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1001

Living Room / Re: The XKCD solution to Distraction Affliction

« Last post by barney on February 21, 2011, 08:14 PM »

I guess I'm abnormal  ... I don't seem to suffer from that affliction.  If I have something to do - cleaning house doesn't count! - I do it.  Distractions online don't seem to get in my way  , although at times the phone does  .

1002

Official Announcements / Re: March 2011 DonationCoder.com Fundraiser Celebration -- Pledges?

« Last post by barney on February 21, 2011, 06:02 PM »

All good ideas.  Your worst foe is lethargy/inertia.  It's like starting to exercise - the hardest part is to get started.  Once you're involved, it's a lot easier to keep going  .  Newton's laws, donchano - he was a pretty sharp cookie (?)  .  Perhaps you could add a poll to the initial contribution form - either fixed choices or a free form text box, although that latter could eat up a lot of time.  This would be just for the contributors, although you could make allusion to it in the enticement section  .

Edit:  you could also change the poll according to the initial donation amount, i.e., offer more, or more specific, choices - make it a graduated thing w/o mentioning it until some amount is specified by the donator.

1003

Official Announcements / Re: March 2011 DonationCoder.com Fundraiser Celebration -- Pledges?

« Last post by barney on February 21, 2011, 05:08 PM »

My favorite idea so far about the fundraiser was to focus on the idea of trying to get all of the people who have signed up for the newsletter and registered on the site to finally make their first donation.. If we could only think of something that would motivate these people, who probably aren't frequent visitors, to make their first donation..

-mouser (February 21, 2011, 05:01 PM)

Ouch!  That also falls in line with the public radio fund raiser that is going on locally - maybe 5%-10% of listeners actually contribute, according to quotes, but I suspect it's closer to 3% of the listening populace ... I suspect the DC situation is much the same.  A few give money, a few do work, most just browse.  If you can solve that conundrum, I'd like to be your agent  .

1004

Official Announcements / Re: March 2011 DonationCoder.com Fundraiser Celebration -- Pledges?

« Last post by barney on February 21, 2011, 04:55 PM »

Considering timns comment - lack of buzz - would this scenario be appropriate?  Say I make a monetary pledge (to be determined by my bank account  ).  Then some part or all of it would be reallocated to each person that contributed an app/software/script?  It's rather obvious that most of the creators here do so by choice, but 'twould seem a nice incentive/recognition in regard to their efforts.  Granted, that incentive/recognition would not be substantial for any given individual - more like giving children a lollipop for cleaning their bedroom(s) - but it would be concrete evidence of a task achieved.

You don't seem to be particularly fond of that concept, mouser, but my public radio station is in process of finishing up a pledge drive, and this would be somewhat in line with their process(es), so it's fresh in my mind.

I also like the thermometer concept, but with a twist.  An indicator - no names attached - of pledges completed.  Then link to those completions, although that might best be done when the challenge/pledge period is over, so as to avoid identifying anyone in particular.  It might be presented in parallel with a dollar thermometer.

Does any of that make sense?  Maybe help merge the disparate concepts that have been voiced?

Edit:  six (6) new posts since I started this, but none seem to obviate it.

1005

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Quick Quote: GTD vs. GOE

« Last post by barney on February 19, 2011, 11:35 PM »

While your motivation can be appreciated, I'm a bit questionable 'bout your source - especially that quote  .

I've never found any of the acronym books to be particularly helpful - except to the author's bank account, of course  .  If you think about it - really think! - you, or most anyone you know, could write such a book.  All it takes is a concept and a bit of creativity - and not all that much creativity.  Most of the major religious texts send the same message, in one form or another.

Admittedly, I'm a fan of Earl Nightingale (sp?), but for the most part, he reiterated the teachings of those gone before.  And the likes of Anthony (Tony) Robbins to Zig Ziglar, simply reiterate truths already told.  I'd deem most of the how to accomplish authors to be in that A-Z list.  No preached methodology is appropriate to all, sometimes not even to the author - that person is selling the methodology, not necessarily living it.

That said, a number of folk do get value from such teachings, mostly from thoughts previously unthunk, thus being inspirational - in that light they can even be mind expanding.

Oh, yeah, methinks the Mario Andretti interior quote was taken slightly out of context.

1006

Official Announcements / Re: March 2011 DonationCoder.com Fundraiser Celebration -- Pledges?

« Last post by barney on February 18, 2011, 07:21 PM »

The number of decibels in the groan the reader lets out when reading your puns perhaps?

-timns (February 18, 2011, 07:16 PM)

Never found much satisfaction in remote groans - hard of hearing, I guess - graphic groans much more satisfying, albeit sometimes indiscernible.

(BTW, I'm not in the displayed league to be considered a pundit  .)

1007

Official Announcements / Re: March 2011 DonationCoder.com Fundraiser Celebration -- Pledges?

« Last post by barney on February 18, 2011, 07:12 PM »

Hm-m-m-m ... has this become a punraiser celebration  .

-barney (February 18, 2011, 06:00 PM)

omg

-timns (February 18, 2011, 06:34 PM)

OMG?  Ornate Mental Gymnastics  ?  Kinda, sorta seems so.  What's the scoring [if any] system  ?

1008

Official Announcements / Re: March 2011 DonationCoder.com Fundraiser Celebration -- Pledges?

« Last post by barney on February 18, 2011, 06:00 PM »

Hm-m-m-m ... has this become a punraiser celebration  .

1009

Living Room / Re: Hilarious DailyWTF

« Last post by barney on February 17, 2011, 05:58 PM »

Maybe that will contain the outbreak a little.

-worstje (February 17, 2011, 01:49 PM)

Yeah, right!  Ever the incurable optimist  .

1010

General Software Discussion / Re: how to make every app portable?

« Last post by barney on February 17, 2011, 05:31 PM »

You could take a look here, http://www.makeuseof...ble-app-flash-drive/.

I haven't tried it, but Make Use Of generally is on the mark.  Be certain to read all the comments on the how-to article.

This process is on my to-do list, but it'll be a week or three (3) before I have time to mess with it.  One caveat is that not all apps will fit this process ... you'll just have to try it with the apps you cannot live without, see what happens.

1011

Official Announcements / Re: March 2011 DonationCoder.com Fundraiser Celebration -- Pledges?

« Last post by barney on February 15, 2011, 10:55 PM »

OK, this is prolly a stupid question, on several levels, but ... does money count?  Look, I can't provide anything programmatic - I just don't measure up to the quality available here - but a stipend (?) is within reason  .  Or is it?  I'd really like to help, I just don't know how  .

1012

Developer's Corner / Re: Registrations on Websites: User Chosen Password vs. Assigned Password?

« Last post by barney on February 15, 2011, 08:29 PM »

Well,

Whether DC or not, the same principles apply.  Assigned passwords, particularly if strong ones, provide a fallacious sense of security, and often encourage less-than-stringent security measures in other areas.  If site security is good, weak user passwords don't really matter that much.  If security relies upon users - you've been to some of 'em, the sites, I mean - it simply does not exist.

Security lies in the hands of the holder, not the beholder  .

1013

Developer's Corner / Re: Registrations on Websites: User Chosen Password vs. Assigned Password?

« Last post by barney on February 15, 2011, 07:39 PM »

It's not your job to make sure users are smart enough or care enough about their own security. Your job is just to make sure that you do what you can to ensure their data is safe on your end.

-Deozaan (February 15, 2011, 07:24 PM)

+1 to that.  In order to protect us, you have to protect DC.  Which means you also have to somehow protect DC when someone uses my password to get into an otherwise protected area.  I don't have the knowledge for that, but I suspect it would involve preventing SQL-injection attacks, amongst other things.  Oh, yeah, it also means alerting us that we can't talk anymore 'til we make abeyance to the rules, change password(s), and the like.

1014

Developer's Corner / Re: Registrations on Websites: User Chosen Password vs. Assigned Password?

« Last post by barney on February 15, 2011, 07:28 PM »

mouser,

The first thing I do when I'm sent a site-generated password is change it, if at all possible.  I don't trust the site(s) to be optimally secure.  Yeah, I'm a paranoid old curmudgeon ... but my concern is whether I'm paranoid enough.

I tend to use unique email addresses for everything to which I subscribe ... you wouldn't believe how many of those addresses show up in my spam folder, usually hawking Viagra or Cialis or the like.  The sites to which I subscribed didn't get hacked - those addresses were sniffed out of the ether - but it's pretty easy, if you know how, to park a sniffer on the route to a popular site - doesn't have to be every route, just one will give you significant results.

So, if I park a sniffer such that it checks all the DC outbound mail, how long would it be before I started harvesting passwords that you sent out?

Methinks the cons of that approach outweigh the pros.

1015

Developer's Corner / Re: Registrations on Websites: User Chosen Password vs. Assigned Password?

« Last post by barney on February 15, 2011, 07:08 PM »

You might consider suggesting password [generation] software during the registration process.
Yeah, there are pros and cons, and both sides have their points.  But, as an example, I've been using Key Maker (v2.0) for years.  It generates complex passwords from common inputs - and regenerates, later, the same password from the same input.

Unlike most of the generators I've seen over the years, I can come back to a place I've not visited for a couple of years, enter the - [possibly] unique to my mind - text and get the same password.  Didn't have to store it, didn't have to write it down, don't have to have it in the cloud, don't have to be on a particular machine (so long as I can download/install it - works under Wine in Linux distros).  For my usage, it's near ideal.  There are some insecure elements - for instance, you can set it to remember your creation phrase - but it satisfies most  security requirements for a majority of users w/o them using Post-It notes (or software equivalents) or maintaining a clear text password file.

Given a properly phrased option to download it, along with your personal requirements (length, admissible characters, ...), that could well obviate most simple intrusions.

Of course, the subscriber would have to buy into the idea ... how good a salesman are you  ?

1016

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... Disk Doctor equivalent & image analyzer/verifier ...

« Last post by barney on February 11, 2011, 08:13 PM »

If it's consistant, (ie. you can reliably recreate the problem), then running the system in Safe Mode should enable you to prove it into third party software or the OS by preventing almost all third party stuff from running - especially stuff that uses a driver.

-4wd (February 11, 2011, 06:38 PM)

On that, I didn't know it was a problem 'til I tried an image restore  .

You can use memtest86+ to check for RAM problems, and 'burn in' software to highlight possible CPU faults, (SiSoft Sandra, etc).

-4wd (February 11, 2011, 06:38 PM)

Yep.  Apologies as required, but most of this I've already done ... had I listed it all, assuming I could have remembered it all, the OP would have been a novel  .

Please note that the original problem arose only when I tried to restore an image to a different partition - and the error messages were, to my mind, {bland|inconclusive|misleading|non-informational|choose your own adjective/adverb}.  The analytics I sought were for foreseeable future instances, and something better than I currently have (Sandra, Memtest86, et. al. - for instance, this has yet to be done on another of my boxes.  I've had such software in the past - with, of course, more primitive OSes & file systems - just wondered if there was anything extant that could deal with current OS/file systems.  I didn't mean to lead anyone on a wild-goose chase.  The box & drives in question seem fully functional:  I've reinstalled Win7, installed Kubuntu 10.4 - although that latter may be changed - and everything seems to function in exemplary normal fashion.

I apologize if I've led anyone down the garden path  .  I'm just trying to find tools that I know I'll need in the [perhaps immediate, perhaps not so immediate] future, preferably ones that others had used and could recommend.

1017

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... Disk Doctor equivalent & image analyzer/verifier ...

« Last post by barney on February 11, 2011, 05:57 PM »

Finally got MHDD downloaded - what can I say, I'm slow  .

I like the idea that it is a live product, so the OS isn't interfering with the testing.  I'm going to try it out as soon as I can get everything set up.

But I'm still having trouble with the corruption part.  I know of three (3) different [software/activity] causes for that - likely there are more -

• there's activity from other software while files are being written
  which could be from any number of TSRs/services that I wot not of
• there's OS activity while files are being written
  maybe preventable, maybe not
• there're memory/cpu issues while files are being written - hardware related, but not HD related
  (and could include cables & transfer speeds).

 
(There's also the possibility of brown power or power fluctuations, but that/those can be filtered with a decent UPS.)  But I don't know of anything, or any group(s) of things, that could truly check that - methinks Heisenberg would step in  .  So I'm looking for - analytic? - software that can, at least semi-reliably, point to such issues.  I'm just having a damnably difficult time finding such  .

Granted, I'm probably being overly picky in the latter respect, but there seems to be cause:  three (3) different, widely - and successfully - used software packages seemed to fail me.  Under other circumstances, I'd be inclined to suspect hardware, but pending further investigation, other circumstance has pretty well obviated that element.  So I'm back to trying to check image validity <sigh />.  I feel as though I'm trying to hold back the surf with a broom  .

1018

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... Disk Doctor equivalent & image analyzer/verifier ...

« Last post by barney on February 11, 2011, 02:49 PM »

... but does MHDD do logical consistency checks ...?

-f0dder (February 11, 2011, 01:58 PM)

Hm-m-m ... would you define logical consistency?  There are multiple defines for that term.  I have my own concept of it, of course, but that concept may not resemble yours  .  A quick search revealed more confusion than clarification  .

1019

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... Disk Doctor equivalent & image analyzer/verifier ...

« Last post by barney on February 10, 2011, 07:42 PM »

I've tried so many over the years ... can't recall them all .

HDDScan sounds familiar ... if I tried it, 'twas prolly an earlier version, so I'll check it - if it's the one I recall, I didn't like the reporting it did.

MHDD is not familiar at all, so that'll be one to check.

Victoria sounds familiar, 'cause of the Russian - naturally I downloaded the wrong one  , but I'll check it again.

DiskTool I was never able to try, couldn't seem to build the bootable part.

As for the images, I've not found - prolly just me  - anything not vendor-specific.  If I get some mounting software, the MD5 thing sounds good, but a bit labour intensive?  I really don't know, as that one never occurred to me .

I was able to use your AutoIT script to identify/fix a friends problem ... that's what got me started on my own stuff.  See?  It's all your fault  .

I'll pull down your suggestions, give them a try ... I can see this happening again in the future  .

Just a vagrant thought:  why is it we - OK, maybe it's just me  - can fix other peoples problems, but not our own  ?

1020

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... Disk Doctor equivalent & image analyzer/verifier ...

« Last post by barney on February 10, 2011, 05:32 PM »

You do not want to run a defragmenting tool on a volume you suspect has errors

-f0dder (February 10, 2011, 12:01 PM)

Yeah, that's understood.  The quest is for a tool that can identify, yeah or nay, whether the disk does indeed have errors.  (I/O error is a development cop-out, covering a plethora of sins, many of which are not hardware related.)  What I'd like to find is something that can specifically pinpoint bad spots, then report them.  Chkdsk does not fit that bill.  Oh, it works well enough within certain limits, but it does not perform the function(s) I seek  .

As well, the i/o errors were reported by software images that I have no way to validate.  If every backup I make is suspect, there's little point to making a backup  . 

I do not know at this point, nor do I have any way to determine, whether the reported i/o errors are HD related, software related, or non-HD hardware related.  Until I can somehow narrow that field, I have no way of addressing the issue(s).  I simply do not like using shotgun methods on PC problems - even when all I have is a shotgun  .

1021

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... Disk Doctor equivalent & image analyzer/verifier ...

« Last post by barney on February 10, 2011, 08:25 AM »

Well ... yeah ... but ...  

Chkdsk, run weekly, produced a few fragments over time - which, by the way, Win7 makes extremely difficult to remove - but it never gives me the reporting, especially the visual cues, that Disk Doctor did.  

Tried several different defrag tools - currently checking Defraggler - and none of them gave me any negative feedback on HDs.  

There are some S.M.A.R.T. tools that kinda/sorta help tell what's going on - at least the ones I've tried over the years - but that information tends to be esoteric, and varies by manufacturer, sometimes by drive, to the point that it's damned near useless.

Then, there's still the matter of validating a newly created drive/partition image.

As mentioned initially, the images from the tools I had - fairly well respected tools, I'm told - all failed because of I/O errors of one sort or another.  But, there was no way to identify the error cause, thus no way to address ways and means of recovery.

That's the conundrum ... I'm left distrusting the tools currently available to me  .

[Addendum:  how to discern

a seriously screwed up partition

?]

1022

General Software Discussion / In search of ... Disk Doctor equivalent & image analyzer/verifier ...

« Last post by barney on February 09, 2011, 09:14 PM »

Folk,

I'm trying to find a couple of things:

• A reasonably recent equivalent to the old Norton Disk Doctor - you know, the one before Symantec hosed the Norton Utilities
• Something to check a disk image and verify its - validity?  wholeness? - anyway, verify that it is functional

A recent effort on another's machine convinced me to get off my ass and do something I've been putting off for a couple-two-t'ree years, i.e., reorganize this beast I call a server.  I has to HDs, a 1T and a 250G.  The 1T disk has a couple of bootable partitions, and the 250G a couple more.  What I wanted to do was to move the Win7 partition over to the 250G disk, then move or install - prolly install - a Linux distro on the other half of the 250G.  Then wipe the 1T drive and use it to serve files & local Web stuff.

Been backing up with Paragon v9, so it seemed simple ... just restore one of those images to the 250G.  Do any of you remember the early MS DOS days?  From v2.1 (where I started with DOS) there was a backup program ... it apparently worked ... but 'twas v3.x before they got the restore to work.  I had a serious case of deja vu ... none of the Paragon images would restore ... they kept complaining of cross-linked files - after, of course, running the job to completion .

So I decided to install Acronis True Image 2011, get the job done.  Yeah, right  !.  Acronis couldn't even finish creating the image before choking!

OK, CloneZilla Live to the rescue, right ?  CloneZilla did - I discovered later - transfer the files.  It did not transfer the MBR, nor did it install a Grub equivalent ... it too complained of errors, but they were different - and many.  After it finished, I rebooted the machine, got an MS message to the effect that I was hosed and should use the original CD/DVD.  I did that, clicked the Repair link, and voila, I had two bootable Win7 partitions.

So now I'm trying to find something that will let me examine HDs for errors, and something that can, somehow, verify that a disk image is good - if that's even extant.  I've looked for the Disk Doctor replacement for several years, now, but nothing found quite measured up .

And I don't know where to start looking for an image verification tool - 3rd party, that is, cause I've already seen the the built in tools are not reliable.

So, once more, I'm standing here, hat in hand, feet shuffling, asking for help .

1023

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of a partition identifier ...

« Last post by barney on February 05, 2011, 09:22 PM »

When you say 'active' do you mean the partition that is marked as Active that carries the MBR, (I only have one per all drives), or do you mean the current System partition ?

-4wd (February 05, 2011, 05:57 PM)

OK, active refers to the partition which supports the OS version I'm using at the moment, i.e., the partition which carries the currently active OS.  Perhaps booted partition would be more clear.

Anyway, curse you, 4wd for making me learn another scripting bit - your WhatBoot seems to do what's needful here.  So I'll order the O'Reilly/Safari AutoIt V3:  Your Quick Guide and pray that it really is.  (I hate ebooks.)

Oh, yeah, about that curse ... many, many thanks, as well  .

1024

General Software Discussion / In search of a partition identifier ...

« Last post by barney on February 05, 2011, 03:28 PM »

Folk,

I thought this would be simplicity ... definitely misthought!

Been searching for something, preferably portable, that will identify the currently active OS partition.

OK, that's prolly not clear, so here's an example.

Take a desktop with multiple partitions on the HD(s).  Four (4) of these [bootable] partitions are loaded with the same OS, although there are variants within each.  OK, sounds stupid, but special circumstances make some sense of it.  Personally, I'd have done this with VMs, but, oh, well.

So what I'm trying to find is something that will let me identify the active partition w/o having to reboot.  Drive letters are not reliable in this instance, as they can be changed within each OS partition.

I really thought this was going to be simple, but it's turned out to be a bear.  Any thoughts that might be helpful?

1025

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Agree or Disagree? It is not just focus, it is also about perspective

« Last post by barney on February 05, 2011, 02:47 PM »

Between a fused hip/arthritis and a nicotine addiction, I have internal timers that far outperform anything else available  .  The hip won't let me sit in any one position for more than 20-30 minutes, and the addiction must needs be satisfied ~hourly, so that's another move away from the chair - don't smoke in the house.

-barney (February 04, 2011, 09:17 PM)

Wow! Talk about a high impact reminder system! 

-40hz (February 05, 2011, 01:05 PM)

  Yeah ... well the impact part was 1967, so I've adjusted, kinda, sorta ... only thing I really need an alarm for is when I'm baking bread  .  Or, sometimes, if I need to get up earlier than usual.  But breaks?  My body outperforms any possible programmed timing system  .