Recent Posts

1351

General Software Discussion / Re: help needed: owncloud contacts on vmware with IIS

« Last post by Shades on July 01, 2014, 09:22 AM »

When you use another PC to access the host with VMWare guest bridging works best. With the Workstation product so much more is possible than with Player, with regards to networking.  

I recently had to do a test with setting up a Domino/Lotus Notes and that system wouldn't work properly using the Bridged networking features of VirtualBox (my software of choice). But enabling NAT solved that. That made me realize 2 things. First: never, ever (!) use use Domino / Lotus Notes. And second, switching from a networking feature set only took a reboot and would have saved me an hour puzzling why Domino/Lotus Notes couldn't be accessed.

This might be a peculiarity of the VirtualBox software and not even occur in VMWare/Hyper-V. Bridging is the default option to use, I am completely onboard with that, I just wanted to mention that a simple switch between networking features helped me to get Domino / Notes going.

1352

General Software Discussion / Re: help needed: owncloud contacts on vmware with IIS

« Last post by Shades on June 30, 2014, 11:07 PM »

The error description is not too clear. Are you very sure nothing else is blocking the port(s) required by Owncloud/IIS?

You might want to use NAT networking instead of bridged networking. Networking can be fidgety sometimes when working with VMWare or any other virtualization software for that matter.

Which VMWare software are you using? Player? Workstation? There are some networking limitations in the Player software that could have an effect as well. Especially when you are using 192.168.x.x networking on your normal host/LAN and 10.0.x.x networking in VMWare/VirtualBox/etc.

In that case it could help to disable bridging and use the NAT functionality of VMWare to handle the network traffic between these different type of networks.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Metalenguage - Encoder - Decoder

« Last post by Shades on June 28, 2014, 09:50 AM »

InfoRapid ... has served me well in the past, though.

-Shades (June 27, 2014, 08:35 PM)

- just how far back into the past? 

I don't want the program, so I won't test it, but it would be interesting to see if it still works on a modern system, after 11 years without updating. I guess "XP-mode" should make it possible?
 

-Curt (June 28, 2014, 02:34 AM)

Thanks for the being old remark   

I tried the installer (yes, there are still files that old in my download archive  ) in Windows Server 2012 R2 and it works without a hitch. Searching/replacing with it also works spot on. So I'll assume that the software will work on any version of Windows.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Metalenguage - Encoder - Decoder

« Last post by Shades on June 27, 2014, 08:35 PM »

InfoRapid is a tool that can replace a certain word or term for another in one or more files, both automatically and one by one. The url links to the page with screenshots. That is because you might need to get used to user interface.

It has served me well in the past, though.

1355

Living Room / Re: Soccer World Cup 2014

« Last post by Shades on June 26, 2014, 08:45 PM »

So the U.S. won, tied, lost, and advanced? I will never make fun of American football again.

-wraith808 (June 26, 2014, 01:27 PM)

If you'd ask me (and I know no-one did), in every tournament it is important to score as much points as you can all the time, while your opponent(s) don't. However, if more than one team has to same score at the end of the pool and only one of them is allowed to advance, then the team that has been able to score the most in all of the previous tournament games will be allowed to continue.

Not nearly as convoluted a rule set than what American Football subjects you to. And if that doesn't make sense...then you should wonder why American Football is only popular in the US. And it is not that Europe didn't try to start a American Football League. It is just that tickets were expensive, teams have way too much low-profile players to "connect" and so, so many rules...that it became a drag to sit through a game and that can only last so long.

To me it appears that American Football is much more about destroying the opponent mentally and physically (preferably both), not about two groups of talented players that want to have a good/great game. And with the easy accessible game of soccer (in comparison) I think it isn't weird that soccer is played by much more people globally. And for those outside the US that are into full contact team sports, there is rugby.

Not to dis the players or the sport, American Football sure requires skill, stamina and perseverance. It is just not sufficiently "dressed" to appeal to anywhere else than the US.

Then again, what do I know, I ain't a big sports fan. The only exceptions are Formula 1 + MotoGP + world cup soccer.

1356

DC Gamer Club / Re: Magrunner FREE on GOG for 24 hours! (June 18, 2014)

« Last post by Shades on June 24, 2014, 09:02 AM »

Here in PY, the timer said there was still 1 hour left on the Omerta deal...

1357

General Software Discussion / Re: Is there a decent youtube downloader?

« Last post by Shades on June 23, 2014, 06:39 PM »

Get the youtubecenter plugin, that will add greatly to youtube configuration possibilities (you can actually store and import your favorite settings with a file. Get an idea of where the Flash player stores temp files (hint: it does this in a folder that appears to be empty, but it really isn't) and use a tool called 'Shadowcopy' to copy the content to a location of your choosing.

YoutubeCenter allows you to disable the partial loading/partial playing setting that Youtube uses by default. With that disabled Youtube reverts back to completely downloading the whole video. Shadowcopy allows for copying files that are in use by the system and/or application(s).

Works like a charm (and not only for youtube).

1358

Living Room / Re: 50 Percent of the Energy Produced in Germany Is Solar: New Record

« Last post by Shades on June 23, 2014, 06:32 PM »

True, but that was on a holiday, where demands on the grid dropped considerably. But for such a damp place on the globe it is still a very good accomplishment.

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Living Room / Re: Movies or films you've seen lately

« Last post by Shades on June 23, 2014, 06:30 PM »

Walk of shame: Entertaining (albeit predictable) comedy about a goody-two-shoes anchor lady getting into trouble just before being interviewed for promotion to a bigger network.

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Living Room / Re: Stuff We Feel Like Bitching About

« Last post by Shades on June 17, 2014, 07:33 PM »

Nobody using Ghostery for blocking ads? Although the source of this browser plug-in (all the main ones, except IE) might be considered questionable, I am using it to my satisfaction. it's the only blocker in my browser (FF) and even on the more...adult sites, it blocks beyond belief.

1361

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... functional software kvm

« Last post by Shades on June 15, 2014, 10:42 AM »

I didn't see these being mentioned in your earlier posts...or I accidentally glanced over it. However, these might prove useful even if these do require a network: Ethernet KVM swithes and devices

Google Search and Wikipedia (close to the bottom).

Decent KVM switches are never cheap and this type of KVM requires a device for each computer you want to control + a specific switch, making it quite expensive. However, this type of KVM works even when the computers you need to control are not in the same building or city or even continent.

1362

Non-Windows Software / Re: Android: (Wired) File Transfers from PC

« Last post by Shades on June 11, 2014, 08:00 PM »

@CWuestefeld:
There is always Windows phone... 

Until now (and my needs have been simple) it is very easy to copy files/photos/music etc. to and from my Lumia 520 from a Windows PC.

1363

Living Room / Re: Micro-Fundraiser for the Official DonationCoder CodyMobile!

« Last post by Shades on May 31, 2014, 08:53 PM »

First of all, nice set of wheels

Something I would be very wary of is buying a car where it is hard to get parts for. Did such a thing a few years back here in Paraguay. Buying a car is hardly the problem. Maintaining it will make you lose money over fist.

Let me explain a bit. Here in PY, if your car isn't from Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes, BMW or Chevrolet you will financially suffer more. Any other brand and their parts are hard to come by. And by hard I mean it is cheaper to buy a Toyota part and make adjustments until it fits your brand of car.

I drove a small, 4 door Skoda (which is a Volkswagen in disguise, only for a lot less money) which was imported from Germany. At the end it was more Toyota than anything else. Roads are not great here, suspension last around a year here with normal use. Quality of fuel is different as well. It was at least every 4-5 months back in the garage for another repair (which always seem to last about 2 weeks). Good garages/mechanics are hard to find here, as most prefer to work around the problem than actually go after the source of the problem and fix that.

For me it was way too much headache and by being never sure your car will get you where you need to go, I had no fun in driving a car anymore. The final straw was the thought of "I'm actually paying to have this kind of misery in my life". Sure, the basic maintenance tasks I did do myself, but those were never the parts that broke and I ain't enough of a mechanic to even try.

Public transportation is quite reliable here, but it is definitely more reliable than running your own car. A one-way ticket from the outer suburbs to the city center costs you around 50 US dollar cents per person. Show me a gas-guzzler that can beat that price and I'll consider one again. For fun I'm riding a Yamaha Trailway motorbike.

1364

Living Room / Re: TrueCrypt is Now Abandonware?!

« Last post by Shades on May 29, 2014, 10:27 AM »

^ So bizarre I keep thinking it's a prank. 

-40hz (May 29, 2014, 06:07 AM)

Either that, or the real reason Vista took so long to release was due to protracted negotiations on how big of a back door to put where.

-Stoic Joker (May 29, 2014, 07:13 AM)

I was thinking that they couldn't agree if the door needed to be made out of mahogany or oak...   

1365

Living Room / Re: Show us a picture of your.. CAR!!!

« Last post by Shades on May 28, 2014, 05:45 PM »

Fluffy dice on the mirror...
Fox tail on the (always extended) antenna...
Kit that makes the previous (or next) model of your car look faster, with mismatching colors of course...
Rims that are (much) more expensive than the whole car...(they're spinning...they're spinning!!)

 

1366

Non-Windows Software / Re: *NIX: Unexpected Behavior of HDD (internal VS enclosure?)

« Last post by Shades on May 26, 2014, 07:51 AM »

Probably, after all, it is your data and the access you have to it shouldn't be determined by any device that can't get the numbers straight. Unless the data is of no importance to you, of course.

For fun you should try a USB2 enclosure and see where if the numbers are as expected in that one. If so, you could find out more regarding the chipset being used to convert SATA3 and USB.

1367

Non-Windows Software / Re: *NIX: Unexpected Behavior of HDD (internal VS enclosure?)

« Last post by Shades on May 23, 2014, 11:25 PM »

Most partition software (free and commercial) on Windows have an option to align a partition. Most modern operating systems and/or file-systems do this automatically. However, if you have formatted the drive in the enclosure and you use partition software to check for alignment you might see that it is out of alignment because of those 512 byte sectors. If so, alignment could help with putting the data on your disk on geographic locations that can be found if you swapped the disk from the enclosure into the computer.

I assume this type of software on Linux will have the alignment option available as well. But I'm not versed enough in Linux to tell you which application that could be. What I can tell you is that I did align every partition while I still was running XP on a 1TByte HD (cloned from a much smaller, older and dying HD) and I couldn't help but notice that the disk I/O wasn't stellar. With Process Explorer I checked the disk I/O and saw that it was almost always consuming between 0.5 to 2% of my computer resources.

After alignment it never got above 0.5% anymore and usually remained below 0.1%, something you definitely noticed in day-to-day use. Partition alignment works fast on empty partitions, but can take a very long time if a partition is crammed with data. Mine was full and it took almost 5 hours to align all partitions. However, it was worth it.

The link has a graphical representation of what the problem most likely is.

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Living Room / Re: Our experiences with LED light bulb replacements

« Last post by Shades on May 23, 2014, 07:31 PM »

@Sazzen:
Perhaps you should consider halogene light?

When I have time, I'll drop by a light shop here in PY. They sell a led light fixture that is shaped like a construction light or flood-light (if that term makes more sense to you). The light surface would have a surface that has a similar size as the surface of an iPad. It's height would be similar to 3 iPads stacked on top of each other. The light is very bright and strong. It doesn't get that hot either. I don't know the type or model nr, so I'll ask. To me it looks like it uses a special type of LED, with a size and shape similar to a computer processor. 

Halogene light is something that should be easy to buy all over the world though. That type of light has quite a big range of color, so there should be something to your liking. However, they are not cheap (purchase and consumption) and don't last that long either. Having said that, their light I find much more pleasing than incandescents.

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Living Room / Re: Our experiences with LED light bulb replacements

« Last post by Shades on May 22, 2014, 07:24 PM »

The design of LED lights is on purpose made to look like the light bulbs everybody knows. That way people are more easily persuaded to buy these. I think 2 or 3 design generations into the future will result in much more efficient shapes for LED light bulbs regarding heat, weight etc. But first the manufacturers need to make enough money to earn back their initial investments, to make it more interesting for them to continue with this type of lights. 

1370

General Software Discussion / Re: Any tool to set/manage windows default directories? (program files, users, etc.)

« Last post by Shades on May 22, 2014, 07:16 PM »

nLite for Windows XP, 2000 and 2003.
vLite for Vista and Windows 7, an alternative is RT Se7en Lite

For Windows 8 I didn't find anything yet, but the nLite website mentions that the author is busy with a version that will support Windows 8 (and 2012?).

 

1371

General Software Discussion / Re: Problem:1 cable modem 150/20 mbps & 1 fiber line 5/5mbps how to distribute best

« Last post by Shades on May 21, 2014, 09:24 PM »

There are several switches here (1x Netgear, 5x 3com, 1x Zyxel and 3x no-names) and all, except one have a WAN port in them. None of them mention that they are a router/switch combo. But I have never tried them either, so I couldn't tell. They came with a pile of other stuff, bought at the US embassy auction years ago. IMSM that stuff (2 complete servers, 2 incomplete IBM PC's, modems, cables, NICs, software, UPSes etc.) didn't cost much more than a 1.000.000Gs (around 150 USD in those days) and one of those servers was a PII Proliant.

Anyway, most of the switches are around 15 years old by now, 10/100MBit and come with a coax connector as well. Come to think of it, were those (incorrectly labeled) WAN ports not used to string multiple switches together back in those old days? With cross-cables? Sorry, too lazy to look it up myself.

Ah well, it's easy to make a mess of a network and keeping it as simple as possible will save your sanity and makes it much more manageable and has usually a longer up-time as well. Inheriting a network from some companies could be considered damn near capital punishment.   

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General Software Discussion / Re: Problem:1 cable modem 150/20 mbps & 1 fiber line 5/5mbps how to distribute best

« Last post by Shades on May 21, 2014, 08:39 AM »

Malfunctioning port on the switch could be a problem. If you were using the WAN port of the switch, it could be capped, so try another port. Try a different cable (following a different route) might help as well. Without knowing how your LAN looks, that would be things to look at.  A year or so ago I could lay my hands on a very affordable Zyxel 24-port switch that included basic managing options. Works really nice.

As suggested in another post, get a good PC with old single-core specs and install Untangle on it. You have fiber and cable coming in, so get 3x 1GBit NIC's into that PC. 2 for for incoming signals and one for your LAN. Feed the LAN output cable into a normal port of your switch and use the switch to connect all workstations.

Configure DHCP on the Untangle box so every workstation will receive their static IP address from the Untangle DHCP server, no matter where they connect their PC. It allows you a lot more control over which workstations/devices can be connected, how much bandwidth can be used by them, which provider has preference, traffic management etc. This solves more than one problem you have. A system like this is also easier to maintain and keep redundant parts for in case of an emergency.

1373

Living Room / Re: All data services on Android off, still got charged roaming in Italy! Bastards!

« Last post by Shades on May 17, 2014, 07:49 PM »

None of the telco's are your friend. And the behavior you describe was rampant in Europe. Now there are laws in place to should prevent this...and all that the governments sacrificed was their customers net neutrality.

You (as customer) will pay going left or going right. And now the telco's have made it so that you (as customer) pay for both ways while only using one nowadays.

The only way to be sure is pulling the sim from the phone and then call through WiFi. My stock Lumia allows for this, at least.

1374

General Software Discussion / Re: Create a profiles for users on a Workgroup and disable Homegroup options & wifi

« Last post by Shades on May 17, 2014, 09:34 AM »

Stoic's alternative solution is indeed an improvement over my too friendly concept. After all you're the admin and your users should feel the power that comes with that position. Applying routing tables will keep your users in check and discouraged.

But make sure to get those tables right, because if you don't, you have only added to your headaches. Here are two links that are springboards for study: Linux and Windows

For both a domain server or Untangle an old single-core Pentium 4 with 512MByte/1GBYte of RAM and 2 network cards (preferably not on-board) is already sufficient. So it really can be an old clunker, so the extra hardware cost shouldn't be an issue. Untangle and its alternatives, both commercial and open source/free.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Create a profiles for users on a Workgroup and disable Homegroup options & wifi

« Last post by Shades on May 17, 2014, 12:08 AM »

First of all, a domain would be your best bet. An old PC with a properly configured Untangle (or similar product) might do the trick as well.

However, if macguyvering is your only option, you could think about the following concept and steps to take (fooling your users a bit).
Make a virtual LAN on your switch that is not allowed internet access. I do hope you have a DHCP server that "parks" every known and unknown computer/smartphone" in that virtual LAN. Then there should be a script available to anyone that should suggest it has to run to grant internet access. That script should then assign (hard-coded) IP numbers in a different subnet with internet access on a first come, first serve basis. With 20 or so users that shouldn't be too hard. This script should also disable HomeGroup (as 4wd has shown you) and whatever else you need/want.

This goof-of-concept might work for you. But most of all, you should have learned by know that Workgroups are an administration nightmare on the best of days. Get a domain server is really the best way to go if you want a windows-only solution. Or invest time in doing networking on Linux. Untangle is based on Linux and its web-interface makes management tasks quite easy.

Oh, before I forget, learn to work with 'sc', that is a powerful toy to play with.