all grants' rule. And you will fail to navigate the intricacies of EXECUTE AS. Not to mention security based on module signatures.
For the record: users, roles and groups are exposed in the sys.database_principals catalog view. sys.fn_my_permissions will return the current context permissions on a specific securable.
Answer: The code that is provided on the Microsoft page here works for me, every time.
SELECT DP1.name AS DatabaseRoleName,
   isnull (DP2.name, 'No members') AS DatabaseUserName
 FROM sys.database_role_members AS DRM
 RIGHT OUTER JOIN sys.database_principals AS DP1
   ON DRM.role_principal_id = DP1.principal_id
 LEFT OUTER JOIN sys.database_principals AS DP2
   ON DRM.member_principal_id = DP2.principal_id
WHERE DP1.type = 'R'
ORDER BY DP1.name;

Please let me know if this works for you!


How can you force VB6 to use the DLLs and OCXs from the app directory?

Question: I want to put my dependent files in the app directory.
I seem to remember that you can force VB6 to use the files in the local directory only.
Any hints?
Answer: You may also want to try setting up Reg-Free COM for your project.  There's a freeware called Unattended Make My Manifest that will do most of the work for you.
Answer: Clay Nichol's answer about the search order is not quite correct. That search order only applies to non-COM components. I.e. only some DLLs, and not OCXs. If you register your COM objects, they will be used from the directory where they are registered regardless of what's in the local directory, unless you use reg-free COM or a .local file.
EDIT:
MakeMyManifest is well spoken of as an automatic tool for creating manifests for VB6 projects, haven't tried it myself.
DirectCOM also has fans, again I haven't tried it.
EDIT The MMM website is down. I see here that the author was having trouble with their hosting and has provided another location to get Make My Manifest - download it here.
There is a semi-automatic technique to generate reg-free COM manifests. You can create the manifests with Visual Studio 2008 (you can use a free version like Visual Basic Express Edition). Then make a couple of edits by hand to make the manifests suitable for use from VB6. See this section of this MSDN article for step-by-step instructions - ignore the rest of the article which is about ClickOnce.
Answer: Placing component libraries in the EXE folder (with or without .local files) can be deleterious to the hygiene of target machines too.
VB6 programs will register the components here via the self-reg entrypoint behind your back if they are not previously registered.  Then if the application is moved or removed you leave the user with a broken reigistration - possibly fatal to subsequently installed applications using some of the same components.  This is probably fine though for application specific components, i.e. your own DLL or OCX that will never be needed by another application.
The .local trick was really not meant for use with VB6 programs and if it is used your installer needs to be aware and properly install and register the components if they are not already on the machine.  It was meant as a manual hack to get around DLL version compatibility problems on individual machines, not a deployment strategy.
Move up to SxS application and assembly manifests (Reg-Free COM and more) for a better solution.  DLL/COM Redirection (.local) was a good try but it has many warts.
Answer: It can be sort of confusing because every version of windows, the rules change. Older versions of Windows search the path before the current directory.
A simple solution without manifests:
If your executable file is A.EXE, add a (0-byte, empty) file in the same directory named A.EXE.local -- for older versions of Windows this puts the app directory ahead of the path in the search order.
Comment: This is the correct answer on Win2k+.
Please be aware, however, that if A.EXE has an embedded manifest, or if A.EXE.manifest exists (such as to enable reg-free COM, make your program DPI aware, etc), the .local file is ignored, as manifests are meant to be a replacement technology.

If that is the case, in your manifest, you can simply list the files that you want to be used from your app directory to force them to be loaded from there:
Answer: Found it myself:
Windows does look in the App Directory first:
If SafeDllSearchMode is enabled, the search order is as follows:

The directory from which the application loaded.
The system directory. Use the GetSystemDirectory function to get the path of this directory.
The 16-bit system directory. There is no function that obtains the path of this directory, but it is searched.
The Windows directory. Use the GetWindowsDirectory function to get the path of this directory.
The current directory.
The directories that are listed in the PATH environment variable. Note that this does not include the per-application path specified by the App Paths registry key. The App Paths key is not used when computing the DLL search path.

If SafeDllSearchMode is disabled, the search order is as follows:
1. The directory from which the application loaded.
   2. The current directory.
   3. The system directory. Use the GetSystemDirectory function to get the path of this directory.
   4. The 16-bit system directory. There is no function that obtains the path of this directory, but it is searched.
   5. The Windows directory. Use the GetWindowsDirectory function to get the path of this directory.
   6. The directories that are listed in the PATH environment variable. Note that this does not include the per-application path specified by the App Paths registry key. The App Paths key is not used when computing the DLL search path.
according to : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms682586.aspx
But you can redirect where it looks for .dll's using a Manifest:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa375365(VS.85).aspx


Is the sum of a large number of independent Cauchy random variables Normal?

Question: By Central Limit Theorem, the probability density function of the the sum of a large independent random variables tends to a Normal. Therefore can we say that the sum of a large number of independent Cauchy random variables is also Normal?
Comment: What are the hypohteses of the version of the Central Limit Theorem that you've learned?
Answer: No.
You're missing one of the central assumptions of the central limit theorem:

... random variables with finite variances ...

The Cauchy distribution does not have a finite variance.

The Cauchy distribution is an example of a distribution which has no mean, variance or higher moments defined.

In fact

If $X_1, \ldots, X_n$ are independent and identically distributed random variables, each with a standard Cauchy distribution, then the sample mean $\frac{X_1 + \cdots + X_n}{n}$ has the same standard Cauchy distribution.

So the situation in your question is quite clear cut, you just keep getting back the same Cauchy distribution.

This is the concept of a stable distribution right?

Yes.  A (strictly) stable distribution (or random variable) is one for which any linear combination $a X_1 + b X_2$ of two i.i.d copies is distributed proportionally to the original distribution.  The Cauchy distribution is indeed strictly stationary.
(*) Quotations from wikipedia.
Comment: "It's right on the boundary where the CLT fails." Not quite--a $t$ distribution with 2 degrees of freedom would have $E(|X|)$ finite, but $E(X^2)$ infinite, whereas the Cauchy has neither.  For the Cauchy, the law of large numbers doesn't even apply!
Comment: wow. I should go brush up my CLT concept. thanks alot for the answer.
Comment: The cauchy is a really good example in this space.  There is just enough mass in the tails that the averaging does not pull it in towards the mean, but not enough that outliers cause mass to accumulate in the tails.  Its right on the boundary where the CLT fails.
Comment: Ohhh, interesting!  I suppose I really skimmed over some nuance there.
Comment: If I remember right there's actually a corresponding limit theorem for  the t2 and the Cauchy. If I recall correctly an appropriate choice of standardization as a function of $n$ of t2's $\bar{X}-\mu$ converges to normality -- very slowly -- while for the Cauchy we have that sample means are the same Cauchy we started with.


Question on loss function notation in Elements of Statistical Learning II

Question: In Elements of Statistical Learning II on page 349, the multinomial deviance loss function is given by $L(y,p(x))=-\sum_{k=1}^KI(y=G_k)f_k(x)+\log(\sum_{\ell=1}^Ke^{f_\ell(x)})$, but there is no explanation given as to why the index for the first summation is denoted $k$ and the one for the second $\ell$. What adds even more to my confusion is that on the previous page, they define the class probabilities $p_k$ as $p_k(x)=\frac{e^{f_k(x)}}{\sum_{l=1}^Ke^{f_l(x)}}$, using yet another index $l$ with no explanation. Does anybody here understand what the distinction is and what that means for the interpretation of the loss function?
Answer: The use of the index $l$ is just a 'dummy indexing variable' - it is used to avoid confusion with the fact that the indexing variable $k$ has already been used in the numerator.
You generally tend to see dummy indexing variables being used in machine learning settings particularly when you have a normalisation constant in context of discrete  distributions in the denominator.
Answer: It's done to prevent confusion, because the second summation is inside the first one. If you've two nested summations or for loops, you wouldn't use $i$ to index both, right?
Also, since the deviance loss is a function of $p_k(x)$, that $l$ comes from the expression of $p_k(x)$ you've written:
$$p_k(x)=\frac{e^{f_k(x)}}{\sum_{l=1}^K e^{f_l(x)}}$$
If you don't use another index $l$ for the summation, in the expression you'll confuse which $k$ to use (i.e. the subscripted $k$ int the formula, or in the summation index).
Comment: Thank you, that makes sense. Is there a reason that they use $l$ in the first equation and $\ell$ in the second equation, though?
Comment: I don't think there is. Keen eye! They could've used completely another letter by the way, e.g. $m$.


In which sections of a paper can I find literature reviews?

Question: I would like to practice writing lit review from reading other papers and looking at the style of writing. Where usually are the review sections found in papers? Is it the "Introduction" Section, for example?
Comment: Literature review or "literature review"? Your question is potentially mixing the two together. Most articles have review of literature in the introduction and possibly in discussion as well, but by no means they need to be exhaustive. A type of articles is called "literature review," which is really all about reviewing literature based on some predetermined research question. For the latter, you can just search title for key words "literature review."
Comment: If you can't find it, then you probably shouldn't try to write one.
Comment: it does sound like the OP is referring to the former kind (the related work section of a paper)
Comment: It's often in Section 2 (but not always).  Your best bet is to find the page with the most bracketed numbers, like [1], [2] etc., and that will probably be the lit review.
Answer: The portion of a paper where previous literature is summarized and elucidated upon is also known as (but not restricted to)

Literature Review
Background
Related Work
Previous Work etc.

In my brief life as a graduate student, I have heard of multiple strategies to write a literature review. I will describe one such path which I personally utilize (in part, because this is what my previous adviser always trained me to do)

The Annotated Bibliography Approach

What is an annotated bibliography?
This is perhaps the best advice to start writing one. Note that I am also affiliated to Cornell University but this has nothing to do with my affiliation.
Example:
Assume that I am writing a paper for CHI 2014. My area is in privacy and surveillance. I want to look at the relationship between manual location sharing and privacy concerns.
I look at all the related papers I have read in the area and realize that their are four major categories that could evolve from this reading and still be relevant to the writing of this paper.
So, in a draft, I write down:
Literature Review
<code>  Privacy Frameworks

  Location Based System Research

  Privacy Measurement Scales

  Privacy Aware Design
</code>
Then, under each category I start writing the references (in the style of your area ; in my area its in the ACM style) of the relevant papers and a couple of lines about each paper which explains the main contributino of the paper. For instance:
<code>  Location Based Systems Usage
</code>

Janne Lindqvist, Justin Cranshaw, Jason Wiese, Jason Hong, and John
  Zimmerman. 2011. I'm the mayor of my house: examining why people use
  foursquare - a social-driven location sharing application. In
  Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
  Systems (CHI '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2409-2418.
  DOI=10.1145/1978942.1979295 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1978942.1979295

This exploratory paper examines why people use foursquare, a manual location sharing application. It determines three major reasons why people do so - to gain points and compete with friends, to track their location as a form of a diary and to earn discounts and special offers from business venues that they visit. Emerging social norms and online identity management are also briefly alluded to in the discussion section of this paper.
Now, once you have all your relevant papers written up in this format, your annotated bibliography and by extension, your literature review is almost done. You copy the references to their rightful place at the end of the paper (References or Bibliography section)
Then, the final step is to simply integrate the few lines that you have written about each paper in to coherent paragraphs and voila, you have a very passable first draft of your literature review.
I hope this made a little sense of how you go about writing one. I can understand that writing a literature review for the first time can feel like a very daunting task.


Why is touring Japan a big deal?

Question: This is a question to all the rockers but why is touring Japan seen as such a big milestone in a band's career? Is it often just that it is a bands first big tour outside their home country or is there more to it than that?
Comment: This seems like more of a question for [Music Fans](http://musicfans.stackexchange.com/).
Comment: I always thought it was a joke a la Spinal Tap.
Comment: This is an interesting read on the subject, though it is specific to Jazz in this article. http://www.iwasdoingallright.com/jazz-blog/165/
Answer: Japan is one of the biggest markets for western music. Even bands not well known in the west sell acceptable amounts of units in Japan...
Especially Rock-Music but as well Folk-Music (ethno - folklore)
Comment: In that case is it such a big deal?
Comment: Well, if you are on stage at home with 50 people in the audience of which 49 are family and friends and one, who just happened to chose the wrong concert-hall - you will definitely be impressed when you're standing in front of thousands of japs who go totally crazy when you're playing the only 2-chord-riff you know on your guitar... ;-) -> This actually happened to a friend of mine - it's his excuse now for not having to learn new chords :-) (I made this one up)
Answer: We just been over there playing Tokyo for a week. Its such an impressive place, and it being so "exotic" to us westerners, its certainly something you want in your bands CV.
The problems we experienced were, that we had minimal merch sales - following a DIY approach, coming from Scotland. Also there were  no payouts as even the local bands had to buy-in(!) To the local shows, sometimes only having 20 folk showing up.
We loved the hospitality and the culture shock, but if you want to earn some bucks, it will take a bit of effort to pull it off.
An experience of a lifetime nevertheless!

Why is touring Japan a big deal?


Windows 10 GPU order

Question: I have 2 GPUs (both gtx 780ti)
The problem is in the wrong order of them. For example, if I run Speccy program, it kinda inverts the index of those cards. The first card is shown as the second one, and the second one as the first one. It's not only in Speccy. For example, in Octane render (GPU render engine) the list of cards is also wrong. So I just want to invert the order of GPUs. How to do this? Thanks.
Comment: It's possible you could have the wrong perception of which one is card 1 and card 2? My first guess is that the primary card would be chosen by which PCIe slot it is in. Usually the PCIe slot that is closest to the CPU is the "first" slot. Check out your configuration and see if that's what it's doing.
Comment: 4 PCIe slots in motherboard, the first card is in the top slot (monitor is connected to this top card). The second card is in the 3rd slot (no monitors connected to it).
Answer: Most programs have a section in the options to specify the card being used. If you are really willing to go in-depth into this to get it working, switching the card positions might work.

Windows 10 GPU order


UI/UX portfolio -- using a pre-made elements/toolkits?

Question: this may be a stupid question but please understand I am a 1st year student who just got on a track to be a UI/UX designer. I am trying to work on my first prototyping project to be featured on my portfolio and I have a question. Do I have to create all of the graphical elements on my own, or can I use a pre-made elements from a UI toolkit/icons someone published for free? Will companies only look at the rationale behind arrangement and composition of these elements, or will they think I am an incompetent designer for using a toolkit?thanks in advance.
Comment: Is this project for a client or just a demonstration piece for your portfolio?
Comment: You can use elements from a toolkit to help you design. It would be a waste of time for you to design iOS elements when they're there for you.
Comment: This is just going to be my first "practice" project but I want take it seriously to make it professional enough for a portfolio piece. Thank you so much, everyone. I appreciate all  the responses!!
Answer: Using premade assets is fine. You don't always make the fonts/photos/etcetera you use for every design either. Icon creation is a valueable skill, and you would be smart to include at least a few in your entire portfolio, but you don't have to make everything from scratch. It's not efficient, and very rare in real-life projects.
What I can suggest, though, is to not merely use premade sets, but also create some sets (i.e. finding several icons that look good together) and to extend them with your own icons. This demonstrates that you can work flexibly and find the most efficient way to customize your icon set to your project.
HOWEVER! Make sure you are allowed to use all premade assets. So check the licences, see if you are allowed to use them, modify them, redistribute them, and how to appropriately credit the original person if necessary.
Answer: I would suggest using free toolkits/Icons, and I feel it's the best practice.
Learning to create those assets and icons is essential but in the fast lane of project creation trying to create each and every icons and asset by yourself is a time-consuming process.
Use Icons from websites like Flaticon, image from Pexels and mockups from Freebiesbug for your project and just give credits to the author by adding including their details wherever possible.


Magento2: Pre-load cache after clean/flush

Question: I was wondering if it would be possible to 'preload' the cache after cleaning/flushing it. I know that i.e. 'WP Super Cache' has a function for this in WordPress.
The reason why you want this is that every page loads slowly the first time you open them after cache cleaning. With a preload function, you could make the server read all the pages beforehand, not relying on a visitor to do the first visit.
As far as I know the WP Super Cache plugin calls 5 pages at a time in a loop until it has cached the entire site. Magento would profit from a function like this!
Answer: Currently this is not possible.
Try partially disable cache instead fully.
Comment: Maybe I'll post this as a feature suggest then :)


Does elo rating have a limit?

Question: The highest Elo rating to date is 2882, which belongs to Carlsen, while the last Elo rating of Kasparov is 2851. Could I have an Elo rating of 2950 or maybe 3000? Does the Elo rating have a limit?
Comment: It depends who you play. A 2000 who keeps beating 800s won't gain rating points. And to beat high rated players near 3000 (e.g. Carlsen), you have to be better than all the world championship contenders.
Comment: There is no imposed limit on the rating, but to reach 2950 or 3000 you have to be significantly better than Carlsen. No one but a computer can do it.
Comment: @overtheboard, If I never lose a game for 25 years, could I have an elo rating of 3100 ? :-D
Comment: Here is a related question: if a player always loses, will his rating eventually be zero, or could it be negative?
Answer: No, Elo ratings have no theoretical limit. If Alice scored 76% against Carlsen (rating 2853) consistently, she would stabilize at a rating of 3053*, and if Bob scored 76% against Alice, he would stabilize at a rating of 3253**, etc. There is no theoretical end to this sequence. However, consensus seems to be that in practice a perfect player would have a rating somewhere in the 3000s.
*Assuming Carlsen performed well enough against other people that his rating stayed at 2853
**Assuming Alice performed well enough against other people that her rating stayed at 3053
Comment: I upvoted this answer because I believe it to be 90% correct but actually ELO is a closed rating system that can be employed for any 1 on 1 game and the theoretical limit actually is limited by the amount of players and the starting points they are given, often 1500
Comment: 1500 points is not the starting rating
Comment: It depends how you implement Elo (capitalized like this; the inventor was Arpad Elo). FIDE actually lets ratings grow arbitrarily even for a fixed pool because in its update step it never treats ratings as being farther apart than 400, so there is a lower bound on the number of points the winner gains. It is true that some implementations stop giving you credit after some large difference. If you had 101 players who were each given a starting rating of 1500 and no one could be farther apart than 400 points, the highest possible rating would indeed be only around 21,500.
Comment: I am wondering whether the requirements (players having constant rating) are actually achievable considering that you have a finite number of players. (Apart from practical considerations as players would have to play an awful lot of games.)
Comment: however I'm curious, why is it landed at 3000 and not 5000 or 10000 let's say? I assume other games that also use elo has a different "practical" limit, or is it?
Comment: Yes there is a limit, because there is a finite rating for perfect play, see my answer below.
Comment: When I say "Elo ratings have no theoretical limit", I mean "If you give me a rating R, I can construct a series of game results such that a player's rating exceeds R", that's all.
Answer: Yes ratings have a limit for chess, go, etc; as ratings go higher , the proportion of perfect games will increase and therefore if chess is a theoretical draw, the rate of draws will also increase (assuming most games are played against players of similar rating.) Once 100% draws are reached there is no better rating.  This is borne out by the graph  here  which if extrapolated indicates that 100% draws would occur for engines at a rating of about 5200.
Similar reasoning obtains if chess is a win or loss for white, namely that once perfect play is reached in 100% of games played, all white games are won and all black are lost or vice versa, again assuming play against similar beings. Even if one plays against dissimilar beings, an asymptote is reached in the calculation of elo points won per game; as ones rating rises , it is harder and harder to win points against lower rated rivals, again enforcing an upper bound.
It is also clear that a perfect player will not have an inifinitely high rating since once in a while an imperfect player will play a perfect game, reducing the perfect players expectation from 1.0 to 1-epsilon thus enforcing a finite rating. (Look at the ratings difference curve (expectation as function of ratings difference) and you will see an asymptote to 1.0).
Answer: Elo is a relative scale that measures the winning probability between two players. The scale itself is arbitrary and there are many variations but here is no upper limit as such if the game is complicated enough and has enough room for continued improvements in game play.
In the game of Go a top professional has Elo rating around 6800 (KGS system), but a good AI engine can reach far beyond that. For example the Leela Zero Go engine has a current rating of 11,000+ (May 2018, after training on 7.5 million self-played games), and it is still improving. The game itself has enough complexities so how much further we can push up the Elo rating will be limited by how much computer resources were used to train the AI.
Comment: There is a finite rating for perfect play, see my answer above.
Comment: @jeremy_rutman I don't think perfect play is possible for Go, the number of possible games is 10 to the power 700. The number of atoms in the universe is 10 power 78.
Comment: The same argument (above) for chess applies to go, and it is of course is agnostic to the existence or non-existence of draws and even non-determinism/imperfect information in the game in question.  The large number of game states is, of course, irrelevant.
Answer: There is no theoretical maximum for the Elo rating.
There is, though, a theoretical maximum gap between the top rated player and the second which, in the first implementation, was 700+ point (when the difference of ratings between players was that or more the expected result was 1.0 so that winning doesn't earn you points).
Another factor to take in consideration is that the Elo rating is NOT a measure of absolute strength but a measure of performance relative to the ratings of the players. Since the strength of the players follows what in statistics is called a normal distribution, this was Elo's basic assumption, the probability to have a player rated at a rating R is never zero no matter how big R is, which means that if the total pool of rated players increases you automatically have higher top ratings simply by the law of large numbers. This is the basic reason (but there are are factors concurring) why the average rating of the top 10 players has increased over time: simply because the number of rated players has increased manifold.

Does elo rating have a limit?


Develop a 2d isometric mobile game on Flash

Question: I'm building a game on Flash that will run on web/Android/iOS.
The game is 2d isometric.I heard that developing mobile apps on Flash sucks and the graphics looks just awful.It'd be quite uncomfortable to write code for every platfrom separately.What would you guys recommend-stay with Flash or some other platform?
By the way,do i need to build the game specially on MAC so that i can later port it on iOS?
Thanks
Comment: If you'er serious about trying something else you could check out http://www.monogame.net You can write code (identical to XNA) and it'll run on windows, linux, macs, ios, android, windows phone. Almost anywhere with re-writing barely any code. You also dont need to program it on a Mac to target iOS.
Comment: Important point - Flash doesn't work on iOS
Comment: No it does,my games work well
Answer:
graphics looks just awful

It depends on developer only.

What would you guys recommend-stay with Flash or some other platform?

Again, it depends on many things, including your knowledge of other languages and platforms. There're several examples of cross-platform games but not so much to say that Flash is the one of the best platforms for game development.
I think that the main problem of Flash is performance. If you want decent FPS on mobile devices you have to use Stage3D. Fortunately there're several frameworks (Flare3D, Starling) which help to develop faster.
So, before choosing Flash you have to be insure in performance. How to be? Test on real devices.

By the way,do i need to build the game specially on MAC so that i can later port it on iOS?

You can develop and test using an iOS device on Windows.
Comment: Thanks,a lot.The major problem isn't graphics but rather perfomance.
Comment: @user2040131 You can get very good performance (solid 60 FPS) with GPU accelerated graphics, eg. by using the Starling Framework for your game.


Do webapps only integrate with Firefox?

Question: When I open Firefox and visit any of the webapp enabled webpages I have installed, I get a launcher icon for them. The same does not appear to be when I use for example Google Chrome. Do webapps only work for Firefox?
Answer: The new webapps feature only work with Firefox and Chromium. Google Chrome is not supported because it doesn't allow adding new extensions outside of the Chrome web store while Firefox and Chromium are both open source browsers and adding a new extension isn't as difficult.
That said, if someone does the necessary work to get it integrated into Google Chrome, it might work as well. I just don't see it happening for the 12.10 release.

Do Unity webapps work in Google Chrome?
Answer: The webapps feature also works with the Google Chromium Browser. To use it, however, you should install the unity-chromium-extension . The webaccounts-chromium-extension  package may also be helpful.
If you search for the chromium browser in the Ubuntu Software Center these are available as technical items (click on the "Show number technical items" link on the bottom of the search page).
Comment: I installed following package along with unity-webapps. But it still doesn't show any popup visiting twitter.

Do webapps only integrate with Firefox?


I would like know how to perform 'kazaa-e-umri'?

Question: I have perform a salah / namaz  at mosque during ramdan.I feel that I want to do kaza for recent all namaz. I would like to know procedure as well as ayat can recite during namaz. Thank you.
Comment: actually I have listen bayan. Prayers are mendatory you need to do it any way if you left you need to do qada. Used term 'qada-e-umri'.
Comment: The term qada' umri sounds weird, as it means qada' for your whole life! It would make sense if you are very old or about to die!
Comment: Sister @Jamila I heard that in takrir that's why used that term.
Answer: Prayers are in fact mandatory and they are the first thing -among the worship- on which we are accountable on the day of judgement.

The first of his actions for which a servant of Allah will be held accountable on the Day of Resurrection will be his prayers. If they are in order, then he will have prospered and succeeded: and if they are wanting, then he will have failed and lost. If there is something defective in his obligatory prayers, the Lord (glorified and exalted be He) will say: See if My servant has any supererogatory prayers with which may be completed that which was defective in his obligatory prayers. Then the rest of his actions will be judged in like fashion. (Riyadu As-Saliheen)

Scholars are in consensus that fard (obligatory) prayers are a due on every Muslim. But they hold three major opinions on whether or not one must make them up if one misses them and have a consensus that this requires a making repentance (tawbah) first and starting to pray and no more leaving it. The above hadith shows one opinion which is one may "correct" his mistake by praying more optional prayers (but no more missing the actual fard prayers too). The second opinion is basically held by two scholars namely ibn Hazm first and later adapted by ibn Taymiyyah which is that there's no qada' of fard prayers pretending that there's no backup for this and that prayer is only valid if prayed on time the only exception is if one slept or forgot to pray and missed to pray on time based on the hadith:

The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "If anyone forgets a prayer he should pray that prayer when he remembers it. There is no expiation except to pray the same." Then he recited: "Establish prayer for My (i.e. Allah's) remembrance." (20.14). (Sahih al-Bukhari)

The wording that there's no "expiation except to pray the same" however lead the majority of scholars (the 4 sunni madhhabs and apparently shi'a too) to say that one may pray qada' prayers and they say that you may do it as follows as long as you have less or equal than one day of prayers you should pray them and pray your actual prayer later. Else if you had 6 or more prayers to make up you should pray them after praying your actual fard, it is recommended to pray them two by two if you have to make up many of them (this is explained in What do I do if I missed joined prayers? and Does Tartib apply to delayed fardh salats?).
Nevertheless some scholars also recommend you to give an effort in praying optional prayers too while other say as long as you have this due you should concentrate on that.
If you are uncertain how much prayers you have missed you should do a good guess and hope that you will have paid your due when finishing it therefore it would be best to put some effort in nafl prayers.
Comment: Thank you for detailed description. I will word with imam sheb also for the same.


Using flock() to lock a stream is only assured to work under what circumstances?

Question: This is a question from PHP zend exam,
Using flock() to lock a stream is only assured to work under what circumstances?

When running in a Linux environment local filesystem
When accessing the stream of the local filesystem
When running in a Windows environment and accessing a share
When accessing a bi-directional stream
When accessing a read-only stream
Answer: A stream has this set of operations – write, read, close, flush (mandatory, even if they are no ops) and seek, cast, stat, set_option (optional). When you request a file lock, the set_option operation is called.
Just from here, you can see that being bi-directional or read-only has nothing to do with this. One could implement an arbitrary wrapper, make the writes and reads have some effect and yet not implement set_option, because it's optional. Likewise, one could implement a no-op write operation and yet handle file locks in my set_option implementation. Running in a Linux environment is also irrelevant, since what matters is what the stream supports.
(NOTE: I'm not sure what "running in a Linux environment local filesystem" means. I admitted it means "running PHP from the local filesystem in a Linux environment" as opposed to e.g. "running PHP from an AFS filesystem in a Linux environment". It if means "accessing a stream that backs the local filesyste in a Linux environment", this is probably the correct answer, given the manual warning described below).
The remaining questions involve the STDIO streams. Now, when checking if a stream supports blocking with stream_supports_lock, PHP doesn't actually try a flock, it passes the set_option operation a special value that queries "does this stream support file locking"? The STDIO stream operation always responds it does, so it would appear that all the two remaining answers are correct.
However, the fact the set_option operation claims it supports file locking doesn't make it true. When you actually try to acquire the lock, it may fail. So when is it guaranteed to work? Surely not Windows shares, since these can be backed by almost anything. We're left with "on the local filesystem". So the answer is, by elimination

When accessing the stream of the local filesystem

Note, however, the (admittedly outdated) warning in the manual:

flock() is not supported on antiquated filesystems like FAT and its derivates and will therefore always return FALSE under this [sic] environments (this is especially true for Windows 98 users).
Comment: NTFS has been the default filesystem on all versions of Windows produced since 2000.  flock should work fine on NTFS.  Furthermore, other UNIX-alikes such as FreeBSD and Solaris certainly would support flock, which makes the Linux-specific answer either incorrect or very poorly worded if correct.
Comment: @Cha Well, I misread the choices. It's definitely the second because the first says "running", not "accessing the stream".
Comment: Good point.  Given the exact wording, they all seem to be incorrect.
Answer: Oh, good question.
Checking if a stream supports locking was only added in 5.3, but the streamWrapper example class has a stream_lock method that seems to "always" have existed.  stream_lock suggests that it can also work on streams that can be blocked.
I don't expect you can flock a socket, so it looks like your answer is #2: You can safely know that flocking a stream will work when the stream is a (local) file.
(How flock operates on remote files (NFS, CIFS) is up to the service providing those remote files.  Some older versions of various NFS daemons do not support flock at all, for example.)
Comment: The blocking mode is unrelated to file locking.
Comment: Indeed, I misread the reference.  Misleading sentence removed.


How do I analytically find a HPD interval for the normal posterior?

Question: I want to analytically find the HPD interval for a posterior that has the normal distribution $\mathbb{N}(\mu, \sigma^2)$. So according to the definition of the HPD interval I am looking for expressions for the upper and lower limit such that the integral of the posterior over these limits is equal to $1-\alpha$. Would really appreciate some guidance on this as I am struggling.
Answer: If the posterior is a $\mathcal{N}(\mu,\sigma^2)$ distribution, the HPD region is defined as
$$\mathfrak{H}_\alpha = \{\theta;\ \varphi(\theta;\mu,\sigma)\ge k_\alpha\}$$
or
$$\mathfrak{H}_\alpha = \{\theta;\ \sigma^{-2}(\theta-\mu)^2\le k'_\alpha\}= \{\theta;\ |\theta-\mu|\le \sigma k'_\alpha\}$$
meaning it is the symmetric credible region
$$\mathfrak{H}_\alpha = (\mu+\sigma q_{\alpha/2},\mu-\sigma q_{\alpha/2})$$
when $q_{\alpha/2}$ is the $\alpha/2$-quantile of the standard $\mathcal{N}(0,1)$ distribution.


Is everyone alive today a descendant of Prophet Adam (AS)?

Question: There are people alive today with Neanderthal DNA and other humanoid DNA. Are they considered as fully descendants of Prophet Adam?
Comment: I have never heard about this. All what I know is that, the people we see our us, are actually prophet Adam's descendants, I'm too a descendant of Adam and Eve.
Comment: @AlexA I agree with the second part of your comment. W.r.t first : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo
Comment: And plus, in Quran is not mentioned such thing. Because, it didn't existed. Neanderlands never existed!
Comment: @AlexA The Quran was sent as a guidance & contains signs for us. It does NOT contain every single detail about what happened on earth. Humans have found bone fragments of Neanderthals just like they found bones of prehistoric creatures like dinosaurs and of creatures who lived before them. Remember dinosaurs and human beings came relatively late when compared to the age of earth. There have been 5 major global extinctions till now. Also the Prophet (AS) himself said that he saw the earth in the form of an old woman during Meraj indicating earth is very old. Also Jinns once dominated the earth.
Answer: Scientific theories are relative, Islam is absolute. We do not mix what is relative with what is absolute. We understand what is relative in the light of the absolute. Islam says it clear: All the mankind descend fro Adam : " هو الذي خلقكم من نفس واحدة " Surat AlAraaf , Aya 189 . Also hadith "كلكم لآدم و آدم من تراب " from Khutbat AlWadaa "the final speech" .
Answer: As for the answer to your question "Is everyone alive today a descendant of Prophet Adam (AS)?" Yes, we are. Here is a Hadith for the confirmation of my statement as well;
Abu Huraira (RA) reported: The Prophet (SAWW) said, "Verily, Allah has removed from you the pride of the time of ignorance with its boasting of ancestors. Verily, one is only a righteous believer or a miserable sinner. All of the people are the children of Adam, and Adam was created from dust. - Sunan al-Tirmidhī 3955
Answer: Our religion is based on prophecy, in particular on the prophecy God has given to Muhammad (p.b.u.h)
Science is based on observation and logic. God has given both abilities to mankind:
The ability to receive His commands was given to the prophets and the ability to direct our thoughts in dua is given to us all - not to all of us to the same extent and not without limits,  but it is given to all of us who learned to pray.
The ability to observe and conclude, thus understanding the
world around us was given to us all, too - not to all of us to the same extent and not without limits, but it is given to all of us who learned to think.
We can observe that God has never revealed anything that went beyond the possibilities of what the prophets were able to think.
None of science has come onto into mankind through prophecy and none that has been revealed could have been found out by mere observation.
Both abilities are limited.
If now our knowledge what we got through observation and reasoning exceeds what could be given through revelation 1400 years ago, we need not reject it.
In this sense, the scientific answer to your question is that mankind did not have only two ancestors.
The answer from revelation cannot be changed. We should think about what was the message God wanted to give to the people of the time and what is still relevant to us.
It would exceed the scope of this question to answer this and my thoughts on this topic may not be relevant either.
God knows better.


How to synchronize Kindle collections across all devices, including older Kindles?

Question: I have just started organizing collections on my bottom-of-the-line Kindle (the Kindle 4?). Despite selecting "annotations sync and backup" I'm not seeing these collections appear on my iPad and iPhone. I've spent 20 minutes reading through Amazon documentation and forum posts and I still can't figure out how to get my Kindle's collections in sync with my iPad.
Is it possible to keep Kindle collections in sync across all devices that can access Kindle content?
If yes, how?
If only in limited ways or among some types of devices, what are the limitations and which devices?
Comment: Not sure if this helps at all (don't have a kindle myself): http://smallbusiness.chron.com/sync-kindle-ipad-49681.html
Comment: It sounds like the "Import Collections" option is just what I need, but I cannot find it on my Kindle Paperwhite even when "Cloud items" is selected. (2nd version of Paperwhite). I'm trying to make and sync my collections via my Kindle-for-Mac. It's far easier than doing it on the Kindle itself which I have done once before. The Kindle help files online only teach me how to manage collections from my Kindle device, which is harder. Did I miss something in your description (of Import Collections) that I should have done differently, or are you sure you didn't unintentionally leave something out
Comment: Regarding the above: I DO have the "Import Collections" command on my Kindle-for-Mac, but not on my Kindle Paperwhite device.
Comment: I am assuming from the above comments that since I have a various devices (android, PC, Kindle) and source books from various places and formats that there is no way to sync them all in say the Kindle Cloud. I was trying to get everything in one place and it appeared that Kindle would keep my place in an ebook across the different devices but apparently that is incorrect. I have Calibre with over 1000 books in it but wanted to get them all sync'd but it appears that can't be done on the Kindle Cloud. Appears that Amazon is trying to make it more difficult unless you purchase the content from t
Comment: Not sure if the same for you, but after spending days looking for ways to make it work I eventually realised that i `just` needed to select the display option for collections for my collections to appear (either I did something at some point and they appeared or they may have always been there)...
Answer: I am guessing you have already found Amazon's Organizing Your Kindle Content.  If every book on your devices is from Amazon, then you can do some organizing at 'Your Account' > 'Manage Your Device' > 'Your Kindle Library' or by using the cloud.  If you have works from anyplace else, then the prospects get worse.
I personally have some OCD issues that require my books be in some kind of order that is not primary based on who I bought it from and when.  I was trying to keep track organized with an Excel book.  I searched for solutions and read many articles & blogs, I strongly desired an Amazon/Kindle solution, the majority pointed to a single solution which I eventually adopted.  Calibre is that solution.
The only disadvantage the Calibre has it is a bit more difficult to connect wirelessly to your collection. I won't go into all it's advantages but, essentially it is your own personal library, that you can organize and store you books on, regardless of where it comes from.  My 1263 (current count) works are stored on Calibre, I download from Amazon, Smashword, Baen, Project Gutenberg, etc. directly to Calibre (on my pc).  Once a week or so, I sit down at the PC, remove some books from my Kindles, mark them as read on Calibre (tag 'read'), add some new books to the appropriate kindle ('paperwhite' for reading in bed, 'keyboard' for text to speech while commuting) and tag the books I am currently reading in Calibre by the device they are on.
I believe there is at least one wireless solution for connecting your Kindle to your Calibre, but in the end I stuck with using the USB connection, as by the time I need to move some books around, I need a recharge, so i get a two for one deal (load and charge).
Answer: My own experience with this is that with Amazon you have a couple sets of collections.  My iOS and android devices seem to share a set of collections that are automatically sync'ed across them.
In contrast my kindle device and my (mac) desktop software don't share the same.  However, from my kindle device if I look at my "Cloud" items, then in the overall menu there is a "Import collections" which lets me import collections from my desktop software.  The desktop software has an "import collections" command available from the "add collection" menu in the ui, but I'm not sure where it imports from.
I assume that at some point Amazon will merge all these.
Answer: Your calibre ebook imports go into a folder that you can pick. I have mine dump into a Dropbox folder and that keeps my computers synced. Still can't figure out how to get my kindle synced like that so I have to manually toss my files to it.


Audio database is recorded under * conditions

Question: I want to describe a recorded speech database in an academic paper. It has been recorded via telephone. People call from their home / workplace, but not under very noisy conditions. Usual environmental noises (somebody talking behind, vehicular noise etc.) are present. I thought of describing it as "the database is recorded under realistic conditions". What are some better alternatives for the word realistic, if any?
Comment: Everyday?  Natural?
Comment: In the video biz it's called "wild sound" or "wild audio".
Answer: Such circumstances are usually called real-world conditions (i.e. - not controlled conditions).
Only my own opinion, but personally I think OP's suggested "realistic conditions" implies controlled, artificial conditions - although specifically designed to mimic real-world conditions, there's always a chance the testers either failed to set things up as they intended, or were unaware of some crucial aspect of the "real real" world.
Comment: @user13107: That's certainly my opinion, yes. You can make a *realistic copy* of something, but unless you want to get involved in the metaphysical/philosophical implications of [fungibility](http://english.stackexchange.com/a/30313/2637), it doesn't make much sense to speak of a *real copy*.
Comment: Oh, I didn't think of this aspect. Basically you opine that **realistic** implies *less real* than plain **real**.
Answer: You might say under existing conditions, or imperfect, uncontrolled, run of the mill, flawed, as-found, ordinary, mediocre.  Cornbread ninja's suggestion of everyday also is good, and its definition leads to commonplace (as well as  ordinary, already suggested).
Comment: @user13107, 'run of the mill' may be ok in some academic papers but is less likely than the other terms.  Using several words together, at least upon first mention, might be best.  Eg, "... recorded under existing, everyday, less-than-pristine conditions".
Comment: Thanks, just a doubt, would 'run  of the mill' work in an academic paper setting? Right now I'm trying to google up all the suggested alternatives to see how they have been used by people in the literature.
Answer: I have often heard the background sounds referred to as the ambient noise.
What is Ambient Noise?
"Ambient conditions" seems to have more use on the Web as referring to weather, but if you told me that whatever I was about to listen to was recorded under ambient conditons I would be expecting background noise.


How to disable "tips" with Aura?

Question: How can transaction tips be disabled or configured (say, limited) with Aura consensus?
Answer: Tips are just to provide priority to a transaction and you can find the logic of tip in pallet_transaction_payment here, the function get_priority is where tip is being included in the transaction, you can configure it there.  Explain a little more what exactly you are trying to achieve so that i can answer appropriately.

How to disable "tips" with Aura?


How Do I get a Six pack

Question: My name is Jake and I'm 15 years old. I'm 5'10" and 140 pounds. I have been working out in gym for 2 weeks now and as I calculated my body fat percentage is around 14%-15%. My goal is to get a six pack and build up some muscles (Chest, Biceps,etc.) How can I get a six pack? Do I need to lower my body fat percentage to 10% by running and cycling or do I just workout?
Comment: Possible duplicate of [Tips on having six packs and losing fat and keeping the muscles I have](http://fitness.stackexchange.com/questions/18750/tips-on-having-six-packs-and-losing-fat-and-keeping-the-muscles-i-have)
Answer: Here is a helpful visual guide on what 10% looks like:

As you can see it is possible to be 10% without a 6 pack. You need to do targeted strength exercises to get it. Your calculated maximum weight potential is 185 lbs at 10% body fat, based on Martin Berkhan's formula so you can put on more weight and still looked ripped as hell. But that weight must be muscle.
Rather than go into a full explanation of each of the below I suggest you pop over to reddit/r/fitness and read their wiki
I'm guessing you want to be aesthetic due to your post. Before you can do targeted workouts on being aesthetic you need to develop a strong base.
Here is your 3 year plan:

Read up and complete the StartingStrength or Stronglifts 5x5 program. Add the accessory ab work, keep this level of ab workout forever.
Calculate your TDEE/Macros and start trying to plan your calorie intake where possible through a diet plan (you are 15, you might be able to influence your parents choices).
Read Mark Rippetoe's book in-between sets.
Learn about periodization.
After 6-12 months of your first chosen program you will be stalling a lot on nearly all lifts. You should then reassess your options and your diet.

If you want to be strong like mountain then move towards 5/3/1, Texas Method, BigButBoring, Greyskull LP. (more on reddit wiki).
If you want to be aesthetic like Zzyz then move towards a plan like PPL, ICF, PHAT.

Re-introduce Cardio into your workout if you haven't already. Cardio is great for maintaining a healthy heart and assisting in dropping body fat percentage.
Now you have a pretty good base of strength and should have visible muscles. Hopefully you will be hovering around the 15-20% bf mark due to your eating lots so you can continue to progress on lifts. Adjust your diet onto a cut and maintain your lifts.
Cut to 10-15%.
'Mire your 6pack

"Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no
  heavy-ass weights." ― Ronnie Coleman
Comment: Additionally, the "6" of the abdominal muscle structure is genetically determined by the fascia that helps structure and brace the abdominals. Genetically a person could have 2-8 in almost any variation you can think of.
Comment: *Mark Rippetoe wouldn't be impressed with that spelling ;)
Comment: Fixed. Pls don't kill me Mark ;_;

How Do I get a Six pack


What is a molecule's smallest set of smallest rings?

Question: It is been a while since I've studied chemistry. Now, I am reading the documentation of RDKit, where they mention the expression "smallest set of smallest rings" (SSSRs). I understand that a ring is a cycle in a molecule. I also understand that the SSSRs is, as the name suggest, the smallest set of smallest rings, but how do you determine what the smallest sets and rings are?  What is a molecule's smallest set of smallest rings? What is a SSSRs used for?
Answer: This is a tool to classify molecules with multiple rings. Here is an example from a PhD thesis:

So even though you can find six-membered and eight-membered rings in this structure, these are made up of multiple four-membered rings, and are thus not parts of the set of rings. As the picture illustrates, it is sufficient to choose five rings to show the connectivity of the atoms, so even though there are six four-membered rings, the SSSR includes only five of them. In this case, which five is ambiguous.

how do you determine what the smallest sets and rings are?

It turns out that this is ambiguous, so different software might get different results. In contrast, giving the size of all rings is unambiguous, but - according to the thesis I quoted - computationally more expensive and chemically less intuitive.

What is a SSSRs used for?

To classify cyclic molecules in cheminformatics. For a given software, two molecules are different if they have different SSSRs. Conversely, two identical molecules will have the same SSSR. This makes it easier to classify, sort, and search this class of molecules.
Comment: I think you mean "identify" instead of "classify". But I don't get this. If the SSSR is ambigous, that makes it rather useless for identification.
Comment: @Karl Yes, rather useless or worse: https://www.ics.uci.edu/~dock/manuals/oechem/pyprog/node123.html

What is a molecule’s smallest set of smallest rings?


What would be the best way to make pictures taken with different cameras to look the same?

Question: I am working on cleaning up an Instagram page and one problem I have come across is that there are a lot of pictures on that page. They come from different cameras, lighting and focuses and I was hoping to find a way to make them all look similar and build it into the pages brand. I have tried putting a banner near the bottom of the pictures and adding words to it and processing the pictures through some filters on Canva. This looks okay but I was wondering if anyone had any better options I could explore.
Comment: Let's say you've got two pictures, one at noon, one at dusk. They have drastically different lighting. There's no way around this, and honestly, why even try? So, what do you mean by "similar"?
Comment: Do people really pay to have someone else's watermark stamped onto their images?
Comment: Stop worrying about making the images look the same. What if someone shoots a selfie, edits it themselves, then pays for the donation and you eff up their image with your auto filter? Satisfied client? Hardly. Instead focus on how people will see the images. Site layout, promotion, branding, image borders or additional info as image or text (think Polaroid).
Comment: The account has been built to accommodate "shoutouts" per se, where someone can send in a picture of there loved ones and we post it for a donation. Is there anything layout related or overarching design related that I could use?
Comment: I am not expecting this to be perfect just looking to find the best solution to make it look more bareable. Also, for not we have a stamp we put on all the pictures but that doesn't really help with the asthetic cause of the large variety of pictures.
Answer: There's really only one way to do this: pick a style or feel you like, and throw away the images that don't match. Running things through a homogenization filter is not likely to get good results. So, even if they're good, if they don't match, into a shoebox they go.
More importantly, going forward, consciously take pictures that fit that look. If they don't come out like that, discard them — or at least, don't display them on that account.
Just like there's not a "get rich quick" scheme that really works, there's not a "build an artistic brand" scheme either.  To get results that feel authentic, you'll have to do this the get rich slow way.
Comment: That would be ideal but I am using this pictures to generate donations through shout outs, people send me a picture, donate and we post it on the site with a stamp on it. Is there anything layout related or even how they are displayed that could be implemented?


Is it going to hurt me that my undergraduate research was conducted in a group, but not one-on-one with a professor?

Question: I conducted summer research with my Computer Science(CS) professor last summer.
However, we were a group of three students. The end result was three papers written and all three of them contain our names in alphabetical order (so 4 names including our prof). Is this, the fact that it was more of team research and not one-on-one research with a professor, going to be looked down upon when I apply to Ph.D. programs in CS? Or does it make no difference at all?
Answer: No, it isn't going to hurt. Research that is published is not going to hurt any application in the US. It is going to help. And, collaboration is a valued skill in CS so that, too, is in your favor.
Even unpublished research mentioned by a letter writer is a plus. All such things are indicators of future success. And get the supervising professor to write a nice letter when you do apply. If that is a year or more in the future, let them know now of future plans.
This, and other questions you've asked here suggest you are overly concerned about the future. I'll predict that you will do fine and suggest you relax and stop overthinking.
Comment: Or you won't do fine, but it will be because of factors outside of your control.


Copyright for unauthored articles in The Economist

Question: The Economist is a weekly magazine, where articles are never signed by authors. Is it then enough that the magazine itself is in the public domain? I have come across posts like this one stating that individual articles might be further protected under copyright. But if I do not know the author, how can I know?
Answer:
...articles are never signed by authors. Is it then enough that the magazine itself is in the public domain?

Absolutely not.
Even though articles are not signed, they are still copyrighted at moment of being written by whoever wrote them, and upon publication by who the authors are writing for. That's basic copyright law; read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention
Further, the magazine's own Terms of Service outlines this:

Intellectual Property
The contents ... supplied to you in conjunction with the Site and/or a
  Digital Application (such contents, design and materials being
  collectively referred to as the "Economist Content"), is copyright of
  The Economist and its licensors. You may not use or reproduce ... for
  any reason without written permission from The Economist... http://www.economist.com/legal/terms-of-use
Comment: I totally agree, although the linked articles (which the question poster does not to fully understand) is referring to magazines that accidentally entered the public domain between 1923 and 1968 due to a failure to renew a copyright on the part of the entity, in which case if there was residual copyright in the author who did renew the copyright, it would not enter the public domain for failure to renew.
Comment: @ohwilleke You're right; I don't understand that link reference.
Answer: The copyright for articles in The Economist belong to the magazine rather than to the author. They are "work for hire" and the articles are emphatically not in the public domain simply because they were not published under a by-line.
While there is theoretically a possibility that an article could have been in a magazine that did not renew its copyright, but in which an individual did renew his or her copyright, in the case of a major magazine like The Economist, it is exceedingly unlikely that the magazine did not renew its copyright.
Comment: Your answer contradicts the other one. Do you have some reference to know that the articles belong to the magazine and not to the authors?
Comment: Not clear how one can declare that ALL articles in The Economist are "work for hire", where the legal author was therefore "The Economist" (i.e., the client or employer of the individual author),  and simultaneously have that individual author claiming to own copyright of the same work.
Comment: @Upnorth There used to be a residual right of the true authors of a work to claim a copyright in cases where a work for hire copyright expired due to failure to renew. It isn't relevant under the current copyright regime but does matter in cases like the ones discussed in the link.
Comment: @ohwilleke Thanks for the tip! Never ran across that one before.


Where do the phosphate units come from when EGF units dimerize?

Question: Upon EGF binding, EGFR units dimerize and cross-phosphorylate. The phosphate groups are transfered to intracellular c-terminal tyrosine rich regions. Where do the phosphate units come from in this cross-reaction? Is it from bound GTP units?
Answer: In protein phosphorylation, the phosphate group transferred from the kinase to the substrate comes almost universally from ATP. However, there is evidence of some protein kinases using GTP as their phosphate source, although they are few and far between.
Comment: I see, so it's similar to the insulin receptor.
Comment: @TMOTTM yes, and just about every other kinase out there, with the exception of CamKII, which I mentioned, and possibly some others. You can pretty safely generalize and say that the phosphate group in protein phosphorylation reactions comes from ATP.
Comment: Ok. Except for the GTP used by G-proteins.


Can the LoadRunner be used for desktop applications

Question: I have used LoadRunner a long time ago for web applications, now i wonder if i can use it for desktop application automation. Is it possible ? Can someone link to any guide or examples?
Thanks in advance.
Answer: LoadRunner is a tool for performance testing. Usually you want to test the performance of some server that serves several clients via some form of communication. This can work for both web and desktop (and mobile) applications.
I think what you are looking for is a functional testing tool - a tool that can use the application in an automatic way instead of the user. There is a complementary product called UFT (previously QTP) that does exactly that!
UFT - http://www8.hp.com/us/en/software-solutions/software.html?compURI=1172957#.UUlnERxTDRM
Answer: LoadRunner can test web and non web client-server applications for performance.   Load all of the sample applications and you will find flight samples for Web, for database, for Winsock, for DCOM, etc...   You can look to the VUGEN manuals and find all sorts of non-web based client-server protocols for use by thick client applications.


What would happen if the US exhausts extraordinary measures, debt limit is not increased, and Treasury decides to ignore limit and issue new debt?

Question: Treasury Secretary Yellen said this would be a "constitutional crisis". What would that entail? Would it be up to SCOTUS to tell the executive it can't do that? And then SCOTUS would what... tell the executive what the priorities must be for paying its expenses? Or just leave that unspecified? I imagine the executive could continue to defy SCOTUS by simply arguing that they must do so to ensure that the Treasury pays for the spending that Congress has already authorized.
Comment: I'm voting to close this question because it is impossible to answer as it would be uncharted waters for everyone involved.
Comment: I think you answer the question yourself already. The usual way to solve such a crisis would be to call SCOTUS and let them decide. However, it's in general impossible to predict what will be the outcome of that. That's why we do not even try here. "What would happen..." questions inherently are very difficult to answer.
Answer: If they follow the 2011 plan, it would essentially mean that the government will start jerking like a car with a faulty transmission, because [under that plan] priority will be given to paying debts rather than agencies, on a daily basis.

One cannot predict how Treasury will operate when the debt limit binds, given that this would be unprecedented. Treasury did have a contingency plan in place in 2011 when the country faced a similar situation, and it seems likely that Treasury would follow the contours of that plan if the debt limit were to bind this year. Under the 2011 plan, there would be no default on Treasury securities. Treasury would continue to pay interest on those Treasury securities as it comes due. And, as securities mature, Treasury would pay that principal by auctioning new securities for the same amount (and thus not increasing the overall stock of debt held by the public). Treasury would delay payments for all other obligations until it had at least enough cash to pay a full day's obligations. In other words, it will delay payments to agencies, contractors, Social Security beneficiaries, and Medicare providers rather than attempting to pick and choose which payments to make that are due on a given day.

As further discussed in there, it's not quite like a government shutdown, because employees can't be furloughed, but they'd have to work for IOUs essentially, rather than getting paid on time. Stuff like this happens/happened in  some countries, usually described in derogatory words in the US.
That will also likely result in numerous lawsuits, potentially with contradictory lower court decisions as to what the gov't should pay first, eventually having to be reconciled by the SCOTUS.
So, it's also possible that it won't go entirely according to plan, thus short-term technical defaults on Treasuries are also possible, as in fact did happen in 1979. How much the credit rating of the US would be affected depends on the magnitude of these events.
And if various officials start ignoring court orders, they can be jailed for contempt, although in some of those aforementioned countries, police also routinely claims it didn't receive any such orders, when the person to be jailed is some potentate.
FWTW, there's already a lawsuit (filed by a union of government employees) calling for Yellen to ignore the "unconstitutional" debt limit. As that piece discusses, the Treasury might actually welcome "losing" that suit. (Like it happened with one of the mifepristone lawsuits against the FDA, for that matter--the one which ordered them to keep providing the drug, albeit only as an injunction.) That basically would create legal cover for the Treasury, at least temporarily. (Whether the debt-limit unconstitutionality arguments have a lot basis, I won't try to discuss here, but a quick search does find some paper penned by some law professors advocating that. But it may be more difficult for Congresspersons to 'sue back', as courts have been somewhat more inclined to limit their standing. Still, it's not exactly impossible, if a Congressperson can convince a court their vote has been "nullified" for instance, which in this case doesn't seem so implausible, as many of the Congresspersons who voted for the last debt limit are surely still alive/around.) The scenario advanced in the Q, that Yellen would just ignore the limit (with no other intervening events) seems the least plausible to me, so take this answer mostly as a frame challenge.
Comment: "If they follow the 2011..." With the addition that they don't have to follow that plan. Ultimately we simply don't know exactly what will happen and a lot of things are possible.
Comment: You're talking about what happens in a scenario that is not the one the question is asking about. If the Treasury ignores the debt limit and issues new debt anyway, both agencies and bondholders will be paid just as if the debt limit was raised. You have answered about the scenario where the Treasury stops paying because the debt limit was not raised and the Treasury obeys the limit.
Comment: The bit about "ignoring court orders" does go toward answering the question. I agree of course that this question is by definition speculative, but it is also topical and interesting. I doubt I am the only citizen tired of these periodic debt limit showdowns and would like to see the executive find a way to nullify it if Congress won't do so (but at the same time I'd like to see them get back to a more or less balanced budget!).
Comment: This is a good answer, but to a different question.