Messages

1

General Software Discussion / Re: [Win][Suggestions needed] Ensure network shares are connected reliably at login?

« on: January 06, 2019, 06:11 PM »

So I searched a bit more and came across this, with the 'net use' command mentioned here. With modification, it seems to work, and is quick enough on login to work; again, I don't know much about much beyond single-line shell commands; is this the proper way of doing this? I also had saved the login credentials when I initially set the shares up (not sure if that's separate from the credential manager)..

I'm also still using the machine name over the IP here, and it doesn't *seem* to matter - I have almost 40 devices on my network, but the NAS has a static IP via the router.. (I was using the IP as posts about similar questions said that it was recommended as a solution for this initial issue, but it made no difference in the mapped shares, so I switched back).

[Select]

@echo off

:Start
timeout /t 1 /nobreak >NUL
if exist W:\ X:\ Y:\ Z:\ NUL goto End
net use W: \\NAS\backups /PERSISTENT:YES
net use X: \\NAS\homes /PERSISTENT:YES
net use Y: \\NAS\media /PERSISTENT:YES
net use Z: \\NAS\temp /PERSISTENT:YES
if ERRORLEVEL 1 goto exit
:End

I imagine there are differences between cmd and ps, and so this doesn't have the retry function/I am in no way skilled with either tool to try and combine them, which is unfortunate, but initial tests seemed to work for me.

Thoughts?

2

General Software Discussion / Re: [Win][Suggestions needed] Ensure network shares are connected reliably at login?

« on: January 06, 2019, 02:59 PM »

for ($i = 0; $i -lt 100; $i++) {
  if (Test-Path \\nas\folder) {Exit}
  Start-Sleep -seconds 1
}

It'll test for the share every second for 99 seconds, exiting if it exists.

-4wd (January 06, 2019, 01:37 PM)

I know nothing with regards to PS; however, this seems ideal from a simplicity standpoint... but it doesn't seem to do anything to trigger a change in Windows' state of the share. If I run the Test-Path command (with \\NAS\someFolder) manually in PS it does return True (and a bad/non-existent dir returns False, so I know it's actually querying the share)... but Explorer still shows the share as disconnected.

It's probably something I'm not seeing - some background: I have four shares, all with Windows drive letters (W X Y Z) and they are all on the same machine (so W: is \\NAS\folder, X: is \\NAS\anotherFolder, etc). Would that be handled differently, instead of a share that isn't being mapped..?

Interestingly, if I run Tast-Path on Y:\ (which houses my media collection and where I am pointing ReLive to), while Windows thinks it's disconnected, it returns False. Hmm...

3

General Software Discussion / [Win][Suggestions needed] Ensure network shares are connected reliably at login?

« on: January 06, 2019, 01:11 PM »

Hey everyone! (for those who recognize the username, yes, I'm still here now and then)

I'm sure my situation is not unique, but I've tried different suggestions around the net and none have handed my delemma. I have a NAS set up for the better part of a year, have it hooked to my domain, outside access, all that good stuff. However, on the LAN if I don't wait for the network adapter to establish the connection before I enter my credentials, all my local shares appear as disconnected.

Now I've known for years that simply opening up the shares will force Windows to retry the connection - and up until recently, that was an acceptable quirk. However, I'm using the NAS as the storage medium for AMDs new(ish) ReLive. And because it runs at startup, if I don't wait for the network connection before logging in *or* very quickly opening up My PC and forcing Windows to try again, when the driver software launches it will see that the share is disconnected, and disable ReLive (at least, the Instant Replay functionality I'm using the most). And because it's not in my muscle memory, I often forget until something happens that I want to capture - and the ReLive software simply says "Instant Replay Off".

So... Is there a tool that can attempt to reconnect with disconnected shares every half-second or so, running on startup, thereby mitigating the driver software 'try-instantly fail' situation? Free solutions or otherwise (cost within reason), I am just tired of this being an issue that I have to handle myself.

Thanks all (and if there is a separate section of the forum for stuff like this, sorry, I didn't see at a glance)!

-Brandon

4

Non-Windows Software / Re: Any Android coders here? Looking for a mobile DC forum reader!

« on: March 31, 2015, 02:19 PM »

I forgot all about RSS feeds.... But they don't display anything more than the initial post x_X

A mobile layout would be great; simple and no features lost. I'm just after an easy way to read and post =)

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Non-Windows Software / Any Android coders here? Looking for a mobile DC forum reader!

« on: March 31, 2015, 12:39 PM »

It's been forever since I posted, so I apologize if this is better suited for a different area of the forum.

Basically, I'm wondering if we have any Android devs that are looking for something to do! Because of medical reasons/current state, I can't really use my proper PC to read the DC forums. I spend a lot of my days on my tablet and phone, talking with friends, browsing reddit, scrolling down my Facebook feed... But it would be nice to read techy things from, and to talk with, the people I recognize

Anyone? Or suggestions for a work around? My Googling came up dry...
(and, sorry for any major errors, it is annoying to use Chrome for text)

6

Living Room / Re: 10th Anniversary - long time member check-in thread

« on: March 06, 2015, 04:44 PM »

Hey

I apologize about any formatting issues or things of the like; I suffered a stroke last September, and only have the use of my left hand, and my smartphone for typing. I haven't forgotten any of you, just charging life importance.

I am now 22, engaged, and before the stroke, was making big strides in my life and my goals. Not attending school, but I got a job with a local computer repair gig, and his friend, and started a month later at Edible Arrangements. Currently, I still reside in Glendale, AZ, and most other life details are unchanged.

I'll try and keep up with this thread. My contact details are up to date, and the best way to contact me one on one is with Google Hangouts.

-Brandon, "wreckedcarzz"

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Living Room / Re: What to do with an SSD after it fails

« on: April 24, 2013, 04:27 PM »

I've wondered over the years about "services" that offer to destroy such things...why would one trust them, and even if one did, would they not be a major target?

-ewemoa (April 24, 2013, 05:42 AM)

+1

@f0dder, cool photos; definitely not a DIY by any normal means


And that's 4 votes for hammer time, then.

8

Living Room / Re: What to do with an SSD after it fails

« on: April 24, 2013, 03:23 AM »

I'll shoot them an email later today (when it's not the middle of the night) to see what they say about an RMA. Even if they were to accept it and I get a new drive, I'm not totally sure what I'd do with it, though. Thoughts?

This still is a mostly unanswered question though; for sake of discussion, if the drive did have some crazy important data on it, would it just have to be destroyed in this situation? Is that really a real-world "solution"? What would a company's IT department do if they had amassed a group of failed SSDs with company data still on them?

9

Living Room / Re: What to do with an SSD after it fails

« on: April 22, 2013, 11:07 PM »

I've never had or used a receipt for an RMA in my life. Usually just run the serial number and let their (Seagate/WD/Maxtor) records validate the warranty.

But then again I've also no intention of buying an SSD until these rather common horror stories have disappeared into ancient folklore.

More precisely on topic...I'll also vote ball-peen hamer...or shotgun ... Dealers choice.

-Stoic Joker (April 22, 2013, 09:56 PM)

RMAs usually require receipts in my experiences, it's very rare to have a company not require one.

I bought the SSD at a steep sale price (for the time) and didn't expect it to live very long; it was a sort of first generation, let's-see-how-this-goes product, but I was aching to have one and had the money to burn. I still have confidence in the tech (obviously), and for the most part it seems like the launch generation product issues have been sorted out. The new Samsung came with a 3 yr warranty, and I'm keeping the box and receipt just in case it doesn't live up to that, but I expect it to.

Also, strangely enough, this was my first personal drive failure ever. I've helped lots of friends and other people with HDD failures, but I had yet to have one die in one of my computers. It was really relieving to be able to just go out and get the replacement, come home, pop in the Win7 DVD and click "Repair my computer" and "Restore from a system image" and have my machine back up within 5 minutes. Backup backup backup!!!

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Living Room / Re: What to do with an SSD after it fails

« on: April 22, 2013, 08:16 PM »

Beat the crap out of it with a hammer (also good therapy) 

-Carol Haynes (April 22, 2013, 07:00 PM)

Might just do that and upload it for everyone's enjoyment

A quick Googlin' seems to indicate that the drive may have a 3 year warranty.  If you haven't smashed it yet and the data isn't so sensitive that you feel OK handing the dead drive over to the manufacturer (only you can determine if that would be an acceptable risk or not), you might be able to get a working one in exchange.

As a potentially interesting aside - Lenovo apparently allows you to purchase a warranty add-on that lets you keep a failed drive in the case of a warranty replacement (I have no idea how much additional they charge):

  - http://www.lenovo.co...keep-your-drive.html

-mwb1100 (April 22, 2013, 07:41 PM)

I'd send it in for warranty replacement, but the RMA process requires a date of purchase, and I don't have it- the receipt has been eaten by the magical force that takes everything else in a typical family house, and I changed banks in the time I owned the drive, so I no longer have purchase records for my old debit cards. =\

That's a cool Lenovo warranty option, though. Not having to worry about a rogue employee digging through drives after repairing them before sending them back.

11

Living Room / What to do with an SSD after it fails

« on: April 22, 2013, 06:11 PM »

Hey all DCers! Haven't been around a while (other than the occasional lurking), but I rise from the dead with a question that I feel I should pose to the forum of knowledge that is DC

(Important bits in bold to be skim-friendly)


A couple years ago, I was freaking out- SSDs were new and cool and promised rainbows and unicorns and infinite money... and everything in between. I sat and waited for prices to drop before catching what I thought to be a killer sale. I went out and bought a Corsair Nova V32 SSD - just enough to squeeze Windows 7 and my programs onto. I paired it with a WD 1.5TB data and game drive, and all was right with the world. That was about two years ago.

A week ago, I started having boot issues. The bios would freeze, and the computer wouldn't turn on. I thought it to be a power supply issue, but after a couple hours of late-night investigating, the machine seemed to have fixed itself, and I thought nothing of it (other than "Phew, I don't have to buy a new PSU"). Everything was fine until Friday evening, when I came home and turned the machine on, only to find that it just wouldn't come up; the exact same issue as before, except now the bios wasn't even seeing the SSD at all. Plugging it into a known-working computer also showed no signs of life in it, and I concluded the controller had failed.

Saturday afternoon, I did a bit of research and went out to purchase a new Samsung 840 (120GB) SSD, and the Windows backup restore process went just perfect, and I made sure the configuration was correct for the new drive. But now I have a problem: what do I do with the dead SSD, and all of the data that is on it? It did not house any of my personal 'files' (desktop/documents/etc), however it does have Windows, several shareware applications, my Appdata folders, a PortableApps setup with my browsers (and auto-login Lastpass extensions)...

When I purchased the Samsung replacement, I had them check the Corsair and I was told that I was correct, and the controller just failed. But I'm unaware if there are methods to replace controllers to get at data, and if there are any reputable locations to take something like this to be recycled (the local Goodwill is partnered with Dell, for example). So, what does one do with a drive with potentially sensitive, unencrypted data on it, that cannot be wiped?


And again, hi all!

12

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PerfectDisk Free Edition

« on: April 05, 2012, 03:20 PM »

I have to +1 Defraggler as well, having it run daily (overnight) after an automatic CCleaner run works well.

Just to give it a go, I installed PerfectDisk and had it analyse my drive:




That said, though, what does PD do differently than Defraggler/<other defragmentation tool here>? Defraggler does boot-time defrags as well, if you tell it to, of normally-locked Windows files, and it optimizes the drive's free space, and can even do built-in error checking (sometimes the filesystem "loses" freespace somehow during an intensive defrag, and this "reclaims" that space ). It also does SMART monitoring, and tells you in simple terms if your drive is healthy or not. And obviously, it can do just one directory/file/whatever, or just a selection of them. Oh, and a basic scheduling system that uses Task Scheduler. I'm just looking for a comparison I suppose.

13

DC Gamer Club / Re: Minecraft - An Incredible Indie Game

« on: February 23, 2012, 11:24 PM »

Just to let everyone know, Minecraft Pocket Edition is available for all compatible Android devices now, not just the Xperia Play. It is $6.99 on the Android Market: https://market.andro...inecraftpe&hl=en with a demo available here: https://market.andro...lY3JhZnRwZS5kZW1vIl0

The demo lacks 1/2 of the blocks, and saving.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Earning the 'daemon' inside DaemonTools...

« on: February 13, 2012, 11:27 AM »

Wouldn't it be sufficient to simply deny it internet access through Windows Firewall? DT really doesn't need the internet for anything other than update-checking, and that can be done through something like FileHippo's tool...

15

DC Gamer Club / Re: Humble Indie Bundle 4 is now live

« on: December 13, 2011, 03:06 PM »

If you haven't played Night Sky it is worth buying just for that one.

-Carol Haynes (December 13, 2011, 02:57 PM)

+1

16

Living Room / Re: Rootkits on mobile devices ...

« on: December 01, 2011, 07:07 PM »

<insert comment about rooting and installing custom ROMs on Android-based devices negating the entire problem here>

17

Living Room / Re: Apple and users' privacy

« on: September 09, 2011, 11:32 AM »

O_o ...When did we become 4chan?

Did I miss a memo?

Mouser...Did we get hijacked or something??

There's weird pictures in my happy place...

-Stoic Joker (September 09, 2011, 11:18 AM)

 

18

Living Room / Re: Centurylink is on CracK

« on: August 30, 2011, 12:42 AM »

I love VM for the cheap and reliable cell coverage, but the CS just blows. The day I activated my Intercept (their initial Android phone) I had no data service. "We 'reset' your plan, wait 4 hours" - 6 hours later, no data. Repeat call resulted in repeat "solution" (of course). I had no issues going from the Intercept to the Triumph, however I gave the Intercept to a friend whom is still getting Voicemail notifications for me, even though the number was ported. I'm worried that when we activate the Intercept for him that problems will arise.

I'd still recommend them, though. Good service, good prices, just attempt to solve issues on your own.

19

Living Room / Re: Centurylink is on CracK

« on: August 29, 2011, 10:56 PM »

Vodafone support is irritating for sure. "Your call is important to us, please stay on the line."  

-mahesh2k (August 29, 2011, 05:46 PM)

Try being on the phone to Virgin Media...Fur Elise...in Monotone (Like those ring-tones you got on phones 15 years ago lol)

-Stephen66515 (August 29, 2011, 07:23 PM)

Virgin Mobile is just as bad in the US; they play horrible music that forces you to pull the phone from your head to avoid bashing it into the nearest sharp object, the CS reps are all non-US native and speak Engrish wonderfully, and half the time have no idea WTF you are talking about or what you want, no matter how clear and concisely you repeat it, or how many times. And if they do tell you they understand, it often takes multiple callbacks to actually get the steps they outlined to you completed, as they seem to tell you they will do things and then just hang up and, I would assume, laugh hysterically and scratch themselves until the next call connects.

EDIT: Oh, and they have this automated system, whom refers to himself as Alex. He's just as useless as the actual, theoretical humans you converse with after the aforementioned hold music. And there is no way to negate "talking" to him. Ugh.

20

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: GameManagerV2

« on: August 10, 2011, 04:20 PM »

Looks and sounds good; downloading now!

21

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: App that keeps track of money you find

« on: August 03, 2011, 07:18 PM »

Looks awesome, keep it up!

22

General Software Discussion / Re: Annoying experience with non-pirated software

« on: July 31, 2011, 08:33 PM »

3) Freezing on the first screen isn't normal - have you checked the files are not corrupted in some way? Again go to the game properties and check the file integrity.

-Carol Haynes (July 17, 2011, 03:19 AM)

They are corrupted and I know it but how many times one person can re-check integrity or reinstall whole game? I have enough of it after more than 10 times for first and at least 3 for latest.

-fenixproductions (July 29, 2011, 02:43 AM)

If your files go corrupt that often, aren't you worried about your HDD health? :-s

-f0dder (July 31, 2011, 10:41 AM)

+1, you should rarely have to verify file cache/integrity

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General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for advice, tips, wisdom: Adding my 1st Mac into the [tech] family...

« on: July 31, 2011, 08:31 PM »

[Desperately scrambling for a "bright side"]

If the entire experience is documented throughly, it should make for an excellent cautionary tail.

-Stoic Joker (June 11, 2011, 04:25 PM)

And always look on the bright side of life~!

Dee doo... dee doo dee doo dee doo~!

-Renegade (July 31, 2011, 11:30 AM)

 

Well, quite frankly, there is no cheap solution to hardware faults on that piece of machine as they are already discontinued.  Your best bet would be to look online for those who took apart their computers and sell them by pieces of parts.

Or, go directly to Apple which as you said would cost you more.  I think that the better intelligent answer to this is not to have gotten that thing in the first place. It is a very old piece of hardware which has very little to be spoken off really.

-edrez (July 31, 2011, 08:07 PM)

edrez, Apple even stopped supporting any hardware issues with PowerPC machines. All their replacement and diagnostic parts are Intel-only. The only thing they can assist me with directly is software issues, like iTunes/iLife/iWork/OSX.

And I'm not one of those people that chucks out things just because they're old; my file storage "server" is a Pentium 4 box with a GB of DDR in it. Up until a month ago, I had a Packard Bell (pictures here on the DC forum) which I donated, along with the monitor, speakers, a Windows 95 emergency recovery disk, keyboard, and mouse. I have boxes of computer parts sitting here, ranging from fairly new (a year old) to 10 years of age, with a couple ready-built machines simply awaiting an OS. And considering that this iBook was made from mid 05 to early 06, it's only 5 years old. The Pentium 4 box is 11 years old now, and so far has only needed a replacement power supply. My mom calls me a packrat, but I believe in keeping things until there is no more life in them.

24

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for advice, tips, wisdom: Adding my 1st Mac into the [tech] family...

« on: July 31, 2011, 05:08 AM »

I heard front row has been removed from Lion.

-justice (July 30, 2011, 10:03 AM)

Yeah, and a quick Google search turns up tons of people on both sides of the "good/bad" fence about it. I actually quite like it; I'm not going to run out and drop a thousand or so bucks on a new Mac, though, so it doesn't bother me. Someone suggested it may be re-released as an "App" for purchase, which I find quite moronic; that would be kind of like what MS is doing with Windows Live Essentials. They could at least bundle Mail with Windows- not everyone uses webmail

25

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for advice, tips, wisdom: Adding my 1st Mac into the [tech] family...

« on: July 29, 2011, 10:20 PM »

XBMC is a good app, but I never saw the point of it; on XP, there was Media Center edition. Vista/7 Home Premium and up have Media Center. And Leopard (10.5) has Front Row (Apple's Media Center remake). Although that post refers to 10.4, where only select machines (desktops?) came with Front Row, so that makes sense. I might install it just to kick around and play with it, it's been a while.

EDIT: For special setups/dedicated boxes (Xbox original converted to a media box, Apple TV, etc) I understand, but I really don't get why you would want it for a normal computer that has this functionality built in. There are a few things XBMC has, like the extensions for everything except getting up and bringing the fridge and fresh food and beverages to you, and the weather information, but that never really made sense to me why you wouldn't just use the built in application. Maybe its like IE vs FF, where once you use FF's extensions, you understand?