Val Brown

QUOTE (shoneill @ Apr 7 2009, 12:00 AM)

With the documentation as shipped as the only source of information?

Seems unlikely to me but perhaps, perhaps.

Shane.

Hmmm, sounds like another "contest" may be birthing....Who wants to be the first to demonstrate or refute this? And, perhaps more importantly, why would you REALLY want to do it?

QUOTE (Mark Yedinak @ Apr 7 2009, 09:22 AM)

Just to chime in I can understand the curiosity of someone who is learning and wanting to know how things work. However it is important to stress that if one makes a habit of this and uses it frequently it could hurt in the long run. Many businesses today are very concerned with maintaining a legal operation. It only takes one disgruntled employee to report a business which can result in an investigation of the company and possibly some very large fines. The last thing you want to do for your career is be the person who put a company into this kind of a position.

Yes, many of us have our own hacker history. For me it involved PDP-11, IBM 360 and a lot of early TTY-networks. It's one of the many reasons that I really no longer like working directly with devices, networks and esp not serial com. I certainly applaud and support ingenuity and curiosity but respect for legal limits is also of fundamental importance.

QUOTE (normandinf @ Apr 6 2009, 12:38 PM)

Read the license. Stricly speaking, it's trespass.

Not that it would necessarily be a reason to stop trying, but...

Yes, precisely so even though some (here) might not LIKE it, that's how it is legally. And, FWIW, it's the same situation with Microsoft and Windows, etc and, if I'm not mistaken, almost every distributed, commercial OS out there. Just look at the EULA that, of course, no one seems to ever really read...

QUOTE (bsvingen @ Apr 6 2009, 01:56 AM)

...I would prefer the open source way. IMO that is much better ethics.

At many different times, in many different threads we return to this fundamental paradigm issue. Some are just very committed to open source and seem to believe that the world would be a far, far better place, in all kinds of ways, if ONLY all code were open source. First of all I don't have that kind of belief but, perhaps more importantly (because after all who am I?) NI doesn't have that belief, not does Microsoft. And IMO there are very good reasons for them to not have that belief. As the saying goes: If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. So, if your really don't like the ethics of non-open source software, shift all of your code away from ANY form of software from NI.

QUOTE (BobHamburger @ Apr 5 2009, 05:12 PM)

I feel that all this stuff about ethics and culpability, while certainly interesting, only obfuscate the subject. I have a completely different and much simpler perspective on this issue...

Much of the traditional software world does not consider LabVIEW to be a "real" programming language, for a variety of reasons. Paramount in many of the arguments that I've heard is this simple test: can you write LabVIEW in LabVIEW? Well, if you include scripting and other related features in all their gory, er, I mean, glory, then the answer is yes. If you exclude them, the answer is no. Scripting etc. completes the language, plain and simple. To continue to withold these from general distribution is to deny allowing the language to fully mature.

Ah, let's make certain to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. LabVIEW is a product, made by a single company, released under certain conditions. C/C++ is a standard, used by many companies to produce many different compilers. The product doesn't produce itself, it is produced. The standard is self-replicating/implementing.

Now should/could LabVIEW actually be released as "G" perhaps both a product and a standard? That's an interesting question and one that, I'm sure, NI has discussed internally. At this point we all know there answer.

If I'm not mistaken, the standard of "can you write X in X?" really only applies to standards, not to products.

QUOTE (Jim Kring @ Apr 5 2009, 10:58 AM)

By suggesting that infringed content might exist and there could be links to it, you are enabling others to find it and could be liable for aiding the infringement.

And that's the difference between American and most of the rest of the civilized world. In America you can ONLY ski in the "approved" areas because, otherwise, the management of the ski resort can be held liable EVEN IF you trespass in defiance of posted signs and ski in declared "unsafe" r "out of bounds" areas. In other parts of the world you are on your own lookout and are expected to ask responsibly -- eg not throw the toaster into the bathtub to have toast while taking a bath.

The extent of that way of thinking would be to presume that ALL potential features had to be exhaustively discovered, fully documented, as well as recommendations for/against their use detailed (esp in unpredictable fashions). It's really pretty absurd to think that ANY product could be so controlled in its development, esp when it's software. But, then again, all of this is really being driven by the US legal system and its culture. And, as the "joke" goes, American justice is the best that money can buy.

QUOTE (Aristos Queue @ Apr 4 2009, 03:35 PM)

I accept your challenge. I believe that unrevealed features serve more benefit to users than harm, and I suggest that software that does not have such features is likely not innovating sufficiently.

....

In summary, I believe that unrevealed features support the values of usability, stability, innovation and accelerated development of more valuable features. I would be very interested to hear flarn2006's position on why such features are some combination of wrong, bad or evil*, and what value propistion he/she feels is gained by deliberately minimizing the existence of such features.

[/size]

I agree with all of what you're saying here AQ except that I have, well, over 25 years of active software development behind me. No wonder I've got grey hair!

Flarn2006 may I suggest that you take a moment, take a breath and then see if you can express what you're really meaning here and what your real intention is with all of your attempts to hack LV. And I'm not opposed to hacking -- been there done that -- esp in looking for undocumented features, "hidden" functionality, etc. If you want to break software, give it to me. I'll find the problems. So I understand that part of what's going on here but I don't think that's the real motivation of what you're doing. And maybe I'm completely wrong on this so I too would really like to hear what you have to say about it.

QUOTE (flarn2006 @ Apr 3 2009, 02:07 PM)

What reason would they have for keeping it private? Can anybody from NI maybe post here and say?

Isn't this kind of like your other hacking question? What is motivating you to try so many hacks of LV?

QUOTE (Justin Goeres @ Mar 30 2009, 01:13 PM)

I have a solution.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zewb8PcL5cs&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zewb8PcL5cs&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

You'd probably have to get that dress tailored a bit though to fit.... :laugh:

QUOTE (RAJKU @ Mar 22 2009, 10:37 AM)

Can anyone explain we what is the relation between VI sever and Instance. If I open a VI in project instance and I use a property node to get the VI server port configured it shows me zero and when I do the same in Main Instance I get the port number what is configured. Can anyone explain me how are they related and why are they related.

Thanks

Can you post code or at least a screen capture of code?

QUOTE (Aristos Queue @ Mar 21 2009, 02:51 PM)

Ah, the ancient hacker ethos question. I have to admit ... threads like this leave me torn between

1. cheering on clever applications of software and admiration for those who can make the trick work
   
2. concern for the ethical problems that such hacks raise
   
3. and dread of the bug report when someone does figure these doors out that mean those of us in R&D have to be even more clever next release.
   

Honestly, I think the best solution is to cleverly figure out the trick and tell no one *except* NI. Under those conditions, you can legitimately claim to be working to make LV better by exploring its weaknesses, and if you happen to learn how certain VIs work along the way -- such as picture to pixmap -- well, that's just a side-effect of your other efforts. Think of it as reward for research.

Of course, under such a model, anyone who did figure a trick out wouldn't post it to the forums. ;-)

I agree with everything you're saying here it's just that now, having been on both sides of that kind of fence and with MANY years under my belt, I guess I feel like I need to be a bit of an "old guy" saying be mindful of the realistic limits and reasons for those attempts at protection of the hard work and property of others. And of course it's cool to figure out...

QUOTE (flarn2006 @ Mar 21 2009, 01:29 PM)

Two reasons:

1. I am curious as to how some of the built-in password-protected VIs work (i.e. Picture to Pixmap)
   
2. I may be able to find additional undocumented features.
   

Also, to respond to Yair's comment, maybe someone on the forum could find a method, advertise on the forum that they can do it, but not tell how for fear of NI finding it. They can't "fix" something if they don't know what it is, right?

In other words, you're wanting to hack their security and bypass it. I understand curiosity but, from where I sit, that's not just curiosity, it's tresspass.

QUOTE (flarn2006 @ Mar 20 2009, 05:32 PM)

Didn't we first find out about VI scripting through VI's that NI forgot to password-protect? When password-protected VI's are run, the computer surely accesses the block diagram at one point or another, so obviously it is possible to read the block diagram. LabVIEW just won't let us see it. Can anyone find any way to force it to show you? Perhaps by hex-editing the files or even using Cheat Engine or something?

Why exactly do you want to do this?

QUOTE (Michael Aivaliotis @ Mar 11 2009, 03:41 PM)

I remember watching this back in the 70s as a kid. However, I can't remember the context. Was it before a movie or what? Maybe I saw it on SNL. Not sure. I remember thinking at the time: "That's brilliantly funny".

The first time I saw it was as a preview/accompaniment to a Star Trek bloopers reel.

YES!

QUOTE (Jorge Moreno @ Mar 10 2009, 10:13 AM)

Thanks for your comments Val and Rolfk, from what you mentioned both I did before some of your recommendations and still did not work, in your case Rolfk I had error handling but not at the startup or Top VI, I added that this morning and I got the following error displayed in the error cluster:

"Error loading type library/DLL"

The problem resides in that I did not know the nature of the Activex object I was using, I am developing an application and R&D Engineers from other site did not want to share information about the interface controlled by this Activex nor the Activex itself due to security policies from their group, so I had to find out myself how to access these methods and properties to develop a Test Platform for a new product. After browsing for info on this error I found two useful links which I am attaching below:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch...EC?OpenDocument

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch...7A?OpenDocument

In my case the Activex object turn out to be an Activex Server instead a .OCX, when I tried to use rgsvr32 to register it as a .OCX I got the following error:

...\ActivexObjectName.exe was loaded, but the DLLUnregisterServer entry point was not found

...\ActivexObjectName.exe does not appear to be a .DLL or .OCX file.

After reading from the knowledge base at NI how to register an Activex Server then I did:

...\ActivexObjectName.exe /RegServer

And it worked!!!!!

I hope this help help other with similar problems than my application

Thanks

Jorge Moreno

Good detective work! This is the biggest problem with using ActiveX objects: it's the Wild West out there and anything that is not explicitly forbidden, is allowed. And there ain't a whole lot that's forbidden!

QUOTE (Jorge Moreno @ Mar 9 2009, 02:20 PM)

Hi all,

I have a problem with an external code developed in VB 6.0, I am accesing it from Labview 8.20 using the "Automation Open" to have access to properties and methods, the code works just fine in development environment and if the executable build is ran in the same laptop I use for the development. The problem shows when I try to run my labview code in a different machine, I have created the same directory structures to avoid any problem related to location of the right activex, in fact you can see that the Labview .exe applicatioon is actually calling the activex object because is opened but when it's supossed to execute several methods within these activex it does not do anything, I have realized that because the main function of the activex should be to Open the Com Port, I have Serial Monitor software spying the Com Port activity and does not do anything. Any idea why it works as .exe in the laptop where I developed and not in a different machine.

PD The Laptop has Windows Vista Enterprise and the PC where I want this to work is an XP Pro

Thanks for any help I am sure it should be a minor detail I am no seeing

Do make certain that the relevant ActiveX objects are on the distro computer and are correctly registered there.

QUOTE (crelf @ Mar 7 2009, 11:52 AM)

Right click -> Visible Items -> Frame.

Thanks. I knew it had to be there...somewhere.

Either too many margaritas or not enough. I'll have to experiment a bit more to find out which.

OK, I'm stumped -- not too difficult to do but there it is.

LV 8.6 in XP/Vista (makes no difference), I drop a subpanel container on the FP and try to remove the frame. Right Click on the control, select Properties but, no such Property is to be found. Even try the transparency "color" on the edge/frame of the subpanel. No go.

So, what do I do now?

QUOTE (crelf @ Mar 6 2009, 11:35 AM)

A leak is a leak, and if we loose 1kb every time we open/close then that needs to be fixed.

Absolutely!

QUOTE (Adam Kemp @ Feb 26 2009, 03:52 PM)

That applies to anything which is not core LabVIEW. If the Signal Processing Toolkit improves performance then it can have its own benchmarks. If its performance improves because of LabVIEW itself getting better then you should see that in more general benchmarks.

Understood and both are what I've seen over the years (ie since LV5). I'm asking -- a bit clumsily -- whether benchmarks will be done on the toolkit as well.

QUOTE (Adam Kemp @ Feb 26 2009, 10:45 AM)

I'm specifically asking for benchmark ideas for LabVIEW, not drivers or extra toolkits.

Does that apply to the Signal Processing Toolkit as well? For me performance there is critical. And FWIW, compile and release it for Mac, please. As I understand it, the issue really is just a compile...

QUOTE (bsvingen @ Feb 25 2009, 06:06 PM)

These are all very difficult questions. But the basics like FFT, filters and so on should be as fast in LV as it is with any other method. There should be no room for improvements in those things since optimized algorithms have existed for ages, and there is no good reason why LV should not use the best algirithms.

I think improvements can be better measured in LV specific things. Efficiency of queues, sub vi calls, compiler optimization of large diagrams vs using sub vis, efficiency of LVOOP operations, graphs and charts and so on.

I'm a bit of an outlier here as I always upgrade to the latest release ASAP. Being on SSP, Premium Support, there really isn't any good reason (at least for me) to NOT do that.

But, in terms of comparisons, I actually think FFT, JTFA, Wavelet and Matrix operations are a good start. Picture Control operations as well and then the list specified above as well are all good starts IMO.

QUOTE (crelf @ Feb 25 2009, 05:45 PM)

If the wires were transparent then I wouldn't be able to look at the code and see where the data flows. That would be a big step backwards IMHO. Layers in the diagram - well, that's different, and certainly deserves further discussion...

Layers would be good esp if the error wire could come to the top of the z-order IF an error or warning is being propagated.

QUOTE (crelf @ Feb 25 2009, 05:45 PM)

If the wires were transparent then I wouldn't be able to look at the code and see where the data flows. That would be a big step backwards IMHO. Layers in the diagram - well, that's different, and certainly deserves further discussion...

Layers would be good esp if the error wire could come to the top of the z-order IF an error or warning is being propagated.