Messages

1

General Software Discussion / a program to allow use of the optional tags displayed by windows explorer

« on: January 26, 2021, 05:37 PM »

I have probably looked at close to a dozen but none of them are as simple as they should be and most don't seem to work as expected if at all. 

When you open windows explorer, you are provided the option of adding numerous columns with close to a hundred assorted titles ranging from City, State,  Zip to URL and many more.  However, I cannot find anything that will allow me to Use these columns by adding that information to a file's metadata.  Right click on any file and you will find various data fields on most but i can't find an editor to allow me to add any new fields to any of them.

If the file is an Image file is the only exception where there are plenty of "exif editors" out there to change all kinds of things related to the image.

I would love to be able to add a few of those tags to some folders as it would be a terrific help if i need to sort the folders into a different order than simple alphabetic by the name in the Name column.  Even though i can add the columns where the data would be displayed i have no way to enter the data that would be displayed there.  No way to use them as a preference to sort the display by or anything else.

This is true for simple files such a a text file.   Is there a utility out there to allow something like this to be done?   Especially one that works as it should such as right click the file or folder to display the current meta data tags  showing what is in them and allow editing that content or even better adding new metadata tags for things like URL that could store the link where the file came from?

If so, where can i find such a utility.  Any info greatly appreciated.

2

General Software Discussion / Re: names displayed format in outlook 2019 varying format

« on: December 23, 2020, 09:21 PM »

Thanks for the links, Shades!   The real issue is all the email from Spoofer's who use their real email address and only set the display name to show as one of the Internal Users. 
I have already installed the official MS rule in the Exchange Server location that is supposed to be able to block senders when their external address does not match the display name address.  That rule used to work fine and  maybe still does on some email but a lot of it still gets through.  The users can see the sender is not "Real" but only AFTER they have clicked on "reply" will Outlook display where you are actually replying to is an address like ::
 <I-AM_Junk @ Spam.com>. 
The "mis" information is there in the email header but it the users cant "see" it until they attempt to reply to it.   I have seen many people ask for ways to get this to show up > Before < people have already gone that far but no one I have seen has posted any way around that yet.

3

General Software Discussion / names displayed format in outlook 2019 varying format

« on: December 23, 2020, 09:02 AM »

Windows 10 20H2 ad Office 365 latest version

When I send email from Outlook the name displayed seems to vary in format for no particular reason.   I need a way for every email to show the display name  PLUS   the actual email address associated with it in Contacts.  This same format needs to apply when receiving email from anyone but i cannot find any place to chose what i want displayed in those fields. 

I have no idea why a very few contacts work in the way I need them to but most do not.
John and Mary are husband and wife but Johns emails always show his full email address inside a parenthesis after showing his display name of John Doe.
(example To:  John Doe ([email protected])

When receiving email from people, I would also prefer that it show both the display name as well as the complete email right beside it in the same manner rather than showing only the display name.  Oddly enough, on John Doe, when he send me email it dos NOT show his full email address but only his display name which  makes me wonder if this is due to something done by 'autofill'

I have noticed that a few other people also work as John Doe does but 90% or more do not.   Outlook is using the offline global address book and i have checked their contact cards in that list and cannot find any differences.  I thought it might be a property of the address list used but that doesn't seem to be the case. I also cannot 'force' this format as Outlook replaces the full address with the display name in 90% of the cases But not for John Doe and a few others where it shows the Display Name and the full email address inside the parentheses.  I also have autofill turned on and this is the way autofill adds the address for these people.

Is there any setting located somewhere in Outlook that I can use to get the From and To: fields to always display both the display name as well as the actual email address  for all email such as   To: John Doe ([email protected])?   Instead of only showing the display name of just To: John Doe

4

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the best format for preventing googlebot (et al) from indexing a website

« on: July 16, 2020, 10:26 PM »

Asking Apache is going to be the next step for sure. 
I need to know what software doesn't work with Apache's .htaccess password control as that is why the problem came up to start with.   

A couple of sites that we ran for this one client would not work for them becuase their systems blocked any sites we made that used .htaccess to ask for  a password.  We have made other sites for the same people using our Old client site software which also had login/passsword requirements.  But it used a MySql database which controlled all aspects of the site contents.  They had no problem using that setup. 

But when they tried to access a site guarded by the Apache .htaccess setup, their systems threw up all kinds of security warnings unless we removed the .htaccess login requirements.  This only occurs with that single client so it must be some security arrangement they use on their systems that doesnt want to work with Apache .htaccess.

However, removing that leaves the sites Open Access to anyone and apparently the robots.txt which worked fine for all these years (and still does work if the sites are password protected) isnt enough to prevent indexing of contents by Googlebot. 

Bottom lione is that as is, we cant password protect that client's sites anyway so finding out why they wont accept .htaccess is the biggest part of the problem

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General Software Discussion / What is the best format for preventing googlebot (et al) from indexing a website

« on: July 16, 2020, 02:54 PM »

Robots.txt always seemed to do the job but we have recently found that it no longer seems to work as well as it used to.  Various documents and other items were recently found in a Google web cache that in theory should not have been there.  I just wondered if there was any better way to prevent having every file in every site posted somewhere in a web cache?  Is robots.txt still the only and best thing to use for an apache website?  if possible I would like for Google to forget the whole domain exists as it contains private files that are in a preliminary stage. No need to for anyone to ever be able to find them through a web search

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General Software Discussion / Re: Simple version of a folder lock utility that would require a password for access

« on: April 10, 2020, 06:38 PM »

Lintalist:, Excellent question and one we did look at.  Actually we did try using one for exactly that.  But the problem is we are already set up with our own website and are trying to accomplish this within the bounds of the site we have.  Shades has offered a suggestion that I am going into right now ad it might fil the bill quite nicely.
One annoying thing was that MS OneDrive would have worked very well for what we wanted,  But: Business One Drive Won't    Without taking a lot of time to explain, I can just tell you that the two products are not the same and the things that would have made it perfect for our needs are only available on Personal One Drive.  MS made it clear they would not be happy if we tried using Personal Onedrive for business purposes even if we paid for it.  I contacted them to ask. 

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General Software Discussion / Re: Simple version of a folder lock utility that would require a password for access

« on: April 10, 2020, 03:03 PM »

Thanks, Shades
I will definitely look at that
the site is an Apache one and I need to review the option you presented
it probably would be fine
we did have a perfectly good Document manager site but too many people wanted it 'easier' meaning no tracking of anything
that left it with no way to manage anything either.  Originally each user had a login and password so could be identified and access controlled
now the whole site has a single login and password so there is no way to manage who can see what.  As far as the site can tell there IS only one user

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General Software Discussion / Re: Simple version of a folder lock utility that would require a password for access

« on: April 10, 2020, 01:40 PM »

You are correct wraith, it is blocked except for invited users?  I hope c.gingerich notices our comments.  It might work if it is something really simple that works like a lockbox,  whatever I toss into the folder is locked unless a password is entered.  Probably too simple for today's modern world.  This is just to prevent everybody from seeing specific files and the users don't want o use Word to password them which is what they Should do.  I tried one called "folder lock" it got high ratings and would definitely do the job but it has WAY too many other features and options in it. The people that want to lock the few files would never figure it out.
Just a simple way to lock a folder by password or else a way to create a self-extracting archive that just required a password to extract  That way nobody has to spend a lot of time trying to figure it out.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Simple version of a folder lock utility that would require a password for access

« on: April 10, 2020, 12:51 PM »

I just need something that is secure from casual attempts to open and read but VERY simple to use for both the person making the protected folder as well as the person that would get the password to open it. 

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General Software Discussion / Re: Simple version of a folder lock utility that would require a password for access

« on: April 10, 2020, 12:49 PM »

Thanks, Cgingerich  I tried to go there but it said I needed an invitation?

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General Software Discussion / Re: Simple version of a folder lock utility that would require a password for access

« on: April 10, 2020, 11:38 AM »

Thanks, Stoic and that is sort of what I am looking for as I said.    A self-extracting zip. 
I was asking for advice on which one worked the best as I have found several.   The biggest problem (of course) is the people I have to do this for.  They want something they can't have in the manner they want it to work.  I am currently trying to convince them that an SFX is the closest I can come to Easy to use, requires NO technical knowledge, just click, enter the password and it does all the work.  End of the problem for the recipient
 

12

General Software Discussion / Simple version of a folder lock utility that would require a password for access

« on: April 10, 2020, 12:28 AM »

This would need to work on Windows 10 x64 and doesn't need to provide encryption.  This is a case where I need a simple way to put 12 to 15 documents in a folder and lock it such that it would ask for a password to access the files. 

In searching, I have located a number of these ranging from "Folder Locker" to a few that appear to not even be around anymore.  Some have many additional features included but in this case, that would be worse rather than better.  As long as I can Trust the Lock

Now the conditions:   I need it to be something where I could lock the folders on my system and post them for download on a website by a group of people.  The group would be downloading several normal folders of files as well but a few of them would be marked as needing a password and only a few of the group would know that password.   

Some of the "Folder Lock" software I have found appears to be limited to locking folders only on my system which would not help.  Nor do I want to hide the folder names, they need to be visible to all but just locked t those without the password.  I need the group to be able to download all the folders but certain folders need to be locked with a password.  But not necessarily encrypted as I have had problems in the past with encrypted files not working properly if they are not still located on the system where they were originally encrypted.

This also has to be easy to use because the people who access them are not tech geniuses.  A simple "enter the password" and once they enter the correct one, it should unlock and allow that user to open all the documents inside without further ado. As easy as possible.  Like an electronic version of a safety deposit box. The folder would contain a mixed bag of document types, some pdf, some Word, etc.  And no none wants to lock the files one at a time.

The last condition is that it needs to be a program I can run on my system to Lock the folder and the recipient should have no problem opening it on theirs once they download it preferably without needing to install anything at their end.

Some versions of 7-Zip might work if it can be made to create self-extracting archives that only require the correct password to be entered to access the contents.  I figure some form of a self-extracting archive is going to be my best bet but there might be other software out there that would work better. 

I would appreciate any information from those who had maybe had the same need at one point and found a working solution.  Thanks

In closing, I hope that all the members of Donation Coders Forum and their Families and friends are doing Ok and staying well during these trying times.

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General Software Discussion / Connecting a system on one network to a 2nd network for filesharing

« on: February 14, 2020, 03:00 PM »

If this question is in the wrong place, please tell me where to move it.
I have run into a situation where i need to connect a system that runs on a single static ip and give it a 2nd iip that is part of our local main network.
Example the systems must stay active at 184.174.129.235 and i need it also be seen at 10.0.70.xxx.   My first thought was to use a 2nd NIC.  My 2nd thought was to use duel VPNs Servers as a bridge .  The 10.0.70. network already has Softether VPN and adding the same to the 184.174.xxx.xxx network should allow for a VPN Bridge.
But I am not sure which method would best allow for shared folders on the 184.174 system to be accessed by people on the 10.0.70 network. 
The dual nics do work but from everything i can read, this is not the best way to go. 
All pf the systems are running normal Windows 10 x64 Home.  Unfortunately,. MS has recently removed the Homegroup option from 10 Home. 
The third option (which might be best) would be to move the 184.174 system inside the 10.0.70 network but it is an small Apache Web Server that i would prefer to keep on the separate static IP it runs on now.  The folder access is for people that have to load and edit files on the websites.  None of them are proficient enough to deal with an FTP program and need this to be a simple shared network connection if possible

14

General Software Discussion / Re: create an active and open text file from entered variables while running batch

« on: January 18, 2020, 01:28 PM »

Thanks, highend .   That did better than I was doing.  I think I am ready to admit that I need a complete form template of some kind.  There are quite a few of these input fields, some need to have character count limits, some need to be set for numbers only.  We have used this specific setup script for some time and it works so well I hate to give it up.  But it is hard to explain how it works for new hires.
There are hundreds of 'forms programs' out there including MS Access and even Excel.  There are probably only 10 variables that have to be input and then another 4 or 5 that are created within the script.  It would be nice if I could get all this to display on the screen at the same time just like a filled-in form.
This would let me catch any errors before the project gets created with erroneous input.  Clicking the "GO" button at the bottom would accept the data fields and continue the creation and the displayed form could be saved as a filled-in template.  It might come in handy to be able to open that same form at a later date to see what was done.   
In addition, since these things are created sequentially, opening the last form would automatically fill in the same data fields and I could just change the ones that needed it.  A couple of us who use this in the IT department have played around with different options but since the script was written in a batch script the only thing I can think of for making a nice front end form would be to use HTA to make it.  Or maybe VBS.  Powershell is a pain since Windows restricts it by default
I figured there might even be something already on the Board from long ago but maybe I am searching with the wrong terms

15

General Software Discussion / create an active and open text file from entered variables while running batch

« on: January 04, 2020, 04:30 PM »

I am trying to do something that i can't seem to manage.  During the running if a long script there are several steps where various data is either input or created.  At the end of the script, it is easy to write up a Job-Run Sheet that shows all the parts and pieces and where they got used and how.
I would like to be able to create the Job-Run sheet so that it is filled in while the loader is being run.  The first data entered is the job number and I use that to create a text file named "entered number.txt".  An d i was able to echo the first bit of data into it as line 1
But when i open the file so it can stay open as edited i cannot get the script to continue 
This is a setup for User to create a setup log and it would he helpful if they had that information displayed as it was entered instead of after the fact.  I have been able to create the Job-run <#> text file as well as write the first line but as soon as i open the file for viewing I am unable to return to the original batch script to continue.
This does not have to be a text file at that point as long as the User can see an easy to read listing of what they did so far.
Below is the code where the problem starts. 

[Select]

set /p snum="Enter Job Number: "
>%snum%.txt echo Job Number is %snum%
call notepad %snum%.txt

>>PS:  I also tried cmd /c with same results
As soon as I call notepad to open the file so it can be read, the script stops.  I want it to stay in view so each step that echos more data to it will display the data in the same way

16

General Software Discussion / Some advice with recursively applying changes to multiple text files

« on: December 07, 2019, 01:47 AM »

i think I'm getting lost in the iterations which is normal for me
i started out trying Find And Replace" (FAR) but never got it to work properly, perhaps due to the unusual characters.
I end up getting a working script using the Set command but hit problems when i tried to run it recursively over all 100+ text files in the folder while keeping the file names unchanged.

Each file is contains a single string repainting a URL and there are no spaces in the string.  The domain portion of each has changed and tht is the only part i need to modify  -  replace the section that says "domain1.com" with "domain2.com" ,change nothing else and keep the original filename.

This has to be done to over a hundred urls stored as named text files in a master folder.

So far this is what i got:

Code: Text [Select]

1. for /f "tokens=1,* delims=¶" %%A in ( '"type *.txt"') do (
2. SET string=%%A
3. SET modified=!string:domain1.com=domain2.net!
4. echo !modified! >> out.txt
5. )

This works on a filename by filename basis but requires temporarily renaming the files while they are processed.   I feel sure there is a way to walk the directory recursively and keep the filenames intact during the modification.

As written, the code above requires an infile and an outfile a bunch of renaming and is far more 'work" than should be needed.

I bet 4WD will have what I need right at hand if he is on line.  .   
I would like for the result to be flexible enough to save the code for use on future projects where i might need to do something similar.

Thanks

17

General Software Discussion / Re: propagate a style.css and index.php to work in all subdirectories in a webfolder

« on: November 01, 2019, 04:51 PM »

Thanks.  Your Instructions might get me there.  Eventually.  I had already tried changing the index.php for something similar and even with your exact wording it only works if i include a copy of both index.php AND a copy of styles.css in every subdirectory of every folders in documents directory.   
I am sure you are correct and it does have something to do with the relational path but for some reason on this setup I can't seem to get anything to work other than as it was
 
Many Thanks for your help.   At least I know now that I was looking in the correct direction.  One of the other members also sent me to a file called directory lister and for some reason THAT one Does work properly and even has the added pointers for forward and back.  But:  It is hard to read with fonts too small and colors light and it doesn't have an easy to work with styles.css like this one to make changes.   I wish i could merge the best of both. 

Maybe I need to try to merge the path statements from the new index.php such that it is stated in the first instance of index.php  on the website?  Rather hqan the following one it finds in the documents folder?    Or maybe it would be easier to change the Look of the directory lister snippet instead? https://github.com/topics/directory-lister Always some kind of decision to make. 

 

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General Software Discussion / Re: Simple php website for hosting files

« on: October 31, 2019, 06:12 PM »

Sorry it took so long to reply 4WD but your HFS option is extremely interesting. I can see where it would be Very Useful for many things. 
I am not sure we can do it like that though since we have to share specific folders with different people.  There are normally at least 30 different folders shared to different user-groups at any point in time.

And to Shades:  the one we current are looking at is Sync (of Sync.com). It works fine but the interface is way too cluttered for my liking.  We just need a way to be sure only the specific people that should be able to see each folder Can see it.  And no others.  We used to want to control downloads but at this point, that isn't even an issue.

So a website that has the ability to control which Viewers can enter which folders on it would be great.  We already have that but it is very old and very complex to use for something this simple.  Sync allows us to control access to the Link to the SYnc folder which (if the viewing area were not full of ads for Sync) would be fine

Also to Deozaan:
i had found a similar setup and have been trying to get it to work on multiple subkevels with no luck.  i uploaded the code it in another of my forum posts to ATH .   Yours option does work better but i would need to tweak the way it 'looks'.  the css code included with the one i call DDC just has an easier to read format

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General Software Discussion / Re: propagate a style.css and index.php to work in all subdirectories in a webfolder

« on: October 31, 2019, 05:20 PM »

DUH  I think i don't wait long enough. 

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General Software Discussion / Re: propagate a style.css and index.php to work in all subdirectories in a webfolder

« on: October 31, 2019, 05:17 PM »

ATH:  i have attached the entire code here.  Only the style.css and Index.php are giving me problems.
i was able to add the single java code to the website JS folder andit works fine from there
And when you look at then, you will see inside them both it shows he the path and was what I assumed was the problem.  It shows their location to be "./name"
as in ./.style.css  and ./.index.php etc

it is a very concise and simple directory display snippet for an apache website.  Now if only it would work on folders that have multiple subfolders etc.  Instead the site drops back to using the apache directory listing default after level 1

Sorry not sure what i did wrong the first time  but the attachment failed.  the other post has complete code in DDC.zip

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General Software Discussion / propagate a style.css and index.php to work in all subdirectories in a webfolder

« on: October 30, 2019, 04:56 PM »

Thanks to those who offered answers on the php website for hosting files.   

Working from all your suggestions i was finally able to get exactly what i wanted.   Unfortunately, I have run into a problem with the CSS for the folder that contains the document files. 
The hosting file is an Apache Website that does exactly as needed.  I can add a folder to it named 'documents' that will display the documents in it in a perfect format exactly as asked.  The problem is that for it to work,  it requires a specific 'index.php and 'style.css' that are not used elsewhere.  To get the documents to display in all levels of each subfolder,  I have to put th0ose two files in each of the directory levels of every folder. 
Sublevels without those two files use the default Apache directory listing CSS which does not look very good.

Is there a place or file I can use to set the 'documents' folder to always display using the special index.php and style.css on every subdirectory in that folder?
Thanks for advice

22

General Software Discussion / Re: Script to recursively add windows share permissions to many subfolders by name

« on: August 28, 2019, 08:33 PM »

Might well be 4WD.  You have much better memory than i do.   

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General Software Discussion / Script to recursively add windows share permissions to many subfolders by name

« on: August 28, 2019, 05:38 PM »

To describe the problem:  We have a folder called Users on a Windows 10 file-share system.  In it are about 50 subfolders each named for the exact same name as the user that should have read/write access to it.  Occasionally I have had to add someone as a Master to the Users folder with control over all the subfolders and when I do Windows often will change the write access for all subfolders by adding the new Master but in doing so it removes the write access for each user for their own sub-folder.  To fix this requires going to each subfolder, clicking down to properties and sharing permissions and  adding read/write access back to that one folder for its user. Then going to the next for 50 or more Users.

is there a way I could script this process so that it would read the name of the folder and add the user by that name to have read/write access to their folder.  ie:  in the Users folder -  For the subfolder named johnsmith it should add read/write access for the user named johnsmith  then larrybarns would get read write access to the subfolder named larrybarns and so on through all 50.  While doing this it should not change any permissions that already exists for these folders.

If this had not happened more than once already I would not bother to ask.  But since it has I figure there has to be some way faster than going folder by folder clicking to get to the "share permissions", and typing in each users name to add them back to their own folder

24

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple php website for hosting files

« on: August 22, 2019, 11:18 AM »

Two more good ones.  I knew 4WD would have at least one of these proggies in his toolbox. 
I am still reading the FAQ and Help pages on HFS but it looks promising.  I dont really care about using the Apache software, but at least that box has the required static IP with a domain name mapped to it.  From what i see HFS does need to have those.

What we have been using was a document manager I came up with 8 years ago.  It  has served well (and still does) but the girls wanted to load it by drag and drop instead of the configured PHP loader for the MySql database.

Me and the other IT guy as well as some outside people tried several different D&D modules but nothing seemed to click.  So I started looking at the back-ups of all the completed projects and realized that seen from the backend,
all they wanted was a way to display a Windows directory structure with folders and files on a webpage where the Users would be able to read the files inside of their labelled folders.

It needs some kind of basic Login\PW as an attempt to keep out the general public but they didn't need to keep track of any of the Users other than that.  The Doc Mgr using that sed a full PHP/MySql engine was overkill by a huge amount.  Trying to take apart an automobile and use the parts to make a  bicycle just didn't seem like a practical idea. 

I had considered giving the users access through a vpn and using Windows built-in share controls for managing access levels.   But...I would rather keep outside users "Outside" if possible and we already had the apache web-server configured so...I hated to waste that.

Shades, I see that NextCloud would require me to load the box with Linux or create a VM to host a Linux OS ?.  Or have i not read the instructions thoroughly enough?  Next Cloud looks very much like a Linux version of what used to be BitTorrent.  ( I believe they are now Resilio)

Thanks to all for the great ideas.  One of these will surely work for what they are trying to do.

25

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple php website for hosting files

« on: August 22, 2019, 12:27 AM »

Thanks Deozaan!  Advice like yours is exactly the kind I was hoping for.  I have used htaccess before with good results and you are probably correct in it being able to handle the "front gate".   This isn't a high security issue. 
I will definitely look at Directory Lister because that is exactly what I am trying to do.  If it can display the contents of a folder with its subfolder and files structures just as Windows does that is all we need.  Hopefully it protects against uploads or modification of contents but downloads are fine  Just trying to limit the people who can access and read the files inside.