Messages

1

General Software Discussion / Re: UEFI updates and potential issues

« on: May 24, 2026, 12:47 PM »

I've been watching this one and cringing... Basically, from what I've read, anything pre TPM - Windows Server 2019 and older - is getting kicked to the curb. And at a time where hardware costs are spiraling out of sight. Basic SMB server with a Xeon CPU, and a (proper) hardware RAID5 array? $5,000.00+ ... WTAF?!? Folks can't do that right now.

But we have cloud, AI, and just trust me (shared responsibility model...) rampant in the industry these days ... I can't retire fast enough. I see things happening, I know it's bad/Fad-tech, but nobody wants to listen.

Yeah boss, I know the brochure is cool as hell, and their CI/CD policy pushes updates close to weekly ... But their security is total shit, because their (SSO/MFA has been coming soon for almost 2 years now) backend systems are over 8 months out of date...(i wish i was kidding)...and I just - piggyback - hacked into their systems (because I thought it would be fun...), and I'm not that good at hacking FFS!

2

Official Announcements / Re: Winding down DonationCoder after 20 years

« on: May 17, 2026, 11:47 AM »

Well Hell, and I was just trying to get back in the habit of coming here. I loved coming here for years, but then kind of drifted off after a coding project for work went completely sideways. It soured me on programming for quite a while. So, I dumped everything I was working on and headed back out to the garage to work on motorcycles again.

Sad to see the site go and have many fond memories of being here, but I do understand ... Sometimes life requires change that are hard.

Thank You mouser, for having one of the best sites on the internet!

3

General Software Discussion / Re: Problem auto-typing into Notepad??

« on: May 01, 2026, 08:28 AM »

It's possible to revert to older versions of Notepad, that work normally, see e.g. How to Restore Old Legacy Notepad in Windows 11.  But why would you want to, when there are plenty of vastly better tools out there, including many free ones.  Besides, your preference might just get steamrollered on the next compulsory Windows update.

-rjbull (February 04, 2025, 04:27 PM)

Now there's a handy tip I hadn't thought to need yet. I use NotePad extensively and have for years. It a great Living-Off-The-Land tool for peaking at suspicious files due to its complete lack of any rendering or execution ability. Or for just smuggling script onto a remote system if/when needed. Since I'm finding more and more - basically mandatory - uses for PowerShell these days for admin stuff.

4

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for QuickBooks Alternative

« on: October 18, 2024, 03:16 PM »

"your best bet for importing your QB data into GnuCash would be to output your data in a CSV format and either import the CSV data directly or convert the CSV to QIF and use the QIF importer."

-paradisusvic (October 18, 2024, 01:58 PM)

If they were going to continue business operations, I would consider it. But the last time I tried dealing with the QB export, it was a complete fiasco and ended up basically wasting a weeks worth of labor. And that was doing a QB to QB conversion, because someone had enabled a one way db conversion feature that for business continuity had to be undone (very long story..).

The QB exports (either CVS or IIF) don't quite exactly export everything you actually need to rebuild the data set completely. So there will be gaps in the data that could potentially cause issues during an audit should there ever be one ... Which points to the heart of the matter. That being there is a very high probability that the data will never - like ever - be needed again.

So if there was a clean way of doing a direct conversion/import to new software, that would be great. But in fairness to the client, since Intuit has designed that to be impossible. If the labor cost of the migration is going to be close to or over the cost of a 1 year (or less) subscription, then I would - in good conscience - have to recommend going the subscription route. Because it will guarantee the data required will be intact, and only be an actual cost if something - that is reasonably unlikely - happens.

Now for their retired now, home checkbook stuff going forward, I will recommend GnuCash. But the business data is safer/cheaper to just let sit, and hope the dust doesn't need to be disturbed.

5

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for QuickBooks Alternative

« on: October 18, 2024, 01:18 PM »

Well poo...

At this time there is no way to import from Quickbooks, and there are no plans to add that functionality. The Quickbooks QBW data format is a proprietary, non-documented file format. So until someone documents the file format or donates a QBW file parser your best bet for importing your QB data into GnuCash would be to output your data in a CSV format and either import the CSV data directly or convert the CSV to QIF and use the QIF importer.

-GnuCash FAQ

So much for hoping I was wrong... Intuit really is Pure Rapacious Evil.


But that does at least leave me with an answer (in fairness, no is an answer), so thank you paradisusvic! I will recommend they use GnuCash for their personal/home stuff going forward. The business stuff will require a different approach.


Client has been in business for 30 years, so their QB db is quite large, and a bit involved. Numerous accounts, add-ons, payroll, and loads of accounting stuff I frankly don't even want to understand. So my advice to them at this point, since 'Plan A' was to throw tons of cash at the problem to maintain the licensing for a what if something happens scenario. Is to make 'Plan B' a basically free what if nothing happens solution. Because no access to the data going forward is necessary ... Unless something (gets audited) happens - So...

Let the license laps, and put the QB Company files in "cold storage"
If something happens, grab a new subscription, pop the thing back open and do whatever.
If nothing happens, wait X years and then delete the damn thing.


It ain't pretty, but it ain't thousands of dollars - wasted... - either.

6

General Software Discussion / Looking for QuickBooks Alternative

« on: October 18, 2024, 08:26 AM »

I have a client that is closing their business, but needs to keep the company's financials available for ~8 years for legal reasons. They are currently using QuickBooks, but since it is now a subscription only license, they'd like to avoid the ever increasing cost of said subscription going forward since it would only serve to maintain access to the data that they realistically may never need ... Unless something (legal requirement) happens.

So I'm hoping someone might know of a - cheap, economical, or free - QuickBooks alternative that can import/convert/access the QB files without requiring ongoing licensing/subscription costs.

Thank you,

Stoic Joker




P.S Yes, I know I'm doing another "Drive By" question...sorry! But life just ain't leaving me with much time to hangout places these days.

7

Developer's Corner / Re: Have Issue with PowerShell and Formatting/Displaying Data from the Event Logs

« on: January 26, 2024, 12:41 PM »

Which version of PowerShell are you using? The one included in Windows itself or the open-source version?

The open-source version is at version 7.x, Powershell included with Windows isn't.

-Shades (January 25, 2024, 06:16 PM)

Normally I'm a what's in the box/living of the land sort of guy. But I may have to explore the OS version.

The open-source version gets more "love" from everyone, incl. Microsoft, so it may be possible that your script works in the open-source version.

-Shades (January 25, 2024, 06:16 PM)

No... The prevailing Rule-of-Thumb is: I screwed something up.

Typically because I've usually screwed something up ... As I just don't do this often enough to be/get good at it - Hence, I'm not.

I once spent an entire afternoon working on code with ChatGPT. The reason it took so long is that ChatGPT wasn't astute enough to simply inform me, that I was a Freaking Idiot. Because after some additional tangentially related research I realized that what I was asking it to do was flat-out impossible.


I think I might just be gettin old.

8

Developer's Corner / Re: Have Issue with PowerShell and Formatting/Displaying Data from the Event Logs

« on: January 26, 2024, 10:23 AM »

You could also try setting a value regardless of whether there's a match or not:

[Select]

Duration = if ($_ -match '(?smi).*\ssession duration was\s+([^\s]+)\s+.*') { $matches[1] } else { "Unknown Duration" }

P.S. I can't actually test it as I only have a Win10 machine, wish I could suggest something more.

-4wd (January 25, 2024, 05:32 AM)

Yeah, I had a feeling that might be a problem...

But! The duration part solved itself later in the code, when I ran it through a formatting routine that returns blank if the input is not a number:

[Select]

@{Name='Duration  ';Expression={'{0}' -f [timespan]::fromseconds($_.Duration).ToString("d\.hh\:mm\:ss")}}

Then I ran into a variation of the same problem on the next value that your code above worked perfectly on:

[Select]

Target = if ($_.Message -match '(?smi).*to resource\s\"+([^\s]+).INTERNALDOMAINNAME.com\".\s+.*') { $matches[1] }
else {
$_.Message -replace '(?smi).*network resource:\s\"+([^\s]+).LAP.com\".\s+.*','$1'
}

The output report combines two different event types (connect and disconnect) in the same column, that both needed the same (internal resource machine name) info that was worded differently in their source event messages.

So if anybody else needs it, the now working/finished report code looks like so:

[Select]

$Start = (Get-Date).AddDays(-14)

$End = Get-Date ## (Get-Date).Date AutoMagically Makes it Midnight of that Date.

Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{LogName='Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-Gateway/Operational';
StartTime=$Start; EndTime=$End; ID=302,303 } | %{

(new-object -Type PSObject -Property @{
TimeStamp = $_.TimeCreated

evId = $_.ID -replace '\s',''

ClientIP = $_.Message -replace '(?smi).*on client computer\s\"+([^\s]+)\",\s+.*','$1'

UserName = $_.Message -replace '(?smi).*The user\s\"+([^\s]+)\",\s+.*','$1'

Duration = $_.Message -replace '(?smi).*\ssession duration was\s+([^\s]+)\s+.*','$1'

Target = if ($_.Message -match '(?smi).*to resource\s\"+([^\s]+).LAP.com\".\s+.*') { $matches[1] }
else {
$_.Message -replace '(?smi).*network resource:\s\"+([^\s]+).INTERNALDOMAINNAME.com\".\s+.*','$1'
}

})

} | sort UserName, TimeStamp -Descending | Select `
 @{Name='Event Date and Time   ';Expression={'{0}' -f $_.TimeStamp}} `
, @{Name='User Location  ';Expression={'{0}' -f $_.ClientIP}} `
, @{Name='Target Machine';Expression={'{0}' -f $_.Target}} `
, @{Name='Username    ';Expression={'{0}' -f $_.UserName}} `
, @{N='User Action Made   ';E={
switch ($_.evId) {
302 {"Connected"}
303 {"Disconnected After:"}
default {'Should be unreachable'}
}}} `
, @{Name='Duration  ';Expression={'{0}' -f [timespan]::fromseconds($_.Duration).ToString("d\.hh\:mm\:ss")}} | Format-Table -AutoSize -Wrap

Thank You!

9

Developer's Corner / Re: Have Issue with PowerShell and Formatting/Displaying Data from the Event Logs

« on: January 24, 2024, 10:15 AM »

Try string interpolation:

Code: PowerShell [Select]

1. 303 {"303 - User Disconnected From Resource: $($Duration)"}

-4wd (January 24, 2024, 12:04 AM)

I tried that and a few different variations ($_.($Duration, $($_.Duration), and etc.); no luck.
Double quotes come out blank, and single quotes just echo back the code as typed.

The part that's killing me, is I'm not even sure which part is broken; the output string creation, or is the elusive data that I can't get to show-up in it just missing/identified wrong/not supposed to be accessible for there until spring...

Do I need to (somehow) pass the other arrays into the switch statement? Something along the lines of:

Code: PowerShell [Select]

1. switch ($_.evId.($_.Duration)) {

Or is that even possible/supposed to be needed?

Thank you.


P.S. If it helps/matters - Test code is being run on a Windows Server 2022 machine.

10

Developer's Corner / Have Issue with PowerShell and Formatting/Displaying Data from the Event Logs

« on: January 23, 2024, 10:24 AM »

Greetings,
   I'm trying to create a report using the Windows Event Logs that displays the RD Gateway logon history of users with PowerShell, but I'm stuck at how to get the length (or Duration in the code) of their session to show up in a string inside of a switch statement.

[Select]

Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{LogName='Microsoft-Windows-TerminalServices-Gateway/Operational'; ID=300,302,303 } | %{

(new-object -Type PSObject -Property @{
TimeCreated = $_.TimeCreated

evId = $_.ID -replace '\s',''

ClientIP = $_.Message -replace '(?smi).*on client computer\s\"+([^\s]+)\",\s+.*','$1'

UserName = $_.Message -replace '(?smi).*The user\s\"+([^\s]+)\",\s+.*','$1'

Duration = $_.Message -replace '(?smi).*\ssession duration was\s+([^\s]+)\s+.*','$1'
})

} | sort UserName, TimeCreated -Descending | Select TimeCreated, ClientIP `
, @{N='Username';E={'{0}' -f $_.UserName}} `
, @{N='evID - User Action Made';E={
switch ($_.evId) {
300 {'300 - Requested Resource Access Authorized'}
302 {'302 - Full Resource Machine Connection'}
303 {"303 - User Disconnected From Resource: 'Duration'"}
default {'This should be unreachable...'}
} Format-Table -AutoSize
}}

No matter what I try, nothing will put the number of seconds number that should be stored in the Duration array into that string for output to the screen. And I need to have it displayed conditionally for only the 303 events - Otherwise it doesn't exist and dumps the whole event message text.

Anybody know the right answer that I can't seem to find?

Thanks in Advance

Stoic Joker

11

Living Room / Re: Looking for Raspberry Pi with Pass-Through Power

« on: August 17, 2023, 01:06 PM »

Interesting... But I'm not sure if the monitoring software will run on the alternates as vendor specified Raspberry, which may not matter - I just don't know enough about these things to guess worth a damn.

12

Living Room / Re: Looking for Raspberry Pi with Pass-Through Power

« on: August 17, 2023, 07:26 AM »

What will the main task of the RPi be? Not just switching & measuring the power, I assume?

-Ath (August 16, 2023, 12:10 PM)

Okay, let me preface this with the intended application for said device is completely legal... Which I bring up, because the intended application is network scanning and data collection (Note: I work for an MSP..). So... Also forgot to mention - towards that end - it will need to have 2 ethernet ports.

The power pass-through, and dual ethernet ports are really just for deployment simplicity so that it does not require additional power & ethernet ports, as this would be installed with another networked device that it would then be monitoring via SNMP.

Only thing I've ever seen is the old hack of a Pi in a power board here but being homebuilt it's excluded.

-4wd (August 17, 2023, 03:19 AM)

Wasn't looking to get quite that devious with it, but that is a right interesting little widget.

I don't need to interact or disrupt the power flow, I just need the pie to be powered by it on its way to the device being monitored ... without the need for an additional power receptacle/wall wart type situation.




Note: unfortunately, due to a general distain for all things IoT, I've never delved into the Pi stuff previously. So at this point I simply have no idea how to even start looking for something applicable to the task.

13

Living Room / Looking for Raspberry Pi with Pass-Through Power

« on: August 16, 2023, 09:18 AM »

Okay, this could be a Unicorn, but...

Has anyone ever come across a Raspberry Pi that has a pass-through power port, similar to the powerline networking devices?


So something that looks like this, but with a Raspberry Pi in it.

I can't give a lot of detail about what I'm up to, but I'd be needing something that is not a kit/homebuilt for the application in mind.

Thanks in Advance,

Stoic Joker

14

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Edge non-enterprise 64 bit exists?

« on: April 21, 2023, 01:24 PM »

From my understanding the Edge EE.msi is just a full package installer, as opposed to the downloaded style installers that are so popular these days. The end result is the same (no feature/restriction/option changes), it's just easier to deploy via push or in heavily restricted environments.

I first came across in when trying to install a browser on either an 08 or 12 server (i forget) that could not successfully run the usual downloader installer.

Now it's all I ever use, because it's just faster and easier to install.

15

N.A.N.Y. 2023 / Re: NANY 2023 Release: IPMI Tool GUI

« on: January 20, 2023, 05:43 AM »

Looks like I'm a bit late to the party...

Can (or does) this get the status of the RAID array and drives on a Dell (or other brand) server?

16

General Software Discussion / Re: any shit browsers I can use?

« on: December 02, 2022, 05:45 AM »

^^^I like it!

17

General Software Discussion / Re: any shit browsers I can use?

« on: November 23, 2022, 05:44 AM »

Edge has an open in IE mode option that should work

18

General Software Discussion / Re: Firewall Tester

« on: October 08, 2022, 10:44 AM »

On a general note: in your network you have telnet enabled, yet ICMP (ping) disabled? Telnet is kinda infamous for being unsafe, in (much) more ways than the ICMP protocol is.

-Shades (September 27, 2022, 03:32 PM)

They're probably just using the telnet client for diagnostic purposes (I do quite frequently as well) and not the server. Since they're separate components, there's no risk to having just the client installed.

19

Developer's Corner / Re: PowerShell Pickle with Registry Updates

« on: September 16, 2022, 09:28 AM »

So... Crickets it is then..

Well for the next poor sod what ends up wondering, I did manage to cobble together an answer:

Code: PowerShell [Select]

1. $registry = Get-ChildItem "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors\Standard TCP/IP Port\Ports" -Recurse
2.  
3. foreach($a in $registry) {
4.  
5.         $X = $a.ToString()
6.         $X = $X.Replace("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE", "HKLM:")
7.         Get-ItemProperty -Path "$X" HostName | %{Set-ItemProperty -Path $_.PSPath HostName -Value ( $_.HostName -Replace ".1.", ".4." )}
8. }
9.  
10. Restart-Service -Name Spooler

Object being: we're having to readdress a large network that is running out of addresses to an entirely different - non overlapping - subnet. So when all of the machines (DHCP) jump over to the new address range, nobody will be able to access their printers because they all print to direct IP. 80 computers, pointing at 60+ different printers, in what is basically a mesh pattern.

Nobody want's to do that shit through the GUI by hand.

So this (pushed to each machine via management software) will update the Printer Port IP Address targets on each machine to the new address range … Without requiring anyone to romp all over the complex touching machines.

20

Living Room / Re: No living room, ironically

« on: September 15, 2022, 05:51 PM »

Congratulations Man!

21

Developer's Corner / PowerShell Pickle with Registry Updates

« on: September 15, 2022, 03:35 PM »

Greetings,
    So I'm in a bit of a pickle trying to update the registry with PowerShell. I need to go into a key, list it's sub keys, and update a value in all of the subkeys on local machine. Reason this is being done with PowerShell, is it has to be pushed out to 80 machines...so nobody wants to do it manually 80 times 

   The script (scrounged off the internet) I've been beating on all afternoon is below, it will open the key and list the values I'm after … But I cannot get it to update them. Note: the updated value is/will be based on the current value. So I'm looking for a get/replace/set type of operation on the HostName entry's value which is an IP address.

Code: PowerShell [Select]

1. $registry = Get-ChildItem "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors\Standard TCP/IP Port\Ports" -Recurse
2.  
3. foreach ($a in $registry) {
4.     ($a | Get-ItemProperty).Psobject.Properties |
5.     #Exclude powershell-properties in the object
6.     Where-Object { $_.Name -like 'HostName' } |
7.     Select-Object Name, Value
8. }

So instead of displaying the HostName entry's value, I need it to change the third octet of the IP address to a 4 so that 192.168.1.152 becomes 192.168.4.152

Anybody smarter than I am got a bit of mercy handy for a tired old fool?

TIA
-Stoic Joker

22

Living Room / Re: Programming/Coder humor

« on: June 17, 2022, 01:58 PM »

23

Living Room / Re: Tips for failing eyesight? PC use

« on: March 04, 2022, 05:42 AM »

Got a client that has a pair of 32" curved monitors running at 1920x1080. I'd originally panned the idea (but lost the debate) because I thought the height would be hard on the neck … But it wasn't. It's actually a really nice setup, and very easy to read on.

24

Developer's Corner / Re: Question About Updating Logfile with PowerShell Add-Content

« on: February 01, 2022, 08:03 AM »

Addendum: IIRC I had a similar thing with Add-Content that I was doing and the result was that Add-Content was one of the very few PowerShell commandlets that couldn't take a file in a variable.

-4wd (January 31, 2022, 04:12 PM)

Ah-ha-ha! Given the inane shenanigans I've gone through trying to get this to work. That is the conclusion I was coming too - And your recollection is way gooder than mine.

Thanks, I'll go a different route with this then.

Did you try prefacing it with the &? Did that work?

-wraith808 (January 31, 2022, 10:31 PM)

That one made the script lock/crash on load. I tried everything from your link, and a few variations on what was suggested, but to no avail. So I'm going with the (4wd confirmed) assertion that the Add-Content commandlet (I can never remember that term) is just broken like that or something.

Thanks guys!

25

Developer's Corner / Re: Question About Updating Logfile with PowerShell Add-Content

« on: January 31, 2022, 03:09 PM »

You can also try for grins to use a path with no spaces- and looking for that, I see that's the correct answer.

-wraith808 (January 31, 2022, 01:12 PM)

1. Target is buried in the middle of clients 1,500,000 files/folders file server... 
2. Just for fun and curiosity, I tried it - and it still didn't work. Which actually, is rather interesting.

(I used the inhouse lab copy for this) Taking all spaced out of both path and filename, still caused the script to fail (same as before) at the add-content command … regardless of what I did to the string I was trying to pass in. So it seems at this point to be an issue with add-content itself, and how it needs/wants to be spoon-fed the string.

Gaaaa! - It's almost 5:00pm - Happy Thoughts, happy thoughts...