Topics

1

Living Room / Assistance creating "fair" work schedule

« on: November 29, 2022, 10:19 AM »

At my workplace, we have 4 people that cover after-hours support, one week at a time, Wednesday PM through the next week Wednesday AM. With the new year coming soon, it's time to create a new schedule.

The issue we have with scheduling is that if we use a simple "A", "B", "C", "D" schedule, one person gets "stuck" covering month-end for 3 or 4 months in a row. Also, with the way holidays fall, one person seems to cover something like 5 of the 7 annual holidays.

This year I tried the schedule of "A", "B", "C", "D", "B", "C", "D", "A", "C", "D", "A", "B"... where the first in the group of four would drop to the last in the next group of four. Confusing, I know, plus that means people sometimes have a gap of nearly 2 months between shifts.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to rotate 4 people with a weekly coverage so that month-ends and holidays are distributed?

2

Post New Requests Here / Idea: Task Manager "Lite"

« on: May 16, 2020, 07:06 PM »

For various reasons, we dont want to give access to TASKMGR.EXE on server sessions, but there are times when we do want them to be able to end a process that's frozen.

I'd like to present the user a prompt where they could key a username and/or a process name, showing results similar to what's found when TASKLIST is run. The user could then select a process and choose to kill it.

Task manager offers too many opportunities for the user to gain access to the desktop of the server or to run programs we'd rather they not have.

I considered using PowerShell to prompt the user, run tasklist with output to CSV format, then taking that to display to the user and using taskkill.Exe to end the selected program. Unfortunately, I've never written a script even REMOTELY similar to this!

3

General Software Discussion / Looking for iPhone updating news display (ticker?)

« on: March 18, 2020, 09:58 AM »

I like to keep up to date on the latest news happenings and am using Desktop Ticker on my PC, but I'm looking for something similar for my iPhone.

Basically I'd like to be able to select my news sources and have the top stories displayed, rotating every "X" number of seconds, updating as new stories are made available. I thought of an RSS reader, but I don't know of any on the iPhone that automatically update their display.

Anybody have a suggestion?

4

General Software Discussion / Window offscreen at startup

« on: September 12, 2019, 03:54 PM »

My Evernote window shows up offscreen every stinkin' time i reboot. 
I've moved and resized the window, shut down the application and then started it up again and it retains previous location/size, as one would expect.
BUT - when I reboot the desktop, i see the icon in the task bar and the window is once again, offscreen.

I used AutoHotkey's Window Spy to see that the window's X-Y coordinates are set to -32000 & -32000.  Searching the registry for "-32000" results in these results:

[Select]

Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppUserModelId\Microsoft.Windows.ParentalControls (also in HKLM)
 - DisplayName = @%SystemRoot%\system32\WpcRefreshTask.dll,-32000

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\AsyncMac (also in HKLM)
 - Description (also DisplayName) = @%systemroot%\system32\mprmsg.dll,-32000

Details:
OS = Windows 10 1703 build 15063.1746
3 monitors, left-most is primary, all are set to 1920x1080.

Anyone have any trouble-shooting ideas for getting my window to appear on one of my monitors after rebooting?

5

DC Website Help and Extras / Handling spam on forum

« on: August 14, 2019, 12:23 PM »

I hate to say it, but I still feel that we should employ a system like myspace does with their groups, new members have to be members a full week before being allowed to post ANYTHING.  This ensures they are serious about the forum and keeps out most spammers, also gets them well acquainted with the rules and procedures before they can break them....

-MichaelLal (August 14, 2019, 11:30 AM)

Only problem is that it hampers legitimate new users from requesting help for their issue.
     "I need help, and I need it NOW!"

 
Perhaps an approval from a moderator might work? there'd be some back-and-forth interaction to ensure the poster was valid?

(Also, i'm kind of surprised we're adding this to an ancient thread ?)

6

Developer's Corner / Looking for freeware command line text to PDF

« on: August 02, 2019, 01:54 PM »

I found TXT2PDF referenced in a couple places, including this DonationCoder post, and I tried pulling a copy from VeryPDF.com, but was blocked (unsafe?).

Does anyone have experience with a freeware CLI text-to-PDF converter that can be run from a Windows batch script? And a URL to a "safe" download would be fab!

7

General Software Discussion / Looking for news, weather, time & RSS on iPhone

« on: July 05, 2018, 08:36 AM »

I use an app on my iPhone/iPad called "WorkTime" to display the time, weather, and calendar.

I like it but would love an app that has all those items but also has an RSS reader or better yet, a scrolling news headlines, ala "Desktop Ticker".

Anyone know of anything close to that?

8

PopUp Wisdom / "File can not be uploaded" error

« on: July 13, 2016, 11:01 AM »

Running PopUpWisdom v1.09.01.
Upon each startup, I receive this error message:
   ---------------------------
   PopUpWisdom
   ---------------------------
   This file can not be uploaded.
   ---------------------------
   OK   
   ---------------------------

How do I identify what file is trying to be uploaded?  And where is it being uploaded to?

9

General Software Discussion / Help with Windows batch script

« on: May 05, 2015, 11:11 AM »

Ok, 1st off, I'm guessing this probably isn't the best place for this post. If not, someone can move it to the best area - as long as it's not the trash bin!

I am having problems with a Windows batch script. Maybe someone out there can point out my error.

What I'm trying to do is to retrieve a list of remote desktop sessions on a server, then log each one off unless the login name matches a list of names to be ignored.
The list of sessions and logging off is not a problem. It's when I need to check against the list of names that I have a problem.

Here's my code:

Code: Text [Select]

1. SET serverlist=APPLE BANANA CHERRY
2. FOR %%s in (%serverlist%) DO (
3.         FOR /f "tokens=1,2,3" %%a IN ('QUERY USER /server:%%s^"') DO (
4.                 ::      Don't log off this list of users:
5.                 ::      administrator, Zebra, Yankee
6.                 IF /I [%%a] EQU [administrator] (
7.                         ECHO Ignored user %%a
8.                 ) ELSE (
9.                         IF /I [%%a] EQU [Zebra] (
10.                                 ECHO Ignored user %%a
11.                         ) ELSE (
12.                                 IF /I [%%a] EQU [Yankee] (
13.                                         ECHO Ignored user %%a
14.                                 ) ELSE (
15.                                         IF %%c LSS 65536 (
16.                                                 ECHO Logging off ACTIVE user %%a on session %%c
17.                                                 LOGOFF /server:%%s %%c
18.                                         ) ELSE (
19.                                                 IF %%b LSS 65536 (
20.                                                         ECHO Logging off DISCONNECTED user %%a on session %%b
21.                                                         LOGOFF /server:%%s %%b
22.                                                 )
23.                                         )
24.                                 )
25.                         )
26.                 )
27.         )
28. )

When I DON'T check for individual login names, all users are logged off. That part works great - has been working for years.
Checking for the individuals doesn't work - all users are logged off anyway with the message indicating whether they were active or disconnected.

PLUS, with username checking, the script stops after the 2nd server loop. Server APPLE and BANANA are checked and all users are logged off, but the loop stops without checking server CHERRY.
  (Turns out the script only had APPLE and BANANA defined - no CHERRY on top!)

I figured I must have an unbalanced parenthesis, but I've gone over this until my head hurts and can't find it.  So I turn to this group for help.

10

Finished Programs / TicTocTitle (Titlebar clock) - Multiple display support?

« on: April 22, 2015, 03:37 PM »

TicTocTitle  from skrommel displays the time, date, and toggle key states (configurable) in the active window's titlebar.
Original forum thread

Currently when a window on my 2nd or 3rd display has the focus, the time is displayed on the desktop of the 1st display.

Is there some setting to get TicTocTitle to work correctly for multiple displays? 
Help > About shows I'm running v1.5.

11

Finished Programs / Help with WinWarden

« on: September 02, 2014, 10:12 AM »

Ok, so i'm a long-time user of Skrommel's WinWarden but must be as dense as a fence post.

I've got it set so that my particular window opens with the correct size, but I open several copies of it (help tickets) and they all open at the same X,Y coordinates. I'd like to have the windows cascade somehow so that I can see the titlebars.

Documentation states that I can set the X and Y values as a percentage of "the other window". If anyone has used this to successfully open windows so they cascade, I'd sure like to chat!

TIA,
Dave

12

General Software Discussion / CodeSpaces site (company) destroyed

« on: June 19, 2014, 09:19 AM »

Ok, just got a shiver after reading this article about CodeSpaces.com suffering a destruction of not just their web site, but their entire set of servers!
http://arstechnica.c...-proven-backup-plan/

Anyone else using Amazon Web Service?  Change the passwords, quick!

13

Skwire Empire / Skwire Empire Problems?

« on: April 08, 2014, 04:03 PM »

   Is it just me, or has anyone else had problems getting to Skwire Empire?
I keep getting "This page can't be displayed" messages in both IE and Chrome. Is it just my connection to the outside world, or is there really an issue with the site?

14

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Add/Update Increment to File Extension

« on: October 27, 2009, 03:32 PM »

I need to save previous versions of reports from a batch process.  I'd like to call a script or program from a command line BEFORE running the batch process to rename files with the existing name, bumping a "version" number.

I'd end up with
  filename.ext       (current version)
  filename.ext001  (previous)
  filename.ext002  (2 copies back)
etc.

The pseudo-code would look something like this:

if  exists filename.ext%MaxVal
  delete filename.ext%MaxVal

set /A StartVal=%MaxVal-1

for /L %Val in (%StartVal,-1,1) do (
  if exist filename.ext%Val do (
    set /A NxtVal=%Val+1
    ren filename.ext%Val  filename.ext%NxtVal
  )
)

if exist filename.ext 
  ren filename.ext filename.ext001


I'd like to be able to set the maximum number of copies to keep in an environment variable and pass the file name as a parameter on a command line.  I'd also like the values to be 3 digits long, padded with 0's when necessary.

Thanks!

15

General Software Discussion / Looking for modem comm / testing freeware

« on: July 01, 2009, 01:34 PM »

I need a free / open source program that would let me connect to another computer over a modem.
I use Procomm on my PC, but at client sites, I simply need to test for a good phone connection on their modem.
Client OS is Win2K3 or Win2K8 server.

Google wasn't a lot of help...

16

General Software Discussion / Remote Desktop Manager alternative

« on: June 03, 2008, 01:51 PM »

I work tech support for a company that uses Microsoft's Remote Desktop to connect to client computers.  I'm using SpeedApps "Remote Manager" and love it!  However, it has a couple problems and I'm looking for a freeware alternative.

  First issue, there's some concerns about the "author" of the product (See https://www.donation...47.msg97698#msg97698).
  Secondly, the program occasionally uses most of the available memory, causing my system to lock up. 

Is there some software out there that lets me manage my connections and access them in the same window?  Remote Manager has:
  tabs for each connection,
  multiple protocols,
  screenshot manager,
  inheritance of settings from a master, etc. 
Great functionality, but I'm not comfortable with the issues listed above.

Anybody have other suggestions?